QB 1 (15 page)

“Really?”

“There's a lot you don't know about me,” she said. “But at least now you know that
I
know a little bit about having the spotlight be on somebody else growing up.”

“Thank you,” Jake said.

“For what?”

“For telling me that.”

They heard some laughter now from across the street as they got to the entrance to the park, saw some of the guys from the team leaving Amy's. And then some of the offensive linemen, Buddy Herzlich and Dicky Grider, coming out of Ed's.

Big-game Thursday night on Main Street, not just kids out there, but adults, too, waving and calling out to Jake and telling him to have a good one.

If he wasn't officially the number one quarterback now, he felt like one on this night. And realized that people in this town weren't just looking at him, they were looking
to
him. Wanting him to make them proud, make it all right that they cared about a high school football team as much as they did, at Ed's and Amy's and Sal's and Stone's, and on J. D. Frederick's radio show and of course at coffee shops and filling stations in the morning.

David Stevens and Spence Tolar, his two running backs, came up to him and said, “You ready?”

“Let's go play 'em right now,” Jake said.

David said, “Can I digest my five-napkin Ed's burger first?”

He and Spence moved on. Aaron Saunders and Justice yelled at Jake from across the street. Jake waved at them and Aaron yelled over, “Sarah, what are you doing with that loser?”

Now Sarah yelled back at him and said, “Did you forget how to keep score?”

Jake and Sarah sat down on a bench, and Sarah slipped her arm through his like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“You guys really seem to like one another,” she said.

“Good teams don't need to have every single guy like one another,” Jake said. “But it sure doesn't hurt when it happens that way.”

He was so focused on Sarah that he didn't even notice Casey Lindell until he was standing right in front of them.

HE WAS STANDING WITH HIS HANDS ON HIS HIPS AND IGNORING
Sarah, not even saying hello to her, focused on Jake.

“Well, look at you,” Casey said. “Having a nice night?”

Jake, keeping his own voice down, said, “Everybody's been having one.”

Casey was wearing a Spurs T-shirt with the sleeves cut up to his shoulders. Faded old jeans. Boots.

“Just not as nice as you're having,” he said. “Like you're the mayor of Granger.”

“Now, Casey Lindell,” Sarah said, smiling up at him, leaving her arm where it was. “
You
be nice.”

“I kept thinking I was wrong, that we'd both get the same chance,” Casey said to Jake. “But I can see where this is going, no matter what I do.” Casey shook his head, like he was sad. “Coach and them said all along it would be a fair fight. But we both know it's not.”

“We're both playing quarterback for the Cowboys, last time I checked,” Jake said.

“We both throw a pick, but you're the one left in. Now you're starting against Niles.”

“And you started against Morgan Creek. Seems to me it's who finishes that counts. I'm the starter tomorrow night. Nothing more.”

“In the biggest game of the year so far,” Casey said. “So I'm all the way back to where I was when I got to this town. A backup. To a
freshman.
”

Making it sound like that was some kind of dirty word.

“I kept trying to tell you it wasn't ever a fight,” Jake said. “The only one ever saw it that way was you.”

“Doesn't matter that I'm a better thrower of the ball than you'll
ever
be,” Casey said. Voice rising up, like he wanted everybody on Main Street to hear. “Why wouldn't I think the quarterback job in this town is just something gets passed from Cullen to Cullen?”

“Casey, we played this out already. You're wrong about all this, mostly about me.”

“I got two years of high school football left,” Casey said. “I was willing to wait my turn even though everybody could see I was a better quarterback than Tim from the time we got to camp. Even if you backed me up for two years, you'd still have two more after I'm gone. But nobody in this whole town, including our old coach, seems to think you should ever have to wait your turn.”

“You don't know me,” Jake said.

“You're Jake Cullen,” he said. “Everybody knows you.”

“You think I didn't wait my turn behind my brother?” Jake said in a quiet voice. “You think I didn't wonder if my turn would ever come?”

“I don't want to hear about your problems,” Casey said.

“Didn't expect that you would,” Jake said.

