Game On (5 page)

Bri nudges me and points to the woods. “There's Oscar the Grouch.”

She's right—he's pecking at the ground off the side of the road, barely ten feet away from the highway, where cars are shooting by. I jog over and scoop him up. He squawks at me, wrestling to get back to the ground.

“
Plenty of critters at our house, you snot.” Grinning, I hold him out for Bri. “See? He wouldn't have eaten your face. He goes for the wiggly stuff.”

She scrunches her nose. “You drive me crazy, you know that?”

“I'm good at driving girls crazy.”

“This is not the crazy you should be proud of.”

Her phone rings, some twangy song blaring against the peacefulness of the morning. She yanks it from her pocket, and blows out a breath before silencing it while shoving it back inside, but not before I catch Matt Harris's face filling her phone's screen. What the hell kind of guy calls at seven in the morning? Even if I
was
dating someone, unless I'm on my death bed, I ain't calling them at 7:00 a.m.

“He doesn't hate you for slumming it with me last night?” I finally ask. “Which I haven't thanked you for yet. So, you know, thanks.”

She turns on her heel, heading back toward our houses. “Don't mention it. He…” She trails off, shrugging. “He wasn't happy. Someone texted him that we were together and made it this huge deal. But he was drunk off his ass, all ‘baby, baby, I'll forget about it.' You know, I
hate
that word. I'm eighteen, not a freakin' baby.”

I can't help but snort. Her impression of him is spot on. “You know what you should call him? Jackass. Because that's what he is.”

“I'll leave the name-calling to you. Smartass.” She smiles.
Touché
.

By the time we reach her yard, Oscar's screeching like a banshee again. Instead of giving him an I'll-eat-you-for-lunch glare, Bri's smile grows as she starts across her lawn. “For what it's worth, I'm glad Oscar didn't turn into roadkill,” she says.

“Thanks for that. I think.”

She
tosses up a wave before disappearing into her house. Oscar squawks again. I shoot him a glare. “You're lucky I like you more than I like fried chicken.”

~

I'll never say this to the guy's face, but I've learned a lot from my brother. He's a year older, so I've admittedly spent half our lives stuck up his ass. He's always been my best friend, though—the only guy who's ever had my back 100 percent. And one thing he constantly told me, and reminded me of right before he left for college, was to never, ever let people see you sweat, even if you feel like you've been dropped into Hell itself.

Or, you know, First Baptist Church in Lewis Creek, South Carolina.

And I'm probably going to Hell for referring to church as a fiery abyss, but when you're the kid of Lewis Creek's most popular pastor, everybody and their momma loves to peek inside your glass house. Not only that, but the people in this town become nutjobs when it comes to baseball. Get 'em riled up and they put the demons to shame. Being both a pastor's kid and a ball player gets you a double dose of craziness.

Momma and Emma lead the way as we file into the jam-packed foyer, which is almost as hot as a lake of fire. Grace trudges ahead of me, her arms crossed. I shove my hands into the pockets of my khakis and plaster the practiced smile to my face. I can
feel
the glares boring into me; you'd think someone had wallpapered the sanctuary with this week's paper. A bunch of them were probably at Joyner's last night, too. They want a reaction. They want me to bitch and moan and sulk.

My grin only grows.

Momma and Emma head to the kids' class as Grace and I make our way through the crowd and into the sanctuary, where Mrs. Clark is playing “Amazing Grace” on the piano. We
make
a beeline for our usual pew, second from the front. Being right up front sucks (
hello, Pastor Dad)
, but it's not nearly as bad as the gossip that starts when the pastor's kid sits in the back row. I sat there
once
, and people expressed their “concern” to Momma for weeks.

Grace shifts, looking over her shoulder. She scans the crowd for a moment before she finally grins. I follow her line of sight. Randy's in the back with Matt and a couple other guys from the team, gawking at my sister. I lift an eyebrow. Randy rolls his eyes, but drops his gaze.

Another lesson learned from the older brother: you can't punch a guy for looking at your sister, even if you really, really want to. And that's why you teach your sister to throw one heck of a right hook. Which we did.

