Chapter 420 - Prove It Again

Chapter 420: Chapter 420 - Prove It Again

Roxie had never watched Zac play football like this.

At Briarwick, she had always been down there with him. Maybe she was on the cheer sideline instead of standing beside the offense, but she had still been on the same ground.

She heard the coaches yelling, heard Zac swearing when something went wrong and knew he was pissed before anybody else because of the way he ripped his helmet off. She knew when he was hurting even when he tried to hide it, and sometimes between plays he would turn toward the cheer team and find her almost immediately.

She had never needed a giant screen to see his face.

Here, Roxie sat several rows up with other families, students and people who had come to watch the preseason scrimmage while the field stretched below her with more players than Briarwick had probably carried in two seasons combined.

Coaches moved between groups, players crossed everywhere during warmups and Roxie had already lost Zac three times before finally spotting number seven standing with the quarterbacks, helmet tucked against his hip while one of the coaches talked.

Even from this far away, she recognized the way he listened when football became serious. His shoulders stayed still, his eyes fixed on whoever was speaking and he barely reacted when somebody beside him said something.

Then Dylan jogged past the quarterback group on his way toward the receivers and smacked the back of Zac’s helmet hard enough to make Zac turn around and shove him away. Dylan kept moving backward while saying something Roxie couldn’t hear, and whatever it was made Zac flip him off.

Roxie smiled.

At least some things still looked normal from up here.

The last few days had been normal too, which had helped more than Roxie wanted to admit. Dylan still came around sometimes, still stole food if she made extra and still argued with Zac over football until Roxie wanted to throw both of them out. Nothing between them had suddenly looked different after Karen told her about Dylan’s old crush, and eventually Roxie had stopped looking for something different.

Now football was taking over everything anyway.

Zac had been nervous about today since Coach Avery announced the scrimmage. He tried pretending otherwise, but Roxie knew him better than that.

He had spent more time with the playbook, watched videos from practice while eating and even gone quiet in bed the night before because apparently football had decided sleep was optional.

He had also reminded Roxie at least four times that a scrimmage was different from practice.

She still wasn’t completely sure how.

To Roxie it looked like football against your own teammates.

To Zac it apparently meant everything.

The music changed and players began moving toward the tunnel for introductions, making Roxie sit straighter. She had seen Zac enter a football field hundreds of times, but this already felt different.

At Briarwick, when the Ravens came running out, everybody knew exactly who the crowd was waiting for. The cheerleaders knew. The students knew. Half the town knew.

Zac Prescott had been the quarterback.

The star.

Sometimes it had seemed like Briarwick football revolved around whatever mood he happened to be in that Friday night.

Here, there were too many names and too many players who had probably been stars somewhere else. The announcer worked through the roster while players came onto the field, calling names and positions one after another until the freshmen finally started coming out.

"Number seven, freshman quarterback Zachary Prescott, Briarwick, Virginia. Virginia state championship passing record holder, four hundred thirty-eight yards."

Roxie’s stomach tightened as Zac jogged onto the field with his helmet in one hand.

That was it.

The announcer immediately moved to the next player.

His name, his hometown and the record that had once made half of Briarwick lose its mind had become one sentence in a list.

Four hundred thirty-eight yards had been huge back home. People talked about it for weeks. Teachers congratulated him in hallways. His picture ended up everywhere, and Zac pretended he didn’t care while reading every article people sent him.

Here, it was one line explaining why number seven was worth watching.

Roxie wasn’t sure why that hit her so strangely. Maybe because this place made everything they had done in high school feel smaller. Zac’s records, her cheer championship and their names around Briarwick had felt enormous while they were still there.

Now she was sitting in a stadium big enough to swallow their entire school while Zac stood among players who had probably been the best athlete in their own town too.

For the first time since they moved to Tennessee, Roxie understood what Zac had actually done by coming here.

He had left somewhere he was already special and entered somewhere he had to prove it again.

The game started with one of the older quarterbacks while Zac stayed along the side watching. Roxie found herself paying more attention to him than the actual game because she wasn’t used to seeing him wait. At Briarwick, Zac had barely stayed off the field unless the defense was playing. Here, he stood beside two older quarterbacks while somebody else threw the ball and moved the team down the field.

