Page 68 of Home Game

“I was trying to protect you.”

“Ha!” I laugh out for real this time and look at the dash again. I pull the sleeve of Wyatt’s sweatshirt over my palm and lean forward, rubbing a circle on the glass so I can see through it again. The heat and the chill mix out here in the night, and it’s somehow never hot or cold this time of year. It feels like . . . nothing. How appropriate.

“I should have talked to you about it first, I know.”

“You should have.”

I pivot and meet his eyes. He mashes his lips and shakes his head slowly.

“Would you have agreed with me, though?”

“That me being the parade queen would have been a distraction for everyone and for once taken the focus off football?” I quirk a brow, and his head tilts to the side.

“Peyt, that’s not why I didn’t think it was a good idea. And you know that.”

I chew at the inside of my cheek and shift my gaze just to the side of his face. I give it the thought it deserves, and after a few seconds, nod. He’s right. I do know that. But damn, sometimes it feels like that’s how rules go for me.Football first.

“This whole rivalry thing was getting out of hand. And the fire?—”

My gaze flickers back to meet his.

We haven’t talked about the fire, me and him. I know how things go in the football world out here. A whole lot of discussions happen off the books, with handshakes at the bar over a game of pool, and in after-practice meetings somewhere between the field and the parking lot. I’m sure he and CoachWatts let the inner circle know things were heating up. Boosters out here aren’t just for fundraising. Messages get sent, unwritten contracts negotiated. It's how players get transferred without penalty in a system where coaches aren’t supposed to recruit. Everyone knows it’s all a sham.

“I didn’t want you to be a target at the parade,” he says.

I shake my head and laugh.

“Turns out I didn’t need a parade to be a target. All I had to do was watch a boy I like play a stupid game.”

His mouth straightens and he swallows hard, and the air inside thins.

“You like him, huh?” His eyes somehow hold sorrow, but not the way I thought. He doesn’t care that it’s not Bryce. He cares that it’s something real.

“I like him enough to think about staying in state for college after all,” I admit with a shrug.

His lip ticks up on the right and he turns to face the steering wheel again, laying his wrist over the top.

“Staying home, huh?”

“I said in-state. I did not sayhome.”

“Same thing,” he says, that lip quirk now a full-on smirk. He shifts the truck into drive and presses the hazard light button off.

“Definitely not the same thing, Dad,” I repeat.

It’s still quiet and remains so for most of the way home, but the air is lighter now. Not fully clear, and there are apologies left to be said, but the doors are open.

My dad turns the truck into our drive, and there’s a familiar red truck parked next to my mom’s SUV.

“Uncle Jason is here?” I sit up on my palms, anxious to see his new baby and my Aunt Sarah. She and my mom have been best friends since grade school, the originalride-or-dies.My dad chuckles when the front door to the house opens, his brother standing in the doorway and tapping on his watch.

“I forgot that was tonight. They’re staying through next Sunday, you know, for the . . .”

“Parade,” I finish.

My Aunt Sarah got to be the parade queen. She was the first one, in fact. My mom says she basically created the role, making her own crown and wearing it while marching to the front of the parade and shooting confetti cannons along Main Street. She was a menace. A bold, loud, amazing menace, and my mom’s voice when she needed to borrow one. That’s Tasha for me. My confetti cannon.

“I know you were looking forward to it, and I’m really sorry. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see you shine, or to put the spotlight on you and brag to the town that you’re my kid. I live for that,” my dad says, rolling his head against his seat back until our eyes meet. “But the spotlight feels more like a searchlight this year. I was worried someone would do something like they did tonight, onlyto you. And let’s face it, your mother would lose her mind.”

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