Chapter One

Part 1

“I’ll tell you what your problem is, Mike. You suck at bluffing,” Tyler Brooks said, tossing a couple more chips into the pot in the center of the table. “You just don’t have a mendacious nature. And that is why . . . I am going . . . to kick . . . your . . . ass.”

The other guys around the felt-topped poker table laughed. I feigned concern as Tyler turned his baseball cap around backward and leaned back in his chair. I let him smile his triumphant smile for a moment, delaying his misery for fun. Hey. At least I admit it. I enjoy taking my friends down. That’s what poker’s all about, isn’t it?

Well, unless you’re in it for the money. But considering our biggest pot to date was a whopping forty-two bucks, no one around here was going home a zillionaire. Nope. Our games were really just excuses to get together and talk smack.

“And your problem is, Brooksy, you’re a bombastic ass,” I replied, calling his bet. “Let’s see what you got.”

“Full house. Ladies over tens,” Tyler announced, turning his two hole cards over. Sure enough—when added to the communal cards, he did have a fairly sweet hand. Three queens and two tens. Not bad at all. But not as good as . . .

“Foiled again, my friend,” I said, turning over my two threes.

“Oh!” the guys around the table cheered and groaned.

Tyler’s face fell with a satisfying plop. Ian O’Connor, my best friend and the ultimate poker host, reached over to slap my hand. Add my threes to the two in the river and that gave me four of a kind. It had been audacious of me, calling Tyler’s bet with two tens out there as well. He could have had four tens, after all. But I took my chances. It’s not often that I do that. My betting style is usually based on my innate parsimony. But sometimes, you just gotta roll the dice.

“He totally waxed your ass!” Brad Lackler cried mirthfully.

“Shut up, Lackler,” Tyler grumbled.

“It is a shame how four little threes can beat your big old royals,” I said.

“Dude, you suck,” Tyler whined, throwing his cards down.

“Beg to differ,” I shot back, reaching out to gather my winnings. “These chips beg to differ too, by the way.”

Ian reached over his head and stretched, glancing at the pool-ball wall clock on the far side of his spacious basement. Every Friday night the guys met up here for a few games, a couple sodas (or beers when we could come by them), and some laughs. You’d think Ian’s parents would break up the party once in a while, but being one of the richest kids in Hillside was not without its perks. Ian’s folks were out half the time at some charitable function or another, and when they were home, their house was so damn big they never even realized we were down here.

“It’s about that time, fellas,” Ian said, gathering up the cards. He glanced in my direction. We all knew I had to get home before football curfew. On the nights before games we all had to be home by ten o’clock. Every once in a while Coach even went down the roster and cold-called our houses to make sure we were there. Some guys managed to get their parents to lie for them, but Coach had figured out the ploy and always insisted on speaking directly to his players.

“No way!” Tyler complained. “One more game. You gotta give me a chance to win my money back.”

Ian glanced at me and I shrugged. “Fine by me,” I said. I had some time. And we all knew Tyler wouldn’t be mollified until I gave in. He was the sorest loser of the group.

“All right. One more,” Ian said.

He shuffled and dealt the cards. I pulled my hole cards to me and checked the corners. Total crap. A seven and a three, unsuited. A lesser man would have folded right there, but in my innate munificence I tossed a couple chips in the pot anyway. Let Tyler have a chance at a bigger take. What did I care? I was going home twenty bucks up anyway. Besides, I knew if I folded right off the bat, he would have made a scene.

“So, you guys wanna come over my place tomorrow for the Yankee game?” Tyler asked, toying with his chips as Ian dealt the flop. “Dad said he’d swing a couple six packs if you all stay over.”

“Cool,” Ian said. “I’m in.”

“Your dad rocks,” Brad added.

Chris Templeman, our fifth, was in as well. I shifted in my seat as everyone looked at me.

“What about you, bluffer?” Tyler asked. “Can’t turn down baseball and brew.”

“Actually, he already has plans,” Ian announced. “With Marcy.”

“Aw, yeah,” Brad intoned. Tyler made a whipping sound and everyone laughed.

“Blow her off, man,” Chris said, placing his bet on the flop. “This is sanctioned booze we’re talking about here.”

“I can’t,” I said, my face heating up. This was going to hurt. “It’s our anniversary.”

“Aw!” they all chorused. Kissing noises and a few inappropriate groans followed. “Wittle Mikey’s got a wifey,” Chris teased. I stared straight at the pot as my face burned.

“Is cheerleader-girl finally gonna give it up?” Tyler asked. “Cuz if she is then you are definitely off the hook. That girl has got a sick—”

“Dude. Back off,” I said flatly. They could tease me all they wanted, but I wasn’t going to let them talk about my girlfriend like that. Even if they were my best friends. Marcy was the coolest. She was smart and athletic and totally unclingy, unlike all my friends’ girlfriends. Lately I’d been thinking that I was probably even in love with her. Not that I would ever admit that to these morons.

“Sorry,” Tyler said sarcastically under his breath. As if he didn’t get why I was so touchy. “So, you gonna bet or what?”

I didn’t even need to look at my cards again. “No. I fold.”

“Oh, man!” Tyler cried, exasperated with me.

“Dude, get over it.” I glanced at my watch. “I gotta go anyway. I gotta be at the field at eight o’clock. Coach gives us extra laps if we’re late on game day.”

“That’s right, man. Big game. Break a leg tomorrow,” Brad said, glancing up as I passed him by.

“Yeah, man. Peace,” Tyler added, slapping hands with me.

“Dude. Cash me out?” I asked Ian.

He shoved the deck of cards in his back pocket as he stood. The Vegas casinos never would have gone for such a brazen breach of conduct as the dealer getting up in the middle of a game, but we were a bit more casual around here. He took my chips and counted out my cash, keeping the requisite ten percent cut for the house. Like Ian needed any more money. But hey, I didn’t begrudge him his earnings. The weekly game was his idea, and he did supply all the junk food that we devoured every week.

“Kick a little Wildcat ass tomorrow,” he said, slapping the cash into my hand.

“You got it, brotha,” I replied.

Then I headed out into the night to a chorus of “good luck”s. I had to laugh as I closed the door behind me. My friends were so predictable. The only thing that always got me out of a poker game without a huge clamor of protest was a previous football commitment. In Hillside it was all about school spirit.

Chapter One

Part 2

“They think they’re coming into our house and taking us down?!” Curtis Springer shouted, pacing up and down the locker room in his shoulder pads and football pants. “Naw, man! No way do they come in to our house and take us down. You feel me?!”

The team roared its approval, and we all cheered and hollered. Springer’s pregame rile-ups were a long-honored tradition. Nothing got the adrenaline pumping better. I yanked my jersey over my head and was about to join in an impromptu huddle when Coach Rinaldi called my name from his office.

“Riley! Riley! Hey! Get in here!”

My heart dropped, and I caught Curtis’s eye as the crowd around him grew more and more frenetic. He shrugged and got back to his ritual. I grabbed my helmet and followed after Coach. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am the epitome of the goody-goody—that it’s next to impossible for Mike Riley to do anything wrong. But that didn’t mean that being called out by authority figures didn’t still freak me out.

“What’s up, Coach?” I asked, stepping into his small, square office.

“Have a seat,” he said, easing onto his rickety chair.

He pulled the red baseball cap from his head and scratched at the bald spot in the center of the ring of blond hair. Uh-oh. This was serious. I sat on the edge of the vinyl seat, my heart pounding. I guess this was another way to kick-start the adrenaline.

“Mike, I called you in here to let you know that there are scouts in the bleachers today,” he said. “A couple of the SUNYs are coming out to have a look and assess your performance.”

I felt like someone had just handed me a ticket to the Super Bowl. “They’re here for me?” I asked.

“Of course they are. Who else?” Coach Rinaldi asked. “As far as I recall, you’re the only one here who broke two of the longest-standing New York State high school passing records last year.”

I beamed with pride. Scouts. Here for me. This was it. This was my chance at a scholarship. I had been hoping for a boon like this my entire life but had never allowed myself to believe it would actually happen. Ever since I was fourteen years old I had been working odd and part-time jobs, trying to save up for college. My parents are both teachers, and they love their jobs, but we’ve all known for a long time that we were going to fall into that financial catch-22—that we wouldn’t have enough money for college tuition but would appear too “well off” for financial aid.

“Now, it’s just the state schools this afternoon, not that that’s anything to shake a stick at,” Coach said, leaning his beefy arms on his desk. “But you do well out there today, get some buzz going, next week we could be hosting some Division One schools. Like Penn State, perhaps.”

My throat went completely dry. Penn State. My dream school. The school that everyone who had ever so much as met me knew that I wanted to attend. Pride and excitement were now crowded out by nerves. This had to be the game of my life.

Coach stood up and offered his hand. “This is it, son. Your big break.”

I pushed my chair back, almost knocking it over in my manic state, and shook his hand. “Thanks, Coach,” I said.

He grinned as the locker room exploded with raucous cheers. “Make me proud.”

Chapter One

Part 3

“Third and twenty? What the hell, you guys?” I seethed in the huddle, hoping my teammates would pick up on my ardor and use it. We were on the Wildcats’ forty-five, when two minutes ago we had been on their twenty-five. One minute we were driving down the field, the archetypal dominant offense, and the next we were the complete antithesis of that. I couldn’t afford to let my team get apathetic on me now. This game was too important—to me and to our record. “No more penalties, all right? They’re killing us. Any one of you guys jumps early, you’re gonna have me to answer to, you got me?”

The offensive line grumbled their assent. I could hear Morris Johnson, my center, heaving for breath across the huddle.

“Good. Now let’s take it to these guys. Their pass rush is for crap. We’re better than them, right?” I said.

They all cheered their approval.

“Right! Now we’re gonna run the twenty-yard hook. Daryl, get open. You guys give me time, and we’ll get six outta this, okay?”

“Yeah!” a few of the guys cheered.

“Ready? Break!”

We moved out of the huddle up to the line of scrimmage. The home crowd was louder than it had been all day. We were down by a deficit of three points with two minutes to go. This down was everything. I could practically feel the scouts breathing down my neck, scrutinizing my every move.

“Blue, sixteen! Blue, sixteen!” I shouted, checking the defensive line, trying to discern their strategy. They were definitely coming on the blitz. “Hike!”

The ball hit my hands. The two lines slammed into one another. Helmets cracked, groans spilled out from behind mouth guards and clenched teeth. All I could do was hope my line would not succumb, or I was toast. I scanned the field over the linebackers’ heads. The cornerback was all up in Daryl’s face. Something flashed in the corner of my eye. A defender had broken through. I tucked the ball and ran left, just avoiding the tackle. The guy tumbled to the ground, reaching for my feet. He got a hand on my ankle, but I twisted away. I scurried all the way to the sideline. Down field, Daryl executed a deft spin move, and his defender ate dirt. I pulled back to throw and said a prayer. Another defender was coming right at me full tilt, so I let it fly. The moment the ball left my fingers, this monstrous dude slammed into me and drilled me into the ground.

Time stood still. I couldn’t breathe. The dude shoved me farther into the earth as he stood up, but his extra punishment didn’t matter. The bleachers exploded in a frenzied cheer, melodious to my ears. Daryl had caught the ball. Touchdown!

Curtis ran over, cheering in jubilation, and yanked me to my feet. I sputtered and coughed and drew in a breath. Everyone was slapping me on the back and helmet, shaking me and hugging me. We rushed off the field and Danny Leonard kicked the extra point. It was good. The whole place was going nuts, and I couldn’t stop grinning if I’d tried. I had just completed a 45-plus yard touchdown pass under extreme pressure with the game on the line. I knew the scouts were loving it. I had just justified their making this trip to see me play.

As our kicking team took the field to kick off, I turned and found Marcy on the sidelines. There she was in her red and black cheerleading uniform, her auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail, looking every bit as gorgeous as an MTV backup dancer. She waved and blew me a kiss, and I felt like I was on top of the world. Life just didn’t get any better than this.

Chapter One

Part 4

I was lighter than air when I came out of the locker room after the game. My wet hair was slicked back from my head, and I wore a clean Hillside Cardinals T-shirt. Everyone was cheering and talking boisterously, making plans to hit the diner and hang, holding on to the post-win euphoria. All I could think about was finding my parents and Marcy. I definitely wanted to share this feeling with them.

My parents were waiting for me just outside the gym. Dad was wearing his favorite Cardinals Football sweatshirt and jeans, while mom had gone with the more formal fan look—a red turtleneck and chinos. She clutched a plastic mini-pompom in her hand. Her dark hair was curled and perfect, as always, while dad’s usually messy hair was hidden under a baseball cap. His theory was that if he had to look put-together all week to be a good role model for his students, he could get a little slovenly on the weekends.

“Mike! Great game!” my father said, giving me the handshake/one-shouldered hug.

“Thanks, Dad,” I replied with a grin.

“Are you all right?” my mother asked, checking me over. She has a propensity for coddling me after games, especially games in which I get crushed by malevolent linebackers.

“I’m fine, Mom. I promise,” I said, wanting to palliate her concern. “That hit wasn’t as heinous as it looked.”

“Well, they should have penalized him, if you ask me,” she said with a huff. My father and I laughed.

“Well, you’re kind of biased, Mom,” I said. “It was a clean hit. Trust me.”

“If you say so,” she said grudgingly.

“Lori, please. The boy is fine,” my father said. “Better than fine. You know, the scout from Buffalo wants to stop by the house later.”

“You’re kidding!” I said, elated.

“He seemed very interested,” my mother added with obvious pride.

“I don’t believe it,” I said. “It’s all happening.”

“We couldn’t be happier for you, kid,” my dad said, giving me a real hug this time.

“Thanks, Dad.” I pulled back, enjoying the moment. Then I remembered there was someone else I wanted to celebrate with. I checked my watch. “Sorry, guys. I gotta go meet Marcy,” I said. “But I’ll catch you at home in a little while.”

“Definitely,” my mother said. “Tell her we said hello.”

“Will do!”

I pushed my way out into the sunshine, expecting to see Marcy waiting in our usual spot, on the bench under one of the huge oaks on the school’s front lawn. The only people there were a few JV cheerleaders, flirting with some neophyte JV players. I heard a cheer around back of the gym and thought maybe the celebration had precluded her meeting me—that she’d gotten caught up in the insanity between the field and the school. I cut across the grass to the asphalt pathway and was just rounding the outside of the gym when a kid on a skateboard zoomed out of nowhere and cut me off.

“Watch it, jerk!” I shouted, my heart in my throat.

He merely whooped and skirted me, followed quickly by three other friends. The last one through was a girl with short blonde hair in a black hoodie who shot me a wink and a smile as she raced by. I narrowed my eyes at her familiar face and realized it was Winter Dumas, kid sister of my former teammate Gray Dumas. She and her brother were totally disparate. He was the super-jock and most-school-spirited student, with only meager academic skills. She was the erudite Goth-chick with a disgruntled weekly column in the school newspaper. I had seen her around school with her sun-eschewing, pallid friends, and she was pretty cute—in that psycho, disenfranchised way. Her column did always make me laugh, though.

“Sorry!” she shouted with a shrug.

“Yeah. Whatever,” I said under my breath.

My heart rate was just returning to normal as I made my way around the gym. I couldn’t wait to find Marcy and get a big congratulatory kiss. I wanted to tell her all about the scouts and the guy from Buffalo. But mostly I wanted to talk about tonight, about our anniversary excursion. When she heard the romantic evening I had planned, she was going to rhapsodize about what an amazing boyfriend she had.

I came around the back corner of the gym, and my heart stopped. Suddenly, all my meticulous plans came crashing down around me. This was wrong. It couldn’t be. It was an aberration. But even after I blinked a few times, the scene stayed the same: Pressed up against the brick wall, making out with an appallingly crude lack of modesty, were a guy in a leather jacket and a girl in a cheerleading uniform. A girl with auburn hair.

My gut twisted in pain and my duffel bag dropped off my shoulder. I’d found Marcy all right, with her tongue down Dominic Thomas’s throat.

Vocabulary Drill

Chapter One

aberration · atypical event

antithesis · opposite

apathetic · spiritless

appallingly · shockingly

archetypal · perfect example

ardor · zeal

assess · evaluate

audacious · bold

begrudge · disapprove

biased · prejudiced

boisterously · rowdy

bombastic · overblown

boon · blessing

brazen · defiant

breach · violation

charitable · for charity

clamor · noise

conduct · normal behavior

crude · unrefined

deficit · deficiency

deft · skillful

devoured · ate greedily

discern · detect

disenfranchised · excluded

disgruntled · discontented

disparate · different

elated · happy

epitome · ideal example

erudite · learned

eschewing · avoiding

euphoria · great happiness

exasperated · irritated

excursion · trip

feigned · faked

foiled · thwart

frenetic · frenzied

grudgingly · reluctantly

heinous · shockingly evil

impromptu · improvised

innate · inherent

intoned · spoke musically

jubilation · joy

justified · warranted

malevolent · evil

meager · weak

melodious · musical

mendacious · dishonest

meticulous · careful

modesty · shyness

mollified · calmed

munificence · generosity

neophyte · beginner

palliate · ease

pallid · pale

parsimony · stinginess

perks · benefits

precluded · made impossible

predictable · unsurprising

propensity · preference

raucous · harsh

requisite · required

rhapsodize · speak emotionally

roster · list of players

sanctioned · approved

scrutinizing · examining

scurried · scamper

skirted · to go around

slovenly · untidy

spacious · roomy

succumb · give in

Chapter Two

Part 1

“What the hell is this?” I blurted.

Marcy and Dominic jumped apart. Her face was flushed but went white the moment she saw me. Dominic, however, had to hide his puerile smirk by turning away for a moment. Of all the people in all the world she could have chosen to cuckold me with, Dominic Thomas was the worst. He was such a slimy tool—with his slick hair, his silver cross around his neck, his leather jacket. And that attitude? Forget it. He’d been flouting authority since kindergarten when he told our gym teacher he wouldn’t play basketball with the dorky kids. I mean, who did that? At age five? And he’d only gotten worse with age. I couldn’t fathom what she was doing with him.

“Mike, I—”

“Marcy, tell me you weren’t just kissing this idiot,” I said, seething.

“Hey, man. Why don’t we all just chill for a sec?” Dominic said, still smirking.

“Get the hell out of here, man,” I said vehemently. “This is between me and Marcy.”

He didn’t move. Instead, he looked at her for corroboration. The closeness between them was implicit, and it almost killed me. Like he was going to protect her from me. She was my girlfriend, for God’s sake. If anyone was going to do the protecting around here, it was me!

“It’s okay,” Marcy said tremulously.

“You sure?” he asked. He was rubbing it in. He just wanted to abase me. I could tell. It was all I could do to keep from punching the duplicitous bastard in the face.

“Dude, you better get out of here right now, unless you want the ass-kicking of your life.”

Was that succinct enough for him? Apparently so. He finally raised his hands and acquiesced. I waited until he was around the building and out of earshot before I said anything else. I took a deep breath as Marcy eyed me warily.

“What’s going on here, Marcy?” I asked calmly, trying to appear stoic. I didn’t want to come off as a big baby here. I could handle whatever was coming. I hoped. “How long have you been dissembling?”

Marcy hesitated a moment, kicking the toe of her cheerleading sneaker into the dirt beneath her feet. “Since the summer,” she said finally, hugging herself.

“Two months?!” I blurted, all the blood rushing to my head. So much for being impervious. I couldn’t believe she had been sneaking around behind my back for two whole months! “How? When? And why him? God, Marcy. I abhor Dominic Thomas! You know that! Did you just do this to hurt me?”

“No!” she cried, her eyes filling with tears. “It just kind of . . . happened. You were off checking out schools with your parents and he came into Dairy Queen, like, every day, and we just started talking . . .”

I pushed my hands into my hair, my mind reeling. Two months. Two months of guile and disingenuous behavior and of me being totally blind. Who else knew about this? How big of an idiot am I?

A tremendous one, I thought. You had this elaborate evening planned for her on the very day you caught her with another guy.

Our anniversary. She had cheated on me on our anniversary. And for many days before that, apparently.

“I can’t believe you did this to me,” I said finally, my voice cracking. “I thought . . . I thought . . .”

I had thought I was falling in love with her. But I couldn’t tell her that now. It seemed so trite and naïve. And saying it wasn’t going to abate this pain that was wrenching my heart. It would only make it worse.

Marcy reached out for my arm like she was going to comfort me, but I pulled away. “We’re over. Obviously,” I said.

A tear spilled down her cheek. “Mike—”

I had to get out of there. If I stood there for one more second I was going to go off on a tirade about how she could stuff her gratuitous emotion. About how she was the one who had screwed this all up. About how I couldn’t believe I had ever trusted someone like her. So instead, I just turned and walked away, ignoring her as she shouted my name.

Chapter Two

Part 2

That evening I sat alone in my living room in front of the Yankees pre-game show, wallowing in self-pity. I was so angry that I had actually considered going out and scouring the town for a party and some random girl to hook up with, but I had never been a vindictive person. That just wasn’t me. So instead, I had resolved to repose on the sofa and think about where it had all gone wrong. I had even drawn all the curtains over the windows to get it as dark in the room as possible. All the better for vilifying my ex and berating myself for my blindness.

Of course, my glass-is-half-full mother had other ideas.

“Michael, you should really go out to that party Tyler is having,” she said, straightening up around me, picking up the empty chip bag and soda cans that were piling up on the coffee table. She had no idea Tyler’s dad was offering free beer. If she had, there was no way she would be prodding me to go. “Sitting here alone is not going to allay the pain of a breakup.”

She was right, of course. My mother has a certain acumen for matters of the heart. But that didn’t mean I had to listen to her. For the moment I needed to feel the anguish.

“One night, Mom,” I said. “Just let me be depressed, okay?”

“You don’t want to talk about it?” she asked hopefully.

I shook my head. For the moment I was taciturn. And besides, if I started talking to her about it, she might get a glimpse of my severe enmity toward Marcy, and I didn’t want her to see that. I’d talk to her about it when I’d had more time to cool off.

She smiled at me in a forlorn way, all my garbage gathered up in her arms. “I’ll order you a pizza. Sausage and peppers good?”

I managed to lift the corners of my mouth. “Thanks.”

As she left the room, Ian walked in. I guess my father had let him into the house. I was so out of it I hadn’t even heard the doorbell.

“Maybe you can cheer him up,” my mother told him as they passed each other in the doorway.

“You got it, Mrs. Riley,” he said. Then she was gone, and he eyed me dubiously. “Dude. You look like death.”

“That’s what happens when you find out that fidelity is too much to ask for from the girl you love,” I said acerbically.

Ian sighed. He dropped down onto the couch next to me. “I empathize, Mike. I do,” he said. “You remember how crushed I was when Becky broke up with me.”

I nodded and sat up a little. This was exactly what I needed—someone to validate the pit of despair I was mired in.

“And that’s why I’m here to tell you that this should be a day of celebration, my friend!” he cheered.

“What?” I blurted. This had just taken a weird turn.

“It’s imperative, Mike! The yoke is off! You’re free! You should be out there partying, having a good time!” he cheered, grasping my shoulder. “Now let’s go over to Tyler’s house and get ourselves hammered!”

I sighed. “You sound like my mom.”

“Your mom told you to get hammered?” he asked.

I smirked. “No. She wants me to go out though. She doesn’t want me to foster my depression.”

“Smart woman,” he said. “So let’s go. Sobriety is not the prescription for a night like this. Believe me.”

“Look, man, I appreciate your coming over here. Really,” I said. “But I’m not going out. You can if you want, but I just don’t feel like it.”

“You sure?” he asked.

“I’m sure,” I said decisively.

“That’s cool, brotha,” he said, sitting back as the Yankees took the field. “Team’s gonna play the same whether I’m here or there.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem, man,” he said. “But I really do think this breakup is a good thing. You got better stuff to spend your time on anyway.”

“I do?” I asked.

“Are you kidding?” he asked. “Football, school, improving your poker game . . .”

I whacked him in the arm, and he laughed, which made me crack my first real smile since that morning’s win. Okay. So maybe everything was going to be all right. Eventually.

Chapter Two

Part 3

On Sunday morning it took a lot of effort for me to pull myself out of bed, but I couldn’t spend the entire day ruminating about Marcy and her wanton ways. I had a history paper due that week, and I had been remiss lately, procrastinating on the research. So instead of staying under the covers, I showered and dressed and headed for the Hillside Public Library. Normally I would have just hit the Internet, but Mr. Weeks, my history teacher, was an old-school guy with antiquated ideas. He wanted us to glean all our facts from actual books and swore he would be able to tell the difference in our work. I wasn’t sure if I believed this, but I wasn’t about to put it to the test. My grades were too important.

It was tedious work, paging through the indexes of all those heavy history tomes, but the library’s pacific atmosphere had a calming effect on me. I sat back in one of the cushioned chairs near the window and perused a book on World War I. Around me people whispered, and pages turned, and suddenly I realized my negative feelings were starting to wane. Yesterday had been awful, obviously, but here I was, doing my homework, having another day. The world had not come to a catastrophic end.

I found the section I was looking for, on Germany’s role in the war, and took out my notebook. As I was scratching various notes and ideas out on the page, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I looked up just as someone outside the window went careening by on a skateboard, jumped the parking lot’s curb, and landed on the asphalt of the adjacent playground.

It was Winter Dumas. And she was amazingly facile at boarding. She popped up on the small ramp at the far end of the playground and executed a couple of adroit turns, grabbing her board and hamming it up. Watching her playing out there in the sun, I was transfixed. Clearly she was having a great time. She even laughed out loud as she spun around and around in the center of the asphalt. Then she raced to the end of the park on her board and took off at a fast clip. I realized the extreme maneuver she was about to attempt and my heart stopped. What was she thinking? She was going to crack open her skull!

Winter did an ollie and her board caught air. I held my breath. This was going to be a debacle. Her trucks hit the old balance beam, and she slid down the length of it, keeping perfect balance and landing gracefully at the far end. Then she took off to do it all over again.

My heart pounded insanely in my chest. This girl was good. And daring. And impetuous. And man, was it sexy.

Winter made another run and another perfect trick. Intrigued, I marked my place in my book and walked outside to the park. I had no idea what to say to her, so I just hovered near the open gate. She saw me and threw a winsome smile over her shoulder.

“Hey there, football star,” she said, sliding over on her board.

“You know who I am?” I asked.

“Everyone knows who you are,” she said. “Besides, you used to hang out at my house with my brother. Don’t act like you don’t remember. You were always finishing off our Cheetos. I hated that.”

I laughed.

“So, what’s up?” she asked.

“Not much. Nice skills,” I said, pushing my hands into my pockets. Her short hair was pulled back in two tiny ponytails, accentuating her rosy skin and bright green eyes. Bright green eyes that glinted mischievously.

“I know,” she said with a shrug. “Hey, what’re you doing here? Shouldn’t you still be off riding on your team’s shoulders in victory?” She skated away a bit and worked some turns in the center of the playground.

I smirked. “I guess you think football and school spirit are vapid, huh?” I asked.

She shot me a look, like “duh.”

“Then what were you doing at the game yesterday?” I shot back, calling her out on her hypocrisy.

“Mocking the cheerleaders,” she said matter-of-factly, still spinning.

A shadow must have crossed my face as I thought of Marcy, because she stopped and put her hand over her mouth jokingly. “Oops. Forgot you’re dating one of them.”

“Not anymore,” I said automatically.

Winter smiled slowly. She skated back over to me and grabbed my arm as she jumped off her board. It skittered past us and into the fence. She rolled her big eyes up at me and smiled.

“You know, football star, if you want to ask me out, you should just ask,” she said. This girl was not big on pretense.

My heart skipped a beat. I hadn’t actually realized until that moment, with her looking at me in that teasing way, that I really did want to ask her out. It was uncanny. She could read my mind before I could. At first I wasn’t sure whether it would be expedient, my being on the rebound and all. But why not? Marcy had already moved on. And besides, Winter was pretty, and funny, and athletic. Plus she was the exact opposite of Marcy, and at the moment, I had a predilection for girls who were nothing like my ex.

“All right. What are you doing Friday night?” I said.

“I got a hot date,” Winter said, pushing herself up on her tiptoes and grinning. Her breath smelled like grape bubble gum. “With you.”

Vocabulary Drill

Chapter Two

abase · undermine

abate · stop

abhor · hate

accentuating · accenting

acerbically · bitterly

acquiesced · gave in

acumen · intelligence

adjacent · nearby

adroit · skilled

allay · ease

anguish · pain

antiquated · old

apparently · seemingly

berating · chewing out

catastrophic · disastrous

corroboration · corroboration

cuckold · cheat on

debacle · catastrophe

decisively · with certainty

disingenuous · TK

dissembling · being deceptive

dubiously · doubtfully

duplicitous · sneaky

elaborate · complicated

empathize · feel compassion for

enmity · hostility

expedient · worthwhile

extreme · severe

facile · effortless

fathom · understand

fidelity · faithfulness

flouting · scornfully disregard

forlorn · sad

foster · encourage

gratuitous · unwarranted

guile · deceitful cunning

hypocrisy · deceitfulness

imperative · necessary

impervious · impenetrable

impetuous · impulsive

implicit · implied

mired · stuck

mocking · ridiculing

nave · innocent

pacific · peaceful

perused · examined

predilection · preference

pretense · posturing

procrastinating · delaying

prodding · provoking

puerile · childish

remiss · delinquent

repose · lie down

resolved · decided

ruminating · thinking

scouring · searching

severe · extreme

sobriety · soberness

stoic · unmoved

succinct · concise

taciturn · quiet

tedious · tiresome

tirade · rant

tomes · books

tremulously · shakily

trite · unoriginal

uncanny · strange

validate · confirm

vapid · dull

vehemently · powerfully

vilifying · slander

vindictive · spiteful

wallowing · remaining helpless

wane · fade

wanton · immoral

winsome · charming

yoke · burden

Chapter Three

Part 1

“Oh, wow. I had no idea she would be there. Did you, Mike? Did you know she was going to be there?” Winter asked me in the darkened movie theater, at the top of her voice. “I mean, this movie is so unconventional! It is so unlike every other romantic comedy I have ever seen. Like, when he spontaneously fell over in the middle of the restaurant because his new shoes were too new? I did not see that coming!”

