Scramble
Copyright© 2025 by Lumpy
Chapter 35
Friday at QB practice, I saw that Eduardo was waiting up in the stands, but not Li. Li had mentioned that she had a big project to work on as we got close to the end of the year for her Pre-AP Biology class, and would talk to me over the weekend, so I’d known she wasn’t going to be there, but Eduardo was a surprise.
He hadn’t sat with us at lunch and, although he’d said hey to me in the hall, he’d been distant from everyone all day. I knew it was because of the Li thing the day before, and I just hoped it didn’t get worse.
The last thing I wanted was for him to draw back into himself and get isolated again. I didn’t think he’d end up making the same mistakes he had in the dream life, but I liked him and knew he had a bad habit of falling in with the wrong crowd if they gave him validation.
My plan had been to go by his house and hash it all out over the weekend, but sooner was better, so I was happy to see he was there.
As soon as I finished practice, he got up and was waiting for me by my stuff.
“Hey man, we missed...”
“I set up the meeting,” he said, interrupting me.
“With Tito?”
“Yeah. But he wants to meet tonight at a diner in Midland at eight, and I don’t know how we’re going to get there in time. There’s no good reason I can tell my mom to take us there without her starting to ask questions.”
He was right. I hadn’t actually thought through the logistics of it all, but getting a ride from a parent was definitely out. I considered the options.
Thankfully, there were some.
Dad was working the night shift tonight, and knowing Mom, she’d probably be passed out from one of her headaches by now.
“I think we’ll be okay. Let’s go to my house and you can call your parents and tell them you’re working late on a project at my house,” I said. “Like really late. Then we’ll borrow my mom’s station wagon and I’ll drive us to Midland. My mom is probably asleep by now, and one of the things she takes really knocks her out. They’ll never know.”
Eduardo’s eyes widened. “You’re going to drive? You just got your permit!”
“I’ll figure it out,” I said, although considering I’d driven for decades in my dream life and had already confirmed, after my first few drives with Dad, that the skills there were transferable, I wasn’t worried. “I just have to drive carefully and not get pulled over. Besides, what other choice do we have?”
“Good point,” Eduardo said, though he still looked uncertain.
“Let’s get going. Even with her car, that doesn’t give us a lot of time to get there and I don’t want to be out late. I have the seven-on-seven qualifiers in Dallas tomorrow.”
Thankfully, when we got to my house, my prediction was proven true. Josh was nowhere to be seen, as usual, and Mom was passed out when I peeked into her room. I dropped off my school stuff, grabbed her keys off the key rack, and we slipped out of the house and around to where Mom’s brown Buick station wagon sat in the driveway.
The thing was about ten years old and drove like a boat, but it was reliable.
“You sure you can handle this?” Eduardo asked as I adjusted the driver’s seat.
“Trust me.”
Starting the engine felt natural, like muscle memory returning. I backed carefully out of the driveway and headed toward the state road that would take us to Midland.
For the first few minutes, we drove in comfortable silence. Eduardo stared out the passenger window at the West Texas landscape rolling past, and I focused on getting used to the station wagon’s handling. The skills were transferable but this handled differently than Dad’s truck, heavier and less responsive.
“So what did you tell Tito exactly?” I asked.
“That I had some information for him that could get him back in the gang’s good graces and screw over Raf at the same time.”
“And he believed you?”
“Ohh yeah. He got excited. Jumped all over it.”
“So he’s interested?”
“Very.”
We fell into silence again for a few minutes, but I could tell that Eduardo was still really bothered. Tense. I thought it was about the whole meeting thing, which would be valid, until he started speaking again.
“So I bet you all had a good laugh at lunch when Li told you what happened, didn’t you?”
I glanced over at him. “What do you mean?”
“That I asked her out and she shot me down like a pathetic loser.”
“Of course not. Li doesn’t gossip and wouldn’t say something like that.”
“She’s a girl, that’s all they do.”
“Eduardo,” I said warningly, but he kept going.
“I’ve heard how they talk about guys who are dumb enough to think they have a chance.”
I pulled the car over to the shoulder and put it in park.
