Page 61 of My Brother's Teammates

Gran said Jenny’s not there. She said the spirits are telling her that we’re idiots and that if we don’t find Jenny and make up with her, she’ll never speak to us again. So, basically Gran is threatening to cut me off if I can’t bring Jenny home.

I rubbed my forehead.I might cut us off if we can’t get her back. I hate this.

My phone rang a few seconds later and I answered it while pulling away from the curb. “Hey.”

Hudson sighed heavily. “This fucking sucks.”

Axel spoke up from the background. “Not getting her back is not an option.”

“We just need to talk to her. She’ll listen to us. She has to feel how much we care about her and know that we wouldn’t do that to her.” Hudson sounded as desperate as I felt. “That fucking picture… It looked bad. I’m ashamed that Jason was able to take it. I know I pushed that woman away as soon as she sat on me, but I looked too fucking happy. I should’ve just gone back to the room and called Jenny.”

“I’m terrified she won’t believe us.” I swallowed down the urge to shout. “She knows the reputation some of us have. She saw the picture. She read what her brother said to her, about his best friends. And we just left her hanging. It was our first away game and we missed two nights of calls. With all the practice, I barely messaged her at all. Of course, she’s going to find it easy to believe that we’re cheaters.”

“We’ll just have to convince her.” Hudson let out a bitter laugh. “I’m sure as fuck not giving up. I care about her. I think I know where you two are, too, but I’m serious about this, about her.”

I growled. “Me fucking, too. I love her. I… Yeah, I fucking love her.”

Axel whistled. “So, we’re going to get her back. End of story. And then, I guess we’ll tell her that this is serious and let her know she’s stuck with us.”

“I don’t know how to love someone.” Hudson’s voice was low as he spoke. “I’ve never seen real love in my family. But I guess it’s a good thing that Jenny will have three of us so we can figure this shit out together. Maybe alone, I wouldn’t be good enough for her. I feel like I can give her what she needs when you two are there, too. And I’ll learn how she needs to be loved. I can read a book or something. I don’t know. But I feel this pull for her and I can’t walk away.”

“We can figure it out together. With Jenny.” Axel grunted. “Looks like Jason is getting chewed out on the phone. He looks like he’s going to throw up.”

“Good.” Hudson was quiet for a second and then swore. “Shit. I recognize the tone of that shouting. That’s Mike Ramsey.”

A light went off in my head. “Did she go all the way home?”

I heard the whirl of the window lowering and then Mike Ramsey’s voice was so loud that it sounded like he was sitting next to me in the truck. I listened and winced as the man ripped into his son.

“...one job! You protect your sister, goddammit! You don’t tell her she’s going to be a joke around campus, you don’t send her a picture of her boyfriends cheating on her while she’s home alone, and you sure as hell don’t pay so little attention to her that you don’t notice a fucking professor using her! She drove here all by herself, Jason. She was a mess and she could’ve driven off a fucking cliff while sobbing.

“And that bullshit on the field yesterday? Do you know who that hurt yesterday? You, Jason! You think a pro team is going to see what you did to your own teammate and pay you to come do the same thing to them? I raised you better than that. You handle personal shit off the field. On the field, you’re a team with one goal. You played with your own hurt feelings as your priority. You’re lucky Coach let you finish the game. Honestly, I understand having your friends go after your little sister is rough. You don’t think my friends went after your Aunt Britt?”

I winced hard and hung up the call as I pulled up to the curb in front of the house. I could see Jason sitting on the steps, head hanging low. I could also see Hudson and Axel sitting in Axel’s truck, their eyes on our friend.

I was so fucking angry at Jason, but I felt bad for him. We all knew how much he worshiped his dad and it sounded like Mike was taking all of his anger out on Jason. Even though Jason had fucked up, I didn’t like seeing him being crushed.

I got out of my truck and walked over to where Jason sat. I grabbed his phone and ended the call, cutting his dad off mid-rant. “You can tell him I hung up on him and he can take it out on me. You fucked up and I could knock your teeth out but we all know how much you love Jenny. Your dad’s wrong for talking to you like this is all your fault, including what happened with Landon. Everyone knows Jenny can be secretive when she wants to be. You had no way of knowing anything she didn’t want you to know.”

He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

I grabbed his arm and pulled him up. “Alright, well let’s make it up to her. We’re going to get her.”

He looked over at Axel and Hud and rolled his shoulders. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go get her. I’m not so sure you guys should see my dad today, though. He’s pretty pissed.”

“He won’t be after you tell him we didn’t cheat on his daughter, hopefully.”

“You’re sleeping with his baby. He’s going to be pissed.” Jason moved towards Axel’s truck. “I guess we all need to talk.”

I grunted. “No shit.”

***Jenny***

Stretchedoutacrossthefoot of Mom and Dad’s bed, I was looking through listings for apartments with Mom. We’d already eaten our weight in ice cream and pizza, in that order. Dad was in the garage, hitting things with a hammer. When Mom and I asked him why, he’d mumbled something about Jason and walked away.

Mom pointed at a pretty apartment on campus. “This one’s beautiful. What do you think?”

I looked at the rent and snorted. “I told you all about getting fired, right? Did you forget?”

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