Page 48 of Lucky Shot

“It’s just for texting home. It doesn’t have anything else on it. No internet or—”

“Don’t need any to take a picture now, do we?” I say to try and make him feel better. “Here. Let me see it. I have longer arms.”

“Okay.”

I reach for his phone and then squat down beside him. We look at our image reflected back at us. We look like a mosaic in the shattered glass—broken pieces—but our smiles are genuine, and his excitement is alive in his expression. “Perfect,” I say as I hand his phone back to him and then shake his hand. “Nice to meet you, Joey, I’m Hardy.”

He giggles like a kid his age should, and it makes me smile. “I know who you are, silly.”

“Maybe, but I had to at least have some manners,” I say. “So you play here? That means we’ll get to see each other over the next few weeks then, right?”

“Promise?” There is so much emotion in those two broken syllables that my tongue feels thick in my mouth.

Promises. A thing that has never been kept when made to me, and yet . . . this promise feels necessary. And for the first time in forever, it’s one I want to keep. There’s no goddamn way I’m going to break this one to Joey.

“Yeah.” I offer a tight smile that I swear I can feel all the way in my chest. “I promise.”

I barely know the kid, but I swear to God, I know that look in his eyes, I have felt that look in his eyes, and I know my arse isn’t going to let him down.

Looks like I’m fucking stuck with my decision.

I cough to relieve the pressure in my chest.

“Are you waiting for someone to come pick you up?”

“No. Yes.” He looks down and then back up. “They forget. A lot.”

“So did they forget?” I shrug away how those words make me feel.

“Looks like it.” He glances over his shoulder. “Their medicine . . . it makes them so funny they forget.”

Medicine? More like drugs if what I’m reading from him is right. My heart aches for this little kid when I like to think I don’t have one.

I clear my throat. “How are you getting home?” And how can I want him to go home when he’s going home to that?

Not your problem, Hardy. Just . . . don’t get involved.

He points over his shoulder to a beat-up BMX bike. “I ride. It’s not far.”

“You sure?”

He nods. “Yeah. I do it almost every day.”

I glance around as if that’s going to make the neighborhood I drove through to get here any safer. “You sure?”

“Yep.” He backs away, his smile wide. “I still can’t believe you’re here.” The astonishment in his voice digs deep down inside of me and reminds me of that feeling when I first met one of my idols. How my dad stood with me for an hour after a game on the off chance we’d catch the team walk out to their cars.

“I’m here.”

“You’ll be back? You’re not going to break your promise?”

How many times did I ask my mum that same question in one form or another?

You’re not going to break your promise?

And how many times did I know when she promised me she wouldn’t break it, that she would?

“No. I’m not going to break my promise.”