Exotic

~ playing the field ~

The drive to Max's game was long, long enough to make me consider what I was doing - namely, whether it was sensible. My conversation with Caleb in the locker room seemed like it had happened months ago, but I remembered being told in no uncertain terms that I was not welcome to intrude in his life that way. Of course, back then we had been texting each other our locations just so we wouldn't bump into one another.

We'd come a long way.

I also remembered Max saying that Caleb's entire family came to his games. That fact alone nearly had me barrel rolling out of Aaron's car at the first traffic light.

But Max was chatting animatedly in the backseat, orange socks pulled up to his knees and juggling a soccer ball between his hands, ignoring his brother's plea to put it in the boot before he took out a window, and I reminded myself that I wasn't going to be there for Caleb. It would just be a bonus for my Saturday.

Aaron was wearing orange studs in support of his brother's team, though Max had pointed out they were not quite the same hideous shade that the Truman Monarchs advertised themselves with.

"They're burnt orange," Aaron argued. "We've discussed this. Monarch butterflies aren't neon. Your team name is a lie."

"O'Connor Prep claimed burnt orange as their team colour," Max told him. "That's why we hate them, remember?"

"I thought we hated them because they beat you, every season," I piped up.

"That too," Max admitted.

The pitch wasn't as grand as I'd built it up in my mind. It was larger than the one back at school, which consisted of one block of raked, plastic seating and change rooms off to the side. Roman Senior was another public school, so its pitch reflected its budget. It had an L-shaped platform off to the side of the pitch and a chalkboard-style scoreboard, with seven rows of elevated seating and benches around the rest of the pitch. The seats were filled with the home teams family and friends, so Aaron and I set ourselves up on one of the biting cold benches as Max ran off to join the Truman Monarchs warm-up drills.

I pooled my jacket over my bare legs – shorts were a misguided decision – and watched Max dribble a ball with a trio of teammates I recognised vaguely from classes I shared with them.

"Explain soccer to me," I asked Aaron, who had brought a thermos filled with what I could presume was a heartattack's worth of coffee.

"Hmm," he sipped it loudly. "It's pretty much that..." he pointed to Max and his teammates, "... but longer and with more screaming."

As if on cue, Mr. Troutman started yelling for a huddle so loudly that we could hear him from the opposite side of the pitch. My eyes scoured the group for Caleb. He wasn't among them; which I should have clocked the second we'd arrived. My eyes had a way of drawing to him whenever he appeared in my peripheral, however unintentional. I did see Aidan, stalking the length of the pitch like a predator. He had his phone in one hand and kept kicking his heels into the grass, churning it into muddy pulp. The look on his face made me nervous. Aaron and I were across the field to him, but he was the kind of pissed off you could feel radiating for miles.

"Do they have a chant?" I muttered. Aaron snorted into his coffee.

"Just yell a bunch. They don't hear anything over the roar of testosterone," he advised me. "Some of the mums shout 'Kill 'em, Truman'. That's always wild."

I took the thermos from his hands and took a sip. It tasted like a cardiac arrest. "What are we doing here?"

"Don't ask me. This was your idea," he grumbled, burrowing into his jacket. "It's going to rain."