Play Maker(49)

He let out a whistle as the injury was revealed. It wasn’t bad, but it was bleeding.

“Nasty scrape,” he said. “When it comes to entrances like that, you’ve really got to stick the landing.”

I gave him a look and he gave me a smile.

My mom returned with bandaids and hydrogen peroxide.

“This is going to sting,” James warned before he placed a cotton-ball dipped with the stuff on my cut.

I winced as the disinfectant hit my raw skin.

“Your sister is very brave,” James told Mikey, who was watching with wide eyes. Then he leaned forward and blew on my knee. His soft warm breath made my entire body tingle. His eyes locked onto mine, burning with heat. I was starting to feel pretty hot myself.

I pulled away and took the bandaids from him.

“I’ll take it from here,” I told him. “Thanks.”

He nodded and rose to his feet. Then, to my complete astonishment, he began unpacking the groceries and putting stuff away.

“Where do these go?” he asked Mikey, holding up boxes of mac and cheese.

Mikey pointed.

I just stood there, watching the two of them empty the grocery bags, putting everything in their correct places, including the reusable bags. What was going on? Why was James here? He returned with a wet dish cloth.

“You’ve got gum on your cheek.” He gently took the cloth and cleared the sticky doublemint off of my face. I was so confused. What had happened to the cold, standoffish James from the other night?

“Thanks,” I said. I had been so sure I would never see him again. “What are you doing here?”

I saw my mom wince at my bluntness, but James just smiled.

“I actually wanted to apologize for last night. And to take you to lunch,” he told me. “Maya told me you had the day off.”

“I do.” I looked over at Mikey, whose attention had returned to a pile of wrapped boxes on the table that he was digging through. Those hadn’t been there when I left. They looked out of place on our dingy kitchen table. The wrapping paper looked like it cost more than this week’s grocery haul. “But I had planned to spend the day with my brother.”

James nodded, his disappointment clear. “I understand.”

I heard the ripping of wrapping paper.

“Doctor Who!” Mikey exclaimed, holding up the box. “Lego Dimensions!”

He looked so happy, but my heart sank. Our TV and blu-ray player were the last big purchases I had made, and even that had been second-hand almost two years ago. There were no bells and whistles like a lot of the newer ones had these days. We didn’t even have cable. What was he going to play this video game on?

“That’s great, buddy,” I told him, coming around to the table and looking at the box. I felt so embarrassed in front of James, who probably hadn’t even thought twice about buying that gift. All of his friends probably had state of the art entertainment systems. Not a used TV balanced on the cheapest TV stand Ikea made. “But we don’t have anything to play it on. And we also need the Lego Dimensions starter pack,” I told him as I read the box’s fine print.

But he was already ripping open the next package. He let out a squeal – it was the Lego Dimensions starter pack that I had just mentioned. The last box, however, got the biggest cry of excitement. A brand new Playstation.

“Someone told me this was the best of all the Doctor Who video games.” James joined Mikey at the table. “You’ll have to tell me if they were right.”

Mikey was hugging the video game to his chest as if it was the most precious thing in the entire world. Not that I could blame him. I felt a twinge of guilt knowing that I never would have been able to buy that for him. And now James had just swept into his life, giving him everything he wanted. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he told James, who grinned at him.

“You’re welcome, mate,” James said, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

A part of me wanted to say that we couldn’t accept such a generous gift, but there was absolutely no way I was going to try to give it back after the way Mikey had reacted. Not just the excitement, but how quickly he had thanked James. And without any prompting. It wasn’t that Mikey was rude, he just sometimes forgot things that other people didn’t. Clearly something about James was making an impression on him. I tried not to worry about that. At least if James left – which he would do, because he was a huge soccer star who lived in the UK – Mikey would have this to remember him by. It was a very generous gift.

I noticed my mom had been fairly quiet, and I turned to find her arranging an enormous bouquet of flowers in our biggest vase. Glancing over at James, I found that he was helping Mikey get the Playstation out of the box. This guy was smooth. Real smooth.

I kept waiting for him to realize where he was. To notice how crummy our apartment was. Because compared to the hotel room he had been staying at for the past few weeks, our place was a dump. But if James noticed, he kept it well hidden. It was polite of him, but I couldn’t stop thinking of how different we were.

“Nice flowers,” I told my mom.

She was staring at them like they were diamonds. “They are lovely, aren’t they?” She had a hand pressed to her chest. I had a feeling any reservations she had previously held about James were now completely gone. In fact, I was pretty sure she would be making a move if I didn’t.