The Hard Count (37 page)

“
N
o
, listen to me—this is the plan!”

I bring Sasha in close, putting my arm over his shoulder. Jacob and Thomas step in close, too.

The lights are going to shut off soon, and we all have to get home. Momma got me a new bike, so I can ride home fast with Thomas and Jacob. We have time for one more play, but it has to work. This is the only chance we have.

The sixth-grade boys always win. It really isn’t fair that we divide teams by age. We’re only ten, and they’re so much taller than us. But my uncle says that the most important muscle you use in football is the one in your head. He says anyone can beat anyone if they just do that one right thing.

“Sasha, you know how I always have Thomas snap after green sixteen? This time, he’s going to hold it, and I’m going to wait a tick before I say hike,” I say.

“Nico, there’s no refs out here. That hard count shit you see on TV doesn’t work here, dude. Christian is just going to flatten Thomas’s ass faster and knock you out. Don’t give them that extra second,” Sasha says.

I shake him with my hand on his back, and he flings my arm away.

“Listen, no…really. This will work, I swear. They won’t be ready. It’s like…it’s like tripping them. Just, come on—try it just this one time. If it doesn’t work, I swear to you guys we don’t ever have to run this play again.”

Sasha rolls his eyes and sighs, but pushes his hand into the center.

“Fine, whatever. Game’s over anyhow,” he says.

I smile and bite the tip of my tongue. I can’t explain why, but I have this feeling—like I already know what’s going to happen. Sasha is going to feel so stupid when I’m right.

I slap my hand on his, and Thomas and Jacob follow.

“Break!” we all shout, jogging to our positions on the line.

My knee finally quit bleeding from the touchdown I ran in myself when we started playing two hours ago. My legs are ready, and my body feels fast. But this sense in my gut, it’s more than that. By the time I line up behind Thomas, I’m almost laughing—which only makes Christian, the biggest kid in our class and the one who always scores the winning touchdown out here, mad. His eyes lower on me, and he digs his foot into the dirt. If I’m wrong, he’s going to hurt me when he tackles me to the ground.

I lick my fingertips and bend my knees, glancing down the line. Sasha and Jacob are lined up, their arms ready and bodies prepared to spring forward. They’ll need to be fast, and I can’t get caught. That single second—it’s going to be the difference.

“Blue forty-two, blue forty-two,” I shout, my eyes moving to Thomas’s back then down the line, to Sasha. Our eyes meet, and my friend’s mouth lifts on one side.

“Blue forty-two, green-sixteen…” I pause, and I count in my head that it’s only a breath.

Christian lunges forward, but his brain tells him something’s wrong, and his feet stumble, his fist hitting the ground, followed by his knee as he loses his balance.

“Hike!” I shout, picking my perfect moment.

Thomas shoves the ball into my hands, and I fall back two or three steps while Christian works to get to his feet. I’ve given myself room, and Thomas is holding Christian’s brother, Angel, by the sleeves of his shirt. I know my friend can’t hold two defenders for long, but I won’t need more than a few seconds.

“Run, Sasha, run!” I shout, knowing that my friend is far faster than the two defenders tailing both him and Jacob.

Sasha can outrun anyone. I just can’t miss.

I leap up on my feet with two side-steps, not sure if he’s far enough yet, and I catch Christian coming at me. I twist, and his hand snags my shirt, ripping the threads from the bottom, but I break free, and I stay on my feet while his weight carries him too far, and he skids on his knee.

I rush to the other side while Christian gets up, and I know I have less time now. Sasha…he has to be far enough. This is our shot; it’s the only one we have to win—so I take it.

My arm falls back and I thrust it forward, grunting as I send the ball down the field just as Christian reaches me and wraps me in his arms, pushing my face into the dry grass, my knee opening up again and bleeding as I skid along the hard ground.

None of it hurts. I don’t feel a single thing. And I hold my breath as Christian pushes on my shoulder to lift himself up, satisfied that he has done enough. I don’t move, other than lifting my head so my eyes can watch Sasha run. His legs stretch, and in those final beats, his stride seems to mature, giving him the two extra feet we need.

The ball hits his hands, and he keeps running until he crosses the goal line made of our extra hats and jackets. My friend never spikes the ball, but instead makes a wide turn, his speed still up as he runs back to me, his mouth an O shape with the scream he’s belting.

I jump to my feet and brush away the grass from my chest just as his body hits mine, and he lifts me up and carries me several steps. I laugh as Jacob and Thomas run over to join us, and we take turns bumping our chests together and pounding our fists.

Sasha grabs my hand in one of his, then slams the ball down in my palm, lifting my hand up in the air in celebration.

“State champs, baby! State champs!” he screams. I join him, and we let our chant echo into the night while the sixth graders pick up their bikes and begin to pedal home.

“I will never not trust you again, Nico Medina! You’re my boy, you hear that? You…me and you, Nico. Every time!”

I jump up on my friend’s back and squeeze him, my palm pounding against his chest.

“One day, Sasha—we’re going to win it all for real,” I say in his ear. “I promise.”

* * *

I
have been standing
with my mom and dad, Linda, Valerie, Alyssa, and Uncle Danny in the first row at the fifty-yard line for the entire second half. This game would have been a nightmare if my father were still the coach. The bracket just worked this way, but it also felt a little bit like karma was at play to line us up in the championship against Great Vista again—the school that knocked us out last year.

We ended the first half in a tie—seven to seven—but ever since The Tradition has come back out, they’ve been flat. Nico’s runs aren’t working. They’re tying up Travis and Sasha. Our running game, which has never been strong, is losing yardage. We can’t seem to get a break, and with less than a minute left, Great Vista is sitting on the thirty-yard line in need of nothing but a field goal.