A hand attached to a wave of cheap perfume sneaks between us, landing on Grace's shoulder. “Sweetheart,” Ms. Thelma says in a loud whisper. “You must be chilly! I'm having a hard time believing your momma let you out of the house in that dress. Do you need to borrow a sweater? I can hunt one down for you.”

Grace flushes, likely from both embarrassment and holding back a “screw you.” I clear my throat, ready to jump in to the rescue.

And now there's a hand on my shoulder. I whip my head to the side, finding Mr. Joyner leaning over the back of my pew. He's a good ol' guy, owner of the best barbecue place in town. He's also head of the booster club, which makes him think that he manages the team. But he did give me a job last summer when I was trying to pay Coach back for that whole posting-my-bail/saving-my-ass thing, so I can't blow him off
too
much.

“How you doin' this morning, son?” he asks. “One heck of a write-up in today's paper, don't ya think?”

If
there's one thing you learn around here, it's how to spot backhanded bullshit. My jaw goes rigid, but I swallow my own “screw you” of the morning.
Grin. Grin, damn it.
“I'm doin' fine, Mr. Joyner,” I manage to say. “No such thing as bad press, right?”

His laugh booms, echoing above the low rumble of those piling into the sanctuary. “You got that right.” He slaps my shoulder again before turning to Mr. Bennett, who's sliding into the open space beside him.

I straighten in my seat. Is this what I have to look forward to for the rest of the year? Because it blows. I sprawl my legs and loosen my tie, trying to get
some
air circulating before I sweat to death.

“Does it ever stop?” Grace asks.

I look over. She's staring straight ahead at the choir filing onto the stage. Judging from her folded arms, flushed cheeks, and glare that could slice steel, she's fuming. She didn't just get the Perry stubbornness—she got the temper, too. I say good for her, but a girl with an attitude is anything but good when you're in our seats. You're supposed to smile. Be “proper” and gentle. Speak when spoken to. She doesn't play by those rules too well.

“Does what stop? “ I ask.

“The staring. The people who think they know everything about you, and don't know sh—” She glances around, probably to make sure no one heard her. “Don't know crap,” she finishes.

I don't have the heart to tell her that not only does it never stop, but it gets worse. And worse. And worse. That it doesn't stop until you're far, far away, because we were born and raised in this town, and half these people think they have some sick entitlement to our lives.

Instead
of telling her all that, I toss my arm across the back of the pew and go with something else Brett always told me: “Screw 'em.”

~

For most families around here, Sunday dinners are spent with pot roast, potatoes, rolls, green beans, and dessert.

Not at our house. Once we get home from church, I head to The Strike Zone and hit up the batting cages while everyone else sits around the house. Then, someone goes to pick up dinner from Joyner's BBQ before that night's church service. And that someone is always me.

Last year, I spent every Sunday with my brother and his friends at the cages. But now they're all gone, and the friends I do have left have lives of their own. Kellen is another pastor's kid whose family is tighter than the Brady Bunch on Sunday afternoon, and Blake works at the tractor supply store in town. So I go to the cages alone. Smack balls on my own. Get lost in my head, which isn't necessarily a good thing.

Sundays are when I miss my brother the most. But I'll never tell him I said that. Because now
he's
got a life of his own, too.

The sun's nearly gone by the time I pull into the lot at Joyner's. I hurry inside, since they'll be closing soon. The dining area's quiet, except for the low buzz of the fluorescents, with a handful of people scattered around—including Matt, Randy, and Bri, who are sitting in a booth. Bri's got her chin in her hands and is staring out the window, looking like she's lost in her own world. Which I'd imagine she has to do to suffer through a dinner with the guys sitting with her.

Laura Decker's working the register, in all her low-cut T-shirt, wavy blond hair glory. She smiles and leans onto the counter as I approach. “Hey, gorgeous,” I say, grinning.

She
laughs and rolls her eyes—she knows I'm full of crap. She's my favorite girl around here; she plays the game just as well as I do, if not better. “Hey, yourself. Same order as always?” When I nod, she turns and calls my order out to the kitchen.

