LOSING NOT AN OPTION FOR COACH KNOX AND NEW LIVINGSTON DAY SCHOOL LIONS FOOTBALL TEAM

The seniors on the New Livingston Day School football team are no strangers to championships. Led by star quarterback Dallas Gunther and dynamic wide receiver Chris Thompson, the Lions are seeking their third straight state championship, which would be a Connecticut state record. Gunther, who has over 10 Division I offers but has yet to formally commit to a school, has all the weapons to succeed -

I craned my neck sideways to catch the rest of the article as it spilled off the page, but my dad shuffled along to the next one.

The Wall Street Journal was my father's usual morning reading choice, except on game days. The scraping of my fork as I inhaled my scrambled eggs and the rustling of his newspaper were the only sounds preventing silence from taking over, but our mornings were always quiet. Sometimes it felt like he managed me the way he managed all his clients' wealth, the way he'd talk me in one direction or another, subtly making all my executive decisions but making it feel like I was the one who made them. Whether he knew I understood the way he operated was irrelevant, because how could I ever say no? The tiniest little glint of pride in his eyes as he read over that article is all I could ever ask for. All any son did, really.

"I think it's time for you to make a formal decision," he said casually, still thumbing through the paper. "Seems silly to keep it going any longer."

He folded the newspaper aside and gave me a pinched smile.

I took another long swig of orange juice as I mulled over my response. I wasn't formally committed, to Cornell or anywhere else, but in my father's mind, that was a mere technicality. More intangible business sense that I apparently didn't have. Keep your cards close to the vest, but also know the right time to show out.

I pushed around the eggs on my plate. "I just want to talk to a few more scouts. See how I feel after I've played a few games this season. It's a big decision, you know?"

"A decision most football players have made already."

There it was again - the firm casualness that didn't feel like he was telling you what to do, but you felt the push and the pull, the way the moon swayed the ocean.

"I know," I nodded. "It's just...I just need a little more time."

A little more time to figure out how to tell my dad I didn't want to go to Cornell without being simultaneously disowned.

He gave me another one of those thinly veiled smiles, the kind that just crinkled the skin beside his eyes. "Well, I know you'll make the right decision when the time comes."

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On game days, the school ecosystem seemed to morph into another breed. The hallways buzzed like a hive of wasps as Chris, Anthony, and I walked through the crowd. The first home game of the season was always a blackout game, which meant we got to wear our all black jerseys to school that day, and everyone in attendance that night at the game wore all black. I was practically assaulted by the junior cheerleaders, most of which donned their black Nike windbreakers with their plaid school uniform skirts.

"It's you, do you like it?" Jess Billingsly produced a sticky figurine on a cookie tray that I guessed was supposed to look like me in some mangled version of the Heisman pose. It even had white candy letters at the bottom. GUNTHER #3.

"I think so. What is it?" I gently took it from her, and Anthony snickered beside me.

"Rice Krispies," she giggled and flicked her ginger red ponytail over her shoulder. "You like it, right?"

"Um...yeah," I forced a smile. "Thanks."

Another one of the girls gave Chris a plastic tupperware full of brownies, which he accepted much more graciously than I did. The girls dispersed, and Anthony chuckled as he plucked my Rice Krispie arm off and chomped on it. I winced, almost as if I could feel him biting down on my actual arm.

"You fucking asshole," he said with a grin.

"What?" I scoffed.

"Must be so hard for you, all the treats and attention." He gave me an overexaggerated pout before peeling away to his locker. "Don't let it get to your head."

Chris put a hand down on my shoulder. "He's such an ass, don't take what he says seriously."

I shook myself out from under Chris's grip. "I'm not, I'm not."

We went our separate ways to our lockers, and occasionally kids whose names I didn't know and whose faces I didn't recognize would approach me, wish me luck or whatever, but they never lingered.

Being at the top was misleading. I was worshipped from afar, detached and closed off, like a lion in a cage. People walked by and admired, but didn't get too close. They waited around with wide eyes, just to see me roar. Teeth bared. Claws out. It was a cage of gold and diamonds, but still had bars and a lock all the same. Keep your distance.

Everyone except for Kaia, who pulled her chair over to my desk during our third period Calculus class and slapped a piece of paper down in front of me. I took one of my headphones out, and the idle noises of reality overtook my faded music.

"Do you get enjoyment out of this?" she asked.

"You'll have to be more specific," I replied with an eye roll.

She pointed to the paper again, where teams for our weekly decathlon style in-class competition were typed out. Sure enough, in big bold letters read Team #4 - Kaia Greene / Dallas Gunther / Cleo Thomas

"You just can't bear to lose so you make sure you weasel your way onto the team with the smartest person in class?"

