Page 84 of Blue Moon Mistress

“Good evening, Boys! Headed to the game?” She locks her door too and starts toward the sidewalk. “Care to escort an old lady up the hill?”

Her smile hardens when she finally notices me.

“We’d be happy to, Mrs. Miller.” Joshua steps between the three of us and her, offering her his arm, and that appeases her a little.

“How many times have I told you to call me Dot?” she asks as she wraps her arm in his and the set off ahead of us.

The high school is lit by the bright lights of the stadium below it, but we can’t see the field from here.

There are too many trees and the square block of the north bleachers in the way.

The sidewalk isn’t big enough for three, and I don’t know how Chase—so much smaller than Johnny—won the shoulder shoving match and takes the place beside me.

When Mrs. Miller looks back, seeing it’s Chase beside me, she seems to relax a little, so maybe it wasn’t the shoving match that decided after all.

The football field is below the main school, so the hill we have to walk up isn’t too steep, but the sidewalks have buckled and shifted over the years, so I have to pay attention to where I step in the dark and I only half hear the story Ms. Miller loudly tells Joshua.

The impending granddaughters will be here before Thanksgiving. And she is so pleased.

Chase leans close as Mrs. Miller starts in on one of their accomplishments in college. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Oh, I know. She’s made it obvious I can keepyou.”

He laughs, drawing Mrs. Miller’s attention and a glare, but we’ve reached the actual incline that leads up to the lower parking lot and there’s a crowd.

I don’t hear what he says to her as Johnny and Chase draw me back, but Joshua walks Mrs. Miller to a line in front of a booth constructed out of plywood.

“You have a nice night.” Joshua leaves her in that first line and then rejoins us, leading the way to the main gate.

“Don’t we need tickets?”

“Thomas got them for us ahead of time.”

“Always nice toknowsomebody.” Joshua hands over the tickets and for a moment, we have to weave through the press of bodies headed for the bleachers.

It has the same feel as a fair. Dozens of people with no real destination other than a vague ‘over there’.

One of them takes my hand and leads me through, not to the tall stands of bleachers on either side, but around to the side behind the home team benches.

Bright lights, a chain-link fence and the orange rubberized lanes of a track lay between us and the field.

Thomas is wearing a dark purple windbreaker and a baseball hat that hides most of his hair.

He doesn’t look over, doesn’t see us. His attention is on his players, on the other coaches riling them up. And that level of focus is… kind of beautiful.

“Think she’s going to try to come find us?” Johnny asks, and I follow his gaze toward the entry gates. “I saw a few of the women from her church quilting group. They’ll keep her distracted, I’m sure.”

Johnny didn’t look sure, but then, the announcers said something garbled over the loudspeaker and a girl who didn’t look old enough to be in High School took her place center field to sing the national anthem.

I used the moment to look around the crowds. Mostly worried that I’d see Aphrodite and have to answer why I’d been ignoring her texts.

But no one overly familiar jumped out at me.

And as the crowd clapped and whistled, and the girl walked off the field and the teams sent out their starters… Johnny drew me into his arms.

“I thought we’d have a little more time, but it looks like you get to play guard straight from the beginning.”

I look to my left and see them. A small group of high school girls who clearly have the guys in their sights, they strut past, jackets open to show off more skin than anyone needs to see, especially in this cold.

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