Page 9 of IOU

The hesitation and crunching in the background tell me I interrupted him mid-chew. Is he just now eating dinner?

“Decent. My bat was cold. I couldn’t get anything out of the infield.”

“Your arm still sore? You’ve been icing it like I told you?”

He groans. “Yes,Dad. I’m just distracted, that’s all.”

My brother is such a little shit, but I guess we both are. It comes with the last name.

A familiar ache tickles beneath my ribs. “Scouts not coming to games?”

He pauses, the crunching subsiding for a moment. “No, but it’s fine. Carter and I were talking about working for his dad doing landscape once we graduate. I could try out when they hold open tryouts. I don’t need to go to college to get into the Major Leagues.”

True but... “It’s the best way. You’d get better offers, and you’d have a degree to fall back on if you end up with a career-ending injury. It’s a solid plan, Coop. Don’t give up on it just yet.”

My brother scoffs into the phone. He’s never been set on going to college. He wants to go straight to the Major Leagues—arrogant little fucker. “I’m not giving up, Mav. I’m realistic. Kingston High hasn’t seen a trophy in two decades. Scouts have no reason to come here. Maybe Dad was right. A professional athlete is only a loser’s dream.”

Michael Lexington is a fucking idiot. Greed and power are his motivation in life. If he can’t buy or sell it, he doesn’t bother with it. Example: my brother and me. When my mother was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and could no longer be the beautiful wife on his arm, he bought another. Candi is her name. She’s ninety-five pounds and my age.

And when my mother died at the young age of forty-five from pneumonia, he dumped my brother and me off at my pops’s for the summer and never returned. I was fifteen, my brother thirteen. In a matter of months, we went from a family of four to a family of two. Motherless and fatherless all in a summer’s break.

Again, contracts. My mother’s was up, and so was ours.

Pops is cool, though. With a plush apartment in Atlanta, he took us in, let us sleep in his bed while he took the couch, and looked for a bigger place. He moved us out of the city after that first year, moving us into a subdivision with other kids, complete with a cul-de-sac. We lived a good life. Pops worked from home, hiring a vice president for his brokerage firm so he could spend more time with us.

Everything was looking great until my freshman year at college. Pops suffered a stroke that left him with left sided weakness and neurological deficits. He thinks he’s perfectly fine and doesn’t need us boys looking after him, but it’s not true.

I know my brother is tired, and instead of spending his days partying with his senior friends, he’s watchingJeopardyand tying the old man’s shoes. I wanted to move back home and help, but Cooper wouldn’t hear of it. He insists he’s fine and Pops is no trouble. I’m not sure if I believe it, but the guilt as the older brother gnaws at me daily.

“Everything out of Dad’s mouth is garbage. You’re better off asking your Magic 8-Ball for advice. It’s probably more accurate.”

Both of us chuckle for a second, lightening the mood.

“How’s the old man?” I ask like I do in every conversation.

“Still senile and full of shit.” My brother laughs good-naturedly. “He told me last night that I should join FarmersOnly.com and meet a nice girl.”

A real smile finally emerges. “Caught you with another girl again?”

My brother might stay home and take care of Pops, but his bed stays warm. “Hell yeah. Damn old man busted in yelling he was looking for mongrels.”

I laugh a deep belly laugh. “Mongrels? Had he been drinking?”

“No, dude. Fucking Melissa was scratching the headboard with her goddamned bracelets. Pops thought I had rats in my room.”

“Dude.” I grin, leaning back against the chair. “You have got to clean your room occasionally. Maybe then he’ll stop thinking it’s a shithole that attracts vermin.”

No joke. Last time I was there for Christmas, Pops told me he had to wear a mask to walk in and wake Coop up for school.

“It’s fine. I’m a teenage boy. If it were clean, he would think I was sick.”

True. He probably would.

“So,” I go for a subject change. “You dating Melissa? I’ve heard you mention her a few times now.” Fuck, I’m turning into my mom keeping tabs on my little brother’s love life. But it helps knowing he’s happy and doing normal teenage things since I’m gone and can’t look after him like I used to.

During my entire high school years, I devoted myself to becoming my little brother’s keeper. It was a hard change when Pops pushed me out the door, paid my first-year tuition, and told me I was not allowed to come back home until the break.

I knew Pops was pushing me for my good. He knew I wouldn’t leave them, but I couldn’t bear my little brother thinking that I too had left him. Pops has been an exceptional stand-in as a father, and his sarcastic personality is a lot like our mother’s. Life with Pops was good. Normal even. But I would have held off on college for a few years until Cooper graduated, but Pops wouldn’t hear of any delays in my education.

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