The Hard Count Read online

  When I look back to Nico, I expect to see the hard face I’m used to in class, the one ready to argue, but instead his dimple is deep and his eyes are creased, his lips almost smiling, like he has more to say. I swallow. He sees it, and his lip quirks a hint higher. I hate that.

  “You making a movie or something?” His eyes gesture to the equipment at my feet. I look down, too, then over my shoulder, remembering the camera I left behind in the film room.

  “Uh, yeah. Something,” I say, my mind ping-ponging between wondering if the room is unlocked still, and this conversation with Nico Medina, which is bizarre.

  I snap back to attention when Nico’s friend shouts something, and Nico tosses him the ball, underhand throwing a tight spiral that disappears briefly before falling back into the light.

  “Right, well…you ever want to film a real game…instead of that display that happens over there; we’ll be over here,” he says, chuckling and jerking his head toward the dark field where his friends have started running and tackling one another.

  I’m too tongue-tied to respond, but I manage to keep my nerves in check for the few seconds he’s still close enough to hear me. When he turns to jog down the slope into the field, I let out the air I’d been holding hostage in my lungs.

  I pick up my small camera bag and loop it over my shoulder, checking the scoreboard before walking quickly back to the locker room. The home score reads seven, and the air smells acrid, so I know the fireworks went off for the extra point. Somehow, though, I never noticed.

  The film room is unlocked; I grab the rest of my things and make my way back to the main field in time for the second quarter. I hear a few mutters from the most-vocal critics as I walk up to the press box. They know who I am, and I know they only say those things in hopes that I’ll repeat their concerns to my father.

  “This is how our team started last year.”

  “Only up by a touchdown at the end of one. Maybe Coach isn’t playing the right talent.”

  “I sure hope Jimmy’s ready to step into the job.”

  That last comment comes up a lot, and I never repeat it to my dad. He hears it enough on his own. Jimmy O’Donahue is Dad’s assistant. He was voted onto the staff by the board, and my father begrudgingly lets him handle the defense. Jimmy is the son of one of the board members, and he’s alumni. While my father’s alumni, too, his tradition stops there. He was the start of our family line. Jimmy’s goes back to the day the school was founded, and there are a lot of people who would like to see him in that beloved head-coach role. Fortunately, my dad has enough friends on the board to keep him safe for now.

  He just needs to keep winning.

  Once my camera is set, I crawl out to the small section of bleachers on the rooftop of the press box and slide my notebook from my bag, where I write down the latest round of comments I’ve overheard. I know I need interviews to really make my documentary solid, but I can’t seem to get the nerve to face the haters. I’m not sure what worries me more—if they’ll pretend to love my dad to my face, or if they’ll let me tape their honest opinions.

  Instead, for now, I work things into my own narration script. I plan to catch their quips and jabs secretly with my recorder, and maybe that will be enough. It’s probably not ethical, but neither are some of the threatening things they say.

  Minutes pass with very little action, both sides trading punts and the ball never coming near an end zone until Travis intercepts a pass and runs it back forty yards with fifteen seconds left in the half. I stand along with everyone else, and I check my camera to make sure it’s capturing game play while I pull out my handheld to get the other side of the story. My brother grabs his helmet and dashes to the line, and I zoom in as tight as I can on the huddle, wishing I had him miked to hear what he said, or at least to hear them all clap and yell “break!”

  Katie, his girlfriend for at least the last few months, is standing on the first step at the front of the stands, her hands cupping her mouth; my mother is close behind her, holding hands with our neighbor, Travis’s mom, Linda, as if her son was going off to battle. The clock begins, and as slow as everything feels, it all happens so quickly. My brother finds a receiver, he throws with a snap, the ball is caught, and the drums begin.

  I bounce on my toes, and I feel my cheeks ache from smiling, but in the middle of it all, I think of Nico. The field is too far for me to hear them, but every now and then I catch a glimpse of their forms running in the dim lights, until the fireworks signal our field goal and the crowd erupts. Nico and his friends don’t even pause—their own game far more important as the ball sails farther than any throw I’ve ever seen leave my brother’s grip, landing easily into the hands of the boy who teased me several minutes ago.

  “Some game, huh Reagan?” Jimmy says, headphones around his neck as he clears out of the press box area and walks down the bleachers to join the rest of the team and coaching staff in the locker room.

  I rarely respond, mostly because I don’t trust him. This is normally the time when I go find my friend Izzy and skim off her nachos and steal half of her drink that she’s tried to hide—though not too well—on the small table right in front of the bleachers. Izzy’s a cheerleader, but she went out of town for the weekend with her grandparents, leaving right after school. I climb down the few steps from the top of the press box and glance out at the crowd, most people making breaks for the restrooms and concession area. My mom is already on her phone, and her friends are all chatting around her. I could sit with these women, who I don’t necessarily like, for twelve minutes, but instead, I find my feet carrying me down the back steps of the bleachers and out into the darkness where boys wearing nothing but muddied jeans and skin are still battling hard.

