Booker thought about it. “Do what?”

Booker Flamont was now the starting middle linebacker for the Elmwood Heights Badgers, which was quite a leap from the previous three years, during which he had served as a third-string backup on special teams.

He currently stood six-four, 248, with chiseled muscles from head to toe. This, too, was quite a change from the previous seasons, in which he had weighed in at a paltry 157 wrapped in a wet towel. The dramatic increase in size and strength was due to two contributing factors: intensification of his weight-lifting routine and a newfound affinity for steroid use, which he and most of his teammates had developed during the off-season.

It was Booker’s best friend, Manny Deluccio, the Elmwood Badgers flanker, who kept the team well stocked with juice. Manny had been dealing in various narcotics since the eighth grade, but it wasn’t until last spring that he hooked up with El Toro Grande, his Mexican connection, whose primary export had in a matter of months drastically altered the size—and personalities—of the majority of the Badgers’ roster.

El Toro Grande manufactured and distributed his product from a deserted shoe factory just across the Rio Grande from El Paso. The product for which he had become famous in underground circles was a performance-enhancing drug commonly known as Hombre Muchacho. The only thing anyone in Elmwood, Texas knew of Hombre Muchacho was that it looked like urine, smelled like brine, and was about twice as potent as your run-of-the-mill steroid favored by a large number of today’s world-class athletes.

Realizing the benefits of just one dose was all it took for Booker Flamont to begin indulging in the drug with abandon.

Within two weeks of his first injection, he’d increased his bench press by twenty pounds and knocked two and a half seconds off his forty-yard sprint. Such results were so seductive that he managed to exhaust his initial six-week supply of the drug in only seventeen days.

The results spoke for themselves. It took him only two preseason practices to move from the end of the bench to defensive captain. Soon his abilities became so extreme, his teammates were left with no choice but to increase their own dosages just to keep up.

Following the Badgers’ third consecutive shutout win, the local press labeled them the most feared team in the state. And for the first time in Booker’s life, people were finally taking notice of him—fans, media, college scouts, even Nina Hernandez.

“So are we gonna go at it, or what?” he asked, casually inching closer to Nina.

“In your dreams, Flamont.” She snapped the compact closed and dropped it into her purse. “Look, call me when you get rid of all that shit on your face.”

“What shit?”

“That acne. Your whole face is like some wicked gross moonscape.”

Booker turned to the mirror. “Oh, that. That’s nothing. Just a rash.”