Page 3 of Dream Chaser
This, too, shall pass …
“Iz, you there?” Mom asks, drawing my attention back. “You know we need to be careful.”
“It’s all got me feeling … caged.”
“I know, I know,” she sighs. “But we all agreed that playing it smart before the last game?—”
I mock gasp. “No, you didn’t! We do not speak of the next game being the last of the season. We’re going to the?—”
“The next game will be in Philly,” she quickly corrects her blunder, “and it will have more security than any other. Well,except thelastgame … of the season. That will be of presidential proportions. I’m not worried about that one.”
Next week, the Knights play the National Championship game against Philly, in Philly.
“I’m guessing they’ll be traveling with us?”
Mom laughs, and I realize my tone must have been snide, but these asshats are riding my ass just to provoke me.
“You love traveling with your family.”
“Yeah, sure. I just don’t like them up my ass.” I stomp on the brakes and love the shocked expression on Matthew’s face as he narrowly escapes eating shit. CJ, he laughs, like knee-slapping cracks up and the whole nine. Matthew eventually does, too. However, whoever it is in the back does not.
Nonetheless, the hard edges are gone from the twins’ faces, and I feel like I have just won the playoffs. I find myself smiling as I flip them off and then … smash on the gas.
“Iz?” Mom says my name with warranted apprehension.
“I love you, Mom. Chat soon.”
“Don’t give them too much of a hassle,” she says on a laugh.
“I will.” I laugh as I hit the screen, ending the call.
“Morning, boys.” I smile, even though they can’t see it or hear me. “Enjoying the scenic route?”
I stomp the gas and hang a right. My phone immediately rings.
I hitaccept. “Enjoying the scenic route?”
“No detours,” Matthew replies.
I flick on my blinker like this is some civilized errand run and not what it actually is—a game of cat and mouse on slush-covered dirt roads. “This is, technically, a shortcut.”
“You are technically a menace,” CJ mutters in the background.
So I do what any self-respecting little cousin with a lead foot would do—I stomp on the gas again.
The Jeep bucks forward like it’s just been challenged to a duel, tires spitting half-frozen mud across the windshield of the Escalade. I’m laughing before I even hit the first bend, the one that loops behind old man Guilder’s tractor shed and dips low enough to rattle my teeth. It’s sloppy and icy, and it’s exactly what I needed to shake off the winter blues.
“Izzy! That road isn’t plowed!” Matthew barks.
“Neither is your attitude,” I shoot back, bouncing in my seat as the Jeep clears a rut and fishtails before gripping again.
CJ is swearing now, full-on dad voice mode. “You’re gonna get stuck. Or flip. Or launch into a drainage ditch?—”
But I’m already cutting through the service path that heads down to the field behind the brewery, then skimming past the snow-dusted sunflower field. I know these roads like the lyrics to a Maggie Rogers song—every pothole, every stretch of packed ice. And I know that little wooden bridge by the cemetery holds just enough weight for a Jeep, not an Escalade.
Sure enough, I glance back to see the SUV screech to a stop and hear CJ and Matthew arguing through the speakers. I grin as I hitend call.
I pull into the back lot, my thermos in hand, coffee still hot. I hop out, boots soaked to the ankle, hair a wild mess, half of it fallen out of my bun from bouncing around. The sky’s still that dull gray, but I swear it looks a little brighter now.
