It was true. We hadn’t gotten our asses handed to us in the loss. It had been by only three points — a field goal that was scored too late in the last quarter for us to do anything about it, though we tried.

“Our victory may not be tonight,” Holden said, nodding as he looked around. “But it still exists. Our championship is waiting. Now, are you going to turn your back on it because we’re losing some of our family? Our brothers,” he said, gesturing to a couple of our seniors. He smirked then, arching a brow back at Coach. “Our Pops.”

He somehow made us all chuckle, even in the darkest hour, and Coach socked him across the arm — but he was smiling, too.

“Do you think they’d want us to give up?”

One of the seniors stood, pointing his gargantuan finger at all of us. “If you don’t win next year, I’ll fly back from wherever I am in the country and kick every single one of your asses.”

Another senior popped up to join him. “I’ll help.”

“See?” Holden said, gesturing to them. “Today, this loss? It stings. It hurts like hell. It feels unfair, like our one shot was stolen. But that’s just it — this isn’t our last bullet. We have another in the chamber.” He paused, letting that sink in. “So, are we going to throw in the towel? Or are we going to fight?”

“Fight!” Leo said, jumping up from where he was seated in front of a locker.

“Fight!” Zeke echoed, jumping up, too.

One after the other, every member of our team stood, thrusting their fists in the air with their brows bent, a new fire lit.

I stood last, crouched over as I bobbed my head and sifted through the crowd like a creature of the night. I walked to the rhythm of a song not playing, but Kyle caught on, and he started drumming out a beat on the nearest locker.

“Who are we?!”

“NBU!”

Their response was so loud it nearly knocked me on my ass.

“What do we want?!”

“What all champs do!”

Anyone walking past that locker room would have thought we were insane. We just lost the bowl game — and here we were chanting like we’d won it.

“How do we win?”

“Fight with class!”

“And if all else fails?”

“KICK THEIR ASS!”

That last part was garbled and riddled with what sounded like war cries from everyone in the room. Helmets hit against lockers, cleats stomped on the floor, and my teammates beat their chests like warriors.

I glanced at Holden through the madness, who wore a slight tilt of his mouth as he nodded at me — my captain, and I, his new first mate.

It didn’t matter that Coach was leaving.

It would be our season next year.

And no one would take it from us.

Giana