Casey nodded at Sarah and said, “Far as I can see, you're overcoming your problems just fine. Guess any Cullen'll do.”

Jake could feel Sarah's hand gripping his arm.

Jake stood up anyway. Like at Stone's. Just feeling different this time.

“You say what you want to me,” he said. “But you're being rude to Sarah, and I'm gonna have to ask you to stop now.”

“You know what everybody says, right?” Casey said. “She couldn't get near your brother so now she's with you.”

Jake took a step.

“Enough.”

“Or what?” Casey said. “You finally gonna man up about all this?”

Jake could see guys from the team watching from the other side of the street. Some started to cross Main Street now. Sensing that something was about to happen with their quarterbacks.

Jake heard a laugh then.

“Lindell, what in the world do you know about how to man up?”

Calvin Morton.

Standing there with his cousin Melvin. The two of them having come out of the park from Jake's left, Calvin for once not announcing his own arrival.

Until now.

“Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt, but I couldn't listen to none of this for even one more minute,” he said to Casey. “You talkin' about being a man and acting like a little boy.”

“This doesn't involve you, Calvin,” Casey said.

“See now, that's where you're wrong,” Calvin said. “Ever'thing involving this team and its general well-being involves me. Specially if I see somebody doesn't seem to
care
about its general well-being.”

“You're going to give me some kind of lecture now about being a good teammate?”

“Matter of fact, I am,” Calvin said. He'd been smiling, but now he stopped. “Because I
am
a good teammate. No, that's not quite right, now that I think about it. I'm a
great
teammate, and so is he.” Nodding at Jake. “He's a better teammate than you and a better all-around quarterback, and he beat you out this job fair and square. Starting with him knowing that there's more to being a quarterback than being a thrower.”

Casey opened his mouth and closed it. Maybe starting to realize there was no way out of this now, not with his swag, anyway.

“Now drop this right here and right now and move along,” Calvin said. “And one more thing? Between now and tomorrow night, you decide whether you want to be on this team or not.”

Sarah still sat on the bench, not moving, watching the scene being played out right here in front of her. Jake hadn't moved. He could see a few guys from the team, Spence and David, Dicky and Buddy, maybe halfway down the block. Nate and Bear had suddenly appeared, too. Melvin was right where he had been, behind Calvin.

Somehow Calvin was between Jake and Casey now, Jake not even sure when it had happened.

“You've done taken this as far as you're gonna take it,” Calvin said to Casey. “We both know it, to the point where there isn't nothin' left to say and no reason for you to be here.”

And in that moment, there wasn't for Casey Lindell, who turned, shot one last glare toward Jake, like he had to get in a last word, and walked alone into the park.

When he was gone, Calvin turned to Melvin and said, “Let's bounce.”

To Jake he said, “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, man,” Jake said.

Calvin gave a little bow and said, “Night, Sarah.”

“Night, Calvin.”

Calvin looked back at Jake then, grinned, reached out, cool-like, put out his fist. Jake bumped it. Then Calvin and his cousin walked across Main Street, knowing all eyes were on him, strutting like he did when he wanted to put it on.

The real mayor of Granger, Texas.

BEFORE SARAH LEFT, SHE SAID, “WHAT DO YOU THINK WOULD'VE
happened if Calvin hadn't happened along?”

“Probably something dumb.”

“Casey's not a bad guy,” Sarah said. “Not really.”

“I know,” Jake said. “His ego gets in the way, for sure, on
and
off the field. But he's like me, he just wants to play. And when I think about it, I can see how maybe he thinks the deck got stacked against him.”

“I was just afraid that fight he was talking about was going to turn into a real one,” Sarah said.

“I'm hoping he would've backed off,” Jake said. “But it was like I told him, I wasn't gonna stand there and let him insult you.”

“I can take care of myself,” she said.

Jake grinned and said, “I don't doubt you can.”

Then Sarah Rayburn smiled at Jake one last time tonight, before she said. “I've got an idea. Next time we want to come to town together, we should make an official plan. Maybe after we beat Niles.”

“Do we have to invite Casey?” Jake said.

“No,” Sarah said. “I don't believe we should,” and then she ran off to find her friends.