I glance over my shoulder, sneaking a peek at Bri. She's not in her own world anymore—Matt's whispering something in her ear, which has her lips in a downright miserable frown. She nudges him, but he won't budge. She nudges again, and finally pushes the asshole.

“Move!” she shouts.

Matt rolls his eyes, but finally stands and lets her scoot out of the booth. She storms to the door, letting it clamor closed behind her.

The idiot probably called her “baby” again.

“Eric,” Laura says.

I whirl around. “Yeah. What's up?” My bag of food has magically appeared on the counter, and Laura's looking at me like I'm a nutcase. There's a 99 percent chance I've missed something here. I hand her my dad's debit card, which she takes slowly.

“I was asking about that crappy article,” she says. “And whether or not you need some cheering up. Did you hear a word I said?”

Sadly, no. No, I did not. I'm too busy spying on the neighbor girl. But cheering up sounds like a good idea.

My mouth hangs open as I turn just enough to see out the front door. Bri and Matt are in the middle of the near-empty parking lot, with Bri gesturing all over the place, yelling about who-knows-what.

I
shouldn't be a nosy-ass. I should mind my own business. I
should
let Laura cheer me up in the break room, like she's done plenty of times before. But my gut's twisting and turning, because I've never seen Bri lose her shit in public before. Something's got to be wrong out there.

Scratching my head, I grab Dad's card and scoop up the bag. “I'll text you, okay? Rain check.”

I hurry to the door before she answers, peering outside before heading out there. Randy's standing beneath the restaurant's awning with his hands stuffed in his pockets, watching Bri and Matt go toe-to-toe in the lot like it's just another night. Bri's face is twisted in this weird sort of rage I didn't know she was capable of, and I used to sneak rubber snakes into her house when we were kids; I would know her wrath.

I lift my chin toward the golden couple. “What's going on over there?” I ask Randy.

He shrugs, chomping on his Godawful tobacco. “No clue, man. She's been acting like a bitch since we got here, so—”

I wince. The idiocy is actually painful. “Just stop there.”

“Seriously?” Bri's voice carries across the lot. “Whatever. I'll walk home.”

“Are you really that stupid?” Matt says. “You live, like, three miles away.”

My face heats with a surge of rage. You can't talk to a girl like that, dude.

But Bri doesn't flinch, she doesn't scream, she doesn't look surprised in the least—she just looks exhausted. Which means this probably isn't the first time. And that only pisses me off more.

She holds out her arms and lets them fall to her side. “Perfect. I run, like, five miles during every soccer game. I'm good to go.”

Yeah,
no. Harris may be okay with letting a girl walk three miles when it's nearly dark, but not on my watch.

Right as Bri starts toward the road, I call her name. She turns, her eyes widening as if she genuinely didn't know I was out here. “You need a ride home?” I ask, striding across the lot.

Matt's shoulders drop as he says, “Mind your business, Perry. I'm handlin' it.”

I stop in front of him. “One, you don't need to handle anyone but yourself, and two, maybe if you stopped callin' girls ‘stupid,' they'd be more willing to talk to you.” I smirk. “Just a guess.”

He takes a step forward. “So you're handing out advice?” Another step. Another, until he's standing so close I could easily just shove him out of my face. But I don't because, you know,
low profile
.

Low profiles suck.

I hold his glare with a solid one of my own. “Not advice,” I tell him. “More like common sense.”

“Wait.” He flashes a grin. “I know what's crawled up your ass: that article from this morning. What was it? ‘Mildly impressive'?” He shrugs. “Honestly, I thought they were being generous. Don't know why you're taking it out on me.”

The bag in the crook of my arm crackles as I squeeze it instead of the guy in front of me. “How about I show you what a mildly impressive arm can do, you son of a—”

Bri clears her throat from behind Matt. “You know what? I think I will take a ride.”

Matt whirls around. “Like hell you are. We're not done here.”

My arm twitches.
So easy.
It'd be so freakin' easy to make him swallow those words.