Falling From the Sky (5 page)

My towel drapes over my shoulders as I stagger out of the bathroom and toward my stone slab. A hot shower didn’t do much for these aches and pains. Coach Bennett may be all about fundamental basketball, but Terrence’s cousin and his friends play hard and dirty.

Terrence looks up from his cell phone.

“You okay?” he asks. “You look a bit worn.”

“I’m good,” I say, stretching out on my bed. “That was tougher than practice, though.”

Terrence laughs and nods toward me.

“Your phone’s been buzzing,” he says. “Maybe it’s…Sam. You know, seeing what your plans are for the weekend.”

I don’t have to check my messages to know damn well that it’s not Samantha. Micah’s worse than a needy girlfriend. He’s blown up my phone more today than Samantha has in the last month. It makes me feel kind of sick because I like the attention.

I force myself to sit up, grab my phone, and flip through the new texts. I feel Terrence’s eyes on me the entire time, so I keep a stone face, as much as I can anyway. I should’ve silenced my phone while I was in the shower.

The hollering down the hallway pulls me away from my attempts at a reply. Aaron pushes through the door to our room, talking too loudly about some girl’s tits. That idiot Zach Perry follows him inside.

“I can’t believe you missed that lay-up today,” Zach says, instantly hovering over me. “That was the easiest shot all day, and you fucked it up.”

For someone who comes into practice every day with a hangover, he has no room to talk about anyone’s game. He’s slow on the court, clumsy with his shots, and undeservingly arrogant about everything.

He moves over to Aaron’s bed, sits, and changes the conversation to something about beer and the river. It’s like that’s all his life revolves around. I wish he’d fucking jump in the river and drown. Then Aaron says something about condoms, and I wish I’d just stayed in the shower until
I
drowned.

“You staying here this weekend?” Aaron asks.

I glance up, but he’s looking at Terrence, who says he’s staying with his cousin.

“What about you, McCoy?” Aaron asks, shifting his eyes toward me. “You’ll have the room to yourself. I’m crashing at Katelyn’s.”

Zach laughs. “I’ll be here. I can help you work on those lame ass shots of yours. You need all the help you can get.”

I look at the empty text message on my phone. There’s no way I’m staying here.

“I’m going home this weekend,” I say.

I ignore Zach’s comments and type up a reply to Micah.

Game on! Is it cool if I come Friday night and stay the weekend? I don’t feel like going home but need the hell out of here.

It takes about fifteen seconds for his reply to buzz through.

Def cool! See you then!

His reply makes me crack a smile. He’s worse than a girl, sitting by his phone waiting. I think Terrence is wrong about the lanterns. But I’ll take my chances with them over Zach Perry.

“You tell Samantha you’re coming home?” Terrence asks, obviously reading my facial expressions.

I nod. “Looks like I’m going to be stuck with Sam all weekend,” I say.

“All weekend?” Terrence repeats. “You can handle that?”

I shoot my eyes toward Zach and then back at Terrence.

“Anything’s better than here, right?”

CHAPTER FIVE

I grab my gym bag and pack enough clothes to get me through Sunday. The Indian Horse is tonight, the one that will obviously engulf me in his culture worse than before. I’m not thrilled about it, but I need out of here.

Terrence left an hour ago, after he wished me luck with “Sam” and told me to text him if I needed to escape. I throw my gym bag over my shoulder and instantly regret it. A searing pain shoots in multiple directions from my shoulder – through my arm, down my back, and into my shoulder blade. My teeth slice into my lip, and I fight the four letter words I want to scream.

My bag falls to the floor, and I lean against the wall until the throbbing stops. Hopefully this pulled muscle will be better by Monday morning. I grab my hidden bottle of Tylenol from the glove compartment when I get in my car and chase the pills with a swig of Gatorade.

Micah is on his front porch when I pull up next to the tree of skulls. His hair is pulled back into a low ponytail, and he looks more solemn than usual. Those stupid lanterns hang above his head.

He pulls the screen door back and pushes the front door open for me. I walk straight to his room, drop my bag on the floor, and fall onto his bed. He closes his bedroom door behind us and sits next to me.

“Tired?” he asks.

I nod and close my eyes. I could go to sleep right now. At least I wouldn’t be dwelling on the pain surging through my body if I was asleep.

