Love & Luck(6)

But . . . she didn’t.

After almost ten seconds of silence, I looked up, hope lifting the edges of my voice. “That’s it? We just get to go?”

“You’re just going to send them to Italy?” Walter asked, sounding as incredulous as I felt. “Aren’t you going to, like, punish them?”

“Walter!” Ian and I both yelled.

My mom wrenched herself around again, focusing first on me, then Ian, her spine swiveling seamlessly. At least she was putting all her yoga classes to good use. “You’re going to Italy. It will force you two to spend some quality time together,” she said, barbing the word “quality.” “But there’s a catch.”

Of course there was. “What?” I asked impatiently, pulling a particularly stabby bobby pin out from its favorite spot in the back of my wilting updo. If it wouldn’t completely set him off, I’d stick it in Ian’s hair, try to get some of it out of his face.

“Here we go,” Ian muttered, just loud enough for me to hear.

Mom paused dramatically, her eyes darting back and forth between us. “Are you both listening?”

“We’re listening,” I assured her, and Ian’s knee bounced receptively. Couldn’t he ever just hold still?

“This is your chance to prove to me that you can handle yourselves. If I hear anything bad from Lina’s father, and I mean anything—if you fight, if you yell, if you so much as look at each other cross-eyed while you’re there—both of you are off your teams.”

There was a moment of dead air, and then the car exploded. “What??” Archie said.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Walter shook his head. “Are you being serious, Mom?”

“We’ll be off our teams?” I asked quickly. “Like soccer and football?”

She nodded, a self-satisfied smile spreading like warm butter across her face. She was proud of this one. “Yes. Like soccer and football. And it doesn’t even have to be both of you. If one of you messes up, you’re both getting punished for it. And there will be absolutely no second chances. One strike, you’re out. That’s it.”

I thought I had no space for fresh panic, but it squeezed in with all the old stuff, turning my chest into an accordion. I leaned forward, putting my hands on the front seats to steady myself. “Mom, you know I have to play soccer this year.” My voice was high and stringy, not nearly as reasonable sounding as I’d intended. “If I don’t, college scouts won’t see me play, and then there’s no way I’ll get onto a college team. This is the year that matters. This is my future.”

“Then you’d better not mess up.”

Ian’s eyes met mine, and I could see the words ping-ponging through his head. You already messed up, Addie.

I shot lasers at him. “But—”

“This is in your control. And Ian’s. I’m not backing down on this.”

As if she needed to add that last part. My parents never backed down on anything. It was one of life’s constants: the shortest distance between two points is a line, root beer floats always taste better half-melted, and my parents never take back their punishments.

But soccer? That was my way into a good school. Because no matter how hard I tried, my grades were never all that great, which meant I needed to rely on sports to get me into any college with a halfway decent engineering program. It was a long shot, but I had to try.

Plus, soccer. I closed my eyes, imagining the smell of the grass, the complicated rhythm of my teammates, the way time disappeared—the rest of life forced to the outer boundaries of the game. It was my place. The only place where I ever truly fit in. And with Lina moving and Ian now hating me, I needed that place more than ever.

Forget future Addie. I needed soccer for present Addie. If I had any chance of surviving post-Cubby life, it was going to be on that soccer field.

Mom tilted her head toward Ian, who was now impersonating a collapsed puppet. “Ian, are you listening?”

“Listening,” he responded, his voice oddly resigned. His body language and voice all said I don’t care, but I knew that couldn’t be true. Sports were an even bigger deal to him than they were to me. He was way better at them.

“So you understand that if you or Addie do anything wrong, you are off the football team? No second chances, no debating, you’re just off?”

“Got it,” he said nonchalantly. His hand sank back into his hair, forming a tight knot.

Archie raised one finger in the air. “Not to criticize your wisdom, Mom, but that does seem a tad bit harsh. One of them messes up and they’re both off their—”

“Enough from the peanut gallery,” Mom snapped.

“Wait, what?” I startled, the second part of her punishment finally sticking to my brain. “You’re saying that if Ian messes up, I’m going to be punished for it?”

“Yes. And if you mess up, Ian is going to be punished for it. Think of it as a team sport. One of you blows it, you both lose.”

“But, Mom, I have absolutely no control over what Ian does. How is that fair?” I wailed.

“Life isn’t fair,” my mom vaulted back, a hint of glee in her voice. My parents loved maxims the way other people loved cheese or fine wines.

And how was Ian acting so chill?? Ever since his first junior football game, where he single-handedly turned the game around and then methodically led them to the championship, football had been Ian’s life. Not only was he the starting quarterback on our high school’s football team, but he’d already been approached by two different colleges with talks of scholarships. One of them had been right before football camp. No wonder he was acting like he didn’t care. He was probably in the process of internal collapse.