Cora Carmack - All Lined Up

Saturday is our season opener, an away game. And even though I’m not expecting to play, I’ve been squeezing in as much time watching film as possible. Hell, I don’t even know for sure that I’m going to travel. Coach has been playing me second string in practice mostly because James, last year’s backup QB, has been having knee problems since camp at the beginning of August. But there are four or five other quarterbacks on the roster, some of whom have been on the team for a couple years. I’m better than all of them, of that I’m fairly confident, but I don’t want to get complacent and assume Coach sees me as number two.

I know Coach has been over and over these films. It’s his first game, and I know he wants . . . needs to make a strong showing. He’s got just as much to prove as me. But even so, he sits there and watches with me. I have in the tape of last year’s game against our next opponent. It’s not a conference game, but they’re a light team that shouldn’t give us too much trouble as a warm-up.

Coach sits in silence for a long while, and I resist the urge to check my watch for the time or pull out my phone to text Dallas. I’m sure that he’s not even really watching until he points at the screen and says, “You see that?”

“Um . . .” I look back at the screen, totally caught unaware. “That sack?”

I try not to sound like I enjoy the sight of Abrams being flattened, but it’s not an easy task.

“Do you see why, though?”

He rewinds the tape, and we watch it again.

“The safeties have his receivers covered. Moore is busy blocking for him, so he can’t pitch it to him. He ran out of options.”

“Except?”

“Except to run it himself, but he hesitated too long to take advantage of the gap. He relies too much on his arm, and the defense knows it. They’ve got his number.”

“Damn right, they do. The whole damn conference has his number.” I nod in understanding. No one would say it outright, but that was a big part of why they only got three wins last year. Abrams has had a great arm for most of his career, and he’s gotten lazy about all the other aspects of his game.

“He doesn’t have your feet,” Coach says.

I clear my throat because I’m not sure if I imagined his last words. Coach Cole has already said more words to me today than in the entire last month combined. He’s apparently been watching, though. He knows me by name. He pushes me in practice.

As far as I’m concerned, that means I have a shot.

He stands and claps a hand on my shoulder. He answers my unspoken question. “I see you more than I see some of my own damn coaches, son. You’re a good runner with good instincts, but you’re green and your arm could be stronger.”

“Yes, sir.” It could. That’s why I spend more than my fair share in the weight room.

“Tell me, McClain. Why Rusk? Why not stick with Westfield, where you’d play nonstop? You had a scholarship there, and you don’t here. Why take all this risk?”

“Because I want to play football, sir. Really play.”

“You think you can go pro?”

That’s a question I try not to answer even though I get asked a lot. Truthfully, I don’t, though I’ve never admitted it out loud and never will. But that’s been the plan my father and I have had since long before I graduated high school or went to Westfield or transferred to Rusk. That’s been the plan since the moment my dad realized I could play football better than I could do anything else.

“I think I can work as hard as my body allows, and then see what happens. Things might work out. They might not, but at least I’ll be making a go at something I love.”

My parents didn’t ever say sports were all I was good at, not in so many words, but they were always pushing me toward football, always placing it above everything else. No point busting my ass to be passable at math or science when I can bust it to be great at sports. I’m not that smart, but I can run.

Neither of them went to college. Dad worked on the ranch with Grandpa until he died. He and Mom got married right out of high school. Normally, Dad would have been pushing me to do the same, but too many years spent with too little money had changed his mind on what was best for me.

“You sound like my daughter,” Coach says.

I don’t reply. I only heard bits and pieces of their fight, but it’s not something I have any intention of weighing in on.

After a few moments of silence, he claps me on the shoulder once more.

“Go home, McClain. Get some rest. Today was supposed to be an easy day.”

I resist the urge to laugh at the thought of a bleeding day being called easy just because it was shorter than normal. Somehow I don’t think he’d take that too well.

“There are no easy days, sir.”

He smiles grimly. “You are right about that, McClain. Too right.”

I SHOW UP outside Dallas’s dorm even though she texted me to cancel. I don’t know what I plan to do there or how I’ll get her to talk to me, but I can’t make myself just roll over and pretend none of it ever happened.

I stand outside, watching a few people smoking just outside the doors, and I text her.

I’m here for our walk.

She doesn’t reply, so after a few minutes, I call her instead.

It rings, three, four, five times, and I’m getting ready to hang up when she answers, “ What? ”

“I’m downstairs.”

I’m coincidentally looking up at the building when I notice a set of blinds on the third floor being pulled up, and a familiar face peeking out of the glass. I wave, and she steps back from the window until I can’t see her anymore.

“You didn’t get the hint when I didn’t answer any of your calls or when I texted to cancel?”

“I just want to talk,” I say. If I’d had a dozen reasons before that we couldn’t date, I had a hundred now. But I keep hearing what she said outside her dad’s office.

I found out something that upset me.

I keep hearing the break in her voice when she said it, and it’s eating me from the inside out.

“So talk.”

“Can you come down?”

“No.”

I sigh, but she steps up to the window again, her arms crossed over her chest, and I guess that will have to do.

Now . . . I just need to figure out what to say.

The silence stretches on for several long moments and she adds, “This is you talking?”

I snap, “I’m sorry, okay? You’re not the only one who got a shock today.”

“If you’re worried that I’m going to tell him, don’t. I know how to keep my mouth shut.”

“Dallas, that’s not it. I don’t care about that.”

“You should. You think he’s tough on you in practice now? It can get much worse. Trust me.”

“I do trust you.”

She makes a noise on the other end that I can’t quite identify.

“This is complicated, I know.”

“Let me uncomplicate it. Whatever might have been going to happen between us, isn’t. I don’t date football players.”

“I don’t want to date you.” I wince. “That came out wrong.” And I realize when I say it, just how much of a lie it is, too. “I like you, have liked you from the moment I met you. But the whole reason I wanted to go on a walk tonight was to explain that despite wanting to date you, I can’t. I decided that long before I knew you were Coach Cole’s daughter.”

“I have a name, you know. God, I’m so sick of just being Coach Cole’s daughter.”

“Before I knew you were Dallas Cole, then. I’m not a scholarship player, Dallas. I could be cut at any moment. And I’m not the best student in the world, which puts me even more at risk. If I want to stay on the team, I have to stay focused. I have to work hard. And for now at least, that means no dating.”