Kingston says this is the best time of our lives. Me? I’m not so sure about that. I don’t want to really believe that, but as I look around at the middle-aged men wearing their old high-school football rings—some of them state championship rings—I think maybe he could be right. Because they’re all stuck in that time.

Will that be Kingston and me someday?

Maybe.

And while that’s a comforting thought to Kingston, it’s a terrifying one for me.

This can’t be all we are.

We all shower and change after the game. Kingston and I are the last to head out of the locker-room. His arm drapes over my shoulder. “Hell of a game, QB.”

I roll my eyes, but I can’t hold back the smile on my face. “Don’t call me that. We’ve known each other since we were four. It’s weird.”

“Aw, you’ll always be my quarterback though.” I roll my eyes again, but he only chuckles, a happy laugh falling from his lips. “Fine, Prescott. Where are we celebrating tonight?”

I guess using my last name is better than fucking QB. I don’t want to just be the high-school quarterback. I never have. But apparently, the one thing my deadbeat dad gave me before disappearing right after my seventh birthday was one hell of a throwing arm. “I can’t. Mom picked up an extra shift at the tavern. I gotta watch Lucy.”

My mom had Lucy almost five years ago, when I was thirteen. And even though we don’t share the same dad, that kid means everything to me. Blonde hair and blue eyes, she must have gotten from her dad because my mom and I both have brown hair and green eyes. But Lucy is the happiest kid ever.

Don’t know where she got that either.

Kingston seems to be thinking that over for a moment—thinking too hard, if you ask me—and he shrugs. “Okay. Sounds good. Let’s go party with little Lucy. I’m here for it. That kid is funny as hell.”

I shove him off me, pulling the keys to my beat-up old truck out of my jeans pocket. “You don’t need to hang out with a four-year-old after we just won that game. She’s probably already in bed, anyway. Go party. Tell me about it tomorrow, and don’t do anything stupid.”

“First of all, she’s almost five. She wants a princess party, by the way.” He grabs his own keys, heading for his obnoxious early 70’s Mustang that’s parked next to my truck. “Second, I miss Luce. I gotta go say hi. I am her favorite, after all.”

Isn’t that the truth?