Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance (46 page)

Someone said that they thought the
pressure must be getting to him, but I didn’t think it was likely; after all,
the team they were up against had lost several games. If Zack was going to crack
under pressure, it would have been the previous game, where we had been up
against our greatest competition for the top spot. But it was hard not to argue
that something was clearly wrong; we were down by two touchdowns heading into
the second quarter, and didn’t manage to even the score by halftime. Zack’s
plays were all over the place—he was getting instructions from the coach, but I
couldn’t imagine that he was doing what he was told, at least not exactly. The
other team became more and more confident of their possibility for a win,
driving us back again and again, defending their end of the field more
aggressively than I could have imagined.

I watched the halftime show with my mind
full of questions. What was going on? Our team was much better than this, and a
win was almost a foregone conclusion going into the game. How could we still be
lagging behind by a touchdown going into the second half? I had taken notes
throughout the first part of the game, but even with my notations on the
different plays I could see, I couldn’t understand just how it was that Zack
was consistently missing his passes, or being tackled before he could make the
handoff. He was obviously distracted—he didn’t have his entire brain on the
game. But surely, I thought, that couldn’t be the only thing going on? It was
just as much the other members of the team that would be to blame, wouldn’t it?
Maybe they were overconfident, and Zack was distracted.

The team tried to rally in the second
half, but it was an uphill battle. A wave of relief moved across the stands
when we finally managed to close the gap at the bottom of the third quarter,
getting a miraculous touchdown when the other team’s defense left a gap—pure
chance. I was shaking my head, grabbing pictures where I could, trying to
understand what was going on in front of me. It was as unlike the previous two
games I’d gone to as anything could possibly be, and I dreaded having to
interview the coach if we lost—he would be pissed, I knew.

My heart was in my throat throughout the
fourth quarter. Both teams—ours and the other team—were playing their hearts
out, trying to break the tie. The clock continued its downward count, and it
seemed as though it might go into overtime—the disorganization of the first
half was still present, but not as glaring, and it seemed like the team was
trying to just keep Zack from being tackled long enough to get a pass. The line
of scrimmage moved from one end of the field to the other, back and forth; it
was exciting but dreadful at the same time, and I knew that by the time I got
back to my dorm—even if everything else went the right way for the rest of the
night—I would be exhausted from the stress of the game. There was a near moment
when Zack went down, thrown to the ground by an overzealous offensive lineman,
when he laid there for a long time after the whistle was blown. My heart
pounded in my chest—what if he was injured? It wouldn’t just mean the loss of
the game. In my mind I chanted at him to get up, get up, get up. I couldn’t
stand the thought of him being seriously injured, even if I had cut him out of
my life for the duration of the season.

But then he got to his feet and shook it
off, and I sighed with relief. Everyone in the stands was screaming, shouting,
cheering, trying to get the team to a final touchdown by any means they
possibly could. Of course, it would be exciting if the game went into
overtime—but if we could get a definitive win before the clock ran out, that
would be much better. I was clenching my fists as the end of regulation time
came closer and closer, rocking on the balls of my feet, staying quiet but
wishing I could make myself scream and shout to get rid of the nervous energy
that filled me.

With only a couple of minutes left on the
clock, the final play of the game started. Zack handed off the ball
successfully just before being tackled—and the player he’d handed it to managed
to dodge and evade, spinning away from the group that had gone straight for the
QB and exploding into a desperate full-pelt run. I stared at the field, without
even the presence of mind to take the pictures I knew would be the most
dramatic of the game, as the clock came to the last minute of regulation time.
Everyone was silent—all the screaming and shouting down to nothing, the tension
thick enough to cut with a knife—until the instant right after the player got
to the touchdown line, with just seconds to spare. After a brief sigh of
relief, everyone in the stands on our side erupted in an enormous, shrieking,
shouting cheer.

I sank down onto my seat with relief,
closing my eyes and breathing as slowly as I could. At the very last, we’d
managed to eke out a win—that would make it easier to interview the coach in a
few minutes, once everyone was done with the post-game celebration and started
to clear the stadium. Zack was uninjured, and the team would go on to
Nationals. The cheering went on and on; I looked up to see that the team was
cavorting about the sidelines, congratulating themselves on the narrow victory
they had managed to eke out in the very last moments of the game. A few of the
players grabbed up cheerleaders and got kisses or hugs from them—or simply
lifted them up into the air. I smiled to myself; I could easily understand
their excitement.

After several moments, though, people in
the stands realized that there were better things to do. It was chilly out and
there were parties to go to, other celebrations with free or at least cheap
liquor. As the people started to slowly trickle out of the stands, the band
played on, the players kept to the field, and I tried to decide if it was worth
the risk of confronting Zack to get my interview without missing the coach. I
was sure that in spite of the team’s apparent desire to keep jumping, running,
and shouting, they’d be corralled into the locker room soon—and the coach would
follow, to congratulate them and to critique their performance. I needed to get
out onto the field before Coach Bullden left. I looked around and spotted Zack
talking to some of the other members of his team; I hoped that if I could just
slip out onto the field and pull the head coach aside, he might not even notice
me at all.

I took my pass out of my purse and took a
deep breath, moving in the opposite direction of the steady flow of students
and fans who were heading to the exits. I got down to the field level and
showed my pass quickly to the security guard standing there and he nodded,
giving me a little smile.

“You were here last game, too; I remember
cute faces like yours.”

I smiled in return but felt more than a little
strange at that compliment from the source. I dashed out onto the field.
Bullden was calling out to the players to finish up their celebration and start
heading in.

“You have plenty of parties to choose
from, guys—get yourselves cleaned up so you can get out of here.”

