Football Champ (18 page)

TROY SPRINTED TO THE
end zone, where he met Nathan and Tate and Seth and the entire Tigers team. They hugged one another and cheered together so loud and so hard that Troy nearly forgot about his finger. Finally, exhaustion quieted them, and the TV cameras surrounded Troy and Seth. Troy’s mom appeared and let him answer questions about the game until the reporters started asking him about helping the Falcons in their playoff run.

“That’s it,” Troy’s mom said, stepping between him and the cameras. “It’s late. Troy’s going to the hospital and then home.”

“What about Seth?” one of the reporters shouted.

Seth shook his head and said, “Sorry, guys, I’ll talk to you more tomorrow, after the game. I’m the guy
driving him to the doctor’s.”

Troy, his mom, and Seth worked their way toward the H2 amid a clapping crowd, shaking hands with parents and football fans along the way.

A man in a suit stepped in front of them, blocking their way, and said, “Troy, I’m Doug Nash. I saw you on Larry King. I’m a lawyer and an agent. I work with some NFL players, but also the NBA, the NHL, a couple tennis players, and some TV personalities. I think I could help you get a heck of a deal with the Falcons, or even another team.”

“What?” Troy said, looking at his mom for an explanation.

Troy’s mom took the man’s card, studied it, and said, “I’m Tessa, his mom. Thank you, I’ll take your card and we’ll call if we need you.”

“Are you already planning on using John Marchiano, Seth’s agent?” Doug Nash asked, raising his eyebrows and nodding toward Seth.

“We have no idea what we’re doing,” Troy’s mom said. “At this point, Troy’s committed to helping the Falcons.”

“But not for next year, right?” Nash said. “I mean, no contract? I think I could get you one to two million dollars a year, Ms. White. Some people will say five, just to impress you, but I’ve made some initial inquiries and I don’t like to exaggerate.”

“One to two million?” Troy said, exhaling the words
like a puff of breath on a cold day. “Mom?”

“Not now, Mr. Nash,” Troy’s mom said, raising a hand. “We’ve got to get him to the doctor, and then we want to celebrate the championship. This isn’t the time or place. We’ll call you.”

They pushed past the agent and continued on toward the lighted parking lot. Seth shouted out invitations to the Tigers players and parents to spread the word that everyone was invited to his place for a postgame party. He handed his keys to Tate’s mom, asking her to get things going for him at the house and telling her that Tate knew where he kept plenty of drinks and snacks. Along the way to the truck, three other men in business suits also handed Troy their cards, asking him to call them about representing him. Troy’s mom took the cards and said they didn’t want to be bothered now.

“Mom,” Troy said as he climbed into the back-seat of the H2, “are these guys serious? Can I make millions?”

His mom heaved a sigh from the front, glanced at Seth, and turned around. “Honey, let’s not think about it right now. It’s possible, yes, but let’s enjoy what you just did. Like Seth said, you don’t get to be a champion very often. Let’s just go get you checked out and then celebrate with the team.”

“I don’t really have to go to the hospital, do I, Mom?” Troy asked. “I’ll miss the party.”

“I bet I can get Doc Garrett to take a picture at his
clinic. It’s on the way home,” Seth said, starting up the truck. “Just to make sure it’s not broken.”

“This late at night?” Troy’s mom said.

“He’ll do it for me,” Seth said.

Seth took out his cell phone and turned it on. The second he finished speaking with the team doctor, the phone rang. Seth answered, then talked for a minute, mostly replying with one-word answers before hanging up and putting the H2 in gear.

“That was Mr. Langan,” Seth said. “They got word from the league about the steroid thing.”

SETH GRINNED AT THEM
as he pulled slowly out of the parking lot through the crowd. He held out a hand for Troy to slap him five.

Troy slapped his hand into Seth’s in slow motion, a questioning look on his face.

“Your DVD recording of Gumble did the trick,” Seth said. “The newspaper is printing a full retraction and apologizing to me publicly. Peele got fired, and the commissioner cleared me to play tomorrow.”

