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“What are you thinking?”

“Defense needs to be a little nastier. I figured West would come at us light and ramp up toward the end, but that’s not how they’re playing it. We need to keep them from gaining but make sure we’ve got enough energy toward the end when they tire themselves out.”

“Yeah.” Landry said. “We’ll put Tyrie in now.”

“And Joshua too. Let him send some of them to the ground.”

After a few yards’ gain on Greenbelt’s part, they had a quick break. Just enough time for water and subbing a few players out. Jade made sure she made some room to talk to her team as well.

“Your hustle is incredible, y’all. Nice clean hits, staying on their tails—I’m proud of the work you’re doing out there.”

“We let them score, Coach,” Ozzie Alfaro grumbled, sweat pouring down his face. “That ain’t good.”

The other boys hummed in agreement.

“No, it isn’t,” Jade agreed. “But you know what? I think that having them get one on you early won’t do anything but show you that they didn’t come to play, so we can’t either.”

Next to her, Landry nodded. She paused, waiting for him to say something of his own like he normally would, but he kept silent.

She cleared her throat. “When you get back out there, I want you to remember one thing. Repeat it over and over in your heads if you have to. But tell yourself that this is yours. That ball is yours, this field is yours, this win is yours. Nobody can take it from you, least of all them.”

The boys murmured their affirmative, and she watched one by one as their shoulders squared while they put their helmets back on.

“Now what did I just say?” she yelled.

“This ball is ours!” they yelled, repeating her words.

“And what else?” Jade got louder.

The boys followed suit. “This field is ours!”

“Tell me more.”

“This win is ours!”

“So go take it, then.”

Fourth quarter, fourth down, twenty-five seconds left on the clock. The score was 37-43, with Greenbelt down by six.

The boys were tired, sweat staining through their pads, bodies slower under the mounting pressure of taking it all home. On the sidelines, the coaches held their collective breaths as the players lined up.

There was time for one last play, and Greenbelt had possession of the ball. This was their last shot, and everyone could feel it. Even the crowd was eerily quiet, having spent an entire quarter with bated breaths as the two teams squared off.

Jade squinted across the field, using her twenty-twenty vision to spot West Beaufort’s head coach. He’d taken that ugly tan sun visor off his head, sweat pulling around his temples, face stone-cold mad.

Landry was still light on his feet, face impassive. The only indicator of his stress was the way his right fist balled up tightly in the pocket of his khakis—and even that was obvious only if you knew where to look.

“They didn’t expect us to come this hard,” she told her head coach.

“We haven’t had a season opener this good in years.” The grin on Landry’s face was downright wolfish.

Her own grin stretched out, and she briefly wondered if it was just as intense. Everything inside her believed that this game was theirs, that winning today was inevitable for her team. It was the type of foolhardy delusion she forced herself to stand in. She’d keep it until the very end too—even if it ended up being a bitter one. Jadefigured a little delusion was allowed, if not necessary, at times like these. And hell, even if the impossible happened and they lost, she’d do nothing but keep that spirit alive at the next game. And the one after that. And the one after that too.

Total defeat was not an option. Not for her. Not for her team.

“I know,” she said. “Thirty-seven isn’t an opener score. Not for us.”

“Let’s see about forty-four.”