Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 87395 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87395 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
"How nice to meet you, Neil," Andrew drawled. "It will be a while before we see each other again."
"Somehow I don't think I'm that lucky."
"Like this," Andrew clarified, gesturing between their faces. "It will have to wait until June. Abby threatened to revoke our stadium rights for the summer if we break you sooner than that. Can't have that, can we? Kevin would cry. No worries. We'll wait until everyone's here and Abby has too many other Foxes to worry about. Then we'll throw you a welcome party you won't forget."
"You need to rethink your persuasion techniques. They suck."
"I don't need to be persuasive," Andrew said, putting a hand to Neil's chest as the elevator slowed to a stop. "You'll just learn to do what I say."
The doors slid open behind Neil. As soon as they'd parted enough Andrew gave Neil a small push. Neil tripped backward into the lobby. Andrew shoved past him, bumping him from shoulder to hip, and headed for the door. Kevin was a half-step behind him, and Aaron didn't even look at Neil on his way by. Only Nicky stayed behind long enough to smile at Neil.
"Ready for this?" he asked, and he went on ahead.
Neil remained behind for a few seconds longer to stare at their backs. He was starting to think Kevin wasn't his only problem at Palmetto State. It was almost a relief. Neil couldn't anticipate Kevin; he couldn't ask how much Kevin remembered about his past and he wouldn't know until too late what finally triggered Kevin into remembering him. But Andrew was just a psychotic midget, and Neil had grown up around violence. Handling him would be easy. Neil would just have to be careful.
"Ready," Neil said, and started after his teammates.
CHAPTER THREE
Neil spotted the Foxhole Court long before they made it to the stadium parking lot. Built to seat sixty-five thousand fans, it'd been placed on the outskirts of campus where it could tower over the shorter utilities buildings nearby. The paint job only made it stand out more: the walls were a blinding white with obnoxiously bright orange trim. A gigantic fox paw was painted on each of the four outer walls. Neil wondered how much it cost the university to build and how desperately they regretted the investment, considering the Foxes' miserable return.
They passed four parking lots before turning into a fifth. There were a couple cars already there, probably for maintenance staff or summer school students, but none were parked at the curb closest to the stadium. The stadium itself was surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Gates were placed equidistant down the length of the fence for handling a game night crowd, and all of them were chained shut.
Neil went up to the fence and stared through it at the outer grounds. It was deserted now, the souvenir stands and food stalls boarded up until the season started again, but he could imagine what it'd look like in a couple months. It made every hair on his body stand on end, and his heartbeat echoing in his ears sounded like an Exy ball rebounding off a court wall.
Nicky clapped a hand to Neil's shoulder. "All the orange grows on you," he promised.
Neil twisted his fingers through the metal links and wished he could break the fence down. "Let me in."
"Come on," Nicky said, and led him down the fence.
They'd reached the end of the gates—they'd parked by 24, and the next was 1. Between the two gates was a narrow door sealed with an electronic keypad. The door led to a hallway that cut the outer grounds in two; whoever made it as far as gate 24 would have to go into the stadium and through the stands to reach gate 1. The others were waiting for Nicky and Neil outside that door. Aaron had brought the whiskey with him.
"This is our entrance," Nicky said. "Code changes every couple months, but Coach always lets us know when it does. Right now it's 0508. May and August, get it? Coach and Abby's birth months. Told you they were boning. When's your birthday?"
"It was in March," Neil lied.
"Oh, we missed it. But we recruited you in April, so that should count as the world's greatest present. What'd your girlfriend get you?"
Neil looked at him. "What?"
"Come on, cute face like yours has to have a girlfriend. Unless you swing my way, of course, in which case please tell me now and save me the trouble of having to figure it out."
Neil stared at him, wondering how Nicky could care about such things when the stadium was right there. They knew the code to get inside, but they were standing around like his answer was the secret password. Neil looked from Nicky to the keypad and back again.
"What's it matter?" he asked.
"I'm curious," Nicky said.
"He means nosey," Aaron said.
"I don't swing either way," Neil said. "Let's go in."
"Bullshit," Nicky said.
"I don't," Neil said, and impatience put an edge in his voice. It wasn't quite the truth, but it was close enough. "Are we going in or not?"
In response, Kevin tapped in the code and pulled the door open. "Go," he said.
Neil didn't have to be told twice. He went down the hall, already turning his key ring over in his hands. The hall ended at another door marked FOXES. He showed the key ring to Kevin in silent question. Kevin fingered the appropriate key.
It was strange sliding it into the knob and listening to the lock clack undone. Coach Hernandez occasionally let Neil sleep in the Millport High locker room, but it never occurred to him to give Neil a key. Instead he looked the other way whenever Neil broke in. Keys meant Neil had explicit permission to be here and do what he liked. They meant he belonged.
The first room was a lounge. Three chairs and two couches took up most of the space, forming a semicircle around an entertainment center. The TV was obscenely large, and Neil couldn't wait to watch a game on it. Posted above the TV on the wall was a list of sports and news channels.