Page 11 of The Golden Receiver

I could understand the question. In the near week that we’d been living together, I’d spent most of my time doing something football related. I woke up early to get in a run before weight training. I didn’t get in until after dinner. I sometimes caught glimpses of my roommates when I went back to the dorms between morning weight training and my first class, but that wasn’t always a guarantee. They had their own classes and schedules to keep.

But I hadn’t been working out that night. “Nah, I was across town. Kali, our pack leader, invited all of us who live on campus to family dinner. Lost track of time.”

It was easy to lose track of time at the warehouse. I’d grown up there, surrounded by my own kind. The family at the warehouse had started with Kali. She hadn’t lived in Creelin when the Halloween Wave hit, but the moment she turned, she felt empty. She moved from her home and went searching. She’d told us the tale a thousand times, long sleepless nights and even longer stretches of open road while she tried to find what she was looking for. It wasn’t until she met Luke, her husband and the co-leader of the pack, that she discovered it.

Werewolves were pack animals. We needed to be around our own kind.

Luke had family in Creelin, people he loved and cared about who hadn’t changed with the Wave. Even with that, he’d felt the same loneliness. They talked and they decided that they wanted to open up their home to other werewolves. It started with one, and then it grew. Fast. Within two years, they bought and remodeled the warehouse. They built bedrooms and common rooms. They built a large industrial kitchen and a dining room that could fit every single member of the pack comfortably. They even built rooms for visitors so pack members could stay in contact with their biological families.

My biological parents had spent many hours in the visitors’ rooms.

We had dinner at the warehouse, and then Luke brought out board games. Before we knew it, it was almost eleven at night. Kali offered to let us all stay at the warehouse, but I had to get back. I had training in the morning, and while I could run from the warehouse to campus, all of my training gear was in the dorm. I didn’t want to waste the time stopping to get it between my run and weight training. The bed would be too tempting.

Serena and Nick had decided to take her up on her offer, but Charlie and I had gone back to campus together in one of the cars the pack owned. It was parked by Charlie’s dorm now, and we figured one of us would take it back to Kali later. It would probably be me that weekend since Charlie didn’t like to run as much as I did.

“Have you just been studying all night?” I asked Preston as he uncapped a blue highlighter and started drawing on his book. “Do you ever do anything but study? Seriously, do you even have that much homework yet?”

“I like to get ahead,” he answered. “Pre-law is a pain in the ass.”

I snorted. I couldn’t imagine a degree that strenuous. I’d gone for something easy: communications. I figured I’d find some kind of job with it, and I could focus most of my attention on football. Even if I couldn’t find a job with my degree, I knew I could always find something to do with someone in the pack.

“You going to bed?” Preston asked as I took a step toward the hallway.

I nodded. “Yeah, five comes early.”

“Don’t know how you do it.”

“Easy,” I answered. “You’re goal-oriented with your studies. I’m the same way about football. Besides, I have too much energy not to get up and run every morning. Surely, you’ve figured that out by now.”

Preston laughed and wished me a good night. I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.

There was a strange hum in the locker room.

Not like a real, physical hum. More like a hum of energy buzzing beneath the surface. I knew where it came from. It came from Coach Shaw’s announcement at the beginning of practice. He’d ended tape review with a notice that during a typical week, one where we’d have a game, if there were roster changes or starter changes, they’d be posted in the locker room. He and Coach Erikkson had decided to post the list after today’s practice. Not that we had a game this weekend. We were still a few weeks away from the start of the season, but it was going to be a great way to see where we all stood.

Especially for those of us competing for starting spots.

I was practically vibrating as I changed out of my practice clothes. Every time someone moved, I looked up, expecting it to be one of the coaching staff coming to post the list. Were they actually going to post it somewhere on the wall for everyone to see? One of my pack mates had done theater in high school, and that was how they found out if they got cast in the school play every time. I wondered if they felt the whirling nausea in the pit of their stomach while they waited too. Or if they felt like there were a thousand ants crawling under their skin.

I felt both of those things. And other things that I couldn’t quite name.

It was very confusing.

I had just tossed my practice shoes back in my bag when Coach Erikkson came into the room. He taped up a piece of paper and left, not saying a single word. Honestly, if he wanted to do it quietly, then he should have had someone smaller do it. He was hard to miss, even in the Creelin University locker room where he, somehow, wasn’t the tallest person in the room.

The hum in the locker room shifted. The door shut, and then, a swarm of football players descended on the list. Maybe not a full swarm. There were a few people who were locked into their starter positions. They stayed put. Eric Harrison, the quarterback in his final year at Creelin, looked amused when I passed him. His starting position had never been up for question. Me, on the other hand? I was pushing to the front of the crowd.

I found the wide receivers, and my eyes bugged out. If we were playing a game this weekend, I would’ve been wide receiver one. I’d done it. I’d shown off and shown out, and I had gotten the position I wanted. Tentatively. I wasn’t naive enough to think that I couldn’t lose it. Anyone on that list could show a marked improvement over the next few weeks or I could make some mistake, and I’d plummet down the depth chart.

Speaking of depth chart…

I started searching for Kieran’s name on the list. He was second in line for the wide receiver two position. At least it meant we weren’t in direct competition anymore. If the coaches thought he’d make a better two, then maybe we could actually get along now. Maybe he’d stop being a major grump.

But when he pushed past me, saw where he fell on the depth chart, and stormed out of the locker room, I doubted it.

I knew I should have left well enough alone, but there was a scent in the air. It was acrid and bitter, and I’d smelled it before. Never mixed into the warm notes of his scent, but on campus and in the warehouse and even in the locker room after a bad loss. It was the burning stink of disappointment.

I didn’t like the way it smelled, layered underneath his natural scent. It smelled wrong on him, and I wanted that smell to go away. I wanted to find a way to kick it to the curb.