On the ride home, Nate and Bear had wanted to know exactly what had happened with Casey and Calvin.

“Just a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with us winning the game tomorrow night,” Jake said.

And it didn't.

The score was 21–0 for Granger after the first quarter, Jake having thrown three touchdown passes already, two to Calvin. By the start of the fourth quarter it was 35–7, a certified beatdown, and it was only then that Casey Lindell got into the game.

And when he did, it was mostly to hand the ball off the rest of the way, because Coach McCoy was never going to let one of his teams run up the score.

Casey hadn't said a word to Jake about what had happened at the park from the time they'd both showed up in the locker room, didn't say a word to him on the sideline even when Jake would come off from throwing for another score. But Jake didn't have time to worry about the other quarterback because of the way he was playing himself, against a good team that nobody expected the Cowboys to blow out, but sure did.

There wasn't a defense the Broncos threw at him that surprised him, there wasn't a read that he missed. It was as if all the time he'd spent watching film with Coach Jessup had paid off big-time. He knew it wasn't like some final exam, he knew there was still more football to be played if they were going to have another shot at the state championship.

But Jake knew it would sure do for now, standing on the sideline with Bear, watching the clock run down in the fourth quarter, baseball cap on his head, big old smile on his face that nothing or nobody was going to wipe off.

His dad wasn't there, as usual. Texas was playing on the road the next day against Notre Dame in South Bend. But Libby Cullen was in her seat and Sarah was down the sideline, waving to Jake a couple of times when the Granger defense was on the field.

This was a big win over Niles, even bigger than the Cowboys knew. Because later on in the fourth quarter came the news that began on Twitter and had soon made its way from the stands to the Cowboys' bench. The Shelby Mustangs had lost to Redding.

The Cowboys were now in a three-way tie with them for first place.

First place. For now, at least.

Notre Dame upset Texas on national television the next afternoon. Wyatt threw two picks in the first half, one his fault, one the fault of his tight end, who bobbled a sure completion so badly, the ball finally bounced into the hands of one of the Notre Dame safeties, who ran it sixty yards for a score that put the Longhorns into an early hole from which they never did climb out.

When Wyatt threw another interception halfway through the third quarter—this one all his fault—the coach benched him. Chris Bishop, the backup, almost brought the Longhorns back from three touchdowns behind, even had a Hail Mary in the end zone on the last play of the game that got knocked down.

Fighting Irish 34, Longhorns 27.

Jake watched the game at home with his mother. He found himself wondering what his dad was going through, sitting in the stands and watching it all happen to Wyatt this way, in front of the whole country, again.

But also wondering, when it was over, if the only starting quarterback in the family now might be him.

Jake was out behind the barn around noon on Sunday, practicing his throwing, a half-dozen balls in the bucket he brought out with him, dropping back sometimes, rolling sometimes, to his right and to his left, trying to hit as many fence posts as he could. Hitting a lot of them, like he was still as hot as he'd been on Friday night against Niles.

He was picking up balls when he saw his dad coming around the barn, Jake knowing he'd driven up to Chicago from South Bend, stayed the night at an airport hotel, flown to Dallas in the morning, and driven home.

Jake watched him come, in an old gray sweatshirt, a pair of his Wranglers, his Justin Boots, and tried to remember the last time it had been just the two of them out here.

“How about you take a little rest and we sit for a spell?” Troy Cullen said.

Jake put the balls in the bucket, went and sat in the grass next to his dad, who looked tired today. And maybe a little old.

“Your mom and me just had a talk,” he said. “Well, she did most of the talkin', to be honest, lit into me pretty good about how I got two sons playin' football seasons, not just one. And how it ate you up a little bit the time I left your game early to head to the Red River.”

Jake shrugged. “I got over it.”

Jake waited. Not only couldn't he remember the last time his dad had been out here with him, he couldn't remember the last time they'd had a real sit-down about anything other than the game they were watching.

But he knew they were about to have one now.

“You feel the same as she does?” Troy Cullen said. “About how she says I favor Wyatt sometimes?”

Sometimes.

