I've Been Waiting All Along (Book 2 - Rock Canyon Series)

Chapter 4 - Charlotte (She/Her/Hers)

Chapter 4 – Charlotte (She/Her/Hers)

"I'm going to show you the first 15 plays of the game."

Ty leaned back into the thick cushion of a booth at the Resca, taking a big slug of his café mocha. It was Thursday night, less than 24 hours away from the first playoff game. His knee kept bouncing up into the table and sloshing our drinks around. With all that nervous energy, I don't know how he was able to sit down.

The Resca was usually busy on a Thursday night and tonight was no exception. College kids were packing most of the booths, playing various board games or holding study groups from the look of all the laptops and textbooks. I had noticed a little bit of this on the way in, but once we were in the booth, it was like I was back in my own little space with Ty.

"Hold on a sec. Are you saying that football has a script?"

He nodded so fast it reminded me of Maddie when she blasted death metal. "Yep! That's exactly what it's called, too. And the first five plays this week are designed specifically to attack the weakness of their secondary."

"What's a secondary?" I asked. I was still clueless about the nuts and bolts of football. When I thought of football, my first thought was soccer because of all the European and South American kids I knew in my favorite Skyrim Discord.

"Basically the secondary exists to try to stop the passing game. Their job is to stop me from looking sexy in the endzone."

I snorted. "They're kinda doomed I take it."

Ty ran a hand slowly across his chin. Though most everyone in here was older than us, he still looked like the King of Rock Canyon sitting against the back wall, surveying his domain in what Maddie called "the date booth."

"You already know it. So, check these first five plays," he said, abruptly leaning forward, his locks tapping his temples. "We start with a play-action pass–that's faking handing the ball off to the running back so the defense bites in, allowing a couple of receivers such as myself to slip behind them and strike early with a big play. In this case, that's a long fly route after I sell the running play. We're gonna hit pay dirt on play one with this. You watch."

I looked at the squiggles of Xs and Os on the page in front of me. "And pay dirt is...?"

"The endzone. Scoring a touchdown. Where you make your money. Pay dirt."

I nodded my understanding. "Ah, gotcha. So you and Kellan basically make a bunch of other guys show up so you can play catch and high-five?"

Ty burst into laughter, his big hand grabbing mine and shaking it. "Nah, nah, it's not like that at all. We need every guy on the team. We're all in this together. For real, don't look at me like that."

His eyes held a hint of mischief as they scanned the playbook. I waited for them to flash back to me. When they did I crossed my arms.

"Uh-huh, so without you the team would still be okay? They'd still be dancing in the pay dirt?"

Ty make a clicking noise. "Bruh, please. I didn't say all that. I just said WE needed them. As in, me and Kellan. We're the prime movers. Everybody else pulls their weight so we can shine." He took another sip of his latte. "It's probably no different than you in theatre. You're the big star, the lyrics to their beat, the dancing in the endzone to their toiling in the trenches," he pointed to his mug, "the coffee to their milk."

I laughed but knew what he was saying was true. We felt the same way. On the surface we had a lot of differences, but our personalities, our way of interfacing with life was eerily similar. It was refreshing after feeling like I was always around people who were completely different than me.