He gives me a smirk as he sets himself up for the kick. “We’ll see about that.”
“Don’t make this easy for me, jefe,” I add, giving him a confident smile back. “You’re starting to look tired. Maybe you should ask Coach for a break.” That just gets me a headshake and his middle finger before he starts running toward the ball.
In these seconds, time slows down. I take a deep breath in on one, out on two. His foot meets the ball on three, and in just the first few milliseconds that follow, my brain’s got to decide direction; dive or jump; keep my hands in or stretch out for a block?
And it’s different from being a machine. From being programmed. It’s know-how. It’s something that comes from doing this wrong hundreds of times. From hours of drills alone on a field, pushing myself before perfecting my movements to the point that it all becomes instinctual. My feet are moving before my mind’s giving them permission to, my body following in this trust that every single part of me knows where I need to be. I push myself up and to the right, jumping for it. Barrera was going for that corner, trying to trick me with a curve at a steady incline, hoping I’d stay in the center of the post instead of realizing I needed to be up near the top.
Leap on four. Block on five.
The ball hits my gloved fingers, just like I knew it would, and is knocked far to the right. But I’m not done yet. As soon as I hit the ground with a lowoomph, ignoring the blunt pain in my side from the fall, I’m jumping back up, ready to keep guarding. Because in an actual game, the other team would be ready to get that miss and make another attempt, and the longer I’m down, the more time they have.
Don’t slow down now.
Whatever you do, don’t slow down.
I give myself a moment to shake away the sweat gathered around my eyes, just long enough to get back in position and ready for more, letting the yells of my boys calling out, “There you go, Piña!” and “That’s a future El Tri goalkeeper right there!” amp me up to keep going. I look toward Barrera, that smirk turned into a small smile as he gives me a nod of approval and a “Finally. About time.”
Ass.
Through it all, I smile too, big and with so much adrenaline-induced excitement, as tired as I would feel if I let myself think about it. Through the perspiration and pain and hoping the sun won’t give me a fucked-up farmer’s tan, it’s happiness I feel here, in front of my goal. I can recover later. I can go to the beach this weekend and even out the brown of my skin. Nothing’s stopping me now.
Except for spotting a familiar-looking girl walking past the pitch. I see her out of the corner of my eye and my head turns fast, like I’m hoping the heat isn’t making me see things. Nope. There Leana is, stopping on the sidewalk when she sees that I spotted her, and she gives me another one of those finger waves. If I was smiling big before, I know it’s covering a whole half my face now, thinking about—
“Oof,”I groan as a ball comes out of nowhere and hits me straight in the gut. My face scrunches while I hold the ball to my stomach, my knees bending, trying my best to stay up.
Nope. Going down. I can just—I squat, bending my body around the ball, eyes closed, breathing in and out between gritted teeth.
“Flirt later, Piña,” Barrera says, and I can hear the evil grin in his voice, happy he got me off my game. Asshole move, but, got to give it to him, nice aim. He steps close to me and gives me a couple hard pats on the shoulder. “Need some water?”
I nod my head before letting out a “Pinche pendejo.”
“You’ve got a whole team trying to make a goal on you right now. Get your dick wet later, yeah?”
“I—yeah.” By the time I look back at where Leana was, she’s gone. I shake my head, sorting out thoughts of where my brain needs to be and shelving the ones involving her for after practice.Priorities, Gabo.
“You still got enough left to keep going?” he asks, looking into my eyes like he’s half actually concerned and half trying to get under my skin, telling me to tell him I’m done. “Don’t tire yourself out too much the day before a game.”
“I’ve gotall day, big bro.” I stand back up, throwing the ball to him, and clap my hands, making loud thuds as my gloves meet. “I’m good. And I’ll take that water now.”
He laughs and starts walking toward the benches, motioning for the next guy to try me.
“Come on,”I yell, feeling the words come up from my gut and roar out of me as I set myself back up at the post. “Bring it, boys!”
Yeah. I was made for this.
8
“PATRÓN, HORNITOS, OR 1500?”
I’m barely able to hear this guy’s voice over the music playing, filling his and his boys’ fraternity house, the bass vibrating through my chest and nearly shaking the walls. He stands in front of me, a small table with bottles lined up between us, and stares at me, waiting for me to give an answer.
“I, uh … Hornitos. Four of them.”
“You got it, my guy.” He doesn’t even look at the bottle, immediately giving his attention to this girl nearby as he pours what’s got to be at least a double shot of tequila into a green Solo cup, then three more, and then only gives me a quick glance, looks down to the cups, and goes back to the girl. I lift my chin up to him and yell, “Thanks,” knowing that he didn’t see or hear me—and if he did, unless I say something like “How do I sign up for your frat?” there’s no way he cares enough about me that I’m getting any reaction from him—before heading into the crowd of people, looking through all the faces in the barely lit house until—
“Ahmed!” I shout, bumping my side into his. He turns around and hollers, “Piña!” back to me while taking a cup at a time out of my hands, giving one to each of the two girls we’ve been talking to and then keeping the third one for himself. Neither of these girls is Leana. She had to be at some other party tonight. Some sorority she’s interested in joining was specifically inviting potential new members, and she didn’t want to miss it. And that’s cool. I know trying to get into one of these orgs can be serious business. It’s fine. She should fully be doing her own thing.
Sure, I was thinking it would’ve been really nice to be dancing with her at my first college party, after winning our fourth game in a row, and I’m trying not to think about her dancing with some other guy right now. But there will be more parties to go to with her. And these girls are great. I’d never met them before stepping into this house and, honestly, still, even after dancing with one of them to a few songs, don’t know either of their names. Not that I haven’t asked, it’s just too loud to hear. And I’m more here to be my teammate’s wingman, so I’m letting him do most of the heavy lifting.
