All The Wild Ones | Wildfire Series

Good With My Hands

GRAYSON

I was known for a few things on the Oakland State campus, but they were easily summarized.

Simply stated, I was good with my hands.

Putting it that way made it sound conceited, but objectively speaking, it was the truth. Chopin's Etude in G sharp minor had nothing on me. If I was blindfolded and stuck in front of a piano, I would sure as hell end a glissando on precisely the right note just by feeling the keys. Fingering came naturally.

The same went for other string instruments--I was more than decent at the guitar. But it would never be my favorite, despite the fact that girls loved it. I just wasn't that much of a player, even though I loved the game. Especially football.

1,800. The number of receiving yards I racked up this season for Oakland State. And zero was the number of times the ball had slipped through my fingers in the endzone this year. But none of those stats, or my ability to find the right spot on the laces, could keep our season from going downhill right before my eyes. 

I stood on the sidelines, letting the light drizzle wash away the sweat on my forehead as I watched our defense put up one last fight against UCLA.

They'd been a good team all year, but we should have been better. Hell, there were a lot of ways that we'd fucked with the game tonight. I'd personally messed up one of the plays earlier when I tried to cut hard for a crisp slant route, and my plant foot slipped out from under me.

I said I was good with my hands. My feet, well, they had their mind of their own sometimes. Blaming the rain was useless; it had been my fault.

But defense was shitting the bed, too. Our middle linebacker broke up with his girlfriend a few weeks ago, and ever since, damn, dude was out of it on the field. I could barely watch as the UCLA quarterback slipped past him to chuck the ball to the endzone.

But I watched anyway.

And there it was...touchdown.

Great.

One minute left in the fourth quarter, and I suddenly wished I was a kicker. Because god did I want to punt something. Quinton Reid's face would work. I wasn't usually one to blame shit on my teammates, but Quinton—the braindead middle linebacker—was a different breed.

Rumor was his girlfriend broke up with him because he abused the shit out of her. So yeah, his face would work.

I couldn't watch this trainwreck anymore. Dragging my fingers through my hair, I spun around to look at the crowds. They seemed about as defeated as I felt. Heads in hands, hands on heads—both were signs of exasperated fans.

My gaze wandered down to the front row, and I saw more of the same until I got to the very end of the bleachers, where a dark-haired girl laughed and clapped her hands together as she watched the field. A guy sat next to her, his head ducked as he said something that kept the girl's laughter rolling.

Hell, that was a happiness I really wished I felt right now. But honestly, seeing it in someone else lifted my spirits a bit. She wore an ugly mustard-colored beanie that somehow looked good on her with that long, dark hair. She exuded this radiant energy, too, and it wasn't like she was laughing at us for losing the—

The buzzer went off, and she jumped into the air, cheering and waving her arms around wildly.

Alright, maybe she was laughing at us for losing the game.

I sighed, watching as she jokingly booed at some of my teammates as they jogged off the field.

Yeah, definitely laughing at us.