~ Slade ~

When playing a sport, nothing else matters but the adrenaline pumping through your veins. It's of no concern if the hair your mother braided only hours before is now doused in sweat with strands strewn across flushed cheeks. That the fire in your arms strain with the ultimate aim it takes to score at the end of the field. You can only focus on the way your heart pumps over the hundred-and-fifty beats per minute mark, with your blurry eyes squinting to focus on the tall pole you need to hit.

For just a moment in time, nothing deters you away from earning those points for your team. It's just you, your homemade sticks made of carved hickory in your calloused hands, the deer-skin ball no larger than a child's palm resting in the sinew netting at the edge of one side of the sticks, and the top of a fifteen-foot pole. Fundamentals, more or less.

And then you swing the ball, clasped between the two netted sticks, and aim for that tape at the top of the pole. You don't know if you're going to make the shot, but you hope like hell that you do, because you don't know how many more rounds of tackling and pushing your body can take. The final round took whatever energy you had left. And at that point in the game, you just want to say fuck it and go home to eat a plate of your favorite homemade NDN tacos or chicken-fried steak.

But I can't do that. Not until I see this through.

The crowd grows rowdier, waiting on the edges of their seats in anticipation to see if the win will be in their favor. Will it hit the pole? Will it land in the other opponent's net across the field after it misses? Are they going to throw the ball and make the shot you should have made? Will the undefeated team finally lose a game?

The ball answers that one for them. It kisses the tape at the top of the pole and ignites a spark of chaos that erupts all the way down the field.

A wide grin stretches across my lips and I'm bombarded by my team with excited hugs and shouts. Slaps on my screaming shoulders make me laugh and somewhere down below, after my teammates hoist me up, my coach stands there with my winning sticks. The pride in his coffee eyes after he holds up a fist, our signature gesture, makes my chest swell with satisfaction.

"That's what the fuck I'm talking about, Locklear!" my best friend, Nakai, hoots, holding out a hand.

I reach down to slap his open palm and bask in the gratification pumping through my body. The families in our small town swarm us like a mosh pit, eagerly seeking their winning boy among the crowd. I spot the one person in particular at the edge of the crowd and grin at the tiny woman. I nudge at my teammates to put me down, eager to meet her.

As soon as my feet touch the grass again, I'm weaving myself through the swarm of people slapping at my hands or shaking them as I boast with every pat on my back. It's not until I push through the last person, I get to the woman I love more than anyone else on the planet.

Wrapped tight in a triangular designed Pendleton, stands a small woman with opaque hair down to her waist, tawny skin stretching over tight cheekbones, and a pink-lipped smile that grows even wider at the sight of me. Her matching umber eyes shimmer with joy and it's not until I get close enough to her that I can smell the comforting swirl of cedar and jasmine.

She opens her arms and wraps me into the warmth of the Pendleton, not at all caring that I'm covered in sweat and dirt. The salty droplets on my cheek don't stop her from pressing a kiss to my face and holding me tight, the way she does after every stickball tournament. I can't remember a time when my mom wasn't there, greeting me with a hug and a blanket after playing my heart out on the field.

"You did good, si ushi," she murmurs, pulling away to wipe some caked dirt off my team shirt.

I smile, pleased. "Thanks, mom."

Shit, wrong word.

Mom shoots me a loaded look, and I correct myself. "Svshki."

"You need to start practicing your Chahta, si ushi," she warns. "But go be with your team. And tell Nakai not too late, you have school tomorrow."

Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, I eventually release her. "Will do. See you tomorrow night."

I offer her one last dazzling smile and walk backwards into the crowd that enveloped around me in open arms. Mom shakes her head at my antics, but I lose her to the people bellowing my team's name. Being on the winning team had its perks, and growing up in a small town had its advantages.

And celebrating something as big as being undefeated in the league, and possibly going to the World Series Stickball Games (or the WSSG) if we win the next few games, is one of those. Life is fucking good.

"Slade!" Nakai calls, drawing me away from the back of the crowd.

I nod my head to him and move over in his direction, flashing smiles and returning waves when walking through. I pass my coach along the way to retrieve my sticks, and he hands them over with a stern reprimand of staying out of trouble for the night. The scoff leaving me lips at such an assumption has him eyeing me with the "I-smell-bullshit" look in seconds.

"No distractions, Locklear. Or funny business," he warns again, crossing his freakishly muscled arms that put even mine to shame. "We have practice tomorrow at three, and I need our captain focused if we want to get to those WSS Games."

"Distractions? Me? Don't you know me at all, Coach?" I gasp, pressing a hand over my chest. He raises an eyebrow and I quickly drop the façade. "There won't be any funny business, sir."

