“How’s yours?” Carter answered. “I’d imagine everything smells terrible, considering all the asses it’s been up today.”

Atta boy. Then the ball was in motion. Carter immediately kicked it to Jeff Karvotsky. Jeff dribbled it a few feet and fired it towards Austin before Ben could take it away. It wasn’t a good enough pass. Ben intercepted it and what do you know? The spinning sphere of black and white hexagons headed towards me.

Ben tore down the field while my team raced after him. He looked up while he was dribbling and sneered at me. I stood on the right side of the field, waiting for him. I knew he recognized me, because he passed the ball behind him. He knew that since I was the farthest back defender, I had to stay where I was and keep the ball from getting in my space, or risk having them take a shot.

Impressive.

When Ben’s team caught up to him and passed it back, he made it all the way to the goal before we pressured him to pass to the winded kid heaving next to him.

Way to use your team, Ben.

Coach Dad would have benched any of us if we’d gone as long as Ben had without passing. Kevin and Paul descended on Ben and his teammate like flies at a picnic and I dropped into the space behind them. The gassed kid from L-W faked right to Ben, awkwardly attempting a shot instead. Our goalie, Mike Dawson, scooped it up and threw it to me. Mike was under a lot of pressure from the L-W kid guarding him. His throw fell short. Ben tried to catch it with his knee.

“Oh hey, Maguire,” Ben sneered. He tried fancy soccer moves to keep me from getting the ball. “Almost didn’t recognize you all the way back here.”

Like I could do it in my sleep, I stole the ball from right under his foot and kicked it hard up the field, all the way up to Austin, who easily trapped it and passed it back to Carter.

“How about now?” I shot back. Ben flipped me off and jogged back up to the half-line.

“Prick,” he muttered.

I stayed by my team’s goal. Carter worked the ball up the field. He was doing some highly technical footwork, and I couldn’t help but notice Austin gave him the ball every chance he got.

Keep on playing defense. This isn’t about Carter. Except that maybe, it was.

Carter sprinted into shooting range and aimed. The ball sailed through the goalie’s fingertips to land squarely inside the net. Carter jumped and crashed into Austin’s side. They slapped each other’s butts. The crowd erupted. Scoring against L-W ten minutes into the game was a big deal.

The scouts nodded to each other and scribbled on their clipboards. My blood went cold. They weren’t there to watch me. They weren’t even there to watch Ben. They were there to watch Carter. Carter, who didn’t even need a scholarship.