Her voice is tinny but close.
Oof.
That hurt.
Actually, are my brains swimming right now?
And why do I have three hands on my left arm?
“Back up, give her space,” Charlotte orders.
“I’m okay,” I try one more time, but actually, I’m not sure I am.
Chapter 19
Flint
“Is she sleeping?” I ask Charlotte roughly twelve hours after the kick of doom.
That’s what the kids are calling it.
The kick of doom.The penalty of bad. The murder ball.
All the phrases that they used to cheer June up when we joined her and Maisey and Charlotte at the hospital after we pulled off a miracle and won our first playoff game.
We were swiftly informed we needed to remove ourselves from the premises for being too rowdy.
So now I’m back at Maisey’s house, hat in hand, my heart in overdrive, asking if Maisey’s still okay.
“She’s in her room. And no, you can’t go see her there.”
“I don’t—”
“Want to make her life more complicated?” Charlotte supplies.
I sigh.
My heart’s still operating like a piston on a runaway train. I don’t know if Charlotte’s judging or trying to see through me. I shouldn’t be here, but I can’t be anywhere else.
“You have a type, don’t you?” she murmurs.
“I’d check on any kid’s parent who took a ball to the head like that.”
“You still have a type.”
I do.
I like the wounded, unavailable ones.
But that’s not Maisey.
Not entirely.
She’smore, and I can’t fight it the way I need to.
“Coach Jackson?” June steps into the foyer under the chandelier that Tony used to claim he’d made from antlers he found himself. “Did you run out of firewood or get a clogged toilet? Sorry. You’ll have to handle those yourself for the next few days.”
Charlotte sucks her lips in.
