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again.”
    I turn and run back toward the fifty-yard line.
    I’m halfway there when I realize why I really turned her down.
    It’s because she wasn’t Chloe.

    * * *
    H e goes , he goes, he’s gone! The thirty, the twenty, the ten…
    Except not quite. I can hear the announcer’s voice in my head like I’m watching myself play on TV as my feet eat up yard after yard of the football field. Thirty, twenty, fifteen…but before I hit the ten, I’m plowed into the ground.
    It was a damn good run, though. Almost made it to the end zone. I can hear the crowd roaring; it’s so loud it echoes in my head. It’s like being at a huge rock concert, speakers turned up to eleven. I can’t even hear the cheerleaders, and they’re maybe twenty yards away from me, chanting something cheerleader-like on the sidelines while they shake their red-and-black pompoms and their not quite as red-and-black tits.
    I roll over, football still clutched against me like a baby—although if it were a baby, I’d be squeezing it way too tight and it probably would have thrown up on me by now. I never let go of the ball until an official comes to take it. No way I’m handing it over to anybody else.
    The guy who brought me down is built like an elephant. Or four. He’s fucking huge. His eyes are flat black, staring at me through his helmet. He hasn’t gotten up off me yet, even though the whistle has blown.
    “Buy me a drink first, big boy.”
    Elephant man goes beet red with indignation as he finally lurches off me. “I’ll kill you next time,” he mutters at me, the tone of his voice as flat as the black of his eyes.
    Okay, that’s not creepy or anything.
    “That’s the spirit,” I shoot back as I pop to my feet. I hand the ball to the referee.
    It’s first down and maybe twelve yards. I can do this. If the quarterback decides to throw to me again, that is. He might decide to run it in, or he might get a better opening throwing to somebody else. I just need to watch and be ready.
    There’s the snap. Weber, our quarterback, decides to run. I take off toward him, cutting through the other team’s defense to distract them and moving closer in case I do need to grab at a pass. Looks like Weber’s got it, though.
    Something hits me hard. Goddammit, I let the four elephants get into my blind spot. He drives me right to the turf. And as I go down, my leg twists to the side.
    The pain is indescribable. I’ve never felt anything like that in my life, and I’ve broken bones before. The ginormous freaking defenseman has me pinned, and I swear I feel something pop in my hip as his weight rolls over me.
    Everything goes black. It can’t be for more than a second or two, but it feels like hours. When I blink myself back, though, the crowd is still screaming. I glance sideways to see Weber hip-thrusting in the end zone.
    Well. At least we got a TD out of it.
    The big pile of human gets off me, and I can see him slamming his fist into the turf in frustration. I try to get up, too—the pain’s eased off a little—but the minute I shift on the leg that got bent under me, the pain shreds me again.
    Shit. Shit piss fuck. This is not good.
    I fall back to the grass. I can’t even move that leg. It’s trapped, bent, my foot shoved into my ass. Did I break something? Tear my knee in half? It sure as hell feels like it.
    A whistle shrills, and I assume one of the officials has realized I’m in trouble. Sure enough, I see a zebra-striped uniform jogging over, just behind him the familiar figure of one of the team doctors.
    The ref kneels next to me. “You okay, Sherwood?”
    “Not so much.”
    The doctor joins the ref on the ground, flipping open his box of doctor tools. “Hold still a minute,” he orders me.
    “You got it.”
    “How’s it feel?”
    “Like it’ll pop off if I move it.”
    “Don’t move it.”
    It seems like reasonable advice.
    “Will you need a stretcher?” This is the ref. He’s speaking in a low voice to the team