I slowed down as I got closer,
determinedly not looking for Zack. If I spotted him, he might feel my gaze and
look in my direction. Of course, even without looking at him, he managed to see
me.

“Evie!” I heard my name in his voice and determinedly
looked anywhere but the direction it had come from. “Evie! Do you need another
prime quote? C’mon, Evie, I won’t even make you go on a date with me for it
this time!”

I squared my shoulders and tried my best
to ignore the calls.

“Coach Bullden,” I said, moving quickly to
intercept him as he turned to head for the locker rooms. “Do you have a few
minutes? I’m from the campus newspaper—I was hoping I could ask you a few
questions about tonight’s game.”

The coach stopped and gave me a quick, polite
smile. “You spoke with Zack last game, didn’t you? That was a fine article. I
don’t mind at all.”

He turned towards the stragglers—and
following his gaze, even though I knew better, I saw Zack among them, watching
me intently. He ran up, stopping a few feet away from me, staring at me with so
much hope in his eyes that I felt my heart lurch.

“Does she need another interview, coach?
I’ve got lots to say about the game.” Zack was talking to Bullden but he was
looking at me, and I felt my cheeks getting hotter and hotter. I kept my lips
pressed together to keep from saying anything at all to him.

“Nah, Zack—you did well enough last time,
but this lovely lady wants to talk to the man in charge. Hit the showers.” The
coach gestured for me to walk with him to the bench, and I sat down next to
him. He was an older guy—it seemed like there were no young head coaches in
college football—in a windbreaker spattered with our school colors, with
good-quality embroidery on the sleeves and the lapel showing the school’s
mascot. In the corner of my eye I saw Zack reluctantly heading back to the
lockers and put my mind firmly back on the task at hand: getting good quotes
out of the head coach for my feature article about the game and about him.

“Thanks for agreeing to the
interview—after a game like that you must be exhausted,” I said, smiling
politely as I took my recorder and my notebook out of my bag.

Bullden grinned. “You’re right about
that,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. “Are you a fan of football, young
lady?”

I shrugged. “Please, call me Evelyn. I
watched a lot of football in high school; one of my boyfriends was on our
school’s team.” I somehow suppressed the blush that threatened to give me away
at the thought of Zack. “I would have been a pretty terrible girlfriend if I
didn’t go, you know. So I appreciate the game.”

“Probably got your fill of training
routines too,” the coach said with another smile.

“Oh yes, definitely.” I laughed and set
down the recorder between us. “Now I need to get your agreement that it’s okay
for me to record. I want to make sure that everything that ends up in the
article is exactly what you said, exactly how you said it.”

“Good to see a responsible journalist. Of
course I’ll give my consent.” I hit the button to start the recording and the
coach cleared his throat. “This is Head Coach Charlie Bullden, consenting to be
recorded by Evelyn here, so that she can write another great article about the
team. That okay?”

I grinned. “More than okay, Sir,” I said,
opening my notebook.

“Please, just call me Coach. I get too
used to it from the players—even my own kids call me Coach.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Coach. Now, this
was a rough game—why do you think that was? The odds for a shut out for our
team were really high.”

“Well, of course you never fully know what
you’re going to be up against when you play another team. You can prepare for
weeks, and look at their games—their style of play, you understand—and then
when you get to the actual game, they might have changed everything up during
their practices.” I nodded. “In this case, we were as ready for State as we
could possibly be, but they were ready for us too—they knew about the few
weaknesses the team has, and more power to them for exploiting them.”

I consulted my notes. “It’s unusual for
our team to lag behind at the half, isn’t it? What did you see going on there
on the field to explain it?” I licked my lips, looking up from my notebook.

The coach smiled wryly. “We had good
plays; I think there was just some miscommunication. Between me and Zack or
between Zack and the other players—it happens. There was a lot of pressure this
game, even if we weren’t playing rivals. The last game of the season is always
tough—everyone gives it all they have.” The coach paused a moment to reflect.
“Especially if a team’s going up against one like ours—where we’ve won almost
our whole season—they have something to prove. They may not have the record,
but they knocked the top team down a peg.”

“I was thinking that when the other team came
out,” I said with a smile. “They looked hungry for it. They looked like they at
least wanted to go down having scored some points on us.”

The coach laughed. “You’re a shrewd woman.
Of course, we had those issues in the first half, and we struggled in the third
quarter, but we all came together in the fourth.”

“Do you think it was more an issue with
offense or defense?”

The coach picked a piece of lint off of
his chinos. “I think our defense was doing all they could. There was some
scramble-up with the offense. Timing was off. Guess I’ll have to focus on that
in the next couple of practices leading into the nationals.”

I found myself becoming more and more at
ease with the coach the more questions I asked—it helped that he praised my
thorough research on his strategies and the other team’s coach. In the back of
my mind, however, the whole time I was getting the information I wanted and
needed to write the best possible article about the game, I kept thinking about
Zack. I had hoped to avoid him; but of course, he had seen me—and he would have
to have noticed the way I ignored him. It was too obvious. I felt a minor
irritation at the fact that he had shouted across the field to me—in effect
creating another spectacle of himself even after he had told me he wouldn’t do
that. But then, I thought, I had sort of goaded him into it by ignoring his
texts and calls and the note on my door. I hadn’t given him any reason for my
sudden break-off of contact.

I finished up the interview as quickly as
I could, thanking the coach profusely for giving me so much to work with. “I
look forward to your article, Evelyn,” Coach Bullden said, shaking my hand
firmly and professionally. I smiled up into his weather-beaten face and said
I’d email him the finished article before I submitted it to my editor.