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the first time since he’d gotten hurt last December.
    One game had just ended and he couldn’t wait for the next one to start. Six more months of football in front of him, as far as he could see. Like football was a family reunion with endless relatives he couldn’t wait to see.
    The kid without a dad feeling like part of the biggest family around.

Four
    FOR ALL THE JOKES he made about his own football ability, or lack of it, Charlie really did love being a part of the Culver City Cardinals.
    He loved being part of a team, loved being with his friends, loved putting on pads and a helmet. Loved being a linebacker, analyzing the offense before the ball was snapped. It was football, after all, real football, Charlie getting the chance to be on the inside of it for a change, not just studying it in front of a television or his laptop screen.
    He worked hard at it, too, tried even harder, did everything he could to get better. He
did
want to get better in the worst way, even though he didn’t admit it, even with Anna. Wanted to believe all the things that he had ever heard about football—or any sport—that if you had the passion and the heart and the drive and you were willing to work, you could become the player that you wanted to be.
    But Charlie knew that the part they left out of that inspiring pep talk was the part about talent. And if you evaluated pro football players the way he did, if you prided yourself on properly assessing their strengths and weaknesses and then deciding how much they could help you, you had to be realistic about talent.
    Charlie was just as realistic about his own talent.
    He didn’t lie to himself about the players he drafted and he wasn’t going to lie about himself. Oh, he could use his brain on Memorial Field. He knew not only where the offensive guys were supposed to be, he had the ability to recognize where they planned on going. He wasn’t afraid when he was playing outside linebacker, wasn’t scared to trust his instincts as he read a play unfolding in front of him. And he was actually a decent tackler when he had the chance.
    But even when he was in pads, the way he was today, his friends still thought of him the same way, the nickname Kevin Fallon had given him: Brain.
    It was a nice way of calling him a nerd when it came to football. The nerd playing outside linebacker and special teams for the Culver City Cardinals. The guy without speed or strength.
    Just being realistic.
    They had gone through two days of tryouts the week before, the coaches deciding which guys were on offense and which ones on defense. Most of the first official day of practice had been basic stuff, blocking, tackling and agility drills, the quarterbacks and running backs and receivers breaking out to walk through a couple of plays.
    After that Jarrod Benedict, their starting quarterback, and Kemar Brady, his backup, did some throwing against the linebackers and defensive backs.
    â€œJust a day to get you into a football frame of mind,” Coach Dayley had said.
    As if I ever need any help with that
, Charlie thought.
    With about twenty minutes left in practice, Coach Dayley announced that even though they’d finished everything he wanted them to do on the first day in pads, they might as well have a little fun and do some scrimmaging, eleven-on-eleven.
    Coach Dayley would handle the offensive play-calling. Kevin Fallon’s dad, an assistant coach with the Cardinals, would take care of the defense.
    Coach Dayley put the ball on the defense’s twenty-five-yard line and told the offense it had four plays to score, no first downs. Then he went into the offensive huddle with his playbooks. Charlie could see him pointing something out to Jarrod.
    In the defensive huddle Mr. Fallon said, “For today we’ll just go with our basic 4-3. Corners take the wideouts, safeties you read the play. Charlie, you cover the tight end if he lines up to your side. You’re