Free Fantasy League by Mike Lupica Page A

Houston’s opener, getting him even more points from that position than he’d expected. Who to sit and who to watch and how his team defense, the Giants, had not only shut out the Eagles, but scored two defensive touchdowns and had six sacks.
    Charlie tried to act like it was no big deal, tried not to act excited in front of Anna.
    Knowing he was ridiculously excited.
    â€œYou sounded like a pro,” Anna said when she shut off the radio.
    â€œI sounded like a small dog. I’m just glad I didn’t have to do it live.”
    â€œYou could have.” Anna smiled. “Dog.”
    â€œMr. Fallon said maybe down the road. For now if he just takes some of our show, he can play it whenever he wants in his show and I don’t have to sit around waiting for him to call me.”
    â€œYou know I’d be all over you if it wasn’t any good,” she said.
    â€œTell me about it.”
    â€œBut it
was
good. Really good. Really.”
    â€œI wonder if anybody was really listening.”
    â€œJust wait, Charlie Gaines,” she said. “Just wait for the reaction from people who really were listening, and are about to find out how much of a Brain you really are about football.”
    He didn’t mind when she said it.
    â€œIf I’m so brilliant, how come you disagree with me so often?”
    She smiled right at him. Charlie wondering, and not for the first time when he was with her, how old you had to be to tell a girl how much you loved a smile like hers; if you had to wait until you were in high school.
    â€œBeing a brain doesn’t mean always being right,” she said. Still smiling she added, “Deal with that, too.”

Eleven
    MR. WARREN’S DRIVER, CARLOS, PICKED up Charlie at eleven sharp the next morning for the ride to practice. Charlie didn’t know a lot about cars or have much interest in them, even living in Los Angeles, but he knew enough to recognize that he was riding in the backseat of a shiny black Mercedes.
    Something else he didn’t know:
    Whether he was supposed to talk to the driver or not.
    But then it was Carlos who started talking about the Bulldogs, Charlie figuring out quickly that he knew his football, and loved his L.A. Bulldogs almost as much as he loved Joe Warren.
    â€œHe deserves so much better,” Carlos said. He had volunteered to Charlie that he had been born in Mexico, but had hardly any accent.
    Charlie said, “Maybe last week is the start of something, and they’re going to surprise us this season.”
    Looked up from the backseat, saw Carlos looking at him in the rearview mirror. Grinning.
    â€œ
De tus labios a los oídos de Dios,
” he said.
    â€œI’m bad at Spanish.”
    Carlos said, “From your lips to God’s ears, young man.”
    When they got to Bulldogs Stadium they used the players’ entrance for cars, went down a long ramp, Charlie starting to think that the next stop for them might be the fifty-yard line. Eventually they parked in a space that Carlos said was only about fifty yards from the Bulldogs’ locker room. The sign on the wall in front of them said “Mr. Warren, Sr.”
    Next to them was a fancy red convertible, top down. The sign in front of that one said “Mr. Warren, Jr.”
    And on the other side of that, Carlos told him, was the Jeep Laredo belonging to the team’s head coach, Nick Fiore.
    Charlie and Anna had talked about Coach Fiore, whom they both liked. Everyone in the media seemed to agree that Nick Fiore’s job was on the line this season. For once, even Charlie and Anna agreed that it wasn’t fair to blame Coach Fiore, that you could only coach the players you had. Anna always adding, “The players my uncle drafted or traded for.”
    But even at the age of twelve, Charlie had figured out that nobody had ever passed a law saying sports had to be fair.
    Any more than life had to be.
    Carlos and Charlie rode up to Mr.