Battle of the Captains

3

Ethan

I see the truck before I see anything else. Big, black, jacked up on tires that cost more than my textbooks, parked dead center in the spot painted RESERVED, CAPTAIN in Wolves blue, the spot that's been mine since sophomore year. There's a Hawks parking pass hanging from the mirror, like he wants me to know exactly whose it is, in case the giant football decal on the back window wasn't clue enough.

I stand there for a second, keys in my hand, and I feel something settle in my chest instead of spike. Cold, not hot. That's always been the difference between me and guys like Noah Brooks. He runs hot. I go cold, and cold thinks clearer.

I call campus parking services.

"There's an unauthorized vehicle in a reserved space outside the arena," I say. "Yeah. I can wait."

I wait. I don't pace, I don't fume, I lean against the wall and check my phone and let the whole thing play out exactly the way it's supposed to when somebody breaks a rule on my turf. Twenty minutes later a flatbed truck rolls up, and by the time the driver's got the chains hooked under Noah's tires, a small crowd's already gathered, because nothing draws a Northridge crowd faster than somebody else's problem.

Noah shows up right as the truck lifts off the ground.

"Hey. Hey, what the hell—" He's jogging across the lot, backpack half falling off one shoulder, and for one second he looks like a regular guy who just got blindsided, before his face rearranges itself into something sharper. "That's my truck."

"Was your spot?" I say. "Then I guess we're even."

He gets close enough that I can see he's breathing hard, more from anger than the jog. "You had it towed. Over a parking spot."

"You parked in a reserved space that says CAPTAIN on it in six-inch letters. That's not an accident."

"Maybe I wanted to see how you'd react."

"Now you know."

That's when he steps in, closes the last two feet of space between us until we're close enough that I can smell his cologne under the sweat, close enough that if either of us leaned forward another inch it'd stop being an argument. I don't step back. I've never stepped back from anything in my life and I'm not about to start over a guy who thinks the whole world owes him applause for existing.

"You think you're something special," he says, low enough that it's almost just for me. "Captain of a team nobody watches, acting like you run this place."

"At least my team wins because we work for it. Not because somebody hands you a trophy for showing up in shoulder pads."

"Careful." His jaw's tight, a muscle jumping in his cheek. "You don't know the first thing about what it takes to do what I do."

"I know it doesn't take much. I've seen the highlight reels. Half your season's just you standing there while other people do the work."

Around us the crowd's doubled, tripled, phones up in that specific way people hold them when they think they're about to witness something worth ten thousand views. Somebody's narrating for a livestream. Somebody else is yelling encouragement I can't make out, though from the tone I'm guessing it's not aimed at getting us to calm down.

"You want to say that again?" Noah says.

"I'll say it as many times as you need."

"Big talk for a guy who spends his whole life on ice so he doesn't have to actually hit anybody."

"Big talk for a guy who wears more padding than a mattress."

His hand comes up, not a punch, more like he's about to shove me, and I don't back off, I plant my feet and get ready for whatever's coming, and that's the exact moment Coach Reyes' voice cuts through the whole parking lot like a foghorn.

"CARTER. BROOKS. BACK UP. NOW."

He's got a hand on my chest before I even register him moving, and somewhere behind Noah his own coach has an arm across his shoulders, physically hauling him half a step back. The crowd groans, actual groans, like they paid money for a fight and got a rerun instead.

"Both of you, my office, now," Reyes says, and then, quieter, just to me, "What the hell were you thinking, having his truck towed?"

"He parked in my spot."

"So you call parking services, not the National Guard." He shoots a look at Noah, who's still glaring at me over his coach's arm like he'd happily finish this right here if given half a reason. "And you. Baiting him like that in front of half the school. You two are lucky nobody threw a punch, because I promise you the school would've had both your scholarships on the table by Monday."

The school's version of consequences comes fast. By that evening we've both got a formal warning sitting in our inboxes from the athletics office, a stern paragraph about representing the university, about conduct expectations, about how any further incidents before or during Rivalry Week will result in suspension from all events. I read mine twice, mostly because I can't quite believe a parking spot turned into a warning letter with my name on it.

I don't see Noah again until the coaches finally let us both leave the building, hours later, the parking lot empty now except for his truck sitting crooked on the flatbed still waiting on paperwork. He falls into step near me on his way to his coach's car, close enough to talk, far enough that nobody could call it another confrontation.

"Today was fun," he says, and he's smiling, actually smiling, like none of this bothers him at all. "You should try it again sometime."

"There won't be a next time."

"There's always a next time with guys like you." He pulls his jacket tighter against the wind, already walking backward, still looking at me. "Just so you know. Next time nobody's pulling me away."

He turns and walks off before I can answer, and I stand there in the empty lot a long time after his coach's car pulls out, replaying the whole thing, the closeness of him, the heat coming off him even in the cold, and telling myself the only thing I'm feeling right now is anger.