WE SHOULD STOP NOW

EPILOGUE

TWO YEARS LATER

CALEB

"Let's go Warriors. Let's go!" The crowd of green and white supporters scream behind me.

There's seconds left on the clock and we're neck and neck, my full focus is on Lucas, my star quarterback in the number nine shirt.

"Come on buddy, you can do this." I mutter under my breath.

As if he can hear me, Lucas catches the ball and runs like lightning with it. Fuck this kids good. "Come on buddy, come on!" I yell now as I watch him thunder down the pitch with unbelievable power before he smashes down the ball.

"Touchdown!"

The crowd goes absolutely wild for Lucas Black.

I'm right there with them loosing my mind at the sideline, jumping up and down with pure fucking joy as I watch my guys win this years league against the Ravens.

My players run over to me as I slap each of them on their backs and bring them into a hug one by one before we form a circle. They've all blown me away this year with their hard work and enthusiasm. This really is one great team.

"Listen guys, you were on fire today. Like seriously, I could not be more proud of you all. Now let's do what we always do and make sure we shake hands with the opposition, OK?  Show them that we're good sportsmen right up to the end, right? Then you can head off and celebrate and I can pretend I don't know you're all out drinking tonight!" I grin at my guys and they all start laughing.

"Yes Coach!" They all shout back at me, making my smile widen with pride.

Breaking our circle, my guys run over to the Raven players who are dressed in white and purple and respectfully go and shake their hands. From my peripheral vision, I see Carter Green striding over to me with his usual grumpy face making me smirk.

Carter Green is not like Miles Stone.

Carter Green is not a threat to me and J.

Carter Green is my best friend and all round great fucking guy. It's weird how shit works out.

"Oh you're gonna be fucking unbearable now aren't you." He sighs and I start to chuckle as we shake hands then turn and watch our players chatting amongst themselves on the pitch.

"Told you to play Thompson, wrong move benching the kid." I grin back.

Scratching the back of his neck."Yeah, yeah. I know, I know. We beat you last year, we'll get you next year." He grumbles and I scoff at him.

Carter and I should hate each other, but Joanie was right about him, there's literally no way not to like this guy he's just too fucking nice and too funny.

After Joanie told him two years ago that she could never have feelings for him at the New Year's Eve Ball, instead of acting like a prick, he bowed out graciously and just accepted it. A few months later after I took on as full time coach after Coach Dean retired, my quarterback Lucas came to me to say that he was getting loads of shit from other players after he started to date a kid, Joseph, off Carter's team and wanted to quit football.  Joseph was having the same issues on the Raven's side.

Obviously as that's just totally unacceptable, Carter and I met up to talk through how best to tackle the issue. So every Sunday since, the Ravens and The Warriors share training sessions to bridge any conflicts between the two teams. It shouldn't work, but it does and what's more it's made both our teams pretty unstoppable forces in the league. We both have scouts crawling all over guys, but the one with real promise to make it big is my kid in the number 9 shirt.