Page 11 of Missed Notes (Rixon High 5)

“Cole, is that you?”Mom called the second I stepped foot in the house.

“Yeah, Mom.” I toed off my sneakers and dropped my bag onto the small bench in the hall.

“I’m in the kitchen,” she added, and I smiled.

As if I’d find her anywhere else at this time of the day.

“Something smells good.” I went to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“I’m making spaghetti.”

“Sounds good.”

Grabbing a can of soda from the refrigerator, I hopped up onto a stool and watched as she stirred the sauce.

“How was practice?”

“I took a few hits.”

My head hadn’t been in the game. Coach knew it. Aaron knew it. The whole damn team knew it. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Sofia, about whatever it was they had to tell Aaron.

“Well, dinner won’t be long, sweetheart. It’s just the two of us tonight.” Her smile thinned.

I flinched. “He’s not coming home?”

“Staying over on business.” The tightness in her voice made the hairs along the back of my neck stand to attention.

“I see.”

“Cole, please—”

“I’ll be upstairs doing some homework.” I got up and walked away. “Shout for me when it’s ready.”

“Okay,” she murmured, going back to the sauce.

My father was a contentious subject in our house. On the one hand, I was glad he wasn’t coming home. It made my life easier when he wasn’t around, doling out his opinions on how I needed to live my life. It was Mom who suffered when he was gone though, and I hated that for her, I did. But she’d made her bed and now she had to spend her days miserably lying in it.

I headed up to my room, closing the door behind me. Diving onto my bed, I grabbed my cell and pulled up my chat history with Sofia.

Cole: How did it go?

On a groan,I deleted it. She didn’t want me to text her. She’d made it pretty clear that she wanted nothing to do with me. But I couldn’t let it go.

I couldn’t let her go.

Fuck. My head was a mess.

For as long as I could remember, it had been me and Aaron. He was my best friend, my ride or die. But Sofia had always been there too. We’d been friends. We’d grown up together. And somewhere along the way, friendship became longing looks and secret smiles.

At least, it had to me.

Needing to get out of my own head, I scrambled off the bed and grabbed my guitar, and dropped down on the floor. The Little Martin LX1 was a familiar weight in my hands, offering me a kind of peace and solitude that holding a football never could.

I was a Raider, sure.

But before I’d known football, I’d had this.

Music.

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