Sweat clouded my vision as a hand pounded me on the back. “God damn, Ham. You’re in rare form. What’d you eat for breakfast? Or should I say...who? I’m thinking it can’t be the same nasty Cora you have every day.”
I ripped my chinstrap open and pulled my helmet off to glare at Ten. “Not funny. That’s my girlfriend you’re disrespecting.”
He lifted both hands as if to surrender, but his grin was still as cocky as ever. “I’m just saying, man...you have a lot more energy than usual.”
“Whatever.” Turning away, I jogged back toward Noel where he was having the team huddle up for another play.
Hot August sun poured down on us, making my heavy pads wet from my own sweat and sticky with every movement. I did feel more energized than usual, though it had nothing to do with what my irritating roommate was suggesting.
The idea still made me uncomfortable, though. I hated how he’d just put the image of Zoey into my head. Mere months ago, I didn’t even know what it meant to eat out a girl, and now...I knew how it tasted. I didn’t want to start wondering what another flavor would be like. I liked the flavor I had. I was faithful to my taste buds. Dr. Pepper was my drink. Strawberry was my ice cream. Pepperoni was my pizza. And Cora was my girl. What was Ten trying to accomplish by tempting me toward something else?
I didn’t appreciate it.
“Change of plans,” Coach called. “First stringers take four laps and hit the showers. Everyone else line up for a couple more plays.”
Ready for a hard run to help jog off the sudden tension I was feeling, I took off toward the track circling the field. A lap later, I found myself running alongside Ten and Noel. Needing to exhaust more energy today than usual, I wondered if Noel would be able to stay a couple minutes longer with me after we ran. Coach had told me that if Noel kept working with me one-on-one to be a quarterback, I might even take over the spot of the second-string quarterback. That was the position I really wanted, so it’d be a double bonus if I asked Noel for a few tips before we finished for the day.
In my opinion, he was a better coach than Coach. He was more patient and could pick out a person’s strengths and weaknesses. He knew exactly what kind of things I needed to work on the most to improve. The guy really was my mentor; I looked up to him more than about anyone I knew.
Case in point: when he’d realized his younger brothers and sister Caroline were being neglected by their mother, he’d driven hundreds of miles down to where they lived and gathered all three of them up, then brought them back to Ellamore to live with him. That was exactly the kind of family devotion to earn my respect. Made me wish I’d had a big brother when I was growing up.
But as the three of us jogged side by side, I noticed Noel was particularly quiet today. Usually, he and Ten carried on the conversation while we finished our end-of-practice laps. But Ten was the only one talking, describing this girl he was pursuing in his history class, and Noel wasn’t responding at all. I usually only listened, so Ten wasn’t too concerned about my lack of input, but he finally did scowl at Noel.
“What the fuck is wrong with you today?” He nudged his elbow into Noel’s forearm.
“Hmm?” Noel ripped his gaze away from the baseball diamond not far from our practice field. “You know, if you guys won’t tell me which baseball player had that picture of Aspen on his phone, I can find out other ways.”
Ten groaned. “Jesus, man. Can’t you just let that drop? I told you we took care of it.”
Noel shot him a glare. “Would you be able to let something like that go? He was spreading around indecent pictures of my woman. Damn it.” He stopped running and ran his hands through his hair as he continued to stare daggers across the football field to where the baseball players were also having an afternoon practice. “It was one of those fuckers...right...over...there.”
Eyes hardening with intent, he began to stride that way when Ten caught his arm. “Whoa, man. We haven’t finished our laps yet.”
“Screw the laps. I need to kill that bastard. I need him dead. Right now.”
“No, you need to screw your fucking head on right. It won’t do your woman any good to expose yourself, which would, in effect, expose her. Now keep running.”
Noel gritted his teeth, shook his head as if to fight off his rage and then started running again. Ten and I fell into step on either side of him.
“I wonder if the fucker got the picture from Marci Bennett.” I knew Marci was the girl who’d taken the picture of Noel and Aspen together. She’d gotten Aspen fired...because she’d wanted Noel for herself. “What if she’s spreading them around to everyone? What if—”