Page 40 of Dangerous Command
I rubbed a finger over the stubble on my chin, looking up at the rectangular panels on the ceiling. “Two months.”
“Two months?!” Mack groaned, then put his good hand over his eyes. “Two months? That’s the rest of the season.”
Maddie gave a reluctant smile. “You can still read,” she offered. “You can use my library card. We’ll get double the books.”
“But then I’ll read theentirelibrary, Mom. Even the adult section.”
The doctor came into the room, asking Lucy and I to leave so he could have more space to set the cast. We sat in the waiting room.
“So,” Lucy said, turning toward me. “You’re the mysterious Derek our Mama is always talking about.” I lifted my brow at the pet name. ‘Mama’? The woman had to be more than twice Maddie’s age. They must have been close for her to give Maddie a nickname like that. “Are you coming over for dinner?”
“Dinner?” I asked. I hadn’t considered what we were going to do after this. If Maddie’s son was hurt, then would she stay in Pebble Garden?
And where was Mack’s father?
“You came all this way, right?” Lucy said. She grinned, a warm kind of smile that reminded me of my mothers. “You won’t make it in time for dinner in Sage City. And I got the stuff to make pizza bread.” She laughed. “Poor little Mack probably won’t be able to help me make it anymore. But there’s more than enough for all of us. And Maddie likes you.”
I tilted my head. “She told you that?”
“She wouldn’t commute to Sage City for nothing,” she cackled. “Except maybe the money.”
I chuckled with her. A family dinner.
That sounded nice.
CHAPTER 11
Maddie
Back in the living room of the apartment, Mack slumped down on the couch. The lime green cast was already streaked with red.Lucywith a big, cursive L, next toMom.Mackin capital letters, andDerekunderneath. On the other side, there was a stick figure with black hexagons on its head like a soccer ball, while it kicked a ball too. Mack requested it, but I couldn’t draw, neither could Lucy. So Derek drew it for him.
Lucy brought over the dinner ingredients, but Mack no longer wanted to make his own pizza. Not even his comic books could persuade him into a good mood.
Derek was studying the biggest frame on the wall, the only photograph with me in it. It was of Mack and me, back when Mack was three years old. The rest of the pictures were various stages of Mack’s growth, from when he was barely able to open his eyes, to the proud kindergartener on his first day of school.
“So this is Derek,” Lucy said in a quiet voice to me. She nudged her shoulder into me. “He’s as handsome as you said.”
“Oh hush,” I said. Lucy smirked, then busied herself with brushing the tomato sauce on a loaf of bread. Derek leaned over, gazing down the hallway, then he went down it. He came back to the front room holding a soccer ball.
“Let’s go kick the ball,” Derek said.
“I can’t,” Mack pouted. “I broke my arm.”
“You don’t need your arms to kick a ball.”
“Really?” Mack suddenly perked up. “Yeah. You’re right. We can just kick it.”
“Derek,” I said, tilting my head. “He just got the cast on. An hour ago.” It probably hadn’t been that long.
“We’ll be careful.”
Lucy put up her hands like she wanted nothing to do with the debate. And while I understood what Derek meant, it still worried me to think of Mack doing something like that so soon after getting hurt.
But he would probably be okay. And he needed something to help his mood.
“Just kick it,” I said. “Short distance. Nothing crazy.” I turned to Mack, wagging a finger at him. “Listen to your body. If you start to hurt, give yourself a break.”
“Yes, Mom,” he said. Then Derek pulled open the sliding glass door, and the two of them went to the grass area right outside of our apartment.