“Yes!” Troy said, leaning forward to pat Seth on the shoulder with his good hand.

The X-ray showed no break in Troy’s finger or hand, but Doctor Garrett still let out a low whistle when Seth told him about Troy taking snaps and even throwing a
touchdown pass to finish the game despite the injury. The finger hurt Troy even worse now. It had swollen up like a purple sausage. They packed it in ice, and Doctor Garrett gave Troy some pain medication that left him feeling light-headed by the time they pulled into the driveway of Seth’s stone mansion.

Rusty Howell’s dad, apparently confident that the team would win, had made a banner that he strung up on the deck overlooking Seth’s pool and patio, where the players and parents milled about drinking sodas and eating all kinds of chips under the glare of floodlights. After a few minutes, Nathan’s dad arrived from the Kroger with bags full of hot dogs, burgers, and buns. Nathan’s dad and Seth went to work at the grill, and everyone talked and laughed and recounted every detail of the game.

At eleven o’clock, almost everyone—more than a hundred people—crowded into Seth’s TV room to watch the local news on the big screen. Everyone cheered at the highlights, and roared with laughter at Nathan’s crazy end zone dance. There were other highlights on other stations, too, and when they couldn’t find anymore, Seth began replaying the clips they’d already seen on his digital recorder.

After a time, people began to move back outside, downing more food and drinks. The pine trees whispered overhead, and a chill began to ride the small
breeze. Troy found himself standing by the diving board, talking with Nathan and Tate. Like the rest of the team, they hadn’t bothered to change out of their football pants after the game and only wore T-shirts on top. The bag of ice hanging from Troy’s hand had begun to leak, and when he reminded them about a certain hit he’d made on the Vipers’ quarterback on a third-down play, he swung his hand and accidentally spattered Nathan’s face with drops of water. Tate and Troy laughed.

“Sheesh,” Nathan said, wiping dry his eyes. “Easy, will you? You didn’t hit him
that
hard.”

“I put a gouge in my helmet,” Troy said, straightening his back.

“No way,” Nathan said.

“Come on,” Troy said, “My helmet’s in Seth’s H2. I’ll show you.”

Together they walked through the enormous house, pausing in front of the big back window to look down on the party.

“I can’t believe we’re actually here,” Tate said in a voice that sounded hushed in the cavernous space of Seth’s great room with its twenty-foot ceiling. “
The
Seth Halloway is
our
coach.”

“I know,” Troy said, feeling quiet himself and even a little small. “Everything really worked out, didn’t it? Peele getting canned. Me being able to help the Falcons.”

“And us being champs,” Tate said, grinning brightly.

“Yeah,” Troy said, returning her smile and putting an arm around both her and Nathan. “The best thing of all. Football champs, that’s us. Wow. I almost can’t believe it.”

“You gotta believe it when you know I scored the winning touchdown,” Nathan said. “Hey, you trying to distract me from seeing that dent in your helmet that you supposedly got?”

They laughed at him and walked the rest of the way through the house, Troy swinging open the front door.

Troy froze.

Before them stood a tall, thick-boned man with a chiseled jaw and shaggy brown hair. He wore a leather blazer with a narrow pin-striped shirt, jeans, and lizard-skin cowboy boots that gleamed up at them. His dark brown eyes bore into Troy.

“Not another lawyer,” Tate said, rolling her eyes.

Troy had told them about the agents and lawyers who approached him after the game, leaving out the amount of money Nash had mentioned.

“Yes,” the man said, nodding, “I am a lawyer. Troy, I saw you and your mother on
Larry King
.”

“How’d you get past the gates?” Nathan asked.

The man cast a quick look at Nathan, serious and intense enough to make Nathan look down at his feet.

“I’m from out of town, but I have a client who lives in the neighborhood,” the man said in a voice softer than
his face, “but I came to see you, Troy.”

“Because you want to represent me?” Troy asked.

“No,” said the man, “because I think I’m your father.”