Beastly Skills with Warm-Up Drills

When Coach Wilcox starts warm-ups, Rafe keeps Aidan nearby, explaining any exercise Aidan's unfamiliar with, and otherwise keeping him company while Coach puts them all through their paces.

Rafe's glad to see it doesn't take long for Aidan to lose himself in the familiarity of practice and let his stiffness dissipate.

The midfielder isn't sure what caused his earlier distress, but now, Aidan's all smiles and focus, as Scruff keeps pace with him. The blond boy is clearly smitten with the dog, and given Scruff's happy barks and continued insistence on running next to Aidan, the feeling appears to be mutual.

What Rafe doesn't notice is that he'd been unusually rigid and stiff himself; only once Aidan starts looking comfortable does he relax, too.

Coach notices, though.

He can't help but think Rafe looks as excited to play with Aidan as Aidan looks to play with the dog.

Busying himself with his clipboard, Coach ducks his head to hide his smile.

Teenage boys, he'd long ago learned, are more often kind than cruel, but most don't like to be noticed for either trait.

To make sure his players don't think he's getting soft, Coach adds five on-the-ball laps to the conditioning menu.

(He tells himself this decision is in no way influenced by the fact he knows this drill will show off Aidan's strengths, and that Santi sucks at it.

If this teaches his egocentric ace striker a lesson about being a condescending jerk, well, that's simply an unintended side effect.)

It only takes one lap for Aidan to outstrip everyone but the two central midfielders Rafe and Lorenzo, the fullback Tyrell, the winger Nick, and Darius, a fullback who recently switched to defensive mid.

As they round a corner and move into lap two, Rafe notices Santi and his best friend Cisco's identical expressions of disbelief as they watch Aidan effortlessly lead the front pack farther and farther ahead.

He cracks up at their wide-eyed shock but immediately regrets it, since keeping up with Aidan honestly requires all his concentration, and he doesn't have the spare breath to be laughing like this.

So much for Aidan dying; the kid's a freaking beast.

Given how hard Santi's pushing himself so he doesn't get lapped, it's more likely he's the one who isn't going to make it to the end of practice in one piece.

In Santi's defense, Rafe has to acknowledge that most players, even the ones from prestigious clubs, die a little the first time they experience a Coach Wilcox practice.

Not only is practice longer and more intense than even some lower-level university trainings, Coach is really into fitness with the ball. Rafe figures between 80-90% of fitness work Coach has them do, he includes the ball in some form.

Why run laps, when you can run laps while dribbling?

Why do agilities, when you can run agilities while dribbling?

Why do wind sprints, when you can sprint down the field, head a passed ball, then turn and sprint back while dribbling and trying not to puke?

Rafe pukes a little in his mouth just thinking about it, actually.

This run is no different.

Lap One, Coach Wilcox has them dribbling the whole way, while Coach Sebastian calls out ball-control moves like step-overs and scissors. Lap Two is more dribbling, but Coach Sebastian calls out "Jump!" every ten seconds, and players have to grab the ball between their feet and leap forward with it.

Lap Three is pure evil.

An entire lap of juggling.

Aidan, Rafe, and Lorenzo are the only ones who make it the first half-lap without dropping the ball at least once, though only Aidan ups the challenge by passing to Scruff a couple times and having the dog head it back to him.

"Good boy!" Aidan exclaims, all smiles and pink-cheeked cheer.

Without looking, he heels the ball up over his head then twists to jog-and-juggle backwards and keep talking to Scruff.

Lorenzo Baresi edges closer to Rafe. "Tell me the truth. Is that dude really human? Or some sort of cyborg escaped from Microsoft up the road?"

Darius barks out a laugh, then starts wheezing and almost fumbles his ball. "Nah, man. That level of tech has Elon Musk written all over it."

Lorenzo, nods, as if this makes perfect sense. "I see it. Kane's a human Tesla; he doesn't run on gas, so he can't run out of it."

"I dunno, dudes," Rafe interjects, eyes focused on the ball bouncing off the inside of his cleat. "Teslas only get what, 300 miles per charge? Pretty sure Aidan's good for twice that."

"Friggin' monster," Nick Jones mutters as his own ball drifts out of reach for the fifth time.

Before Lap Four starts, the front group gains a breather while they wait for the rest of the team to catch up.

