Chapter 44

This was really strange, Lucky thought as he left the locker room. There was the usual big crowd waiting outside but Toni was not there like she usually was after a game.

He decided she must have had to work or was not feeling well so Lucky walked back into the locker room to try and call her at home.

Her mother sounded like she had been asleep and wasn’t happy about getting woke up. She had no idea where her daughter was, just knew Toni was not home.

Lucky then called the store and found out Toni was not working and was supposed to be at the game.

He walked outside again and looked around, finding this strange.

“Are you looking for Toni?” asked a voice from the side.

He turned to see Gabby and Andy standing there.

“Yeah, have you seen her?”

They looked at each other, neither looking like they wanted to break the news.

“Toni and Elizabeth left before the game was over,” she said.

Lucky nodded, still not understanding.

“They left with two guys from Hodgen,” Andy added, the bitterness evident in his voice.

“Are you sure?” Lucky asked.

“Haven’t you noticed how she’s been acting?” Andy asked.

“Not really,” Lucky said. “I guess I was more worried about the game and D.J.”

“They’ve been sneaking off all week to meet these two guys they used to date.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen them,” Gabby added.

“People talk,” Andy added.

“You’re positive?” Lucky asked.

“Yeah,” Andy added.

Lucky did not know how to describe how he felt. Something seemed to have come loose inside his stomach and was bouncing around like a kid on a trampoline. Lucky started thinking the only luck he had with members of the opposite sex was bad luck.

He found this so hard to believe. Toni had seemed so sweet, not the type of person to do this. She had not acted the same lately, Lucky realized, but it had not seemed to be that big of a deal.

This was really a bummer, going from the high of winning this game to the low of finding out he was dumped.

“I’m sorry,” Gabby added.

“Are you really?” Lucky asked, harsher than intended.

“I regretted what I did to you from the moment it happened,” she continued. “I knew I didn’t care for D.J. like I did for you but didn’t know what to do. Then I didn’t think you wanted anything to do with me after the way you were treated.”

She looked at Lucky, expected him to say something. He was shocked and stood with his mouth open.

“I wanted to be with you,” Gabby continued. “But you were seeing Toni then and I didn’t want to ruin that because you seemed happy.”

She wiped a tear away, spun around and started walking away.

Lucky was blindsided again, the second time in the last couple of minutes. First, he found out Toni dumped him, without bothering to say anything, and now Gabby was saying she had wanted to be with him all this time.

He stood, watching her walk away, then turned to Andy.

“What do I do now?” he asked.

Andy shrugged his shoulders.

“Beats me,” he replied. “This is starting to get a little weird.”

Lucky nodded, then realized what he should do.

“See you later,” Lucky said, seeing a smile form on his friend’s face.

He started off jogging, then turned it into a sprint before getting halfway across the parking lot.

She heard somebody approach but kept walking away.

Lucky finally caught up and started walking alongside.

“You really messed me up for a while,” he stated.

“I’m sorry,” she responded.

“I liked Toni, but it wasn’t the same.”

She stopped and turned to him. Lucky also put on the brakes and stood with his hands in the pocket, looking down at the ground.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Lucky said, feeling like his tongue had gotten tied to itself.

They stood, shuffling their feet, neither knowing what to say or do. Their eyes finally met. Lucky saw she was crying harder now, something that did not make much sense to him. Heck, Lucky was feeling happier than he had in a long time.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head hard.

“Lucky, do you think maybe you can give us, or me, another try?”

“Uh, I guess,” he replied, the words catching him off guard.

“We’ll probably need to get to be good friends first,” Gabby suggested.

“Yeah, and just spend time together and get to know each other.”

“We don’t want to move too fast.”

Lucky nodded.

“But not too slow, either,” Gabby added.

He finally understood a little why she was crying.

“I didn’t expect this to happen,” Lucky mentioned.

“What?” she asked.

“The night to turn out like this.”

She smiled at Lucky and wiped away the last of the tears. “Want to race?”

“Huh?”

“Want to race me to my car?”

“I guess. What does the winner get?”

She considered the question for several seconds. “How about a kiss?”

“Really?” he asked and turned around to look around for her car. When he turned back around, he saw Gabby sprinting in the direction of the cafeteria.

“That wasn’t fair,” Lucky protested, then took off after her.

He made up some of the ground as they turned the corner of the cafeteria. Gabby pulled to a stop, looking out into the parking lot.

There were two trucks parked with the backs pulled up close to each other and the tailgates down. Lucky had found out where Toni was.

She was sitting on one tailgate with a guy while Elizabeth was in the back of the other truck, leaning against another guy.

