My brows rose. “It’s that bad?”
She moved to her other shoe and untied it before retying it. “It’s that bad. Titus confirmed that they didn’t get along, but I’d already heard the whole story from my family.”
I grimaced.
“What’s this about you talking to Titus?” I asked, trying to get my mind off of Banner.
She rolled her eyes. “He told me to watch out for you. Apparently, this guy is a big enough douche that Banner worried about it over lunch. He knows how close we are, so I struggled through the conversation.”
I snickered.
Blue really did like Titus. The only problem was, Blue got a bit tongue-tied when she spoke to him.
I watched as she started to untie her other shoe, and growled. “Enough stalling, Spurlock.”
Blue snickered and stood up, staring at the bleachers with dismay.
“How are we doing this?” she asked. “Run five sets, then a lap?”
I grinned. “I was thinking run a set of cross-country bleachers, run a lap, then repeat until we get to two miles.”
She grimaced.
“That sounds truly awful,” she admitted.
It did.
But, saying that, I wasn’t sure that it was enough based solely on the fact that I could see Symphony on the track and she was soaked in sweat.
“I really don’t want her to beat me,” I told Blue honestly. Like, I don’t care if I come in dead second to last. As long as she’s behind me, I’ll be happy.
Blue snorted.
“Abilene would have come in dead last,” Blue said.
That was true.
But Abilene had had a very good reason as to why she always came in last.
First, she was pregnant and then she’d just had a baby.
Not that we ever talked about it. Because talking about it would make it real for us, and we couldn’t handle real yet.
Abilene had needed not real. And not real meant that we ignored it at all costs. She hadn’t handled her situation well. Slone had definitely been the better parent. And he was still doing a great job being a father to little Briley.
Abilene had tried to do the things that she did before, but she just couldn’t step right back into her pre-baby life and expect to make it. Then the choice was taken away from her when she was murdered. It was still so hard to talk about even now.
“That doesn’t count,” I felt it prudent to point out.
Blue snorted and stood up, right when Titus made his way over to the fence and hopped over.
Followed by about fifty other boys.
My boy being the one that was in the lead.
I licked my lips and tried not to drool.
“Might want to go if you’re going,” Titus said, his eyes only for Blue.
Blue ignored him and adjusted her short shorts, accidentally on purpose exposing her back to Titus as she did.
I would’ve laughed had he not been enthralled with it.
“You should just take it off now,” I pointed out to Blue.
Blue rolled her eyes. “I’ll toss it near our bags so someone doesn’t steal it like last time.”
Someone being Symphony. And Symphony didn’t steal it as much as throw it away.
And once it was covered in nacho cheese that’d been in the trashcan all over a plate, Blue hadn’t wanted it back.
“Hey, Ma,” Slone said as he hopped over the fence. He bent down and gave his baby a kiss on her mouth, causing her to giggle.
Speaking of things Abilene hadn’t liked to think about, one of those things was currently sitting in the bleachers with Slone’s mother, Martina. Martina had Slone’s child—and you better not mistake mentioning that it was Abilene’s child as well—in her arms as she watched Slone practice.
Martina and Slone had a low conversation, so I gestured to Blue that we needed to go.
I tried not to spend too much time talking with Slone about his baby’s mother, because then I would start to question why Abilene had done what she’d done when she was alive.
And it was really hard to be supportive the more I saw Slone and the baby interact.
“Ready?” I asked, watching as Banner finally made his way over the fence.
“Ready,” Blue confirmed.
I shoved my headphones in and started off, loving the burn that overtook my body as I did.
I was on my fourth set of bleachers when I felt the pounding beside me.
I moved over so that I was running up the seats instead of the stairs and kept trucking, unsurprised when Banner was the first person to pass me.
He was stronger and faster than anyone on the team. Even the running backs.
Titus wasn’t far behind, followed by Slone and the rest of the sweatpants gang.
But my eyes had only been for one perfectly formed ass, and that was Banner’s.
Vance, however, stopped to keep pace with me, and I narrowed my eyes and tried to ignore him.
But I couldn’t stop the angry burst of a tirade that left my lips when he wouldn’t leave.
“I guess Banner’s quickness isn’t unusual for y’all’s old school,” I said, leaving the obvious of ‘you’re slow’ for him to come up with on his own.
Vance narrowed his eyes and shoulder-checked me.
I nearly went flying all the way down the stairs.
Would have if there hadn’t been a handicap rail there to keep me from falling.
I stopped and readjusted myself, my eyes automatically going across the bleachers to see if Banner had seen.
Luckily, he hadn’t, and when I started back again, the only thing to show for our encounter was a quickly forming bruise that was taking place on the upper part of my arm.
I didn’t stop for three long laps and only then because I needed to shuck my shirt.
Blue stopped beside me, her hand going to my arm.
“What the fuck was that with Vance?” Blue hissed.
I looked around to see if anybody had heard and was thankful that Banner was nowhere near.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
And I didn’t.
I