“What are you doing?”
“We’re not going anywhere until you stop being that guy.”
“What guy?”
“The guy who gets rejected and then decides the girl is a bitch.”
Eduardo’s mouth fell open. “I never said she was a bitch.”
“You’re saying she’s gossiping about you. You’re acting like she did something wrong by being honest about her feelings.”
“I’m not...”
“Why are you mad at Li?”
“I’m not mad at her.”
“Yes, you are. You’ve been avoiding her all day and giving her dirty looks.”
Eduardo slumped back in his seat. “Because I told her I liked her and she didn’t want to hear it. She just ignored me like I was invisible.”
“Bullshit. She did want to hear it, she just didn’t agree. That’s not the same thing as ignoring you.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Do you think she’s obligated to like you? To go out with you? Like she’s a bad person if she doesn’t have feelings for you?”
“Well, no...”
“Then why are you mad at her for not having the same feelings you do?”
Eduardo opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again.
“Let me ask you something,” I said. “If Tami Flowers asked you out, would you be a jerk for saying no?”
Eduardo made a face. Tami Flowers was notoriously the least attractive girl in our class, and everyone knew it.
“See? And Li didn’t even make a face when she turned you down. She just said she didn’t think of you that way. She was nice about it.”
“I don’t know if she was nice about it,” Eduardo said quietly.
“Really? What did she say?”
He didn’t answer right away.
“No, don’t clam up now. You’re saying she shot you down and belittled you, and if she did that, then I’m on your side. So she called you a loser? Said she’d rather be dead than date you? Is that it?”
I knew she hadn’t said any of those things.
“Well no, of course not. She said she didn’t like me that way. It’s just that ... it sucks.”
“Of course it sucks. I think you two would have been cute together, actually. But you’re going to end up losing a friend if you keep acting like this.” I looked at him seriously. “Is it worth never being friends with Li again because of this?”
Eduardo sighed. “No.”
“Good. Then get your head out of your ass.”
I put the car back in drive and pulled onto the highway. Eduardo was quiet for the rest of the trip, but not in a sulky way. More like he was thinking.
We reached the outskirts of Midland just before eight. The diner Tito had chosen was one of those small places that looked like it had been there since the fifties, with a neon sign that flickered and a parking lot full of pickup trucks.
Not exactly a prime gang hangout.
I drove past it and parked about a block away on a side street where I had a clear view of the front entrance and windows.
“Nervous?” I asked.
“Yeah. What if I mess this up?”
“You won’t. Just remember what we talked about. Let him think it’s his idea to go after the opportunity.”
Eduardo took a deep breath and got out of the car. I watched him walk back toward the diner, his posture trying to project confidence he probably didn’t feel.
While I waited, I started poking around the station wagon’s interior. Mom loved picking up hobbies but never actually stuck to any of them. I found a tennis racket under the back seat from her brief athletic period, a small chalk set from when she thought she might be artistic, and finally, in the glove compartment, a pair of compact binoculars from her bird-watching phase.
That had lasted about three months before she was on to the next thing, but the binoculars were still in decent shape.
I focused them on the diner windows and found Eduardo sitting in a booth near the front. Across from him was a guy who had to be Tito, short, stocky, with tattoos visible on his forearms. Even from this distance, I could see he was animated, gesturing with his hands as he talked.
Eduardo was doing a good job of looking casual, nodding at the right moments, and leaning in when Tito got excited about something. The conversation went on for about twenty minutes, with Tito’s body language becoming increasingly interested as Eduardo talked.
Finally, I saw Eduardo stand up and shake Tito’s hand. They exchanged what looked like phone numbers, and then Eduardo was walking back toward the car.
He slid into the passenger seat with visible relief.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
“He bought it completely,” Eduardo said. “Started talking about how he’s been waiting for a chance to show Raf up.”
“Did he tell you his plan?”
“Not exactly, but he said he’s going to start asking around for some guys to help him. Which is almost certainly going to get back to Raf.”
“Good.”
