Whatever Life Throws at You (25 page)

We lay there for several moments, slowly climbing back down to reality. Then Brody grabs a tissue and cleans himself off before pulling me into his arms.

My cheek sticks to his sweaty chest, but I love hearing his heart drumming against my ear, trying to slow down. He pushes the hair off my face and kisses my forehead, leaving his mouth against my skin. I sigh and fall deeper into this sleepy, relaxed haze, all the bad from earlier washed away.

Best. Not sex. Ever.

“Annie?”

“Uh-huh,” I mumble, closing my eyes.

“I have to tell your dad.”

My eyes fly open, and my heart jumps to my throat. “What? Why?”

He pulls up to a sitting position, and I do the same. “It’s the right thing to do. Watching that show today, hearing the way he talked about me…I feel like I’m living a lie, and it’s starting to eat at me.”

I’m breathing hard, thinking of a way out, some magic words to fix this. He can’t tell Dad. He just can’t. I feel like I’m trying to talk a suicidal man off a ledge. Stall.

It would almost be easier if he just dumped me now. And Dad would never have to know.

“Okay,” I say, nodding. “Maybe you’re right. But not right now, when the season is hitting its peak. We could wait until October when everything’s over.”

“There’s no we.” He shakes his head. “I’m taking the hit for this one. I have to. But you’re right, I can wait until the end of the season and then flee the country until spring training if he decides to kills me.”

Now I get the reason for the sad eyes. He thinks telling Dad will be the end of it, but who’s deciding that? Him or Dad? Obviously my dad’s not going to give his blessing, so that must be enough for Brody to take off and be done with us? And why does this freak me out? Isn’t this what I want?
No, I don’t think it’s what I want
.

My stomach churns and tears threaten to form. I can’t push for these details now because he’s agreed to wait. I can’t start a fight about how it’s my choice, too. He’s not going to see it that way.

I’ve got time to come up with a new plan. “After the last game, then you’ll talk to him.”

He leans forward and kisses me on the mouth. “I’m sorry to dump it on you like this. That show, hearing that someone in my life thinks of me as a respectable person, a good person, even…That’s not something I’ve been told in a long time, and I don’t want to lose that part of me.”

“I think you’re a good person,” I say quietly, before slipping off the bed to retrieve my clothes.

He exhales, and his eyes meet mine. “All I know is that I want to be the person you and your dad think I am. Maybe even more than I want to be a great pitcher.”

I take a deep breath, pulling my skirt back on. Stopping him from telling Dad is going to be a much more difficult task than I’d anticipated.

Division

Championships

Chapter 25

Annie Lucas:
Looking forward to a weekend in the Windy City but hoping late September doesn’t mean cold weather?

8 hours ago

Jason Brody Royals Pitcher:
Still can’t believe we’re in the running for division champions! The White Sox are a great club, will be a tough match, but I know we can win!

4 hours ago

Lenny London:
Annie Lucas has yet to shop with Lenny London. She’s about to get her mind blown. Magnificent Mile, here we come.

20 minutes ago

“What kind of activity could possibly be better than shopping in Chicago?” Lenny says, turning to face me in the car that’s taken us from O’Hare airport to Michigan Avenue. “Please tell me this is not a secret boyfriend meet-up?”

Lenny’s still a bit sensitive about the Jason-Brody-is-my-boyfriend issue since her dad caught us in the backyard, but luckily he’s never brought it up to her again and Brody says he doesn’t treat him any differently. I think Lenny is hurt more by the fact that he didn’t get upset or want more details or at least threaten Brody.

I wring my hands in my lap. I’ve been planning this adventure for a few weeks (and it’s involved lots of sneaking into Savannah’s desk and file folders and other James Bond–like missions), but I’m still petrified and afraid I’m gonna chicken out.

“It’s a boyfriend-related activity,” I say. “But he’s not actually involved in it.”

Lenny manages to lift her eyebrows, revealing her curiosity, and lets out a frustrated sigh at the same time. “Please tell me you aren’t going to a free clinic for birth control or something, because I can totally hook you up with a doctor who won’t give details to Daddy if that’s what you need.”

I stare at her face for an entire minute, trying to decide if I can really explain my mission. I finally conclude that the free clinic theory is worse than the truth. “There’s something I need to get from Brody’s mom, and she lives in the suburbs.”

Surprise fills her face. “Did he ask you to do this?”

