Page 90 of Hard Count
“He needs to go for a touchdown,” I say to my dad. The clock is not our friend right now. “Give me that,” I demand,grabbing at my dad’s headpiece after Nash passes another ball off to Adrian.
I adjust the headset and get the mic into place. “Can you hear me?”
“Drew?”
“Right now I’m your coach and you're still playing scared. What is your gut telling you to do?” I ask, staring him down. He glances over at me from the line.
“Throw it in the end zone.”
“Do it. Give us some of that Nash Pierce magic.”
I can sense his smile from here as he calls the play. He fakes a handoff to Adrian and drops back, throwing deep to Alex. Everyone on our side of the stadium is on their feet as the ball soars through the air. "That's what I'm talking about!" I shout back at my man.
"You like that, baby?" he quips back at me as he waits to see the outcome of his throw. I do. I like it a lot.
“Come on, Alex. Get it,” I murmur as the ball drops. He sticks a hand in the air and snatches it before landing hard on his back in the end zone. “Is he okay?” Concern leaches from my voice.
“I’m going to check, baby.” Nash runs down to the end zone and gets there just as Alex sits up. The crowd claps and cheers when he stands. “He had the wind knocked out of him but he’s good.”
“Thank goodness. I think we need to go for two. Then worse case we can tie with a field goal.”
“Sounds good, Coach.”
My dad holds up two fingers and I nod. His face fills with pride and he nods back at me. “Here.” I hand him back the headset.
“You keep it. He listens to you better than me. I’ll just yell at them from here.” He winks. Eli laughs behind me. I roll my eyes at both of them.
Newhouse picks up the two points and now it’s up to our defense again. “Save us some time,” I say to Eli as he puts his helmet on.
Asher passes out water bottles and towels to the guys as they come off the field. His eyes snag on some girl in the stands holding up a sign and a giant grin on her face. He hands off the water bottles he’s holding to Chris and runs up the bleachers. Nash and I exchange glances and shrug.
“We'll have less than two minutes when I go back out there. What are you thinking?” Nash asks. His helmet is pushed up and balancing on his head while he squirts water into his mouth. It takes me a moment to remember I’m not here to drool over my boyfriend.
“Too much time for a hail mary. It’s going to be a balance of moving the ball with our run game and being efficient with the last one hundred and twenty seconds. Depending on where we get the ball it’s about two yards per second. But first we need to shut them down.”
Texas can’t score again. If they do, it’s lights out for us. They’re third and long right now. I don’t know if they’re more concerned about scoring or wasting time. “Eli, can you hear me?”
“Yeah. Loud and clear.”
“Watch for a lateral. They might try to play monkey in the middle to kill the clock. They’ve done it before and it worked,” I grumble. Dammit.
“Not this time,” he says, with determination.
Texas snaps the ball and sure enough, their quarterback passes it back to their tight end but he’s no match for Eli. Running at full speed, Eli charges and knocks the guy down so hard the ball comes loose.
There’s a scramble for the football and I have no idea who recovered it. Everyone has dog-piled on top of each other, trying to gain control. Newhouse players clear the bench and step closer to the field in anticipation for the call. The referees clear the pile one player at a time and signal it’s ours.
I grab Nash’s helmet and pull it back down on his head. “Take them by surprise just like you did me. Make them fall over the line with a hard count.”
Nash nods and runs onto the field.
“This one’s for you, little fox,” he says through the radio.
On our first play, Nash draws one of the lineman over the line of scrimmage before the snap. We gained six yards with our run and a free down thanks to the penalty. He does it a second time but I’m not sure if it will work a third one.
“Call it quicker this time,” I say. “They’re going to be cautious.” He needs to hurry anyway. We only have sixty seconds left.
Marcus snaps the ball and Nash quickly passes it off to Adrian who runs about thirteen yards before he’s tackled.The clock’s still running. There’s no time to waste. Nash signals everyone to hustle to the line. We move so fast the Texas defense isn’t even in position when we snap the ball.
