"Listen up Dawgs!" Emmitt's voice barked out loudly over the hummed pregame locker room activity. One-quarter of the way through the season, the sensuous physical toll had started on some of the guys' bodies.

Thanks to Ellie's clean eating, which I had a newfound perspective towards after she told me she cooked that way because of her PCOS conditions, and my post-workout focus that now included nightly ice baths, physically I felt fantastic. But a lot more athletic tape was administered on ankles, toes, and fingers, to name a few body parts. Knee and wrist bands and braces were slipped on underneath pads.

While Emmitt launched into his pregame hype-up speech, Wes grinned sideways at me. We'd had a productive week offensively during practice, the ones Monday through Thursday that I'd attended anyways, where I clicked with him, Reese, and Seth in one rehearsed short-yard pass play after another. By the way Wes' nearest knee bounced, I knew he was as ready as I felt.

My fingers twitched and I absently listened to Emmitt's speech but more studied his current physical condition. His walking boot had been replaced with a black brace stuffed into his shoes and he still limped but his gait was much improved.

Guess he recovered fast, wonder if he'll play this season.

For Emmitt's credit, he'd handled the injury pretty well, at least from my perspective as the guy who'd taken his roster spot.

He's been a lot more mature than I expected.

"Charlie told me he's trying to rehab in time for the draft letters." Wes nodded in Emmitt's direction as we strapped on our helmets and chin guards.

My eyebrows lifted at that lofty goal. "Think he'll make it?"

"Previous record and team workouts will say for sure," Wes answered in a low voice. "But he probably won't make the combine in February."

"That sucks," I replied quietly.

The NFL combine was an invitation-only event where potential draft-eligible football players had their physical abilities and character evaluated by all thirty-two teams. The two-day event was just as much a showcase of each of the roughly four-hundred attendees' abilities as unofficial tryouts that hopefully impressed the teams prior to the NFL draft.

"Dawgs in the house!" Emmitt's near-yelled chant broke through my thoughts and vibrated off the walls around us.

Almost the entire locker room erupted in a returned, "Who!"

"Louder!" he commanded with a challenged glare around the room. "Dawgs in the house!"

Collectively, the chant gained volume and energy, "Who!"

Fists tightly clenched, he marched back and forth in front of the room, and chanted in rolling route, "Dawgs in the house, Dawgs in the house, Dawgs in the house!!"

Every Husky-uniformed body in the room stood at attention, sucked in a collective breath, then screamed in unison, "Who! Who! Who!!"

As he launched into the last part of his amp-up speech, I leaned against my locker, wrapped my gloves around my hands, then stretched the black leather with a couple squeezed and released fists. Pregame, halftime, and postgame speeches weren't my strength and Emmitt still wore the 'C' for the team's captain, so I gladly stepped back and just mentally prepped myself for the game. My mind clicked through the setup plays we'd pushed through all week.

Cover four short slants, lats, and hooks, cover six deep fake. Cover four short slants, lats, and hooks, cover six deep fake. Cover four short slants, lats, and hooks, cover six deep fake....

Once Wes' hand slapped on my shoulder dragged me out of my inner mantra, I frowned the longer I studied Emmitt as he stood near the exit and clapped guys' hands and shoulders as they left the locker room. Yesterday's conversation from the alumni event replayed in my mind and I only had one reaction.

Is he really a decent guy?

What confused me most was Emmitt's initially player reaction, in particular his raunchy comments about Ellie, and whether he'd just tested me like he'd said he had. The guy had obvious feelings for her and what bothered me most was how he simultaneously raised red flags whenever he presented himself as possibly decent.

"Good luck, Logan," Emmitt greeted me with a slapped palm on top of my helmet and a wide grin.

"Wanna lead us out?" I grinned from behind my helmet cage. Within the first home game, I realized that who led out the team was also closest to the air cannons that fired at our entrance, as well as the thickest part of the popped purple smoke.

"Not yet, maybe a couple more games," he admitted as his grin dissolved. "Can't wait to see what you throw at USC though."

"Don't blink," I joked and slipped in my mouth guard.

