Isolation Play (Dev and Lee) by Kyell Gold Page A

after one of us, they come after all of us. We play together!” He waits for our answering ‘Yeah!’ “We fight together!”
    “ Yeah!”
    “ We win together! Firebirds!”
    We all jump to our feet and cheer, “Firebirds!”
    “ All right,” he says. “Keep your heads in the game. Turn off all your phones now and don’t turn ’em on again ’til we’re done.” He doesn’t look at me when he says it, but Gerrard does, and I don’t have any doubt about where this new thing came from. Especially when Charm comes over just as I’m turning off my phone. He swipes at it, grinning as I pull it out of reach.
    “ Yeah, pretty-boy, save your fan club for after.”
    I haven’t seen the big stallion much this week. When we’re not on the road, we’re not rooming together, and we practice separately. But he saw me get fined, and I guess he heard about the commercial. I fire back at him, “Such a pity you’re gonna have to wait to set up your date tonight ’til after the game.”
    He laughs. “You kiddin’? I’ll just walk outside and grab my pick.”
    “ Sorry,” I say, “did you say ‘pick’ or ‘prick’?”
    He guffaws. “Hey, did I tell you how I lost my wallet that one time?”
    “ Yes,” I say, and Gerrard, next to me, echoes that with a little more annoyance. The wallet story is Charm’s favorite sexual escapade story, only he keeps changing it. If it was ever based in reality, I’m sure it isn’t any more.
    Charm jerks his thumb toward Gerrard. “Sometime when Coach isn’t around. I got a new version.”
    He walks off to finish dressing. I put the phone in the locker, with a little bit of regret that I can’t text Lee during the game. It doesn’t quite go away when I realize that Ogleby and the reporters can’t call me either. It’s just me and the guys. I like that.
    Though I would like to text Lee right before we run out. I’m sitting next to Fisher after Aston does his round of the locker room, punching all the starters. “How you think they’ll react?”
    He punches the arm Aston didn’t. “You’re a Firebird. They’d love you if you murdered someone.”
    I snort. “Murder? Really? You had to go there?”
    “ Don’t worry. Come on, let’s go get ready to rumble.”
    We join the rest of the defense, jumping around, getting fired up. I feel that energy surging through me, see it in the eyes of the tigers and foxes and coyotes around me, the heavy bears jumping as if they’re as light as we are, all of us feeling exactly the same thing in that moment. We are parts of a whole, bubbling with energy just waiting to be unleashed on the Millenport Orcas. In this pre-game moment, we are all potential, all hope and optimism and confidence. My ferocious grin is mirrored on fifty muzzles around me.
    And then we break, and run through the tunnel. I can hear the screaming of the fans, I can see signs bobbing in the crowd across the field, and I think I see my name on at least one of them. My steps falter just as I get to the light. Fisher knocks into me from behind. “Get out there,” he growls.
    I jog out to thunders of applause. I hear a guy yell “Yeah Miski!” I hear a shout of “You go, girl,” which I assume is directed at me, because I’ve never heard it on a football field before. Then I get out onto the field, and I look around.
    There are signs with rainbows, signs with my name on them. I spot one that says “GO HOME-O, MISKI,” and others like that, but there are signs supporting me, too: “WE LOVE YOU #57” and what I think are three girls with a sign that says “DEV’S DIVAS.” I get a grateful swell of relief and raise a fist to the crowd nearest me. They respond with a huge cheer.
    The sidelines are weird, too. There’s a whole lot of people there who aren’t players: equipment managers, waterboys, press. Usually you just ignore them and hang out with your group, but I see a few of them staring at me, looking away when I look at them. An armadillo,