Bill and Louis smiled.

Another liter of Coke awaited them. In the refrigerator. We wouldn't go near them.

Winter came. Christmas came. Spring break. No football.

Jy was tired of losing. He didn't want to play anymore. It wasn't fun anymore.

I agreed. But I still thought we could beat them.

Bill and Louis kept pestering us. They wanted another game.

"No, no," Jy said. "I'm getting sick of it." I nodded. No, no, we'd had enough.

Jy and I didn't talk about the games anymore. We didn't even nod to each other confidently. We'd had enough.

But last Sunday we dragged ourselves out of bed and walked to the Common.

It was just me and Jy again.

The day was nice. The field was hard and fast. Louis and Bill hadn't exercised in months and Jy and I were as fit as bulls.

They scored first. They scored again. They jumped ahead of us, 42-14, and I was breathing hard and Jy was cursing at himself.

But, somehow, we pulled within two touchdowns.

Jy caught a pass on fourth down and slipped past Bill into the end-zone.

We held them on the next series. They didn't even complete a pass.