Emmitt shook his head, then muttered something behind me that was under my hearing level but definitely included the words 'cocky ass.' I tossed aside any distracting thoughts about him and trotted out behind the team onto the night field to thunderous applause. Since I was the last one, I made quick work and warmed up with my usual receivers Wes and Seth.

I'd teased Seth all week about his failed attempts with Harper, which anyone could've seen a mile away. As with Ellie, he'd bruised his ego off and moved on like usual by how he mentioned he'd partied with Lydia after we'd left.

He can have her.

Thankfully, since the ESPN interview, I hadn't seen or heard a peep out of Lydia or Angel, or any other girl who'd pursued me earlier in the season. My social media had blown up with mostly positive comments about Ellie and me and I deleted and blocked the negative ones as they flowed in.

My eyes shifted across the field to Ellie's normal seat and a frown tensed my forehead at how stiffly she sat upright, the white number ten on her purple jersey brightly visible under the stadium lights, sandwiched between two USC maroon and gold number seven jerseys.

Looks like her parents made it.

Ellie's parents largely looked the same as they'd looked last time. Her dad sat with his arms crossed over his chest but his eyes fixated across the field. Once I followed their trajectory, I caught sight of number seven's warmups.

After we warmed up, I met Jake himself at center field under the dark navy sky that barely peeked out from behind the heavy, gray clouds overhead. I blinked under the harshness of the stadium lights that shone down like interrogation lamps. Under the blanket of voracious, amped-up Husky crowd noise, his deep voice greeted me first.

"Good luck, LT." He offered me a quick hand shake and a stiff-nodded squeeze of my palm in his, which I returned then exchanged with his co-captains.

After the usual quick coin toss announcement, Jake's called out "tails" was flipped upwards on the turf. Of course he elected that USC received first, so I picked that he started out in the western direction and looked into the more direct stadium lights in the second half when the sky was darker.

While the rest of the offensive team watched like spectators, I paced the sidelines, gripped my shoulder pads near the collar of my white jersey, and got stuck to the sidelines after an end over end kickoff started the Trojans on their twenty-yard line.

Predictable Jake marched, one grinded run and short-yardage pass play, safe and methodical as usual, one play after a time. Like a true professional, Jake operated in a cool, controlled manner like the game was directed under his command. The Huskies' defense played tough and stopped a few plays at the line of scrimmage but the Trojans still marched down the field with a set of new downs after each attempt.

A faint tension rang out in the stadium once USC made their way into field-goal range and the crowd roared on their feet until the stadium rocked in support of the Husky defense. The air electrified when the defense finally stopped their advancement and our special teams trotted out for the forty-two yard field goal attempt.

Since I never played on or faced special teams, I hadn't paid a lot of attention to that part of our opponents' teams this year, but knew that USC's kicker hadn't missed any of his attempts in their 4-0 start. A collective stadium breath was held as he lined up, swung his leg in a perfect forward motion, and the bar arc high enough that it easily cleared the uprights.

Lady luck, an extra gust of wind, or maybe an entire stadium's gasped breath affected the atmosphere but the ball bounced against the left goalpost, then fell outside. Thunderous applause and wild cheers rained down on us, which surged adrenaline through my veins.

"Make it count," Coach Vaughn gritted out as his arm grabbed my upper arm. "If you see cover six, go deep."

When we huddled up, I knelt down onto my right knee and looked up at the offensive circle around me. With my eyes fixated on Seth, I called out the ballsy play call, "Fake shallow Seth, Wes deep six."

"They're in cover four," Seth whined.

"Nope." I shook my head slightly because the linebacker's hands and feet on the left side looked awfully twitchy to me, which meant he and the one on the right stood in a decoy cover-four position that shifted to cover-six as soon as we set our offensive position. "They won't be."

"Whatever," he muttered. "Just throw it out of bounds."

I ignored him, then slapped the last name Brown on the back of Wes' shoulders. "Lateral fake left, go long."

"You got it." Wes trotted over to the line formation, which from above looked like a giant letter T. My offensive lineman stacked shoulder to shoulder in a tight barrier, I lined up behind Zander my center, then my cornerback and runningback both stacked behind me just for the look of a faked run play. Wes took his position on the outside left side and, once he locked his foot onto the line of scrimmage, the dropped back linebacker shifted up closer against the run play we faked. His movement opened up a hole that left the nickelback position deep in the backfield exposed.

