Songs for Cricket by Laine, E. (ebook reader .TXT) 📕

“How was the Omega party?”

I finished chewing my bite of banana and shrugged. “Nothing like a Sigma party, I bet.”

Sawyer had been a member of that elite group. From what I’d heard, you had to have a bank account with more digits to the left of the decimal point than a telephone number to pledge Sigma Gamma Alpha.

“Bunch of elitists if you ask me,” Finn said. “I’m sure you had more fun at the Omega house.”

I quirked up a corner of my mouth as an answer. “Do you want some breakfast?”

“No, I’m fine, thanks.”

From what I understood, Finn had gone to great lengths to be independent so his family wouldn’t send a caretaker to watch over him.

“It’s no biggie. I’m waiting for my brothers anyway.”

He smiled. “You drive a hard bargain. Besides, my ego isn’t that big not to accept help. And go ahead and ask any question you want. I’m a straight shooter. You know you want to.”

His wink almost gave me the gumption to ask about how he’d gone from being completely paralyzed to waving his hand. But despite his easy-going nature, I couldn’t do it.

“Eggs?” He chuckled and told me how he liked them. I got the skillet from a lower cabinet and the eggs from the fridge. Then I asked a slightly different question, “Did you always know one day you’d be this close to walking again?”

He’d been hit head on by a car driving way too fast in a residential area.

“No. A lot of it has to do with the care I received right after the accident. The surgeon who put me back together worked miracles. When I told them I’d felt something, because it was fleeting, I was told it was phantom pains.”

“But it wasn’t?”

His head tilted, and he glanced straight ahead for a second. “I don’t think so, but the fact is that I can do this—” He wiggled his bare toes and the fingers of the left arm he hadn’t moved much. “—could all be a result of time or the stem-cell treatment I received. It’s part of the reason I’m here. I have a grant to do more research.”

Cooper came downstairs just as I finished Finn’s eggs. I slid them on a plate. Then I walked it over to the table where a chair was conveniently missing. I figured this was where Finn ate.

He rolled over and said thanks. I smiled. “You’re welcome.” To my brother, I said, “You’re late; kitchen’s closed.”

All of us could cook, maybe not like chefs, but Dad had us learn how to take care of ourselves from cooking to cleaning to doing our own laundry. We didn’t have a household staff even though we could afford it. We all had jobs in the house, including Mom, lest we be spoiled by the hard-earned money Dad brought home.

I pushed that bitter pill back as August and Shepard appeared.

“Why are you up early?” August asked me. “Soccer tryouts aren’t until Wednesday.”

He hadn’t meant anything by it, but it stung all the same. When Layton hadn’t offered me a place on their soccer team, my father had reminded me I wasn’t good enough. He’d argued for me to take one of the partial scholarships at a different school. When I’d held my ground, he’d made a point that I needed to earn my place. For him, that meant being number one at something to earn the tuition he was paying for me to attend.

“I’m going with y’all.”

August took an apple while Shepard grabbed an orange from the filled fruit basket sitting on the middle of the island. “Fine, let’s go,” August said.

We piled in the car with August at the wheel, Shep beside him, and Coop and me in the back. My eyes almost popped out of my head when we pulled up in the parking lot in front of a huge building complex.

I’d read about it. They’d just finished building it from wealthy alumni donations. It had opened this year and was dedicated for and only used by the football program. It reputedly had a swimming pool, mini golf course, bowling lanes, and a sand volleyball court.

“Wow,” Shepard said.

We all silently agreed, getting out of the car and taking in the sheer size of the building decked out with a shooting water fountain out front. Then there was the practice field just beyond it that was the size of our high school’s stadium.

Everything became real.

August said, “Come on.”

I looked in the direction he was waving us where several players were heading to the field.

Suddenly my plan felt so daunting. I took in a deep breath and followed, wondering how my brothers would react when I identified myself there for tryouts.

Cooper and Shepard would probably say nothing. But August was a wild card. Though he picked on me privately, publicly he’d always had my back. But this was different. I wasn’t sure what his reaction was going to be.

Luckily, by the time we got there, I was swallowed into a crowd of guys of all shapes and sizes. I got a few looks, but since I was surrounded by three big guys, no one said anything. I held back in the pack, not sure when to make my move.

I’d gone to football tryouts once before. My first year of high school, I’d walked in with a chip on my shoulder knowing what I was up against. But the coach had publicly shut me down when he asked if I had a signed permission slip from my parents. Dad refused to sign the forms, and that had been the end of things.

This was different. I was eighteen and could do what I wanted. So there I was hidden when I heard the coach address the guys.

“Now ladies . . .”

Everything went into slow motion. The crowd seemed to part giving the coach a view of me.

He removed his cap and scrubbed at a balding head. “Cheerleading practice is in