Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 109903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
They filed down the hall to the locker room. That door was unlocked, and the lights were on inside, but the lounge was empty. Neil went to investigate while Aaron and Kevin got settled. A hallway connected the lounge to the foyer, the official meet-and-greet room where the Foxes could speak to the press before and after games. The door on the foyer's back wall, which led into the stadium itself, was still locked. Neil backtracked to the hall where the changing rooms and offices were. Wymack's office door was closed, but if Neil listened for a minute he heard Wymack's muffled voice through the wood. Satisfied no one was here who shouldn't be, Neil went back to the others.
Aaron and Kevin were rearranging the furniture when Neil walked in. Neil watched as they pushed the chairs and couches into a V-shape, then asked, "What are you doing?"
"Finding a new way to make us fit," Aaron said, "unless you want to stare an empty chair in the face all season."
"It's the same number of cushions," Neil said.
"Four people barely fit on a couch. Five is out of the question."
"Five?"
Kevin looked at him like he was stupid. Neil was painfully familiar with that look by now, but even after four months working with Kevin he still didn't appreciate it.
"You do know your place, don't you?" Kevin asked.
Until Saturday night, Neil had never been stupid enough to think he had a place. Andrew promised he could change that, but his protection had a price tag. Andrew would protect Neil from his past if Neil helped him keep Kevin at Palmetto State. It sounded easy enough, but Nicky warned him there was more to it. Neil was supposed to do it from the inside of Andrew's dysfunctional group. He couldn't hide on the fringes anymore.
Neil looked at the new arrangement in the lounge again and understood. This summer Andrew's four had all squished onto one couch. Now they could spread out, three on the couch and two to the chairs on either side. The remaining upperclassmen got the couch and chair opposite them.
Neil started for the chair on the end, since he'd always had the outside seat, but Aaron sank into it first. Neil hesitated a second too long, and Aaron finally spelled it out for him. "You're on the couch with Kevin and Andrew. Sit down."
"I don't like being boxed in," Neil said, "and I don't want to sit next to your brother."
"Nicky put up with it for a year," Aaron said. "You can deal with it."
"You're his family," Neil said, not like it meant a thing to them. Wymack only recruited athletes from broken homes. At the Foxhole Court "family" was a fantasy invented to make books and Hollywood movies more interesting. Neil knew it was a lost cause even as he said it, so he took the seat Aaron had assigned him.
Kevin sat after Neil did, leaving space between them for Andrew. Neil looked around the room again and wondered how the upperclassmen would adjust to the new layout. His stare fell on the oversized schedule hanging above the TV and his stomach knotted as he read down the list. Friday, October 13th was the day the last-ranked Foxes went up against the first-ranked Edgar Allan University Ravens. It was bound to be a disaster.
Wymack's door opened down the hall, but a half-second later the phone started ringing. Wymack didn't bother to close his door again before answering. From what Neil could hear, someone was harassing Wymack about the team's tiny line-up. Wymack's obvious irritation made his reassurances less than convincing, but Neil knew he believed every word he was saying. Wymack didn't care if he had nine Foxes or twenty-five. He'd stand behind them until the bitter, bloody end.
Wymack was still going at it when the lounge door opened. Captain Danielle Wilds was the first into the room, but her boyfriend Matt Boyd and best friend Renee Walker were right behind her. They only made it a couple steps into the room before grinding to a halt.
Dan pointed at Neil but stared at Kevin. "What is that about?"
Aaron answered, "You knew what it meant when we took him Saturday night."
Wymack slammed his phone down. Neil wondered if the argument really was over or if he'd used the arrival of more Foxes as an excuse to get off the phone. He strode into the lounge a couple seconds later and followed Dan's finger to Neil. He looked from Neil to Kevin to Aaron, then around the room at the new layout, then back at Neil.
"Last I checked Andrew didn't like you," Wymack said.
"He still doesn't," Neil said, but he didn't bother to explain.
"Interesting." Wymack eyed Neil a moment longer before turning on the upperclassmen. "Sit down, would you? We need to talk."
Wymack leaned against the entertainment center and waited for them to get settled. He folded his arms across his chest and studied each of his Foxes in turn.
"Abby wrote me a speech to give you this afternoon. It sounded nice, had lots of stuff about courage and loss and coming together in everyone's time of need. I tore it up and tossed it in the trash can beside my desk.
"I'm not here to offer you kind words and pats on the back. I'm not here to be a shoulder to cry on. Take that up with Abby or go down to Reddin and talk to Betsy. My job is to be your coach no matter what, to keep you moving and get you back on the court whether you're ready to be there or not. That probably makes me the bad guy here, but we all have to live with it."
Wymack looked at the empty chairs across from him. Palmetto State's Exy team was on its fifth year now. Wymack built the Foxes from the ground up and handpicked Seth for his first starting line. Between the players' personal problems, a faulty original contract that let players walk out, and the option to graduate in four years instead of five, Seth was the only one who'd made it to a fifth year with the team. Seth had been a lot of things, most of them unpleasant, but he'd definitely been a fighter. Now he was gone.