"D-six, D-six!" I screamed out the play, squatted down and reached my hands between Zander's legs, then faked a look on my right at Seth. "Hut, hut, hut! Hike!"

With a quick snap, I trailed back three steps, planted my feet, then hurled with the ball with a sleek, forward-whipped motion of my throwing arm. It sailed in a perfect, crisp spiral two steps ahead of Wes, who snatched it up and burned up the now open turf at his disposal. He passed his initial defender and burst forwards ten yards deeper, twenty yards as the deep safety ran lateral then behind Wes as he blurred past the deep zone coverage.

Both my fists raised as Wes ran deep, twenty, thirty, forty, sixty, eighty... Touchdown.

"Yeaaaahhhh!!" I released a primal scream, squeezed from my fists up to my shoulders and even muscle in between, then slapped a high-five with Jamal, my runningback.

"Damn!" He added a fistbump. "Some folks ain't even sat in their seats yet, bro."

"Their loss." I clenched my teeth tight into my mouthguard and trotted back to the sidelines, where my heart pounded inside my chest with each step but confidence oozed up inside me.

Underdogs, my ass.

"Let's end this!"

Pants and grunts erupted as I broke from the huddle, down four points with less than two minutes left in the fourth quarter. Our offensive team took our position on our forty-five yard line close to midfield but our backs were against the time clock wall. We set up another faked running play but planned a shuttle pass over to Seth. He'd made tight short-yardage receptions all game and patiently waited for his points until just one minute and thirty-eight seconds were left on the game clock.

His time to shine.

Despite our impressive opening score, the game against USC turned into an old-school, offensive slug-fest. Both defenses held up their best resistance but the high-powered offenses churned down the field, with scores traded back and forth with the game lead. As quarterbacks, Jake and I had near perfect games, high pass completion rates, no interceptions, and no fumbles. Our scoring drives led to tired defenses on both sides, pumped up offenses, and a 36-40 game in their favor. After a stopped touchdown attempt by the Huskies' defense, their kicker converted his field goal this time and the Trojans held a four-point game that I wanted stolen away from them.

After the snap, I dropped back into the pocket just as Seth outran the cornerback from his slot receiver position, then twice stutter-stepped around his defender like he'd schooled the corner in a dance-off. Since the middle linebacker got a jump on Darrius and encroached on me like a madman determined that I ate turf, I pumped the ball back once, then released my throw off my back foot.

Shit.

My toss was high, wobbled slightly, and was aimed ten yard deeper than our set up play. Like the rest of the stadium, I only watched in breathless anticipation. In a flash of purple and white, Seth pumped his legs with every ounce of what they had, and right before the ball looked like it sailed out of reach, his tall, lean frame extended up and his fingers clamped down around it. He twisted mid-air and landed down, hard but right near the end zone. Fifty-five yards in thirty seconds, and almost an entire stadium of seventy-eight thousand people sat silenced before they exploded in celebration.

This is why I play the game.

The Dawgs fan cheers rained down on us, the Husky Band broke into its celebratory 'Tequila song,' and the cannons fired like explosions. Adrenaline pumped through me with my raised fist and the rocked stadium blurred from my vision as I tore down toward the end zone. Right before I reached Seth, my feet were lifted off the ground by what I eventually recognized as Darrius, who I'd set as my right guard during the play for a key block. His palm smacked my butt hard then he set me down, before Seth rushed in and crashed into me.

"Fuck yeah!" Seth screamed and smashed his helmet against mine so hard my head rattled slightly.

As a few post-adrenaline nerves fluttered through me, I trotted off to the sidelines. My eyes drifted upwards to the pair of dark, shining brown eyes and my heart squeezed my chest.

Ellie.

On its own, my hand palmed flat into my chest, then I pointed one index finger at her.

You're my one and only.

Without a pause, she flashed me a bright smile with the returned gesture. With a tight smile, her parents clapped on either side of us and even Mr. Harrison gave a slight head shake. His brown eyes met mine once I stopped at the bench. He forced a tight smile, but offered a quick thumbs up. If I'd blinked then I would've missed the gesture but was glad I hadn't.