“Listen up.” It’s Coach’s voice, and even though I want to stay huddled beneath my towel so I don’t have to see my teammates’ faces, I know I can’t. I push the towel back around my neck, but stay leaning on my knees. Coach is silent for too long, and when I glance up, I realize he’s been waiting for my eyes. I sit up a little straighter.
“I’ve been here before,” he says. “Which is how I know that none of you are in the mood to listen, but you need to. So put aside what you’re feeling for just a few minutes, and hear me out. No one was expecting you to win this game.” I wince. We’d all been thinking it, but it was worse hearing it out loud. “No one was expecting you to come out and rush two hundred yards and pass two hundred and fifty, which for those of you paying attention is the most this team has had in any one game in over two years. It also happens to be more yards than your competitor put up tonight. That scoreboard might have had us losing by three tonight, but one look at the stats proves that you fought harder, played stronger, worked better than you ever have before. No one was expecting you to give that team a fight, but I promise you that people will sit up and pay attention now.”
He pauses and moves toward the wall where he lays a hand against the painted wildcat, beside which it reads, “Bleed Rusk Red.”
“You know, a few weeks ago, I stayed at the office late. And when I went to leave, I didn’t expect to see a player sitting in the film room, still hard at work hours after practice had let out. I asked why he hadn’t gone home for the night, and do you remember what you said, Carson?”
I know what night he’s talking about—the night he fought with Dallas—but all I can remember is thinking about her, wanting to go to her.
“You told me that there are no easy days. And I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Today was not an easy day. This week was not an easy week. But every single one of you fought through it. I’ve coached and played against every kind of team, and I’m telling you now, this team will be the kind that takes no easy days. This team will be the kind that fights every last second for every last yard until we see that win on the board. And for days like today, when we lose, I promise it will be the hardest damn win that other team has ever had. That’s the kind of team we will be. It’s the kind of team we are as of tonight. And I tell you, I’m damn proud to be your coach.”
No one is slumping or frowning anymore. Everyone looks deadly serious, like we’d go out and play another game right now if we could.
“No easy days?” Coach says.
And together we repeat, “No easy days.”
He tells us to hit the showers, and before we do, I feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s Silas, and he nods at me once before walking away. Torres does the same, followed by Brookes. I lose track, but it must be at least twenty players who throw me a nod before they strip and head to the showers.
As I stand to do the same, I see Coach is still standing at the edge of the room. His eyes meet mine, and I get one final nod before he turns and disappears in the direction of his office.
DALLAS IS WAITING at my apartment like she promised when I pull up later that night. She slips off the hood of her car, where she was lying staring up at the sky, and comes over to me.
She kisses me. Firm and sweet, and I notice she’s wearing a Rusk Wildcats shirt. I grin.
“Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Yeah, well, only for you. I might have something else you’ve been wanting to see, too.”
That definitely piques my interest, and I raise my brows.
She laughs, and the sound is so light and perfect that I could listen to it all day long. “Not that. Well, at least not right now anyway.”
Dear God.
She takes my hand, and leads me over to a basketball court that sits between my apartment building and the one next to it.
“Tonight, I got to see you play. So I figure it’s only fair you get to see me dance.”
She’s uncharacteristically shy, and I’m beginning to realize just how much I like every version of her—from daredevil to demure.
“That sounds . . . perfect.”
“Now, there’s still a part or two that I’m not as solid on as I’d like to be, but I think you’ll get the idea.” She hands me her phone with a song pulled up. “Press play when I tell you?”
I nod.
She has on these weird black sneakers with no sole in the arch that I guess are some kind of dance shoe. She pulls off the red Rusk T-shirt, leaving her in a tight gray tank top and black stretchy pants. She walks to the center of the court and takes a deep breath. She nods her head at me, and I press play.
The music starts soft, and with her hand stretched straight up, she spins a few times, her movements smooth and graceful. She lands, feet apart, her head tipped back, and she is stunning. Then the music changes, picks up, and her body lurches backward like she’s taken a punch to the stomach. She reaches out, running forward, and she leaps into the air. Somehow, she manages to look like she’s straining to fly while some imaginary thing holds her back.
She lands, crumpling, and the emotion in her face and body is so strong, so raw that I have to resist the urge to go to her. But then she lifts herself up. The entire dance oscillates that way between soft and hard. Her body spins and moves beautifully, and then it turns to hard angles, bent limbs, desperate jumps. At one point she throws herself down on the ground, rolls a few times until she lands on her back, and then she arches up, supported by her shoulders and her toes, and I swear it looks like she’s just had her soul ripped out. The music seems to bleed out of her, matching perfectly with her movements. On and on the song goes, and she beats herself down and down. But as the song comes to a close, she gets up one final time. Her legs shake, then straighten, and she lifts her head up to the sky, and even just standing there, her body tells a story.
The song ends, and I stand staring at her, absolutely dumbfounded.
“Well?”
I blink, light-headed, and I don’t know if I remembered to breathe at all the entire time she was dancing.
“You are incredible.”
She smiles and dips her head, and I know she’s doing that thing she does where she’s trying to look smaller, look less, so that people will pass on. But there’s no f**king way I’m letting this go.
“I’m serious, Dallas. That was . . . You did that? You came up with it all?”