I reach to both sides, grabbing my parents’ hands, grateful for once to be free of my camera and with them through this. My press pass gave me access to the media booth, but not the field. I set my camera up to capture the game, but win or lose—it’s the interview after that really matters to me. I won’t need a press pass for that.

“Look at that,” my mom says, nudging me and leaning her head to the left so I look down our row to Tori O’Donahue. The woman is holding her fists to her mouth, her thumbnails in her teeth, probably being gnawed to the bone. She’s rocking on her feet, the rhythm picking up speed with every single tick of the clock.

My mom has been that woman. She was that woman only a few months ago. Since my dad was let go and she was kicked out of the social committee, her hair has started to look healthier, her skin full of color—the dark circles around her eyes requiring less concealer. And the wine, while she still likes it, seems to be lasting a little longer in our house.

“That poor woman; I feel so bad,” she says, staring at Tori.

I open my mouth, about to tell her how big of her that is, when she blows it as only my mom can, turning and looking me right in the eyes. “I’m over it,” she says, her mouth curving quickly. She’s unable to disguise her malicious laugh.

“Mom,” I say, my head falling to the side. My eyes scanning back to the boosters, to Tori and the women who were so awful when it was my mom in that position. “Nah, you’re right. I’m over it, too.”

We both laugh about it, giddy with ourselves and our catty behavior when suddenly the crowd begins to boo over a call on the field.

“Wait, what happened?” I ask my dad, the Great Vista team moving five yards closer from a penalty, and their top-notch kicker jogging onto the field with less than twenty seconds on the clock.

“They ran a hard count, and our boys jumped right-the-hell offsides!” my dad yells, tearing his hat from his head and throwing it down in front of him. You can take the coach out of his position, but you can’t remove his spirit for the game—or love for the team.

“How? Of all teams, we should know how to anticipate that…how?” I ask, looking down the row to Nico’s uncle.

“Your boy is pissed,” Uncle Danny says, shaking his head.

I turn my attention back to the field, where Nico is running down the sideline, livid and on edge. He waves his arms, calling for the rest of the team to rush down the field with him, and they all shout and hold their helmets over their heads, trying to be a distraction as best they can from the sidelines.

It’s no use. Great Vista’s kicker is the best in the state. My dad knows the kid’s name, Connor Pruitt, and while we watch his ball sail easily through the uprights, with another twenty yards to give if he needed it, the Cornwall crowd grows hushed.

“I hate him right now, but that kid—he’s kicking for Alabama next year,” my dad says, bending down and picking up his hat. He doesn’t put it back on, instead rolling the brim and twisting the mesh in his hands. “I don’t know…they can run two…maybe three plays. Even then, that Pruitt kid is going to push them back to at least the twenty, and we haven’t gotten a run back yet.”

Coach O’Donahue calls his special team over, my brother and Nico standing next to him, and I can see my brother looking up to the stands, his eyes scanning for my dad.

“Noah’s looking for you. Dad…Dad!” I slap at his arm.

My dad waves his crumpled hat over his head, and my brother holds up both hands, and he begins to give my dad some kind of sign, circling his index fingers around each other. I’ve never seen him do this before, but my dad does it in return, and when I look down to the field, I notice that Jimmy O’Donahue is looking at my dad as well.

“What the hell are they doing?” I ask.

“They’re trying something crazy,” he says, his eyes wide and glued to his boys on the field.

“And they want
your
opinion?” I ask.

“Yep,” my dad says, his lips falling shut tight, his eyes locked open.

The refs whistle, warning Jimmy to get his team to the field to receive, and the penalty clock kicks in. There’s confusion, and a few players run on and off the field, almost as if they’re not sure what the plan is, when it becomes incredibly clear.

“They’re going to let Nico run it back,” Uncle Danny says, and my eyes move to the field, finding Nico fast.

He’s standing at the ten-yard-line, deep enough to give himself time, and he stretches each leg, pulling his knees to his chest then jumping up and down. Nico has always seemed tall; he’s always looked strong—almost invincible against any opponent we’ve faced. Standing out in the middle of the field alone, eleven two-hundred-plus-pound, well-honed athletes gunning for him, the only word that I can think of is vulnerable.

“He can do this. I know he can. He’s fast. Nico is so fast. Come on, baby!” Valerie cheers in front of us.

She’s standing on her toes on the bleacher seat in front of us, her hands cupped at her face, and I know she’s praying. I lock my fingers together in front of me and whisper a prayer, too.

The Great Vista crowd begins to drum and chant, their volume growing as their kicker lifts his hand, running toward the ball, his foot swift as it sends the ball end over end into the air. Nico reads it, stepping back first to gauge it, then waiting.

Waiting.

He glances at the line rushing at him.

His eyes find the ball.

Nico goes, getting three hard steps in before the ball hits him in his arms and chest, where he locks it safely in the crook of his right arm while his left pumps hard. He clears the first three defenders without a problem, turning in a full three-sixty to break a tackle at the forty-yard line and juking an oncoming attack, switching directions and heading to the opposite side of the field.

Our eyes work to do the math, watching every step while keeping the clock in our periphery, precious seconds being lost every time someone ties up Nico’s legs and arms. He fights, pushing forward a few yards at a time, having to take long routes to the middle and back, just to not get caught, Coach shouting from the sides, counting down the time.

The clock is under ten, and the other side begins to count down with hope. As Nico makes a final push up the middle, they reach eight…then seven, then suddenly, their fatal error destroys both teams.
Nico hears them
. He has to—that’s the only reason he would stop. He knows he can’t make it all the way, but he also knows that The Tradition—it needs time. Nico is now wasting it.