Winter was all sarcasm, all the time, and I was loving every minute of it. Unlike the rest of the audience, who clearly regarded her outbursts as abrasive rather than humorous. I slid down in my seat, trying to stifle my laughter as the people in front of us turned around, shushing Winter. A bunch more shot her irritated looks from all around the theater.

“Omigod! Who likes this excrement?” Winter said with a guffaw, as the protagonist wrapped his true love up in a romantic kiss.

“All right, you two. Now you’re getting profane,” the elderly gentleman behind us upbraided us. He gave me a stern look, like I was somehow Winter’s accomplice. I didn’t see how excrement was profane, but I shushed her anyway.

“Sorry. Sorry,” she said to me, then to him, though her amused smile was anything but penitent. She hunkered down in her seat and ate a fistful of popcorn, and for a few minutes I thought she was actually done. In hindsight, that was a stupid assumption.

“The thing is, I love you,” the guy on the screen said. “Even if you are the most impertinent woman I know.”

Winter laughed loudly. At least a dozen people turned around and scowled. The woman on the screen swooned and kissed the guy again.

“Oh, come on!” Winter shouted. “?‘I love you even if you are the most impertinent woman I know’? He should get a slap for that line!”

Some woman stood up in the front of the theater. “Would you shut up already?”

Just then, a scrawny usher came in and knelt down next to Winter’s aisle seat. He looked at me with trepidation—I was about three times his size—then directed his comments at Winter.

“Excuse me, Miss, but I’m afraid talking during the film is prohibited,” he said, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

Winter adopted an innocent façade. “I wasn’t talking.”

The usher looked at me skeptically as the people behind us laughed and groaned. I shrugged. It wasn’t as if I could refute his accusation. “I’m sorry, but I heard you myself,” he said.

“Well I’m sorry that this movie sucks,” Winter said.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The usher looked like he just wanted to die. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he said. “Both of you.”

“Are you kidding me? You’re banishing me from the theater?” Winter said. “But I’m having so much fun!”

The usher looked at me imploringly. He was starting to sweat, and I could tell he was afraid I was going to start a fight, or at the very least make more of a scene than Winter already had.

“Maybe we should just go,” I said to Winter, taking pity on this poor guy. After all, he was just trying to do his job.

“Yeah?” she asked, widening her eyes at me.

“Yeah. Let these people watch the rest of the movie. I’m starving anyway,” I said. “Is there anyplace we can procure a burger around here?” I whispered to the usher.

He smiled in relief. Apparently my behavior was atypical of the situations he usually encountered around here.

“Most expeditiously, sir. Joe’s Grill is just around the corner,” he said graciously.

“Okay. If you want to bow to the Man, we’ll bow to the Man,” she stood up and handed the rest of her popcorn to the usher. “Have a snack on me.”

I slid out of my seat and followed her up the aisle, to the tune of thunderous applause from the rest of the theater. Right before we got to the door, Winter turned around and curtseyed, and a few people laughed. So not everyone hated us. We were still cracking up when we hit the sidewalk.

“I gotta say, I’ve never been booted before,” I told Winter.

“Really? Happens to me all the time,” she said happily, pulling her velvet jacket closer to her.

“Why am I not surprised?” I asked, amused.

“I’m sorry. Are you mad? It’s just that movie was so prosaic,” she said.

“Actually, it was kind of cool. Getting kicked out, I mean,” I said with pride.

“Yeah. You are such a badass now,” she teased.

“Ha ha,” I said flatly. “Anyway, I’m sorry you hated it. I thought girls liked romantic comedies.”

“Well, you’re not dealing with your average girl,” she said, taking my hand.

I looked down at our entwined fingers, surprised. But in a good way. Winter was, hands down, the most extroverted, funny, unsettling girl I’d ever known. And I liked it.

“I’m getting that idea,” I said.

Winter smiled slowly, then stood on her tiptoes and pulled me to her. It was the most intense kiss I had ever experienced. For the first time I realized that there was no way I had been in love with Marcy. Because even though she was hotter than hot, kissing her had never felt like this.

“And just for the record, I do like romantic comedies,” she said when she pulled away.

“Wha?” I said, my head still swimming.

“I love them. I just love to deride them and laugh at them, that’s all. I mean, did it not look like I was having fun in there?” she asked, arching one eyebrow.

I blinked. “Good point.”

Winter laughed and grabbed both my hands, leaning back to pull me forward. “Come on. Let’s go get you some food, football star,” she teased.

I smiled and followed her down the street. Right then I would have followed her anywhere.

Chapter Three

Part 2

When I arrived at Ian’s house for our regular Friday night game, there was an extra poker table set up in the basement, all glossy and new. The regular guys were there, but a couple of kids from the junior class were milling around as well, eating chips from a basket near the wall and looking around skittishly, like they were afraid someone was going to jump them and kick them out. I dropped my varsity jacket on the couch and slapped hands with Ian.

“What’s with the new blood?” I asked.

“Well, I realized that having such a finite number of players was an unnecessary hindrance to my augmenting my income,” Ian said sagely, putting on a businesslike demeanor. “So I thought I’d put the word out, get a few more people in. Besides, it might be good to infuse the game with some new energy.”

“New meat, you mean,” Chris said, joining the conversation and clapping Ian on the back. “This was the most sagacious move you’ve ever made, man. We’ll take these little losers for all they’ve got.”

Ian and I both laughed. “Now, now, Chris. Let’s not get too cocky,” I joked. “Everyone here has an equal chance of winning.”

Chris looked at me and scoffed, rolling his eyes. “They wish.”

He walked over to one of the juniors, took a chip right out of his hand, and popped it into his mouth. He stood there, chewing it in the kid’s face, goading him. Luckily, the kid was smart enough to let it slide. This night was going to be interesting.

“All right, everyone, let’s get started,” Ian called out, taking his place as dealer at our usual table. Tyler, it seemed, had been tapped to run the new game—he took the seat of authority there. I settled in with Chris, Brad, and a couple of the new guys.

Ian dealt the hole cards, and I checked my draw. Five and three, suited. Not bad. Looked like I was going to have an auspicious night. Just as I was about to put in my first chips, the door to the basement opened, and everyone fell silent. For a split second, I’m sure we all thought we were snagged, but then our visitors stepped through the door, and everyone looked at me.

“’Sup?” Dominic Thomas asked, striding in like he owned the place. “Heard you got a poker game going.”

There wasn’t a guy in the room who didn’t know what had gone on between me, Dominic, and Marcy. Even if you weren’t a fan of the rumor mill, no one could have missed their stunningly inappropriate make-out sessions in the hallways all week long. As Dominic and his friends closed the door behind them, my jaw must have been on the floor. I was totally flabbergasted. What the hell was my number-one adversary doing here? Just the sight of him made my blood boil and got my adrenaline pumping. I felt like he was invading my private space, which just added insult to serious injury. This was my game. These were my friends. He had no business being here.

Dominic took off his ever-present leather jacket and hung it carefully on one of the hooks near the door. His tight black T-shirt made him look like a total Gotti wannabe. What an extreme loser.

“So, where do we sit?” he asked, rubbing his hands together. His eyes fell on me, and his smile turned rancorous. As if I’d ever done anything to him. He had no reason to hate me, while I had every reason to get up from the table and kick his ass from here to the other side of town.

Ian looked at me, his expression full of gravity, and I knew that if I just said the word, he would dropkick Dominic and his friends out the door. But as I stared at Dominic, I was overcome with a new sentiment. I was going to wipe that smirk right off this kid’s face.

“Sit here,” I said resolutely.

The juniors at my table glanced at me quizzically, and I nodded at them. They got up instantaneously and moved to the wall to wait their turn. I even kicked a chair out for Dominic to take. As he sat down, the acrimony between us was palpable. I think everyone in the room was waiting for one of us to explode.

“Deal them in,” I told Ian nonchalantly, tossing over my cards.

My friends did the same, and Ian shuffled the deck. I glanced sidelong at Dominic as he placed a toothpick in his mouth and started rolling it around. This asshole was going down.

Chapter Three

Part 3

An hour later, I had rendered Dominic Thomas completely impotent, and damn, was it fun. I can’t place all the credit on my poker talent, though. The kid was so totally inept he made me and everyone else at the table look like the most adept players in the world. He wasn’t particularly cunning. He fidgeted whenever he had a bad hand and leaned back in his seat whenever he was comfortable with his cards. Plus he was oblivious to everyone else’s obvious tells. During one hand, Chris scratched the back of his neck about a hundred times—a clear sign of nervousness—but Dominic folded anyway and Chris took a twenty-five dollar pot on a pair of fours. Dominic looked like an idiot, and I wanted to hug Chris. Every time Dominic lost a pot, which was often, I relished the moment, no matter who had acquired his cash.

You stole my girlfriend, my friends and I are making off with all your money. Seems like an equitable outcome to me, I thought.

“Okay, everyone ante,” Ian said as he shuffled the cards.

Some people play with big and little blinds and a rotating dealer, but in our games, Ian was always the dealer, so we had a regular ante. We each threw in two dollars worth of chips, then Ian dealt the cards. I glanced at Dominic as he checked his hole cards. He flinched, and I tried not to exult. This kid had a pathetic poker face. It made me wonder how he and Marcy had gotten away with their subterfuge for so long. Of course, I didn’t want to think about that. I checked my own cards. Ian had dealt me a solid hand. A queen and a ten. I had a shot at a royal straight with these cards.

Over at the second table, one of the new kids cheered as he won a hand. Brad clucked his tongue and mucked his cards, pushing them toward Ian. Everyone else at my table called their bets. I expected Dominic to fold since he had a paucity of chips and was clearly holding some lame cards, but he threw in another two bucks. Apparently he was a glutton for punishment.

“Dealing the flop,” Ian announced.

He placed three cards face up on the table, and it was all I could do to quell my excitement. There were the jack and king I needed, plus a useless two. All I needed in the next two communal cards was either a nine or an ace, and there was no way anyone could beat me.

One of Dominic’s friends folded at this point, and Chris did as well. I upped the bet, and Dominic’s other friend, Lucas, saw my bet. Much to my surprise, Dominic raised the bet.

“Wow. Someone must have some good cards,” I quipped, glancing at Brad, who laughed. Normally, at this point, I might be getting a little nervous, wondering if I had misread my opponent. But Dominic was clearly sweating this one. He must have thought I was bluffing. Why, I have no idea. I had made sure to stay as still as possible all night long. It was amazing what having your sworn enemy at the table could do for your concentration.

“Whatever, dude,” Dominic said.

“Dealing the turn,” Ian said.

He flipped the card over on the table. It was a ten, which gave me a pair if the straight didn’t work out. But it wasn’t the strongest hand. Now I started to sweat a little, but there was no way I was dropping out. Call me obstinate, but Dominic was almost out of chips, and I wanted him out of here. Correction. I wanted to debase him, and then I wanted him out of here.

I threw in a couple more chips. Dominic looked at the pot in wonder, as if he wasn’t expecting that move. Lucas saw my bet, then Dominic sighed and threw in two more chips.

“Everyone’s in,” Ian stated. “Dealing the river.”

Please give me a nine or an ace, I begged silently. Please give me a nine or an ace!

Ian turned the last card over. I felt as if it were happening in slow motion, but then, there it was. The ace of spades.

Lucas groaned and threw his cards down. “You screwed me, O’Connor,” he said.

“I guess that means you fold,” Ian said dryly. “Mike?”

“I’m in,” I said, adding two more chips.

We all looked at Dominic. He clenched his jaw and tossed his last chips into the pot. “I call,” he said, and swallowed hard. “Whadaya got?” he asked.

As if he had anything good. I grinned, loving the moment, and placed my cards down on the table.

“Holy crap!” Chris cried. “A straight, ace high!”

Dominic’s skin turned waxy. He looked as if he might throw up all over the table.

“What do you have, Dom?” Lucas asked hopefully. Could none of these guys read body language?

“Pair of kings,” he said, tossing his cards down.

“Better luck next time,” I said, gathering up all the chips with alacrity. I had absolutely no compassion for Dominic. In fact, I couldn’t have been more giddy if someone had just announced I’d won the MegaMillions jackpot. This win was the sweetest I could imagine.

Dominic threw his cards down and shoved his chair back. “We’re outta here,” he said to his friends. “Cash out.”

He grabbed his leather jacket and stormed out the door without a second glance. Everyone except his two buddies laughed as the door slammed. A totally perfect end to a totally perfect night.

Chapter Three

Part 4

“Thanks for staying and helping me clean up,” Ian said as I stacked the chips into their box.

“Are you kidding? I’m totally indebted to you, man,” I said.

Ian laughed as he swept the coffee table by the couches free of Dorito crumbs. “Why? It’s not like I bilked the guy on your behalf. You got the good cards, and you played like a pro.”

“Thanks. And I know you didn’t cheat. But I’m just saying, if it wasn’t for you, there wouldn’t be a game. And if there wasn’t a game, I wouldn’t have been able to rub Dominic’s face in my total poker mastery,” I said—somewhat pretentiously, I guess.

I’ll admit it. I was living it up a little bit. So much of my irritation at Dominic and Marcy had been alleviated by tonight’s many wins that I had a feeling I wouldn’t even care if I saw him all over her again in the hallway. Between my humiliation of the skeev, and my great date with Winter, I was feeling like myself again.

“?‘We’re outta here! Cash out!’?” I imitated Dominic, adding a whiney voice. “What a tool.”

“Well, glad I could help,” Ian said, tossing a bunch of cups and napkins in the trash. “I swear I had no idea he was coming.”

“Whatever. I’m glad he did,” I said. “I was happy to take the cocky bastard down a few pegs.” I closed the chip box and snapped the latch. “In fact, it gave me a notion,” I said in a leading way.

Ian paused. “Uh-oh. Why don’t I like the sound of this?”

“What?” I replied innocently. “When have I ever come up with a bad scheme? That’s usually your thing.”

“You got me there,” Ian said, pushing a couple of chairs in toward the new table. “So what’s your idea?”

“Well, I was thinking . . . why don’t we start up a second weekly game?” I said. “A high-stakes game.”

“A high-stakes game,” he repeated, his eyebrows raised. “The most frugal of my frugal friends wants me to start up a high-stakes game.”

“Why not?” I said. “There’s a profusion of wealth in this town. Why not use it to our advantage? We invite all the most insipid rich kids to the game and then reap the rewards.”

Ian laughed and picked up the chip box to stow it in the cabinet. “You have one big night and all of a sudden you’re a poker prodigy with designs on fleecing the upper class.”

“Hey, don’t demonize me,” I said defiantly. “It was just a suggestion.”

“I know. Chill,” he said, walking over and leaning on the back of one of the chairs. “I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. I’m all for greed as much as the next guy. I just don’t want to make a rash decision. I mean, if all the guys come in here and start losing mad cash, they’re going to think I’m culpable.”

“So we won’t invite them all,” I said. “Most of them wouldn’t be able to buy in anyway.”

Ian eyed me doubtfully, and I knew what he was thinking. That I couldn’t really buy in either. I felt agitated, and my skin heated up.

“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’ll just use this.”

I emptied my pockets of all the cash I’d won from Dominic and his friends that night. It was definitely enough to get me into the first big game, at least. Slowly, Ian smiled.

“Come on,” I said, knowing I had him. “We’ll clean up.”

“All right,” he said finally. “I’m in.”

Vocabulary Drill

Chapter Three

abrasive · irritating

accomplice · assistant (esp. in wrongdoing)

acquired · taken

acrimony · hatred

adept · skillful

adversary · enemy

agitated · nervous

alacrity · smoothness

alleviated · eased

atypical · unusual

auspicious · prosperous

banishing · exile

bilked · cheated

compassion · pity

culpable · guilty

cunning · crafty

debase · demean

defiantly · boldly

demeanor · outward manner

demonize · portray as evil

deride · ridicule

designs · schemes

equitable · fair

expeditiously · promptly

extroverted · outgoing

exult · rejoice

faade · false appearance

finite · having an end

flabbergasted · befuddled

frugal · thrifty

glossy · sleek

glutton · ready recipient

goading · prodding

graciously · compassionately

gravity · seriousness

hindrance · obstacle

hindsight · retrospect

imitated · mimicked

impertinent · irrelevant

impotent · useless

indebted · owing gratitude

inept · awkward

infuse · introduce

insipid · dull

instantaneously · instantly

nonchalantly · casually

notion · idea

oblivious · unaware

obstinate · stubborn

overcome · overwhelmed

pathetic · pitiful

paucity · shortage

penitent · regretful

pretentiously · pompously

procure · obtain

prodigy · child genius

profane · crude

profusion · excess

prohibited · forbidden

prosaic · unimaginative

quell · quiet

quipped · joked

quizzically · curiously

rancorous · malevolent

reap · harvest

refute · deny

relished · savored

resolutely · steadfastly

sagacious · wise

sagely · wisely

skeptically · doubtfully

spontaneously · impulsively

stern · serious

stifle · repress

subterfuge · deception

trepidation · worry

unconventional · different

upbraided · reprimanded

Chapter Four

Part 1

“Hey, man. So glad you guys invited me to this thing,” Topher Ross said, dipping a tortilla chip into a vat of melted cheese. He flipped his long blond hair over his shoulder. “There’s never anything to do around this stupid town.”

Topher had just moved to New York from California the year before, and all we really knew about him was that he lived in one of the biggest houses in town and was absent from school at least once a week. Which, of course, made him mysterious and therefore coveted by all the ladies. He’d already dated most of the hottest chicks in school, which meant most of the guys hated him. But his obvious wealth qualified him for the game, and now that he was here for the game, he seemed like a pretty cool guy. I was actually kind of surprised Marcy hadn’t set her sights on him instead of Dominic freakin’ Thomas.

“I know,” I said. I leaned back against the wall, clutching my cold soda. “Life around here is so mundane, we figured it’d be cool to try something new. It’s gonna be fun.”

I said this as much to convince myself as him. Now that we were all here, ready for the seminal high-stakes game, my heart was having a major fit. In fact, it had been palpitating all morning, ever since I had drained half my bank account so I could buy in and still have more money to play with.

“Damn right it’s gonna be fun,” Ian said, slapping me on the back. He took the wad of cash he had already collected and placed it inside the safe in one of the cabinets. I could practically see the dollar signs reflected in his eyes. “ Initiating this game was the best idea you’ve ever had, Riley,” he said over his shoulder as he locked the door.

“Oh, dude. That’s some pungent cheese!” Topher said with a grimace. He grabbed the soda right out of my hand and took a swig, washing his rank snack down.

“Uh . . . that’s okay,” I said, holding a hand up as he tried to give back my drink.

“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I’ll get ya another one.”

Then he loped off toward the side table where the soda bottles and ice bucket sat, cutting through the rest of the crowd that had gathered in Ian’s basement. All the wealthiest guys in school were there, bringing with them a preponderance of designer clothes, overpriced cologne, and state-of-the-art cell phones. Not to mention attitude. These guys had attitude coming out their ears. The decibel level was already staggering, and it only seemed to grow louder with each passing moment, as one guy after another vied for the attention of the group.

“Okay, I’m starting to think that maybe this wasn’t the best idea,” I said, glancing at the door behind me.

Ian’s eyes widened. “Are you intimating that you want to leave?”

“Not intimating. I’m saying it flat out,” I replied. “I think I should go.”

“I’m perplexed,” Ian said, a wrinkle appearing above his nose. “Wasn’t this your idea?”

“I know, dude,” I said, rolling my neck around. “It’s just . . . ever since I took that money out of the bank this morning I’ve been kind of nervous.”

“Don’t think about the money.” Ian placed his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, turning me to face the room. “Think about your total poker hegemony the other night. Think about how great it felt to knock those guys off their pedestals. You are going to demolish these suckers, relieve them of their extraneous cash! And it’s going to feel good!”

“I don’t know . . . ,” I hedged.

“Besides, you heard what Topher said. We’re performing a public service here,” Ian told me.

I looked at him doubtfully.

“We’re saving these guys from their ennui!” Ian announced.

I laughed. “You have a point there,” I said. “But E, you know how hard I’ve worked to save up all this money. You know all the sacrifices I’ve made. Do I really want to risk losing half of it?”

“Okay. How about we prescribe a limit, then?” Ian suggested. “You can only bet half of what you brought with you.”

I bit my lip and stared across the room at the verdant felt atop one of the poker tables. Ian’s proposal did sound reasonable. Of course, I would be the one who would have to control myself. Something that was never all that easy in the heat of the game. But I had always managed to be responsible in the past. Now that there was more money on the line, I would just have to be more responsible.

“Come on. We’re in this together, man. It wouldn’t be the same without you. What do I have to do to dissuade you from leaving?” he asked.

“You could stop sounding like a used car salesman,” I quipped.

“You’re staying, aren’t you?” Ian said.

I grinned. “Yeah, I’ll stay.”

“All right!” he slapped my hand just as the noise in the room reached a crescendo. The natives were getting restless. “Let’s get this party started,” Ian told me. “Get out there and work that poker prowess.”

“I’ll try,” I said with a shrug.

Ian leveled me with a serious stare. “Do or do not. There is no try.”

Chapter Four

Part 2

I’m not usually inclined to underestimate my opponents, but an hour later, if anyone had asked me, I would have said with absolute certainty that the guys I was playing were not only sophomoric, but hapless. And that would have been kind. Not only did they seem to know zip about Texas Hold ’Em and the probability of winning on certain hands, but they were getting no cards. Half of them folded right after the flop, and I just kept taking pot after undefended pot. In my usual game that would mean moderate winnings, but in this game, with higher minimum bets, I was cleaning up. And it took almost no effort!

This was the best idea I had ever had!

“Kudos, dude,” Topher said as I gathered up my latest pile of chips. “You’re like the poker guru.”

“Thanks, man,” I said with a smile.

Dominic’s friend Lucas was more truculent. “Whatever. You’re just having a lucky night.”

“Kind of like the other night when I kicked your and Dominic’s asses?” I asked, stacking my chips in twenty-five-dollar increments. “Was I lucky then, too?”

Lucas blew out a breath and shook his head. He sunk lower in his seat, staring down at the table.

“Where is Dominic tonight, anyway?” Ian asked. “Still licking his wounds?”

I laughed, and Ian and I exchanged a look. Maybe we were rubbing it in a little, but hell, that was half the fun. Maybe more, this time.

“How about we take a break before the next hand?” Ian suggested, shuffling the cards.

“I gotta take a piss anyway,” Lucas said, shoving back from the table before stalking out of the room.

“I think I’m really developing a rapport with that guy,” Ian deadpanned.

I cracked up laughing as everyone else made off for the snack table or the bathroom. Ian eyed my chips.

“So, feeling a little more sanguine about tonight?” he asked.

“You bet your ass I am,” I said. “And I have your laudatory comments to thank for it, brotha,” I added, slapping him on the back.

“Please. I knew your empirical knowledge of the game would make you outclass these losers any day,” Ian said, lifting his shoulders. “They probably learned everything they know from Celebrity Poker Showdown.”

“No doubt,” I said, feeling quite pleased with myself.

“So how much you up?” he asked.

I looked over the chips and quickly estimated my winnings. “I think I’ve tripled my money,” I said incredulously.

“No way,” Ian replied, wide-eyed. “See? You were all worried about your bank account, but now it’s going to be replete with cash.”

My heart thumped as I stared at the ornate design on top of the professional chips Ian had sprung for. “Yeah.”

“What’s the matter now?” Ian asked. “Winner’s remorse?”

“No,” I said. “No. It’s just . . . how am I going to explain the sudden influx of money to my parents?”

Ian blinked. Neither one of us had thought of this. “Well, better than explaining a sudden dearth, right?”

“Good point,” I replied.

Still, as the other guys returned to the table, I was feeling a strong inclination to quit while I was ahead. That was my usual M.O. anyway, and now that I realized that my new income was going to render me suspect, I was even more inclined to bail. I had never told my parents about our poker games, not even the little ones. In their eyes, risking money was an egregious crime. But before, I never had trouble hiding it—anything I won was silly pocket money. This kind of cash was going to be a lot harder to stow.

“I think I’m gonna cash out,” I announced, once everyone was seated.

“Cool, dude,” Topher replied, while another guy, Jonah, slapped my hand amicably.

“What? You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Lucas protested.

A couple of the other guys grumbled as well. Talk about a divisive announcement. Everyone looked at Lucas, uncomfortable.

“Come on, man,” Lucas said, sitting up straight and raising his palms on the table. I found myself hoping he had washed them after doing his business. “You gotta at least give us a chance to win some of our money back.”

“Yeah,” one of the other guys chorused. “Don’t be a wank.”

“A greedy wank,” Lucas amended.

I looked around at their pleading, challenging expressions and felt myself start to oscillate. Normally I’m fairly obdurate in these situations, but in that moment, I felt kind of sorry for them. They didn’t know what the hell they were doing, and I had taken advantage of that. Besides, if I lost a little money back, I would still be up, they would be placated, and it would be less cash to explain to my parents.

I settled back down and nodded to Ian. “All right. Deal me in.”

Chapter Four

Part 3

Big mistake. Huge, awful, horrible, horrifying mistake. An hour later my winning streak had stagnated. Not just stagnated, but reversed itself. My pile of chips had been all but effaced. I was losing. Big time. On every hand. The cards were not there. And as the guys around me grew more and more relaxed, I grew more and more disheartened. Why had I let them exhort me to play more hands? Why had I let Ian convince me to stay in the first place?

Of course, there was one little misstep that I couldn’t blame on anyone but myself—the fact that I had broken my own rule. I had dipped in to my extra chips—the ones Ian and I had decided that I wouldn’t touch. I was fairly sure that Ian hadn’t even realized that I made this illicit move, that the few chips I had left represented, in fact, the last of my money.

If I didn’t win this hand I would be screwed. So very, very screwed.

“So, whadaya say, Riley?” Lucas asked, grinning. “One more hand. I believe you’ve only got the cash for one more hand.”

I stared at the wily bastard, wishing I could incinerate him with my eyes, Superman style. It was his fault—his fault I was still there, his fault I was down. I could have walked out of here a winner, but he had goaded me into staying. Well, I couldn’t back down now. I still had one more shot, and I wasn’t going to let this jerk run me out of here.

“Sure,” I said genially. “One more hand.”

“You sure about that, man?” Ian asked.

“Just deal me in,” I said through my teeth. I knew it was probably a fatuous decision, but I didn’t need my best friend calling me on it.

Ian did as I said. As I pulled my hole cards to me, I said a little prayer. It didn’t work. I had a two and a queen, unsuited. Not that it mattered. What the hell was I going to do with a two and a queen?

“You folding, Riley?” Lucas teased.

I made my face impassive, even though inside I was a maelstrom of doubt, guilt, and fear. I picked up a couple of chips and threw them in.

“What the hell,” I said, lifting a shoulder.

The second my chips were in the pot I wanted to retract the bet. What was I doing? Did I think I was invincible or something? I mean, this night had proven the exact opposite. Had I lost my mind? At least if I held on to the few chips I had I would be walking out with something. At this point it would be a miracle if I didn’t go bust.

I glanced furtively at Ian as he dealt the flop.

Gimme a miracle here, buddy. Give me anything, I thought.

The flop was a ten, a two, and a king. I had a pair of twos. Total suckage.

But Topher and Jonah both folded, good sign. Maybe everyone had crap cards.

The fifth guy at the table, Thomas something or other, threw in two chips. I took a deep breath. Lucas watched me carefully. My stack of chips was pathetic. I had already lowered myself into the quagmire. My sole hope of redeeming myself was to somehow win this hand. And I did have a shot. With a queen I could pull out two pair. Or maybe even a full house. I looked at Lucas and my pride won out over my logic. I saw Thomas’s bet.

Lucas tapped his foot under the table as he considered. A feeling of sudden hope permeated my soul. This was a classic tell. He was nervous. He didn’t have the cards. He took a deep breath and saw my bet.

“Dealing the turn,” Ian said.

It was a queen. I had to concentrate to keep from sitting up a bit straighter. I had my two pair, and if the poker gods were smiling on me, I might even have a shot at a full house.

Thomas folded. It was between me and Lucas. Feeling slightly more confident, I threw in a couple more chips. It was a decent pot. If I could take it, I would be back in the game.

“Like you said, what the hell,” Lucas said. He tossed in two more chips, seeing my bet and barely making a dent in his winnings. “Let’s see that river,” he said to Ian.

Ian looked at me. We were all holding our breath. In my mind I could hear the death knell sounding. What were the chances that one of the two queens was still in his hand, let alone sitting atop the deck? If I wasn’t so nervous, I might have been able to figure out the math, but as it was, you couldn’t even have elicited the answer to 2 + 2 from my brain.

“Dealing the river,” Ian said.

He turned the card over. The queen of hearts.

Yes! I thought. Full house.

I threw in my last two chips. I was back in the game, baby.

“I call,” Lucas said, placing his bet. “What do you have?”

“Full house,” I said triumphantly, standing up as I threw my cards down. “Queens over twos.” God, it felt good. I was still so, so, so down, but at least I had been granted a reprieve. “Whadaya got?” I asked Lucas. Like it mattered.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Lucas’s mouth twisted into a wry, victorious grin, and just like that I hit the nadir of my short existence.

“Full house,” he said. “Kings over queens.”

He stood up and placed his two kings down on the table. The room spun as he and his buddies cheered mercilessly. Lucas had totally schooled me. His foot tapping wasn’t a tell but a flagrant ruse that I should have seen coming from a mile away. It was all part of the game. He had beaten me fair and square. I looked at the empty space of felt in front of me—the space where much of my life savings had once been.

“Hey, man. It’s gonna be all right,” Ian said, stepping up next to me.

“No, it’s not,” I said. “It is so not going to be all right.”

I appreciated his effort, but as of that moment, I was inconsolable. As of that moment, my life was over.

