Avery saw Anna take the initiative to come over and talk to him.
The smile on his face instantly stretched all the way to his ears, and his eyes lit up.
Before Lin Wansheng could even speak, he was already thumping his chest like a big golden retriever wagging its tail. “No problem! Let’s go. Where to?”
Coach Bob was chatting with several members of the school board.
But out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Avery and Lin Wansheng following his eldest daughter toward the front yard, and alarm bells immediately went off in his head.
He strode forward and grabbed Avery by the arm.
“What are you two going to do?”
Anna turned back and looked at her father’s nervous expression, then said irritably,
“Dad, Mom asked me to go buy twenty bags of ice and some food. How am I supposed to carry all that by myself?”
With perfect confidence, she pointed at the two strong laborers beside her.
“Can’t I borrow your star players for a bit?”
Bob looked at Avery’s foolish, overjoyed expression.
A warning instantly filled his eyes.
He let go. “Then go buy the stuff.”
“And then come right back!” He put extra emphasis on the words “right back.”
……
……
……
Lin Wansheng followed the two of them into Avery’s Ford pickup.
Very considerately, he got into the back seat, leaving the passenger seat for Anna.
All along the way, Avery racked his brains trying to find topics, talking about everything from the latest movies to school gossip in an attempt to catch Anna’s attention.
Lin Wansheng, however, paid no attention to the interaction in the front row. He leaned against the window, watching the streetscape fly backward outside, while his mind replayed the conversation he had had with Maggie yesterday.
If he really could make something of himself in stand-up comedy,
then even if he failed to get a football scholarship in the end, maybe he could still earn enough for college tuition on his own and avoid taking on hundreds of thousands in loans.
In that case, in the days to come, he would also need to set aside some time
to properly polish his material. He couldn’t rely on improvising on the spot every time.
And he could also ask Cheng to film more videos of his stage performances and upload them online.
What if he went viral?
Just as Lin Wansheng’s thoughts were drifting farther away, the conversation in the front seat pulled him back.
“After we win next week, want to go see a movie together?”
Avery finally mustered his courage and issued an invitation.
Anna did not even turn to look at him. She simply looked at the road ahead and said directly,
“You know I never date football players, right?”
Avery choked for a moment, but he refused to give up and pressed, “Then who do you want to date?”
“I don’t want to date anyone,” Anna said, her tone still calm.
“My goal is Princeton. Are you going?”
Avery opened his mouth, but not a single word came out. In the end, all he could manage was a long, “Uh…”
……
Just as Avery sank into awkwardness and the atmosphere inside the car dropped to freezing,
the party at Coach Bob’s house welcomed new guests.
Hank brought Spencer into Bob’s new home.
As soon as he entered, Hank spread his arms wide and gave Bob a forceful hug, saying in a booming voice, “My running back, it’s been a long time.”
Bob’s smile stiffened for a moment. He patted Hank on the back, but his gaze went past him and landed on Spencer, who looked uncomfortable behind him.
“Your foot’s fine now? You seem to be walking pretty normally today.”
Spencer’s face instantly flushed red. He stammered, “Y-yeah, right. Uh, my foot’s fine.”
Bob looked at Hank, but there was not the slightest trace of embarrassment on Hank’s face, as if the farce at that game had never happened.
Bob could only point toward the backyard. “The food’s all out in the yard. Oh, right, Tom and the others are in there too.”
Hank walked into the backyard and was immediately surrounded by a group of old friends and members of the school board.
Holding a glass of beer, he chatted with everyone with practiced ease.
Suddenly, a voice rang out, not too loud and not too soft.
“Do you think Coach will keep letting that Asian kid play wide receiver next week?”
Hank looked toward the voice. The one speaking was Councilwoman Fula Houston’s campaign manager,
a guy who always liked stirring up trouble on any occasion.
Hank thought to himself, What a damn busybody.
A friend beside him had clearly noticed Hank’s face darken in an instant and immediately retorted loudly,
“How is that possible? Spencer is the real number one wide receiver! That Asian kid can run, sure, but his technique is way too rough.”
“Now that Spencer’s leg is fine, the starting spot has to be his!”
……
……
……
It took Lin Wansheng and the other two quite a while, and they looked like refugees
as they stuffed dozens of portions of grilled ribs, fried chicken wings, and twenty heavy bags of ice into the bed of the pickup.
By the time they drove back to the neighborhood, the sky had gradually grown dark.
However, when Avery parked the car in front of Bob’s house, all three of them sensed that something was wrong.
The originally noisy party was now strangely quiet.
Under the light spilling out from the house, there were no figures moving about and chatting. They could only faintly hear the sound of arguing.
Carrying large and small bags of food and ice, the three of them walked into the house in confusion.
The moment they stepped inside, the atmosphere in the entire room changed.
In the living room, everyone’s faces were ashen. The relaxed party mood from before had vanished entirely, replaced by a tense feeling like a storm about to break.
Kevin and several offensive players were gathered together, shouting excitedly about something, their faces full of anger.
Just as Lin Wansheng and the others were at a loss, Anna’s gaze fell on the floor-to-ceiling window in her own living room.
She let out a short gasp.
The floor-to-ceiling window had been reduced to nothing but its frame.
And on the carpet beneath it lay glass shards of every size.
A total mess.
Coach Bob and sponsor Tom’s faces were so dark they seemed ready to drip water.
Each of them held a brick in his hand, with what looked like a note tied to it.
Avery hurried over and saw the few scrawled words on the note.
“F*ck you all, Titans.”
“Damn it!” Avery instantly exploded. He slammed his fist into the wall beside him.
“It had to be those Wolf bastards from New Rochelle!”
Kevin, who had been arguing, saw Avery and the others come in and immediately roared with bloodshot eyes,
“Let’s go! Avery! We’re driving to New Rochelle right now!”
“We’re going to fuck those pieces of trash up today!”
But Coach Bob suddenly turned around and pressed a hand down on Kevin’s shoulder. The force was so great that Kevin instantly could not move.
“I want this matter to stop here.” Bob’s voice was not loud, but it carried an unquestionable authority.
He swept his gaze over every player present. “Don’t let it escalate any further.”
Looking at the unwilling flames of anger in the players’ eyes, he said, each word deliberate,
“Play the game properly.”
“I want them dead!”