Axel, Drake, and I arrived at the game thirty minutes before kickoff. Since I was stuck in the dorms on call on Friday night, I’d spent the better part of an exceptionally quiet evening studying the game of football, so I knew the terminology for the start of the game, much to my best friend’s surprise.
As promised, the marching band was on the field entertaining the large crowd of people already filling the stadium. On the sidelines the cheerleaders and dance team executed routines in time with the music. The jumbotron scoreboard counted down the minutes in giant numbers, alternating with crowd shots and close-ups of instrumentalists and cheerleaders.
We’d stopped at the concession stand on our way to our seats, picking up large coffees that we discreetly intensified with Jameson from a flask Drake had managed to sneak past the bouncers and their handheld contraband wands at the gate. When I’d questioned my friends with a raised brow after they dragged me into a corner behind a set of stairs, Axel had said, “Trust us. You’re going to need help staying warm in the stands.”
As we took our seats a few rows up from the field on the fifty-yard line directly behind the Wildcats’ bench, I understood my friends’ idea. A slight breeze coming off the mountains announced winter’s imminent arrival even though the blue of the early October sky was sharp enough to force me to squint. Per Axel’s instruction, I’d worn my insulated snow boots, my winter coat, a hat, and mittens. Still, I was glad for alcohol-laced hot coffee.
“What do you think so far? Pretty exciting, huh?” Axel asked, a wide smile splitting his face.
I shrugged. “People here are definitely excited.” After another sip of coffee, I said, “This was a good idea.” I saluted Drake, who inclined his head. “It’s chilly here.”
“You’ll warm up once the game starts and you start cheering,” Axel said. “Besides kickoff, what else did you learn in your football cram course last night?” His eyes sparkled over the rim of his cup. The man knew me so well.
“Following a coin toss, one team kicks the ball to the other team who starts the game on offense. If they score, their fans are happy. If they don’t, they go on defense, giving the other team a chance to score.” Wrapping both hands around my cup, I held it close to my body. “How am I doing so far?” With a flirty, eye-batting blink at my friend, I took another small sip.
“Rocking it, J. Now for the question of the day: what position does Callahan play?”
With a dismissive wave of my hand, I said, “Tight end. What an apt name for his… .position.” I smirked.
Drake nearly spit out a drink of coffee he’d just taken.
Axel’s eyes danced. “Glad to know you’ve paid attention to his tight end. For a minute there, I was worried you’d miss it, what with your ridiculous prejudices against athletes.”
I gifted him a long-suffering glare. “Get it right, Benson. I don’t have a problem with athletes. For instance, I’ve always adored you. I don’t think I missed a single one of your lacrosse games in high school. It’s players I have a problem with.”
“I don’t get the idea O’Reilly is playing you, J.”
Before I could ask him what he meant, the crowd erupted in boos as the opposing team ran onto the field.
“This is going to be a dogfight,” Drake shouted, his face lit up like Christmas.
Leaning in so he could hear me over the roar of the crowd, I asked Axel, “Who are we playing again?”
Right then, the announcer’s voice rang through the stadium from the PA system. “Today’s game features the Western Washington Bulldogs and your Mountain State Wildcats!”
Fireworks erupted above the stadium. The band struck up the school fight song. Flash pots blew fire into the air on either side of the mouth of an inflatable Wildcat head in one corner of the field. The cheerleaders made a long tumbling pass between the two lines of marching band players. Four fighter jets screamed overhead, passing low and abruptly pulling up at the fifty yard line.
The Wildcats raced out onto the field. One player carried a pole with an American flag streaming behind him, another carried a Mountain State flag, and a third carried a Wildcat flag. The players behind them yelled, ran, and jumped while the crowd in the stands launched into a frenzy of cheers, screams, and applause. In spite of myself, my body hummed with excitement. Then I saw number 85.
Over the course of the past few weeks of studying with him and seeing him regularly in class, I’d become used to his size. Seeing him in his helmet and pads reminded me that Callahan O’Reilly was a seriously large man. Even among the other guys on the team, he stood out. Yet the way his pads fit beneath his tight jersey, he looked proportional and sleek. Powerful.
When he reached the bench area, he glanced up into the stands, his eyes finding mine, and instantly I was wet. Even at this distance, the intensity of his stare made me throb, and I locked my knees together. As if he knew exactly the effect he had on me, he winked.
The man had the audacity to wink. At. Me.