  I walk along the far end, the action currently on the opposite side of the field, and slide to a sitting position on the cool, damp grass that slopes down. I bend my legs and wipe the pieces of cut crass from the backs of my thighs and test my denim shorts to see how wet they are. Satisfied it won’t leave too much of a wet mark, I bring my arms around my knees and balance my camera on top, flipping open the viewfinder and zooming in as tight as I can. At first, I can’t see much—the light too little—but as the action comes closer, my camera takes more in, and when the boys are yards away from me, I can clearly make out their faces.

  Nico’s friend—the talkative one—waves at me, but I don’t wave back. I’m not part of the story. I hold my camera on him until I’m forgotten again, and the plays become all that matter. There are only eight of them down there, enough to play a small pickup game, to pass and run, but the longer I watch, the more I realize how very little Nico needs. He moves like Noah. His feet fall back naturally, and he glides out of the reach of his friend who dives at him, shaking off a tackle with no help from pads or a uniform. When his friend comes at him again, he shirks him off once more, twisting and sprinting to the opposite side, giving his receiver enough time to make it to the corner of their makeshift end zone marked with discarded shirts, skateboards, bikes and hats.

  I watch through the safety of my camera lens, his arm coming back, his bicep coiling, his arm strong as it rushes forward, sending the ball racing into his receiver’s waiting hands. I don’t even notice I’m standing at first, but when I do, I stay on my feet, watching these eight boys celebrate together in a way that seems so much more important than what happens behind me. Under the lights, where a band plays and thousands cheer, hands get slapped and choreographed routines play out for attention while wealthy people keep tabs for bragging rights at weekend parties. Here, in the dark and forgotten field in a game that doesn’t matter to anyone, something beautiful plays out.

  Brotherhood. Honor. Tradition.

  “You decide to cover the real story there, baby girl?”

  Before I can stick up for myself, Nico slaps his friend in the chest, the smack knocking air from his lungs.

  “Fuck, man,” he coughs out.

  “That’s quite an arm you have,” I say,
deciding to ignore his friend.

  “Thanks,” Nico says, stepping closer to me. I press the STOP button on my camera and let it fall to my side, but not before Nico notices. He bends down to lift a nearby gallon of water from the ground, bringing it to his lips and tipping it back, guzzling until almost half of it is gone.

  “So what kind of camera is this? Like a DSLR or whatever?” His friend is trying to be nice, so I indulge him, even though he has no idea what kind of camera I’m using.

  “It’s just a high-def handheld. It’s easier to maneuver it, when you want to get action shots,” I say, lifting it so he can see it more closely. He takes it in his hands, holding it with one while he pulls his hat from his head and runs his arm over his forehead, smoothing out his damp hair.

  “Action shots, huh? You shoot a lot of porn?” he says, unable to get his jab out without laughing halfway through. Nico smacks him in the chest again, and I can’t help but smile.

  “Nobody wants to see a porn starring you, Sasha,” Nico says, taking the camera from his friend’s hand and returning it to me.

  “I meant her, Nic…” Sasha says, stopping before finishing when Nico shoots him a warning glance.

  “My boy’s an asshole sometimes, but it’s only because he isn’t around girls a lot,” Nico says, and his friends join in laughing while Sasha flips them off.

  My fingers are tingling, so I busy them by opening and closing the lens on the camera, while Nico’s friends all catch their breath and begin gathering their things from the field. Nico stays near me, and the longer we stand in silence, the stronger the urge is in me to fill the quiet.

  “I’m making a film for my application to Prestige,” I say, tucking my lip in between my teeth while my fingers flip the camera lens even faster. I don’t know why I thought Nico was interested, and the longer it takes him to respond, the more desperate I am to escape this small dark patch of grass. I long for the press box, for the bleachers, for my mother’s circle of friends. The game clock has started again, and my mind is actively searching for the right words to say goodbye, to leave without making it worse, to not be a complete ass.

  “Like a documentary? On what? The team?” His questions come several seconds later, and I trip over my feet a little at the sound of his voice. He grabs my elbow, steadying me as we walk the few steps up the slant of the hill.

  I hold my camera in one hand and pull the long, blonde braid around one side of my body so I can hook the strap over my other arm. Nico’s eyes watch my hands, and my stomach rushes with a strange feeling that comes over me even more when his eyes snap to mine, catching me looking at him. I look down right away.

  “It’s on the team…sort of,” I say, shaking my head and wondering how much sharing is too much. I don’t know Nico well, and I don’t really like him, but there’s this odd, overwhelming desire pushing at my chest right now to tell him things.

  “Is it on your brother?” he asks, and I flinch at how remarkably close to home his question hits. He grins, recognizing my tell, and I deflate seeing him look satisfied.

  “It’s on the team, mostly. On the legacy and history, but also on what the pressure of it all does to people,” I say, sharing more than I planned. I hold my breath, digging in for an argument.

  Nico looks back for his friends, and his eyes squint a little as his hand runs along the side of his neck. He stops walking, and I stop with him. Reaching for the shirt still tucked into his waistband, he pulls the dark gray tee loose, shaking it out and slipping it over his head and arms, fishing his black hat out when it gets stuck inside and putting it on backward. I expect the smirk and the dimple, and some response about how silly my idea is when he looks at me, but instead his mouth is a flat line, and his eyes bleed sympathy.

