I opened my mouth to argue, but Corby left no room for excuses.
“Forty-eight hours,” Coach ordered. “Get your gear back into my locker room. If you are not here, the spot goes to someone else.”
He hung up before I could say another word.
Lowering my phone, I stared at the blank screen. The faint beep of the disconnected line sounded out of place against the roar of the auto shop.
Corby never handed out direct praise like that. He always kept his distance from the scholarship guys, and I’d started to resent him for it. But hearing him acknowledge my potential stripped away the comfortable numbness I had relied on since I’d come back home.
Snatching the dirty rag off the floor and tossing it onto a nearby tool cart, I wiped my palms down my jeans. Crawling back under a rusted transmission would not fix anything.
I had to go home and face my mother.
Pushing open the front door of our apartment, I caught the strong scent of boiled cabbage and cheap lemon dish soap right away. I secured the deadbolt and moved through the tight hallway toward our cramped kitchen. Mama stood at the sink. She kept her back to the doorway while scraping a sponge against a battered pot.
“You’re home early,” Mama noted, and kept right on scrubbing.
Tossing my keys onto the chipped counter, I stripped off my stiff work jacket. “The Ridge Cross team coach just called me.”
“The coach?” She turned the faucet off. She dropped the sponge, faced me, and wiped her wet hands on a dish towel. “Why is he calling you?”
“Karter cornered the player who filed that fake report,” I explained. “He got a full confession on audio and took it to the Athletic Director. The administration is giving me my full scholarship back.”
She gasped and dropped the towel onto the counter. Stepping forward, a massive smile broke across her face as she gripped both of my forearms and squeezed hard. “Lekha! You have your spot back. You can finish your degree. Go get your duffel bag.”
I moved out of her grip, took a couple of steps back, and leaned against the doorframe. “I cannot go back.”
Her smile vanished. “What do you mean?”
“I said some really bad things to Karter when I left,” I muttered, staring at the scuffed floor. “I did it so that he would let go of our relationship.”
“And you thought that would stop him?” Mama pointed out, her voice hardening.
“His family is going to scorch him for dragging their name into a scandal.” I countered. “Maybe if I stay in Detroit, Karter can still fix things with his dad. I have absolutely nothing to offer a guy like that.”
Mama closed the distance between us in two quick strides and smacked the side of my head.
I winced and rubbed my scalp. “What was that for?”
“For talking like a fool,” she scolded, pointing a finger at my chest. “Running away makes youexactlylike Daniil.”
I stilled at the mention of my dad’s name.
“That Karter boy stood up for you just to hand you back your future,” she snapped. “Your father called his running away from us a sacrifice too. But staying here to hide in a garage while that boy takes the damage alone? Lekha, that is just selfish.”
Leaning back against the wood trim, I crossed my arms over my chest. Mama saw right through the bullshit. She always did.
“He is going to figure out I am a mess,” I said, dropping my volume to a rough whisper. “He deserves better than that.”
She let out a long breath and relaxed her rigid stance. She reached out and patted my cheek. “Sweetheart, you owe him the truth.”
After a beat of silence, I met her eyes.
“And you owe yourself a chance,” she added. “That boy fought for you. Now you must swallow your pride and fight for him.”
I stared at the yellow light reflecting off the wet sink and processed everything from the past week. Karter refused to accept my easy exit. He stood up to the people who bankrolled his entire life, all to hand me back a future I’d already thrown away.
Staying here at home meant letting him take the fallout from that all alone. Hiding under a rusted Chevy didn’t make menoble. It just made me exactly the kind of man I’d spent my whole life trying not to become.
