Game Theory × NH

001 | hydrogen

× Horan

"Lynn Mercury."

I sat in silence as a video played on the tiny telly in the front of the room. The whole team, all seventeen of us, were crammed into Coach's office with all the lights off. The only source of radiance was from the flickering image in front of us. It was of a girl's college football game somewhere out in America according to a large red, white, and blue flag in the background. It was hard to see on the small screen, but it was obvious that the focus of the camera was on a brunette with the jersey number thirteen.

"Fast," Coach continued to speak. "Stealthy. Dedicated. Doesn't give up."

Over his shoulder, there was a close-up of the girl in question on the screen, her name printed along the bottom like a headline. Her face was twisted in concentration as she looked out at something beyond the camera's lens. She had straight, caramel hair that was pulled back into a ponytail, a pink headband keeping the flyaway hair out of her face.

"And hot," someone added from behind me. I turned in time to see Dylan and Thomas high five.

"Yeah, mate!" Thomas expressed with a cocky grin. "I wouldn't mind playing footie with her, if you know what I-"

"Not the topic of discussion right now, nor will it ever be!" Coach yelled, making the chatter stop. His voice echoed around the tiny room. I silently thanked him knowing the more the lads interrupted, the longer we would be sitting in that stuffy room. "We're discussing technique and skill here. You can go back to talking with your dicks at another time."

It never failed. We couldn't go one meeting without someone breaking out of discussion and talking about something else - usually about girls, almost always something inappropriate. Every time, Coach would shut them down faster than the stadium lights after a lost game.

"As I was saying, I reckon she has a lot of potential," Coach continued.

I started zooning out at the telly in front of me. I watched as the Lynn girl dribbled the ball down the bright green turf and past defenders, kicking the ball right over the goalies head, straight into the net. Stealthy was an understatement, it was like she was on fire and the opponents didn't want to get too close to her flame.

I wasn't going to deny that she had skill; I just didn't see how it caught Coach's attention and why the hell he was telling us about her.

"Niall?" Coach asked. I broke away from the screen and looked over at him.

From the corner of my eye, I saw that the whole team was looking at me, which wasn't very uncommon since the team always seemed to look at me for answers. Weather it was on a game play they had thought up or if it was safe to mix hydrogen peroxide and piranha solution together, it didn't matter. They always came to me.

"What?" I asked, breaking away from my thoughts.

"I asked what you thought of Mercury, but from your lack of communication and not paying attention, I assume you like her."

I just shrugged because if I learned anything from my mother, it was to stay silent until you knew everything that was going on. And at that moment, I knew absolutely nothing.

"Why do you want to know?" I asked.

Coach crossed his arms and gave me a smug look. "As you know, we're not doing our best this year," he explained. "So I did a little research and found something that may help us out in the field."