Page 14 of The Perfect Steal

“Where did the alfredo come from?” I asked. It had to be takeout.

“Dad must have put it in there last night when he got home from his trip.”

I frowned. “So you just ate it without asking him?”

John matched my expression and then laughed. “Come on, Brynn. He’ll forget about it anyway. He’ll probably pick something else up on his way home.”

He had a point. I walked over to the fridge, pulling out the large takeout box. Sometimes I wondered if my father got extra helpings when he came back just so we’d have something different than cereal for dinner.

I chuckled and pointed at the plate. “Of course, John Miller doesn’t turn down food.”

“I’m a growing boy,” he said, grinning. “And you don’t turn it down either. I wonder where he got it, though. This stuff is better than the Italian restaurant in town. The noodles look like they’ve been made from scratch.”

He was right; the noodles looked much thicker and wider than normal pasta we cooked from a box, but I was too hungry to care about where it came from, just as long as it calmed my starving stomach. I pulled out a plate and scooped out a small mound of it. Once it was in the microwave, I turned around and leaned on the cabinet, studying my brother.

He’d always been a happy-go-lucky kid, but there were hints of his own battle with this new “normal” in our house, where our parents avoided each other except to argue.

After several seconds of quiet, I asked, “Is Dad really having practice on Halloween?”

John shrugged. “Their first games are next week. He probably wants to get all the plays in before then.”

“Or he’s already sent the players home and is watching hours of film in his office.” That was the most likely situation. My dad had always put in a hundred percent when it came to his job, but ever since my sister’s passing, he’d thrown himself into his work, doing everything he could to be the perfect coach. As if that would somehow honor her memory.

Our father had been a coach for the University of Houston since I could remember. I’d lost count of the amount of Cougars gear I’d grown out of and the number of games I’d gone to. The downside to that was he was always on the road during my basketball season, only seeing two or three games a year.

When he didn’t have to coach, he spent many weekends out of town, recruiting for the following year. He made good money, especially since the guys’ team had made it far in the playoffs the past several years, but the number of hours he had to put in didn’t seem worth it sometimes.

“No baseball today, huh?” I asked, opening the silverware drawer and taking out a fork.

He shook his head. “We already finished. My only supporter doesn’t even know my schedule.” He said it with a bit of drama, causing me to laugh. But the meaning of his words tore through me, leaving sadness in its wake.

“I’m sorry, Johnny. You must have left early this morning.” I should’ve checked his schedule. Maybe then I wouldn’t have had the conversation with my mother running through my head for the rest of the day.

He nodded, chewing his pasta a few more times. “Yeah, Colt picked me up on his way to the field. We had two games. Won the first but lost the second. How was your practice?” He stuck another forkful of pasta into his mouth. I was surprised he hadn’t unhinged his jaw for the amount he’d twirled onto it.

“Not real practice today. Just shooting some hoops outside, trying to take my mind off things.” The microwave beeped, and I pushed the open button, smelling the fragrant garlic and alfredo.

“One of the freshmen said it was pretty bad yesterday. You had to do a ton of ladders or something, right?”

I groaned, just thinking of it making me nauseous. “Yeah, Josie was picked to do the foul shot at the end of practice, or I should say foul shots. She was so flustered after missing the first two shots that she kept missing, all the way up to twenty-two misses before she made it. That meant we had to do that many ladders. I feel like I could be a track runner at this point with all the sprinting I’ve had to do this week.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” he said, his mouth opening and closing as he chewed the food. It grossed me out.

“Wait, who’s this freshman you’re talking about? Does Johnny have a crush on someone in his class?” I jabbed a finger into his side, the exact spot where he was ticklish to the point that all his limbs went flailing.

He slapped at my hand and scooted to the next stool over. “Stop it. She’s just a friend, all right?”

“Did Mom come back yet?” I asked, trying to hold in an audible groan as I tasted the pasta. This beat cold cereal and sandwiches.

“I haven’t heard from her, but what’s new?” His mood shifted, and I could tell his relationship with our mother was about the same as mine at this point.

My phone rang next to me, some Broadway song Hazel had set for her ringtone when she’d moved back to Pecan Flatts. I couldn’t remember which play it was connected to, but I couldn’t admit that to my cousin or she’d make me watch the whole thing. We’d already done that once, as she’d forced me to watch a pirated historical play on one of the internet browsers, meaning the sound was awful and it kept pausing.

“What’s up, Hazel?” I asked, twirling my fork in the pasta while I listened.

“We’ve got a few people coming to my house. Where are you tonight?”

I glanced around at the home where I’d grown up, knowing I was about four and a half minutes from her house.

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