Page 44 of The Handoff

Chapter 22

Daxon

“Thatmusthavebeen Dane’s girlfriend,” Mom said as she finally broke the silence.

“Who?” I said, half-awake after the long stint I had in the jazz club last night. I couldn’t remember the last time I decided to take a chance with my music. It was a smooth mix between old and new, the crowd loved it. Big man, the boss, said I should do it again. It would mean a big payout for me, and an even bigger one for him. As soon as I got in, Mom said we needed to go to the mall, which meant we needed to talk.

“Shit!” Mom hated when we cursed, and I covered my mouth. Sure, she knew we weren’t saints, but there were certain things that she couldn’t tolerate, and one was cursing.

I scratched my head. “That was why she kissed me and looked as if she was about to cry when we walked away.”

It was Lisa, sure I’d seen her before and spoken to her. But I wasn’t on campus and the moment I left campus, I stopped pretending to be Dane. I had to get out of his head space and away from his world.

His friends were cool, but there was only so much football, and women I could talk about in a day. I wasn’t a nerd like David, but I needed my music even more than usual to keep up with this insane life we were living.

Mom knew?

“How do you know about Dane’s girlfriend?” She laughed as she flicked her hair to the side. It was when I noticed her bangs were overgrown, her nails weren’t painted, and she’d gone out without make-up. A deadly sin she would cry out for anyone over forty to be seen without make-up. I rarely saw her without it. I wondered if she’d went to bed with it on. It seemed crazy for her to be worried about her vanity, especially seeing as we were her sons.

“You boys are not the best at keeping secrets, besides I heard David and Dane argue about her one day. Don’t you think that you boys should stop playing games? Anyway, let’s sit down and talk, then when we get home, I’ll talk to the guys, too. Okay?” she said with her eyes half-open. It was as if the little joke, which I’d accidentally given her had been pushed to the side, as her once bright hazel eyes were now dull. I could tell that something was bugging her, but whenever we asked her, she would close up. She wanted to talk and the only thing that I was craving was sleep.

She was right. There had been enough tension to cut the atmosphere since Dane said he had a girlfriend. So much so that he’d taken to living in the dorm of one of his football jocks last week. I assumed David fucked Lisa, and this wound Dane up big time, especially when he told us not to touch her. I’d had no trouble doing that because it was wrong in so many ways. She thought we were one person. Imagine her surprise if she found out we were not one, but three.

I avoided any text she sent me and made sure I was never alone with her. That was until now. What were the odds of bumping into her at the mall?

Anyway, after Mom said whatever she had to say, then I would tell the guys that we had to come clean or Dane had to break up with her. Knowing my brother, the latter wasn’t an option. He wouldn’t want to break up with her. Then again, I wasn’t sure we thought it all through because he was a senior and she was a freshman, and we all knew footballers didn’t have the best reputation for keeping a relationship, let alone a long-distance one.

“Where should we go?” I asked, losing patience. This was too much for me. I was the type that avoided emotion and drama. Yet, I’d managed to involve myself in both in such a short space of time.

She shrugged. “Starbucks?”

I nodded, and all I could hope was that the girls didn’t have the same idea. Bumping into Lisa once was bad enough, twice was just too much to handle in one afternoon, and there would be nothing else I could do but to come clean. I wasn’t the best at keeping secrets and I was even worse at lying.

We headed to Starbucks, and I was acting as if I was walking naked through the mall by looking in every direction, making sure no eyes were on us. Mom trudged ahead, as if she whatever it was, was weighing her down. As soon as we reached Starbucks, she found a table and sat down.

She was a creature of habit, then again, we all were. I didn’t need to ask her what she wanted, it was always the same thing, cappuccino with a splash of chocolate. I decided that maybe I would go for the mango Frappuccino for a change, but as soon as I reached the counter, I ended up ordering the same thing as Mom. The same thing that I always did and part of it annoyed me, not trying something new, but the other part knew that today wasn’t the day for trying new things, especially when I ignored Dane’s new girlfriend, who really should be my girl.

As I waited for our orders to be ready, I noticed that both Tanya and Lisa were heading back out of the mall. Whatever it was that made them change their mind, I was happy about not having to bump into her over again.

My phone rang, and I automatically turned it off while I waited for our drinks. I didn’t care who was calling, I wasn’t supposed to be Dane, so I knew that the only two people who could have been calling me were either David or the man himself.

I grabbed our drinks and headed to our table. Mom’s head was buried in her hands, it was only after I got closer that I noticed she was crying.

“Mom?”

She shook her head, “Sorry. This is just too much. We shouldn’t have come here.”

I slumped down in the chair and passed the coffee to her, along with her favorite chocolate muffin. The main reason why she loved having coffee here was because of the muffin.

“This always puts a smile on your face,” I said as I shoved the muffin in her direction.

She smiled. “No, you always put a smile on my face. It’s just that with David arguing and the issues with Dane, what felt like a good idea at first feels like a really horrible one.”

I shrugged. “What do you mean?”

She sipped on her cappuccino with both hands and then nibbled on her muffin. I stopped watching her and did the same as I became nervous about what she was about to tell me.

“I know playing Dane was fun at first. Back at high school, you would tease and play around. I remember when you signed Dane up for a singing competition.”

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