Chapter Four

Part 4

I sat outside on the front steps of my house for a long time, feeling morose and dejected, wondering what the hell I was going to do next. It was a cool October evening, and a tranquil breeze rustled the leaves in the trees on our front lawn. I took a deep breath, hoping it would clear my head. Fall was my favorite time of year, and I normally loved this type of weather. It meant football and pep rallies and parties. I usually found it energizing. But tonight I couldn’t have felt more lethargic. The very idea of walking into my house exhausted me.

My parents were in the living room, watching TV, oblivious to the reprehensible transgression their son had just committed. I couldn’t disclose to them what I had done. Just imagining the looks of disappointment they would throw at me made me sick to my stomach. My flagrant disregard for their rules, for their beliefs, would crush them. I had always been the paradigm of the perfect son—working hard, getting good grades, succeeding at sports. I had never given them a single reason to have a modicum of doubt in me. And now, in one night, I had killed all that.

I had to find a way to fix this before they got our bank statements and saw the discrepancy between this one and the last. And until I did, keeping the secret from my parents was paramount.

I took a deep breath, forced myself to stand up, and went inside. There they were, cuddled up together on the couch. The scenario was so placid and normal, it almost didn’t make sense to my off-kilter brain. My mom looked up from the TV when she saw my shadow.

“Hi, Michael! Did you have fun at Ian’s?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said automatically. “We just hung out with some of the guys. Nothing big.”

I couldn’t believe how lucid I was, considering that my life was flashing before my eyes. I was supposed to venerate my parents, not deceive them right to their faces. Maybe I should just tell them. Maybe they would be lenient. Maybe they wouldn’t hate me. But even as I thought about it, I knew it was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.

“Are you okay, son?” my father asked. “You look kind of pale.”

“Actually, I think I ate too much junk food,” I told them. “I think I’m just gonna go to bed.”

“Okay. I’ll come in and check on you in a little while,” my mom said with a smile.

“Thanks, Mom,” I said.

Then I turned toward the hallway and got out of there before I could break down. Back in my room, I closed the door and lay down on my bed, staring up at the ceiling with my fists at my temples. My breath was short and panicked. What had I done? What was I going to do? I had no ideas. Zilch. Zero. Nada.

I took a deep breath and I tried to force myself to chill. I needed to calm down and think. It was just one digression. I would fix it. I had to. I just had to attack this problem with the fervency with which I had I attacked every other obstacle in my life.

Unfortunately, I had no idea where to begin.

Vocabulary Drill

Chapter Four

crescendo · climax

deadpanned · said matter-of-factly

dearth · shortage

deceive · mislead

decibel · loudness

demolish · destroy

digression · deviation

disclose · reveal

discrepancy · disagreement

disheartened · discouraged

dissuade · advise against

divisive · dividing

effaced · erased

egregious · flagrant

elicited · draw forth

empirical · based on experience

ennui · boredom

exhort · urge strongly

extraneous · excess

fatuous · foolish

fervency · enthusiasm

flagrant · obvious

furtively · secretly

genially · in a friendly manner

hapless · unfortunate

hegemony · domination

illicit · unlawful

impassive · expressionless

incinerate · burn

inclination · [see note in text]

inclined · predisposed

inconsolable · beyond being comforted

increments · increased amounts

initiating · TK

intimating · implying

knell · announcing sound

kudos · praise

laudatory · praising

lenient · permissive

lethargic · sluggish

lucid · clear-headed

maelstrom · storm

mercilessly · unrelentingly

moderate · mediocre

modicum · small portion

morose · gloomy

mundane · ordinary

nadir · lowest point

obdurate · inflexible

ornate · excessively decorated

oscillate · waver

palpitating · throbbing

paradigm · typical example

paramount · all-important

permeated · seeped through

perplexed · baffled

placated · appeased

placid · calm

preponderance · excessive number

prescribe · specify

prowess · great ability

pungent · intensely odorous

quagmire · difficult position

rank · foul

rapport · personal connection

replete · full

reprehensible · blameworthy

reprieve · delay of punishment

retract · take back

ruse · trick

sanguine · confident

seminal · unprecedented

sophomoric · childish

stagnated · gone stale

tranquil · calm

transgression · violation

truculent · savage

venerate · revere

verdant · green

wily · sly

wry · ironically humorous

Chapter Five

Part 1

As I walked into school on Thursday morning, I was barely cognizant. I hadn’t slept at all, and even though my heart was pounding as if I’d just run ten miles, my brain was all fuzzy and exhausted. I felt like I had sucked down ten cups of super-caffeinated coffee, then followed it up with a sleeping pill. My body had no idea what to do with itself.

In the front hall, a bunch of my teammates were cavorting around with a football, tossing it back and forth and playing a mini game. A dozen girls stood against the walls, giggling and throwing out flirtatious glances. Two days ago I would have joined in the game, but this morning the whole thing seemed so inane to me. I was not in an ebullient mood.

“Mike! Catch!” Tim Brittan called out, lobbing the ball in my direction. I caught it, tossed it languidly back to him, and kept walking.

“What’s the matter, man?” one of the guys called after me.

“Not now,” I said. I guess when I was exhausted and guilt-ridden, I also became laconic. I was learning all kinds of things about myself lately. Unfortunately, none of it was good.

As I approached my locker, I saw that Winter was waiting for me. Just the sight of her cheered me up considerably. She looked adorable in a plaid miniskirt and denim jacket embellished with rhinestones, country-western style. There was no doubt that Winter Dumas walked to the beat of her own drummer.

“Hey!” I said with a small smile.

But my happiness was ephemeral. Winter did not look pleased. Cute maybe, but not pleased.

“Not that I want to be the ball-breaking girlfriend after one date, but weren’t you supposed to call me last night?” she asked, leaning her shoulder against the locker next to mine. I looked at her blankly. All I could remember about last night was my spectacular downward spiral. “We were going to watch Invasion together?” she prompted.

“Oh, God,” I said, rolling my eyes closed. “I am so sorry. I got home later than I thought I would from Ian’s, and I just . . .”

I was bereft of excuses. I should have called her anyway. I just—

“Forgot,” she supplied with a smirk. “So I’m forgettable. That’s cool. It’s good to know, actually. Maybe I should consider getting a boob job. It’s too late to grow long legs, but . . .”

I laughed. “Very funny,” I said. “You do any of that and I’ll never speak to you again.”

“Wouldn’t be much of a change,” she said with an overly dramatic sigh.

Her words may have sounded like a rebuke, but I could tell from her expression that she wasn’t actually mad. Winter was not the ball-and-chain type of girl. She was just messing with me. But I felt bad anyway. Even more so because instead of talking to her, which would have been fun, I had been busy losing all my money like an idiot. Why hadn’t I just stayed home and kept my phone date? If only I could go back in time. That was exactly what I would do.

“I’m sorry. I really am,” I said, leaning forward and placing my forehead against the cool metal of the locker. “I’m such an asshole.”

“All right, all right. Don’t go all drama queen on me now,” Winter joked. “You’re forgiven.”

I took a deep breath and blew it out, wishing there was something I could do to calm my pulse, to stop the bile from rolling around in my gut.

“Hey,” she said, turning serious. “Are you okay? Mike?”

I looked down into her concerned green eyes and felt even worse yet. Little did she know she was dating a total moron who couldn’t even hold on to his own cash.

You are a total loser, I chided myself. You don’t deserve a girl this cool.

“I’m fine,” I told her. And then I was saved by the first bell. “I’d better get to class.”

I opened my locker, grabbed a few books, and then slammed it. Hard.

“Okay,” she said. “But later, at lunch, you’ll tell me what’s wrong.”

“Yeah. Okay,” I said quickly, dismissively. “We’ll talk at lunch.”

Then I gave her a dry kiss on the cheek and ran off to class on the other side of the school. I walked through the door just as the second bell rang.

“Mr. Riley! Nice of you to join us,” Mr. Weeks, my history teacher, greeted me with his wrinkled face set in its usual, dour expression.

The second I saw what he was doing, I wanted to abscond from the school and never look back. He was placing papers face down on everyone’s desks. We hadn’t recently taken a quiz so that had to mean—

“Pop quiz!” he announced, placing the last paper on my empty desk at the front of the room. “Hope you all did your reading last night!”

I dropped into my chair, relieving my now quaking legs, and pulled out a pen. What had I been thinking? Mr. Weeks was notorious for his pop quizzes, but we hadn’t had one all year. Of course he would give one on the morning after I had completely skipped my homework for the first time ever. Usually, I was so fastidious about my work that even my parents urge me to take breaks. Now there was going to be a huge blemish on my record, and Mr. Weeks was going to peg me as indolent and irresponsible for the rest of the year.

“You have thirty minutes to complete the quiz,” Mr. Weeks said, sitting down behind his commodious desk. “Turn your papers over . . . now.”

There was a rustling of pages, and then everyone set to work. Pencils and pens scratched all around me, but as I ran my eyes down the list of questions, my compunction was compounded. I didn’t know a single answer. Not one thing looked familiar. Oh yeah. Weeks was going to be lavishing me with praise after this performance.

I decided to start with the multiple-choice section and just start guessing. Maybe, just maybe, I would be luckier today than I had been last night.

Chapter Five

Part 2

By the time lunch rolled around, I was a wreck. All I could think about all morning was my bank account, the balance that used to be there, and the balance that was there now. What my parents would do once the situation had been elucidated. That was the worst part—thinking about how disappointed they were going to be. I needed to talk to someone. I needed to confess and maybe even get absolution. But since there was no priest on campus, and I wasn’t that religious anyway, I decided to take Winter on as my new confidant. It made perfect sense. I couldn’t tell Ian that I had lost the bank. I was too ashamed. And besides, Winter was so different from everyone else I knew, maybe she would have a different perspective. Maybe she could come up with a solution I hadn’t even thought of yet. Like, I don’t know, selling a kidney or something.

I took her outside to the picnic tables at lunch. It was a sunny fall day, and even though there was a cool breeze in the air, the sun was strong enough to keep us warm. Winter’s skin was luminous in that light, and I just wished we could sit out there and talk about something easy, or even make out a little—do something normal. But I had pretty much killed that possibility with my flash of irresponsibility. There was no normal for me today.

So instead I spilled out the whole awful story. Winter was great, unsurprisingly. She listened attentively throughout the sordid tale, but when I finally got to the actual amount of money I’d lost, she balked. In fact, I think she almost choked on her bagel.

“Are you kidding me?” she asked, sucking down some soda to clear her throat. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

Okay, I hadn’t expected her to be happy for me, but I also didn’t expect her to look at me like I was some kind of nefarious fiend. It was my money I had lost, after all, not hers.

“No. I’m not kidding,” I said brusquely. “That’s why they call it a high-stakes game.”

“Damn,” she said under her breath. Then she saw my face and shrugged, smiling apologetically. “Sorry. I’m just penurious by nature. I can’t even imagine taking out that much money, let alone gambling it.”

I squirmed, feeling sick to my stomach. I knew she hadn’t meant to rub it in, but that was exactly what she had done. I pushed my cafeteria-issue pizza away from me, no longer wanting to stare at the slowly congealing cheese.

“Well, thanks for your candor, I guess,” I said. I knew she was right, of course. That’s why I felt so horrible.

“So . . . what are you going to do?” she asked sympathetically.

“Not a clue,” I said. “Any ideas?”

“Sell a kidney?” she suggested.

I laughed half-heartedly. How had I known she was going to say that?

“Maybe you should tell your parents,” she suggested.

“No. I can’t do that,” I said firmly.

“Why? You don’t know. They might be totally understanding about it,” she replied.

“No. It’s not an option,” I said. “They would never look at me the same way again.”

Winter eyed me with obvious pity. This conversation wasn’t going as well as I had hoped it would. I wanted her to offer her condolences, make me feel better. But now it was clear that there was no way to make me feel better about a mistake I had already made.

“I’m just gonna have to win it back,” I said, taking a sip of my soda.

“Oh, yeah. There’s a good plan,” she said sarcastically.

“What? It could work,” I replied.

“Uh, maybe it would be better if you just capitulate to lady luck,” Winter suggested. “You know, quit while you’re not ahead. At least you still have some money in the bank. If you play and lose, you could end up with nothing.”

“Okay, I see your point. And it’s a judicious argument,” I told her. “But it’s a chance I’m going to have to take.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Have you not been listening to me?” I asked, my voice rising. “My parents are going to kill me.”

“First of all, no they’re not. They’re not actually going to kill you. They may be disappointed, but they’re not going to take the life of their one and only son,” she said flatly. “Secondly, do you not see how fraught with flaws this plan is? Let’s say, hypothetically, you go over to Ian’s and play a few hands. You win a couple and you’re up a little, but not enough. So you start betting a little more, playing a little more dangerously. Then all you’ve got to do is lose one big hand and you’re back where you started. Or worse.”

Wow. She was really launching a polemic here.

“Your confidence in me is heartening. Really,” I said.

“Mike—”

“I’m not going to lose it all back,” I told her.

“Oh, so now you’re clairvoyant all of a sudden?” she asked. “Now you know exactly what cards you’re going to be dealt?”

The girl did not want me to play.

“Well, if I’m dealt bad cards, I’ll fold,” I told her.

“You still lose money when you fold,” she pointed out.

Even in the midst of this argument and my tension, I was impressed that she knew anything about poker. I really did like this girl. Too bad I met her right when my life was totally falling apart. I took a deep breath and leaned forward.

“Look, this is the only choice I have,” I told her. “I have to put that money back before my parents realize it’s gone. I just have to.”

Winter looked at me for a long moment, and I wondered if she was going to get up and walk away and never look back. But instead, she dropped back in her chair, popped a piece of bagel into her mouth, and shrugged.

“Well, then. I guess I wish you luck.”

Chapter Five

Part 3

That Friday night I sat at my regular poker game with my friends, my leg bouncing up and down under the table as I waited for Brad to make his bet. The table was silent, and tension gripped the room. Both my fault. I had been caustic and impatient ever since I walked in, two things that didn’t exactly engender camaraderie. This was supposed to be a fun game, a casual thing, but tonight I had turned it into a war.

“Dude. Are you going to bet, ever?” I said flatly.

Brad shot me a look of death. “Whatever,” he said, tossing in a couple of chips.

“Good. I see your bet, and I raise you,” I said, throwing in.

“Uh, Mike?” Ian said. “You can’t raise the bet ten dollars. There’s a two-dollar limit, remember?”

I laughed. “Right. I forgot this wasn’t the real game,” I said.

Ian’s face turned to stone. I knew he was annoyed that I had alluded to the high-stakes game, which these guys hadn’t been invited to. But we had made that decision together, knowing they were too impecunious to afford it. Still, that didn’t change the fact that now I was in the poor house. I needed money, and at that moment I didn’t care where it came from. Avarice had taken over. Well, that and fear.

“Come on, Brad. Be a man,” I said. “There isn’t even any real money in that pot yet.”

“Yeah, well, my diminutive paycheck begs to differ,” Brad said, throwing his cards down. “I fold.”

He shoved away from the table, got up, and grabbed his jacket.

“What’s your problem, man?” I asked, standing as well. “When did you become so irascible?”

“Me?” Brad shot back, shoving his arms into his jacket. “I don’t even know who the hell you are, man. You’ve been more mercurial tonight than my girlfriend at that time of the month.”

I snorted a laugh and looked at the other guys. They all avoided my gaze. Suddenly I felt a pit of guilt start to form in my stomach. What was wrong with me?

“Come on, man,” I said, fighting for equanimity. “Don’t go. I’m sorry, all right? I’ll stop being an ass.”

Brad took a deep breath. “I’m just not in the mood, Mike. I’m not gonna stick around and wait for you to denigrate me again or . . . or instigate another showdown. You know, this used to be fun.”

Talk about a drama queen. “You know what? Fine. If you wanna go, go. Don’t let me deter you,” I snapped.

I sat down and pulled my winnings toward me, stacking up the few chips I could now call my own. Brad turned around and slammed the door on his way out. I could feel everyone staring at me, and I started to sweat.

“So, you gonna deal or what?” I snapped at Ian.

“Dude, what’s wrong with you?” Tyler asked.

“Not you too, Brooks,” I said.

“Mike, maybe you should abstain from this next hand,” Ian suggested. “Or the next couple. Take a break and chill for a little bit.”

My eyes flashed. “What are you, now? My mother?” I asked. The second I said it I wanted to take it back. I couldn’t believe how belligerent I was acting. But I guess that’s what sheer panic can do to you. “Deal me in,” I said quietly, tossing my two chips into the pot.

Ian sighed, looked around at Chris and Brad, and dealt the cards. I pulled my two hole cards to me and checked them. Two fours. A promising start. We all placed our bets.

“Dealing the flop,” Ian said. He sounded tired. Maybe even a little wary.

In the flop were a ten, a queen, and a two. Nothing that could even remotely help me. The best I could do now was three of a kind or, if lady luck was smiling on me, four of a kind. Brad threw in his bet. Chris raised it. Now I either had to see his raised bet or fold.

My heart pounded in my ears. I should have listened to Ian and sat this one out. Now I could either bluff and pray or fold and give up half of what I had already won. Which wasn’t much. Holding my breath, I decided to throw prudence out the window. I saw Chris’s bet.

Ian blew out a sigh. “Dealing the turn,” he said.

He turned the card over. Another ten. Okay. This was good. Now I had two pair with my two fours and the two tens on the table. Now I could even pull out a full house, potentially.

We all put in our bets. Chris raised again. I saw his bet. A trickle of sweat ran down my cheek from my temple.

“Dealing the river,” Ian said.

He turned over the card. A king. I had to hope my two pair was the best hand out there.

We all placed our final bets.

“What’s everybody got?” Ian asked.

“Two pair,” Tyler said. “Tens and twos.”

Yes! I had him beat.

“Two pair. Tens and fours,” I said triumphantly.

Everyone looked at Chris. He seemed almost sorry as he turned over the winning hand. “I got a straight,” he said. “Ace high.”

I gulped. There were the cards. He had a jack and an ace in the hole, plus the ten, queen, and king on the table. He leaned forward and dragged all the chips in the pot toward him and it took every ounce of fortitude I could muster to keep from breaking down. I was down to my last two chips. Two measly dollars from the hundred I had taken out, hoping to double it and put a dent in what I had already lost. Everyone at the table looked at me in pity and with maybe a little bit of fear, wondering if I was going to explode again. But I didn’t have any explosions left in me. It was one of the most ignominious moments of my life, and all I wanted to do was crawl home with my tail between my legs.

Chapter Five

Part 4

I left after that last game and went home in an abject condition. I couldn’t believe I had lost even more money. The situation was officially exigent. Unless some magnanimous benefactor suddenly swooped in from on high with a huge check or some unknown wealthy relative died and bequeathed his estate to me, I was in serious trouble.

My parents were out to dinner, so at least I had the house to myself to wallow in my despondency. I walked into my room and closed the door quietly behind me. I sat down on the edge of my bed and looked at the clock. It was 10 p.m. Football curfew had started. The night stretched out in front of me like a tunnel of torture. I knew there would be no sleep, that I would toss and turn all night thinking about what I had done and that if I didn’t sleep soon I would tank in the game tomorrow. One night of high-stakes gambling, and I had ruined everything. Why had I ever come up with that stupid idea?

I had to chalk it all up to ego. It had felt so good to take Dominic down that I had wanted to experience that high again. Little did I know I was setting myself up for the exact opposite. This was the lowest of lows. And it was interminable.

With a sigh, I stood up and slipped out of my varsity jacket. I flipped my computer on to check my email, maybe distract myself for a little while. Right after I typed in my password, a pop-up add appeared on my screen. I automatically went to close it—I have a particular aversion to those annoying ads—but my finger froze, hovering over the mouse.

PokerParty.com! Be a winner! it read.

There it was. A perfect presage. Just when I was floundering for a way out, a way out appeared.

My heart started to pound, and my palms were instantly bathed in sweat. Online poker. Of course. I didn’t have to wait for the Wednesday and Friday night games to win back my money. And I didn’t have to feel like I was fleecing my friends. These things were available 24/7 with strangers from around the world putting up their cash.

But they’re dangerous, a little voice in my mind told me. Because they’re available all the time, you can also lose all the time.

But even as I thought this, I found myself clicking on the link. I was under duress here, and I was ready to grab at any life-preserver thrown my way. I took a deep breath as I was welcomed in to the colorful website. It looked pretty cool. The minimum bets were nominal, so I could be circumspect while feeling out the situation. Besides, I bet a lot of the people playing on this site had never even played before. I would be an expert among a plethora of novices. All in all, it seemed like the perfect way to get ahead on my debt.

I clicked the “Sign Up” button and read through the steps entailed in becoming a member. I had to be 21, of course, but that was easy enough to fudge. I had my check card with my name on it, which also happened to be my father’s name. The benefits of being a “junior.” Both of our names were on my bank account as well, so they had no way of knowing I wasn’t Michael Senior. Feeling intrepid and in control for the first time since Wednesday night, I quickly signed up. Before I knew it, I was creating a screen name—“Mikey_Sr,” just for good measure—and I was welcomed into a game.

I took a deep breath as the “dealer” asked me to place my first bet. The good thing about this was there were no distractions. No one around me being obstreperous or irksome. The bad thing was legerdemain would be much easier—not just for me, but for everyone. I wouldn’t be able to see anyone’s tells or read their eyes, which was a big part of the game. But I figured that as long as I was diligent and paid attention, I could come out on top.

I clicked on the mouse and placed my first bet.

Vocabulary Drill

Chapter Five

abject · spiritless

abscond · leave secretly

absolution · forgiveness

abstain · not partake

alluded · hinted

avarice · greed

aversion · dislike

balked · stopped short

belligerent · hostile

benefactor · supporter

bequeathed · endowed

bereft · deprived

blemish · taint

brusquely · bluntly

camaraderie · brotherhood

candor · honesty

capitulate · give in

caustic · scathing

cavorting · frolicking

circumspect · cautious

clairvoyant · possessing of a sixth sense

cognizant · aware

commodious · spacious

compunction · guilt

condolences · sympathy

confidant · one to tell secrets to

congealing · becoming solid

denigrate · belittle

despondency · hopelessness

deter · discourage

diligent · dedicated

diminutive · small

dour · harsh

duress · under threat

ebullient · enthusiastic

elucidated · made clear

embellished · enhanced

engender · produce

entailed · involved

ephemeral · short-lived

equanimity · composure

exigent · demanding action

fastidious · picky

fortitude · strength

fraught · full

hypothetically · theoretically

ignominious · humiliating

impecunious · penniless

inane · silly

indolent · lazy

instigate · provoke

interminable · endless

intrepid · adventurous

irascible · hot-tempered

judicious · wise

laconic · mysteriously quiet

languidly · lazily

lavishing · excessively expending

legerdemain · sleight-of-hand

luminous · glowing

magnanimous · good-hearted

mercurial · unpredictable

nefarious · wicked

nominal · insignificant

notorious · well-known, unfavorably

novices · beginners

obstreperous · noisy

penurious · stingy

plethora · abundance

polemic · aggressive (verbal) attack

presage · omen

prudence · good judgment

rebuke · reprimand

Chapter Six

Part 1

Saturday morning was our away game against Washington High. I was so exhausted as I boarded the bus with my teammates, I contemplated abdicating my quarterback position to the backup, Charlie Warner. He would clearly do a much better job than I would. I might have done it if I didn’t know for sure that Coach would hunt me down and skin me alive. This was an important game against one of the most redoubtable opponents on our schedule. I had to be there, as much as my brain was somewhere else—on my computer, to be exact.

I had been up half the night playing at PokerParty.com. With each game I started I told myself it was the last one, but then I would be up a bit and my adrenaline would take over, wanting to win more. If I was suddenly down, I knew I couldn’t log off because I had to win my money back. Neither winning nor losing could induce me to turn off the damn computer. And now I was paying the price. I was yawning like mad, my head was all muddled, and all I could think about was getting through the damn game so I could get home and start betting again.

I was an execrable human being.

As Coach gathered us together in Washington High’s visitor locker room for his weekly pre-game oration, I sat at the back of the crowd, sucking down my second Red Bull of the morning. I ducked behind some of the bigger linemen, trying to elude the coach’s attention. He wasn’t big on caffeine, always telling us it was deleterious to our training and would stunt our growth. Unfortunately, today I would be useless without it.

“All right everyone, let’s remember the game plan,” Coach said. “Their run game is for crap and they know it, so what are they gonna do?”

“They’re gonna throw, Coach,” Tim shouted.

“Damn right. That’s all they’re gonna do,” Coach said. “So what’re we gonna do?”

“Blitz!” the team shouted.

“That’s right! We’re gonna pressure them! Bronson! I expect to see at least two sacks out of you today, you got me?”

“Yes, Coach!” Bronson replied.

I yawned hugely, hiding my gaping mouth behind my hand. Out on the field I could hear Washington High’s marching band start up their pre-game show, and the cadence of the drums lulled me toward sleep.

“I want no mercy on the defense!” Coach shouted, earning some cheers in reply. “I want to keep our offense on the field. And when our offense is on the field, what are we gonna do?”

“Keep ’em guessing!” someone shouted, causing me to blink my eyes open. I yawned again.

“That’s right!” Coach cheered. “Now, Riley! Where are you?!”

Everyone turned around to look at me at the exact moment my mouth stretched wide in another tremendous yawn. Silence permeated the room. Coach shot me a look of tacit disgust, as if I had just committed the most heinous effrontery known to man. Which, I suppose, I had. Here he was, trying to catalyze the team for what was sure to be a combative, unrelenting game, and his captain and quarterback was yawning right in his face.

Abort ! Abort! My brain cried, long before my lungs took notice.

I snapped my mouth shut. “Right here, coach,” I said. My eyes watered from exhaustion.

A bunch of the guys laughed, and Coach narrowed his eyes at me. “We bothering you, Riley?” he asked.

“No, Coach,” I replied, my face burning.

“Because we can all leave you alone if you need to take a nap,” he said, crossing his beefy arms over his chest. More chuckles.

“No, Coach. I’m fine. Sorry,” I replied.

“Good. Because today, of all days, I need your head in the game,” he said.

“I know, Coach,” I replied.

“All right then. Hands in.”

A couple of the guys jostled and mocked me as we all huddled up and placed our hands in the center of the circle. Normally I cherished these insular moments, alone with the team, getting ready for battle. Today I just wanted to be home. Still, I had to play along. I had to make everyone think that I was as psyched up as the rest of them.

“Cardinals on three,” Coach said. “Ready? One, two, three—Cardinals!”

We all shouted together, then cheered and clapped as the circle broke up and we headed for the doors. I walked up to Coach on the way out, looking for a way to expiate my misdeed. Outside, the guys were already making ribald jokes about the Washington High cheerleaders, who were also on their way to the field.

“I’m sorry about that, Coach,” I told him. “Just had a hard time sleeping last night.”

“You all right, Riley? You look a little wan,” he told me, clearly concerned.

“Yeah. I’m good, Coach. Ready to play,” I told him, even as my exhausted body protested. This was ridiculous. I was a hardy, young guy. Couldn’t I have a couple sleepless nights and still function?

“Good. Because you know you’re the linchpin of this offense,” he said, slapping my shoulder pad. “If I gotta send Warner out there, we’re through.”

“I know, Coach.”

“All right. Let’s get out there and give ’em hell,” Coach said.

“You got it,” I told him.

I pulled my helmet on over my head and jogged after the team, hoping my adrenaline rush would kick in soon and be enough to sustain me through four quarters.

Chapter Six

Part 2

A cacophony out on the street jolted me awake, and as I lifted my head, an acute pain shot right through my skull. Sunlight accosted my eyes, and as I tried to blink them free of tears, I looked around in confusion. What day was it? Where was I? Was it morning or afternoon, or . . .

And why the hell had I fallen asleep on my desk?

I tried to lift my arm, but it was flaccid and full of pins and needles. My face ached, and when I touched it I realized it had been indented with dozens of tiny little marks from the keyboard. I had actually passed out with my cheek pressed against it. Mike Riley had hit a new low.

The moment I thought this, the realization came over me, and I remembered what I had done. I sat there, staring at my computer screen, which still displayed the PokerParty.com game room. My balance stared back at me, the very sight of it castigating me for my idiocy: BALANCE $0.

I closed my eyes as the nausea rode over me. It was Monday morning. That noise out on the street was the sound of garbage trucks coming for pickup. It was a school day and I had been up half the night, losing hand after hand on my computer. And my nonexistent PokerParty.com balance wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that if I had opened my bank’s website, my savings account balance would have read exactly the same way.

I had emptied it out. Somewhere around 2 a.m. I had gone all-in on a straight, thinking there was no way I could lose. Feeling as if I were on the brink of winning it all back, rather than on a precipice of disaster. And instead, I had lost it all to a guy from Decatur with a straight flush. Lost all of my hard-earned money. Every last cent.

This was a colossal disaster. How could I have let this happen? How had I become this licentious being? I had gone from Mr. Clean and Responsible to Mr. Iniquity in less than two weeks.

“Mike! Time to get up!”

My mother knocked once and walked into the room, just like she did every other morning. She was already fully dressed and coiffed and had her perky smile on. She looked at my bed in confusion, then her brows knit together when she saw my disheveled self sitting at the computer. My heart pounding, I surreptitiously clicked the Internet browser closed before she could see.

“Michael? What are you doing?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I replied automatically.

Slowly, she approached the computer. Oh, God. She had seen. She knew what I had done. Okay, this was it. What was I going to do?

Disavow everything, a little voice inside me cried. Plead innocent on all charges.

I gave her my most ingenuous look as she took in the soda cans, empty bag of chips, and whirring computer.

“Michael, were you up all night studying?” she asked, running her hand over my matted hair.

Oh, thank goodness. She thought I was being responsible—which somehow only made me feel even worse than I already did.

“Sweetie, you know I’m all for hard work, but I can’t condone you sleeping at your desk,” she said lightly, planting a kiss on top of my head.

“Sorry, Mom,” I said, faking somnolence and yawning. In actuality, my pulse was pounding fast enough to keep me awake for days. “I guess I just lost track of time.”

