Page 57 of Hell Bent (Portland Devils #5)

WIN OR LOSE

Alix

And no, I hadn’t suddenly become a football genius.

Like I said, I was sitting beside Jennifer and she was explaining it to me while Harlan’s sister Annabelle sat beyond her and held Nick, who was wearing so much snowsuit that he looked like a miniature Abominable Snowman.

Jennifer’s daughter Dyma was here from her college classes in Colorado, too, and sitting beside Ben, who’d been stunned into silence by her extreme cuteness.

That girl had some dimples, plus bright blue eyes and a whole lot of personality.

Right now, she was saying, “Come on. Come on. You can do it,” as if they could hear her.

Since Owen, her fiancé, had played the whole game like a stolid, unstoppable machine, maybe they could.

Nothing much was working out there in the swirling wind and icy snow except the defense and the offensive line, but according to Dyma, the line was why the scoreline wasn’t worse. Consider the source, though.

Owen snapped the ball to the quarterback, who was so close behind him that it was more of a handoff. In the time it took the QB to take two steps back and cock his arm, Harlan was already fifteen yards up the field. The QB turned, and …

And the extra-big Steelers player who’d been stopped all game long came through like he was busting through the line in Red Rover, grabbed the QB from behind, and pulled him down. Like I’d jinxed the offensive line just with the thought.

“Oh, shoot,” I said as most of the crowd rose to their feet, roared, and twirled those towels over their heads like there’d be a prize for it. “At least it was only second down.”

Wait. The big screen was flashing with images of fireworks, and the score had changed, too. Now it said 5 to 3. “Safety,” Jennifer said, her hands clasped at her mouth. “Sacked in the end zone. Oh, no. I can’t even watch. Give me Nick, Annabelle. I need something to snuggle.”

“Don’t they get another, um, chance?” I asked. “More downs?” The teams were changing out there, though, men running off, men running on.

“No,” Jennifer said, hefting her son into her lap. “Unfortunately.”

Nick said, “Daddy ran very fast,” and pointed, and Jennifer said, “Yes he did. Isn’t Daddy strong?” and told me, “They have to kick off to the Steelers all the way from the 20. I sure wish they hadn’t changed the onside kick rules this season.”

“The what?” I asked. Oh. Sebastian was out there, which meant he’d be kicking off. The Devils had just lost their best chance to win, then.

I knew it wasn’t the end of the world. It just felt really, really bad.

Jennifer made a hand gesture and said, “I don’t actually understand it,” and Dyma leaned around Ben and said, “Only the team that’s behind can do an onside kick now, and only in the fourth quarter, and they have to announce it, which is the stupidest thing in the world.

How’s a trick play supposed to work if the other team knows they’re doing it? ”

“Umm …” I’d barely even understood the regular kickoff deal, and had only bothered to because Sebastian was the one doing it.

Dyma said, “It’s when you kick the ball really short so your team has a chance to recover it.

Of course, so does the other team, which is why it’s a desperation move.

It has to go at least ten yards before you can touch it, and obviously, if the other team knows you’re going to kick it like that, there’s almost no point. ”

The long snapper was ready to snap the ball, the other guy was ready to hold it, and everything looked normal. That is, until Sebastian kicked. With the side of his foot, as always, but the ball sort of … squirted. Not straight ahead, but out to the side, on a diagonal. And bounced.

They were trying it anyway.

Sebastian

It was exactly like soccer. Like a bad kick in soccer, sure, with that awkward bounce to it, but I’d made a damn good living for a decade making the ball go exactly where I kicked it, for ninety minutes at a time.

I took a breath, centered myself, hit the ball exactly the way I’d wanted to, and followed it to where I knew it would go.

I didn’t think. I just moved. The ball bounced erratically, once, twice, three times, and I was there all the way.

To the bounce at the 40, the bounce at the 43.

Players around me in white shirts and black, but I was only following that ball.

It took its third bounce off a Steelers thigh and came up into my arms, and I thought, That’s ten yards, hugged it tight to my body, and fell on it as everybody else fell on me.

I was on the ground, buried under a pile of bodies.

Hands all around me, grabbing, twisting, and I held on with my hands and my forearms and my elbows and thought, Not today, assholes.

Not today. Until the whistle blew, hands were pulling me to my feet and thumping me on the back, and Kelsan Simmons was shouting, “Damn, man. Damn. You did it!” Because these were my guys.

Special teams. And if we had anything to say about it, we were going to win this game.

Alix

This time, I didn’t need anyone to explain. I saw who had the ball, because I’d never looked away from him, and I was on my feet, jumping, screaming, hugging Jennifer and Nick, hugging Ben.

It took me long seconds to realize that the Devils were only at their own 30-yard line, there were barely three minutes left in the game, and that swirling wind was still blowing.

I can’t remember much of what happened next, because I watched it between my fingers.

Short runs to the sideline. Short passes ditto.

Yard by yard, up the field. Another of those pushes on fourth down that you didn’t believe could work until you watched the quarterback follow Owen’s broad back one more time.

Second by second, minute by minute, a first down and then another one.

And then … stalemate.

Another fourth down, but this one was fourth and eight, with the Devils at the Steelers’ 28-yard line with thirteen seconds to go in the game.

The Devils only needed three points, but could even Sebastian make that kick in this gusting, swirling wind?

What was that, forty-five yards? I asked, “What do they do now?”

“Throw it to Harlan in the end zone,” Jennifer said.

“The Hail Mary works one to two percent of the time,” Dyma said.

“Not with Harlan receiving, it doesn’t,” Jennifer snapped.

“Field goal,” Ben said. “Sebastian can make it. He’ll do it.”

Ben was right, because Sebastian was trotting out again, buckling his chin strap, his body language the same as always. Cool. Confident. In control.

Win or lose, I thought, my gloved hands clenching. I’m behind you win or lose. How could he handle the pressure, though?

Because he can, I answered myself. Because he’s exceptional. That’s why you love him.

Win or lose.

Sebastian

I nodded to the long snapper, Calvin Purdy, and he nodded back.

I exchanged a glance with my holder, Josh Turnbull.

Let’s do it, I told them in my mind, and knew that every other man out here was telling me the same thing, and so was every man on the sidelines.

Offense, defense, special teams. All Devils, all the time.

A deep breath in, and let it out. Three steps back and two to the left, the same way every time. The long snap, shot like a bullet into Turnbull’s waiting hands. My legs moving the same way they always did. And my foot meeting nothing.

Turnbull standing before I’d even taken my first step, pivoting. His arm going back even as the Steelers’ arms went up to block the kick. And Turnbull, who’d played QB for two years in college, sailing that ball right over their heads and hitting Forrest Jones in the hands.

In the end zone.

The referee’s arms going up. Touchdown.

I sank to my knees. I breathed hard. I told somebody, somewhere, Thank you. Then stood up to thump Turnbull and Jones on the back and join the jumping, shouting men in white. Ghosts on the snowy field, unheralded, unregarded.

Champions.

This was a team.

I was twenty-five hundred miles from Portland, and I was home.