Playing for Keeps

Foul Play

“So how was your first day of being single?” Brit asked. I turned and glared at her. She held up her hands in defense.

We walked to the bus caring our duffle bags over our shoulders. We had a game in an hour against Alton. Brit was wearing a pair of sweats and had a clip board in her hand. Since she was pregnant she couldn’t play, so she better look the part as a coach.

Brit and I sat at the front of the bus while the rest of the team went to the back to gossip. “Can I be honest?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I think my lab partner has a thing for me.”

“How do you know?”

“Okay, well there’s a few things. He calls me angel. I catch him checking me out. He smiled when he heard I broke up. He even gave me his number in case I needed any “help with my homework””

Brit smiled, “Ooooooh! He might like you! Do I smell a romance brewing?”

My jaw clenched and I gave her another hard glare. “No.”

The bus ride was bumpy and short. Alto was about 10 minutes away. The bus stopped, and I handed the bus drive the promised $80.
We walked off and started towards the field where Alton High was stretching.

The girls on our team did a jog and started our own drills. We had a good 45 minutes to practice before the refs blowed the whistle. I walked up to the ref as he pulled out a quarter. “Alton, call it.”

The brunet from the other team looked me strait in the eyes. “Heads.”

I watched the quarter spin in the air. The ref looked at it for a second, giving me enough time to see it was tails. I opened my mouth to say who we wanted to start first, when the ref said  “Heads. Alton pick.”

What. The. Hell?

The Brunet smirked and whispered something to the ref. I rolled my eyes and jogged back to my team. I have a bad feeling that this game wasn’t going to end well.

~*~*~*~

After an hour and a half of playing we were left with 2 possibly sprained ankles and covered in bruises. We were winning, but Alton was playing dirty and the refs weren’t calling them out on it. I suspected foul play. I knew most refs favored one team over another, but this was a little extreme.

The final whistle blowed, showing we beat them 6 to 4. The girls and I went to the bench to grab our water bottles. “Brit, we need, 1, 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6. 6 ice packs.” She nodded and opened the cooler, filling the bags with ice.
 
“What the hell happened out there?” Brit asked.

I eyed the other team as a girl in skinny jeans and a short top handed something green to the coach of the Alton team, and some to the refs. The girl looked so familiar but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“I have no clue.”

I zipped up my dufflebag and headed towards the parking lot where our bus was supposed to be waiting. To my disappointment, it wasn’t there.

“Shit!” I cursed.

“Where’s our bus?” Clair asked.

“I don’t know. I suggest you call your parents, or someone to come and pick you up.” I suggested.

While everyone pulled out their phones to call, I did too. I instantly scrolled down to a number and almost pressed call when I realized it was
Bryce’s number. I can’t call him… I can’t call my mom either. She’s at a meeting somewhere an hour away. Then I remembered. I scrolled down to Jason’s number.

After 3 rings he picked up. “Hello?”

“Hey Jason. It’s Summer… From Chem?”

“Hey Summer! What’s up?”

“Okay, I know this is weird… Buuuuut I need a ride. Our bus went AWOL, and were stuck in Alton.”

“Shit, really?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Really?” I asked, shocked.

“Yep. I’ll be there in 10 minutes.”

“Thanks!” I said before hanging up. I joined my team on the curb as we waited for our rides.

“Anyone going to go get a dress this weekend?” Jasmine asked.

“A dress? For what?” I asked.

“Homecoming!”

“Oh yeah… Whens that?” I asked.

“2 weeks.” Clair told me.

“So that means the bash is coming up? We should do a booth. We could raise some money for the team so we don’t have to use so much of our own.” I crossed my legs and looked at Brit to see what she thought.

“That sounds great. But what would we even do for a booth?”

She had a point. What would we do for a booth? I smiled as an idea came to mind. “You know how clowns throw pies at each other?”

“Yeah?” Brit looked at me, waiting to see where I was going with this.

I grinned, “What if we had a booth where you could throw pies at teachers.”

“But what teacher would volunteer for that?”

“We don’t need volunteers. We could use year book pictures and have them enlarged and printed.” I said looking at Kimmi, who was a photographer for the year book club.

Kimmi grinned at me, “I could totally get the pictures for you. And with a bat of my eyelashes I could get them printed for free.”

“And we shouldn’t have just pies, but tomatoes too!” Clair declared.

“We could get all the rotten ones that the local stores throw out!” Jasmine pointed out.

“See, we would have the perfect booth!” I told Brit.

A sleek silver mustang pulled up and the door was pushed open. Jason smiled down at me, “Your ride awaits.”

I felt the eyes of my team fall on me. But I ignored them and hopped in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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