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“I liked the ones with baby Vader,” Jude chimed in. I stared hard at him. Of all the failures I could’ve made as his older brother, allowing him to use the phrase baby Vader ranked near the top.
“You did not just fucking call him that.” I scowled. “And those movies were crap.”
“They weren’t that bad!” someone else shouted, laughing hard. “Padmé was hot.”
“That is not a sufficient reason to watch a Star Wars movie,” I said. Although it probably explained a significant percentage of the prequel’s fan base.
“You’re probably one of those people who thinks Star Wars could be real,” some kid scoffed. Well, he just stepped directly on a landmine he didn’t know existed.
“It absolutely is real in some variation,” I shot back. “Do you realize how many planets there are? Trillions! There are trillions of planets out there, and you want to tell me we’re the only living beings out there? The only advanced society? We’re babies in the galaxy! Just because we haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Man will never be able to map the entire universe. Not in my lifetime, not in your lifetime, not before our species goes extinct.”
The guy stared at me. Actually, all of them stared at me—not that it surprised me. I was also used to people looking at me like I grew a second head whenever I talked about stuff like this.
“We’re not going to go extinct,” another kid replied. The confidence with which he said it almost made me laugh.
“We are going to go extinct,” I retorted. “Every species does. Our time on Earth is nothing but a blip in the Earth’s history. The Earth is the only constant.”
Technically, even that wasn’t true on a large enough timescale, but I decided introducing the eventual death of our sun into our first team meeting was probably excessive.
“Why aren’t lightsabers real then?” Jude asked. Of course that was his takeaway.
“Theoretically, lightsabers are feasible,” I said. “But the actual amount of energy needed to fuel one would be astronomical and unreasonable.”
“You’re a nerd.” The kid next to Theo laughed, as did others.
“I am.” Certain insults only worked if the recipient was ashamed, and I had never been ashamed of being a nerd. Give me equations, spaceships, science fiction, stars, and anything else that fit in those categories, and I was perfectly happy.
My gaze drifted toward Theo only to find him smiling, like he knew exactly how much restraint I was exercising not to launch into a more detailed explanation. The expression was fleeting.
“Why’d you take this job?” Theo asked, changing the topic. My chest tightened because it was him asking. Anyone else and I wouldn’t have minded nearly as much. It didn’t help that I knew it wasn’t quite the question he wanted to ask.
“Well, I’ve been in town for almost a year now.” Which was far too long at this point. “And while I do work remotely, there’s only so much I can do from here. It leaves me with a lot of extra time. Not to mention I still have rent up here and bills in Florida, so it’s a smart financial move. And honestly, while I may not play football anymore, I still thoroughly enjoy it.”
“What’s your team?” The question came from somewhere else, breaking whatever existed between Theo and me at that moment. I looked away and welcomed the reprieve.
“I have season tickets for the Orlando Renegades,” I said. An immediate explosion of opinions followed, half the team groaning as if I’d personally offended them. At the same time, the other half started arguing over whether the Renegades were underrated or complete garbage. Apparently, nothing united a football team faster than having very strong feelings about the new coach’s favorite football team.
I engaged where I could, but the volume of comments made it difficult to follow. It wasn’t until the most obscure question got thrown at me that the debate ended.
“Do you think they have football in space? Like, does football exist in Star Wars? Or is there some universal football league where enslaved humans are forced to play for alien teams?” someone asked, setting off a chain reaction of wild thoughts and ideas.
Within seconds, the entire conversation derailed. One guy started arguing football would be impossible in low gravity—a term I was surprised he even knew. Someone else insisted that would make it better. Jude wanted to know whether Wookies could legally play against humans, which led to an argument about species-based divisions that became alarmingly detailed.
I sighed. I was never going to live down the Star Wars shit with any of them. Still, there were worse things they could be arguing about than the logistics of an intergalactic football league.
CHAPTER 05
Theo
Rhodes Kennedy was our coach.
Rhodes Kennedy was my coach.
I was sleeping with my coach.
Those three thoughts had been running laps through my mind since he walked onto the field. Unfortunately, none of them seemed interested in getting tired. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t focus.
Rhodes was my coach. That changed things—obviously. The problem was I had no idea exactly how much. What did this mean for me and him? Him and me. Us. Were we even an us?