She smiled and cupped my face with her hand. Looking into her earnest eyes, I actually felt like crying. She loved me so much and thought I was such a good kid. Little did she know the irresponsible, wretched jerk I had become.

“Hop in the shower,” she said. “I’ll make you breakfast.”

There was nothing I could do but accede. Go on like it was a normal morning, like my entire world was not falling apart. As she shuffled off toward the kitchen, I got up and went about pretending to be the old Mike Riley.

Chapter Six

Part 3

But the old Mike Riley was officially gone. As I walked into school I was reminded that even my peers were aware that I had changed. The halls before first period were desolate, lifeless. People shot me pitying looks or just avoided my gaze altogether. Monday mornings were usually full of acclaim and accolades for me and the rest of the football team, but that morning the students and teachers alike were just wondering where it had all gone wrong.

Yes, to add insult to injury, Washington High had whipped us on Saturday, largely due to my two interceptions, one of which had been run back for a touchdown. It had been a grievous mistake—I had totally misread the defense, and it had cost us the game. The fact that myriad people were now trying to prop me up just made the whole thing feel worse.

“You’ll get ’em next time, Mike,” one of the JV players said to me in the hallway.

“We’ll drub them at states,” Mr. Rowe, my math teacher added, slapping me on the shoulder.

All this commiserating left me discomfited and down. What was even more disconcerting was that I hadn’t thought about the game all morning. I was so obsessed with the way I had screwed myself and my family last night, I hadn’t even considered the way I had screwed the whole school on Saturday. Now I realized that it probably would have been smart for me to just stay home.

“So, dude! Really ran us into the ground on Saturday, huh?” Lucas said, laughing as he walked by.

I’m sure he expected me to go off on him, but all I could do was sigh in resignation. Forget going home. This abnegation was exactly what I needed. I deserved to be punished.

I loped into history class just before the bell rang. Mr. Weeks walked in and pulled a sheaf of papers out of his battered leather briefcase. An ominous silence fell over the room. Our quizzes. He had graded our quizzes. Just what I needed.

“All right, everyone, settle down,” he called out, even though everyone was already settled. “Now, I have here your pop quizzes from last week, and I have to say I wasn’t very pleased with the results. I didn’t think my questions were all that abstruse, but apparently they were.”

This was not good. If people who had actually done the reading had fouled up, I was in deep trouble.

“Now I expect that those of you who didn’t bother to do your homework last week will take this as a lesson,” he said, walking up and down the aisles and handing the papers back. His ancient shoes squeaked and squished, fraying my already fried nerves. “The next pop quiz will be much more comprehensive. If you didn’t do well on this one, the next will be extremely difficult for you, so spend the time and do the reading.”

He placed my quiz face down on my desk and looked at me reprovingly. Not a good sign.

“Once you’ve all had a chance to study your grades, we’ll get started talking about America’s role in World War II,” he said, moving toward his desk. “I’ll give you a couple of minutes to go over your work.”

My hands quaking, I turned the page over slowly and the grade at the top truncated my breath. A big, fat, red F stared back at me. My first F ever. And the feeling of cold dread that came over me made me wistful for the days when a C was a big calamity. There were red marks everywhere. A quick glance over the page told me that I had gotten exactly one answer correct. I knew that the huge size of the F was intended to impinge on my psyche and it totally worked. This was not part of the normal vicissitudes of academic performance. This had happened because of the poker game. It wasn’t just affecting my bank account, but my entire life. If I didn’t do something to turn things around soon I was going to be relegated to the remedial class for the rest of my senior year.

I couldn’t let this happen. I folded the paper in half and shoved it in my bag. It was time to regain control of my life.

Chapter Six

Part 4

The second the bell rang, I was out the door. I had spent Mr. Weeks’s entire lecture concocting a plan, and now that I had one, I wanted to execute it as quickly as possible. It was time to take corrective action. It was time to put the old Mike Riley back into play before it was too late.

“Hey, football star!” Winter greeted me, pushing away from the wall by my locker as I breezed by. She stopped me and wrapped her arms around my neck. “What’s going on?”

“Hey,” I said, giving her a perfunctory kiss and extricating myself from her grip. I knew I should stop and give her a little attention. After all, she had spent most of Saturday night trying to cheer me up after my abysmal game, but I didn’t have time just now. “Sorry. I got something I have to do.”

“Nice to blow me off!” she admonished, calling after me.

“I’ll be right back!” I called over my shoulder.

I just hoped Dominic would be where I expected him to be. I jogged down the main corridor and around the corner into the hallway where the junior lockers were housed. Sure enough, there they were. Dominic and Marcy making out against the wall by her locker. Total creatures of habit. I took a deep breath and walked over to them, my fingers automatically curling into fists.

“Hey, guys!” I said loudly by way of salutation. They sprang apart and Marcy looked at me, disconcerted.

“Mike! Don’t make a scene,” Marcy said querulously. She probably thought I wanted to fight Dominic or something. So the last thing on my mind.

“That’s not why I’m here,” I said. “In fact, I’m sorry to interrupt, but Dom, can I talk to you for a second?”

He looked at me, baffled, as if my talking to him was tantamount to a miracle, which I suppose it was. Last week if you had told me I would be seeking out Dominic Thomas, I would have laughed. But now, I had my reasons.

“What’s up?” Dom asked, eyeing me with suspicion as we stepped away from Marcy. He noticed my fists and put a little distance between himself and them. I forced myself to relax my fingers.

“Have you heard about our Wednesday night game?” I asked him pleasantly.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Why?”

“Well I was wondering if you wanted to come this week,” I told him. “We had a great time last week. I figured you—”

“Yeah, I heard about your great time,” he interjected with a smirk. “Didn’t my friends go home with all your money?”

My temper flared and my hands curled up again, but I couldn’t let his incendiary comment get to me. I was here for a reason. I had a plan, maybe not the most ingenious plan in the world, but a plan nonetheless. And Dominic was an integral part. I shoved my hands into my pockets to hide my aggression.

“Yeah, well, regardless . . . I think you should come,” I said. “High stakes. It’s a lot of fun . . .”

“Thanks anyway, dude,” he said, turning away from me. “I’m not much of a gambler. Last week was kind of a fluke for me.”

Okay, this was not how this was supposed to go. I needed Dominic to come to that game. He was the only guy I was totally sure I could beat. He was the only sure way to get back my money. There was only one thing I could do.

“What’s the matter? Afraid I’ll school you again?” I asked.

It was so obviously calculating that I was sure he would see right through me. But he paused right in the middle of the hall. Apparently Dominic Thomas was not intractable in his resistance to gambling. Thank God. Marcy watched us curiously, twiddling her hair around her finger.

“Dude. Don’t even go there,” he said, looking at me over his shoulder.

“What?” I said with a shrug. “I understand. You’re just being pragmatic. I admire it, actually,” I said, knowing my wise tone would exacerbate his irritation. “Hold on to your money. Play it safe. If that’s the kind of guy you are, that’s the kind of guy you are.”

Dominic turned around and shook his head at me. He knew exactly what I was doing, but it was working anyway. And we both knew it. There was no way Dominic was going to stand there with all those people milling around and let me basically call him a wuss. He stepped right up to me and tipped his chin, staring up into my eyes with a cocky expression.

“All right, man. I’ll be there. And this time, you’ll be the one getting schooled,” he said.

Yeah, right, I thought. “Can’t wait,” I told him.

I waited for him to return to Marcy’s welcoming arms before turning around and heading back to my locker. My mind was about a million times more tranquil now that I had put my plan into play. Dom was an abysmal poker player. If I could get him to pony up the big bucks, all I’d have to do was win a few hands and everything would be fine. I was on the road to recovery.

Winter was still waiting for me, but I could tell she was vexed.

“Hey there!” I said, laying it on thick and wrapping my arms around her as if nothing had happened. I planted a big kiss on her, and she pulled away.

“What’s your problem?” she asked.

“What?” I replied with a grin.

“One second you ostracize me, and the next you think you can just come over here and I’ll fall at your feet?” she demanded. “Maybe your old girlfriend was all puppy dog like that, but you’re with me now.”

“Geez. Freak out a little why don’t you?” I said. “Who knew you were so high-maintenance?” I joked.

I was in a good mood, feeling lighter than I had in days, and I expected her to pick up on it—to laugh and joke back. But instead her eyes clouded over.

“Ha ha,” she said flatly. “Why don’t you give me a call when you get that discombobulated head of yours in order?”

Then she turned around and strutted down the hall, leaving me slack-jawed behind her. What on earth had just happened here?

Vocabulary Drill

Chapter Six

abdicating · giving up

abnegation · giving up

abort · end abruptly

abstruse · difficult

abysmal · absolutely wretched

accede · give consent

acclaim · applause

accolades · positive acknowledgments

accosted · attacked

acute · sharp

admonished · scolded

cacophony · harsh noise

cadence · rhythm

calamity · disaster

calculating · scheming

castigating · punish

catalyze · inspire

cherished · appreciated

colossal · huge

combative · warlike

comprehensive · extensive

concocting · creating

condone · excuse

contemplated · thought about

corrective · counteracting

deleterious · detrimental

desolate · barren

disavow · refuse to acknowledge

discombobulated · confused

discomfited · embarrassed and perplexed

disconcerted · confused

disconcerting · upsetting

disheveled · in disarray

drub · trounce

earnest · serious

effrontery · shameless boldness

elude · evade

exacerbate · add to

execrable · detestable

expiate · make amends for

extricating · freeing

flaccid · limp

grievous · grave

hardy · robust

impinge · trespass

incendiary · inflammatory

induce · cause

ingenious · clever

ingenuous · honorable

iniquity · wickedness

insular · isolated

integral · necessary

interjected · interrupted

intractable · difficult

licentious · immoral

linchpin · one that holds a group together

lulled · relaxed

myriad · a great number

ominous · foreboding

oration · speech

ostracize · banish

perfunctory · automatic

pragmatic · sensible

precipice · cliff

querulously · grouchy

redoubtable · formidable

relegated · demoted

remedial · special education

reprovingly · with scorn

ribald · offensive or course

salutation · greeting

somnolence · sleepiness

surreptitiously · stealthily

tacit · silently expressed

tantamount · equal

truncated · shortened

unrelenting · nonstop

vexed · annoyed

vicissitudes · fluctuations

wan · sickly

wistful · dreamy

wretched · extremely bad

Chapter Seven

Part 1

Okay. So I had blown Winter off at first, which was not cool. After all, with all the insanity in my life right then, she was the best thing I had going for me. It was total serendipity that someone so cool and funny and vivacious had come into my life right when everything else was so odious. There was no way I wanted to screw up our nascent relationship, so I decided to make it up to her. I came up with a perfect plan, and I wanted it to be a surprise. So that day at lunch, I invited her over to study later that night. She looked at me a bit suspiciously when I asked, but agreed.

My parents had a PTA meeting that evening, so Winter and I would have the place to ourselves. She showed up right on time, and when I answered the door, I was nearly stunned by her pulchritude. Under her denim jacket, she wore a white sweater with a furry collar, and her cheeks were flushed pink from the chilly autumn air. Every time I saw her, I swear she got more and more gorgeous.

“Hi! Thanks for coming,” I said.

“Hey there, football star,” she said with a smirk. She shrugged out of her jacket and shoved it at me rather roughly as she passed me by. She stopped at the entryway to the living room, where I had dimmed the lights and lit a bunch of candles. On the table was an overflowing bowl of popcorn, several smaller bowls of candy, and a stack of DVDs.

“So, this is your den of iniquity?” she asked. “I like the snacks. Nice touch.”

“Huh?” I looked over my shoulder as I hung up her jacket in the front closet. It smelled like strawberry gum. “My what of what?” I asked.

“Don’t forget who you’re dealing with here,” Winter said, dropping down on the couch. “I know your parents are both teachers, and I know they’re out tonight. Why do I know this? Because my mom is on the PTA. And I know how you guys and your prurient minds work. So when you invited me over here to ‘study,’?” she said, throwing in some air quotes, “on the one night your house is deserted, I knew you had only one thing on your mind.”

She looked at me with a teasing, knowing smile. I stared at her from the doorway. “Your mind works in mysterious ways,” I said.

“Please! Don’t try to deny it. What are these, porn?” she said, grabbing the first movie off the stack. She looked at the title and her jaw dropped slightly. Now it was my turn to smirk. “Fools Rush In?” she read, then picked up the next movie. “While You Were Sleeping . . . Just Married . . . You’ve Got Mail . . . 13 Going on 30. Oh my God. It’s the most vacuous collection of films I’ve ever seen. Where did you get all these?”

“From my mom’s collection,” I said, sitting down next to her. “She watches them incessantly. She loves them too, although for very different reasons than you.”

“I don’t believe you did this,” Winter said, looking around at all my efforts, enthralled. Clearly she was seeing the room in a whole new way. “I’m so sorry. When you said you wanted to study, I figured it was a spurious story—”

“Well it was, just not for the deviant reasons you had in mind. This was just a surprise to apologize for being such a moron this morning,” I said. Then I slid a bit closer to her and wrapped my arms around her tiny frame. “Although, you did come over even though you thought I was going to try something, so if you were interested . . . ,” I joked, waggling my eyebrows.

She whacked my arm. “Hey. Don’t make me repent my repentance,” she said.

“All right. Can’t blame me for trying,” I said, pulling away with my hands raised. She rolled her eyes at me. “But seriously, I just wanted to apologize for blowing you off by the lockers,” I told her. “I had a lot on my mind, but it’s no excuse.”

“Darn tootin’?” she said.

“Did you just say ‘darn tootin’?” I asked.

“I’m a very layered and complex person,” she replied, grabbing a handful of popcorn.

“Also big on extolling your own virtues, I notice,” I teased. She tossed half the popcorn in my face, and it tumbled down my shirt. Point taken. “All right then. Which should we watch first?” I asked, brushing myself clean.

“First? We can’t watch all of these. We’ll be here all night,” Winter protested. “And in case you’re forgetting, it is Monday.”

“I know. But I was thinking we could make it sort of a standing date,” I told her. “Every week we can watch another one, and you can tell me how rife each one is with problems.”

I knew that this plan implied that I was hoping for a long-term relationship here, and I wondered how she would take it. She didn’t even seem to notice. I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign, but I would have to roll with it.

“Ooh! I like it,” Winter said, bright-eyed. “Then let’s start with 13 Going on 30. The laughable scenes are manifold. Plus they acted like it was all high-concept, but it is so derivative of like a million movies. I really felt bad for Mark Ruffalo, I gotta say. But then he went and made Just Like Heaven, which kind of made me wonder about his intelligence.”

“Wow. You’ve really put a lot of thought into this,” I said, popping the movie in.

Winter smiled. “You have no idea.”

We settled back into the couch together to watch, and as Winter curled into my side, I realized I hadn’t felt so serene in days. Just having her with me calmed all my tensions and guilt and fear. For the next two hours, I resolved that I wasn’t going to think about gambling or my mistakes. I was only going to think about her.

“This is really cool, Mike. I wish I could do something to reciprocate,” she said as the movie started. Then she turned her face toward mine and kissed me.

I smiled happily. “That’s all you needed to do.”

Chapter Seven

Part 2

The night of the high-stakes game, I was feeling a bit timorous as I approached the basement door to Ian’s house. What I was about to do was not going to be easy, but I couldn’t see any other way out. I just hoped that Ian would be amenable to my plan. After all, the whole thing hinged on him.

I took a deep breath and walked in. The stereo was on at a high volume, and Ian was puttering around, setting up the tables. He looked up when I closed the door. I was about half an hour early, but Ian looked inordinately surprised at my arrival. Didn’t I usually show up before everyone else?

“Hey, man,” he said. “What’re you doing here?”

All the blood in my body instantly rushed to my face. Was he insinuating that I didn’t belong here? This game was my idea. “What do you mean?” I said indignantly. “I came to play.”

Ian blinked, nonplussed. “Oh . . . okay,” he said, pushing in a chair.

“What?” I asked. I had never felt so unwelcome in my best friend’s house. In fact, I felt conspicuously out of place.

He walked by me and turned the stereo off. For a few seconds he stood there with his back to me, and my body temperature slowly crept higher and higher. What was going on here? What was he thinking?

“It’s just . . .” He finally turned around, but it seemed like he was having trouble looking me in the eye. “After last week’s games I wasn’t sure if you were exactly . . . uh . . . solvent,” he said finally.

He looked extremely uncomfortable as he said this, and I felt a rush of humiliation and anger. Had he been feeling sorry for me all week? Was I that deserving of his pity?

“I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but you kind of lost a lot of money on Wednesday,” he said. “And then again on Friday . . .”

I don’t know why this irritated me so much. It was, after all, true. And besides, the fact that he realized this made the conversation we were about to have a lot easier. I wasn’t going to have to explain every awful detail of what I had done and then endure his shock.

I took another deep breath and told myself to chill. “Actually, that’s kinda what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What’s that?” Ian asked warily.

“Well, I’ve gotten myself into kind of a mess,” I said, the shame almost overwhelming. I sat down on one of the leather couches in the corner and found it easier to hang my head than to look at my best friend. “I’m not inextricably in trouble or anything,” I added quickly. “But I might need your help.”

“You want to borrow money,” Ian said flatly. His tone was totally dead, as if I was asking him for a kidney transplant or something.

“Just a little,” I said quickly. “Nothing exorbitant.” At least it wouldn’t be for him. The kid was rolling in cash even without his weekly percentage from the games.

“It’s not like you can buy into this game with a pittance,” Ian said. As if I didn’t know that. Since when did he condescend to me?

“I know that, E,” I shot back, looking at him for the first time. “Why are you being such a bastard about this?”

His eyes flashed, and I realized the temerity of my outburst. Good friends or not, it probably wasn’t a good idea to insult the person you were asking a favor of.

“Look, I just need to get into this game. Dominic’s coming, and we already know the kid sucks. Plus, he and his stupid friends love to throw their money around. I know I can beat these guys,” I told him firmly. “I know I can.”

“Very quixotic of you, Mike,” he said. “But I think you proved last week that poker isn’t just about skill.”

“Dude, what’s your problem?” I said.

“Nothing! It’s just, I’m worried about you, man,” Ian said. “You seem a little desperate, and I’m not totally sure this is a scrupulous plan.”

I stood up, adrenaline pumping through my veins. “What the hell, E? I thought we were friends. Now it’s like you’re questioning my probity.” I wasn’t usually one to emote like this, but lately my feelings were so all over the place I couldn’t keep them in check.

“No!” Ian said. “No, I’m not. It’s just . . . I’m worried about you, man.”

I knew he was just trying to be a good friend, but somehow this was the most humiliating utterance I’d heard yet. “Well, thanks, but I don’t need you to be worried about me. I need you to help me.” At that moment, I’ll admit it, I was desperate.

He rubbed his hands over his face, and I knew I was making him uncomfortable. I almost felt bad for putting him in a difficult spot, but this wasn’t a rash decision, it was my only choice. If Ian forsook me, there was absolutely no way out. I was going to have to go to my parents and tell them what I had done. I was going to have to deal with the very real consequences of throwing away my life’s savings, whatever they turned out to be.

“Come on, man. Please,” I said, knowing I was being pertinacious. “Just help me out this one time.”

Ian looked at me, and I could tell he was weighing his options. I begged him silently. If I couldn’t count on my friends, who could I count on? I couldn’t even imagine the depth of the pit I was going to fall into if he said no.

“Okay, fine,” he said finally with a sigh. “I’ll buy you in, but that’s it.”

I was so relieved I could have collapsed, but instead I gave him a quick hug. My gratitude was that ineffable.

“Thanks, man.”

“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “You better be indefatigable tonight.”

I grinned back. “That’s my plan,” I said.

It was, in fact, the only option. If I didn’t win, I was screwed.

Chapter Seven

Part 3

I didn’t win. Dominic and his friends came to play and I must have been distracted by my desperation, because they razed me. I didn’t pick up on any of their semaphores, and, in fact, I misread quite a few. The more money I lost, the more hampered my instincts became. On one hand, I got Dominic’s tells mixed up with Lucas’s, and I ended up betting the farm on crappy cards, thinking Dom was bluffing. It turned out he had four of a kind, and he collected all my cash, to the plaudits of his friends and lackeys who had turned out in droves.

“You ready to surrender yet, Mikey?” Dominic asked, laughing. He had been inimical toward me all night. Not that I was surprised. I had manipulated him into coming here. I suppose, on some level, I deserved his noxious behavior. It was amazing how much less combative I felt toward him now that I had a girlfriend whom I really liked. His taking Marcy from me no longer seemed like such a big deal. Taking my money, however, was huge.

I glanced at Ian. Dom and his friends had pillaged the cash he had lent me. Now it was either borrow more or go home with my tail between my legs. That feeling of helplessness is indescribable. Only people who have played and lost at poker know how horrible it is. Luckily, Ian was one of those people. He got up and took out a few more stacks of chips. I shot him a grateful look as he handed them over. My best friend had a surfeit of kindness. Or maybe it was just his pride talking on my behalf. Maybe he just wanted me to beat these suckers as much as I wanted to beat them.

“You’re staying in?” Dominic said mirthfully. “Great! After tonight I’m gonna be able to put that new sound system in the Bimmer.”

You would think that hundreds of games of poker with my friends would have inured me to the trash-talking, but coming from this guy it got under my skin.

Ian, who was standing behind me, leaned toward my ear. “Will you take this haughty asshole down already?”

I smiled. “Will do.”

But my confidence was evanescent and, ultimately, ineffectual. On the next few hands it wasn’t just Dominic who schooled me, it was all the tangential players as well. My money slowly dissipated around the table, filling each of their pockets. I just could not get the cards. There seemed to be a plenitude of threes and fours in the deck and not a single royal. At least not for me. It got to the point where I was actually trying to sneak a peak at everyone else’s cards, but as dull as these guys were, they were at least smart enough to obscure their hole cards from view.

Finally, finally, I was dealt a good hand. Between my hole cards and the cards on the table I had four jacks. Four of a kind in royals is really solid. The most solid hand I had had all night. If I wasn’t going to win on this one, I wasn’t going to win on anything. Every time someone rose, I called. The pot grew huge, and I started to salivate, even as my heart pounded with trepidation.

I looked at Ian before he dealt the river. I could tell he was just as nervous as I was. I didn’t even want to think about what would happen if I lost this hand. Not only would I be broke, but I would also be in debt to my best friend—a debt I had no possible way of paying back. Why had I not thought of all this before?

I guess I hadn’t wanted to think about it.

“Dealing the river,” Ian announced.

The card was useless to me. I already had my hand. He dealt a queen and I looked around at the remaining players. I couldn’t read any of their reactions for all the money in the world. My perspicacity was out the window.

“I’m in,” Lucas said.

“I call,” John added, throwing in his chips.

“Me too,” Dominic said, adding his own.

I pushed my own chips in.

“Well? Whadaya got?” I demanded.

“Three of a kind,” Lucas said, tossing his cards down. He had three queens and was a looking a little too confident about it, if you asked me.

“Got me beat,” John said, throwing out his cards face down.

Yes! That left only Dominic. Only his cards could inhibit me from winning the pot. I did the math in my mind. If I won this hand I could pay back both Ian’s loans and still have some money to keep me alive.

Please just don’t let him have the cards, I thought. I need this. I need this more than anything in the world.

“Riley?” he said, raising his eyebrows.

I swallowed hard. My hands shaking, I laid my cards down. “Four of a kind,” I said, trying not to let my terror show.

Dominic sighed hugely. My outlook brightened. I had him! I had him, I had him, I had him!

Slowly he leaned forward and placed his cards down. I stared at them for a moment, as did everyone else. Silence fell as we all tried to work out what he had.

“Oh, sorry,” Dominic said. “That would be a straight flush. Did I not say that?”

“Oh!” his friends cheered, slapping hands and laughing. Laughing at my expense.

I felt like I was going to throw up. I leaned back in my chair as my life flashed before my eyes, my many transgressions of the past couple of weeks acting as highlights. And they just kept celebrating. Celebrating my misery.

“What do you think, Riley?” Dominic asked. “Want to borrow some more cash and go again?”

I glared at him, seething. Did I say I was feeling less combative toward this guy? I lied. I wanted to hit him so badly my fingers itched. I wanted to tackle him to the ground and wipe that recalcitrant smirk right off his pointy little face. I started to get up to do just that, but Ian jumped right out of his chair.

“All right, guys. Game’s over!” he announced. “Let’s get everybody cashed out.”

“What? Tired of bankrolling your little friend?” Dominic asked.

Ian placed a firm hand on my shoulder to keep me from lunging at the guy. “It’s getting late, and this is my house,” he told the guys firmly. “It’s time to go.”

All I could do was sit there and stew as Ian handed over all that cash and Dom and his friends all sashayed out, their wallets full to bursting. Four guys who definitely didn’t need the money. Four guys who would never have to worry about working a part-time job or paying for college.

I hated them. I hated them all. But most of all, I hated myself.

Chapter Seven

Part 4

I moved over to the couch as Ian saw the guys out. Sometimes, when he thinks we’re going to be too rowdy or strident, he walks us to our cars to make sure we keep it down. I had a feeling that tonight it was less about keeping the game a secret from his parents than it was about giving me some time to collect myself. I was grateful for it.

As I sat there, my head hanging, I felt nauseated and trapped. My last vestige of hope was gone. I was dead. I was totally dead. There was no way I could keep my turpitude from my parents anymore. For the past week, every day I got home and checked the mail for the bank statements, my heart in my throat until I went through every last envelope. So far, I had been lucky, but it had to be coming any day now. And when it did, my parents would know everything.

The door to the basement opened, and I sat up straight. First things first. I had to make things right with Ian.

“Dude, I am so sorry,” I said. “I know where I can get the money to pay you back,” I lied. If I knew where I could get money, I’d be getting it for myself so I could reconcile my savings account.

“It’s okay,” Ian said. He seemed tired. Tired and disappointed. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No. That’s not an option,” I told him, standing. “I’m going to pay you back.”

“Oh, I know,” he replied. “I just meant you shouldn’t be sorry. I wouldn’t have lent you the money if I hadn’t wanted to.”

For a moment I just stood there. I felt as if he had slapped me across the face. For that split second I thought he had meant he would eat the loan, and the moment I realized he hadn’t meant that, I felt betrayed. But still, he was right. I borrowed money from him, and I should pay it back.

“Oh. Okay. Good,” I said.

“But listen,” he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I think you need to take a little hiatus from these games. In fact, I think you shouldn’t play again until you’ve paid me back.”

He looked me in the eye, and my mouth suddenly felt desiccated. Was he seriously issuing a mandate here? To me? His best friend? Forget the fact that I was, at this point, basically indigent—that I wouldn’t have had the money to play even if I wanted to. But who was he to tell me what I could and couldn’t do?

“I’m sorry, are you forbidding me from playing poker?” I snapped. “I said I was going to pay you back.”

“It’s not about the money,” Ian said. “It’s you. I’m worried about you.”

“Oh, here we go again,” I said scathingly, throwing my hands up. “Since when is it your job to protect me?”

“Someone’s gotta do it!” he replied. “You haven’t exactly been exercising temperance around here lately. You’ve been hemorrhaging money, and it’s like you don’t even know how to stop.”

“Hey! You’re the one who gave me that second loan,” I told him.

“And you’re the one who lost it!” he shouted.

“Oh, that’s great. So this is about the money,” I said. “You decide I’m a liability, so I’m out. These are your punitive measures?”

“You are so solipsistic,” he spat at me. “Like I’m the one who’s doing something to you. You’re the one who keeps betting even though you have no money. You’re my best friend. I don’t want to see you get into more trouble.”

“And you’re so wise all of a sudden,” I said. “You know exactly how to help me.”

“It’s not like that,” he railed.

“You know, if you hadn’t started up those Friday night games in the first place, I wouldn’t be in this mess,” I told him.

Ian’s eyes went wide. “So, what? You’re going to blame all this on me?”

Why not? It was the only way I could think of to exonerate myself. And I needed to free myself from blame. I didn’t think I could live with this crushing guilt one second longer.

“Hey. Just calling ’em like I see ’em,” I said, knowing my argument was tenuous at best.

Ian shook his head. His expression was almost disgusted, which made me feel like the mud caked on the bottom of my shoe. “I can’t believe you’re so perfidious. We’ve always had a good time at these games. You’re the one who begged me to start up another one. It’s not my fault if you can’t control yourself, Mike.”

His comment stung. I couldn’t believe he called me disloyal, then said something like that. If anyone was a bad friend around here, it was him.

“Thanks a lot.” My skin flushed hot and I grabbed my jacket. “I’m outta here.”

He didn’t even try to stop me as I stormed out the door.

Vocabulary Drill

Chapter Seven

amenable · agreeable

check · restraint

condescend · talk down

conspicuously · distinctly

derivative · copied

desiccated · dried up

deviant · twisted

dissipated · scattered

emote · express emotion

enthralled · captivated

evanescent · fleeting

exonerate · clear

exorbitant · excessive

extolling · acclaiming

forsook · abandoned

haughty · arrogant

hemorrhaging · bleeding

hiatus · break

incessantly · constantly

indefatigable · untiring

indescribable · beyond description

indigent · poor

indignantly · angrily

ineffable · beyond words

ineffectual · worthless

inextricably · inescapably

inhibit · prevent

inimical · antagonistic

inordinately · unusually

insinuating · suggesting

inured · accustomed

liability · encumbrance

mandate · order

manifold · abundant

nascent · new

noxious · poisonous

obscure · hide

odious · hateful

perfidious · dishonest

perspicacity · intelligence

pertinacious · headstrong

pillaged · looted

pittance · little bit

plaudits · cheers

plenitude · abundance

probity · fairness

prurient · lecherous

pulchritude · beauty

punitive · regarding punishment

quixotic · bold

railed · criticized

rash · careless

razed · flattened

recalcitrant · disobedient

reciprocate · exchange in kind

reconcile · settle

repentance · sorrow

rife · overflowing

scathingly · cruelly

scrupulous · honest

semaphores · signals

serendipity · good luck

serene · calm

solipsistic · self-centered

solvent · had money

spurious · contrived

strident · loud

surfeit · excess

tangential · peripheral

temerity · boldness

temperance · self-restraint

tenuous · weak

timorous · timid

turpitude · corruption

utterance · pronouncement

vacuous · unintelligent

vestige · sign

vivacious · lively

Chapter Eight

Part 1

That Friday night we had a game under the lights on our home field, an occasion everyone at school salivated for. There was nothing like the atmosphere at a night game. The stands were packed with revelers, bundled up against the cold, bedecked in our school colors of red and black. The stadium was effulgent with the glow of hundreds of floodlights. As we raced out onto the field in a pack, jumping and shouting and cheering, the energy in the air was palpable. And unlike last week’s game, this time I couldn’t wait to get out on the field and kick a little ass. The insanity in the air perfectly complemented my own. I felt as if I were about to explode from the multifarious emotions that had been warring for my attention all week long. At turns I felt guilty, scared, sad, and disappointed, but most of all, angry. Angry with Ian for being such a jerk on Wednesday, yeah, but mostly angry with myself. That anger had been building up, day by day, to the point where I was going to have to take it out on someone or something. I pitied the guy who took the brunt of my kinetic energy.