He looked calm from far away, but Roxie could see the difference. Zac moved constantly when he was impatient and ran his mouth when he was angry. When he was actually nervous, he became still.

A taller quarterback stepped beside him and started talking while pointing toward the field. Zac listened, glanced down at the band strapped around his wrist and looked back toward where the game was happening. The older player said something else and tapped the side of Zac’s helmet, making him finally look over and nod.

That alone felt strange.

At Briarwick, Zac had usually been the one explaining things. He told people where to go, shouted when somebody stood in the wrong place and acted like he knew exactly what would happen even when he probably didn’t.

Here, he was listening because these guys knew more than he did.

When a coach finally called him, Zac grabbed his helmet and ran onto the field so quickly Roxie’s stomach jumped. Dylan was called in at almost the same time, adjusting his gloves while he joined the other players gathering around Zac.

"Oh shit. Go Zac!"

The woman a few seats away glanced toward her.

Roxie smiled awkwardly. "That’s my boyfriend."

"Number seven?"

"Yeah."

"The freshman?"

"Yeah."

The woman smiled. "Good luck."

Roxie looked back at the field. "He needs it."

The players gathered around Zac for only a few seconds before spreading out. Dylan moved farther away, ready to run for a pass, while Zac stood behind the other players and stared toward the guys waiting across from them.

Roxie waited for the expression she knew.

Usually this was where Zac looked like he already owned the field.

Instead, several players on the other side moved around before the ball even came to him, and Zac looked from one side to the other like something had changed that he wasn’t expecting. His hand lifted slightly before dropping again, then he looked toward the coaches for a second.

Roxie’s smile disappeared.

He looked unsure.

She had almost never seen that during football.

The play started, and before Zac could really do anything, a huge player came charging at him from one side. Zac stepped away only for somebody else to close in from the other direction. The whistle blew before either of them could hit him properly, but the message was obvious.

He had been caught.

Roxie sat back. "Oh."

Zac stayed where the play ended for half a second before heading back toward the others. She could tell from the way he held himself that he hadn’t expected what just happened.

His next attempt went wrong in a different way. Zac got the ball, stepped backward and threw toward somebody near the edge of the field, but the ball went too high. The receiver jumped and barely touched it before it hit the ground.

Roxie winced. "Come on, Zac."

He turned back without saying anything.

That was almost worse.

Then Dylan ran across the field on the next play, and Zac threw toward him. Roxie barely had time to follow the ball before somebody from the other side stepped directly between them and got both hands on it.

Her stomach dropped.

The player dropped the ball.

Roxie exhaled hard enough that the woman beside her laughed.

"That would’ve been bad," Roxie muttered.

Zac walked off the field after that.

Three plays.

Nothing good.

The older quarterback met him before he even reached the rest of the team and immediately started pointing toward the field while explaining something. Another player joined them, then Coach Avery came over too. Zac listened with his helmet still on, jaw tightening as the coach pointed toward where the last play had happened.

Roxie couldn’t hear any of it, but she knew exactly how much Zac hated being in that position.

Back home, people looked toward him for answers.

Here, older players were showing him what he had missed.

One of them grabbed the front of his shoulder pads and leaned closer while talking. Zac stared at him for a second before nodding.

The woman beside Roxie glanced toward her. "He looks nervous."

"He is."

"He hides it pretty well."

"Usually."

The older quarterback said something else, and Zac shook his head. The man laughed, shoved his shoulder and finally got a small smile out of him.

Roxie relaxed a little.

At least he hadn’t completely disappeared inside his own head.

For the next several minutes, Zac stayed off the field while another quarterback played. He moved between the older players and the coaches, sometimes watching the field and sometimes looking down at a screen somebody held in front of him.

Eventually Dylan came over.

Roxie noticed immediately how fast Zac started talking. He pointed toward where things had gone wrong, then toward Dylan. Dylan shook his head, used one hand to show something and repeated it when Zac frowned.

After a few seconds, Zac nodded.

Roxie smiled.

Whatever Tennessee changed around them, Zac and Dylan still knew each other in a way these people didn’t yet.

They had spent years doing this together.

When their group got called again, both of them ran back onto the field.

Roxie leaned forward. "Okay. Try again."