The Champion (26 page)

Ma waved her hand dismissively. “You kids and your hormones, who can keep track of what the hell is going on? It’s not like you kicked a puppy, Quentin. You’re obviously treating this girl right. Seems like you’re not tomcatting around on her — and if you do, I’ll tell you right now you can kiss that ear goodbye, because I’ll twist it right off your thick skull. You didn’t intentionally try to hurt your brother, and that’s what matters.”

Becca lowered her cookie. “You’re not mad at me, either?”

Ma walked to her. With the six-foot-six Becca seated on the couch, Ma was able to give her a proper hug.

“No, I’m not mad.” She held Becca at arm’s length. “But, I will tell you right now that if you wind up dating Julius next, that will be a pattern, not an accident, and I don’t give a damn how big you are, that will piss me off. Do you think you want to piss me off, Rebecca?”

A wide-eyed Becca shook her head. “No, ma’am.”

“Good girl,” Ma said.

They heard a knock at the apartment door. A
heavy
knock, the kind made by someone who doesn’t know his own strength.

“Ah, on time for once in his life,” Ma said. “Like my Nana Richardson used to say, if something’s got to break, the sooner you break it, the sooner you pick up the pieces.”

Quentin had a sudden sinking feeling.

Ma Tweedy opened the apartment door — there stood her son John.

Quentin stood up quickly, accidentally sloshing a bit of milk onto Ma’s carpet. Becca started to stand, then sat, not sure what to do. The situation couldn’t have been more awkward.

John stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He smiled wide. “Hey, Q, hey, Becca, good to ... are those cookies?”

“In a minute, Jonathan,” Ma said. “First, your brother has something to tell you.”

“But Ma,
cookies
. Q got one and I didn’t and that’s not—”

“
Shushit!
”

John winced. “Sorry, Ma. Okay, Q, I’m listening.”

Quentin didn’t know what to say. Ma had set this up.
Better to break it so you can start picking up the pieces
? What kind of logic was that?

She pointed at Quentin. “Out with it, boy. You tell your brother what you did and where things stand.”

Quentin swallowed hard.

“John, I ... I ...”

A hundred false stories flashed through Quentin’s head, anything to avoid telling John the hard truth. But it was too late for that. And, that was the kind of thing Gredok would do.

“Me and Becca are dating.”

John nodded. “I know, but what is it you need to tell me?”

“Tell you ... no, John, that’s it. Becca and I are dating.”

John’s face wrinkled. “That’s it?”

Quentin nodded.

John shrugged. “Okay.”

He seemed fine with it. More than fine, he seemed like it wasn’t even news to him.

“But you were so mad before,” Quentin said. “In the Portath Cloud, before you hit me, you told me everything was okay, but... are you
sure
you’re okay with this?”

John rolled his eyes. “Jeez, Q, I
was
mad but it’s not like I could stay mad forever. You’re my brother, right?”

John smiled, waiting.

Quentin had dreaded this moment for months, yet it was going so smoothly. Maybe the ties of family were really as strong as people said.

“Right,” he said. “I’m your brother.”

“Exactly,” John said. “And I know Becca didn’t dump me to be mean or anything, she’s not like that.” He looked at her. “You’re not like that, Becca.”

“Uh, no, I’m not,” she said. “I don’t think so, anyway.”

“I was hurt and all, but things happen,” John said. “What’s important here is that brothers forgive brothers. Forgiveness, Q, and tolerance, and understanding and stuff like that, and—”

Ma tapped John on the arm.

“You’ve got diarrhea of the mouth again,” she said. “Quentin did what he had to do, now it’s your turn.”

“Jeez, Ma, I’m getting to it, okay? Anyway, Q, I
was
mad, but I ain’t anymore because I got another girlfriend. That’s what
I
came here to tell
you
. You know what Ma says about if something has to break?”

He walked to the apartment door and opened it: there stood Jeanine. John took her hand and led her inside.

“Q, you’re dating my ex-fiancée, and I’m dating your sister.”

Quentin stared. The image wouldn’t process in his brain.

John is a killer. I’ve seen him kill sentients with his bare hands
.

“Dating my ... wait,
what
?” He looked at Jeanine.