We were playing the Westmont Bears, a team that was in our league but had never beaten us in the last four years. Normally we viewed this game as a gimme, but this season they were undefeated— indomitable—largely due to a wicked defense led by the stellar performance of their right nose tackle, Tony Odewale. He was a senior and was well on his way to a season record for sacks. He was going to be my primary antagonist tonight.

Bring it on, I thought, looking for him on the visitor’s sidelines as we gathered on our own side. The Westmont cheerleaders danced around in their garish silver and gold uniforms, blocking the team from view. But I knew Odewale was there somewhere, lusting for my blood, just like I was lusting for his. Anyone’s. My own would have probably sufficed at this point.

As we waited for the kickoff, I blew into my chapped hands, my breath making clouds in the arid air. I bounced up and down on the balls of my feet, primed for conflict. Behind me, the crowd started up a chant, and I turned around to scan the bleachers. I found Winter and her friends almost instantly and lifted a hand. She smiled and waved back. Her Goth troop held up a sign that said “Rip ’Em to Pieces.” I think this was the first game they had ever actually sat down for. But then, there was always an eclectic mix of people at Friday night games—many of whom never bothered to show up for Saturday games but came Friday night just for the social aspects.

One person who was not there, however, was my buddy Ian. No. He was back home hosting his regular Friday night game. A game that I would have been at, winning my money back, if not for this schedule conflict. And, oh yeah, if Ian hadn’t banned me from the premises.

Oh yeah. I was ready to beat someone down.

The ball was kicked off, and it seemed to hang in the air forever before Donnie Henderson, our kick-return specialist, finally caught it. He executed some sick moves, spinning out of one tackle and jumping over another guy who was going for his ankles before accelerating up field. Donnie was one of the more agile guys on the team, and he was thrilling to watch. The entire crowd went nuts as he made it out to the 48-yard line before getting slammed by a humongous defender.

“All right, team, let’s expunge these guys!” Coach shouted.

We cheered and slapped each other’s backs as we took the field. My heart pounded like crazy as we lined up behind the ball. There was Odewale, staring me down from the other side.

“I’m coming for you, Riley,” he growled, sounding feral and more than a little bit scary. A dark eye shield and blood-red mouth guard accentuated his threatening appearance. “You’re gonna be eating dirt in about five seconds.”

I ignored him. The braggart had no idea the amount of adrenaline I was working on tonight. He thought he was freaking me out? Hardly. A little adversity was exactly what I needed.

“Blue thirty-two! Blue thirty-two!” I shouted, looking up and down the line, checking the configuration of the defense. Looked like they were double-teaming Daryl, our number-one receiver. No matter. I had other options.

“Hike!” I shouted.

I dropped back to pass. My center and one of the guards took on Odewale, acting as a buffer for me. I scanned the field, but none of the receivers were open. I had about two seconds to make the play.

Oh, crap! Make that half a second. Odewale tossed Morris Johnson aside with serious brutality—and Morris weighs almost three hundred pounds—then ducked and let the guard fall right over him. Unencumbered now, he raced right at me, unbelievably fast for a guy his size. Watching him bear down on me was like watching a charging elephant coming my way. I tucked the ball and dodged. His helmet glanced off my thigh pad as he dove for me. For a split second he had hold of my foot, but I evaded him. I dodged another defender and ran right, taking a circuitous route toward the sideline around the battling linemen. Still no one was open downfield, and I was almost over the line of scrimmage.

There was nothing left to do now but run.

As I raced down the field, I pointed out a defender to one of my linemen, begging for the block. Rob Moore slammed into the guy, and I dodged their falling bodies. As I ran, I could feel the defenders breathing down my neck, and I turned it on. Screw these guys. Screw Ian. Screw Dominic and his stupid friends. Screw the bank and the poker website and my own stupid guilt. I ran as fast as I could and each passing yard mitigated my pent-up frustrations a bit more. I could hear the crowd screaming and the amplified voice of the announcer marking my progress.

“Riley to the fifteen. To the ten! He’s got one man to beat! Riley to the five and . . . TOUCHDOWN!”

I spiked the ball in the end zone, hard, expelling even more of my wild emotions. My team rushed me and we slammed chests and hugged. The feeling was comparable to nothing. I had scored a rushing touchdown on the first play from scrimmage. I could still do some things right.

I turned toward the crowd and leapt up and down, my fists in the air, egging them on. For the first time all week, I felt sheer joy and I wanted to hold on to it, immerse myself in it, wrap it all around me and never let it go. These Westmont kids had no idea what they were in for. Tonight I was going to be a one-man wrecking machine.

Chapter Eight

Part 2

“And that’s the end of the game! The Hillside Cardinals beat the Westmont Bears, forty-two to seven!” the announcer cried. “Let’s hear it for Mike Riley and the entire Cardinals team!”

The crowd went crazy, exalting us with cheers and rushing the field. I was crowded by hundreds of people, adults and kids, guys and girls, everyone according their adulation to me. I took it all in, ecstatic over the win. We had just run all over the most dominant defense in the league. This was a huge triumph. If someone had told me yesterday that the score would be forty-two to seven in our favor, that Odewale would not have recorded a single sack, I would never have thought it conceivable.

“Mike! Mike Riley!” a slightly older guy cried, waving a tape-recorder at me as he tried to navigate the crowd. “I’m Seth Meisel from the Hillside Gazette! Can I get a quote?”

“Guys! Guys! Let him through!” I said, dispersing the fans who fettered the reporter. He shot me a thankful smile as he finally broke through the masses and hit the record button on his recorder.

“Hey, man,” I said as people screamed and cheered all around me.

“So, Mike Riley, how does it feel to be the paragon of New York state football?” he asked, shoving the little microphone at me.

I laughed, for some reason, as the guilt started to creep back over my shoulders. “I don’t feel like a paragon of anything,” I told him. “It was a team effort tonight, and I’m just really proud of my guys.”

“And he’s even modest,” Seth said, amused. “The consensus in the stands and at the paper is that you’ll be going to a top-ten school next year. Division One. What do you think about that?”

“I think it’d be great,” I said. “But right now I just want to concentrate on a winning season for the Cardinals.”

The team started to head for the locker room, and I made to follow. “Thanks, man. I gotta go.”

“Thanks, Mike! Good luck with the rest of the season!” he called after me.

On the way toward the school, I tried to keep the smile plastered to my face, but already the feeling of victory was waning. I could hear the guys’ cheers echoing off the locker room walls up ahead and wished I could bypass the usual post-win celebration and the coach’s laudatory remarks, but I knew I had no choice. If I skipped out, it would mean days of explaining to my teammates, and I wouldn’t even have a plausible excuse. I just had to try to stay composed and get through it.

Inside, everyone cheered my arrival and slapped my shoulder pads and back. I smiled genuinely as Daryl ruffled my sweaty hair and someone popped a fizzed-up Sprite, spraying it all over the room like champagne. Finally Coach came in and settled everyone down. As much as they could be settled, anyway.

“Well guys, I think you silenced any detractors you had after last week’s loss,” he began.

“Yeah!” everyone shouted, slapping hands and getting riled up all over again. Coach waited for us to quiet down, grinning all the while.

“You guys played sixty minutes of perfect football out there tonight, and I’m proud of you,” he said to the tune of more cheers. He picked up the game ball from behind him and held it up. “But I think we all know who’s going home with this.”

“Mikey!” one of the linemen shouted, earning laughter and more cheers.

“Mike Riley, get up here!” Coach said.

I contemplated bolting. I wasn’t feeling all that meritorious at the moment, but my teammates basically shoved me out of my seat and up to the front of the room.

“Mike, you passed for two-hundred thirteen yards, three touchdowns, and one rushing touchdown,” Coach said. “I think we can all agree that you are the incontrovertible MVP of this game. Congratulations.”

My teammates gave me a standing ovation as I humbly accepted the game ball. I tried to take my seat, but Coach clasped my shoulder pad in his strong grip and kept me where I was.

“All right, all of you. Get out there and celebrate!” Coach shouted. “Safely, of course,” he added. Then he turned to me and lowered his voice. “You. Come with me.”

Confused, I followed Coach to his office. He let me in first, then he closed the door behind him.

“Son, that was one of the most unbelievable performances I have ever seen at a high school level,” he said with a grin as he stepped behind his desk. “If you keep playing like that, schools are going to be throwing scholarship money at you.”

I swallowed hard. Money. It was all about money. Too bad I couldn’t have them throwing cash at me right now instead of at the end of the year. That would have solved all of my problems.

“Tomorrow I am going to spend my day making phone calls, inviting scouts to come out and appraise your performance next week,” he told me. “It’s the big rivalry game against Dorchester, and we both know it’s gonna be out of control. You go out there and do what you did tonight, it’s going to be seriously advantageous to your prospects.”

He took a deep breath and looked at me wistfully. “You’re going places, kid.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Coach.”

Somehow the images of my bright future, juxtaposed against the images of my awful present, were just bringing me down more.

He blinked, clearly bewildered. “What’s the matter? You think this is all a fabrication? Some fairy tale I concocted to amuse you? I’m telling you, you’re going to get a scholarship to a top school. I’m thinking about the NFL draft in a few years. This is no time to conserve your energy, kid. You’re allowed to get a little excited.”

“I know, Coach,” I said, quickly. “Sorry, I’m just . . . I guess I’m coming down a little.”

“Well, that much is patent,” he said. “But don’t let yourself. This was a huge game, kid. Get out there and enjoy it with the men.”

He came around his desk and put his hand on my shoulder. “And I know you’re generally a modest kid, but tonight you could probably even boast a little and no one would hold it against you.”

I smirked and nodded again. “Thanks, Coach. Really.”

“Thank you, son,” he said.

He opened the door and slapped me on the back, pushing me toward the locker room. As soon as the door was closed behind me, I turned and walked the other way, leaving the joyous sounds of my team and their cheers behind.

Chapter Eight

Part 3

I arrived at my dark, empty house, still clad in my grass- and dirt-stained uniform. My parents were out with friends for the evening, which was good because I didn’t feel like relating all the triumphs of the game to them just now. I walked into the kitchen, flicked on the light, and froze in my tracks. The mail was there, sitting on the corner of the table, and right on top was the monthly bank statement.

It was amazing how something that was once so benign could now be the bane of my existence. I first felt a compulsion to grab it, tear it up, and bury the pieces all over the backyard, but I knew that wouldn’t help my situation. Instead I picked up the envelope and, pulse racing through my ears, brought it back to my room. At the very least I could get it out of plain sight for now. Maybe I could buy myself some time.

I sat down on the edge of my bed with the envelope in my lap and stared at it. Right then, all my teammates were out somewhere carousing and celebrating our victory. I was sitting alone in my room with a bank statement. Could my life get any more depressing?

I thought about opening the envelope, but I couldn’t. I knew what it would say, but the very idea of those zeros staring back at me made me sick. Instead I picked up the phone and dialed Winter’s cell.

“Hey, football star! Where are you?! The whole world wants to douse you in Gatorade!” she shouted, with much noise in the background. “Not that I would let them,” she added slyly.

“Can you come over?” I blurted.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her tone changing immediately to one of concern.

“I just . . . I need to talk to you,” I said, squeezing my eyes closed.

“I’ll be right there,” she assured me. Then the line went dead.

I tossed the phone on the bed, shoved the bank statement under my pillow to get it out of my sight and headed for the shower. Winter would know what to do. She would be able to come up with a plan. And even if she couldn’t, just her presence would be a temporary antidote for my distress.

Chapter Eight

Part 4

I was still wet from the shower when Winter showed up.

“Hey,” she said cautiously. “Are you all right?”

“Not really,” I replied. “I need to talk to you. Thanks for coming.”

“No problem,” she said, my comments clearly augmenting her concern.

I brought her back to my room and sat her down on the bed. I had no idea whether she was going to offer condemnation or consolation, but I was hoping for the latter. Of course, once she was there, I had trouble finding the words. I took a step back and started to pace. How was I going to tell her this? She knew about the first game but had no clue how deep a hole I had dug for myself since then. What if she just berated me and stormed out? At this point, it was probably the reaction I deserved.

“Mike, can you just tell me what’s going on?” she asked finally. “?’Cuz you’re starting to freak me out here.”

“Sorry. Okay,” I said. I took a deep breath and looked her in the eye. “I’m kind of in a lot of trouble.”

Winter leaned forward as I told her the whole story. Once I got started I became quite garrulous, actually. I told her all about the high-stakes game and Dominic and his friends and how I had thought they were so easy to beat. While I spoke, she listened carefully, commiserating at all the right moments and growing paler and paler as I related the amounts of money I had lost.

“So . . . what’s the cumulative damage?” she asked finally. “How much have you actually lost?”

I swallowed against a dry throat. “All of it,” I said. “Every last dime.”

Winter whistled long and low. She leaned back on her hands. “Well. That is quite the quandary,” she said.

“Tell me about it,” I replied, sitting down next to her. I put my head in my hands and stared at the floor. At least she wasn’t flipping out. Her calm demeanor seemed like a propitious sign.

“Sorry,” I said. “When I asked you out you probably thought you were getting involved with this upstanding, responsible guy. I feel like I misled you,” I added with a wry laugh.

Winter leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “It’s cool. It actually kind of makes you more interesting,” she joked. And I laughed. Even in all my misery, I laughed.

“So, forgive me if I’m suggesting the obvious here, but why don’t you just get a job?” she asked.

“I would, but I have a deal with my parents,” I told her. “I’m only allowed to have part-time jobs during the summer and when it’s not football season. They want any time I’m not spending on practice and games to be spent studying. They’re afraid that if I try to do too much my grades will suffer.”

The irony, of course, was that they were suffering anyway.

“So if you got a job now, they would be suspicious,” she said.

“They would probably make me quit,” I replied with a nod.

Winter took a deep breath and blew it out. She stood up and ran her hands through her hair, contemplating me. As she bit her lip, I knew she was forming a plan. I just had no idea what it might be.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Well, I think I might know a way I can help you, but . . .”

My heart skipped in excitement. I felt like she was about to throw me a life raft, and I sat up straight.

“But what?”

“Well, the last thing you should probably do is get involved in more gambling,” she said. “But . . .”

The muscles in my shoulders and neck coiled. More gambling? What was she talking about?

“Winter, what is it? I’m out of ideas here. If you can help . . .”

She sighed and shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m going to do this, but here it is. My brother . . . you know my brother Gray.”

I nodded. Gray had graduated a couple of years ago and went to our local community college.

“Well, he and his friends have a weekly game too,” she said. “They play at my house, and they’re not exactly the greatest players. Gray’s friend Lenny is totally obtuse, and he has a penchant for going all in.”

I knew the Lenny she was talking about. Lenny Racine. He had always been a total jerk to me when he went to Hillside, and I felt nothing but antipathy for the guy. Like Dominic, he would be someone I wouldn’t mind winning money from.

“If you could get into their game . . . well, it might be a way out of destitution,” she said

I don’t think I had ever been more enamored of her than I was in that moment. Of course, there was one small flaw in the plan.

“Thanks, but I don’t even have any money to bet with,” I said.

“I could lend you some,” Winter offered.

I snorted a laugh. “Thanks, but I don’t want to be your debtor,” I said. I was already in it up to my eyeballs with Ian. “What if I lost and couldn’t compensate you? Somehow I don’t think that would be good for our relationship.”

It certainly hadn’t been good for my relationship with Ian.

“Well, what else are you going to do?” Winter asked.

A very good question.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“Well, what if you don’t have to pay me back?” she asked.

“Yeah, right,” I said.

“No! I’m serious!” Winter dropped down onto the bed, causing us both to bounce. “Look, it’ll be my philanthropic act for the year,” she said. “I’ll lend you the money, and if you lose it, you won’t have to pay it back, but that’ll be it. It’s going to be a one-time thing. That way we both know what the rules are going in. You won’t ask me for more, and I won’t be mad you lost my money because I know the risks.”

I was tempted. Of course I was. But she was clearly nuts. “I can’t do that,” I said. “I can’t just take your money.”

“You’re forgetting that if you win, you will be paying me back,” she said. “It’s only if you lose that I’m down. Have a little confidence, football star.”

I looked at her in awe. How could I have possibly been so lucky to find someone this amazing?

“You’re incredible, you know that?” I said.

She smiled. “Who’s espousing my virtues now?” she joked. “But listen, you have to promise me something.”

“Anything,” I replied quickly.

“If you do lose the money, and I’m not saying you will, because, trust me, these guys are not the sharpest tools in the shed . . . But if you do, you have to tell your parents what’s going on,” she said. “You have to put an end to this.”

Nothing filled me with more dread than the thought of confessing to my parents. I took a deep breath to try to quell the butterflies in my stomach and around my heart and finally nodded. If that was a condition she wanted to impose, then I would have to go with it. I had no other options.

“Fine,” I said. “If I lose, I’ll tell them. I promise.”

She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me, and I stared past her at the football trophies over my bed. I knew that if I wanted Winter to trust me—if I had any chance of keeping her as my girlfriend—that this promise was irrevocable. But it was also the last promise in the world I wanted to fulfill. I would just have to win. That was all there was to it. I had to win.

Vocabulary Drill

Chapter Eight

accelerating · speeding up

accentuated · accented

according · giving

adulation · praise

advantageous · favorable

adversity · hardship

agile · nimble

amplified · boosted

antagonist · enemy

antidote · cure

antipathy · dislike

appraise · judge

arid · dry

atmosphere · mood

augmenting · supplementing

awe · with amazement

bane · burden

banned · barred

bedecked · dressed

benign · harmless

berated · chew out

bewildered · confused

boast · brag

braggart · boaster

brutality · savagery

buffer · cushion

bypass · avoid

carousing · frolicking

chapped · rough

circuitous · roundabout

commiserating · sympathizing

comparable · equivalent

compensate · pay

complemented · matched

composed · calm

compulsion · need

conceivable · imaginable

condemnation · blame

configuration · setup

conflict · battle

consensus · agreement

conserve · save

consolation · comfort

cumulative · sum

debtor · one who owes money

demeanor · outward manner

destitution · poverty

detractors · naysayers

douse · soak

eclectic · mixed

ecstatic · overjoyed

effulgent · beaming

enamored · fond

espousing · support

exalting · applauding

executed · carried out

expunge · destroy

fabrication · lie

feral · wild

fettered · restrained

garish · gaudy

garrulous · talkative

immerse · sink

incontrovertible · indisputable

indomitable · steadfast

irony · paradox

irrevocable · cannot be undone

juxtaposed · contrasted

kinetic · aggressive

laudatory · praising

meritorious · worthy of honor

mitigated · diminished

multifarious · intricate

obtuse · dense

ovation · round of clapping

palpable · could be felt

paragon · archetype

patent · apparent

penchant · fondness

philanthropic · humanitarian

plausible · believable

premises · property

propitious · promising

prospects · future opportunities

quandary · predicament

quell · pacify

revelers · celebrators

salivated · drooled

stellar · outstanding

sufficed · been enough

unencumbered · burden-free

Chapter Nine

Part 1

“So, this is me,” Winter said as I pulled my used car into her driveway on Saturday afternoon. “ Quaint, isn’t it?”

“It looks entirely different than the last time I was here,” I said.

“I know. My mom completely renovated it,” Winter replied. “And not for the better.”

I stared out the window at the house, which was commensurate with my own. But that was where the similarities ended. Winter’s place was a flower-laden cottage with a white picket fence and a lush green lawn. Yellow and orange flowers lined the walk to the house, and flower boxes hung from each and every window. A floral wreath hung on the door, and next to the door were two huge corn husks and a fake scarecrow, undoubtedly laid out to celebrate the fall season.

“My mom is kind of a flower freak,” she explained. “Just . . . be prepared.”

“All right then,” I replied.

We got out of the car and she led me inside. I wiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand and told myself to chill. The fact that I was nervous wasn’t a surprise. I was always nervous when walking into the house of a girl I liked. But today my anxiety wasn’t over Winter’s parents and winning their approval. It was over the three decks of cards I had hidden in various pockets of my jacket and jeans.

Yes, Mike Riley, one of the most reputable guys in Northern New York, was going to cheat. And Winter, although she didn’t know it, was abetting my mission. That morning I had fed her a story about not wanting to be in my house—about how guilty I felt just being around my parents. Which was totally true. But I had only complained about it in the hopes that she would ask me over. And she had. And now I could execute my plan.

I felt guilty about using her, of course. But at this point my guilt was so compounded, I couldn’t even separate the causes anymore. And I had to do this. It was the only way to guarantee that I would win when I played her brother and his friends. It was the only way to guarantee that I could put an end to this nightmare and prevent my parents from losing all faith in me.

Winter opened the door to the house. “Okay, just don’t judge,” she said, her voice so low it was barely audible.

I stepped over the threshold and almost laughed. The floral theme outside was continued inside, but to a much greater extent. It looked like a flowerbed had thrown up inside her house. Pink-and-purple flowered wallpaper adorned the walls, and the living room was crowded with flowered rugs, flowered couches, and flowered pillows. The air was thick with some saccharine scent.

“Wow. It’s . . . different,” I said.

“Try not to heave,” she told me. “It’s a quotidian struggle for the rest of us.”

I smirked and followed her into the kitchen. Here her mother was working a more arboreal theme. On one wall was painted a mural of a huge tree, its leaves hanging down around the windows by the table. The table and chairs themselves looked as if they were fashioned from branches and twigs. Collages of fall leaves were matted and framed over the cabinets.

“It’s like A Midsummer Night’s Dream in here. Is your mother a wood sprite?” I asked Winter, leaning back against the counter.

“That would explain a lot,” Winter replied. “You want something to drink? A snack?”

“Sure,” I replied.

“Okay, why don’t you go downstairs? It’s much more normal down there,” she said, opening the fridge. “I’ll be down in a sec.”

Downstairs. The basement. Most likely where Gray and his friends played their games. Normally I would have stayed and helped Winter bring down the food, but this was the perfect opportunity to carry out my plan.

“Where do I go?” I asked.

“Door’s right there,” she replied, gesturing over her shoulder. “Light switch is at the top of the stairs.”

I took a deep breath and headed down to the basement. The stairs creaked under my weight, and my heart pounded as I reached the cool cement floor. Old leather couches were set up around a trodden shag rug, facing a big-screen television. The walls were lined with built-in bookcases that were packed to the gills with old volumes, board games, and knickknacks. I scanned the room quickly and, much to my relief, found exactly what I was hoping for. Leaning against the wall was a folding table—strictly utilitarian, unlike Ian’s state-of-the-art poker table—and next to it was a sideboard that held all the poker paraphernalia. The chip box was right there, and next to it, right in plain sight, a deck of cards.

Hands quaking, I grabbed the deck and checked it over. Thank God Gray wasn’t using unique cards. They were a standard deck with blue checks on the back. I pulled out a royal and checked it against a royal card from the blue deck I had brought. A perfect match.

The door at the top of the stairs opened, and I quickly dropped Gray’s cards, tucking my own back into my pocket. Then I grabbed the remote and flicked on the television. Winter appeared with a tray full of chips, salsa, and melted cheese and a big bottle of Coke, plus a brand new bag of Oreos.

I sat down on the couch, hoping she wouldn’t notice I was all flushed. “Wow. You guys really have all the amenities around here, huh?” I said as she placed the food on the coffee table.

“Mom may have been in charge of the décor, but Dad is the one who buys the snacks,” she said. “And when it comes to snacks, he does not mess around.”

I glanced around as if for the first time. Getting myself into this ridiculous morass had really helped me improve my subterfuge abilities. Not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“Is there a bathroom where I can wash up?” I asked.

“Yeah. Right back there,” Winter replied, stuffing a chip in her mouth.

Perfect. A bathroom accessible from the poker room. This was working out even better than I’d hoped. I walked into the small, antiseptic room and closed the door behind me. I just wanted to get this over with so I could stop feeling so tense and jittery. I needed a hiding space—someplace I could stash the cards until tomorrow night’s game. Someplace no one would disturb before then.

I thought about placing the deck at the bottom of the garbage pail, but it was half full and someone might empty it. I checked the tissue box, but it wouldn’t fit. I was just about to start panicking when I noticed a long, skinny door behind me. I yanked it open. Inside were stacks of towels and washcloths. This was clearly a guest bathroom. So unless they were going to have guests tonight, this was the perfect hiding place. I slipped the deck out of my pocket and tucked it back behind a set of lime-green towels—flowered, of course. Then I folded a washcloth over it, just to be safe.

I closed the closet up and was just relaxing when there was a loud knock on the bathroom door.

“Dude! What’re you doing in there?!”

It was Gray. This was not a good portent.

“I’ll . . . I’ll be right out,” I replied.

I ran the water quickly, dried my shaking hands, and stared at myself in the mirror. The light refracted off a flaw in the glass, making my face seem as if it were split down the middle—disturbing. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door.

Gray was bigger than I remembered. And he did not look happy. His blue eyes were narrowed in suspicion under his red baseball cap, and he looked down his nose at me, his hands tucked under his biceps. I’m a tall guy—there aren’t many people who could look down at me—and I found it more than a little disconcerting. Had he somehow seen me come in here? Was I so negligent that I didn’t notice someone else in the room? Could he have possibly known what I had done?

“’Sup?” Gray said.

“Hey, man,” I said.

“I hear you think you can get into my Sunday night game,” he said. “Little presumptuous of you, don’t you think?”

Practically shaking in my sneakers, I shot Winter a panicked look over his huge shoulder. She just rolled her eyes. Was this really a time for rolling the eyes?

“I . . . uh . . . didn’t. Winter said—”

Apparently Gray’s intimidating veneer, coupled with my recent crime, had obfuscated my ability to speak.

“I—”

Suddenly Gray broke out into a huge smile. “I’m just messing with you man,” he said, bringing a beefy hand down on my shoulder. “Of course you can get into my game. The guys’ll be psyched to have you.”

I was so relieved I could have collapsed. Gray jostled me out of the bathroom and into the common area.

“Now, let’s talk about that kickass performance of yours last night,” he said amiably. “You had Tony Odewale eating your dust. How the hell did that feel?”

I laughed as we all sat down on the couch together. Nothing like a narrow escape to make a guy feel very, very good.

Chapter Nine

Part 2

“Hey! Look who it is! The man of the hour!”

Gray stood up from the couch where he and his friends were playing on his Xbox 360. Unlike the day before, the basement was noisome and thick with cigar smoke. I tried not to cough as Gray stuffed his cigar in his mouth and greeted me with a one-armed hug. If I was going to have to be inhaling this crap, this night was going to be even longer than I anticipated.

“Hey, man,” I said, breathing through my mouth.

“You know the guys, right?” he said, keeping his arm around me. “Lenny Racine.”

“What’s up?” Lenny muttered, lifting his chin, but keeping his eyes trained on the TV. His black hair was slicked back from his face, as unctuous as I remembered it. Lenny was one of those guys who was always rocking the Sopranos style. As I recalled, he enjoyed constantly pointing out other people’s shortcomings and picking on anyone smaller and less tough than himself. I never understood why Gray was friends with him.

“Rick Boscow.”

Rick, a scrawny guy with red hair and freckles who had played fourth-string receiver a couple of years ago, got up from the couch and shook my hand.

“Hey, Mike. Nice game the other night. You were like some maverick out there. What did you do, make up half those plays yourself?” he asked.

“No. They were in the playbook,” I replied. “Most of them, anyway.”

Rick laughed. “Wish we’d had you playing quarterback when I was on the team,” he said obsequiously. “You think you guys are going all the way this year?”

“Maybe,” I replied. “We’ll see.”

Rick was an affable guy, but he had always been kind of malleable, which wasn’t my favorite characteristic in a person. Whatever Gray said, went. He was a total follower. His cigar sat in an ashtray in front of him and looked as if it hadn’t been touched. He had probably only taken one because all the other guys had.

“And, of course, Ogre,” Gray said.

Ogre—whose real name was Todd Ogretski—lifted his large hand for a punch. I touched my fist to his. Neither of us said anything. Ogre was renowned for his silence. He barely ever spoke, and when he did, it was almost always in platitudes. Back when he was the leading linebacker on our team, the only things I had ever heard him say were “We play to win” and “The glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” Stuff like that.

“So, what have you guys been up to since graduation?” I asked.

“I’ve been working at my dad’s shop, taking some classes at the community college on the side,” Lenny answered. His father owned one of the bigger auto body shops in the area. “Ogre mainly sits around and sucks his parents dry.”

Ogre picked up a plastic cup and chucked it at Lenny. It bounced off Lenny’s head and hit the floor.

“Hey! Watch the hair!” Lenny said.

“Lenny’s hair is sacrosanct, Gray said.

I laughed. “What about you, Rick?” I asked.

“I’m going to SUNY Binghamton,” he said proudly. “Just home for the weekend.”

“And he’s a total partisan of Hillside football,” Gray said, puffing on his cigar. “Guy still cuts out every article written about you guys. He’s totally mawkish for the old days.”

“I am not,” Rick protested, turning beet red under his freckles. “I just like to follow the team. I think it’s cool to be into your alma mater.”

