I slammed my locker shut, a cold feeling spreading through my gut. “No. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yeah, you do. He looks like the kind of guy who spends a lot of time flipping through fashion magazines. And what kind of name is Holden?”
“It’s from Catcher in the Rye,” I said instead of something I’d regret. Or beating his ass.
“Huh?”
“It’s a book about an outcast. A guy who feels like the entire world is drowning him in bullshit.”
Chance frowned stupidly. “So?”
“So…that’s who he might be named after.” I turned back to my locker. “Never mind. The book has no pictures in it. You wouldn’t get it.”
He laughed and gave me a good-natured shove that made me want to rip his arm off.
“Oooh, Whitmore, laying the smack down! I keep forgetting you’re practically half nerd yourself. But hey, whatever fires you up, because today is the day we become legends.”
Chance joined the locker room rowdiness, and I sucked in a deep breath to calm the hell down. His jokes about Holden were tame compared to what I’d heard in the past and would only get worse in college. It was as if there were an invisible barrier around the locker room and the guys couldn’t imagine anyone unlike themselves crossing it.
Coach took a knee, and we all huddled around him, me at the periphery, half-listening to his pregame pep talk. After, he pulled Donte and me aside.
“Reps from Auburn, A&M, and Alabama are here to scout the team. But let’s be real, gentlemen. They’re here for the two of you. Show them what you got, and I think you’re going to have your pick of schools next year.”
Donte’s face grew uncharacteristically serious as his dark brown eyes met mine. “Hell yes, Coach. Whitmore’s got my back and I have his. Right?”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice flat and hard. “I won’t let you down.”
I couldn’t. I was propping up too much to let it all fall now. Dad’s hopeful face swam across my thoughts.
I won’t let you down, either.
And I didn’t.
The Soquel Saints put up a fight but by the second half, we were running away with it. I threw for more than three hundred yards and four touchdowns, practically on autopilot. It was as if my arm couldn’t fail and Donte was always where I needed him to be.
At least no one can accuse me of throwing the game.
Neither Donte, the Homecoming Prince, or I were allowed to change before being hustled out onto the field for the parade. We sat above the backseats of fancy convertibles as the cars slowly made their way around the track, the flag team and marching band in front of us.
Donte sat with Evelyn Gonzalez, while I took my spot as King on a cherry red Mustang GT with Violet McNamara. She looked pretty in black velvet, small and delicate next to my bulk in the stinking uniform.
“If you want to move to the front seat, I’ll understand,” I told Violet through a fake smile as we waved for the crowd.
She laughed, waving shyly. “So long as you shower before the dance, I’m good.”
The dance. And dinner with the team before that.
Shit.
The invisible weight pressed harder. The last thing I wanted to do was slog through a team dinner of self-congratulatory bullshit and then Homecoming, where I’d be expected to dance with Violet in front of the entire school.
Most guys would kill to have these problems.
I smiled, waved, and pretended I wasn’t searching the crowd for silver hair and an outfit better suited to a GQ photo spread than the bleachers at a high school football game. Pretended that Violet’s delicate, feminine beauty was enough for me. Pretended that my body didn’t want someone virile and potent and powerful to unleash itself on instead.
But pretending failed. The truth was staring me straight in the face, no longer dodging just out of sight whenever I tried to look at it straight on.
I wasn’t most guys.
And neither was the one I was searching for.
When the parade ended and the crowds dispersed, I helped Violet off the back of the convertible.
“So I have this team dinner I can’t get out of,” I told her. “I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but I think it’ll cut pretty close to the dance. Is it tacky to ask that we meet there?”
Violet grinned. “My parents will be bummed to miss out on the photo op, but I think they’ll survive.”
I smiled. Violet was a cool girl. Smart. Easy-going. Beautiful. And yet my thoughts kept straying to the fact that I’d had Holden Parish’s phone number burning a hole in my letterman jacket pocket.
She joined Evelyn Gonzalez and some other friends while I jogged to the players’ bench where Coach, Donte, and a few men wearing khakis and polo shirts stood talking. My dad was with them. As I approached, Donte shook hands with them all and jogged to the locker room.
“Your turn,” he said, beaming his mega-watt smile.
“Hey there, champ!” Dad said, patting me on the shoulder pads. “Great game! Incredible. I think that’s one for the record books, isn’t it, Frank?”
Coach Kimball laughed and nodded. “Yes, sir. Come on over here, River. I’d like you to meet these gentlemen.”
Dutifully, I shook hands with the scouts and endured their complimentary review of the game. The three of them took turns talking up their schools, ribbing each other good-naturedly, while Dad and Coach looked on, wearing identical proud expressions.
“We think you’ve got something special, River,” the guy from Auburn said. “Must’ve gotten it from your dad, eh? Weren’t you pro, Mr. Whitmore?”
I winced.
