Endgame: Chapter 17 (Patreon)

Endgame: Chapter 17

Morgan’s truck was sitting in the parking lot, and from our spot on the dropped tailgate, we watched the bus pull up to the curb near the soccer field. It was the weekend of national championships, and in a few hours, the rest of the team and I would be getting on a plane and flying to California. We might even win. And even though Morgan wouldn’t be able to play, she was in good spirits. She had her injured leg stretched out across the tailgate as I sat on the edge of it with my legs dangling over, and her head was in my lap.

“Ready?” she asked, fishing another corn nut out of the bag in her hands as she looked up at me.

I nodded, and she tossed the piece up into the air. I opened my mouth wide and dipped my head down to try and catch it, managing to snatch it on its downward arc.

“Woo!” I threw my hands up triumphantly.

She held one of hers up for a high five, and after I slapped my own against it, she dumped a handful of corn nuts into her palm. “Rapid fire,” she spat, “go!”

She barely gave me time to swallow the one I had before throwing one after the other into the air as fast as she could. It was raining corn nuts, and by the way Morgan burst into laughter while she kept throwing them, I knew I looked awkward as hell as I swayed quickly with my mouth wide, trying to catch as many as I could. Most of them landed like pellets on the tailgate and the asphalt, but she threw so many that several landed in my mouth out of pure luck.

“How man-” She wheezed. “How many did you get?”

I felt around my mouth with my tongue. “Four.”

She stopped laughing to stare up at me blankly, holding her hands out by her shoulders and cutting her head left and right with her mouth wide open in an exaggerated imitation of how I’d looked. I nearly choked as we both started laughing again.

We watched another teammate get dropped off with her duffel bag and then head into the warmth of the locker room. It hadn’t snowed yet, but it was getting colder every day, and the warmth of Morgan’s head in my lap helped me ignore the icy feel of the metal beneath me.

“I’m glad you’re coming,” I told her. “I was worried you’d be too uncomfortable.” She’d gotten a brace for her knee to help her walk, but she still used one crutch to bear weight because of the pain.

“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I even got my mom and Pip to promise they’d have snacks and beer while they watch, and I bought them confetti poppers for when you win.”

“You really think we’re going to win?” I asked. “You’ve seen the updated brackets, you know-”

She shoved her fingers in her ears. “La, la, la, you’re going to win, I can’t hear you.”

I rolled my eyes, but was smiling when I scrunched over to kiss her. We hung out there on the tailgate, enjoying our last real alone time for the weekend before everyone had arrived and we were ready to leave. We piled onto the bus and it shuttled us to the airport, where we waited at the gate for an hour until it was time to board the plane.

“I call aisle seat!” Zulema yelled as we headed along the ramp to the plane.

When she looked back at Morgan and me, Morgan patted her crutch with her free hand. “It’s not like I could beat you there.”

“Lucky me,” ZuZu laughed.

Morgan wanted the window seat anyway, and after she’d gotten comfortable, I gave her single crutch to a flight attendant to store in a closet. It took less than twenty minutes after take-off to figure out why Morgan wanted that seat – she was passed out. She’d slumped down as much as she could, and her head rested against the window while her mouth hung open. We let her sleep for almost forty-five minutes before Zulema passed me a wrapped stick of gum.

“Put this in her mouth,” she snickered.

I couldn’t resist, especially not since I knew Morgan wouldn’t hesitate to mess with me if I was the one sleeping. So I stuck the end of the gum into her mouth. She didn’t move. It hovered there, more than half of it sticking out as she slept away.

Not two seconds later, Zulema leaned over me in the middle seat. She’d rolled the corner of a napkin, and she stuck that corner up Morgan’s nose so the napkin was hanging out. Still, nothing.

“Oh my god,” Zulema snorted as she sat back in her own seat. “What kind of meds is she on?”

“None,” I laughed. I pushed up in my seat a bit to see which other teammates were sitting nearby, and then told ZuZu, “Ask Cusatelli for some lipstick.”

Zulema leaned out into the aisle, and only a few seconds later Cusatelli had passed her some perfectly red lipstick. “What are you going to draw on her?” ZuZu asked as she held the lipstick out to me.

“A dick.”

“I know you way too well to take that seriously,” she laughed.

I smiled, but since I didn’t have a mirror, I gestured to my lips. “Put it on me.”

She did, and then I leaned over and planted a deliberate kiss to Morgan’s cheek, leaving the unmistakable red print of lips behind. That finally made her stir, but it was more of a sputtering awake. She spat out the gum as she sat upright and swiped at her nose, and the confusion lasted another moment until she was awake enough to look down at the items.

Then she looked over at us and laughed, “You guys are so annoying. …Are you wearing lipstick?”

“No.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she considered it for a moment before realizing it was a kiss that had finally woken her up. She pulled out her cell phone to open the selfie camera and get a look at her face. “Where did you even get lipstick?”

