Butch wiped the sweat from his eyes as he watched the girl kicker practice with the special teams unit. He hated the thought of a girl on his team. Women belonged on the sidelines cheering them on, not playing in the game. He didn’t care how pretty she was. They were going to get laughed off the field on Sunday.
“Yo, Butch!” Coach Albertson yelled to get his attention.
“Yeah, Coach?”
“Nelson needs to rest his knee. Get over here run a few blocking plays with special teams.”
“You want me to block for the girl kicker? No way.”
Coach stared at him. “You refusing, Butch?”
“Well, yeah. I didn’t sign up to block for no girl kicker.”
Coach sent out a blast with his whistle and motioned for the special teams to take a break. He stomped over to Butch and glared at him.
“You’re done for the day. Keep it up and I’ll pull you from the starting lineup,” Coach said, his face red with anger. “I alreadytold you, you don’t get to decide who you block for and I will call you out on your bullshit. Go home and come back tomorrow ready to practice.”
Butch mumbled under his breath as he turned away from Coach.
“Don’t push it, you’ll lose,” Coach said as Butch stalked toward the tunnel.
In the locker room, he stood in front of his locker and slammed his fist into it before opening it to pull out his bag to get his shower stuff.
“Dammit, how could they hire a girl kicker?” he asked the empty room. He liked things the way they were, no girls allowed. Now that they had a girl on the team what else was going to change?
As he showered, he thought about how he could get out of blocking for her. Maybe he could make her want to quit? Make her realize she wasn’t wanted on the team?
As he toweled himself off, he got an idea. Since he was done early, he could play a trick on her. Nothing too bad, just enough to vent his frustration and show her playing with the big boys wasn’t for her.
After packing his stuff into his bag, he walked out of the locker room and crept toward the cheerleaders’ locker room. After verifying no one was around, he slipped into the empty room and started opening lockers to find her stuff. When he opened the third locker, he hit pay dirt. Pulling her bag out, he rummaged around and found her shampoo and conditioner and carried them to the sinks. Uncapping them both he started pouring them out but stopped when he had a better idea. Taking the bottles back to her bag, he pulled out her clothes and piled them on the floor and poured out the rest of the shampoo and conditioner on to the pile, making sure he got it on all the clothes. That’ll show her she’s not wanted. He recapped thebottles and then shoved them back in the bag followed by the pile of clothes. He returned the bag to the locker and got some paper towels to clean up the shampoo and conditioner from the floor.
Satisfied no one could tell what he’d done, he slipped out of the room and sauntered toward the parking lot whistling.
Three hours later Butch woke to knocking on his front door.
He stumbled over and looked through the peephole to see Trey standing in the hall. Opening the door he said, “Hey Trey, didn’t expect to see you tonight.”
“Was it you?” Trey asked, his eyes watching Butch’s face.
“Was what me?” Butch asked as he turned and went to the kitchen for a beer.
“Dude, seriously? You think I don’t know it was you? I saw coach throwing you out of practice early.”
“Doesn’t mean I did whatever it is you think I did.”
“Someone went into the cheerleaders’ locker room while we were practicing and poured Rocky’s shampoo and conditioner out onto her clothes. You’re lucky she doesn’t want any trouble so she didn’t say anything to anyone else.”
Butch grinned. “Sounds like someone doesn’t want her on the team.”
“Yeah, you,” Trey replied with a frown. “Be careful, man, I saw how mad Coach was. He finds out about this and he’ll bench you for sure.”
“Who says it was me?”
Trey got a bottle of beer and took a long drink before replying. “We both know it was you. Just be careful Coach doesn’t find out.”
Rocky
Rocky turned on the television to watch the news. Her favorite station was supposed to be spotlighting her as the new Legends kicker. Dressed in her comfiest sweats, she picked up her beer and took a long drink as they played the intro. They highlighted her record in high school and college and predicted she’d do well after she settled into the rhythm of the team. After they interviewed her, they did a couple of short interviews with a couple of the players. First up was Trey and she smiled at his praise of her kicking. The next interview came up and she groaned, it was the asshole.