“Yeah. I love it when alumni come to games,” I said.

“Please. Don’t encourage him,” Lenny said, his thumbs pounding away at his controller. “The guy lives vicariously through you.”

Rick ignored him. “Have you seen some of the stuff they write about you, Mike? You’re totally revered around here.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said, growing embarrassed.

“How’s the new coach? I hear he’s punctilious, but it seems to be working,” Rick said. “Do you think you guys’ll beat Dorchester next weekend?”

“I—”

“I think Gary Robinson is the best running back in the division. How’re you guys gonna shut him down?”

“Aw, man! Leave the kid alone!” Lenny said, standing. He paused his game and threw the controller down. “See? You were too accommodating, and now this little idiot’s never gonna shut up,” he said to me, whacking Rick on the back of the head so that his hair stood up.

“Ow!” Rick protested. “I was just asking a couple of questions.”

“Maybe you should give him something,” Gray said with a smile. “Throw him an anecdote from Friday night’s game, and then we can get on with things.”

I noticed that everyone was looking at me with interest—even Ogre and Lenny. These guys played on the mediocre teams that were an antecedent to our current success. Now I had everything they had wanted back in their glory days. So I obliged. I sat down and told them all about the game on Friday—what it was like to be on the field and face down Westmont. It was the least I could do, considering I was planning on cheating them out of their hard earned cash—if I had to—as soon as humanly possible.

Chapter Nine

Part 3

An hour later we had played three hands, and almost all the money Winter had lent me was gone. I would love to say that, once again, the cards were not in my favor, but this time I had to take some of the blame. I had underestimated my opponents. Winter’s pejorative comments about Lenny’s game had turned out to be dead on. I could practically catalog every nuance of his many tells and each of his betting tendencies already—but the other guys weren’t all that bad. And they had taken all the pots.

I glanced at my dwindling chips and at my cards, trying to maintain a staid appearance. If I didn’t win this hand, it would be my penultimate one. I had just enough money to play one more and then I would be broke and have to tell my parents what I’d been up to. That was not an option. Aside from cheating, all I could do was pray, and I’d already done a lot of that. I’d prayed for a queen on the first hand, a two on the second, and a jack on the third. Not a single one had been answered. Honestly, I was starting to think I should become an atheist. Or at the very least, an agnostic.

I took a deep breath and scanned the cards as Ogre laid out his bet. All I needed for a straight was a three, but I didn’t have it. The river was about to be dealt, and I wouldn’t be able to leave the room after that. It would be too obvious. If I was going to act, it would have to be now.

“Dealing the river,” Gray said.

“You guys, I’m sorry, but I gotta go to the bathroom,” I said.

“No one leaves the table in the middle of a game,” Lenny replied automatically, shifting in his seat.

“What? Like Mike Riley is going to cheat,” Rick said with a guffaw. His trust in me made me feel totally reprobate. What kind of disgusting jerk was I, crashing this game and then cheating these guys? But one more look at my pitiful chips assuaged my self-loathing. This was about survival. A guy had to do what a guy had to do.

“No one leaves the table in the middle of a game,” Lenny repeated through his teeth.

Damn, he was scary when that vein in his forehead started to throb. And now he was totally suspicious of me. If I ever did get up from this table, which wasn’t looking good, and I did get the card I needed, I would have to make absolutely sure I wasn’t caught. Otherwise I’d be on the lam by the end of the night, trying to come up with a good alias.

“Dude, let the kid take a piss,” Gray said. “Look at him. He’s gonna make on the floor.”

I guess my extreme tension was written all over my face.

Lenny blew out a sigh. “Fine. But he leaves his hole cards here.”

My throat went dry. “Fine,” I said, standing.

I walked on shaky legs over to the bathroom. Behind me, I could hear them whispering and wondered if they were scolding Lenny or speculating about me—trying to ascertain whether I was capable of messing with them. Probably a little bit of both.

Inside the bathroom I leaned against the sink and tried to breathe. I stared at myself in the mirror and realized I did look pained and rather pale. What was I thinking? I couldn’t go through with this. Especially not now. Now that Lenny had called me out those guys were going to be keeping their hawk eyes on me every second. I would never get away with it.

But you have to, a little voice in my head warned me. You have to do this or you’re done. Your life is over.

I felt hot and sick to my stomach. All the cigar smoke and junk food was not helping. I stood there for another long moment, vacillating between one option and the other. Cheat now and risk getting the crap kicked out of me, or don’t cheat and risk putting my parents through some serious pain. It was thinking about my mother that made up my mind. I thought about her and everything she had done for me. I thought about the way she would react when she found out what I had done. And as soon as I conjured up an image of her face, I knew I had to adhere to the plan.

Before I could rethink it, I flushed the toilet, opened the closet, and fumbled for the cards. I flipped through them, pulled out the one I needed, and shoved it up my sleeve. Then I tucked the superfluous cards back in their hiding spot. I would come back for them later—after the night was over.

If I lived that long.

Chapter Nine

Part 4

I gotta say, winning is my personal panacea. As I approached Ian’s behemoth of a house later that night, I had gone through an extreme metamorphosis. I no longer felt like a pariah. I no longer felt like some loser with no control and no skills. I was back, baby. On the road to redemption. And it felt good.

I took a deep breath of the cold night air and watched as the steam exhaled from my mouth. Everything felt better. Even breathing felt good. I rang the doorbell and waited while its melodious tune echoed through the lofty halls of Ian’s house. As expected, it was Ian who answered the door. In my entire life, neither of his parents had ever been the ones to answer the door. My own parents sometimes doubted that the O’Connors even existed.

Ian looked confused when he saw me standing on his front step. Not that I’m surprised. It was rather late on a Sunday, and we hadn’t spoken in days. He shivered against the cold and stepped back so that I could come in. It wasn’t much warmer in the marble hall behind the front door.

“Hey, man,” Ian said a little coolly. “What’s up?”

“I am here to make restitution,” I said grandly.

From my back pocket I pulled out a wad of cash. Ian’s reaction did not disappoint. He was absolutely stupefied. I wasn’t sure whether to feel aggrieved by this fact. Did he really think that I was never going to pay him back?

But I decided to ignore it. I was not here for an altercation. I was here to make amends.

“Where the hell did you get all that?” Ian asked.

“Abridged version? I was hot tonight, man,” I said, quickly counting through the bills.

“Hot tonight? Hot tonight where? Did you play poker?” Ian asked. He almost sounded petulant—upset that I had played without him. When he was the one who had barred me from his game. Sheesh.

“Yeah, I did,” I said. “And I won. Here. This is the money I’ve allocated for you. I think you’ll find it’s all there.”

He took the bills from my hand in wonder. “Damn, man.”

“I know. Cool, huh?” I said, grinning. “I know it’s belated, but—”

“No. I’m not psyched about the money,” he said. Then, when my face fell he added, “I mean, thanks for paying me back, but . . . I just can’t believe you’re still playing.”

I felt a lump form in my chest. Usually I’m pretty resilient, but I’d had enough of his negative attitude. I couldn’t believe he was attacking me just then. When I had come over there to make up. Our relationship was contentious enough as it was. Couldn’t he recognize an olive branch when he saw it?

“Dude, I cleaned up tonight. I played with Gray Dumas and his friends—all those guys we used to look up to—and I won,” I told him. “I came over her to tell you what happened and maybe celebrate with you, and instead you’re acting like I did something wrong.”

Of course, I had done something wrong. I had done something very wrong. I had managed to slip that three into my hand and had won the pot. And after that I was unstoppable. I had won another, and another, until finally the other guys had to bow out. I had been at the pinnacle of my game. And that little sleight of hand was what had turned it all around.

Which was not the point, of course. The point was I had turned it around. I had won every other hand fair and square. And I was proud of myself.

Ian looked down at the money and sighed again. “You’re right, Mike. I’m sorry,” he said finally. “It’s just, I was—”

“Worried about me. I know,” I said. I took a deep breath and looked at him. “Would it help if I swore I was never going to play another game?”

Ian’s eyes lit up. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously,” I said with a shrug. “It’s no big deal. It’s not like I was addicted to it or something. I just needed to get my money back. Which I did.”

“You won all of it back?” Ian asked.

I swallowed hard. “Well . . . yeah,” I lied. In actuality, after paying Winter and Ian back I only had a couple hundred—not nearly enough to restore my balance. But Ian didn’t need to know that. I fully intended to play with Gray and the guys again—I’d play until I got it all back—but he didn’t need to know that either. A couple white lies were nothing between friends. This way he wouldn’t have to keep “worrying” about me and I wouldn’t have to keep feeling him looking over my shoulder.

“So, we cool?” I asked.

Ian smiled. “Yeah. We’re cool,” he replied.

“Good.”

I was just going to have to be vigilant around him. Keep my money and my thoughts to myself until I got it all back. Then things would finally be able to go back to normal.

Vocabulary Drill

Chapter Nine

abetting · encouraging

abridged · shortened

accessible · within reach

accommodating · considerate

adhere · stick

adorned · decorated

affable · gracious

aggrieved · wronged

agnostic · unsure of the existence of God

alias · fake name

allocated · set aside

altercation · quarrel

amenities · pleasantries

anecdote · brief story

antecedent · predecessor

antiseptic · extremely clean

anxiety · worry

arboreal · treelike

ascertain · figure out

assuaged · eased

audible · able to be heard

behemoth · something of huge size

belated · late

catalog · list

commensurate · equal

compounded · combined into one

contentious · argumentative

fashioned · made

malleable · easily influenced

maverick · rebel

mawkish · overly sentimental

melodious · musical

metamorphosis · transformation

morass · difficult situation

muttered · murmured

negligent · neglectful

noisome · noxious

nuance · variation

obfuscated · confused

obsequiously · obediently

panacea · cure-all

paraphernalia · equipment

pariah · outcast

partisan · follower

pejorative · negative

penultimate · second to last

petulant · peeved

pinnacle · peak

platitudes · dull remarks

portent · omen

presumptuous · assuming

punctilious · careful

quaint · pleasingly unfamiliar

quotidian · everyday

refracted · reflected distortedly

renovated · refurbished

renowned · widely known

reprobate · morally corrupt

reputable · esteemed

resilient · able to adapt

restitution · payback

revered · honored

saccharine · overly sweet

sacrosanct · sacred

sprite · elf

staid · serious

stupefied · astonished

subterfuge · trickery

superfluous · extra

unctuous · oily

undoubtedly · surely

utilitarian · simple and useful

vacillating · wavering

veneer · facade

vicariously · by proxy

vigilant · steadfast

Chapter Ten

Part 1

As I walked home after football practice later that week, I was feeling better than I had in a long time. I had deposited some money back into my savings account, and my parents had yet to notice the late statement, so I still had time to rebuild my balance. If I could just make it through the weekend and the next game with Gray and his friends, I would be golden. I ducked through the fence that ran around the playing fields and hit the path that led through the grove and straight to the street where I lived. As I walked, I whipped out my cell to call Winter, hoping that we could have another movie night. I was so distracted with dialing that I didn’t notice anyone else on the path until I was practically on top of them.

“Hey.”

My heart seized at the sound of the gruff voice, and I stopped abruptly. Standing right in my path were Gray, Lenny, and Ogre, who looked gargantuan standing next to his friends. Instantly all the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. They formed a daunting trio, and they did not look happy.

They know, I realized. And suddenly I wished I had taken up my friends from the offensive line when they had asked if I wanted to join them for pizza. Or that, at the very least, a couple of those guys were here flanking me right now. They acted as great buttresses during games, and at the moment, I knew I could use a couple of bodyguards.

“What’s up, guys?” I asked casually, playing it off as if we met this way every day.

“You tell us,” Ogre said, stepping forward. “You tell us how the great Mike Riley could turn out to be such a rat.”

Apparently his usual quiet was just an affectation. Embezzle some money from the guy and he finds all kinds of words.

“What do you mean?” I asked, starting to sweat.

“Don’t try to play innocent, Riley,” Gray said. “We know you cheated.”

Oh God. I was dead. My life was actually flashing before my eyes, and it wasn’t pretty. I glanced around, wondering if there was any way I could flee, but it was no use. There was no way I could navigate all the rocks and trees and fallen branches and get away. One of these guys would surely catch up with me.

“That’s a serious allegation,” I said, grasping at straws—stalling for time. How had they found out? How?

Gray pulled something out of his back pocket and everything inside of me sunk. He had two blue playing cards in his hand. Where had they come from? How could I have been so careless?

“You’re pretty good. They’re exact duplicates,” Gray said. “Just like the deck we always use.”

“Here’s a tip,” Lenny said, stepping up next to me. He was so close I could smell onions on his breath. “If you’re going to try to cheat someone out of their money, don’t leave such incriminating evidence behind.”

He grabbed the cards out of Gray’s hand and flung them at my feet. My heart pounded in every inch of my body. Trying to explain anything to them was futile, I knew. With evidence like that, there was no way I could exculpate myself. All I could do was throw myself at their mercy and hope they would be benevolent.

“Listen, guys. I’m really sorry—”

My sentence was cut short as I was suddenly, violently, shoved back against a thick oak tree. My head slammed into the rough bark and I saw stars. For a good few seconds I couldn’t breathe. They were going to kill me. They had come here to kill me.

“I knew we shouldn’t’ve let this asswipe get up from the table,” Lenny said as he held my shoulder back so far I screamed out in pain. “Why do you guys always gotta challenge me?”

“I don’t know what pisses me off more. The fact that you cheated, or the fact that you used my little sister to do it,” Gray said, squaring off in front of me.

“It’s . . . it’s not like that,” I said quickly.

“Oh, no? Then what’s it like?” Ogre demanded, twisting my arm back. I cried out in pain and bit my lip. So much for an amicable solution to this mess.

“Here’s the deal, superstar,” Gray said. He picked up a thick branch from the ground and brandished it. “You pay us back every dime, and we won’t kill you.”

I choked, finally sucking in wind, and tried to double over, but Ogre and Lenny held me fast. For all the strength in my well-conditioned body, I couldn’t move a muscle.

“I . . . I can’t,” I said, barely coherent. “I don’t . . . have . . . the money.”

Lenny pulled back one hand and slammed his fist right into my gut. I wheezed for air and clouds formed over my eyes. This was worse than any hit I had ever taken in a game. I thought I was going to pass out, but finally the pain ebbed, and I was able to breathe again. Even as I fought for air, my brain tried to figure some way—any way—out of this mess. Could I divert their attention somehow and make a run for it? Hardly seemed likely, considering I could barely breathe. What could I say that would be in any way conciliatory? How could I get them to back off?

“How could you not have it?” Gray asked, stepping forward.

“I . . . I paid some people back,” I told him, my eyes pleading for mercy. “I wouldn’t have even cheated except that I was already in debt,” I added, hoping to convey my desperation, hoping they would take pity on me. “I just don’t have it, Gray. I’m sorry.”

I felt like I was about to cry, but I knew that was the last thing I could do in front of these guys. That kind of degradation would only make them want to hurt me more.

Gray looked at his friends as if for guidance and I felt a surge of hope. Maybe he believed me. Maybe he was backing down!

“Well, then you’d better figure out a way to get it back,” he said finally, embittered. “We’re not just gonna let this slide, Riley. And I’m assuming that you’re gonna want to keep your all-star legs intact. A shattered shin, for example, wouldn’t do much for your prospects.”

He pulled back as if to slam me with the branch, and I screamed. “No! No! No! Wait! I have an idea!”

Gray stopped, and a couple of tears squeezed out. Lenny clucked his tongue in clear disgust.

“I have an idea,” I repeated. And, in fact, I did. It was amazing how intense fear inspired creativity.

“I’m listening,” Gray said, leaning on the branch now as if it were just a benign walking stick.

“What if I . . . what if I throw the game this weekend?” I asked.

That got their attention. “The big rivalry game?” Ogre asked.

“Yeah,” I replied, desperate. “You guys bet on the game, and I’ll take a dive. Then you can win back your money and then some. It’ll be a sure thing.”

“You’d do that?” Lenny asked, amazed. “You’d lay down to Dorchester?”

I swallowed hard. This was the biggest game of my life. A source of major pride for me, the team, and the school. Throwing the game would mean letting all those people down. Plus, Coach had told me that scouts from a few major football powerhouses were coming that weekend to check me out. Including, quite possibly, Penn State—although it hadn’t been confirmed. Taking a dive could keep me from attaining all the things I had worked so hard for my entire life, but then, what would any of that matter if I were paralyzed, maimed, or dead?

“To keep you guys from killing me, yeah,” I said.

Gray took a deep breath. “Seems like an equitable solution to me,” he said with a shrug. His flippancy made me crazy, but it wasn’t as if I could say anything. “Let him go.”

Ogre and Lenny released me, and my quaking knees somehow supported me. I was still scared out of my mind. There was a good chance I wasn’t going to feel safe again until I got home and locked the door behind me. Maybe not even then.

“We’re in,” Gray said, looking down his nose at me. Ogre and Lenny gathered in close, breathing down my neck. “Now don’t let us down.”

Seemingly innocuous words, but they may as well have been a death threat.

“I won’t,” I promised them, my voice trembling. “I swear to you, I won’t.”

Chapter Ten

Part 2

“I don’t believe this. Tell me you’re kidding. Please just tell me you’re messing with me.”

I sat there on the end of my bed and watched as Winter stood up and started to pace. After much circumlocution, I had finally managed to tell her what I had done and how her brother had reacted. I had wanted to confess before Gray had a chance to tell her and exaggerate the seriousness of my crime. But seeing Winter’s reaction, I knew that what I had done needed no exaggeration to be deemed utterly reprehensible and that it could possibly even be the final blow to our already delicate relationship.

“You used me,” she said, turning an accusatory glare on me.

“I didn’t,” I replied automatically. “I just—”

“Came with me into my house and planted a deck of cards in my bathroom so that you could cheat my brother and his friends,” Winter pointed out, summing things up concisely. “What would you call that?”

Okay. So I was as every bit as devious as she said. “I’m . . . I’m sorry,” I said. “There were extenuating circumstances, okay? I didn’t want to cheat. I just—”

“Oh my God! Do you even hear yourself?” Winter cried, pushing her hands through her hair. “What do you expect? Do you expect me to tell you that I endorse this kind of thing? That I wanted you to win by whatever means necessary?”

“No! But you did give me certain assurances about how bad they were at poker,” I said. “I mean, you did want me to win—”

“But not this way!” Winter replied, impassioned. “Do you even know who you’re messing with here? Screwing over my brother and his friends is sheer lunacy. They’re not patient people, Mike. They’ll kick your ass and ask questions later. If they even bother to ask questions. My brother lives for his reputation as a firebrand.”

Yeah. No duh. I had found that out the hard way. “I get that now. Trust me.”

Suddenly, her entire face changed. She sat down next to me as if the wind were knocked out of her. “Oh, God. They don’t think I was in collusion with you, do they?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“No. They don’t,” I replied. “Why? It’s not like your brother would hurt you,” I said, then gulped. “Is it?”

“No,” she said with a sigh, looking relieved. “But if he thought I helped you it certainly wouldn’t enhance my quality of living.”

“I’m really sorry, Winter,” I told her, contrite.

She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap, and I knew she was wondering what to do—wondering if I were worth all this trouble. Suddenly I felt a wave of panic pass through me. I had already lost everything. If Winter left me I didn’t know what I would do. But I did know that I wouldn’t blame her for going. What reason had I given her to stick it out?

“Do you see it now?” Winter asked. “Do you see how corrosive gambling is?”

I blinked. Winter had never said anything like this to me before. She sounded like Ian. For a split second I felt my ire flare up. She was censuring me too? But then I realized that after everything that happened, she had every right to accuse me. The banality of my situation was abundantly clear. I was a cliché. One of those kids you hear about on the news—a “victim of the poker trend.” One of those losers who get entangled in a web of debt and can’t pull himself out. One of those kids I always pitied.

“I know,” I said finally. “I’m an idiot.”

She didn’t disagree with me. “What’re you going to do? I mean, I know Gray’s gonna make you pay him back, but did you at least ask him for a deferment? Maybe he can wait until you get your part-time job in the winter. Maybe you guys can do some kind of payment plan or something.”

I almost laughed. As well as she seemed to know her brother, she apparently thought he was a little more compassionate and reasonable than he was.

“He made it fairly clear that immediate repayment was essential,” I replied. Essential if I wanted to continue to breathe, I thought with a shudder. “So I came up with a plan . . .”

Winter regarded me with concern. “What kind of plan?”

“You’re not gonna like it,” I told her.

She cleared her throat and squared her shoulders, pulling her leg up on the bed so she could face me. “Hit me.”

So I told her. I told her all about the plan to throw the Dorchester game, and although Winter had always been rather ambivalent when it came to both football and school spirit, she flinched when I divulged the details. By the time I was done she was staring at me as if she were ready to make the call to the nearest asylum. At that point, I would have gone willingly. A few days of peace and quiet and four drab walls was probably exactly what I needed. Plus, I’d be safe from Gray and his cantankerous goons.

“Mike, you can’t,” she said slowly. “What about your future? What about the other guys on the team?”

“I know. It’s not as if I didn’t think about that,” I told her. “Believe me. It’s all I think about. But I have no choice. It’s either this or your brother kicks the crap out of me.”

She knew him well enough that she kept her mouth shut at that, which did not make me feel better. But at that point I think I was beyond feeling better. I had gotten myself into this horrible situation, and there was only one way to get myself out.

Chapter Ten

Part 3

It wasn’t until the day of the rivalry game that I understood with complete clarity the depth of the crime I was about to commit. As my friends and teammates readied for the game around me, all I could think about was how I was about to betray them. I loathed myself. But I couldn’t even show it. My behavior had to be concordant with that of my friends. I had to act all psyched like we were about to put a beat-down on our number-one nemesis, while all the time I was plotting against my team.

“These losers are going down!” Curtis Springer cheered.

“Yeah!” I shouted emphatically, my voice blending with those of my teammates. A bunch of guys laughed and smiled confidently at me, the guy who was supposed to take them to the promised land. I felt like the biggest heel in the world.

“Hey, man. Coach wants to see you,” Daryl said, slapping my arm as he sat down next to me to tie his cleats. “He probably wants to make sure his golden boy hasn’t started to believe his own hype,” he joked.

I smiled, but I felt nauseated as I stood up. I could see the headlines now. “Star Quarterback Chokes!” “ Incompetent Riley Leads Cardinals to Defeat!” “Scouts Tell Riley ‘No Thanks!’?” My future, which had seemed so bright a few days ago, was now ambiguous. All thanks to one stupid game of poker. Well, a few stupid games. I couldn’t remotely comprehend how I had ended up here.

I knocked quickly on the coach’s door, and he waved me in. I so wanted to expedite this whole day—to flash forward to the end of the game so I could just go home and crawl under the covers.

“Hey, Coach. Daryl said you wanted to see me,” I said.

He was practically glowing with pride and anticipation. “This is it, Mike. All your assiduousness is about to pay off.”

My throat was dry. I felt heavy with guilt and dread.

“Coach?” I said. I couldn’t trust myself to utter more than one word.

“Guess which schools sent scouts out to evaluate you today. Just guess,” he told me.

I didn’t want to guess. But I would have done anything to curtail this meeting and the misery it was bringing on.

“Uh . . . I don’t know,” I said.

“Everyone who’s anyone,” he said, clearly beside himself with glee. “Those bleachers are going to be hosting a convergence of some of the biggest reps in the country. USC. Michigan. Texas.”

With each school named I grew more and more depressed.

“And, of course, Penn State,” he said finally.

Now I was definitely going to throw up.

“Did you hear me, Mike?” Coach asked.

I cleared my throat. “Yeah, Coach,” I said. “That’s great.”

“When you look back on this day you are going to realize that it was decisive in determining the course of your life,” Coach said, laying it on so thick I felt like I was suffocating. “I don’t think it would be presumptuous of me to say that if you go out there today and play the way I know you can play, you are going to be entertaining some immoderate offers tonight.”

I couldn’t believe he was saying these things to me. Even if I wasn’t planning on throwing the game, putting this much pressure on me would surely be debilitating. Who could hold up under such high expectations? Who could live up to such ideals?

You could have, a little voice in my mind chided me. You could have had it all.

I disregarded the voice. I couldn’t focus on some indeterminate moment in my potential future—some moment at which I would look back on today and realize how much it had meant. Right now all I could think about was living long enough to see tomorrow. And unfortunately that meant risking my entire future.

“Are you ready for this, Mike?” Coach asked. He had so many stars in his eyes that apparently he couldn’t see that his quarterback was turning green right in front of him.

“Yes, Coach,” I said.

There was a knock on the door, and his assistant, Coach Nimenen, stuck his head in. “Sorry to encroach, Coach, but it’s time.”

I stood up slowly, shakily. It was time, all right. Time to finish this once and for all.

Vocabulary Drill

Chapter Ten

abruptly · suddenly

accusatory · blaming

affectation · pose

allegation · accusation

ambiguous · vague

ambivalent · undecided, conflicted

amicable · friendly

assiduousness · diligence

assurances · promises

asylum · mental institution

attaining · achieving

banality · ordinary nature

benevolent · kind

betray · prove unfaithful to

brandished · held as a weapon

buttresses · supports

cantankerous · cranky

censuring · scolding

challenge · defy boldly

circumlocution · talking in circles

clarity · clearness

coherent · sensible

collusion · secret agreement

compassionate · sympathetic

comprehend · understand

conciliatory · appeasing

concisely · sharply

concordant · agreeing

contrite · sorry

convergence · gathering

convey · pass on

corrosive · damaging

curtail · shorten

daunting · intimidating

debilitating · weakening

decisive · conclusive

deferment · temporary delay

degradation · humiliation

devious · cunning

disregarded · ignored

distracted · diverted

divert · redirect

divulged · revealed

drab · cheerless

duplicates · copies

ebbed · eased

embezzle · swindle

embittered · bitter

emphatically · with emphasis

encroach · trespass

endorse · support

enhance · increase

entangled · entrapped

equitable · fair

essential · necessary

evaluate · assess

exaggerate · overstate

exculpate · clear from guilt

expedite · speed up

extenuating · mitigating

firebrand · troublemaker

flanking · aside

flee · escape

flippancy · disrespectfully easygoing

futile · useless

gargantuan · huge

grove · area of trees

gruff · hoarse

immoderate · excessive

impassioned · excitedly

incompetent · without skill

incriminating · proving guilt

indeterminate · unknown

innocuous · harmless, trivial

lunacy · madness

reprehensible · disgraceful

Chapter Eleven

Part 1

“Come on, Riley! You’re killing me!” Coach shouted from the sidelines. “Watch the damn blitz!”

Joe Trung, Dorchester’s lead linebacker, shoved me a little farther into the ground as he pushed himself up. This guy, who would have been totally nondescript if you saw him on the street, was a menace on the football field, and all I had done all day was hover in his path and let him take me down.

It was getting kind of strenuous, to say the least. But that’s what I got for abandoning all rectitude and turning to the dark side.

Curtis came over and offered me his hand, but I shook my head. The offer was nothing if not kind and only augmented my guilt. The last thing I wanted right now was to let my teammates help me out. Not when I was, unbeknownst to them, stabbing them in the back.

I pulled myself up out of the mud and muck and shook my hands, flinging grime everywhere. It was the second quarter and the crowd had grown vociferous, but not in a good way. I had a feeling that as soon as the ref blew the whistle to signal halftime, the stands were going to empty out and the fans were going to bring their wrath down on me. And why not? Anyone who was keeping a vigilant eye on my game could impute the blame to no one other than the quarterback. We were losing 17 to 3 and were now moving backward thanks to penalties and sacks. I was engineering the perfect loss, and with each passing moment, more and more maledictions rained down on me from our diehard fans.

I groaned as I joined the guys in the huddle. Trung had slammed me pretty hard on that last play. There was a laceration on my arm that was throbbing with pain and bleeding pretty profusely, even though it was matted with mud and grass. Daryl checked it out as he stepped next to me.

“Maybe you should have Dick clean that up,” he said. “Looks pretty bad.”

Dick Carerri, our trainer, was watching me with concern from the sideline.

“I’m fine,” I said. In fact, the injury sort of felt like penance for how I was desecrating this team, our stadium, our entire season. Let it bleed until I dropped. I deserved it.

“All right, guys. We’re gonna go to the sidelines on this one. Twenty-two sweep,” I said, feeling like evil incarnate. I knew there was no way running wide would be efficacious in this game. These guys had studied our tape and were expecting us to run this play, which was clear considering they had moved their most lithe tackle to the strong side. All the better to stop our running back, Tommy Jasper, if he decided to go wide.

I saw a couple of guys in the huddle exchange a look. They knew the play had no chance as well, but they were too deferential to me to say anything. I didn’t know how they could abide my total ineptness today. I almost wished someone would call me out. I would have thought more of them if they did. On top of which, the guilt was becoming overwhelming.

“Okay. Ready? Break!”

We moved out of the huddle to the line. As I dropped down behind my center, I wondered if anyone had figured out that I was deliberately driving us into the ground—if they knew that their star quarterback was just allowing Dorchester to usurp our position at the top of the league. I felt like it was so obvious it may as well have been written across the back of my jersey: “Traitor, #3.” The quality of my play was that much of an anomaly. But no one seemed suspicious. They just seemed confused. Apparently, they all trusted me. Which only made me feel worse.

“Blue eighty! Blue eighty!” I shouted.

Dorchester’s dynamic defense shifted, picking up on our formation. A cursory look at their new line would have told any competent quarterback to change the play with an audible—to call a pass. But I didn’t.

“Hike!”

The ball hit my hands, and I handed it off to Tommy Jasper. About two seconds later he was crushed by the tremendous defensive tackle. The helmet-against-helmet crack was loud enough to draw a groan from both crowds.

As Dorchester’s lineman stood up with his fists raised to the air, Curtis ran over and shoved him, slamming him back into the ground. Suddenly both teams were on top of each other in a brawl, going at each other insatiably. For a split second I just stood there, stunned. I guess my team got a little bellicose when they were being thrashed by our archrivals.

