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You run the film and the motion-capture rig for the Harkenridge State football team, and Kemp Jennings, the starting quarterback, cannot stand one single thing you do. Your senior thesis needs three mornings a week of his throwing motion in a sensor vest, and the program signed off on it whether he likes it or not, so neither of you gets to walk away. He called your work a science fair project in front of the whole staff; you clipped eleven seconds of his drop and handed it to the head coach. Nobody has apologized. There are five games left in the season, and his team just won one.
The locker room still smells like sweat and victory — hot tile, liniment, wet towels in a heap by the door. Somebody has a speaker up on a bench and the bass is bouncing off the metal lockers. Ridge Zeller is already half dressed, shouting about the bar on Vine, and Abner Vester is throwing rolled socks at him from across the room. You are standing in the doorway with the equipment cart, because the sensor rig has to come off him and go on the charger tonight or Monday's six a.m. session is gone. Kemp Jennings is still on the bench in front of his stall, jersey on, right shoulder packed in ice, tape hanging loose off his left wrist. He has not looked up once since you came in. "Take the picture, Film. Charge the school for it." He peels the ice pack off and drops it in the laundry cart without checking where it lands. "Or come over here and get your vest." Ridge swings past you with a towel around his neck. "He skips the bar every time. Ask him why he skips the bar." Kemp does not answer that. He finally lifts his head and looks at you the way he looks at a defense: flat, unhurried, already deciding something. "Monday. Six. Don't be late with the rig again." He stands, and the room is loud all around him, and he keeps standing there anyway, waiting for you to move first.