Then his face lit up with a massive grin, and before I could think, I grinned back.
His hands went up in the air in a victory salute, and he turned to his teammates who were all slapping hands, backs, and asses, and engaging in some sort of weird ritual with each other.
Beside me, Axel stopped cheering to take in the little drama playing out between Hotshot and me, a sly smirk on his face. “The two of you are working on more than your class project, I think.”
“Keep your opinions to yourself,” I hissed.
He was still laughing when the announcer hushed the crowd for the singing of the National Anthem. As the singer—a baritone I’d heard practicing on several occasions when I went to the music building for my piano lessons—neared the end of the song, the crowd lost its composure and started cheering again. From the smile on the guy’s face, he believed that applause was for him, and maybe it was. But from the way the team started high-fiving each other and jumping around on the sidelines, I think the cheering was for the start of the game.
Somewhere along the line, I missed the coin toss. Apparently, the Bulldogs won it because they were kicking. Axel explained it was part of game strategy to defer having the ball to start the first half in favor of having it to start the second. His explanation only reaffirmed what I’d told Callahan when he was explaining the game the other night. Whoever had the ball last would win. Even the other team’s coaches figured that out.
Number 85 lined up nearest the Wildcats sideline, and I jumped when he smashed into the defender who came across the line when the center snapped the ball. The crash of pads was audible even above the noise of twenty thousand screaming fans. As the quarterback dropped back, Callahan kept pushing the other player until the guy tripped and went down, Callahan on top of him.
“Way to go, ’Han!” Axel yelled. When he turned to Drake, I heard him say, “He pancaked the shit out of that defensive end. Bet he thinks twice before coming after O’Reilly again.” They high-fived each other as though they’d made the play, and I shook my head.
Meanwhile, the quarterback had handed the ball off to a running back who followed behind Callahan and sprinted up the field for several yards before being tackled. The announcer’s exuberant voice echoed through the stadium.
“First down—” He dragged the word out, and the crowd finished with “Wildcats!”
The team continued running what seemed to me was the same play. In chess, a competent opponent would have put a stop to that immediately. Perhaps the Bulldogs’ coaches weren’t that competent? At any rate, Callahan was only blocking as the other guy kept receiving the handoff and running the ball through the line of defenders until the Wildcats were on the five-yard line. Though I tried to watch all the players, my eyes always came back to number 85 who pushed back every player he faced. After every play he yelled to the sky, his fists clenched in front of him, then bounded back to the huddle.
“O’Reilly’s on fire out there today,” Axel said, his face shining. “You must be inspiring him.”
I rolled my eyes so hard that it took me a second to focus them on my friend. “Hardly.”
The team ran the play, but this time the running back dropped in behind the guard and followed him into the end zone. The crowd went bananas. The band played the fight song. The cheerleaders performed a complicated stunt in the end zone. The dance team did a tumbling pass across the opposite end zone beneath the jumbotron that proclaimed “TOUCHDOWN” with an old-timey Batman-style ka-blam graphic behind it. From the spectacle of the crowd, one would have thought the entire stadium had scored the points.
As if someone flipped a switch, the crowd abruptly stopped cheering as the kicking team trotted out onto the field. When the kicker sent the football through the goalposts, the fans erupted again.
Pointing at the scoreboard proclaiming “media timeout,” I asked, “What’s the deal with that?”
“You truly don’t have a clue, do you, J?” Axel grinned. “The game is being broadcast over TV and radio. They need a break for commercials.”
“This event is quite the production.” I sipped my coffee, which was now mostly the alcohol left in the bottom of my cup. “I had no idea.”
Wrapping an arm across my shoulders, he pulled me in for a rough and bouncy one-armed hug. “Admit it. You’re having fun.”
“It’s nothing like what I expected.”
By halftime the game was close, with the Bulldogs up by what Axel explained was a field goal. Callahan had caught a pass and dropped another. I couldn’t help but cringe each time he was tackled. It seemed unfair that three or four monsters could grab him and jump on him as they pushed him to the ground. But each time, he bounced back up as though he’d only tripped over his feet.
When the teams went to the locker rooms, the marching band took the field. Honestly, their performance of a medley of songs from Star Wars was the best part of the afternoon. Yet half the fans missed it, including Axel and Drake. When the band collectively moved to create a perfect C-3PO and R2D2 together, I whipped out my phone and filmed it to show my friends when they returned.
