Luke couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Football tryouts in the summer before freshman year had pretty much ended his childhood friendship with Dylan. Luke had wanted to be quarterback more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. Dylan, on the other hand, had never wanted much of anything and somehow always got everything.

And look at them now.

“There’s more to the job than just throwing balls and calling plays, you know,” Tomas said.

“We might need your help with little things here and there sometimes.” Garrett Mason wore no shirt, and in the falling sunlight Luke saw a strange scar on the boy’s pec that he’d never noticed in the locker rooms: a tidy white dash, running just beneath the nipple. “The town might need your help. Do you understand?”

A thick, sudden silence sprang up, broken only by the drone of insects. Luke had no idea what they were talking about.

“Of course,” he replied.

The boys laughed, sounding excited, relieved. Luke laughed as well, though he felt the strangest sensation, like he had just swum into a cold current in a still lake. What exactly had he signed himself up for?

“Very good, Mr. Evers,” Coach said. His lazy smile reappeared. “Now—I believe you boys have work to do.”

JOEL

Parked on the curb of Hollis Avenue at the north edge of town, Joel wolfed down a burger and waited in front of the empty lot where Bentley First Baptist and its inescapable eye of a steeple had once stood. Yet again, he felt a touch of envy at whoever had burned the place down. After the way the congregation there had treated his family—well. His mother was right. He couldn’t help but see these weeds and this charred oak tree and the Evers Realty sign as anything but an improvement.

Ready, wrote BBison50k.

With the church gone there was little left open on Hollis Avenue but the dingy storefront that was Bentley First Baptist’s temporary home; a faded painting of a cross hung in its window. Even through the store’s closed doors, Joel could hear the music of the church’s Wednesday night youth service. He wondered what Wesley Mores would say were Joel to wander inside tonight with a Bible in hand.

Joel steered his convertible around the store to a smaller parking lot behind the building and idled in the shadow of a tree turning inky in the sunset. The clock on his radio read 7:27 p.m. Right on time. Ready, he wrote.

He flipped on the radio. It was tuned to static. He listened for a time, remembering the night he’d arrived and the way he’d been certain—almost certain—that he’d heard a voice slithering out of his speakers the moment he first caught sight of Bentley on the horizon.

imissedyou

Dumb dreams. Bad dreams.

i fucking hate football

it’s like i hear this town talking when i sleep.

The back door of the building cracked open. Joel switched off the radio.