Their little party had been on for a while, as there were an impressive number of beer cans scattered on the ground and in the back of the trucks.

Toni had a cigarette in her mouth and a can of beer in her left hand. The guy sitting next to her had his arm around her, kissing her on the neck.

“Well, that’s not a pretty sight,” Lucky mentioned, shaken to see her making out in a parking lot while drinking beer and smoking.

Gabby’s car was just in front of them. She walked to it and unlocked the doors. The party was only half way across the parking lot but they were so engrossed they didn’t even notice Lucky and Gabby.

Lucky walked around the car and got in the passenger side.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No reason to be,” Lucky countered. “The only thing I’m sorry about is that I didn’t win the race.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t get to kiss you,” he added. It was barely light enough in the car for him to see her face. The tears were gone, replaced with a smile.

“I guess since I won the race that I get to kiss you then, huh?”

Lucky shrugged his shoulders. “That’s your call. You’re the champion.”

They smiled and slowly moved toward each other, both feeling quite awkward. Their lips finally met after a couple of misses and their arms found each other. The awkwardness was gone.

So was the sadness.

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Cole got the call within thirty minutes of the end of the Gilmore game. It was from Lance Dooley, a former coach who taught in the high school and usually scouted the next opponent.

Lance was one of the best scouts Cole had ever seen. He really had a talent for finding a team’s strengths and weaknesses and his reports were really helpful.

“Octavia won,” Lance announced. The reception from his cell phone was not great, just good enough for Cole to hear.

Octavia had hosted Mountain View in another first-round game of the playoffs.

“How bad?” Cole asked.

“Seven to six,” Lance stated. “How’d we do?”

“We lived to see another day,” Cole said. “Tell me about Octavia.”

All Cole knew was Octavia lost only one game all year, finishing second in its district, one of the weaker ones in the state.

“They’re a decent team,” Lance continued. “But if they had played our schedule they wouldn’t have won half their games or made the playoffs.”

That statement did not surprise Cole. From talking to other coaches, none of them were overly impressed.

“Octavia scored a touchdown in the first quarter after recovering a fumble deep in Mountain View’s territory,” Lance said. “That was the only time their offense did anything. Mountain View really deserved to win. They moved the ball up and down the field all night but kept getting stupid penalties and fumbled five times, three times inside Octavia’s thirty.”

“Are they well coached?” Cole asked.

“Not really,” Lance answered. “Octavia kept running the same plays and none of them worked. The defense never did anything but line up in a four-three. I talked to a few other coaches at the game and they said this was how Octavia always played.”

“Do they have much talent?”

“Not that I saw. If our kids come out ready to play it should be a cakewalk.

“That’s good,” Cole replied. “Try to keep that opinion to yourself, okay?”

“Sure.”

Cole bid his farewell and felt better, now expecting to have a good chance at winning at least one more playoff game. That is, if Lance’s scouting report was as good as it usually was.

He would find that out for himself tomorrow as Cole was getting film on Octavia from several coaches.

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It didn’t take Cole long to realize he would be a much better coach if his teams played Octavia every week.

The Owls were not a very good team, just as Lance reported. Cole could not figure out how a team like that had such a good record. He looked up the standings on the top ten teams in the state. The Tulsa paper had Octavia ranked eighth while Petros was not listed in the top fifteen. In the Oklahoma City paper, Petros was eleventh while the Owls were thirteenth.

Gilmore was ranked seventh in both polls. That brought a little chuckle to Cole. He knew picking schools was a guess as nobody at either newspaper had seen any teams play, only covering games involving larger schools.

His kids put a lot more emphasis on the rankings than the coaches did, so Cole planned to use that this week to keep the team motivated.

Cole received his scouting report just after noon. The other coaches and Lloyd were in the coach’s office, going over film. The washer and dryer located in the closet were going full speed, making an awful racket while trying to get the uniforms clean.

The players came in earlier and lifted weights and ran. They were still excited about winning and getting some revenge on Gilmore.

Stub was the first person to state his opinion on the Owls, shortly after watching a few minutes of the first film.

“These guys stink,” he commented.

“Are some of their players out in this film?” Ichabod asked.

“I don’t think so,” Cole responded.

“How the heck did they win ten games?” Lloyd asked. “They’re terrible.”

“Yeah, it looks that way but they have won ten games so they’ve got something going for them,” Cole remarked.

“Our guys don’t need to see this film,” Lloyd added. “They’d get too overconfident.”

The coaches didn’t let the players see the film, saying it really didn’t show a lot. Lucky knew that meant Octavia was very good, or very bad.

Lucky kept trying to sneak in some film of the Owls but Cole kept the film away from his youngest son.