I saw Daryl get smashed across the facemask and snapped into action, running for the melee. But one of the refs jumped in and held me back while the others threw flags and blew their whistles, struggling to untangle the mess of flailing arms and legs. The crowd, of course, went wild until the whole thing was sorted out. Finally the refs called a game timeout while they decided on penalties and ejections. Coach beckoned us over to the sidelines.

“What the hell was that? You ran the sweep?” he shouted at me. “Who in God’s name told you to run the sweep? Have you totally lost your mind?”

I bowed my head and took his reproaches as I waited for the game to resume. Little did he know his harangue was falling on deaf ears. Little did he know his go-to guy was basically playing for the other side.

Chapter Eleven

Part 2

Halftime offered no respite. The negativity in the locker room was pervasive, and Coach went off on us in his best imitation of a sports movie coach—so over the top it could almost be considered a parody if he wasn’t so legitimately upset. His face was red, his veins throbbed, and he spat more than once as he ripped us all to shreds. I sat near the side of the room, slumped, as Dick applied an emollient to my cut. I kept waiting for Coach to ascribe all the blame to me, but he had words for everyone. Apparently my sorry play was making everyone look bad.

“Offensive line? Your play out there is putrid!” he shouted, more spittle showering from his lips. “No quarterback of mine is getting sacked four times in one half. Especially not against this team! Their defense isn’t even all that adroit, and you’re making them look like some divine line sent down from God above!”

I looked over at my disheartened teammates, and my guilt flared anew. They should all be blaming me. I should have been the anathema in this room, no one else.

“It’s like watching assault and battery out there!” he shouted, pacing back and forth. “You’re better than this, guys! We all know that you’re better than this!”

Guys shifted in their seats, looked at the floor, hung their heads. This was supposed to be the most triumphant moment of our high school careers, and it was nothing but a huge disappointment. Thanks to me. Why had I hidden those cards? Why had I ever agreed to play that game in the first place?

How could I sit here and let these guys who had backed me up time and time again take a beating for my mistakes? Because Gray and those guys are going to kill you otherwise, a little voice in my head reminded me. I saw vividly the tree branch swinging toward my knees and clenched my jaw in determination. There’s no other way to appease them. They made that abundantly clear.

God, I just wanted this to be over. All I needed was a little more forbearance and it would be. I just had to get through this lecture and one more half of crap football, and I could go home and never look back.

Except that I would. With regret. Every single day of my life.

“And Riley!” Coach shouted.

My heart squeezed painfully. “Yeah, Coach?”

He put his hands on his hips and walked toward me. “I don’t know how to make this any more pellucid. You do not call the plays out there, you got me? I call the plays,” he said.

I swallowed hard. “Yes, Coach.”

I had called plays before, and he never had a problem with it. Of course, nine times out of ten, those plays had been successful.

“I thought my game plan was fairly trenchant, but apparently I was wrong. Otherwise you wouldn’t be all over the place out there,” he said condescendingly. “Now, do I have to delineate the points for you again?”

“No, Coach,” I said, my face burning. It had been a long time since I had been so avidly denounced by anyone, let alone the guy who had taken me under his wing. For the first time in a long time, Coach Rinaldi’s belief in me was equivocal. I had never thought that could happen.

“Good. Now, if I see you get lackadaisical out there again, so help me God I’m gonna rip you a new one,” he snapped. “You keep your head up. You scramble. And you hold on to the G.D. ball! You look like a freakin’ amateur out there!”

I sunk a bit lower in my seat. It wasn’t as if I could challenge the veracity of any of these criticisms.

He took a deep breath and stood up straight, surveying the team. “Now, men, that field out there is our sovereign territory. Am I right?”

“Yeah!” Everyone shouted, relieved that the browbeating portion of the meeting was over and we were on to the pep talk part.

“So are we going to let these Dorchester losers come in here and crap all over our territory?” he shouted.

“No!”

“When you’re dispatched from here, you’re going to go out there and make me proud! Am I right?”

“Yeah!”

As my teammates riled themselves up, jumping out of their seats and cheering, it was all I could do to keep from throwing up right there on my cleats. They had no idea that this game was only going to get worse. That I was about to lead them straight into the gutter.

I only wished there was something—anything—I could do.

Chapter Eleven

Part 3

As I trudged back toward the field with the rest of the team, the marching band was out there doing its thing, playing the school’s classic fight song. They may as well have been playing a funeral dirge as far as I was concerned. All around me the guys were jumping up and down, getting primed, knocking helmets and slapping backs. All I wanted to do was run. We passed through the gates and onto the track that ran around the field, jogging by some bystanders who had lined up along the fence. A medley of voices shouted either insults or good wishes at me, but mostly insults. That was when I heard someone calling my name.

“Mike! Yo, Riley!”

At first I ignored it. I figured it was just one more vocal fan wanting to convey his umbrage with my first-half performance.

“Mike, man! We need to talk to you!”

That was when I recognized the voice as Ian’s. I paused and found his face in the crowd. He was with Winter, who was waving me over maniacally. Ian himself looked half-desperate, half-excited. I felt an unfounded surge of hope and jogged over to them to hear what they had to say. A couple of the guys on the team looked at me like I was insane, but I was getting used to that today.

“Dude, you have to stop this idiocy,” Ian said under his breath. “Enough is enough.”

I looked around, my face hot with humiliation and fear. Apparently Ian knew what was going on. I glanced at Winter and understood everything in one look. She had told him. She had told him about my plan. Part of me knew I should be angry at her betrayal, but I didn’t have it in me. All my emotional capacity had already been used up.

“I’m sorry,” Winter said. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I called Ian. And I’m glad I did.”

“You have to go back out there and save this game,” Ian said.

“I can’t,” I whispered through my teeth. “Those guys are going to kill me if I don’t win them their money back.”

“No! You don’t understand,” Winter said. “We got them to rescind the deal.”

I felt as if the earth had just tilted beneath me. If the deal was off, then weren’t they going to kick my ass anyway? I glanced at my teammates, who were gathering on the sidelines. Any minute now they were going to start wondering where I was.

“What do you mean?” I demanded. “What did you guys do?”

“I went over there this morning, and we had a little talk with Gray,” Ian said. “I tried to call you a zillion times before the game, you know. You really should answer your phone. Could have saved yourself a lot of trouble.”

“Riley! You suck!” someone shouted, to the delight of the crowd.

“And defamatory comments,” Winter added, rolling her eyes.

“I wasn’t exactly in the mood to chat,” I replied impatiently. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

“Basically, Ian used his powers of persuasion to talk my brother and his friends out of betting on the game,” Winter said quickly. “They were phlegmatic at first, but then—”

“I appealed to their pride,” Ian said, looking mighty proud himself. “The last thing those guys want is for the Hillside football program to fall into disrepute. They didn’t mind the idea of people disparaging you all over the place, but the alma mater was a different story.”

“He made some pithy arguments, I gotta say,” Winter told me, looking at Ian with admiration. “It’s not easy to get my pugnacious brother to back down.”

“But I did,” Ian said. “When it comes down to it, those guys are still Hillside Cardinals at heart. They want to see Dorchester win this game about as much as you do.”

I couldn’t believe Ian’s largess, walking into the lion’s den like that to save my butt. He was a better friend than I had ever realized.

“Wait, so you’re telling me I’m off the hook here?” I said, hardly daring to accept it. Who knew Gray was capable of granting such complete clemency? “I don’t have to pay those guys back?”

Ian and Winter exchanged a look. “Well . . . not exactly,” Ian said.

“Riley! What the hell are you doing over there?” Coach shouted, earning me some jeers from the immediate crowd. “Get with the team already!”

“Just one second, Coach!” I shouted back, my heart pounding. He looked at me like I was the most enigmatic being on earth before throwing up his hands and turning back to the guys.

“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?” I asked.

“Well, you’re still going to have to atone for what you did,” Ian said quickly. “It wasn’t like they were going to eat all their losses, so we had to make a deal.”

“What deal?” I could barely breathe.

“We set up one last poker game. You against them,” Winter said. “Winner takes all.”

She had to be kidding. Another poker game. I thought neither of them wanted me to play anymore. Had everyone lost their minds?

“They loved it,” Ian said. “Those guys are all about competition. Well, that and cold, hard cash.”

I felt like I was going to be sick. “Me against the four of them? Are you guys insane?!” I said—rather callously, considering how beneficent they had been on my behalf. “That only gives me a one in five chance of winning. What if I lose? I don’t have the money to pay them double! I’ll be in an even bigger hole than I am now. How the hell is another poker game going to ameliorate my situation?”

“Well, for starters it means you can go out there and win this freakin’ game,” Ian said sarcastically. “I do believe I saw the scouts up in the box before, looking at one another like they were wondering why the hell they made the trip. Or are you no longer aspiring to play football in college?”

Okay. That hit home. Apparently Ian could be rather pithy.

“He’s right, Mike,” Winter said, laying her tiny hands on my shoulder pads. “Don’t think about the poker game now. One thing at a time. And right now you have to play the game of your life.”

I glanced at the field, where the marching band was just starting to make its way off. Any second the refs were going to get out on the field to start the second half. After everything I had done in the first two quarters, a comeback seemed next to impossible. I suddenly felt emotionally exhausted and torpid, like it would take every ounce of energy in me just to walk over to the bench and sit down. All day I had been counting on this thing with Gray being over by the end of the game, and now it wouldn’t be. Even though there were benefits to this scenario, the thought of dealing with him and his friends later was overwhelming.

“We’re down by two touchdowns,” I said quietly.

“What’s with all the pessimism? Two touchdowns is nothing!” Winter said. “You’re Mr. Football Star, remember?” she added with a laugh. “Didn’t you score like four touchdowns against the best defense in the league?”

Wow. Apparently Winter had become a bit of a fan on my behalf. But it didn’t change the fact that I was a traitor—that I was the scum of the earth—and that I had done it all, it seemed, for no reason. If I had just picked up the damn phone before the game I would have known all of this and we would be winning right now.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” I told her.

“Well, I do,” Winter said firmly. “I know you can. I believe in you, Mike. You can do anything.”

“Aw! So poignant,” Ian joked.

I automatically reached out and shoved him, and we all laughed. But when I looked back into Winter’s eyes, I surmised that she really believed what she was saying. She really thought I could get out there and turn this sinking ship around. Then she glanced at Ian quickly, stood on her toes, and whispered in my ear.

“I kind of love you, you know?” she said.

My heart spasmed and I felt a rush of pure elation. “Really?”

“Really,” she said.

When she pulled back she was smiling and her gorgeous green eyes shone. Somehow, the fact that she had evinced her feelings for me just then was all I needed. Suddenly I could feel my blood flowing again, my adrenaline pumping. I reached into all my reservoirs of strength and determination and energy and pulled myself up straight. After all the crap and misery I had endured over the past few weeks, Winter telling me she loved me was about the most incredible thing she could have done.

I looked around at my teammates, who were eyeing me with impatience, and at the crowd, which was getting psyched up. I felt better than I had in days. Winter was right. I could deal with Gray later. All that mattered now was winning this game. It was incumbent upon me to fix the mess I had made in the first half, to lead this team to a victory. And maybe, in the process, I would even solidify my future.

“Riley! Get your ass over here!” Coach Rinaldi screamed.

“Excuse me, guys,” I said to my friends with a smile. “I have a game to win.”

Vocabulary Drill

Chapter Eleven

abide · tolerate

adroit · skilled

ameliorate · improve

anathema · pariah

anomaly · irregularity

appease · please

ascribe · attribute

aspiring · driven

atone · make up for

avidly · enthusiastically

battery · abuse

bellicose · combative

beneficent · kind

callously · coldly

clemency · forgiveness

condescendingly · haughtily

cursory · hasty

defamatory · slanderous

deferential · respectful

deliberately · purposefully

delineate · lay out

denounced · condemned

desecrating · profaning

dirge · death march

disheartened · discouraged

disparaging · insulting

dispatched · sent

disrepute · shame

divine · almighty

dynamic · energetic

efficacious · effective

emollient · salve

enigmatic · mysterious

equivocal · doubtful

evinced · revealed

forbearance · patience

harangue · rant

impute · attribute

incarnate · in the flesh

incumbent · essential

ineptness · incompetence

insatiably · ravenously

laceration · cut

lackadaisical · careless

largess · benevolence

lithe · gracefully athletic

maledictions · curses

medley · assortment

melee · brawl

nondescript · indistinct

parody · spoof

pellucid · clear

pervasive · inescapable

pessimism · negativity

phlegmatic · uninterested

pithy · convincing

poignant · moving

pugnacious · combative

putrid · rotten

rectitude · righteousness

reproaches · criticisms

rescind · take back

reservoirs · reserves

respite · rest

sovereign · official

strenuous · vigorous

surmised · figured out

torpid · lazy

trenchant · clear-cut

umbrage · displeasure

usurp · take over

veracity · truth

vigilant · alert

vociferous · boisterous

wrath · anger

Chapter Twelve

Part 1

As I approached the first huddle at the onset of the second half, some heckler from the Dorchester stands shouted out a fairly lewd comment about my “mama,” and hundreds of people laughed. I clenched my jaw and my hands curled into fists. Little did this guy know the pain I was about to unleash on his team. In the next two quarters—one if I had my way—he and all his friends were going to watch Dorchester’s lead evaporate. It was time for me to earn back a little bit of dignity here.

“All right guys! Huddle up!” I shouted.

We came together on the fifteen yard line, and I looked around at the faces of my teammates and friends. Their energy and desperation were palpable. All they needed was for me to be the leader I had always been for them, but I could tell that just then, some of them doubted that I could still do that. I swallowed hard, knowing that nothing could negate what I had done in the first half. But at the very least, I could try to make it up to them.

“Listen up, you guys, I know the first half sucked . . . well I sucked. I made innumerable mistakes, but I’m putting that all behind me now, and you guys need to do the same,” I said firmly. “These guys are not that formidable. We can take them.”

My confidence was contagious. I felt the adrenaline starting to course through the air as they murmured their assent.

“Now, clearly their left side is their weak link,” I said. “Let’s exploit that in this half. We’re gonna work on those guys until they crack, and we’re going to eradicate their lead. You with me?”

“Yeah!” they all cheered through their teeth.

“Okay, I say we get out there and take it right to them,” I said. “Let’s go for the end zone right now, on the first play.”

A few of the guys clearly loved this idea, but Daryl’s brows came together beneath his helmet.

“Is that the play Coach called?” he asked.

Valid question, considering I had been warned, quite sternly, not to counteract Coach’s orders. Everyone looked at me quizzically, and I knew that it was time to take charge of this team again. I had to be intransigent in my beliefs and in my game play, or they weren’t going to trust me. If my team couldn’t trust me, their quarterback, that would be our ultimate downfall.

“No, it’s not,” I said flatly. “But out here, I’m in charge, right?”

“Right!” they all chorused.

“Right,” Daryl said again, nodding.

“Good. We’re going with four wide receivers. D, you’re my number-one man, but if you can’t get open, I’m going with you, Kyle,” I said. “Curtis, I need you on Trung, too. Double-team that bastard, okay?”

“You got it, Mikey,” Curtis said.

“Good. You guys hold the line, and I’ll put it in the end zone,” I said. “Now let’s do this.”

The ref blew the whistle, and we broke from the huddle. I was about to change the course of this game from one that would go down in infamy to one that the Hillside fans would take pride in forever. My confidence and determination were intemperate. I was going to demean these Dorchester suckers, the way I had allowed them to do to me in the first half. Maybe even worse.

“What are you doing? Riley! What the hell are you doing?!” Coach screamed, mystified by our four–wide-out formation. He had, after all, called a conservative run play. Meanwhile, the Dorchester defense was scrambling, trying to figure out how to cover a formation they had never seen from us before.

“Cover that guy! Cover him!” I heard one of the linemen shout.

I grinned. This was going to be too easy.

“Hike!” I shouted.

Everyone ran. The linemen clashed and our front four demolished their guys, giving me plenty of time.

“Riley! Riley! Throw the damn ball!” Coach shouted in desperation.

Not yet, coach, I thought, hearing nothing but my own breath, the grunts of the offensive line, my heart pounding in my ears.

Daryl was covered deep by the cornerback. The guy was all over him. My gaze shifted left, and I saw Kyle shake his defender with a sick stutter step. The guy hit the dirt and Kyle raised his arm. I pulled back, held my breath, and let the ball fly. There was a collective gasp in the stands as the ball soared through the air. Time stood still. Everyone turned to watch, and just like that the ball landed perfectly in Kyle’s outstretched arms, right on the twenty-yard line.

Our stands exploded with uninhibited merriment.

“Go!” I shouted. “Go!”

Kyle took off, firing on all engines for the end zone.

“He’s at the ten! The five! The one! Touchdown, Cardinals!” the announcer cried into his microphone.

I thrust my arms into the air in ecstasy as the screams of the reveling crowd surrounded me. Touchdown on the first play from scrimmage. That would show these guys who they were dealing with. I glanced at the clock as the team ran back to crowd me. Only fifteen seconds had ticked off, and we had cut their lead in half. Fairly efficient play, if you asked me.

I saw Kyle running toward me and I hugged him, lifting him off the ground. The crowd went berserk.

“We’re gonna crush these guys!” I shouted.

“Yeah, baby!” Kyle shouted back.

And with that we jogged off the field toward our coach who, for all his lectures about obeying his orders, was grinning like he’d just won the Super Bowl.

Chapter Twelve

Part 2

After the game, which had turned into a total rout in the second half, I sat in Coach Rinaldi’s office, listening to the distant celebrations of the Hillside fans. I was all showered and clean, dressed in my street clothes, and the band was still out there playing while the fans chanted. The final score was 45 to 23. We had scored six touchdowns in the second half. Dorchester had scored only one and missed the extra point. It was kind of embarrassing, actually. For them, of course.

Outside the glass door to the office, Coach talked to the scout from Penn State. Penn State. Here to see me. I still couldn’t wrap my brain around it. The guy was at least six foot five, three hundred pounds, and looked fairly imposing in his suit and tie. He kept nodding, and I could see that whatever he was saying was pleasing the coach. Rinaldi’s eyes gleamed with excitement.

Finally the door opened and I jumped to my feet, remembering my manners. This could be one of the most important meetings of my life.

“Mike Riley, I’d like you to meet Richard Klint, the football scout from Penn State,” Coach Rinaldi said.

“Hello, sir,” I said cordially, extending my hand.

“Call me Richard,” he replied, his voice booming. His hand was huge and calloused and his grip firm. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, son. A real pleasure.”

“Thank you, sir . . . uh . . . Richard,” I said.

He laughed and slapped me on the back. “Let’s have a seat.”

We did, and he pulled his chair close to mine so we were facing each other. Coach sat in his desk chair on the edge of his seat. A cheer went up outside, and Richard sat up a bit straighter.

“Fanfare’s still going on out there. That’s all for you, you know,” he said. “You were the consummate hero out there today.”

“Well, thanks. But it was a team effort,” I replied.

“Humble, too,” he said with a grin. “Listen, Mike. I like the way you played out there today. I like it a lot. We all know that first half was not your best, but you showed real heart and conviction coming out there the way you did in the second. That takes some real strength of character to put something like that behind you and to elevate your play the way you did. I was impressed.”

“Th . . . thank you,” I said.

The irony of these compliments was not lost on me. I wouldn’t have had to show any strength of character if I hadn’t been totally character-free in the first half and cheated my teammates to save my own skin.

“And you were playing with a fresh injury. That shows some real endurance, he said.

I was blushing now and touched my arm. “That was just incidental,” I said. “Nothing big.”

“I like this kid, Rinaldi!” Richard and Coach both laughed as if they were in on some private joke together. I shifted in my seat, my pulse racing with excitement. It seemed as if this meeting was going rather well. Though whether I deserved it, I had no idea.

“Your fundamentals are strong, but you also have your own distinctive style,” he continued. “Coach tells me that touchdown pass to lead off the third was all you?”

I glanced at Coach uncertainly and he nodded, prodding me to take the credit. I guess he really wasn’t mad about that.

“Yeah, well, I thought it would be good to show them that we weren’t just going to slink off the field,” I said. “I wanted to show them what we were made of.”

Richard’s face lit up. “That’s great, son. I like that attitude. You exemplify everything we look for in a leader at Penn State. I hope you haven’t predetermined your college plans, have you?”

I was dumbfounded. Yeah I have, I thought. I’ve wanted to go to your school my entire life. Just say the word and I’m there. But somehow I managed to keep it together and not say too much. Didn’t want to show him all my cards right up front.

“No, sir,” I replied.

“Well, good. Because a decision like that takes a lot of deliberation, and you need to have all the facts,” he said. “I’d love for you to come out and take a look at our program. In fact, don’t just think of me as a football scout, think of me as an emissary for the entire school. We need a stand-up guy like you at our university.”

A stand-up guy like me. Right. The guy who just spent thirty minutes of football taking a dive.

“Wow. That’s great,” I said. I had no idea what else to say.

“Great. I’ll give your parents a call and maybe we can meet up this weekend so I can extend the invitation to you all,” he said. “I can’t disclose the details of our offer until you come visit the school, but I can tell you there will be one. Although I expect after today you’ll be inundated with offers. We scouts don’t take a comeback like that lightly.”

My entire mouth was dry. I felt as if I had done something crafty, eating dirt in the first half just so I could show what I was made of in the second. It was unbelievable how well this whole negative situation had turned out. Thank God Ian had gone all meddler on me and talked to Gray. Otherwise I’d be sitting out there with my head hanging between my knees, afraid to show my face.

“All right. I should go and give those other guys a crack at ya,” Richard said, standing and extending his hand. “They’re lining up to talk to you, but I trust you’re gonna make the right decision. Am I right?” he asked with a wink.

I shook his hand and smiled. “Yes, sir.”

“Richard!”

“Okay! Okay! Richard,” I said.

“Talk to you soon, kid.”

Coach ushered him outside, then stuck his head back in. “I’m going to say good-bye to him, then I’ll bring in the guy from Michigan,” he said. “You sit tight. You’re gonna be here a while,” he added with a grin.

“Okay,” I said, still baffled.

He closed the door, and I sat back down in my chair and stared at the wall, unable to believe the way this day had turned around. A scout from Penn State was wooing me. He wanted me to come play for one of the dominant football teams in the country. Ever so slowly, my lips curled into a self-satisfied grin. For the first time in a while, I was optimistic about my future. For the first time in a while, I felt on top of the world.

Chapter Twelve

Part 3

By the time I was done meeting and greeting all the scouts, I was feeling quite content with myself. It seemed as if every last one of them was determined to talk me into coming to their school. Suddenly, my options were endless, and I couldn’t wait to talk to my parents. They were going to be beside themselves.

My jollity was cut short, however, when I came around the corner in the hallway and found Gray, Lenny, and Rick waiting for me. Perfect. Just what I needed to overshadow an otherwise triumphant moment— harassment from this band of goons. At least Ogre was, for some reason, absent. I was loath to go anywhere near them, but they had already spotted me. There was no escape. I walked over, my head now hanging.

“What’s up, fellas?” I said.

Gray and Rick wore their old red and black Hillside varsity jackets to show their support with the rest of the fans, while Lenny had gone with his usual black leather, apparently too cool to get with the program.

“Hey, Mike! Great game today!” Rick said in his usual chipper manner. “You really persevered out there. Those Dorchester idiots are still licking their wounds.”

I blinked. Not the negative welcome I was expecting, but I would definitely take it. Gray, however, reached up and smacked Rick on the back of the head. Apparently there was some discord among the group about how I should be treated.

“Ow! What?” Rick said, touching his head and grimacing. “I’m just saying he played well.”

“Wake up, Ricky. This is still the guy that cheated us out of our hard-earned cash,” Lenny said gruffly.

“Exactly,” Gray said, rounding his shoulders. He looked me up and down and sneered. “That was some exemplary play out there, though, Riley,” he said sarcastically. “Did you have some good meetings with all those scouts?”

“Yeah,” I said uncertainly. I raised my chin and looked him in the eye, hoping to win back some of my pride. “There’s some interest.”

“That’s great, kid. You’re still the golden boy,” Gray said. “Too bad no one around here will ever know what a complete fraud you are.”

He reached up and slapped his hand down on the back of my neck, hard. I resisted, but he managed to pull me toward him in his death grip. Fear squeezed my heart. Most of the fans had long since gone home, and there would be no one around to witness it if these guys ganged up on me. Maybe I could put up a good fight—after all, Rick was kind of a wuss—but there was no way I could overpower both Gray and Lenny.

“Come on, you guys,” I said. “Winter and Ian said we had a deal.”

“We do,” Lenny told me, rubbing his hands together. “We just want to make sure you know to take that deal seriously. After all, we wouldn’t want to have to propagate some rumor about the Hillside hero fixing a game to right a gambling debt.”

My heart swooped in my chest. “You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t we?” Gray said. “We could debunk your whole image just like that,” he said, snapping the fingers of his free hand. “So don’t mess with us, all right? You better show up at that poker game, and you better be ready to pay up.”

“Okay,” I said, as he tightened the vice on my neck. “Okay. I got it.”

“Good,” he said, shoving me away. I stood up, his fingerprints raw on my skin. “Otherwise you might not have the longevity to even make it to Michigan or USC. You get me?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. Damn, this kid sure had the menacing thing down.

We all heard footsteps and looked up to see my parents entering through the gym lobby doors. The moment they spotted us, my mother’s face creased with concern.

“Michael?” she said.

“That’s our cue,” Lenny announced.

Great. What could be better for the ego than to be saved by my mommy and daddy?

“Good game tonight, man. Really,” Gray said congenially, patting me on the back. “We’ll see you soon.”

The three guys sauntered off together, passing my parents by on the way out the door. They even congratulated my mom and dad on my performance, and my parents looked relieved. They erroneously thought their first impression had been wrong when they believed these guys were threatening me. By the time I joined the two of them, they were both beaming with pride.

“Michael! What an incredible game!” my mother said, planting a kiss on my cheek.

“I met a couple of those scouts on their way out. Everyone wants to come by the house tomorrow and meet you, son. Including the guys from Penn State,” my father said.

“I know. I can’t believe it,” I said, forcing a smile.

My father patted me on the shoulder. “You did it, kiddo. You’re gonna get that scholarship.”

“I know. Thanks, Dad,” I said.

Inside, my stomach was in knots. Lately, absolute comfort and happiness were proving to be elusive things. Whenever I was up, it wasn’t for very long. There was always someone or something waiting around to remind me of the mess I had made.

“Everything okay, son?” my dad asked.

Apparently my acting skills weren’t up to par. For a split second I thought about confessing everything. It was clear to me, in that moment, that coming clean was inevitable. Sooner or later they were going to call the bank, and even if all the money was miraculously back in place by that point, they would get a statement and see that it had once gone down to zero. I would have to explain why I had emptied my account. Eventually they were going to know what I had done.

But now was not the time. They were so excited for me just then, and I didn’t want to take that away from them.

“Yeah! Totally!” I replied. “Just a little tired.”

“Well, you’ll have to get your second wind,” my mother said. “We’re going out to celebrate.”

“Okay,” I said with a smile. “Let’s do it.”

May as well enjoy what could be my last day as the perfect son.

Vocabulary Drill

Chapter Twelve

congenially · pleasantly

consummate · complete

contagious · spreading

content · happy

conviction · confidence

cordially · agreeably

counteract · go against

crafty · sly

cue · signal

debunk · disprove

deliberation · thought

demean · degrade

demolished · destroyed

dignity · respectability

disclose · reveal

discord · disagreement

distinctive · unique

dominant · strongest

ecstasy · joy

efficient · effective

elevate · raise

elusive · evasive

emissary · representative

endurance · stamina

eradicate · destroy

erroneously · in error

evaporate · disappear

exemplary · outstanding

exemplify · embody

exploit · use

fanfare · cheering

formidable · challenging

fraud · phony

fundamentals · basics

harassment · hassle

heckler · person yelling insults

incidental · accidental

inevitable · unpreventable

infamy · shame

innumerable · countless

intemperate · brutal

intransigent · unyielding

inundated · flooded

irony · paradox

jollity · merriment

loath · reluctant

longevity · endurance

meddler · one who interferes

merriment · happiness

mystified · confused

negate · cancel

onset · start

optimistic · hopeful

overshadow · darken

persevered · endured

predetermined · decided in advance

propagate · generate

reveling · celebrating

sauntered · strolled

Chapter Thirteen

Part 1

The big poker game was being held at Rick’s family’s ostentatious mansion on the outskirts of town. Gray was adamant from the beginning that he would be the one to pick the location. He didn’t trust me as far as he could throw me, basically, so he didn’t want it to be at my house or Ian’s, and I guess he wanted to avoid his own house since I had already managed to cheat them there. So Rick’s place it was.

Rick lived up the hill from Ian and was pretty much the only guy I knew who was even more affluent than my best friend. Back when he was in school, people always wondered why he didn’t hang out with other kids in his own tax bracket, but I understood. Those people saw Rick as a dorky, scrawny, wannabe football player. He didn’t belong with them. So Gray and his friends on the team took him under their wing. I had always thought that was cool of them—that their charity in Rick’s case meant that they were, in fact, kind people. Lately I had started to question that theory.

I was both extremely nervous and hopeful as I approached the front door. After tonight I might be able to get this onerous burden of guilt off my back. Not to mention the even more onerous debt. Or, of course, I might end up dead at the bottom of a ditch somewhere when Gray and his friends realized that, even if they won, I had no way to pay them back.

What the hell am I doing? I wondered, holding my breath. I felt like I was standing on the doorstep to hell. But still, for some reason, I reached out and rang the bell.

Rick came to the door a few moments later. He grinned when he saw me standing there.

“Mike Riley! How you doing, man?” he asked.

It was amazing how, even after everything that had happened, Rick’s attitude toward me hadn’t changed at all. It was as if he was proud to welcome me into his house.

“Watch your step,” he said as he led me into the capacious front hall. “My parents are in the middle of refurbishing the place, so there’s a lot of crap everywhere. Sorry about that.”

