Page 106 of Sliding Into Love
“It matters.” Laura spun on her heel, marching toward the exit, her phone in hand.
What was she going to do?
Ethan and Ivy followed while Frankie, Jimmy, and Lily stayed behind with Jase and Janna. Jen, Isaac, Derek, and a few other team members filed out of the locker room and joined the procession.
“Look.” Laura pointed to her phone screen. “He’s ranting on Twitter. I’m sure he’s still here somewhere.”
Was she going to hunt down her brother? And for what? Not that Ethan wanted to be a part of what was likely to be a pretty intense showdown, but he was captivated by the thought of his mother giving her brother a verbal lashing.
Emily Harkness strode toward them, a handful of official-looking suits in tow. She made brief eye contact with Laura, who gave a slight nod but didn’t break stride. Ethan assumed from the set of her jaw that Emily would love nothing more than to join them but valued her position too much to do so.
Ethan and Emily were bound by the League’s rules of conduct, but Laura had no such restrictions and could do what she wanted.
“What is happening?” Ivy caught up to him, whispering so Laura wouldn’t hear.
“I’m not sure.” Ethan had never seen his mother so angry, and he was glad he wasn’t the recipient of her ire.
“This is going to be fucking awesome,” Jen said in an undertone as they exited the stadium into the back lot. “Lorne just tweeted about the loss and how they’ll come back tomorrow, blah blah blah. Didn’t mention getting thrown out, though,” she called in a louder voice for Laura to hear.
“You follow him on Twitter?” Derek asked.
“He knows how to tweet?” Isaac sounded skeptical.
“He always did have a flair for the dramatic. He gets it from our father.”
Ethan heard the eye roll in her voice without having to see it.
Outside, the halogen lights cast puddles of yellow over the parking lot, bathing Lawrence Lorne and his dejected-looking team in half-shadows where they waited, leaning against the concrete exterior of the building.
“Oh, shit,” Isaac muttered.
“Oh, shit,” Ethan agreed.
Lawrence turned toward them, a nasty look on his face.
“You!” Lawrence’s hair was mussed like he’d tugged on it several times.
“Oh, shut up.” Laura pushed past the few Tornadoes who didn’t scramble out of her way fast enough.
Lawrence stared at her as if surprised to see her there. Ethan was struck by their similarities, then. Close in height and build, though his mother’s hair had always been darker than Lawrence’s sandy locks. Despite Lawrence’s bullying and belittling of the past, though, at the moment, nothing was more terrifying than Laura in her stony, seething anger.
“What the—”
“I said, ‘Shut up’.” Laura advanced on her brother, who had the good sense to take a startled step back. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I—”
“I’m not finished. How dare you speak to my son that way? How dare you speak to him at all after the way you ‘trained’ him?” She drew air quotes around the word, her fingers making claws that were frighteningly close to Lawrence’s face. “You shouldn’t be allowed on a baseball field after that! He was achild, Lawrence.”
“He said wanted to be the best! And he was obsessed with our father! Always watching those old tapes. I was trying to keep him from turning out that way.”
“Youkept the tapes. You watched them as much as he did, or don’t you remember idolizing dear old Dad when you were younger? And now look at you.”
Lawrence blanched.
“And don’t get me started on the way you spoke to Emily, you misogynist piece of—”
Beside Ethan, Ivy tensed, her fingers digging into his arm. He was torn between gleeful fascination and vague horror as the situation unfolded.
