Chapter 30: Patience is a virtue

QUINN

After the euphoria of the round one game, the rest of the conference playoffs felt anticlimactic. Eatonboro rolled through games two and three, and we were riding high when we reached the championship match up, pitting us against Franklin Township once again.

I saw Leo between practices and team meetings, brief snatches of togetherness sandwiched by football. On days when it worked out, he'd pick me up for school, and we'd sit in the car, in the parking lot, talking a little and making out a lot. We ate lunch together, still with the football team; most of the guys seemed to have accepted me, although I noticed that Matt Lampert didn't talk much when I was around. I knew he and Leo were close friends, so I tried to draw him out, but he kept stubbornly silent.

"Don't worry about him, babe." Leo nuzzled my neck, touching his tongue to the pulse that thrummed at the base of my throat. "Matt's just ...he doesn't have a lot of people in his life he can count on. He's a little posse