Lauren’s eyes search for Sam. She spots him by the hot tub, surrounded by most of the team’s defensive starters, all of whom are dyed the same shade of Miami green.

The hell with this … She heads back inside.

‘You’re accusing me of tanking it?’ Sam shakes his head in disbelief.

Hudak leans in, spewing his garlic breath. ‘We lost. No way we lose to the fubishitting Seminole-holes if you’re running the way you usually do.’

‘I had 104 yards on the ground, 54 more receiving. I scored a touchdown.’

‘Don’t diss us, Mule,’ says Keith Plourde, the Hurricanes’ cocaptain. ‘You haven’t run for less than two hundred yards since you were in grade school.’

‘I need that playoff bonus, Mule,’ Brian Mundt whines. ‘I’m fuupdass without it.’

‘Maybe you wouldn’t be so fucked-up-the-ass if you learned how to tackle,’ Sam says, pushing the defensive end out of his face.

‘I heard a ton of gamblers lost money on the point spread today,’ Keith Plourde states, accusingly. ‘Maybe you were in on the action, huh?’

Sam lunges for Plourde, pile-driving him backward against a palm tree.

Hudak and Mundt intercede before the first punch is thrown.

‘Knock it off!’ The veins in Hudak’s thick neck bulge like garter snakes. ‘We know Mule wouldn’t do that, K. P. What we don’t know is if our soul brother is turnin’ pro?’

‘Not this season.’

‘Yeah, but what about next year?’ asks Jeff ‘Bubba’ Larsen, Miami’s six-foot-three-inch, three-hundred-pound all-American strong-side linebacker.

‘I don’t know.’ Sam stares down Larsen, his heart pounding with adrenaline. ‘I haven’t decided.’

‘Fuck!’ Now it’s Larsen who is ready to strike. ‘You leave after this year, and we’re all fuupdass. Between stipes and bonuses, we’re talkin’ a buck forty large a piece.’

‘One forty-five,’ corrects Mundt.

‘Most of us don’t got two-hundred-million-dollar GFL contracts waiting out there,’ growls Matt Eterginio, the starting free safety.

‘None of us have,’ Sam corrects. ‘You’re supposed to be an English major, Matt. Of course, you’re also supposed to be a free safety, but that didn’t stop FSU from takin’ it to the house on you all afternoon.’

‘Okay, everybody just calm down,’ commands Hudak. ‘Look, Mule, we’re your teammates. Your brothers. Brothers stick together.’

Brothers stick together … The words seem to echo in his brain.

‘Are you gonna be there for us, Mule?’

They crowd around, creating a pine-green wall of flesh.

*

Lauren surveys the banquet table of food and drugs in the dining hall. The sushi and Chinese ribs look tantalizing, but she passes. The last time she ate at one of K. C.’s parties, she ended up playing naked volleyball on the dean’s lawn.

She hears cheers. Bored, she follows the sound to the entertainment suite.