Page 16 of Trick Play
Gray says his goodbyes, and we both retrieve our jackets from the front closet. Another round of hugs and goodbyes later, we’re out the door, and even though the night air is cold, I can breathe easier.
Once we’re in his car, Gray starts it, but makes no move to drive. “Look, Piper,” he starts, but I wave him off.
“It’s fine, Gray,” I say quietly. “Don’t worry about it.”
He’s quiet for a beat, and I hope he’ll just let it go, because I don’t want an apology or an explanation about what he said on the way over. All I want is to be treated like I’m not an undetonated bomb from a long ago war, liable to go off at any moment. That’s better than any apology and light-years better than an explanation that does nothing to acknowledge harm.
“I don’t think you’re a fuckup,” he says at last, putting the car in reverse and backing out of the driveway.
“Then stop treating me like one.”
CHAPTER NINE
Cal
By Sunday, I’m regretting more and more how fast I left Piper behind on Wednesday. I knew if I’d stayed, I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off her, not after what passed between us in the kitchen. And I also knew she wasn’t ready to take things beyond that. Hell, getting her to agree to a date was a hard-won victory.
But she’s not much for texting. Or she genuinely is that busy. I honestly can’t tell which it is, and the only person I know who could answer that question would probably rather punch me in the throat than give me any information about his sister.
In fact, he’s been glaring at me at every opportunity for the last few days. A smug grin comes to my face at the thought. My evil plan is working already.
Does he know I kissed her? Or is he just mad that I sat with her for half the evening? If it’s the first one, then I’m going to have to step up my game, because he’s not nearly mad enough if he knows about our kitchen make out session. But if he’s this pissed from me sitting next to her?
I have to fight down the urge to laugh like Dr. Evil fromAustin Powersas I pack my gear into my car. Simon nods at me over the back of his truck, and I lift my chin in response. “You goin’ to see Ellie?” I ask, already knowing the answer. I just want to confirm that I’ll have the house to myself for a while.
Part of me still wants to punch the grin off his face when he says, “Yeah. She’s got her room to herself for a few hours.”
“TMI, dude. T. M. I.”
Simon just laughs, which doesn’t help anything. But it does make me pull out my phone and try texting Piper one more time.
Me: Back in town. When are you free this week?
Because if I’m this riled up about Simon banging my sister, how much worse is Kilpatrick gonna feel when I seal the deal with his? He actually hangs out with his sister willingly. And I’m pretty sure he hates my guts.
Driving home, I fantasize about Kilpatrick exploding at me and getting yanked for the season because of his behavior. That’s the ideal option. The other possibility is him choking enough times that Coach Reese pulls him and makes me the starter, but that seems less possible and more likely to cause problems. For one, Coach loves Kilpatrick for some reason. Thinks the sun shines out of the dude’s ass. So he’d have to choke really bad a lot of times for Coach to change the lineup. And if he does that bad, then we might lose our spot in the Poppy Bowl, and no one wants that.
So the goal is to get him to fight me. Or try to fight me. I need to make sure I look like the innocent.
One thing at a time, though. First, I need Piper to schedule our date.
* * *
One bonus about Simon not being home—and I’m not going to think about where he is, who he’s with, or what they might be doing—is that since I got Pigged this weekend, it makes it easy to pass it off to him right away.
This game has been going since my freshman year. One of the seniors that year wanted the team to have a mascot, and for some reason he thought a teacup pig was the best choice. Why? I have no idea. I guess he figured goats are overdone, or that a pig would be easier to take care of or something.
Of course, Coach Hanson was against the idea. He said we didn’t need the distraction and that we were all a bunch of jackasses who could barely take care of ourselves, much less another living creature. So Collins, the starting quarterback and one of the team captains that year, bought a little stuffed pig, and he took one of the jerseys from the stuffed bears they sell at games and in the campus bookstore and put it on the pig. We named it Piggy, because we’re very creative, and Piggy became our interim mascot. Except the schedule Collins made where everyone took care of it for a week to show that we could handle the responsibility of taking care of another creature devolved quickly into a weird spin on the game Hot Potato.
Piggy started showing up in random people’s lockers or duffel bags between practices and games. Or he’d be waiting for you on the squat rack when it was your scheduled leg day.
Yesterday Piggy was hidden at the bottom of my locker when I got back from the shower after the game, his now-dingy little snout peeking out of my clean clothes.
The rules of Pigging have developed over the last few years. You can’t get caught Pigging someone. If you get caught, you have to keep Piggy for longer, and you can’t try to give it to the person who caught you. If you know who had Piggy last, even if you didn’t catch them Pigging you, you can’t Pig them back immediately. The idea is to spread it around the whole team. Whoever ends up with Piggy at the final game has to keep Piggy until the next season, which means I’m safe at the end of this year at least. You can’t Pig a senior the last week of the season or postseason, because they’re not coming back.
I kept Piggy the second half of my sophomore year until practice started up again the next August. It was a relief to get rid of him that first practice back.
Living with Simon means that it’s easy to pass Piggy along right away, and even though he’ll know I did it, he won’t be able to give him back.