“Oh, no problem,” I said, stepping over a drop cloth. A towering ladder was propped up against the two-story-high wall and the chandelier above was covered with another cloth. Half the ornate wallpaper had been stripped down and the walls beneath were bare and dotted with spackle.

“We’re playing in the dining room,” he said, his voice echoing off the high walls as he led me through a door to the right. “They’re already done in there, so it’s a little less cluttered. Though I have to apologize for the décor. The artisan they hired got a little zealous with the Native American theme.”

Like I cared even the slightest bit about the décor. I was worried for my life, here.

Rick pushed open a pair of heavy double doors and together we stepped into the opulent dining room. He was certainly right about his parents going over the top. They had definitely not gone for an austere look. The sideboard and counters around the table were crammed with Native American artifacts, everything from headdresses and beads to a bow and arrow to what appeared to be a buffalo skull. The color palette was all browns, oranges, and reds, and the chandelier of the freshly burnished wooden table was decorated with feathers and dream-catchers. I could have stared at this stuff all day if it wasn’t for the small crowd of people at the far end of the huge table. A crowd that included not only Gray, Ogre, and Lenny, but also Winter and Ian.

“What are you guys doing here?” I blurted.

They looked so serious that I briefly thought Lenny and Ogre had abducted them or something, to use them as collateral if I lost.

Okay, so I watch too many movies. But seeing them there was that unexpected.

“They came to play,” Gray said as Rick and I joined them.

“What do you mean?” I asked Ian. “Are you gonna be my surrogate or something?” I asked with a nervous laugh. “Play in my place in case something happens to me?”

I glanced nervously at Ogre and Lenny, who were standing behind Gray like a couple of sentries, acting all aloof. Their expressions didn’t change at all. Apparently they didn’t think I was funny, which put me even more on edge.

“No. We’re going to play with you,” Winter said, glancing at her brother. “These guys have agreed to a game of three on three. Whichever team ends up with the most chips at the end of five hands, wins. Evens the playing ground a little bit, right, Gray?” she added pointedly.

Ogre and Lenny exchanged a look and Gray nodded resolutely. I could tell none of these guys were very happy about the new rules, but apparently Winter had somehow persuaded her brother into this fairer course of action. I couldn’t believe she had stuck her neck out there on my behalf in this way. Apparently she really did love me. I could have kissed her right then and there if I didn’t think her brother would instantly tear me to shreds.

“This way we won’t be here all night,” Gray said, cracking his knuckles. “We all have better things to do than watching you squirm.”

“I don’t,” Lenny said, clenching his jaw. Clearly he really just wanted me to suffer.

“You guys don’t have to do this,” I told Ian and Winter, even though I felt buoyed by the way in which they had cleaved themselves to me. It felt so much better with them backing me up. Although I had no idea whether Winter could actually play. Of course, this didn’t seem like the appropriate time to quiz her about that.

“All right. Just so we’re all clear, here’s the deal,” Gray said, looking around at all of us. “Me, Ogre, and Lenny are playing Mike, Ian, and Winter in five hands.”

“You’re not playing?” I asked Rick.

He shrugged. “We figured I should sit out since it’s my house.”

I nodded. Yeah, right. More like he should sit out because he was their least effective player.

“Whichever team ends with the most chips, wins,” Gray continued. “If you guys win, Mike’s debt is wiped clean.”

Lenny grumbled at this point, and Gray shot him a silencing glare.

“If we win, you guys not only owe us all the money we win tonight, but also all the money Mike won from us after he cheated the other night,” Gray finished, saying the last few words through his teeth.

I felt sick to my stomach. That was so much money I could barely even fathom it. “Can I talk to my friends for a second?” I asked.

Gray nodded. “You have one minute.”

I pulled Winter and Ian aside and lowered my voice. “Listen, I appreciate you guys being so solicitous, believe me, but where the hell are we going to get that kind of money?”

Ian looked me in the eye, his expression firm. “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

My heart dropped. “Dude, I can’t let you put up all that cash. I can’t advocate that.”

“You don’t have a choice, man,” Ian said. “I’m doing it. If we lose—which we will not—I’ll just have to cut back on my lifestyle a little bit.”

“Ian—”

“I hear a life of privation is good for the soul,” Winter interrupted with a smile.

“Totally,” Ian said, grinning as well. “Come on, man. We have no other choice. Let’s just get this over with.”

I was so grateful at that moment I could have hugged him, but I didn’t. I knew Gray and the other guys would mock me for the rest of the night if I did, and I was going to be under enough strain as it was.

“You tools ready yet?” Gray asked.

“Thanks, buddy,” I said to Ian. “I owe you big time.”

“You better believe it,” he said.

I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. “All right,” I said to Gray. “Let’s do this.”

Gray offered his hand and we shook, sealing the deal. There was no turning back now. After just five hands of poker, my fate would be sealed.

Chapter Thirteen

Part 2

After two hands of play, our teams seemed to be fairly even. Gray had won the first pot, which was thankfully not that big. All of us had constrained our betting while we sized one another up. On the second hand, all my questions about Winter’s poker abilities had been answered. She had won the pot, slightly larger than the first, after some canny betting. Ogre was so confounded that she beat him he had actually grown animated for a second, demanding to see her cards. He had studied everything for a good five minutes before finally conceding that her flush was valid and that it did, in fact, beat his straight.

Now we were on our third hand. The room was deathly silent as Ian, Gray, and Lenny stared at one another, trying to discern who was for real and who was bluffing. They were the only three left in this hand. Even though it pained me to do so—considering we were only playing these games to save my ass—I had folded early on a seriously crappy hand, wanting to hold on to as many of my chips as possible. I had to be smart in this game, not prideful.

“I think you’re bluffing,” Gray said finally, watching Ian, who didn’t even blink. “It’s totally speculative, of course, but I think you’re bluffing. So I see your bet and I raise you double.”

He tossed his chips into the pot where they clinked against the others. I quickly calculated the amount in the center of the table and saw dollar signs. Winning this hand would definitely help me. It would give our team a little breathing room, which we sorely needed.

Ian leaned forward and tossed his chips in, seeing Gray’s bet without a word. I saw Gray’s Adam’s apple bob up and down. He wasn’t expecting Ian to do that so casually.

Everyone looked at Lenny. After betting the farm in the first two hands, he was almost bereft of chips. He narrowed his eyes, bending his two pliable hole cards back and forth between his hands. Clearly he was nervous. It was like he had forgotten how to bluff.

“Screw it. I’m in,” he said. And he shoved at least half his chips into the center of the table.

Gray sighed, irritated. I was practically salivating. If Lenny lost this hand they were going to be seriously down.

“Okay. Dealing the river,” Rick said.

He flipped the card over and no one moved.

“I’m in,” Gray said finally, tossing in a few more chips.

Ian followed suit, keeping his mouth shut. Lenny smirked and pushed the rest of his chips into the pot. Unbelievable. Lenny was going all in. If he lost, he would be out of the game. Then it would be two against three in favor of us. Didn’t he apprehend how tonight’s game was working?

“All right. Let’s see what everyone’s got,” Rick said.

“Four of a kind, baby!” Lenny cried, standing up and slapping his cards down with a triumphant grin. There they were, all four tens—two in the hole, two on the table.

Gray looked relieved. “That beats me,” he said, slapping hands with Lenny as he stood as well. “What about you, O’Connor?”

I glanced warily at Winter, who looked extremely pale under the dim light of the chandelier. Ian kept his expression stolid as he turned over his hole cards. I glanced quickly from them to the center of the table and my heart caught.

“Holy crap. He’s got a straight flush,” I said.

“Yes!” Winter cheered, jumping out of her seat and flinging her arms around Ian’s neck.

Gray and Lenny’s faces fell. “No way! No freakin’ way!” Lenny shouted. He lunged at Ian, shouting aspersions, and Ian jumped out of his chair, backing himself and Winter up and out of harm’s way. My heart hit my throat. Ogre shot out of his seat, grabbing Lenny’s arm as Gray tried to control him as well. I got up and put myself between the guys and Ian, my pulse pounding through my veins. If anyone was going to be assailed here, it should be me.

“Dude! Calm down!” Gray said, his muscles flexing.

“He cheated! He freakin’ cheated! I know he did. Check his pockets! Check the cards!” Lenny shouted, repudiating his loss. He strained against his friends, and I clenched my fists, ready for a fight. He didn’t look like he was going to remain tractable for very long.

“He didn’t cheat,” Ogre said quietly. “He just beat you.”

Lenny’s eyes widened, and for a second I thought he was going to buffet his friend, but gradually the fight started to go out of him.

“Dude, just go upstairs and calm down,” Gray said, releasing his grip on Lenny’s shirt. “You’re out of the game.”

Lenny yanked himself away from his friends and pushed his hands over his greasy hair. For a second I thought he was going to freak out again, but instead he cursed under his breath and stormed out of the room. No one moved. A minute later we heard a far-door slam.

Gray looked at Ian. “Take your chips, man,” he said tersely.

Ian did, and then we all got back to the game.

Chapter Thirteen

Part 3

On the fourth hand, Winter folded quickly. She seemed to have an affinity for holding on to her chips, which I was grateful for. Her winnings and holdings were going to make up a big chunk of our final pot. I, however, decided to stay in on this one. After the flop I had a pair of kings and a queen, and the rest of the flop cards were low, which meant that if the other guys had pairs, they were lower than mine. It was the first time the cards hadn’t stuck me in an adverse situation. I saw Gray’s bet and raised him double. Ogre stayed in and Ian folded.

“Dealing the turn,” Rick said.

I held my breath, hoping against hope for another queen. I didn’t get it. The turn was a four. But still a low card. A pair of kings was still a decent hand, and I couldn’t give up now. Not on my first good hand of the night. Then Gray helped me out a bit. He folded—with obvious reluctance.

“Your bet,” Rick said, glancing at me.

I placed a few chips in the pot—enough to make Ogre realize how confident I was. Maybe a bold move would repulse him and he would fold. But Ogre was restive and wouldn’t do what I wanted. Without flinching, he saw my bet.

All righty then. So much for my plan. Rick started to deal the river, but Ogre cut him off.

“Wait. Raise,” he said, ever concise. Then he tossed triple his bet into the pot.

My heart dropped. Winter and Ian both squirmed. Okay. This was a conundrum. What cards could Ogre possibly have? Was he just bluffing? It was impossible to tell. The guy never changed facial expression even when he wasn’t playing poker.

But come on. All I needed was a king or a queen on the river and I would have either two high pair or a high three of a kind. He couldn’t beat that, right? Whatever. I couldn’t back down now. I had to make a leap of faith.

“I’ll see that,” I said, tossing the chips in.

I heard Winter intake a sharp breath and ignored her. I was fine. Of course the butterflies in my stomach lacked my total credulity. I tried to keep them at bay, breathing slowly in and out.

You’re fine, I told myself. It’s going to be fine.

But I only had a few chips left. And if Ogre took this pot . . .

“Dealing the river,” Rick said.

He flipped the card over. It was a six.

Okay. That’s good. You still have a pair of kings, I told myself. He’s got nothing.

Ogre placed his final bet.

“I call,” I said, equaling his chips.

Come on, I thought. I need this. I need this one . . .

“Let’s see,” Ogre grunted, lifting his chin ever so slightly at me.

“Pair of kings,” I said, forcing a confident smile to my face.

Everyone stared at Ogre.

Please let me win this . . . please let me win this . . . please let me—

And for the first time all night, Ogre smiled.

Oh, crap.

“Seven-high straight,” he said, turning his cards over.

And there it was. A straight. Right in front of my eyes. Somehow I had allowed myself to grow complacent, and I had entirely missed the components right there on the table. Ian groaned. Winter sunk in her seat. Gray and Ogre high-fived as bile rose up in my throat. I had just lost half my team’s chips on a stupid, idiotic play.

Chapter Thirteen

Part 4

After four hands of play, we aggregated our chips and compared the totals with Gray so we would all know where we stood for the fifth and final hand. Winter, Ian, and I were down. Not by much, but we were down. One of us had to win the fifth hand, or my life, basically, was over. Rick dealt the hole cards, and all the muscles in my shoulders coiled. I was afraid to look at them. This was it. The culmination of all the misery and tension and guilt and fear. It all came down to this one hand.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and said a quick prayer. Then I checked my cards. An eight and a six, suited. Not horrible, but not the greatest draw in the world either.

Next to me, Winter shifted in her seat. Not a good sign. I glanced at Ian, and when he looked at me I knew he didn’t have the cards. Apparently, I was staying in no matter what. One of us had to pony up and play, or it would be over right here and now.

“Gray?” Rick said.

“I’m in,” Gray replied, tossing a couple of chips in the pot.

Ogre grunted and followed suit.

Ian sighed and shook his head. “Can’t do it, man,” he said, tossing his cards toward Rick. “I fold.”

“Tell me you have good cards,” Winter whispered to me. I subjugated my fear and remained expressionless. I knew Gray and Ogre were watching me closely. Winter sighed. “I fold.”

“And then there was one,” Gray said with an amused smirk.

I wanted to jump over the table and deck him. The compulsion was so great that I even came out of my seat a little bit. But Winter laid her hand on my arm, and I stayed in my chair. I had to maintain some kind of propriety. If I attacked Gray, I knew the deal would be off. Besides, if this hand went south for me, we were all going to be brawling soon enough. Why rush it?

“Mike? Your bet,” Rick said.

I stared Gray in the eye, picked up a couple of chips, and saw his bet. In a different situation I might have even raised him, but I was playing for my life here and needed to be a little bit stingy. But still, I was going to avenge my last loss. I was going to put this guy in his place. He and that cocky smile of his were going down.

I hoped.

“Dealing the flop,” Rick said.

He turned the three cards over. There were two eights and a ten.

Yes! Yes, yes, yes! I thought. Rick had given me a three of a kind. A great start. It took every ounce of willpower I had to keep from smiling.

I looked at Gray. He blew out a sigh and raised the bet. His cards weren’t great. I could tell. That sigh belied his confidence. He was only raising to try to throw me off. I wanted to look at Ian to see if he confirmed my suspicions, but I couldn’t look at anyone for fear of giving something away.

Ogre saw Gray’s bet, and I called. I didn’t want to throw more money in there than I needed to. At least not yet.

“Dealing the turn,” Rick said.

His hands were shaking as he turned the card over. The tension was even getting to him. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the card. The six of hearts. I had a full house, and the river hadn’t even been dealt yet.

Everyone looked at Gray. “I’ll raise,” he said, throwing in a few chips. My heart skipped a couple thousand beats. What the hell did he have in his hand? He put his elbow on the table and placed his fist to his mouth. These were all such obvious tells. Was it all an act? If it was and I fell for it, I would be vituperating myself for the rest of my life.

But my gut told me he was bluffing. I had to go with my gut. I knew I had been wrong in the past, but this was too important. I had to trust myself.

Ogre folded with a grunt and stared down at the table. Ian sighed and leaned forward, placing both hands over his face. One down, one to go. It was down to me and Gray.

I stared Gray in the eye. “I raise,” I said, throwing double the chips into the pot.

“Oh my God,” Winter said under her breath.

My stomach turned with doubt. What am I doing? What am I doing?

But I just kept staring at Gray. Give up, I willed him. Give up now.

“Fine,” he said. “I call.”

His chips clicked against the others. The pot had grown big enough that if I won the hand, I would get out of here scot-free.

“Okay. Dealing the river,” Rick said.

He slapped the card down. Another six. Gray didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. He just stared at the cards as if he could see through them. The six didn’t improve my hand, but did it improve his? Well, clearly. Because even if he had nothing before, he had a pair of sixes now. Not enough to beat me though.

“I check,” Gray said.

“I call,” I replied, my throat dry.

For a moment, no one moved. This was it. The moment that would decide the rest of my life.

Whatever happens, just be a man, I told myself. Take it like a man.

“Let’s see both hands,” Rick said.

Gray turned his cards over. A ten and a jack. “Two pair,” he said.

Quaking, I turned my own cards over. “Full house.”

“Yes!” Ian shouted, standing up so fast his chair fell over.

Winter squealed and threw herself into my arms as I stood. I hugged her tightly, reveling in the most sublime moment of my life. It was over. It was really and truly over.

“What happened?” Lenny demanded, running back into the room for the first time in an hour. Clearly he had been hovering outside, listening for our reactions. “What happened?”

“They won,” Gray said flatly. He looked disgusted. Clearly, losing was unpalatable to him. Not that I could blame him. No one liked to lose. Especially after being cheated. But we had made a deal and he had come up with the terms. He had to accept the loss.

“What? No way! When I left, you guys had a tenable lead!” Lenny shouted, growing red.

“Dude, calm down,” Gray told him. “They won and it was fair. We made a deal. It’s over.” Talk about taking it like a man.

“Yeah, it is!” Ian shouted, reaching out to slap my hand.

“No. No way,” Lenny said. “I’m not losing out on all that cash after he cheated. One more game, Gray,” he said. “I’ll go up against him one-on-one.”

Gray put his hand on Lenny’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “When I say it’s over, it’s over,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what happened in the last game. This game, we lost. You’re not going to coerce me into changing my mind.”

Lenny stared me down for a long moment, and his severe aversion to me was clear. I had a feeling that if he ever saw me on the street, we would be in for the throw-down of our lives. But for now, he was going to back down. Because Gray was the man in charge. And I wasn’t important enough to merit a coup.

Gray walked around the table, and as he approached, Winter reached out and clutched my hand, as if she was afraid Gray might try something. Instead, he offered his own hand in congratulations.

“Nice game, man,” he said.

“Thanks.”

He gripped my palm and pulled me toward him. My heart swooped, but I looked him in the eye.

“You better never come near me again if you want to live, got me?” Gray said.

I swallowed hard. “Got it.”

Gray released me and turned toward the door. “Let’s get out of here. I need a beer.”

Ogre got up and loped off after Gray. Lenny also reluctantly followed. Rick, after looking at us uncertainly, finally scurried off as well. Apparently doing as Gray said was more important than leaving random people alone in his own house.

“Well. Guess we’ll be hanging out at your house from now on,” Winter said dryly.

I laughed and leaned down to give her a nice, long kiss. Then I looked at Ian and we both grinned. I was free. And I owed it all to them.

Vocabulary Drill

Chapter Thirteen

abducted · kidnapped

adamant · forceful

adverse · unfavorable

advocate · supporter

affinity · preference

affluent · wealthy

aggregated · collected

aloof · standoffish

animated · overly lively

apprehend · perceive

artifacts · relics

artisan · craftsman

aspersions · slanderous insults

assailed · attacked

austere · simple

avenge · take vengeance for

aversion · dislike

belied · contradicted

bereft · without

buffet · strike

burnished · polished

canny · shrewd

capacious · roomy

cleaved · stuck

coerce · force

complacent · unconcerned

conceding · accepting

concise · exact

confounded · confused

constrained · restricted

conundrum · problem

coup · takeover

credulity · willingness to believe

culmination · climax

onerous · troublesome

opulent · fancy

ostentatious · showy

palette · range

pliable · flexible

privation · being deprived

propriety · appropriate behavior

refurbishing · renovating

reluctance · hesitance

repudiating · refusing to accept

repulse · drive away

restive · resistant to control

solicitous · concerned

speculative · guesswork

stingy · cheap

stolid · unemotional

subjugated · subdue

sublime · glorious

surrogate · substitute

tenable · able to be held

tractable · controllable

unpalatable · distasteful

vituperating · condemning

zealous · impassioned

Chapter Fourteen

Part 1

I sat in the basement of our local VFW hall, looking around at the legion of gambling addicts who had gathered for that evening’s Gamblers Anonymous meeting. I had finally, finally, liberated myself by confessing everything to my parents, and they had been, understandably, mystified. They had queried me for hours, growing more and more frustrated and hysterical as I related the details of what I had done. My guilt and remorse had been almost overpowering, but I had managed to sit there and take it all—their anger, their disappointment, their scorn—everything. When the shock had finally died down, they had insisted that I join GA, and I had been going to meetings for four weeks now. At this point, it was my home away from home.

At first I had dreaded coming to the meetings. I had this perception that the place was going to be filled with gruff, overweight losers—older guys who had nothing better to do with their time than to squander their cash. And there were some guys like that, but the more meetings I attended, the more I realized that there was no way to generalize the people that came to these things. The people here were old and young, male and female, white, African-American, Asian American. The only attribute we all had in common was that we had a problem and had finally come to admit it.

Every meeting was the same. People filed in and took their seats in an orderly fashion, then one of the more entrenched members got up to run the meeting. Each week there was a speaker, someone who got up to tell the story of how he or she had hit rock bottom. They were stories of reckless betting and reprehensible behavior. Stories that inevitably ended up with the speaker finding him- or herself a solitary outcast, shunned by family and friends. Some of these people had been in jail, had rendered their families penniless, had been on the verge of suicide. Listening to them was therapeutic, but also scary. I recognized myself in the beginnings of their stories—the inability to stop betting, the lust for the thrill of a win—and realized I could have ended up in a much worse place than I had.

I was so grateful that I had my parents and my friends.

After the meetings, the vibe became more sociable as everyone gathered to chat, sip coffee, and eat the snacks that some of the members provided. I had met some cool people, including a couple of guys and a girl who had graduated from my high school within the past five years. The more people like that I met, the more I realized I wasn’t alone and the more comfortable I became.

Tonight it was finally going to be my turn to share my story. I was a little reluctant to do so. I had a feeling that some of the more hardened guys in the group were going to think my story was lame compared to some of the things they had gone through. But I had to do it. It was all part of the process.

“And now I believe that one of our newer members would like to take the floor,” Betty Cross, one of the older ladies, said into the microphone. “Come on up, son,” she said, gesturing to me.

I stood up and walked to the microphone, looking out at the group. Even though I had felt nurtured by many of the members, I expected some people to look away or scoff at the pretty boy in his varsity jacket. But when I looked out at their faces, the predominant expression was one of interest and concern. I could do this. These people were just like me. They wanted to help.

“Hi,” I said into the microphone. “My name is Mike, and I have a gambling problem.”

“Hi, Mike!” they chorused back at me.

And somehow just promulgating the issue made me feel better. I took a deep breath and began to tell my story.

Chapter Fourteen

Part 2

“An A, baby! Did I mention that I got an A?!” I cried, pulling my history paper out of my bag and holding it up. Ian glanced at me from behind the wheel of his car and rolled his eyes. “Oh . . . and what’s this?” I said, yanking out my English midterm. “Oh, yeah! Another A!”

“Dude, if you don’t quit shoving your grades down my throat I’m going to drive this car into a tree,” Ian said.

But he smiled. He knew how important it was that I had done well on my midterms. It was a momentous day. I had aced everything and was back on the honor roll, the team was on its way to the state finals in football, and Winter and I were doing well. I was finally starting to feel like myself again.

The only black cloud hanging over me was my parents. I knew that they were still disappointed in me, and I was going to have to earn back their trust, but these grades would go a long way to help me in that pursuit. I had been working my butt off for weeks, and it was finally paying off.

Ian pulled his car up at the end of my driveway. “Okay. We’re here. Get out,” he said flatly.

“Cheer up, man,” I said. “Bs and Cs aren’t that bad.”

Ian punched me hard on the shoulder and I laughed and got out of the car. As he drove off, I made a beeline right for the mailbox. Once upon a time I would check the mail only periodically, when I knew the new Sports Illustrated was coming or if I had ordered something off the Internet. Now I checked it every single day. I was waiting for the most important letter of my life.

I held my breath and popped open the little plastic door. There, under all the junk mail and bills, was a fat, white envelope. For a second I thought it was a mirage, but after I shook my head and blinked, it was still there. I reached in and yanked it out, showering the other envelopes all over the cold ground.

There it was—the blue and white Penn State logo in the top left corner. My name and address right in the center. I quickly ripped the package open and pulled out the letter.

Dear Mr. Riley,

Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you of your acceptance to Pennsylvania State University and the guarantee of your full athletic scholarship!

There it was. Words in black and white proclaiming that my dream had come true. Even after everything. After all the mistakes I had made, all the things I had done that could have sullied my reputation and killed my chances for good, all the obstacles I had placed in my own way, I had achieved my ultimate goal. I had subsisted. And I had been accepted to one of the most prominent football programs in the country, not to mention one of the best schools. I knew I was going to be nothing but a tyro on that team full of all-stars and future NFL players, but I couldn’t wait to learn from them. I couldn’t wait to experience everything that was coming my way.

I could barely repress the shout of joy that was bubbling up in my throat. Penn State’s head coach had called me himself last week to let me know that this was coming—as he did with all his top recruits—but having this tangible proof in my hands was beyond anything I had ever felt before. I was going to retain this letter for the rest of my life. It was my ticket out of Hillside, my ticket to a new life of success and prosperity.

“I did it,” I said to myself, giddy. “I got in!”

I grabbed up all the stuff from the ground and ran into the house to call my parents. I couldn’t recall ever having felt so overjoyed and relieved and vindicated in my entire life. It was time to celebrate.

Chapter Fourteen

Part 3

The following night I was behind the counter at the Hillside Burger King during an extreme lull, staring at the purple Formica wall across from me. Okay, so my life of success and prosperity was going to have to wait a little while. Right now I still had a debt to pay back. Right now I was still a minimum-wage grunt.

This job was another part of my deal with my parents. Aside from the required GA meetings, they had agreed to let me take a part-time job even though football season was still on. In fact, they had insisted on it. I would use any meager remuneration I received to start paying back the money I had taken out of my bank account, and I would work here until it was all paid back or until college started, whichever came first. Suffice it to say, I was taking as many extra shifts as possible to truncate my sentence.

The door opened and in walked Ian and Winter. I stood up a little straighter and smiled. Thank God. Someone to talk to other than Boris, my corpulent manager, and Carlos, the skittish fifteen-year-old who compared everything that happened in his life to another scene out of Star Wars.

“Yo, burger boy. Get me a Whopper with cheese and a chocolate milkshake,” Ian said loudly, slapping his hand down on the counter.

“Ha ha,” I said, leaning over to give Winter a quick kiss.

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Ian asked.

“Sorry,” Winter said. “I tried to talk him out of coming, but he wanted to see you in your uniform.”

“That’s okay. I can tolerate him as long as he brought you,” I said, giving her another kiss.

“Where’s my burger, beyotch?” Ian asked.

I squelched the urge to smack him upside the head and instead put his order in. “I need a Whopper with cheese,” I said into the microphone. Behind me in the kitchen, Carlos got to work putting the burger together. I grabbed a cup and placed it under the shake machine’s spout. The mechanism whirred to life with a groan as if it hadn’t been used in decades.

“What are you doing here anyway, man?” I asked Ian as I handed over his shake. “It’s Friday.”

“Oh, yeah! The Friday night game,” Winter said, wide-eyed. “What gives?”

“Yeah, well, I suspended that crap,” Ian said. He took a long pull on his straw and placed the cup down on the counter. “A couple of the guys came by the house tonight, but I rebuffed them. They were a little miffed, but I think it’s time to move on, don’t you?”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Well, call me paranoid, but I don’t really want to be responsible for the downfall of any more of my friends,” he said. “I mean, look at you, man. That hat alone is a travesty.

I stood up straight. “Come on,” I said, spreading my arms wide and executing a little turn. “You don’t like my look?”

Ian shuddered comically and I smirked.

“Actually, I’m a big proponent of the hat,” Winter stated. “I love a man in uniform.”

“Yeah, you do,” I said, leaning toward her again.

“Okay. You guys are gonna make me barf up this shake before I even get to the burger,” Ian said.

“Well, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean for you to have to cancel the whole game,” I told him. “If it’s me you’re worried about, don’t be. I don’t plan to relapse any time soon.”

“Or ever,” Winter said firmly.

“That’s what I meant,” I replied, blushing.

“It’s not just about you, man. I mean, Texas Hold ’Em was a novelty, but it’s over. I sense the imminent demise of that particular trend,” Ian said.

“Do you?” I asked with a smirk.

“Yeah. It’s proliferated to the point where it’s not cool anymore,” Ian said.

“And we all know you have to be on the cutting edge of cool,” I said, playing along.

“Exactly,” Ian said, leaning his elbows on the counter.

“So what’s next?” Winter asked. “You going to open a strip club or something?”

Ian raised his eyebrows as if considering this idea. “Nah. Too messy. Too many permits involved,” he said. “I’m gonna do something much more radical.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?” I asked.

“I’ve decided to put my latent math abilities to use for good instead of evil,” Ian said. He stood up and squared his shoulders, prepping for a serious announcement. “Kids, I’m joining the math team.”

Winter and I looked at each other, stunned into silence for exactly one second before we cracked up laughing.

“What?” Ian cried. “I think I can still salvage their season! Come on, Mike! What? You’re the only one who can be a joiner?”

And just like that, Ian—who had saved me so many times before—saved me once again. This time from an evening of complete Burger King boredom.

· · ·

NEXT WEEK: You're all done!

Vocabulary Drill

Chapter Fourteen

attribute · characteristic

corpulent · fat

demise · death

generalize · make assumptions

imminent · nearly at hand

latent · dormant

legion · multitude

liberated · freed

lull · slow period

mechanism · machinery

miffed · annoyed

mirage · illusion

momentous · important

novelty · something new

nurtured · cared for

obstacles · barriers

orderly · tidy

outcast · pariah

overpowering · overwhelming

paranoid · suspiciously fearful

perception · understanding

periodically · occasionally

predominant · prevailing

proclaiming · announcing

proliferated · increased rapidly, multiplied

prominent · well-known

promulgating · proclaiming

proponent · advocate

prosperity · economic well-being

pursuit · job

queried · questioned

radical · extreme

rebuffed · snub

recall · remember

reckless · irresponsible

relapse · backslide

reluctant · hesitant

remorse · regret

remuneration · pay

repress · hold back

retain · keep

salvage · save

scoff · express scorn

scorn · distain

sociable · friendly

solitary · alone

squander · waste

squelched · stifled

subsisted · persisted

sullied · tarnished

suspended · stop temporarily

tangible · real

therapeutic · medicinal

tolerate · endure

travesty · joke, mockery

truncate · to shorten

tyro · beginner