"What the fuck..."
The players behind Coach Miller couldn’t believe their eyes. Even Travis himself hadn’t expected Li Wei’s physical abilities to be so outrageous.
Li Wei shoved off the two defensive tackles clinging to him, got to his feet, took off his helt, and spat out his mouthguard.
"Coach..." The assistant coach beside him swallowed hard. "Should we... run the test again?"
"Shut up!" Coach Miller growled, then took a sharp, deep breath and stord over to the edge of the end zone.
"Holy fucking Mother Mary..." Miller glanced at the defensive tackles still groaning on the ground, then whipped his head around and roared at the stunned varsity players. "Look! All of you, fucking look! Bruce Lee just steamrolled our defensive line like he was dragging a couple of dead pigs! Tony! Especially you, you dumbass pig! You just spread your legs like a cheap whore and he sent you flying!"
"Hey! Coach..." Tony tried to argue. "I just wasn’t ward up yet..."
"Shut up, Tony!" Miller stord over, pressing his forehead against Tony’s. "I’m asking you, Tony! Where are you from?"
"I..." Tony froze. "I... I’m from Queens—"
"Wrong! Dead fucking wrong!" Miller sprayed spittle all over Tony’s face. "You ca from your mama’s pussy! Rember what I told you? There’s one kind of man who cos from his father’s balls! And another who cos from his mama’s pussy! I think you ca from your mama’s pussy! That’s why you can’t get hard!"
Those words made everyone’s face, except for Li Wei’s, turn several shades paler.
"Evan! Get your ass over here!" he roared, turning his head.
A pale-faced white kid walked over, tightly clutching a quarterback’s training ball.
"Evan, you’re demoted to the reserves," Miller said, snatching the training ball from Evan’s hands and roughly shoving it into Li Wei’s arms. "I’m a man of my word, Li Wei. You’re the varsity team’s backup quarterback now!"
’Li Wei raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t expected this foul-mouthed Black coach—whose vulgarity was second only to Don Quixote in the middle of a screaming match—to actually keep his promise and put him directly on the varsity squad.’
High school football teams good enough to compete in the New York state league were typically well-structured. Franklin K. Lane High School alone had three complete teams.
The freshman team, the reserve team, and the varsity team. Only the varsity team was entered into the league to compete against other schools.
’Even though he was the backup quarterback, it was still a spot on the main roster. It was a real first step onto this path.’
Coach Miller blew the whistle hanging from his neck. The sound was sharp and piercing.
"Alright! Practice is over for today!" he yelled, dismissing the team. He then turned to Li Wei and Travis. "You two rookies, report to the athletic departnt’s strategy room at 3 PM on the first official day of school!"
After a mont’s thought, he pulled a playbook from his back pocket and shoved it into Li Wei’s hands.
"You can get a digital copy when you co to the strategy room," he said. "Bruce Lee, put that Academic Olympiad brain of yours to work and morize this playbook as fast as you can!"
"My na is Li Wei, Coach."
"I don’t care what your na is. To , you’re Bruce Lee. Now get the hell out!"
With that, he blew his whistle again, signaling that Li Wei and Travis could leave.
On the way back, Travis lanted missing his chance to play. He insisted that if he had been on the field, he could have used his speed and agility as a running back to run circles around those three defensive tackles.
Li Wei, anwhile, casually flipped through the playbook from Coach Miller, giving noncommittal grunts of "uh-huh" and "is that so" to placate the rambling Travis.
A football playbook contains anywhere from 50 to 100 different basic plays. Each play has a string of code words, with every word corresponding to a different formation, action, or specific route.
Li Wei skimd through Coach Miller’s playbook. In the span of a walk that took just over ten minutes, he had already reached the second half of the book, having basically morized everything in the first part.
After shaking Travis, Li Wei was leaving the school grounds when he unexpectedly ran into Michael, whom he hadn’t seen in a long ti. He hadn’t seen Michael at all since he’d started going to the gym less frequently.
Michael was surprised to see Li Wei too, but his face quickly broke into an excited grin as he walked over and gave him a hug.
"Hey, long ti no see," he said, clapping Li Wei on the shoulder. "I completely forgot today was the placent exams."
"If all goes well, I’ll see you in AP classes in a few days," Li Wei said. "How have you been?"
"I’ve been so busy lately. Rember I told you I have a brother in a gang?" Michael said with a wry smile. "Kevin—that’s my brother. His gang got into so trouble recently. It seems a conflict between two bigger mobs higher up the chain has the boss of Kevin’s little crew getting antsy. I got into a huge fight with him trying to talk so sense into him."
Michael went on to say that he’d been secretly saving up money. Once he had enough, he was going to send his brother to a rehab center and, at the sa ti, get him to leave the gang for good.
’Li Wei wanted to advise Michael to cut ties with his brother sooner rather than later. A brother like that would only drag Michael down into an endless abyss.’
’But on second thought, he felt it wasn’t his place to say sothing so serious. So he just offered a few words of comfort, and the two parted ways.’
Since it wasn’t yet three in the afternoon, Li Wei decided to head over to the Dolores boutique to be a "wage thief" for three hours.
He had also discovered a perk of working the afternoon shift: at the end of the day, he could take ho so of the desserts and snacks prepared for paying custors. Any leftovers before closing were given to the employees to finish. And these were top-notch treats—according to Emma, the shop paid over 10 USD for a single macaron.
How could Li Wei possibly pass up such a legitimate opportunity to be a "perk thief"? Besides, Emma texted him every day, waiting for him to co in for his shift.
Critiquing the custors’ fashion sense and behavior with Li Wei, along with general gossip, was one of Emma’s favorite pastis.
’After so intense internet surfing a while back, Li Wei had figured it out—Emma probably thought of him as her "work buddy."’
By the ti he arrived at the Dolores boutique and changed into his uniform, Emma was already walking over excitedly, saying under her breath:
"Ah," she sighed, feigning regret. "A super pretty, super classy girl ca into the shop this morning. It’s a sha you weren’t here to see her."
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