She smiled, slid her arms around John’s big bicep. “Dating your sister,” she said.

John held up both hands in a placating gesture. The words
DON’T WORRY, I DID THE MATHS
scrolled across his forehead.

“Now Q, I know you’re thinking that I’m your brother and Jeanine is your sister so therefore ergo proctology hoc I am Jeanine’s brother and therefore it’s incest, but I checked with a scientist and it turns out things don’t work that way. Who would have known, right? And also I don’t like the smell of incest — I don’t know why people burn those little sticks, they kind of stink.”

“You can’t date her,” Quentin said in a monotone. “You can’t.”

Becca stood. “Of course he can, Quentin. Anyone can tell they’re in love.”

Quentin remembered his conversation with Becca in the
Hypatia’s
galley; how she had laughed when Quentin said he dreaded giving John the news.

“You
knew
,” he said to Becca. “You knew and you didn’t tell me?”

“I guessed,” she said. “Just because I knock the crap out of people on the football field doesn’t mean I’m not a girl, Quentin. I could see the way Jeanine looked at John and the way John looked at her.”

John tapped his temple. “See that, Q? I told you Becca was smart.”

Quentin looked at them, at Jeanine wrapped around John’s arm, but he only saw John punching a fist through a Quyth Warrior’s eye in a nightclub, or John in a bar fight, or John on the football field hitting other players so hard be broke armor and bone, so hard he
killed
.

“You can’t,” Quentin said. He looked at Jeanine. “John’s so ... violent. And you wouldn’t come see me because you thought
I
was violent.”

Jeanine’s smile faded. Once again, Quentin saw the same eyes that looked back at him from the mirror, saw the same intensity.

“John saved my life,” she said. “Not just mine, Quentin — by fighting the Gouger, I think he also saved
yours
.”

“He broke my jaw! He gave me another concussion.”

“I said I was sorry about that,” John said. “Look, Q, maybe this will take some getting used to. I get that.” He put his arm around Jeanine, hugged her close. “I really want you to be okay with this ... but if you’re not, well, it won’t change anything.”

Quentin looked at Jeanine. She stared back, didn’t say a word to the contrary.

He looked at Ma, hoping someone could help him make sense of this.

“The heart wants what the heart wants, Quentin,” Ma said. “Now stop being a dumbass and tell them you’re happy for them.”

Jeanine, his only family ... and John had saved her. John Tweedy, the nightmare of a linebacker — who apparently couldn’t tell the difference between
incest
and
incense
— had defeated the Gouger not because of size or strength or speed, but because of a brilliant strategy. Quentin wanted to think he would have won that duel, but in his heart he knew that wasn’t the truth. He would have fought, he would have died, and Jeanine would have lived out her years as a slave.

Quentin’s anger and confusion faded away. He loved John. He loved Jeanine. John was violent, sure, but so was Quentin. So was Becca, for that matter. Being violent helped make them the athletes they were. John was genuine, caring and loyal. Who better to date his sister?

“I’m sorry,” Quentin said. “I just... yeah, it takes some getting used to is all. You don’t need my blessing, but you have it anyway.”

John raised his fists in victory. “
Sweet
! Boy, am I glad that’s taken care of, but
man
, I really want some cookies. Ma, can I have some cookies before Quentin eats them all?”

Ma shook her head in exasperation. “You’d think you never had a cookie in your entire life.”

“I’ve never had
these
cookies, Ma. And they smell
way
better than incest.”

Jeanine started laughing. She walked to Quentin, put her arms around his neck and pulled herself up to kiss his cheek.

“I love you, little brother,” she said. “This will turn out great, you’ll see.”

He hugged her, lifted her off her feet as if she weighed nothing at all.

“I hope so,” he said. “But it’s a little weird that my brother is dating my sister.”

He set her down.

Jeanine nodded. “That is weird. Good thing John talked to a scientist, right. Although, I am a little worried — preseason is almost here, and if word gets out I’m dating John, someone might get the bright idea that they can use me to control both the Ionath offense
and
the defense.”

She was right. She was
exactly
right. This would get out, eventually, and when it did, Jeanine would be more of a target than ever.