I smirked and leaned over the desk towards her, so close I could smell the juicy fruit gum she was always chewing. "It's unavoidable, Kaia. I'm always on the team with the smartest person in class, since that person is me."

Kaia leaned back in her chair, no doubt to put some distance between us. Kaia and I in a small space was like pouring gasoline on an open fire, but whether the heat between us was just rage or something else was lost in the ashes.

"That's cute," she scoffed with a flick of her wrist.

"Aw, you really think I'm cute?" I made a showing of batting my eyelashes at her like a little schoolgirl. When I pressed my hands to my chest, I felt my heart throbbing against the fabric of my jersey.

Her hazel eyes flickered with annoyance as she stood up and pushed her chair back to her desk. "At least do me a favor and act as smart as you think you are." She leaned back over the desk, her long dark hair brushing my forearms. I felt the blood pumping through my ears as she whispered, "I don't like losing either."

When Mrs. Horner began class, she had us section ourselves off into our groups and presented us with equations that we had to solve with our group in a certain period of time. The first team to complete the problem correctly would get the point, and then we'd move onto the next problem. Between Kaia and I, we had an almost unfair advantage over the rest of the class. At least until the final problem.

"Alright, this last problem is worth three points, so some of you could still edge out Team #4," Mrs. Horner said as she wrote big numbers on the whiteboard in a red marker. "Remember, everyone on the winning team gets five points of extra credit added to the next exam."

She kept calling it a problem, but as she finished writing it out, it wasn't like the rest of the problems we'd been presented with, which were just complex calculus equations.

1+4=5

2+5=12

3+6=21

8+11= ?

"It's a riddle." Kaia almost sounded bored as she started scribbling down solutions on a piece of scrap paper that had all the work from the previous equations.

"And you think you already have the answer?" I ripped a new piece of paper out of my notebook and started working out the problem.

"It seems straightforward enough," Kaia shrugged. "There's just an extra step. Multiply the two numbers first, then add the smaller number. It explains the 5, the 12, and the 21, so the final answer is 96."

I scoffed. "It's not that complicated. Just add the two numbers, then add the sum to the sum of the two numbers above it. You get the same answers to each equation, and the final answer is 40."

"No," Kaia fired back at me. "Leave it to you to take the simple way out with the least amount of work."

I barked out a laugh. "The simplest explanation is usually the right one. You're the one who likes to make things too complicated."

"Complicated or correct?" Kaia shot a searing glare at me over the desk. "You know, that whole work smart, not hard philosophy only works when you're surrounded by a bunch of idiots."

"It's not about being smart," I slammed my palms on the desk. "It's actually stupidly simple. The definition of Occam's Razor is 'entities should not be multiplied without necessity.' You are literally multiplying entities without necessity. I don't know how it could be any clearer than that."

"Guys, we're going to run out of time," another voice piped up.

We both turned to our third team member Cleo, who had just been watching us go at it with her eyes wide. She glanced back and forth between us as she let out a sheepish chuckle. "Don't you two ever get tired of this?"

"Tired of what?" I asked.

"Well, you know...fighting with each other?"

Kaia and I glanced at each other and responded simultaneously with a firm "No."

"We've got it," Bennett Cooper, a mousy guy on a team across the room, raised his hand. "It's a trick question. There's two solutions."

As Bennett explained both mine and Kaia's solutions, I warily glanced over at her. She refused to look in my direction, keeping her head towards the front of the class.

I ripped off the corner of my notebook paper and scribbled out sorry, sliding it across my desk over to her. She finally looked over at me, the bitterness of her gaze so stone cold it sent a chill creeping up my neck. I nodded my head towards the little sliver of paper, and she took it. She wrote something down in her green pen before gently placing it back on my desk.

Me too.

tremble for yourself, my man
you know that you have seen this all before
tremble, little lion man
you'll never settle any of your scores

little lion man / mumford and sons

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y'all cannot tell me that Alex Fitzalan doesn't look like direct offspring of Patrick Dempsey Y'ALL CANNOT TELL ME. LOOK AT IT - this is canon now.

anyway, I'm really trying to avoid the stereotypical, overdramatic 'toxic strict parent' role for Dallas's father that we see far too often in teen fiction here on Wattpad. Normalize (somewhat) normal parents and kids who just want to make them proud. Of course, Dallas being Dallas, always takes it a little too far.

I'd love to hear your thoughts so far! FIRST FOOTBALL GAME IS NEXT CHAPTER AND I'M HYPE!

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