The Panthers were ready to play by Monday, rested up from the previous game and itching to try and extend the winning streak. Petros had won eight straight and wanted to make it nine.

Aside from Garrett and D.J., the Panthers were fairly healthy for this time of the year. Lucky’s wrist wasn’t bothering him anymore and since he and Gabby were getting involved with each other, life was better than ever.

Practices were better than Cole could expect. The Panthers were sharp and stayed that way all week. Petros expected a hard game, since the Panthers were playing a team with such a good record, so the coaches really didn’t even have to try and make Octavia better than the Owls were.

Cole was even pleased to see all the newspapers pick Octavia to win by a big margin.
He put the clippings up on the bulletin board and was pleased to see the players react to the articles. There was a story in the Tulsa paper about how gritty Octavia’s players were, making it even better for Cole.

Octavia’s coach bragged about his players, how good his team was and how nobody had tougher players. One quote stood out for Cole and he highlighted it, putting the story away until it was the right time to use it.

“Petros is a decent team,” the Octavia coach was quoted as saying. “We know going there will not be easy, but I really believe Petros has not played a team as good as we are.”

Only about seven of them, Cole thought when he read the story. That quote produced a chuckle, but that wasn’t all, however.

“We really should be undefeated,” the coach added, a statement which perplexed Cole since Octavia got pounded 48-0 in its only loss.

The writer really played up Octavia, acting like he was the Owls’ top fan.

“Our goal is to win state,” the coach added. “We have cleared one hurdle and we’re ready to topple the second obstacle. These kids just won’t be denied.”

Cole waited until just before the players showed up for the game to put this on the bulletin board. Naturally, this got the Panthers’ attention.

The Owls’ buses starting showing up about that time and let the players out. They walked to the field and wandered around, much the same way every team does.

Cole had met Octavia’s coach before and did not care for him then and felt no different after greeting him again.

“Glad you guys made it okay,” Cole declared, shaking hands.

“Hope you don’t feel that way about ten tonight,” responded the Octavia coach, a short, slender man with a full head of brown hair combed so no hairs were misplaced. He could not be still, constantly shifting from one foot to another and acting like he would rather be some other place. He actually appeared to be skinny looking at him from the front, but sported a nice beer belly if one looked from the side.

“Well, let us know if you need anything,” Cole replied. “Good luck.”

“Yep,” the coach answered and walked away. His players and the other coaches, who all were shorter than the head coach, started making their way to the gym.

That was enough to make Cole’s blood boil. He knew so many of the younger coaches had this kind of attitude and it bothered him.

His encounter with the Octavia coach made Cole’s face redden and when the other coaches saw it, they had a pretty good idea the Owls were going to be in for a rough night.

The stands were filling quickly. Octavia had brought a large crowd also, hoping to see their gridiron heroes win another game.

The Owls wore white uniforms and helmets with green numbers and a green logo of a wing on both sides of the helmets.

“They aren’t real big,” Murray Perdue pointed out.

“Don’t mean anything,” Cole responded, hoping his boys did not get overconfident. “You don’t have to be a big guy to be a good football player. Just look at Harry Dean.”

Not that Octavia had a lot of good football players, Cole thought, but didn’t add. The players had just sat down after pre-game drills when Cole let go.

“All week Octavia and their coaches have shown us no respect,” Cole told them, his voice rising. Sometimes the players knew he acted, but this time they were convinced this was no act. “They think they’re gonna stroll in here on our field and kick our tails a good one. I haven’t said anything about it but I’ve had all I can take. You guys have seen the newspapers and see all the predictions

“Octavia does not respect us at all and not many people outside of Petros do either. But I do and I think it’s time we taught those boys lining up opposite us a lesson tonight. We’re the Petros Panthers and they think we’re nothing. It’s time to show them what we’re made of. Plus, we can stick it to their little worm of a coach.”

Most of the players tried hard not to laugh. They seldom heard their coach speak badly about any opponent and knew the Octavia coach had hit a nerve.

“Now I want you boys to go out there and pound them like they’ve never been hit before.”

For the first time, Stub started to realize something was up. He had been an assistant for many years and could count on the fingers of one hand when Cole had gotten off on a tirade like this. He surely couldn’t ever recall Cole calling somebody a “little worm of a coach” before.

“I don’t think I’d like to be on the other side of the field tonight,” Stub announced.

“Nope, Cole’s got his blood up,” Ichabod agreed.

The players burst out of the locker room and through another huge spirit line. The Owls won the coin toss and elected to receive, another move Cole believed showed little respect.

The second round of the playoffs were here and the Petros Panthers were ready.

Chapter 45