Smashin' Word on the Street
Street told Saracen to hit the showers. Matt brushed shoulders with Smash on his way out the door, looking partly frustrated, but mostly exhausted, with undertones of confused and angry.
Smash didn’t try to hail the quarterback; didn’t try to slow down the boy. His business today wasn’t with Matt Saracen.
Jason turned his torso and nailed his former teammate with a look. “You got something to say, Williams?”
Smash unconsciously lowered his head, scuffed one sneaker-clad foot against the floor. He wasn’t talking to Jason Street, QB1. He was looking at a coach. But the news he was trying to deliver? Hell no, he wouldn’t have even said this to team captain and casual friend Jason Street. But the words had to be said. “Look, man, we ain’t exactly-well, I think… If it was Lyla telling Waverly, if it went the other way, I’d want you to tell me, that’s all.”
Jason tensed. He had no idea what Smash was talking about, but it couldn’t be good. “Spit it out, Smash.”
If Smash had looked, he would have seen something very like fear in Jason’s eyes. Would have seen that he thought Smash was delivering word that Lyla had betrayed him. Again. Or worse.
Because Jason couldn’t remember a time when the smooth-talking Smash Williams had been at a loss for words. The boy ran his mouth faster than he ran the ball, and he ran the ball pretty damn fast. But Smash didn’t look up, and his next words didn’t help much.
“She-I mean they-it’s-well, the girl’s a little crazy anyway.”
Muscles twitched along Jason’s clenched jaw and temple. “What did you do?” He bit out the words.
“Me? I didn’t do nothing. It was Waverly. She took your girl out to teach her shooting. Said she was getting real good. And, I just thought, if it was Lyla teaching Waverly how to use a gun…”
“Yeah, thanks.” Jason relaxed, just a tiny bit. And that was when he started to process what Smash had told him. “Wait. Lyla and Waverly are friends?” He remembers, suddenly, that Smash told him Waverly was bipolar. Street’s not sure what it means-Saracen had taken it in stride, but then, Saracen took a lot of family stuff that way.
“Friends with guns.” Smash paused, allowed the information to sink in, “I hear Lyla’s a pretty good shot, too.”
“My Lyla? Lyla Garrity?” For some reason, the thought of his perky brunette, the girl who everyone in Dillon (except Tyra Collette) loved, the girl who flew high and cheered loud and smiled bright, the thought of his dark-haired Texas angel with a gun in her hand-it didn’t compute. She’d irritated him with her hopefulness during his recovery, and she had betrayed him. But she made him feel. She was his fiancée. Sort of. She’d been his first true love-he’s not sure if she’s his one true love, but she was the first.
“There another Lyla in this town?” Smash asked.
Jason shrugged. “She hasn’t bought a gun, has she?”
“Not yet. But, uh, Street, I don’t think it goes too far to say that this Thelma and Louise act they’ve got going on could be very dangerous to us.”
“Only if we piss them off.” Which, Jason had to admit, he was doing a bang-up job of. Between getting a tattoo in Austin and ignoring her since coming back to Dillon? Lyla didn’t understand his new life-most days Jason didn’t quite understand it. He didn’t know if people from his old life could be part of his new life, but he didn’t think anything could be the same as it had been.
Smash took a hand out of his pocket, and picked at his T-shirt-white, bleached bright as his teeth. “Yeah, well, I know why my-why Waverly might be pissed at me. I don’t know what’s going on with you and your girl--,” Smash raised his hand to forestall comment “and I don’t wanna know. Just, you know, if it was me.”
Jason smiled a little. “Yeah? So what do you think I should do?”
“Buy a vest? Talk ammo shops out of giving bullets to cheerleaders? Maybe even talk to your girl. I dunno, but I thought you should.” Smash adjusted his shoulders again inside his Panther’s letterman jacket. “Night, Street.”
“Smash.” Jason raised his chin in a backwards nod that meant ‘thanks’ and ‘goodnight’ and ‘I’m glad you’re a friend.’ All with one word.
Smash acknowledged it with a grin and a flashy wave. Inside the coach persona that Jason Street had put on, there just may be a friend.