The mattress sinks when he lies next to me.

“You hungry?” he asks.

“Starved.”

“You like fish?”

I open my eyes and look to my left. He’s propped up on his elbow staring at me.

“I hate fish,” I admit.

I haven’t been able to eat seafood for the past year. Jordan wanted to go to an aquarium on our last vacation before Dad died, and I can still see those stupid puffer fish looking back at me through the glass. It was like they were staring into my soul with those bulging eyes, daring me to eat them or their friends or their families. Shrimp just didn’t sound appealing anymore after that. Or lobster or catfish or even fish sticks.

“Really? You hate fish?” Micah says it as if I’d said I hate oxygen.

I prop up on my elbow to mirror his position.

“Is that a problem?” I ask.

“Nah,” he says. He shakes his head and shrugs it off, but I know there’s more.

I rest back on his bed. “So what’s tonight’s plans?”

“My family is having a fish fry.”

That sick seafood feeling invades my stomach, and I can’t speak because of the giant lump in my throat. I bring my arm up to shield my face so he won’t see how flustered it is.

“You’ve lucked up, though,” Micah says. “Jade hates fish too, and Zoey always has to make something else for her. I told her you like Italian, so she’s making spaghetti. But you’ll love it. She has a recipe for homemade spaghetti sauce, and I swear, it’s the best you’ll ever put in your mouth.”

I’m glad Micah’s niece can be such a diva. It saves me from having to choke on fish and smile while I pretend to like it. I’d never show my face in Bear Creek again if I got sick eating fish while I was a guest on their reservation.

“Good deal,” I say, trying to hide my relief from Micah. But then I have to ask. “How did you know I like Italian food?”

“Seriously? You go to that Italian place nearly every time you go to the mall,” Micah says.

His sister’s back is turned to us when we walk into the kitchen. The fan above the stove hums. Even though she’s shielding it from my view, I hear water bubbling.

“Zoey,” Micah says.

She turns around to greet us. She looks more Italian than Native American, but she has Micah’s eyes, the same long black hair, and slightly less predominant cheek bones. She’s a lot prettier than Samantha.

“This is Ridge,” Micah tells her. He looks back at me. “My sister, Zoey, but I figure you know that already.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” she says over her shoulder. She hands a spoon to Micah. “Make yourself useful, little brother.”

Micah walks over to the counter and picks up where she left off on her spaghetti sauce.

“Micah says you play basketball?” Zoey says, turning to look at me.

It sounds more like a question than a statement, so I nod in response.

“So you’re going to be here all summer then?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Micah answers for me.

She looks over at him and points to the bowl in front of him.

She turns to me. “What position do you play?”

“Point guard,” Micah answers, beating me to it. He doesn’t look up from the spaghetti sauce he’s stirring.

Zoey glares at him, but he doesn’t see her. “Micah, why don’t you go round up your nieces and bring them in to wash up before supper?”

She points to a stool at the counter and motions for me to sit. Then she puts a hand on her hip and stares her brother down until he goes outside.

“I’m sorry. You’re Micah’s shiny new toy, and to be honest, he doesn’t like to share,” she says.

She puts the whisk on the counter and picks up the bowl of sauce that Micah left behind. She leans back against the counter, facing me while she stirs the sauce.

“Where are you from?” she asks.

“Markham. It’s about an hour and a half from here,” I reply.

She opens her mouth to say something, but the sound of sloshing water stops her. I jump off the stool and beat her to the stove. I turn the knob down and grab the whisk to stir her overflowing water.

“Thanks,” she says, dabbing a dishrag at the spilled water. “Micah would’ve let it overflow until it ran dry. He’s the type you need to keep out of the kitchen.”

“It’s no big deal,” I say. “I’ve had to learn to fend for myself at home. I know the basics of boiling water, preheating an oven, and using a microwave.”

The sound of fast footsteps matches the entrance of Zoey’s daughters. Micah walks in behind them and runs water in the sink while the girls lather their hands with soap. He looks up from the faucet at me.

“Zo, I leave for two minutes, and you put him to work?” he asks.

“At least he helps me,” she smarts back before taking the whisk from my hand. “Thanks, Ridge.”