"Hmm," Coach Vaughn murmurs, cutting his eyes at me. "Make sure of it."

I salute him and he waves me off with a flick of his hand, before walking over to his wife. A brown arm wraps around my shoulder in camaraderie and squeezes it, followed by a smack to the center of my chest. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who the arm belongs to when I look over at Nakai. His almond-shaped, dark brown eyes are rimmed with exhaustion, but the gleeful smile he shoots my way is one of victory.

"Nice shot back there, rookie," he praises, dropping his arm from my shoulder. "Thought you were gonna choke there for a second."

I roll my eyes but laugh nonetheless. "Choke? Aren't I the one who brought us here in the first place? If anyone's choking out there it's you, fool."

Nakai chuckles that time and shakes out his unruly waves hair from its ponytail. "Hell no! You got me confused with Roy over there, Cap. That big dude on the other team would have tackled you if it wasn't for me."

Roy, another close friend of ours, hears this and flips Nakai off. Kai responds with a genuine hand to his heart and mouths 'bless you', resulting in an eye roll. While they go back and forth with their childish antics, I bend down and wrap my sticks up carefully in my bag. I rub my thumb over the symbol carved at the top of the handle sticking out of it.

A dull ache in my chest follows the low lump in my throat at the carved buffalo head, but I push it away. Tonight should be a night of celebration; not grief.

Nakai's hand on my shoulder makes me blink, and I'm looking over at him in a slight daze. Though his eyes are sympathetic, he knows I'm in no mood to talk about what he wants to ask me. So he shifts gears. "Ready to head out?"

I nod firmly and push both my braids off of my shoulders. "I'm ready."

*****

Normrock may not be a big town, but we definitely have our hidden gems.

The pancakes at Jimmy's Egg, for example, is one of those unmatched hidden gems. Especially on a Monday morning before school starts after a night out drinking with your boys celebrating a well-deserved win. Classes don't start until nine for us, and seeing as how the restaurant's across the street from campus, we came for our breakfast-of-champions meal.

We don't really look like champions though.

Currently, Kai's head is resting on the table above a dirty napkin, Roy's curling his straw's paper wrapper around his finger, Victor's drumming his fingers on the table while waiting for his Ibuprofen to kick in, and I'm holding a glass of cold water to my temple. It hardly soothes the pounding ache in front of my brain, and the condensation is getting my jaw wet, but it's better than nothing.

And to think we have practice right after classes . . . I mentally groan just thinking about it.

"Coach's gonna kill us," Roy grumbles.

Unfortunately, he's not wrong.

"Not before I do," I admit, lazily moving the cup back onto the table.

"You were drinking right along with us, Cap," Victor speaks up across from me, running his drumming fingers through his cropped brown hair. "If anyone should have known better, it's you dude."

"Lead by example," Kai mumbles against the tabletop.

"You think I can tell a bunch of twenty-something-year-old adults what to do?" I scoff, raising an incredulous eyebrow. "I'll lead by example on the field and that's it. Shitasses."

Roy sighs and rips the paper from his finger. A soft snore leaves Kai's mouth and Victor just gazes out the window, exhaustion dragging at the edges of his hazel eyes. I look down at my pancakes and push the last square bite onto my fork.

It's not until I raise the bite of syrupy fluff to my mouth that Victor flies forward out of his seat, his eyes wide and glued to the window. I jump, Kai's soul leaves his body as he shoots up from the table, and Roy throws him his best "what the fuck?" look. Which, I'm sure, is what I'm doing too as my pancake bite falls to the table.

Well, there goes that, I think bitterly as I pick it up and toss the bite back onto my plate. The asshole just had to ruin my last damn bite of food. And it's the sort of bite you've been waiting your entire meal for too. The one you set aside because you know you're going to savor the shit out of it when you finally get to eat it. Bastard.

I open my mouth, ready to go off.

"Whoa," he murmurs, his bright eyes distracted and ignoring the glares we throw in his direction. A mystified grin crosses his lips, and he whistles low in his throat.

I close my mouth and follow his gaze, searching for whatever, or whoever, he saw, but no one in particular stands out to me. What the hell?

"Damn," Roy swears next, and Nakai nearly chokes on his spit in agreement.

I frown, still not seeing shit. "What?" I snap, annoyed.

"Look by Maverick's scrap metal. You can't miss her."

Her?

Grumbling, I swivel my gaze over to the gods-awful mustard truck at the front of the lot. Not many people are over there, but the few who are look . . . distracted? Squinting my eyes, I follow their line of sight.

It's not until I prepare myself to ask again that my eye catches onto something shiny.

I move closer to the window, watching as a woman with glistening curls, gold clips, and thick brown legs beneath a cream skirt walks into the school.

And let's just say, she's more than worth the pancake loss.