“Yeah. And Tito mentioned something else. He said Raf’s been getting pressure from their boss to start producing more, making bigger scores, because he’s one of the senior members.”
I started the engine and pulled away from the curb. “Which means when Raf hears about this, he won’t be able to pass it up.”
“Exactly.”
“And what about the thing with Mateo, about letting you know so you can get Mateo out?”
“He bought that, too. He said he likes Mateo and agreed he had no business being in the gang, although I think he really just wants to stick it to Raf twice. He was trying to be cagey, but he wasn’t doing a good job of it.”
“So he’ll call and let you know when the thing is going down?”
“He said he would.”
“Perfect,” I said as I started the engine and pulled away from the curb.
One down, only about a dozen more things to go.
Saturday, we left incredibly early for the drive to Dallas. Well, Fort Worth, actually. The tournament was being held at TCU’s stadium, which was larger than anything I’d played in before. It wasn’t a professional stadium, which I’d been to a couple in my dream life, but it was still impressive.
Although less so considering the stands were only about a third full. I guess seven-on-seven didn’t have the kind of draw as regular football.
Sign-ups were at some tables along the sidelines, and they were packed. There were sixteen teams competing at this venue for the two spots that would qualify them for the state tournament. I knew there were other tournaments happening around the state that had something like a thousand high school programs, a lot of them participating in seven-on-seven, and it all had to get whittled down to a reasonable number for the final state tournament in June.
“Midland’s here,” Mickey said, pointing toward the registration table where several familiar faces were getting their wristbands. “Think they’ll make it to the final?”
We’d beaten them in our scrimmage, but it had been too close for us to feel comfortable.
“Maybe. At least we know what we’re up against if we make it that far.”
Coach Holloway and Kenneth came back from the registration table, gathering us all together before we could keep guessing about who we’d be playing or how good any of them would be.
“Alright. They have the schedule completed. Pool play puts us against Irving first, then L.D. Bell, then Whyatt. Win all three and we’ll be the top seed going into the semifinals.”
“Where’s Midland?” Hunter asked.
“Different bracket. We’ll only see them if we both get to the finals,” Kenneth said.
“Don’t worry about who you’re going to play later. Focus on each game as we play them, otherwise we’ll be out early and we won’t get to see how we are against everyone else.
That sobered us all up.
“Warm-ups begin in twenty minutes. Get your heads on right.”
I found a quiet spot on the bleachers and went through my reads one more time. Four-second pass clock meant everything had to be right and tight. I didn’t have time to improvise.
Miguel sat down next to me. “You nervous?”
“A little. You?”
“My hands are sweating already.” He wiped his palms on his shorts. “But good sweating, you know?”
The horn sounded for warm-ups, and we jogged onto the field.
“Alright, Blake,” Coach Holloway called as we lined up for our first drill. “Show everyone what you’ve been learning.”
The first few throws felt good. Tight spirals, hitting receivers in stride, footwork solid. Unfortunately, warm-ups and the game were not the same thing.
When we actually started playing, my nerves showed immediately. Irving came out in tight man coverage, and I overthrew Mickey on a simple slant route by two feet. The ball sailed over his head and into the hands of their safety for an easy interception.
That gave them three points for the interception, putting us 3-0 after about thirty seconds on the field.
“Shake it off,” Hunter said as we lined up for our next possession. “Just settle in.”
It was strange. Like two weeks ago they had all been ready to be done with me for good, and now they were all being supportive again.
I swear, there were some things in high school I could do without.
Unfortunately, my second throw was worse. Another overthrow, this time to Jerry on what should have been an easy out route. The pass went high and behind him. Thankfully, this one wasn’t picked off and our defense was doing a good job against them, so we held the score steady.
Kenneth called our one time out of the game, and we’d been playing for less than five minutes.
“Calm down, man. Trust yourself and stop overthinking your throws. You gotta get out of your own way,” Kenneth said.
A whole time out just to buck me up. Not a great start.
I took a deep breath as we huddled up. I needed to slow down, not speed up.
“Hunter, run the quick slant. Mickey, take the comeback at fifteen yards. Jerry, cross underneath if I need you.”
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