Page 49 of Redemption
Silas grunts, coming to the same conclusion I did during practice. “What are you going to do about it?”
Shrugging, I say, “I don’t know yet. I’m still not convinced I’m right for this job. Remind me why I took it again?”
The old man hesitates before he answers me, weighing his words. “Because no matter how often the sport breaks you, parts of you still love it. I’m speaking from experience here.”
I know he is. It’s why I went to him when I was offered the position. If anyone understands my complicated relationship with football, it’s Silas.
“Sure, I’ve loved football since I was a kid, but that doesn’t mean I know how to help these kids. I don’t even know how to help myself most days.”
“Maybe you don’t, but someone does,” he says, flicking the ashes off his cigarette and pointing to the sky.
“You mean God? I don’t think he wants much to do with me anymore.”
“How do you know? You been to church lately?”
“Nah. Have you?”
He chuckles, the sound hoarse in his throat from years of smoking. “You know better than that, but I don’t need to find God in a pew, Hayes. I find him in all the little moments in my life. I might be a hellion, always have been, but I also know I’m more than my mistakes.”
Tilting my head back, I let the sun’s rays warm my face. “If you are so connected, tell me how to help these kids.”
Silas’s sigh is resigned as if he’s disappointed that I’m still not getting his point. “I can help you with their football skills, boy, but you have to figure out the rest on your own. If I step in, then you’ll never see what I do.”
“And what’s that?” I ask, scrubbing my hand over my jaw.
“That you are worthy of redemption.”
Chapter 16
Mallorie Jade
17 years old
Aparty rages around me, but everything inside of me is empty. These people don’t realize that we are celebrating my brother’s downfall. They all think we are here to celebrate that he, along with Hayes, just signed to a D1 college to play football next fall, but I know the truth—and it is never pretty.
Silverware clinks against a glass somewhere in the room, and I turn my attention to the sound along with everyone else. My mom and dad are standing at the bottom of our grand staircase with Langston between them, looking proud as punch. It makes me sick.
I want to run up there and scream at all these people who so obliviously admire Mom and Dad that it’s fake—a show they put on for the masses. But that would only fire up the train of gossip—adding to my already tainted reputation, at least in the eyes of my mom and dad. After all, a free-spirited child is just an ill-mannered child.
“What has you glaring so hard?” A voice says from beside me, and I nearly jump out of my skin.
Hayes towers over me in a suit, and when my gaze meets his, those steel irises darken to the color of storm clouds. I have to subtly wipe my mouth to make sure I’m not drooling.
“Nothing,” I say. My voice is harsher than I mean it to be as I turn my head back to the stars of the show—my mom and dad. Forget this being Langston’s day. This is their day.
“Are you avoiding me, little Harrison?”
I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. “What makes you say that?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe the fact that we haven’t spoken in six months.”
My heart decides that second to take off like a bullet, racing until I’m afraid it might beat out of my chance.
He’s right.
After my argument with Langston, I started avoiding Hayes—no longer putting myself out there to be the embarrassment. It’s one thing to be an embarrassment to my parents, but it’s another to be one to my brother. But I didn’t think that Hayes would notice I’d been avoiding him. Besides being my first kiss, he’s never really shown interest outside of me being Langston’s little sister. Sure, he invited me to tag along places with them, but I always thought that was more out of pity than anything.
“I have my own life, you know.”
