Read Online Game Changers by Mike Lupica - Free Book Online Page A

didn’t love having a job that Ben would have given anything to have.
    A job, by the way, he practically got handed with a bow around it.
    Oh no, it was much better than that, he didn’t even want the job.
    Sweet.
    Ben McBain couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t wanted to play quarterback.
    And even that wasn’t even the craziest part. The really mad crazy part was that for Ben to be something that was evenmore important to him than being a quarterback — being a good teammate — now he had to be Shawn O’Brien’s quarterback coach.
    Forget about what Sam might do if he found out Shawn’s “secret.” Ben wanted to tackle the guy, too, even though he knew better, knew that wasn’t him, that he had to help the guy even though Shawn had put him in a bad spot by swearing him to secrecy.
    Talk about taking one for the team.
    Check it out: Ben couldn’t tell his parents what he knew about Shawn. Couldn’t tell Sam or Coop. Couldn’t tell Lily. She was the one worrying him the most. Trying to keep something from her was going to make Science seem like fun in comparison. Ben knew he was going to have to be careful around her, because if he wasn’t, Lily would get that radar of hers going and demand to know what was up. Then he’d be in an even worse spot than he already was, because he and Lily had made their own pact all the way back in third grade, Lily making him swear that he’d never keep any secrets from her.
    Ever.
    And never lie to her.
    Ben had never been much of a liar, anyway, lying had always seemed way too hard, no matter how hard telling the truth about something might seem.
    The real truth right now was that he wished he’d never gone over to Shawn’s, that he’d stayed home and played video games. Or read a book.
    Sometimes when he was reading a book — Ben McBain loved reading almost as much as he did sports — he’d write down a sentence or two he wanted to remember. One time, he couldn’t remember the book right now, he’d written down this quote, just because it had struck him funny:
    â€œNo good deed goes unpunished.”
    When he’d shown it to his mom she’d smiled at him and said, “You gotta be prepared for something, pal. No matter how much you think you’re doing the right thing, life can still take a wrong turn on you.”
    Like now.
    Before Ben had left he’d said to Shawn, straight up, “So, like, you’re going to keep playing quarterback even though you don’t want to?”
    â€œI just have to get through this season,” Shawn had said. “Then maybe I’ll figure it out after. I keep hoping that Dad won’t want to coach next season, that it’s not his plan to coach me every year until I get to high school.”
    Ben had said, “So you’re doing this for him?”
    â€œI can’t let him down,” Shawn had said, almost whispering even though it was just the two of them. “And maybe if I got a little better I’d be a little less afraid.”
    They had been walking back up the hill by then.
    â€œAfraid of what?”
    â€œOf letting everybody down.”
    â€œAnd you think I can help you?”
    â€œYou have to,” Shawn had said.
    As he started up his block, Ben was thinking maybehe was the one who ought to be afraid, that maybe he’d finally promised something he wasn’t going to be able to deliver.
    Yeah, he thought.
    Definitely should have stayed home today.
    Â 
    Ben had never thought there were certain things he had to do to be a quarterback, like some kind of to-do list, even in pickup games. Once the pickup games started, he just was a QB. Just let it happen. If the play broke down, he made up another one on the fly. He’d seen this one play on YouTube, another Flutie play, where Flutie got jammed up in the backfield and the only way for him to complete a pass was throwing the ball