“Do I really have to prove to you that I’m here for the team, Coach? I’ve done everything you’ve asked. Everything. I’ve learned every play, including, yeah, Open Sesame. I know every single player on this team’s strengths and weaknesses, every blind spot. You just asked me how I was feeling about tonight and here’s my answer: I feel good about it with people I can trust. And I think we can win it with people I trust. So, if you trust me, you’ll let me win this for us.”

“That’s not how this works. Let me talk to the team—”

“With all due respect, sir, we both know how this really works. There’s only one real question here, and it’s how badly you care about winning tonight.”

We stand in a fiery face-off until the inevitable happens: Kennedy scores, and whether that’s because our team is intentionally blowing it or they just suck is irrelevant. We’re losing, and if I’m right, we’re not getting back up.

“What’s your plan?” he finally grunts.

I lay it out, my brain calculating and recalculating with each move how to make this work if Burke, Santiago, and I run every play that matters. To his credit, Coach listens, but he cuts me off when I say we can get away with Open Sesame one more time.

“It won’t work twice,” he says bluntly. “Not just because the other team won’t fall for it again, but because you and Santiago will run yourselves out. Use Barnes.”

“Barnes? Barnes has been riding the bench the entire season. You’re gonna put him in?”

“Your turn to trust me,” Coach says.

So I do.

By the end of the first quarter, we’re down 14–6, but there’s nothing I can do to control the defense. What’s more important is that Coach was right about Barnes, and I saw exactly why—he’s the most passable of the second-string, but he never gets a shot because our fearless captain rarely sits. Tonight, though, it was easy to bench Devlin when he intentionally flubbed a catch and handed Kennedy an interception, and there’s no way in hell Sam Barnes was missing his chance to finally show what he can do.