“Plus, you have a habit of making some less than stellar decisions when you drink,” Rae adds.
“I haven’t missed a single game or practice all year long. Hell, I haven’t missed a fucking practice or game ever. I got sick sophomore year, they taped an IV to my arm all day, and I played that night. Dad fucked a student, and I still showed up for practice.”
“Your ass got saved by Caleb’s friend in med school,” Lincoln challenges me. “If he hadn’t come by to pop another IV in your arm, you’d have missed a dozen practices and likely a few games by now.”
“But the only reason you know that is because you live here,” I point out. “On the field, you can’t tell, and neither can the rest of the team.”
“We don’t want to go to the coaches,” Ian says. “We’re trying to work this out with you.”
I pull in another breath and release it just as fast. “I’m just trying to enjoy my senior year of college. If I was driving home wasted, or sticking needles in my arms, or something that warranted this kind of concern, I’d be taking a step back.”
Raegan reaches for her phone. “How many examples do you need?”
“How many do you have?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes. “Strip poker.”
“That was one time, and I was having a rough week.”
She turns her phone around to show me evidence of that night, forcing me to relive the tiny pair of basketball shorts she and Lincoln had procured after I literally lost my shorts.
“I can’t believe you took a picture of those. You can see my nuts.”
Raegan cringes. “Solely for blackmailing purposes, I can assure you.” She lowers her phone. “My point is, strip poker was mildly stupid, but you keep getting more daring and increasingly more stupid.”
“Poppy, have I been stupid?” I ask. “Give us some psychological insight.”
“Nice try,” Poppy says, pushing a lock of dark red hair back from her face and tucking it behind one ear. “I’m not going there.”
“You know that means she’s on my side when she won’t defend you.” I swing my attention back to Raegan, who likely isn’t even the ringleader of this little intervention of sorts. It’s tricky to say who is leading the charge. Ian was up my ass for a couple of weeks after his girlfriend, Rose, and I ended up at the same party where I was trying to find the bright side of my recent breakup with my long-term girlfriend, Candace, at the bottom of a bottle. Needless to say, I was drunk and with a hot girl who didn’t care about anything but a good time when Rose dragged me out of the house. I hammered the final nail into my own coffin when I lost my stomach and proceeded to take a nap on the front lawn. Ian had to come and drive my sorry ass home. It wasn’t my finest hour.
But, aside from that instance, I’ve been getting my shit together. The moment was a wake-up call for me as well. No more blacking out or passing out. No random girls, I haven’t even responded to Candace, who I have a habit of going back to after a few weeks with the hope of a different result. I open the backseat to grab my duffle bag, and an empty beer can rolls out, falling to the driveway with a loud clang. Correction, my shit is mostly together.
“You have worked your ass off to be as great as you are. We don’t want to see you piss that away in exchange for a few nights of fun,” Ian tells me.
The joke is on me because the nights in question haven’t been all that fun.
“We’ve got two and half months left until the final bowl game,” Lincoln says. “After that, it won’t matter as much, but right now, you’re under a magnifying glass, and everyone is watching.”
I sling my bag over my shoulder. “So, is this an ultimatum or what?”
“We’re trying to offer you our support,” Raegan says. “And we’re probably not doing it in the best way, but we love you, and we support you, and we want you to reach your dream. This is it, Pax. Everything you’ve worked so hard for, it all ends this year. You made it this far, and as Ian said, we don’t want to see it all slip away now, not after all you’ve done and all you’ve achieved.”
I swipe a hand down my face. “Intervention, then?”
“Basically,” Rae admits. “But it’s because we love you.”
Lincoln places his hand on her shoulder and nods. “And because we know what you’re capable of. You’ve had one hell of a year, man. I know it’s been rough. But you can’t keep chasing that pain with a drink or a hit off the bong.”
“We’ve got you,” Arlo says. “Us, Caleb, and the rest of the team—we’ve all got you.”
“Is this like the movies where you ask me to give you my stash? Because if so, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. My stash is in the kitchen.” I pick up the can that had fallen and toss it in the air before catching it.
“No more alcohol for a while. We don’t want you to become dependent,” Rae tells me. “We want you to have fun and enjoy your senior year, and you deserve to, but it can’t be at the expense of your safety and future.”
I want to remind them all that I’m not doing anything illegal, that my actions aren’t that far from what many other college students do—including members of our football team—but I know they’ll tell me the same lines. As the quarterback and captain of the football team, I’m held to a higher standard. That my
