She’s dating one of my teammates. It doesn’t matter if she was flirting with me or why. It doesn’t matter if she came to my rescue at the pep rally, or got me to Midnight Breakfast, or thinks I look cute in my glasses. If I’m not letting all the other shit distract me, I’m certainly not letting a pair of legs do it.

Not even really good legs that can do absolutely mind-blowing things.

“You’re doing great, Walsh,” Sundstrom says, bringing my attention back to the huddle. A couple of the guys grunt in agreement. I can’t look around to see who without being obvious, but my money’s on Santiago and Burke, the only two guys who ever give me so much as a nod. “This is our game to lose, and we get to slow things down now.” He turns to me. “You ready to run again? Or you need a rest?”

“No, Coach,” I say automatically. And I don’t. I feel great. Physically, anyway. “I’m good. Lemme run.”

I get a gruff nod, and then he turns to say something to Devlin, so I let my gaze travel back to the field. Amber and the cheerleaders are doing a bunch of complicated jumps and yelling and, God, the way her entire face lights up when she’s doing this. She looks like I feel, like she can’t believe she gets to do this thing she was absolutely born for. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one on the team specifically checking her out either. But I am the one who can’t get caught doing it, so I put my full focus on the huddle, let Coach pep-talk us a little more, and then shout and break.

And okay, maybe I glance in her direction one more time, just to make sure she’s watching.

She is.

Not only do I throw fifteen yards in the most beautifully perfect spiral for our third touchdown, but I end up running in another one in the fourth quarter. A 33–7 win is a wider spread than the Alligators have seen in a long time, even in their luckiest wins, and it feels so damn good, especially when I catch my parents waving and hollering in the crowd. My dad drove four hours to get here, and I’m so fucking happy I made it worth his while. I won’t even dwell on how my brothers opted to stay back and be babysat by my grandma rather than join.

All around me, the guys are leaping on one another and slapping each other’s asses, pouring Gatorade on Sundstrom that splashes far enough to hit the assistant coaches, too. I let myself wait for two minutes for congratulations that never come, and I know that somehow, even this win is being attributed to the ghost of Robbie fucking Oakes.