Maybe it was the game Jake had just played or the season he was playing. Maybe it was the confidence he could feel growing in him with each game as the Cowboys' quarterback and—yes sir—the confidence he'd gotten being with Sarah Rayburn. Maybe it was all that and the way, as Bear kept telling him, he'd gotten all growed up in front of the whole town's eyes.

Jake turned himself so he was facing his dad and said, “I've always felt that way, you want to know the plain truth.”

“Well, you're wrong.”

It was Jake's call now. Drop this or keep going with it.

“No,” he said, “I don't think I am.”

In a voice that surprised Jake, as small as it was, Troy Cullen said, “I love you both.”

“Never said you didn't,” Jake said. “But you've got to know that Wyatt comes first.”

He couldn't believe they'd gotten here this fast; his dad hadn't shown up but a couple of minutes before. But Jake wasn't backing down now any more than he had with Casey the other night at the park. Hadn't done it then, wasn't going to do it now. There'd always been the joke in their family, when he and Wyatt were both a lot younger, his dad saying, “Don't make me take you out behind the barn.”

It had never happened. Until now. Here they were. Only question in Jake's mind was which one of them was going to get taught a lesson.

His dad smiled. “Well, technically he
did
come first.”

“You know what I mean, Dad,” Jake said. “If there's one thing I learned about you growing up was that you do what you want to do and nobody in this world, not even Mom, really makes you do something other than that. Or go someplace you don't want to go. That night you left, being with Wyatt is where you
wanted
to be.”

“You and your mom must have gotten your stories straight,” Troy Cullen said, “because that sounds a lot like the earful I just got from her.”

In a quiet voice, Jake said, “I don't need Mom explaining my life to me.”

“Something wrong with your life now?” Troy Cullen said. “That what this is about?”

Not in a mad way or mean way. Acting genuinely surprised.

“That's not what this is about, and you know it,” Jake said, keeping his voice nice and even. “And what you have to know is that things between you and Wyatt are different.”

“I love you the same,” Troy Cullen said, like that was his story and he was by-God sticking to it.

“No,” Jake said, “you
don't
.”

“All 'cause I left one game and then missed your best?” Troy Cullen said. “We've gone over this. He needed me.”

“Almost as much,” Jake said, “as you wanted to be needed.”

“I'd be there for you, you really needed me,” his dad said. “But up to now, you never have.”

“And how would you know that, exactly?”

Maybe five feet of grass between them. Still like they were going toe to toe. Like on this one Sunday afternoon this was the hottest place on the whole ranch, or maybe the whole town.

“I just—”

He stopped. Like he wanted to get this right. Maybe like he was changing a play at the line of scrimmage.

“You surprised me this year,” he said. “Getting this good this fast. Wanting it as much as you did. I just . . . What I'm trying to say is that you were ready for it all before I was ready for you to turn into this kind of quarterback this fast. Does that make sense to you?”

Now Jake was the one surprised. “Actually, Dad, it does.”

Neither one of them spoke until Troy Cullen said, “So we good?”

Jake could have let it go, could have let his dad put a smiley face on their talk, like you did with a text message sometimes. But he wasn't out here to be a pleaser today, he'd come too far to just let him off as easy as that.

“The
good,
” Jake said, “is that maybe you're finally finding out who I am, even though you never tried very hard.”

“I know who you are,” Troy Cullen said. “You're my
son.
”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “The other one.”

“That's not fair.”

“Maybe what's not fair is your own father thinking you're not good enough.”

“You've always been plenty good, son. You've got a brain on you could power a football stadium at night. You don't think I can see that?”

“You're right,” Jake said. “I figure you can see that. But what you've never done is act like it's all that important to you. At least not as important as having an
arm
could power a football stadium at night.”

“Maybe it's the only kind of power I can understand.”

His voice sounded a little sad as he said it, looking away as he did.

“And maybe you just made my point for me,” Jake said.

He got up then, picked up his bucket, told his dad he had to go, that Bear and Nate were going to be coming for him. They were going to watch the games over at Bear's this afternoon, maybe all the way through the Sunday night game.