Page 55 of Away Game

“A day I’m going to spend sleeping. Speaking of, I’m going to go pass out.” He stood, plate in hand. “You might not want to talk about it, but you can always come to talk to me.”

Moving to him, I gave Oz a one-arm hug. “Thanks for making this easy.”

“It’s the way it should be, man. I’m not going to say anything to anyone else. I’ll take your lead on that, but I expect for us all to be hanging out more.”

“I’m not ready for anyone else to know. Hell, I don’t even know where this is going. West will probably get tired of me and say he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.”

“Doubtful,” Oz laughed as he stepped out of the room.

“Sleep well,” I gave him a chin nod.

I’d barely sat down on my bed when there was a knock on my door. West slipped inside and closed the door before he leaned back against it. “I saw Oz when I was coming up the stairs and going by the crazy smile he gave me, I took it to mean telling him went well.”

“He made me feel stupid for not opening up to him before now.” How could I have misjudged him so much after knowing him all these years?

West’s face brightened. “Maybe you could use a hug?”

I opened my legs wide. “I could take a hug, and then maybe we can watch some Netflix and see where it goes from there.”

Moving to stand between my legs, he looked down at me with excitement shining back at me. “I like the sound of that.”

So did I.

23

West

“I can’t believeyou and Oz won’t be back for another week,” Fin whined into the phone. It was his fault since he opted to stay in Willow Bay for winter break while Oz and I went home to Santa Lucia to see our families. I couldn’t say I was surprised he was willing to be away from his family for the holidays since he’d said he wasn’t planning on ever going back home. Even when Oz offered for Fin to stay with him, he wouldn’t change his mind.

“If you really want to see us, you can drive down here,” I tried to persuade him. “Or are you having more fun hanging out with Coach and his family?”

“Funny, it was one dinner for Christmas, but he is making sure I’m not overtraining now that I can finally get in some gym time. I feel like a baby with how low the weights are the trainers are having me start with. At this rate, I’ll be ready to play our senior year.” His tone was the opposite of his words. Fin was excited to be working out again, even if he did complain about it every day.

Luckily, he couldn’t see me roll my eyes at his absurdness. “Oz asked me if we broke up, and that’s why you wouldn’t come and stay with him.”

“Oh god,” he laughed down the line. “He asked me the same thing. How can we break up when we’re not even going out?”

From the beginning, I knew Fin had never been in a relationship before, but what the fuck! I wanted to curse him, but instead, I hung up. My ego couldn’t take Fin’s words at that moment.

Before I could set my phone down and walk away, it started to ring, and Fin’s name flashed on the screen. Closing my eyes, I turned and walked away. I was here to be with my family, and that’s what I was going to do.

Easton was sitting on the floor of our small living room, playing a video game. One of his friends had gotten a new game system for Christmas and gave him their old one. He was in hog heaven. He glanced up at me and then eyed the other controller sitting on the table.

“Are you finally going to play with me?” He asked, hopefully.

“Sorry about that. You’ve got me for the rest of the night.” He gave me a skeptical look. “I promise. I even left my phone in my room, so I can’t hear it if it goes off.”

Our house wasn’t big, so I would hear it, but I was going to ignore it. He deserved nothing less for what he’d said to me. I should have turned it off, but I had wanted to get away from it before I gave in to the temptation to rip Fin a new asshole.

“You were on the phone forever,” he complained, his eyes trained on our small TV screen.

“I know, and I’m sorry. I should be paying attention to what’s important, and you and mom are the most important people in my life.”

Fin had started to become one of those people, but now I wasn’t sure where we stood. Had he been hooking up with others this whole time? Even as I thought it, I knew the answer to that was no; he hadn’t. If Fin wasn’t in class, at practice, or a game, he was at the house. Most of the time, he was hiding away in his room. It had killed him to watch our team lose game after game and not be able to play. I think he was thankful when we didn’t make the playoffs.

Easton and I sat on the floor and played games until he couldn’t stop yawning, and his eyes were bloodshot. We headed to our room, both of us diving for our beds. “Will you play with me tomorrow?” he asked as I pulled my blanket over me.

Blinking open an eye, I saw my baby brother staring over at me. “I wish I could, E, but I’ve got to get up early to work. If you’re still home when I get back, I’ll play.”

---