Aidan's having so much fun playing with the damn dog, however, he keeps moving the ball around, even as he drinks from his water bottle.

"Friggin' monster," Tyrell agrees. He's splayed out on the grass, huffing and puffing like he has the lungs of an 80-year-old chain smoker.

Lorenzo just shakes his head and scrubs his face and wavy brown hair with a clean towel. He consistently brings five fresh towels to practice, so he never has to wipe his face with a sweat-soaked one. He says it's to avoid any breakouts on his annoyingly perfect olive complexion, but Rafe's pretty sure the Italian dude's just rich and can't help doing weird rich-people shit sometimes.

The worst part about finishing Lap Three in the last group, is that you don't get a break before Lap Four begins. Coach's sadistic streak shines through there.

The final two laps are called an Indian Run, which is racist on more levels than Rafe cares to think about, especially as a first-gen Mexican-American whose dad is mostly Mayan.

As Captain, Beck starts off in front for these final laps; the other nineteen players trail closely behind, practicing tight dribbling so they don't trip the guy in front. The team takes off at a jog, and the player at the back of the line sprints to the front. When they make it to the front, the next player in back sprints to the front, so on and so forth.

It's an exhausting workout at the best of times, but this run's worse than usual.

Santi trades spots so he ends up sprinting right before Aidan. When he makes it to the front, he barely slows down. His "jog" is almost twice Beck's original pace. Everyone else has to speed up to stay with him, so Aidan has to sprint even faster than that if he wants to make it to the front.

The problem is, Aidan has no problem doing so.

And he doesn't know Santi was trying to screw him over and make him work harder. Aidan just thinks this is how their team's Indian Runs work, that after the first few people, the whole team's supposed to start running faster. So now he's in front, and he ups the team pace yet again, and Santi's bug-eyed because he can't believe the little freak could book it like that while dribbling, and everyone else is dying trying not to get left behind.

Rafe's next, and though he's tired, he mostly finds this whole thing hilarious, so he sprints to the front and keeps Aidan's grueling pace going. Not wanting to look weak, Lorenzo's competitive streak forces him to follow suit. By this point, no one wants to be the one who can't hack it and has to slow down the pace, so the next three players also keep the group pace at a run.

Except, not everyone's a sprinting beast like the forwards and midfielders.

Poor Joe.

Joe Harris, backup goalkeeper, sprints his heart out, but for the life of him, he cannot outpace the group and make it to the front. In his defense, he's a solid 6'3 (1.90m) and bulky, and that body was not designed to be aerodynamic.

He ends up running full-tilt almost 100 meters alongside the group before the pacesetter Darius wonders what's taking the next player so long and looks back to see what's up.

Indecision wars on his face, and he runs a hand across his tapered buzz cut.

Finally, Darius feels too bad for Joe, who's red-faced and panting and looking ten seconds away from a heart attack, so he slows the pace enough Joe can catch up. Unfortunately, several other players struggling to keep up the grueling pace don't have the necessary leftover brain power to pay attention to things like sudden speed changes.

They slam into the suddenly-appearing backs of the guys in front of them. Those guys then lose control of their dribbling, and the stray footballs end up tripping the guys in front of them, who then stumble into the guys in front of *them*, and long story short, over half the team ends up on the ground in a brightly-colored pile-up.

Whistles blare from all sides, as Coaches Wilcox, Sebastian, and Morgan all signal everyone to stop while they come running to make sure everyone's fine.

Scruff helps by licking the faces of as many fallen players conveniently now at his height level, as possible.

It doesn't take long to figure out no one's hurt anything more than their pride.

Santi's scowling, and sporting an epic grass stain where he'd fallen on his ass, but no one's sparing him any sympathy. A few guys are already laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole thing.

To exactly no one's surprise, Aidan is one of the few players in the middle of the pack to emerge unscathed.

He didn't even lose control of his ball.

"Huh, I see what Santi was warning me about now," Aidan says as he helps Rafe up.

"What do you mean?" Rafe asks, brushing himself off.

"Your guys' practices are dangerous."

Rafe ends up laughing so hard, he just rolls back into the grass. Scruff joins him, rolling onto his back and barking cheerfully.

Aidan's confused, but as he gives Scruff some well-deserved belly rubs, a small smile tugs on his lips, and he thinks this might be the best practice he's ever had.