  “I bet this sucks sometimes for your family, huh?” he says. His friends are still several feet away, and my family is still being judged out under the hot Friday lights.

  I nod, just enough that he registers it and nods back, his eyes never leaving mine. Within seconds, his friends are close by, and Sasha hands him a backpack and longboard, the same ones he left the classroom with earlier.

  “You’ve been here all afternoon?” I ask.

  Nico drops his board to the ground and rolls it forward to the walkway, smirking on the side closest to me.

  “So have you,” he says.

  “Yeah, but I drive home. It’s dark out here, to ride a board…” I gesture to it. A few of his friends have already taken off on bikes, and two others are walking through the middle of the parking lot.

  “I ride everywhere,” he shrugs, looping his backpack over his shoulders and adjusting his hat.

  I look back to his friend Sasha who is pushing his board forward and back with his foot, pretending not to be hanging on our every word.

  “If you can wait until the end of the game, I could…I don’t know…take you home?” I feel foolish the second I offer it, and the feeling only gets worse when I hear his friend let out a breathy laugh.

  Nico chuckles, too, and I start to say something defensive, when he, per usual, cuts me off.

  “You don’t need to drive through my neighborhood, baby girl,” he says, calling me the same condescending name he smacked his friends for using seconds before. I snap my head and take in a sharp breath that gets his attention. His smile falls quickly, the hard line once again on his mouth as he looks back into the dark parking lot. No apology follows, only more reasons why he doesn’t need me, and why I never should have left the safety of the bleachers. “I’m staying at Sasha’s. It’s only two blocks away, so we’ll be fine.”

  “Whatever,” I mumble, a mixture of embarrassment and general pissed-offness brewing in my gut. I step up onto the walkway and begin my trek back into the spotlight, my fingers feeling for the comfort of the buttons on my camera at my side.

  I want to turn around to see if he’s watching me with every step I take, but I don’t look until I get to the bottom of the bleachers and take the first few steps back to everything I was doing before—to the goals I never should have veered from. My film. My family. Screw Nico Medina. My hunch is confirmed when I look back to see him and Sasha rolling through the middle of the lot, stopping at the exit to the main road, bright red and blue lights flashing against their skin.

  I’m so caught up in my head with Nico that I don’t realize the crowd behind me has hushed and that the ambulance is being guided out onto the field. My instincts kick in, and I push the record button, stepping up through the breezeway to the second set of bleacher steps, my camera following the medics until I stop on the trainer and teammates all huddled near the thirty-yard line, my brother flat on his back, his fists at his head, his cheeks red and flushed with sheer pain as everyone works to lift his body to a board.

  His hands are moving, so I know his spine is likely okay. But his leg seems to be facing the wrong direction. As a second splint is slid under his right leg and my father folds a towel in quarters, practically shoving the material into my brother’s screaming mouth, I know it’s a break. I know it’s bad. I know that for my brother, this means his time on top—at least here at Cornwall—has come to a close. I also know that my father can’t even mask his real feelings right now. His son is in pain, but even worse, his quarterback is out for the season. The two thousand people around me all want to know what he’s going to do, and a few of them are rooting for him to fail.

  I haven’t stopped filming. I capture it all, because despite the rush of guilt I feel, I’m no better or worse than any of the others. I have the answer—Nico Medina. And the angle of my story just became amazing.

  3

  The house has that eerie quiet about it. My mom has been pacing up and down the long hallway, first passing my bedroom, then my brother’s. She walks from her and my dad’s room back to the main living room, each time something different in her hands—a vase from there, moving to here, a new painting she picked up at the decorator store, better for the bedroom. She’s redecorating, as if
sprucing up our little suburban paradise will make people on the outside think we’ve got everything handled—that my dad has everything handled.

  I’ve had my headphones on and my laptop propped on my legs for the last two hours, splicing video—watching Nico. My brother is in his room, in bed; his leg is propped up in a sling, a new rod holding everything in place. Broken tibias, snapped in the way Noah’s did, take at least sixteen weeks to heal. Then comes rehab and a brutal schedule already mapped out with my brother’s personal trainer to make sure he’s ready for draft day. Two schools have already fallen off the radar, but luckily, the others see it as an edge—less competition to snag Noah later in the year.

  My brother’s worried. I can tell. And the fact that my father can’t seem to talk to him isn’t helping things.

  “I’m heading to films,” I hear my dad shout, the front door closing behind him. I pull my right headphone from my ear and listen to his engine pull away to leave. Nobody responded to his announcement, and my mom has started pulling down more things from the walls, setting them in rows in the hallway to evaluate their new homes. It’s her way to be near my brother, but be just busy enough that she doesn’t have to talk to him.

  She doesn’t know what to say.

  I close my laptop and hop from my bed, sliding in my socks around my door and into his.

  “I don’t need your pep talk, Reagan,” he says, his eyes intent on his phone. I step in and lean on the side of his bed, and he lets his hands fall flat, the screen down.

  “Are you sexting?” I tease.

  He pulls one hand up to pinch his brow.

  “Get the fuck out of my room.”