ENEMIES(69)

She was grieving losing Gail, and she was a mother yearning to love another son. And me, she saw me, too. I don’t know what she saw, but she did, and a look melted over her face. “Oh, baby.” She reached for me, pulling me in. Angie squeaked, but she was in the middle of the hug, and after stiffening, she laughed. Twisting around, her little arms wrapped around me, too. She could only get one of my arms, but she buried her head into me.

I laughed. Georgia chuckled. Angie was laughing, then said, “Your hair is tickling my face.”

Georgia released me, sitting back, and I could see how relieved she was. She rubbed a hand up and down my arm. “We’re here for you, also. I want to make sure you know that. I am fully ready and prepared to step in and be another mom if you’d let me. And that’s only if you want that.”

I let out a ragged breath, one that I hadn’t known I’d been holding. The mom offer was nice to hear, but I was fighting dealing with my own feelings of how good of an older sister I was being. And since Jared wasn’t there, I asked, “How’s he doing? For real?”

“He’s—”

“He’s here!”

Georgia and I both froze, but it wasn’t Jared saying that.

Angie shoved up on her mom’s lap, pointing and waving. She added, yelling, “Jared! Apollo!”

They were higher up, coming down the stairs. Their hands were full of soda and popcorn. I spied a few hot dogs. Pizza. No, two pizzas.

As soon as they got to our chairs, Angie pointed at us. “They were talking about you.”

Jared froze, a slice of pizza halfway to his mouth. “Huh?”

Georgia stood up. “Oh, it’s fine. Your sister was asking how you’re doing. That’s all.” She reached over, taking some of the food and drinks from him before moving back to their seats. “Come on, Ang. Let’s sit over here again.”

Apollo came in.

Jared waited, looking up the stairs.

Apollo’s dad came next, stepping just past me, and then his son. “Thanks for moving, bud.”

“No problem, Dad.” Apollo popped the rest of his slice in his mouth.

Jared stepped around me since I was on the end, sinking down next to me.

The players were lining up, readying for the anthem to be sung, and Jared waited for all of that. Once the song was done, the fans were going nuts as the captains were running out on the field, Jared looked at me. “You want to know how I am, you ask me.”

“It wasn’t like that. Georgia was worried that I might try to take you away from them.”

“Why would you?” he bit out, shoving half of a hot dog in his mouth. Two bites and it was gone. “I’m seventeen. Not even a full year and I’m an adult. Who’d want to fight for me?”

He started to turn away as the teams were lining up. The Belves were kicking off against the Kings. Stone was out there, he was primed to catch that ball, but I stopped Jared from totally turning away.

“What are you talking about? I thought you wanted to be with the Montroses?”

He was glaring at the field, his jaw tightening. “Yeah. I mean, yeah.” His tone was so biting. I heard the anger there and I knew what Georgia would’ve said to me. “You’re all I have now. I mean, we had to come down here for a game to even see you.”

My heart broke. It shattered. There were a million pieces on the ground by our feet.

I didn’t say a word. I grabbed him, pulling him to me, and I wrapped my arms around him. There was a hot dog squished between us. I was hoping there also wasn’t a drink. I knew there was a bag of chips somewhere, probably his pockets. I heard the squish.

I just hugged him harder.

“I made a decision two days ago that as soon as I could medically travel, I was coming to you.”

He stiffened, asking in my other ear, “Really?”

I just hugged him tighter. This boy. He was mine. He was Gail’s. Gail had been mine. She’d been my dad’s. We were family.

“Really,” I choked out. “Only reason I didn’t was because Stone said you guys were coming here. Today’s the first day I could’ve come with the concussion.”

“Oh.” His head bent down, almost shyly. “And I do want to stay with them. I’m sorry I said that.”

Okay.

Yeah.

He was confused. So was I. He wanted me, but he wanted them. He was still a kid. Everything is overwhelming when you are seventeen. But I could do this. He could do this.

I framed his face, my forehead falling to rest on his. “You and me.” I made sure his eyes were looking in mine, even as I had to pull him down since he was so much freaking taller. “We’ll figure it out, but I got you. You got me.”

He hesitated, then nodded with me. “Okay. Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Another hug. This one I had taken Georgia’s role and I just wanted to hug him for the rest of his life. I wanted to shield him from everything, take care of him, protect him, love him, guide him, challenge him, but most of all, I just wanted him to be okay. That was job number one.

He pulled back, flicking his hand up at his eyes, his head turned away. He flicked his hand a couple more times before the crowd sat and we went with them. He nodded toward the field. “You and Reeves. He good to you?”