I didn’t sleep much back at the Marriott. I kept replaying my conversation with Charlie, and the thought of leaving Blenheim without an offer sent sour pangs ripping through my stomach. This would have been stressful enough, but in addition Reshawn slept only in his boxer shorts on top of the duvet cover, and even when I turned my face away from his body, I could still see the light from the parking lot outlining his pecs and ab muscles, the thick clefts in his quadriceps.
I was bleary when Chase and Devonté collected us the next morning. This time we took Chase’s truck, a souped-up Ford with oversized tires that forced me and Reshawn to hop into the cab’s backseats and a sound system so powerful the tinted windows shuddered every time the bass line throbbed with a blaring rap song. Small talk impossible, I leaned my head against the window and got my first sustained daytime views of town.
Blenheim was described as a “sleepy southern burg” in that history I’d read, and judging from the road we were driving down, the place didn’t ever really wake up: rows of fast food signs like so many ships’ masts, bail bonds and checks cashed, XXX and Jesus Saves, the buildings worn and weather-eaten, hunched and darkening in a way that the clean dull sprawl of central Colorado hadn’t prepared me for. I would see a dead-eyed Laundromat and think the place was closed, only to then watch customers walk out of it, while places I assumed were open would, on second look, have chains strung through their door handles or neon condemned notices stickered to their windows. There were flashes of Blenheim’s former glory—a grand Romanesque church, an art deco movie house—but these just served to emphasize how ramshackle and exhausted most of the town was.
The vibe changed the instant we passed beneath a high stone arch with King College’s motto carved into it—Virtus et Veritas. A one-lane road wound gently through pristine pine forest, and among the trees I spotted King’s cross-country team training on a dirt path, the runners’ breaths smoking in the crisp air, the pale legs of the white kids splotched red by the cold. The forest dropped away and the landscape opened into the school’s athletic region, scarcely more populated than the Blenheim we’d just driven through, and yet with an air of voluptuous indolence rather than abandonment. The empty baseball diamonds were manicured, the unused lacrosse and soccer fields immaculate.
Our destination rose into view: the Hay Memorial Football Center and the horseshoe-shaped football stadium downhill to the right. The Hay was a five-story brick fortress with Gothic stone accents. Two stern oaks flanked its façade, and a cold-looking flagstone path led up to the entrance. Chase parked at the bottom of the path and said they would pick us up here this evening to take us to a special party for recruits.
Reshawn hopped out, but I remained nailed to my seat, staring at the Hay. So long as I didn’t enter, I wouldn’t be rejected.
Chase saw me panicking in the rearview.
—All good, man. Remember all the offers you already got.
I blew out a breath and hopped down, walking with Reshawn into what was the Hay’s third floor (the bottom two levels were underground, built into the hill). We took an elevator to the Hay’s fifth floor, and by the time we stepped into the lobby, my throat was so cottony I could barely reciprocate the secretaries’ hellos.
Reshawn was called back first. I waited on a purple pleather couch, right leg joggling fiercely in place as I examined the action shots of King Football players on the walls—glossy photos of wide receivers diving to catch passes, King defenders crunching opponents, godly bodies in glorious jerseys I would superimpose myself onto only to worry I was in danger of jinxing my chances. Five minutes later Charlie, the kid from last night, walked out of the open entryway I’d seen Reshawn disappear into. Charlie was alone, and there was a defeated cast to his face that told me his cynicism last night had been a front; he’d been hoping for an offer at his meeting and had just come from not getting one. I looked at the action shots again, pretending not to notice him as he despondently waited for the elevator.
An hour had passed by the time Coach Hightower led me through the back half of the floor. We walked down a hallway that smelled of fresh computer paper and stale coffee, passing coaches’ offices, conference rooms, film rooms. Reshawn was exiting the corner office just as we reached it, and he looked even more downcast than Charlie had. But I couldn’t linger on why that might be, not now. I only had room for my own nervousness, which was reaching such an irrational pitch that when my shoulder brushed against Reshawn’s I hoped some of his magical luck rubbed off on me.
George Zeller, head coach of King Football, stood behind his desk. At twenty-nine, Zeller was the youngest head coach in Division One. He’d come to Blenheim two years earlier to work as defensive coordinator, and after King posted last year’s winless season and fired its head coach, he’d been tapped for the top job. Sandy-haired, azure-eyed, and six inches taller than me, the man had a chest perpetually puffed by the muscle he’d retained from his defensive end days at TCU, not to mention the confidence of somebody who’d summited the sport before the age of thirty.
—Miles! How you feelin’ today? Strong?
Zeller did the shake-and-squeeze, holding my biceps for an extra count.
—Feelin’ strong. Feelin’ like you’re ‘bout ready to take a receiver’s damn head off!
We sat, Zeller behind his desk, Hightower and I across from him in unforgiving wooden chairs. The corner walls to my right were floor-to-ceiling windows that gave views of the stadium and practice fields.
—So how you likin’ the Hay?
—It’s beautiful,