After the band marched off the field, I headed to the concessions area in search of a restroom. On my return to my seat, I discovered the second half had already started with the Bulldogs on the move. Axel handed me a fresh coffee, and I my eyes watered at the first sip. Leaning around my friend, I tapped his boyfriend on the shoulder. “Is there any coffee in this?”
Drake grinned. “Plenty. Swirl it around a little.”
I had Drake and Axel in hysterics when I wrapped both hands around my cup and did a silly swirly dance, using my entire body to mix my drink. When I took a second sip, I could taste a little something other than whiskey, but not much. Still, it was hot, which was welcome. As the afternoon moved closer to dusk, the breeze had picked up, and standing in the bleachers, even surrounded by scores of other people, was chilly.
When I chanced a visual tour of the sidelines, I caught Callahan watching me with narrowed eyes. With a nonchalance born of my second Irish coffee of the afternoon, I shrugged. The shrug he returned broadcast sarcasm like a flashing neon sign. I couldn’t help but grin. Then I saluted him with my cup, and he shook his head, returning his attention to the field.
“Looks like someone noticed your absence to start the second half,” Axel said, his expression speculative.
“Whatever.” But as I stared at Callahan’s broad back, a tiny shiver, one that had nothing to do with the weather, rippled through me and tickled my center.
An interesting aspect of the game that my friends had to explain was tailgating. We hadn’t stopped at any of the tailgate parties on our way in, but apparently, we weren’t the only fans in attendance imbibing in a bit of jolly-juice. It wasn’t until the middle of the third quarter that the stadium returned to its sold-out complement of fans as they straggled in from the tailgates. By then we were down by ten points, and the crowd was at the top of its lungs encouraging the team to rally.
As Drake had predicted at the start, the game was a dogfight. With less than two minutes to go, the Bulldogs were up by three, but the Wildcats had the ball. Number 85 had spent most of the second half blocking for the running backs. Unlike his description of his role as more of a bishop, in today’s chess game, he played as a pawn.
The crowd quieted as the teams lined up on the Bulldogs’ forty on third and one. The quarterback called “Hut! Hut!” but instead of blocking someone into the turf like he’d been doing all game, Callahan pushed off the defender and ran past him. Somehow, he was behind the line of defenders when the quarterback threw the ball to him. He caught it in stride and took off at a dead run for the end zone. A defender launched himself at Callahan but only managed to catch his feet. He lost his balance and fell forward over the goal line.
When he stood up, he pointed the nose of the ball straight at me before he handed it to the ref. His teammates swarmed him, hugging him and fist-bumping him, slapping him on the helmet and on his back, and jogging with him back to the sidelines where he received more handshakes, back slaps, and hugs. The kicking team trotted onto the field where the kicker extended the lead to four points with less than a minute to go in the game.
Between media timeouts and the teams calling timeouts, that final fifty seconds of the game took up half the afternoon. But at last the clock ticked down to double zeros, the buzzer blew, and the ref picked up the ball. The stadium erupted in pandemonium. The band played a raucous rendition of the school fight song, with the team singing the words as they stood in the end zone facing the band and the students’ section. Then they jogged off the field to the locker room.
“What do you say we hit Stromboli’s before the crowd arrives?” Axel suggested.
Drake threw his arm over Axel’s shoulder. “Excellent plan, babe.”
“Um—”
Axel grabbed my wrist as the two of them started down the bleachers. “Don’t even think about going back to the dorms yet.”
“But—”
“You have to eat, Jamaica. Might as well share a to-die-for pizza with us rather than settle for mediocre cafeteria food by yourself.” He stopped and shot me a look from beneath his brows. “The books will be there when you get home. Promise.”
“You talk like you know me or something.”
Ignoring my remark, he added, “Besides, you’ve had too much alcohol to study properly. Plus, it’s Saturday. You have all day tomorrow to go over all your notes twenty or thirty times.”
“Does he nag you like this too, Drake?”
“It’s one of his charms.” The affection in the smile Drake bestowed on Axel hollowed me out.
Wasn’t that a kick in the ass? Sure, I’d noticed the deep feelings my best friend and his boyfriend shared, but I’d never envied them. Besides, they always included me whenever there was fun to be had and I wasn’t buried in books. So why did that look between them leave me with a gaping hole in my chest?
Then a picture of a certain hot football player invaded my head, and for a fleeting second I wondered if I’d see number 85 at dinner.