Junior Year Box Set

I grinned when Cassidy stepped between Wolf and me, and when she found the seat she wanted, she shoved me next to the window. She amused me when she stole my baseball cap, put it on, and then slumped down in her seat. It took Cassidy’s dad all of five seconds to figure out where she was sitting. He made her go sit with the cheerleaders. I admit to being a little pissed when she kept my baseball cap. I’d lost count of how many she’d stolen from me.

My half brother took Cassidy’s seat when it opened up. I had mixed feelings about that. I didn’t really know how to deal with him because of the problems he indirectly caused at home. It really wasn’t that hard to avoid him, with him being a freshman and me a junior. We rarely saw each other at school, and he practiced with the freshmen for football.

“Wassup,” Phil said.

I gave him a sideways look. He really couldn’t pull that off. He actually reminded me a lot of Greg. They both were about five-ten and had similar looks. No one could doubt Phil was a Dawson. All the guys teased that he was a mini-me. Of course, we all said it with our little finger waggling at him. He wasn’t sure if we were complementing him or making fun of him. All he had to do was think about it for like two seconds; what would be your bet if that came from a bunch of teenage boys?

“If you’re going to say that, you need to go a little more gangsta. Wassup with it, bro,” I said and gave him fake gang signs.

“Na, na, na. You gotta do a little head bob when you do it,” Ty said as he came up the aisle. “David, yo too white bread fo’ all dat. Wassup wif it!”

“What he said,” Phil said.

Obviously, a bunch of small-town Midwestern boys were not going to pull off gangsta cool. Plus, I was sure ‘wassup’ was a little dated.

“Yo G! That was PHAT!” Yuri said, funny as hell with his Russian accent.

“Why yo trippen’, foo?” Johan said from behind us.

I about fell out of my seat when I heard a Mennonite farm boy throwing out a phrase like that.

“Aw yeah! Back the hell up, G!” Jim said as Yuri tried to sit with Wolf.

“I got yo back, G!” Wolf said to Yuri.

“Shut the hell up!” Moose called back at us. “I’m not listening to you clowns for the whole bus ride. So knock it off!”

I turned back to Phil.

“I’m good,” I said in my most anal white-man voice, which cracked him up.

◊◊◊

“So, I guess you heard,” Phil said after we all got settled and were on the road.

“Oh, yeah. That’s been a hot topic of conversation at the Dawson household.”

“I’m sorry if it caused trouble.”

“It’s not your fault. I’m glad you know who your dad is. I’d just advise you not to throw it in my mom’s face. She’s a little touchy about the timing of everything. How’s your mom doing?” I asked.

“She wasn’t thrilled to hear it somewhat announced on TV. I think she’s fine now,” he said. “I still want to get to know you better.”

It really wasn’t his fault, and he was my half brother. I needed to make more of an effort.

“I’ll tell you what my big brother once told me: if you don’t act like a dork, you can hang out with me in Indianapolis. Let’s give this brother thing a test drive and see if we can get along,” I suggested.

Coach Mason called me to the front of the bus.

“I have to go watch film. Let me ask if Coach Hope can put us in the same room,” I said.

It was all I could do not to laugh because he looked like Duke did when I told him to ‘find the kitty.’ He let me out to the aisle, and I strode up front. I stopped at Coach Hope before going on to sit with Coach Mason. I leaned down so only he would hear.

“Hey, could you let me room with Phil? I promised I’d spend some time with him.”

“That’s probably a good idea. With him in your room, there won’t be anything untoward going on.”

‘Untoward’ was such a good word. Coach was right because Phil’s mom made it clear he couldn’t hang out with me if we were going to do anything that might be R-rated. There was no way he could handle anything NC-17. I planned to make sure not to get out of hand on this trip. I’d just survived the week from hell and didn’t need a repeat performance so soon after that.

◊◊◊

We pulled up to the Holiday Inn Express across the street from Lucas Oil Stadium. Mom had told me that most of the parents were riding over on buses later today, and they would all be staying in our hotel. King planned to stay at the Marriott several blocks away. All we had to do was walk across the street, and we’d be at the stadium. Lucas Oil Stadium was the home of the Indianapolis Colts. I looked forward to playing in an NFL stadium. The closest I’d come so far was working out on the Houston Texans’ practice facility for Elite camp.

Coach Hope gave us thirty minutes to get our rooms settled, and then we needed to get back on the buses to go across the street and practice. That’s right, we couldn’t be trusted to walk across the street. I kept my comments to myself.

Lucas Oil Stadium opened in 2008. It has a retractable roof that can be closed if there’s supposed to be lightning, or if the temperature fell below forty degrees.