I have to blink about a hundred times while I process what he’s saying, and it doesn’t help that he won’t meet my eyes. Even his hands are jammed in his pockets, like he wants to hide from me as much as possible when he tells me this. “Hold up. You’re telling me the team wants to throw the homecoming game, of all games, just so they can fuck me over in front of a scout who isn’t even really coming to scout me? They wanna look like shit the year they’re finally not shit just so a girl can’t get a chance at a future?”

He closes his eyes for a deep inhale, then slowly sighs it out. “Uh, yeah, that’s about the gist of it.”

There’s no use waiting for an “I tried to talk them out of it,” because of course he didn’t; what would the fucking point even be? “That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah, well, Dan Sanchez isn’t planning to go to college on an academic scholarship, so.”

I might laugh if I weren’t so pissed. “It’s not like I’m the only one this screws over. If we blow the game, no one is getting scouted.”

For the first time since he walked in, Miguel looks up at me, his expression managing to juggle looking tired, amused, and irritated. “No one was ever gonna get scouted other than you, Walsh. Everyone knows that. No one would be throwing this if they thought they had a chance in hell at a future in football.”

“Maybe they don’t have a chance in hell at a future in football because they’re too busy being misogynistic pricks to work on their game.”

“Maybe!” Miguel throws up his arms in frustration. “Look, I hate this too. I hate that I looked over my shoulder the whole ride here, and I hate that I just sat through that fucking ridiculous team meeting, and I hate that my boyfriend is mad at me and I’m mad at Loud and all of us are in a shitshow. All I ever wanted to do was play football and have a few people around to get me through my four years until I could go off to Miami, and now all of that’s in the toilet. And yeah,” he says, his dark eyes burning into mine, “I really hate the way they treat you and that I’m too chickenshit to stop it. It’s not even purely being chickenshit.”

“I know.”

“If I thought it’d make a difference—”

“I know.” And I do. But I don’t say that it’d make a difference to me. Because everything he’s saying, all this drama … it’s because of me. And I don’t have the right to ask for anything else.

Do I?