Page 6 of Touchdown
Or maybe he was trying to distract me. What did I really know?
These alternating waves of trust and distrust were exhausting.
“Why would anybody want to kidnap me?” I asked. “A quarterback without a team doesn't do you much good. Unless you've got another team. And you still don't have to kidnap me. You recruit me. The target's got to be you. I'm only here to put pressure on you.”
That sounded bad. Like I was blaming him.
Fortunately, he didn't seem to notice my lack of tact. “Actually, I can think of several reasons you might snatch a quarterback.” His tone was the tone of the relaxed spitballer. “Like, maybe they think the alumni will pay a good ransom. That lounge of y'all's is pretty good evidence you've got some deep pockets on tap.”
“Hey. Don't hate on the lounge. You were getting your share of the lounge.” More than his share, since he was loading up on the complimentary booze and food for his homeless buddies.
“I'm not hating. I'm just saying. The university gets a lot of shit because of how much they spend on the athletic program.”
“Nobody would've ever heard of the university if not for the football program. Not anybody from out of state anyway. It's good for everybody if we've got a winning team, and that takes cash. A lot of it.”
“I'm just saying it looks bad they didn't make time to fix the flooded library while the athletes are living their best life in sixty-million-dollar private lounges.”
“For fuck sake. You had to put a number on it.”
“I didn't say it. Social media said it.”
“I know. So keep not saying it.”
He went quiet. But I didn't. I couldn't. My blood was up again. As it always was when the team was under attack.
“Let me tell you something, bro. We didn't get kidnapped because somebody's got their panties in a snarl over the fucking library funding. Of all the bullshit that never happened, that's the one that most definitely did not happen.”
Noah wisely chose to keep on staying quiet. I was walking faster, so he sped up some to keep ahead on the trail.
That's one advantage of being all pissed off. You move faster.
“The alumni want the team to have that money. We do a great job of fund-raising. The librarians could learn something if they weren't too busy hating on the jocks.”
I heard myself ranting. Was this a fight? This was too stupid to be a fight.
Also, I was the only one fighting.
Time to shut up for a change.
I forced myself to slow up. Cool down. Breathe. Noah got a little further ahead of me again. Then he noticed and slowed up too.
Only later would I realize he'd effectively distracted me from asking any more questions about why they'd kidnap a homeless coder. But, yeah, at the time, the play blew right through me.
After a while he said, “It's not your fault, Slate. None of this is your fault. You know that, right?”
I didn't say anything.
“It's the fault of the bad guys who put us here,” he said. “Nobody else.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He was trying. Also, he was right. We moved on. A bird was warbling off in the distance. Another one warbled back.
It felt like we were alone in a lost world. And yet...
Noah stopped suddenly while swinging out his arm like a roadblock to stop me too.
We both stood absolutely dead quiet. Had he heard something? I held my breath.
