Since they had watched Davis play in the scrimmage against the Junior Woodsmen and knew he was all right, the mood among the offensive players had lightened. They were still practicing, but it felt different from when I had first started dropping by a few months before. Today some of the Junior Woodsmen were there, too, filling in as defense as they ran through plays. I saw the new coach, Jim Roberts, involved in a discussion with some other guys who were probably his new assistants. I wanted to clear my throat and signal to them to look at César, in case they were missing that he was their best player.
Instead I put myself against the wall and hid between some of the blocking dummies. I wasn’t actually supposed to come around and certainly not so often, but almost every day, I found myself in the car, plodding along at the speed limit over to this big, orange building. Luckily, César didn’t mind my presence, even though some of the other guys (Jory especially) thought it was weird and gave both of us some crap about it. Jory’s opinion mattered none, because he had a few quirks of his own. For example, two days ago, I had watched him strip down to change his clothes in the parking lot—strip bare, like totally naked and barefoot in the dirty slush. I had gotten quite an eyeful before César put his hand over my face and walked us away, yelling at Jory to cover his pasty ass.
I realized that my hiding spot hadn’t been the best when I saw Coach Roberts waving at me. I waved back and he walked over, leaving the assistant coaches huddled around a tablet.
“Camdyn?” he asked, and I nodded. “I thought I saw you the other day, too.”
“Oh, did you?” I played surprise. “Well, I work for the Woodsmen, so I’m around here and there.”
It turned out that he wasn’t interested in tracking my movements; he wanted to talk about his daughter, Meredith, and her moving to Michigan. He was trying to be diplomatic but it was clear that she considered our part of the world a giant step down from her current oceanside lifestyle in California.
“I feel like if she had some friends, it might make it easier for her,” he concluded.
I was confused about why he was trying to organize a playdate for his grown daughter, but since this was César’s boss, I went along. “I’d be happy to hang out and show her around.”
“You and César might be busy this summer, though,” he said, and smiled. “When are you due?”
I swallowed. “July.”
“April’s not that far away from July!” he said, still smiling. “You don’t have too much longer to go. I remember my wife being very nervous with her first pregnancy. The next one was a piece of cake.”
“Oh, no, I won’t be having…that’s good to hear,” I said, changing midstream.
Someone yelled on the practice field and we both turned to look.
“Seems like the Juniors are getting a little chippy,” Coach Roberts commented. “They all feel like they have something to prove, playing against—oh, no, I’m going to put a stop to this.” He started out onto the turf, just as one of the Junior Woodsmen shoved Gunnar Christensen in the back. I watched as Jory took a swing at someone, Davis Blake grabbed a jersey, and César got right in the middle of it. Arms started to windmill.
I didn’t really realize that I also was running toward them until my boot slid a little on the fake grass. I also didn’t realize that I was screaming until I tried to yell at them to stop, but my voice box was already in use.
“Knock it off, knock it off!” I shouted, and I charged into the scrum. Then two arms encircled me and I was airborne, carried off backwards and away.
“César, I’ve got your girlfriend,” a voice bellowed in my ear, like I was a hostage. But then the arms put me down, and I turned and saw Gunnar.
By that point, the fight was mostly over, and ended completely when the coach and some of the other players yanked Jory and a Junior Woodsmen player apart. Jory’s eye was swelling but the other guy looked worse, battered and bloody. César stalked over to me and Gunnar. “What the hell were you doing, Camdyn?” he asked. Yelled. “Were you seriously going to break up this fight?”
“I…” Yeah, that had been a bad idea. Coach Roberts and the other players were now staring at me, too, because suddenly I had become the center of attention. “I was acting in my capacity as a Woodsmen employee,” I announced loudly. “Last fall, the team got publicly embarrassed by some stories that came out about the players. What do you think would happen if news of this fight got out?” I looked around. “Trades, that’s what would happen.” I realized that my skirt had hiked up a lot during my sprint, so I pulled it down. “Clean it up, boys,” I admonished them, and they stared at me. I cleared my throat. “Um, ok, that’s all I needed to say.”
César was not impressed. “We’re leaving,” he announced. He took my arm and we marched off the field. He grabbed his bag and marched me more, this time into the parking lot.
“I have my car…never mind,” I concluded, when he turned to stare at me.
He didn’t speak again until we were driving away from the practice facility. “What in the hell were you thinking, jumping in like that?” he finally exploded. “Do you know what could have happened to you?”
“Well, if Jory had hit me like he did to that Junior Woodsmen—”
“That’s not funny!” César barked. “There’s nothing funny here! On top of the possibility of you getting injured, what do you think it looks like in front of my teammates and my new coaches that you did that? That I needed my pregnant girl—”
“Now, let’s
