Now, if Joel could only feel those same thrills when he was with his girlfriend then they’d really be in business.

His girlfriend, who through coincidence (pure coincidence) happened to be Troy’s sister. Practical, hardy Starsha Clark. Because surely the relation was a coincidence. Joel hadn’t seen Troy in a year but he was still dating her so obviously he loved her. Obviously.

By the night of the Bison’s first off-season game, Troy was (according to Clark) living in Rockdale, an hour away, with a scrawny beautician who wasn’t good enough for him but who was apparently as good as he was going to get. No hope of seeing him at the game, then? Joel had almost asked her, stopping himself just in time.

The turnout at the game was larger than anyone had expected. The people of Bentley arrived with a display of spirit that dwarfed the baffled contingent from Franklin who had come to watch their own boys, the Hornets, pummel the Bison from the first whistle. Seated in the stands, Clark slipped her hand from Joel’s to cup her palms around her mouth and bellow “Defense, goddammit!” in a hoarse voice that drew more than a few stares. He dispensed apologetic smiles on her behalf.

This was romance, he supposed. Three years together, and Joel and Clark were made for each other. They’d both lost a parent. They both loved tennis. The fact they never touched above the wrists simply spoke to the purity of their devotion.

In the second quarter, Joel made his way to the bathroom. He spotted his brother and Luke Evers ignoring the game and pacing the edges of the end zone. How small Dylan had been in those days. How his head had barely fit his Bison cap.

Joel was nearly to the cinder block toilet when a cackling laugh reached him from inside. Joel froze, hesitated, but it was too late. Ranger Mason, the old bane of Bentley High, emerged with a crooked smile on his chapped mouth.

Ranger was a loathsome young man. He had been a Bison himself, had graduated in the same class as Troy Clark but, unlike Troy, Joel seemed to see him everywhere. Ranger Mason wasn’t as big as his younger brother, Garrett, would become a decade later but he was still menacing enough that evening to send a squelch of bile up Joel’s gullet. Ranger was dressed in one of his seven shredded Slipknot T-shirts that reeked of sweat and stale smoke. Joel spotted a new tattoo on his neck: a raw red snake winding down his jugular.

Next to Ranger stood feral little Jason Ovelle, looking much the same as he would a decade later, when Joel would watch him get arrested in this very same parking lot. A wispy mustache, thin arms, teeth all crowded in the front of his mouth like a muskrat’s. His face lit up at the sight of Joel. He knew there was about to be a show.

“Whitley!” Ranger shouted. “We was just thinking about you.”