Abby hasn’t taken her eyes off of me since they came inside. She has this silly smile where the tip of her tongue pokes between her teeth. Jade, on the other hand, could really care less about the new guy in her uncle’s kitchen.

Micah takes notice of Abby’s stare too.

“Ab, you remember Ridge? You met him at the mall the other night,” he says to her.

Abby nods, but her eyes don’t move and her tongue-tip smile stays the same. Jade turns off the faucet and looks me over as she dries her hands with a paper towel. Then she poses with her hands on her hips and tilts her head to examine me even more. I shouldn’t care that a five-year-old is judging me in her own head, but she makes me feel awkward.

“We remember him,” Jade says, answering for her sister as well. “Your…friend.”

“Yes, my
friend
,” Micah says, emphasizing the word. “Okay, Jade?”

His face gets all serious like it was when I got here earlier. If Abby’s tongue-tip smile didn’t make me want to laugh, the tension in the room would be more uncomfortable. Micah breaks the staring contest with Jade first and looks over to me.

“C’mon,” he says. “We’re going to go start the fire outside.”

He brushes past me, and I take one last look at the girls in the kitchen before turning to walk out behind him. We cross the living room to the front door. I still hear the voices in the kitchen. Jade tells Zoey that she thinks I’m cuter than Taylor. It’s not a true confirmation, but that’s enough for me to know that Taylor is Micah’s ex-
boyfriend
.

A stack of two-by-fours is piled up in front of the porch two houses down. Gray smoke drifts around the side of the house. The air smells like fish. A younger guy follows the smoke. He’s Native American as well, and Micah introduces him as his cousin Pax. His hair is short and spiky, a little more modern than Micah’s. He sort of reminds me of the tribe in those damn Twilight movies. Modern but still native. I’m instantly reminded of how white I really am.

“You ever made a bonfire?” Pax asks me, leading us to the stack of wood.

I’ve been to a few bonfires during sports season, after homecoming games and division finals, but I’ve never actually helped start the fire.

“Watch and learn,” Pax says, as if he’s a pro at building a bonfire. He disappears around the house again, in the same direction from which he came.

Micah laughs and looks to me. “Don’t take anything he says to heart. He goofs off a lot.”

“How old is he?” I ask.

“Fifteen. But he acts twelve sometimes,” Micah replies. He points to the stack of wood. “Want to help me with those?”

I grab as many two-by-fours as I can carry and follow Micah into an open clearing between two houses. A dark, shallow pit has hollowed out the ground. Gray stones outline the pit. Pax rounds the corner with an armload of brush and sticks. I’m not as helpful as I wish I could be, but I keep a steady stream of planks coming in their direction while they fill the pit with brush and wood.

“Hey Ridge? Come hold this,” Micah hollers out to me.

I walk around the two-by-fours and hold the last one in position. Micah doesn’t let go until I have a good grasp on it. He unravels a thick piece of twine and wraps it repeatedly around the planks.

“Have to be on the safe side,” he says. “If this thing collapses, it’ll light up the whole res before we can stop it.”

Pax tosses a match onto it and looks back at Micah with an accomplished smile.

“You know,” Pax says. “He’s a lot more helpful than Tay…other friends you’ve brought around here.”

It’s as if I’m not even standing here.

“Go help them with the fish,” Micah says to Pax, ignoring the other remark.

Micah doesn’t wait for a response. He walks past Pax and the blazing fire. I wonder for a second if it’s safe to leave it burning like that, but I don’t volunteer to stay.

Zoey’s spaghetti sauce is better than I expected. We decided to eat inside because Jade is already complaining about a mosquito bite, and Zoey is worried about bugs getting in her food. We sit in a circle on the living room floor. The smell of fried fish isn’t nearly as strong inside. Or maybe I’ve just gotten used to it.

“Uncle Mike, did you play the new zombie game in Time Out?” Abby asks with a mouth full of fish.

“Manners,” Zoey says. “Close your mouth when you chew, Ab.”

Abby closes her mouth and swallows dramatically, nodding her head forward so her mom will see the gesture.

Then Abby asks again. “Uncle Mike, did you play it?”

Micah nods. “Ridge and I did the other day,” he says.

“And you didn’t get us anything?” Jade pipes in. She drops her fork onto her plate and stares at him, demanding a response.