I shake my head. “He doesn’t talk to her. She’s kind of shunned him.”

“Oh boy.” Lenny sinks back into her seat. “Okay, fuck it. Let’s do your activity. This should be interesting, at least.”

It’s raining when we reach Brody’s mom’s apartment in Evanston. I know from what he’s told me that they used to live in Chicago, so she’s moved since he left home. I don’t know why or how Savannah had her address, and since I snagged it without permission, I couldn’t exactly ask.

Lenny and I are both soaked through to our tennis shoes, having walked four blocks after getting off the El train. Her teeth are chattering as I hit the buzzer on the outside of the building door. “She better be here, or I’m going to be extremely pissed at you,” she says.

“Yes?” a female voice says through the intercom.

Before I can answer, a man pushes past us and holds the door open. Lenny takes it and nods for me to walk through. I hesitate but eventually follow her, because I’m not exactly sure what to say to the woman on the other side of the intercom to get her to let us into the building.

We take the stairs, traveling up to the third floor, and knock on apartment 3-B. A few seconds later, the door opens a couple inches and a woman slightly older than my dad, with dark Hispanic features and long beautiful hair, peeks through the space.

“Hi,” I say, and then freeze until Lenny elbows me in the side. “Are you Jason Brody’s mother?”

I hear her gasp from behind the door, and then she opens it all the way, her eyes fluttering shut. “He’s dead, isn’t he? I knew this day would come—”

“What the hell,” Lenny mutters under her breath.

“We’re not cops or whatever.” I shake my head, trying to keep up with this odd turn of events. “We’re in high school.”

“But we know your son,” Lenny adds.

“If he needs money, I’m not helping him,” she says firmly, her fingers curled around the edge of the door, ready to close it. “I can’t help him. I have two other children who haven’t screwed up their lives. He’s on his own now.”

Already my anger is hitting a boiling point. Obviously, she has no idea who her son is and what he’s been doing for the past months. Or years, maybe? “He doesn’t need money. And now I see why he hasn’t called you to ask for this information himself.”

With great reluctance, the responsible teacher’s aid in her winning out, I’m sure, she opens the door even more, allowing us to step inside the apartment. It’s full of worn furniture, but everything looks nice and neat. There’s a definite scent in the air of home-cooked meals and freshly laundered clothes—things I’m sure Brody misses, especially knowing the state of his bare apartment and fridge full of meals cooked in someone else’s kitchen.

Lenny and I stand in the living room, watching her close the door and turn to face us, foot tapping like she’s got somewhere better to be. It breaks my heart. How awful of a son could he have been and still turn into the kind person I know?

“Brody—I mean Jason,” I say, “wants to take his GED, but he needs proof of his dyslexia diagnosis so he can take an oral exam.”

“And now it makes sense why he didn’t want to ask you for it,” Lenny concludes, stealing the words straight from my head.

She folds her arms across her chest, but she’s not fooling me. I can see this request has surprised her. “That’s all?”

I blow air out of my cheeks. “That’s all.”

She spins around and takes off down the hallway. Literally sixty seconds later, she returns holding out a manila folder full of white papers labeled:
Jason’s School Records
. She moves toward the door, opens it a couple inches, and waits. Lenny heads for the exit, but I stay put. “Don’t you want to know where he is? Or what he’s doing? You don’t care?”

Her mouth forms a thin line. “I can’t care about him at the detriment of my other children. When your oldest child brings gangbangers into your home, steals from you, and leaves you in fear for your family’s lives so much that you have to move and disconnect from everyone you knew before, get a new job…It changes my ability to forgive.”

Lenny looks at me and mouths,
Gangbangers?
I shrug because I’ve really not heard anything about that part. Brody never said anything about being in a gang. I think she’s exaggerating, but either way, he didn’t try to intentionally hurt anyone, so some part of her has to be worried about him.

“And I’m too afraid to even ask why, at nineteen years old, he’s associated with high school girls,” she adds with a shake of her head.

I’m so pissed off I can’t bite my tongue and leave like I know I should. “My dad is a pitching coach for the Kansas City Royals. He coaches your son. And Lenny”—I nod in her direction—“is the daughter of the Royals’ first baseman. Brody’s a pitcher. A major league baseball pitcher. Possibly Rookie of the Year. Do you not read the papers ever? Or turn on ESPN?”

Her mouth falls open and, after a lengthy hesitation, she nods. “He’s playing baseball. I guess that makes sense.”

