My alarm blared: Spider-Man, spidermaaaaan, does whatever a spider can. I groaned and snoozed it, yanking the pillow over my head.

I had never dreaded soccer practice before. It had always been my happy place. As a kid, Dad and I used to get up early on the weekends so we could take the ball out in the backyard. We watched the European leagues together and, in high school, he’d listen to me daydream about college soccer teams. My happiest memories of him were all about soccer.

I wished I could have asked Dad for advice about Wesley. I wished it more than anything. My chest hurt with the wishing of it.

Spider-Man, spidermaaaaan—

Some wishes won't ever come true. I hit my alarm and dragged myself upright, rubbing sleep from my eyes. I was going to be late if I didn't get a move on.

I dressed in a hurry and didn't bother to shower. (I was just going to get sweaty again at practice). On my way out the door, I caught a glimpse of Sean's hand poking out from underneath his blanket, fingers jabbing a peace sign. "Have a good day, dude," he mumbled.

"You, too." I tried to sound chipper, but I knew I failed.

The walk across campus gave me time to screw up my courage. It was a beautiful morning—breezy and light and not too hot yet. Dew still clung to the grass and soaked my shoes when I cut across the quad to get to the sports complex. Having Dad on my mind had made me melancholy, but it wasn't a bad thing to have his memory with me. In a way, it brought me closer to him. And when I thought about it, I knew exactly what Dad would have told me about Wesley: he would say that I shouldn't let one person ruin my passion for me. I was great at soccer. I loved soccer. I needed to be more optimistic—like Sean. It's not like I was on the team for Wesley, anyway. He didn't get to dictate how I felt.

At practice, everyone seemed a little bit out of sorts. We rolled through our stretches and opening warm-up without talking much, and then Coach Garcia set us up dribbling figure-eights through a line of cones. Nobody was doing very well. Maybe it was the fact that it was seven in the morning. Probably not everybody here was thinking about their dads.

"Enough!" Coach shouted. Duncan was in the middle of a line, and he froze so quickly he lost control of the ball and it went skidding off over the sideline. "¿Qué pasa, y'all? I thought this was supposed to be a D1 team. You all are acting like kindergarteners."

I winced. I could appreciate Coach's "tough love" approach to us, but I felt a little raw this morning.

"Wesley." Coach flicked his hand, and Wesley trotted forward like a champion thoroughbred. "Show them how it's done."

I watched, trying not to be sullen about it as Wesley ran the drill. He ran it perfectly. My resentment faded to admiration as I watched. His footwork was flawless. The ball bobbed ahead of him like it wanted to take his instruction, and he hardly even seemed to be trying. From the looks on the other guys' faces, they were as impressed as I was. Wesley could definitely go pro if he wanted.

I'd always wanted to go pro.

I watched him run the drill again and recommitted to getting on his good side. I could learn a lot from him if he would let me. I hoped he would let me.

After practice, I followed Wesley into the locker room. The other guys were all immersed in their own business, neatening up as best they could and stowing away their gear. Juan was doing an impersonation of one of his roommates, putting Duncan in stitches. Nobody was paying attention to me.

I dropped down on the bench across from Wesley, who was taking off his cleats, tweaking a bit of sod from between two of the studs. He ignored me. For a minute, I let him, pulling together the pieces of what I wanted to say. Then I leaned forward and braced my elbows on my knees, saying, "Heeeyy…your ball control is really something."

He grunted and didn't look up. Patrick, sitting on a bench nearby and toweling his neck with a tee-shirt, made a face at me that I thought was supposed to be the eye-squinting equivalent of a thumbs up.

I took a breath and pressed on. "I was wondering if—I mean, if you have free time—if maybe you could…um. Give me some pointers on footwork?"

Wesley lifted his face to mine, and for a breathless moment, he just stared at me. I felt my heart pick up again, the same way it had in the dining hall. His eyes had the cool, deep green of a glacier, and I couldn't begin to guess what he was thinking. Maybe he was considering it.

Then he gave a short laugh and looked away. "You're kidding, right? Why would I waste my time training a freshman who's never going to be on the starting line?"

My heart sank. I tried to keep looking him in the face, but I couldn't, and my gaze dropped to my hands in my lap instead.

Patrick sucked in a breath through his teeth. "Whoa, dude," he said to Wesley. "Too harsh."

"No. It's—" I shrugged, feigning nonchalance—"it's fine. Thanks anyway, Wesley."

Maybe I was wasting my time on him, too. I got up and left the locker room.

I had a blank spot in the middle of my afternoon that day, after I’d finished getting my books from the campus store and before it made sense to eat dinner. I'd thought maybe I would spend it doing solo drills, but when the time came, I didn't really feel like it. Instead, I zoned out on my bed in my dorm. I'd already put up my posters and rearranged the new books on my desk twice. I’d briefly considered buckling down and getting a head-start on reading for my classes, but I didn't feel like doing that, either. Then I'd thought about going out to explore campus some more, but that sounded like it would involve effort, and possibly talking to people, so I'd decided against it. Now I was just holding one of my favorite Spider-Man issues in front of my face but not really reading it, feeling mopey and bored out of my skull.

Suddenly the door banged opened and Sean blasted inside. He threw his bookbag at his desk like a grenade and flung himself down on the bed with an enthusiasm that made the springs scream. "Hey bro, how's your day been?"

I dropped Spider-Man to my chest, grateful for the interruption. "It's been shit."

"Whoa, whoa, negativity." Sean made a face like I'd called his mother a name. "What's going on?"

I thought about it. In my current mood, telling the story seemed like a lot of work, but Sean was one of the easiest people to talk to that I'd ever met, so I started at the beginning. I explained everything that had been going on with Wesley, starting with his strange reaction to me the first day at practice and ending with the thing he'd said to me this morning. Sean listened in attentive silence, arranging himself on his side so he could see me and propping his cheek on his fist. "Damn," he said when I'd finished. "Sounds like our boy Wes has a bee in his bonnet. Weird. Patrick always said he was nice."

"Ugh." I dropped Spider-Man on my face and grunted into the pages. "He seems very nice to everyone else! I don't know what his deal is with me. I've tried everything. I think I'm gonna just give up."

Sean reacted to this like I'd just said I was going to jump off a bridge. "No!" he cried with a dramatic swing of his arm. "Don't give up! You can never give up! Here. I'm gonna text my brother and see if he can help."

"No!" I half-lurched off the bed. "Don't do that. C'mon, man, Patrick doesn't need to get involved. I'm sure he's really busy. I can deal with my own—"

"Too late." Sean held up his phone and hit the send button. An ellipsis flashed on the screen.

I waited. Sean waited. Sean's phone pinged. A slow grin spread across Sean's face, and he mashed some keys. Taptaptaptap.

"What's he saying?" I hissed, hardly daring to hope. Patrick was probably saying, Aw, that poor loser Carter, he's a lost cause, sorry bro.

Sean ignored me and tap-tap-tapped some more on the phone. Then he looked up at me, a wide grin spreading across his face. "How do you feel about going to a party tonight?"