Bad Taste in Boys Read Free

office; he’d spent the entire afternoon blabbing on his office phone with his feet up on the desk, and I thought he might notice if I took some of the black-market drugs out of the cabinet right next to him.
    The Ho hadn’t shown up, so the team went onto the fieldwithout him. I’d set up my kit on the sidelines, totally distracted because Aaron was warming up about ten feet away. He noticed me watching him and did his little nod thing in my direction. Every cell in my body squeed in unison.
    Coach started screaming as soon as the teams lined up for the first play. It looked almost comical; on average, our varsity players had two years and about fifty pounds on the JV guys. But I still wasn’t surprised when the whistle blew and the JV overran our team like a herd of Pamplona bulls. Blocking had never been our strong suit. They hit Aaron really hard; I heard the
whoosh!
his lungs made when all the air was forced out. I wanted to beat the heck out of the JV guys for that, except I wouldn’t know what to do in a fistfight without a manual.
    “Get up,” I urged from my spot on the sidelines, clenching my fists so hard that I could feel my nails dig into my palms. “Come on. Get up.”
    He staggered to his feet. I had to resist the urge to cheer as he straightened his helmet. The players lined up again, Aaron calling out numbers that sounded completely random to me. Derek LaBianca snapped him the ball, and the JV team took him down again before he could get rid of it.
    With two minutes left in the half, the ball squirted out of Logan Smith’s hands, and every single guy on the field leapt at it. I shifted nervously as the refs began pulling padded guys off the mound of players and didn’t relax until I saw Aaron’s face. He wasn’t hurt, and he even had the ball.
    But after everyone else got up, Logan was still rolling around in the grass, clutching his hand. Coach didn’t ask if Logan was okay. Instead, he charged out onto the field and started yelling. I barely registered the words at first; I was too busy staring at Coach’s face. He’d been chewing ferociously on a pen, and his lips were stained with blue ink.
    “Jeez, Smith!” Coach ranted. “You look like one of Jerry’s Kids! What do you mean you got to sit out on the next play? Man up and get back in the game.”
    No one intervened, not even the referees. We sucked so badly that the officials didn’t even pay any attention. No one in the bleachers cared either; the only reason anyone showed was because the Key Club was giving out free Lady Gaga bobble heads at halftime. Normally, about five people came to our games, and two of them ran the concession stand.
    I walked across the field to stand behind Coach.
    “Excuse me?” I said, tugging on his sleeve. “I’ve got to clear him to play.”
    He whirled, flinging blue-tinged spittle into my eye. The guy was practically foaming at the mouth. “Grable. What do you want?”
    “He’s not allowed to play until someone checks him out.”
    I met his gaze without faltering, even though my eyes wouldn’t stop watering from the spit projectile. Coach got right up in my face and smiled so wide I could see every single one of his teeth. With the blue lips, he looked like an apoplectic clown. I hated clowns.
    “Of course, Grable. I’ll just let you handle it.” He rubbed his forearm like there was an itch he knew he shouldn’t scratch but couldn’t help himself. “I’ll let you handle it all.”
    I actually liked it better when he was yelling; the unhinged smile was way too borderline psychotic for my taste. But poor Logan still stood there, cradling his pinky and looking humiliated, and he deserved my undivided attention. It seemed like a simple fracture, but I took him to the EMT station at the end of the field just to make sure. I loved it when the EMTs agreed with me. And they did. They even let me splint it.
    I returned to the sidelines as the halftime buzzer sounded, and we made the March of