“Cusatelli,” I said, “here,” and I reached for her face to wipe it off.

“No!” She karate chopped my hands away and gave me a toothy grin. “Joke’s on you, I’m keeping it.”

Zulema and I both laughed. Since Morgan was awake, I pulled out some earbuds and gave her one of them so we could watch a movie together, and Zulema started the one on her screen at the same time so it’d be synced up with ours. We managed to watch two movies before our plane finally landed in California. Morgan and I had packed one bag together so she wouldn’t have to worry about me carrying an extra one, and after everyone had retrieved their luggage, we headed out to the bus that’d take us to a hotel.

The hotel was nicer than I expected. There was an indoor pool with an outdoor lounge area, a gym – not that any of us would be working out – and a restaurant. Morgan and I were sharing a two-bed room with Zulema that even had an outdoor balcony, and after we dumped our bags and changed, we met a bunch of the other girls at the pool.

We hung out and talked and laughed for a while before sitting on the pool chairs became uncomfortable for Morgan’s knee. Even though I’d offered to go back upstairs with her, she insisted I stay and keep having fun with the team, so I kissed her and told her to text me if she needed anything. I’d been lounging in a chair with her so she wouldn’t feel too separated from everyone else in the jacuzzi, but once she was gone, I dropped out of the chair. I sat down on the edge beside Zulema to put my feet in.

“You don’t want to come all the way in?” ZuZu asked, ducking half her face under water and then spitting a small stream at my shin.

I shook my head, glancing up at the clear sky of a warm California winter. “It’s nice out here.”

“Hey, Lopez,” Guppa said from my other side, “I’ll give you five bucks if you jump straight into the pool.”

Lopez peered out from the jacuzzi at the much colder pool. “Five bucks?” Guppa nodded, and Lopez hopped right out of the spa, yelling, “Suck it!” as she jogged over and jumped straight into the pool.

She surfaced with a screech, and the few other girls in the jacuzzi laughed and followed suit.

While they resurfaced with their own screams of protest, I looked at ZuZu and nodded toward the pool, saying, “Five bucks.”

“Hell no,” she said, and I snorted with laughter. She chuckled too, stretching her arms out along the edge of the spa and relaxing back against a jet next to where I was sitting.

“Is Rodney going to watch the game tomorrow?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, unable to mask a proud smile. “He’s having some friends over too. They’ll be cheering us on.”

“That’s awesome,” I said happily.

“And as soon as we’re done with all our soccer stuff,” she added, “you and Morgan got to start going to his basketball games with me.”

“Can we make signs and embarrass him?”

“Morgan’s rubbing off on you too much,” she accused, holding a straight face for a few moments before grinning at me. “Of course we’re going to make signs and embarrass him.” We both laughed, and then she laid her head back over the edge of the pool to look up at me. “For real though, how does Morgan feel about this weekend?”

I shrugged. “She’s bummed about not getting to play.”

“I figured.”

“She’s fine though.”

Zulema blinked up at me for a moment, and then straightened up and turned toward me. “You used the bad word.”

“What?” I huffed amusedly.

“Fine,” she quoted. “Spill it.”

“Oh my god,” I groaned, “seriously?” She simply lifted her eyebrows at me. “I promise you, she’s good.” She nodded, pursing her lips in a somewhat unsatisfied smile until I blew a surrendering sigh through my lips. “She’s fine,” I said, “I just…” I braced my hands against the edge of the spa and leaned forward. “Her dad’s making her finish school in Oregon so she can get surgery and rehab out there.”

“No shit,” Zulema said, leaving the bench to move directly in front of me. “For real?”

I hummed, adding quickly, “But I’m okay with it. We’re okay.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded again, but after another moment I met her patient gaze with a more honest shrug. “I mean, I don’t want her to go, but there’s not much either of us can do, so…”

“Are you worried?” she asked.

I inhaled deeply before shaking my head. “I was at first. That much distance is,” I paused, but couldn’t find a better word than, “scary.” Zulema nodded her understanding. “But it’s not like she’ll be gone for a long time. It’s one semester. I should be able to handle that.”

“Well, what makes it scary?”

“I don’t know,” I said quietly, thinking about it for several long seconds. “It’s long distance. I’ve never done that before… I don’t know how to sustain something like that.” I stared down and watched the jet foam swirl around my calves. “But like I said, it’s only one semester.”

“Yeah, that’s not too long,” she agreed. “Besides, she’s crazy about you.”

I grinned at my feet, and Zulema nudged my knee with her hand to get me to look at her, and we grinned at each other.

“Alright,” she said, standing up in the shallow jacuzzi and looking at the pool. “Five bucks?”

“Yeah,” I laughed.

“You coming over?”

I shook my head. “I’m going to head up.”

“Night,” she said, climbing out of the spa and saluting as she walked backward toward the pool. “Pay me later.”

I stuck around just long enough to hear the shriek she let out when she came up in the cold water.