I glance down the beach and see most of the guys bobbing around in the ocean. Throwing a football back and forth and making these spectacularly dramatic catches in the water, creating the biggest splashes they can. I blink the sleep from my eyes and see Julian in thigh-deep water, making the passes. The sky is the kind of impossible blue you can see only near the beach. I yank off my T-shirt and join the rest of the team.

I dive under the first wave that hits me. Instant relief from the heat. I push my hair back from my face and see Julian watching me. He nods and raises his eyebrows. I know he’s asking if I’m okay. I nod back at him and join the crew of receivers. Julian tosses the ball to us over and over, each one of us making a catch more spectacular than the last. When it’s my turn, I try to do a diving backflip and catch the ball with both feet out of the water. It doesn’t go so well for me, and the ball whacks me right on the forehead. I stand up in the water, laughing.

“Hey, you look better than Darien out there!” someone yells, and everyone laughs.

“Not cool, man,” Darien says, stepping forward for his turn at a catch. He leaps backward, legs splayed out like a starfish, landing with a tremendous splash and an audible kerplunk. But somehow he still manages to keep the ball in his hands. “Beat that!” he yells when he surfaces. “Beat that, you defensive toads!”

Plenty of ribbing and dunking and chest puffing ensues, the entire group of us laughing and tackling one another in the shallow water.

Someone suggests a race, and pretty soon we’re all running full speed down the beach in the sand, all of us trying to beat the pants off the guy next to us. Darien smokes everyone, of course, and some of the bigger defensive guys are still huffing and puffing back near the tents when the rest of us reach the crumbling jetty about two hundred yards away.

“Who was the genius who suggested that?” Julian laughs, coughing. He pulls on the hem of his tank top. He hasn’t taken it off since we got here, even when we were all goofing off in the water. I’m sure it’s because he doesn’t want anyone to see his bruise.

“High knees all the way back! Come on, you lazy asses!” Darien yells in a perfect imitation of Coach Marcus.

Most of the guys run ahead, following Darien like he’s some crazed pied piper, their knees pumping all the way up to their chests.

I hang back with Julian. “Your ribs okay?”

“A little sore, but not any worse than yesterday,” he says.