“Turns out I have a solution to that,” Quentin said. “Let’s talk about your living arrangements.”

BOOK THREE

The Preseason

30

Preseason Week One

THE KRAKENS HAD SEEN EACH OTHER
here and there, sometimes out on the streets of Ionath City, sometimes at dinner or at birthday parties, but this was different. The first day of preseason, the first trip to the locker room.

Their first official day as
defending
GFL champions.

Quentin arrived a full two hours before practice began. He no longer had to worry if Becca would beat him there, because this time they’d come together. She had gone off to the HeavyG locker room, he to the Human, where he prepped his gear and waited for his teammates, waited for the annual ritual of welcoming in the season.

Yassoud Murphy entered, braided beard bound with thin silver rope. He greeted Quentin with a laugh and a hug. Quentin held him at arm’s length, looked the man up and down. Yassoud had always been a specimen of Human biology, as were most GFL players, but now he looked bigger. Bigger and
stronger
.

“High One, ’Soud ... how much weight did you put on during the off-season?”

“Almost ten kilos,” he said. “I’m at one fifty-two.”

One hundred and fifty-two kilos: 335 pounds. Yassoud packed all of that onto a six-foot, six-inch frame.

“You look great,” Quentin said.

Yassoud pounded his left fist against his chest three times,
bam-bam-bam
.

“I trained all off-season. Mark my words, Q — you and I are going to be spending a lot more time on the field together this year, oh
yep
.”

Yassoud backed up Ju Tweedy, the league’s most dominant running back. Despite a few injuries, Ju had been named All-Pro last year; Yassoud was and always would be in Ju’s shadow.

But still ... a motivated second-stringer could put pressure on a starter, force that starter to work a little bit harder to keep his job, making both players better in the process. And Ju didn’t play every down; with the punishment he took running up the middle, he had to spend some time on the sidelines. Having Yassoud as a top-notch “third-down back” would make Quentin’s job easier.

“This is our year, ’Soud.”

Yassoud nodded. “This is our year.” He walked to his locker.

Last year had belonged to the Krakens, obviously, but that was in the past. As soon as the last piece of confetti hit the ground, the 2685 season was over and the title meant nothing. The twenty-two Tier One franchises were back to zero wins, zero losses, and it all began again.

Quentin would make sure the Krakens worked even harder than the season before. Only two teams in GFL history had won back-to-back titles. One was the Hittoni Hullwalkers. The other was the Jupiter Jacks, when Don Pine had been at the helm. Quentin would not rest until he had eclipsed each and every one of Don’s accomplishments.

The rest of the Human players filtered in, everyone excited, happy to see each other. Crazy George Starcher with his face painted a flat blue. Yotaro Kobayasho, the team’s number-two tight end with the bleach-white skin of a Tower Republic native. Kobayasho’s visual opposite, the pitch-black-skinned backup linebacker Samuel Darkeye. Last year’s rookie fullback Pete Marval, still third string but in good shape.

The squat form of Jay Martinez entered next. Third on the running back depth chart behind Ju and Yassoud, Jay was just six-foot-two and 305 pounds: tiny for the position, but when he ran, he ran with everything he had. Quentin hoped to target him more this year with screen passes in third-down situations.

Then came Arioch Morningstar, the kicker. As always, he looked calm and somewhat oblivious to his surroundings. He greeted everyone with a simple nod, as if they had finished the ‘85 season only yesterday.

John and Ju came in next, arguing as always. Some kind of disagreement about how to properly chew gum, it seemed. They were so into their argument that they barely gave Quentin a second glance.

Yassoud’s improved physical stature made Quentin take a new look at Ju. Did Ju look a little ... smaller? Muscles not quite so defined, maybe? Quentin wondered if Ju was even aware that Yassoud was going all-out to get more carries. There were four weeks of preseason, though — plenty of time for Ju to regain his All-Pro physique.

Last in was Yitzhak Goldman. Quentin moved to greet him.

“Zak, good to see you.”

The backup quarterback stopped walking. He stared at Quentin, stared with a look that could only be described as
hatred
.

“I wish I could say the same,” the Tower Republic native said. His normally all-white skin looked a touch gray. Grayish bags hung under his eyes.