I scowl at her, remembering how Brody said she’d look down on it, like he’d taken the easy road. “Yeah, he’s playing baseball. He’s also an incredibly selfless, hard-working person who has a very hard time believing that people might actually think highly of him.”

“I wonder why that is?” Lenny says.

We make an awesome tag team.

I reach in my purse and hand her a white envelope. “Tickets to the game tomorrow. We’re playing the White Sox for the division championships. Your son is pitching.”

There’s really nothing left to say, so we both head out the door and run the entire four blocks back to the El train. It’s not until we’re sitting down that Lenny says, “That was a very purposeful activity.”

“And successful.” I pat my stomach where I’ve stuffed the folder under my shirt and jacket to keep it from getting ruined in the rain. “I can’t decide if I want her to show up at the game or not. Maybe she doesn’t deserve to see him.”

“Do you think he was really in a gang?” Lenny asks.

I shake my head. “No way. He had rough friends and his mom probably called them gangbangers, but I don’t think he’d be able to get away from them so easily, right?” As if I actually know how gangs work.

After Lenny and I get checked in at the front desk of our hotel, we head up to our room that she booked for us, and I nearly faint when I see the fancy two-bedroom suite. “Wow, are you really that much of an attention seeker, Len? Trying to piss off Mom and Dad?”

She laughs and tosses her suitcase on the bed in one of the bedrooms. “I think you’re under the impression that my parents pay any attention to what I charge on my credit card and that my mother could ever fathom the idea of not booking a luxury suite when staying in a hotel.”

After I’d begged to see the playoffs in Chicago, it had actually been Dad’s idea for me to invite Lenny. Lenny agreed to let him pay for the flight if she could pick up the hotel tab. Of course, we fly for free on the team’s chartered flight.

I text Brody and give him the room number, telling him I have a surprise for him. I’d been afraid to tell him about my mission but hadn’t thought it’d be a problem once I’d already done the task.

Lenny lets him in and, after whistling at the size of our suite, he takes in our soaked clothes. He laughs and reaches over to squeeze water from the ends of my hair. “Guess the shopping didn’t go to well?”

“Actually…” I pick up the folder from the coffee table and hand it over to him. “We didn’t go shopping.”

He doesn’t even open it, just sees the label on the side and his jaw tenses. “Where did you get this?”

I suck in a breath and step back. This isn’t the happy kind of surprise. Lenny throws me a wary glance and heads for the bedroom she’s already picked out, closing the door behind her.

“I…uh…I went to see your mom. I knew you didn’t want to call her, and I just wanted you to be able to take your test.”

His glare is like pain shooting right into my heart. He throws the folder back onto the table. “You had no right to do that, Annie. Why wouldn’t you ask me first?”

I had a pretty sucky time walking in the rain to find his mom, so I’m not exactly excited about being yelled at. “Because you would have said no and honestly, you’re being completely stupid, letting her keep you from living your life! One of us had to do something.”

“You’re right, I would have said no.” He lowers his voice, making him sound more cold and angry.

I lift up my hands. “Well, I’ve already done it, so the only thing you really can do is move on and take the damn test. And just so you know, I gave her tickets to the game tomorrow, too.”

He steps farther away from me, shaking his head. “You don’t get it, do you? If you told me not to butt into your life, I’d never go behind your back. I trust you.”

“If you trust me, then what’s the problem? I did what I thought was best for you.”

“I trust you to ask me for help when you need it. To accept it when I offer, to understand that I’ll do the same if I need your input,” he says, disappointment and frustration filling each word. “I’m serious about us, and now I can see that you don’t feel the same way.”

I groan and try to move closer, but he holds up a hand to stop me. “Of course I feel the same way; don’t be crazy.”

“I’ve never treated you like a kid, Annie, but it’s fucking hard not to when you keep acting like one. Like you don’t care how your actions affect other people. You just take off in a sprint and don’t look back. That shit scares me.” He shakes his head. “That was my life before this—impulsive and destructive. I can’t be that person anymore. I won’t.”

I stand there stunned, watching him walk out the door and slam it shut. I sink down onto the couch and try to figure out what the hell just happened. Lenny opens her bedroom door and slowly reenters the room.

“Are you okay?”

My hands are shaking, but it’s more anger than anything else. How could he think that I don’t care? That I’m not constantly trying to make his life better? I look up at Lenny, my eyes wide. “Did we just break up?”