Football is King

Chapter 8

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Chapter 8

I showed up to Ben's house a little after 5 o'clock. I had told Mom that I wouldn't be eating at home and she had warned me that it was a school night. I had just smiled and said I'd be home by curfew and left. She can be a little annoying with the nagging, but I know it's for my own good.

On my way, I passed by the Bargain Mart and grabbed a couple bags of chips, some coke, and other snack type items before making the rest of my journey to Ben's. I took advantage of the silence of the walk to think about how I was going to approach the whole Ben situation.

I mean, yeah I guess he had a right to be mad at me. I wasn't being a very good friend in the past week, but it wasn't like I had just ditched him completely. I still saw him, we ate lunch together, and joked in the locker room. I just had some other things to take care of. Things more important than playing Call of Duty or goofing off during practice. I needed to focus. Focus on school, focus on football, focus on my future. I could party it up after I graduate college, after I got out of this vortex people call a town.

I knocked twice on his door. A few seconds later, Ben's step mom answered the door, "Hey there Tripp. We haven't seen you over in a while."

I smiled back at her, "It's nice to see you again, Mrs. Southerland." I walked through the open doorway. "How are you?"

She frowned, "Panicked, we are leaving for Sun City tonight, and I still haven't even started packing." She rushed off down the hallway to the master bedroom.

I lead myself around the familiar house. Ben and I had been best friends since we were practically born. I knew every square inch of this house. Our fathers were teammates in high school. So after my dad left, Ben's father, Pat, did what he could to help my mom out. We had what Mom refers to as 'play dates'. Pat and Sherry, Ben's biological mother, looked after me while my mom worked the graveyard shift at the hospital. Ben and I have been inseparable since. I was there for him when his mom died. I was there for him when his dad married Kim. I was there for him when Stefanie O'Keefe dumped his ass last year. And he was there for me during all my rough patches. We made a great team, Ben and I, and I wanted to keep it that way.

I knocked once on the door before opening it, "Yo, Benny."

He stood up from his game chair. "What's up, Trippy Boy?" We slapped hands in the secret handshake we made up when we were eight. With some modifications of course. We no longer did the booty bump segment of the shake. We decided it was getting a bit weird to do that when we turned thirteen.

I shrugged, "Nothing much. I brought us some snackage. Thought we could play some video games and chill."

He nodded and sat back down. "Yeah, man. Sounds great. I just go the new Call of Duty game. It's wicked. The graphics on here are so much better than the last. I haven't gotten far enough to really get a grasp of the story, but so far I've killed a bunch of shit so I think it's pretty good."

I chuckled, Ben always knew how to judge a good game. In his book, if he got to blow up stuff, he thought it deserved five stars. "Great." I grabbed a controller and sat on his bed. "What else have you been doing?"

He gave me a half smile, "Don't you mean who?"

I snorted and rolled my eyes, "Okay, I'll bite, who?"

He sat up a little straighter and formed a smug look on his face, "Karly St.Claire."

I scoffed, "Bull shit. There's no way."