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My phone buzzed, and I let go of Archie long enough to pull it out of the bag I’d brought with me. The message was from my mother.
Mom:You and I need to talk. I did not appreciate your behavior tonight. I understand your friends might be a bad influence, but it was unacceptable to treat Eddie that way.
It didn’t bode well.
“I’m thinking ice cream,” Archie said as I closed the message and glanced at him. “Text Coop and the guys? By the time we get back, the game will be winding down.”
“You didn’t really get to eat,” I reminded him.
“Yeah,” he said. “The wagyu steak there is to die for. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure we get to have it another time. When we can enjoy it. So—ice cream?”
“I could go for some ice cream.”
“Then text the guys. I think we could all use some.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Good Intentions
Ian
The game was brutal, but only because we were lacking part of our defense. Jake’s power on the field couldn’t be matched by the kid bootstrapped into his place. No offense to Tommy, he just didn’t have it—yet. Still, we eked by with a win, scoring points in the last seconds of the game. This was our last home game for a few weeks, too. After Homecoming, if we could score a couple more wins, we were headed straight for playoffs, and we’d be taking the field through Thanksgiving.
If not, then we could wrap the season. At this point, I was ready to call it now. I still enjoyed the game, but between practices and the games themselves, I lost a lot of time with Frankie and the guys. Jake’s interest had begun to wane, as well. When he got benched for the next two games, he hadn’t even cared.
Between us, we’d checked out all the schools in the northeast with viable football scholarships that would allow us to also study our chosen interests, none of them were close enough to Harvard to matter. There wasn’t a doubt in either of our minds that Frankie wouldn’t get in, and where she went, I planned to follow.
Maybe that made me a bit of a joke to some, but I didn’t care. I knew where I wanted to be. She’d been my best friend for years, even before she revealed she did actually want to date, I hadn’t wanted there to be some huge distance between us.
I didn’t waste a lot of time in the shower, just washed the sweat and dirt off then headed to my locker for my clothes. My uniform was in a bag, I’d get it cleaned over the weekend like I did after every game. Jake leaned against the locker next to mine.
“Frankie and Arch are almost back, they got caught in traffic. I’m gonna go pick up Coop and meet them at the Pit Stop.”
“That was fast,” I dragged on my jeans and raised my brows. We didn’t spend a lot of time discussing any of them in the locker room. Too many ears.
“Yeah,” was all Jake said, but his guarded expression spoke volumes. The fact Archie and Frankie had gone to have dinner with their newly engaged parents had promised to be a shitshow as far as they were concerned. Especially after what went down with her mother. Jake had been pissed, and Coop, for all his calm, had been equally furious. It wasn’t news to any of us that Ms. Curtis wasn’t stable, but her typically neglectful behavior masking actual abuse was not something we discussed, much less with Frankie.
Her defensiveness over her mother made sense. Once, and only once, had my parents discussed them where I could hear them. I hadn’t even meant to listen, but Dad had expressed deep reservations to Mom about Frankie’s situation, listing some classic hallmarks for abuse he saw in her behavior from her need to please others to the fact she didn’t speak up to defend herself. It wasn’t ego, he warned, it was the fact she didn’t think she deserved the defense.
“Too often,” he said. “Kids in her situation, they don’t see that it can be any better or they deserve any better. So they defend what they have and pretend the rest doesn’t matter. It’s an obstinate blindness they need to survive.”
Those words haunted me, to be honest. I also couldn’t see what the hell he’d meant, not until that night at Frankie’s when Jake knocked Coop through her coffee table and she unloaded on us. All these years, Frankie rarely got pissed off enough to rail at us for our behavior. To be honest, as much as it stung, we deserved it.
Once I was dressed, I slung my bag over my shoulder and followed Jake out of the locker room. The parking lot was still emptying from the game, but we avoided the clusters of other players, cheerleaders, band kids and more that formed as friends got together.
There’d be a huge rush for Mason’s—another reason to be glad Frankie didn’t work on Friday nights. After practice Wednesday and Thursday were bad enough. Fridays were a zoo.
Sharon glanced at us from a cluster of her friends, and I met her stare. When she tried to smile, I didn’t return it. At the moment, I had no idea what I’d ever seen in her. A pretty face and a great ass didn’t do much for a crappy personality. Not after she’d attacked Frankie. When she finally dropped her gaze, I nodded. The sooner she learned I wasn’teverlooking to her again, the better.
We broke upbeforeFrankie, anyway.
Digging my phone out, I glanced at the messages. Frankie had sent one to the group chat with us, like she had the night before about her mother and Mr. Standish being at her place. I wished she’d let one of us come get her or just come to one of our places. The handprint on her face had been…
“She’s all right, Archie’s probably driving which is why he isn’t saying anything,” Jake said as we headed out to where he’d parked. My motorcycle wasn’t that far. “But she did say Archie was a badass.”
I laughed at the faint snort in Jake’s words. “What, you don’t think he can be a badass?”
“No, he’s capable of it. Most of the time he’s just—the guy who takes what he wants, you know?” At his SUV, he said, “Wanna throw your stuff in the back? I can drop it off tonight or tomorrow for you.”
