Page 63 of Overtime
“You… think?”
Sighing, she says, “Yeah. Because the dude just doesn’t talk.”
“Meaning,” I muse aloud, “that something did happen during the game.”
“Probably.” Her phone pings, and she picks it up. “It’s Mark. Oh! He knows what triggered the fight.”
We glue our eyes to her phone screen, watching as Mark’s three dots appear and disappear as he types.
Marky boy
A Falcon douche spewed some racist bullshit at Aran
After that first text, he adds another one with quotation marks around what the opposing player said. I blink really hard and read it again. Ryan draws in a sharp breath. Something inside me snaps.
“What?” I jump off the couch, pointing at the phone in her hand. “I will murder that asshole Falcon!”
“Um, Maddie?—”
“How dare he—” I interrupt myself with a gasp. “No wonder Aran punched him in the face. That’s the least that little asshole deserves!”
“Wow, I’ve never heard you cuss before.”
I clamp my hands over my mouth, eyes wide.
Ryan’s face twitches like she wants to laugh. Instead, she clears her throat. “Unfortunately, players fling about all sorts of distasteful slurs during games. Aran’s been called worse before.”
“So.” I wince a little. “If crap like that is so commonplace, then why did he snap?”
“I don’t know. And now I’m a bit worried. Archie sounded like he was too.”
Slowly, I lower myself back to my seat and check my phone again. Aran still hasn’t read my text, but I send him another one.
Me
We’re worried about you
I hope you’re okay
Say *grunt* if you are
But even after more attempts from the three of us during the course of the night, he doesn’t respond.
CHAPTER 19
ARAN
Mom sets a staggering plate with the chunkiest cachapa on the planet in front of me. It’s like a thick corn pancake stuffed with a slab of queso de mano and several layers of ham and is drizzled with nata—which I know is also called cream, though it doesn’t taste the same when I think about it in English.
I’ve been camping out at home ever since picking Liv up at the hospital after they flushed out her gut. That was probably enough punishment, to be honest. But then I yelled at her some more in the car just in case. And then our parents freaked out when I arrived home, basically carrying my little sister in, and presented them with a brand-new hospital bill.
Needless to say, she got grounded. And because our parents hover very high on the neuroticism scale, they kept her home from school yesterday. And because Luz is also the textbook definition of intense, she threatened to drive over when she found out about the whole thing. To save her the hassle, I volunteered to stay home for a few days so I could keep an obsessive eye on our sister.
That, and so I could avoid my life for a bit.
But the back and forth between school and home is getting old. And maybe because I’m also done with acting like a freaking child.
Liv glares at my plate, as if upset that her portion is so much smaller. Not that she could eat all this. I mean, shit, I’m not even sureIcan. But Dad blesses our meal, and I dig in.
