Page 36 of Bidding on a Second Chance
He climbed up two rows and extended his hand. “He did great, didn’t he?”
Piper hooked her fingers together and looked around, as if to see if anyone else might offer to help her down.
Talk about taking a shot and missing. Graham tried to keep the hot feeling that rose in his chest—Disappointment? Frustration?—from registering on his face as he persisted in holding his hand out to her. To rebuff him, she’d have to make a scene because he wouldn’t walk away. He’d offer to help pretty much anyone with a broken foot.
Piper lay her fingers, small and warm, in his hand. Her injured foot forced her to rely on him, because her hand pressed on his as she carefully took one step down and then another. As soon as she reached the wood of the gym floor, she pulled back and rubbed her palm against her pant leg. “Nice job with the team.”
“Thanks.”
She zipped her coat with an awkward smile. “Brycediddo great. You’re right. I hope you’ll keep working with him.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Piper shrugged, non-committal. “I don’t know. I’m just saying.”
Before he could pursue it, Bryce appeared beside them, eyes brighter than all the Christmas lights popping up around town. “You saw?”
Piper high-fived him. “I did see. Great job. You’re going to be a star someday!”
Graham resisted ruffling his hand through the boy’s hair. “He’s already a star.”
As Piper jumped in with more encouragement, Graham looked over the other parents, trying to guess who had agreed to drive Bryce to Ralph and Gertrude’s house. After this, Graham and Piper planned to go together to Second Chances, her to relieve Ally and him to make progress on the furniture. No one headed their way.
“Are we giving Bryce a lift to your grandparents’ house?”
“No. Grandpa is picking him up. He insisted he would be out running errands anyway.”
“Okay.” Coach Kent had his two oldest kids with him today, and they’d already completed most of the required cleanup. “I’ll grab my coat, and we can all head out together to see if he’s here.”
Piper and Bryce got a head start. Once he’d checked in with Kent and gathered his things, he found them in the hall, stopped before the high school’s trophy cases.
“Where are the pictures with my dad?” Bryce rested his fingers against the metal that framed the case.
Piper rolled the scooter closer. “Here.” She tapped a fingernail on the glass.
Bryce laid down a couple of prints and a white puff of breath as he peered inside. “Cool. That’s going to be me someday.”
Graham hadn’t seen Ryan enough to pick out a seventeen-year-old version of the man he’d arrested in the small photo. “If you keep playing all the way through, maybe you’ll land a spot on the varsity team freshman year.”
“Is that what my dad did? I want to be like him.”
Piper shot Graham a worried look, but Bryce was talking about basketball, not other activities. Surely, if they kept the focus on the team, it would be good for Bryce to look up to his dad, especially if he had changed as much as Piper said.
Together, they worked their way back to the team photo from Ryan’s freshman year.
“Doesn’t look like he’s in this one,” Piper said.
“But think of how proud of you he’d be if you made it freshman year.”
Bryce nodded vigorously, and Piper shot Graham a smile over the boy’s head. She laid a hand on his shoulder. “We shouldn’t keep Grandpa waiting.”
ChapterTwenty-Four
“You’re eating already?” Piper let her purse fall next to the plastic chair where she was scheduled to spend the next three hours selling bake sale treats.
Lucy lifted her hand to cover her mouth as she both grinned and spoke with her mouth full. “You have to try one of these.” With her free hand, she extended a small paper plate of red-swirled squares toward Piper.
“What are they?”
