Page 7 of Made Better Together

“So Connor, how does it feel to be a college grad?” she asks. “I’m sure it’s great to live in the same town as your siblings.”

Her tone is warm, and I know from Grace that Pam is the opposite of our mother—genuine and supportive. I try to respond in equal measure.

“It’s nice, and yes, it feels like Orlando’s been my second home during all of college, so it’s good to make it official.”

“The baby of the family, all grown up,” Rawley teases.

I roll my eyes at him, but underneath the surface, my chest squeezes. Because I don’t feel grown up, as much as I’d like to be.

I pivoted two years ago to the Princeton football team, at the start of my junior year. Despite that, my pro football playing career seems as hopeless as my soccer dreams did. Like footprints in beach sand during a hurricane, my pathway to the NFL all but disappeared when no teams invited me to their rookie minicamps this summer, even as an undrafted free agent.

It fucking sucks. So much for all those lessons from Del, which had continued every previous summer through last year. Not to mention the practice sessions I kept up on my own after my last Princeton season ended, until it became clear no minicamp invites were going to materialize.

Instead, I’m spending this coming year interning for Grace and her boss Milo, a business manager for elite soccer players, at his company Sports Life Planning, Inc. (SLP, as he calls it), while I debate my long-term plan.

An unpaid internship—one that doesn’t pay any bills. So I’m still dependent on my family.

Our sibling motto is “Better Together,” meaning we’re a united front and always have each other’s backs. Only here I am, leaning on my big sister for my internship, relying on my brothers for places to crash and money—not helping any of them be “better.”

Instead, I’m taking handouts. Handouts much bigger than remembering to fill up a tank of gas.

Rawley doesn’t know I’m struggling, though—no one does—so he’s got no sense that his quip stings.

Lainie interrupts my pity party with a question to my brother. “Wait, how is your mom getting to the reception? I didn’t see her?”

Pam clears her throat. “I took care of that with the wedding planner. We had a car service scheduled for their mom and some other family on her side.”

From that response, I can tell Johnson’s mom has been privy to accounts from Grace about our “challenging” mother.

“Pam, you’re the GOAT,” Rawley says sincerely.

He’s not wrong. Even Pam is helping your siblings more than you.

Anxiety threads through me until we get to the mansion, when I put on my game face. Time to entertain Grace’s guests like a good brother.

Most of them will have little in common with me, or be as awkward at small talk as I am.

But one of them…one of them is her.

2

EDEN

“This dress is itchy,” my eight-year-old stepsister Natalie whines in the back seat next to me.

“I know, Nat—but it’s a wedding. You have to dress up,” my stepmom Tina says in a conciliatory tone from the front passenger seat. My dad is next to her, driving.

We’re all in Florida “summer wedding guest” dresses, except Dad, of course. Mine is a strappy blue sundress that looks nicer than the design typically would, thanks to the expensive fabric and perfect tailoring.

“I wish I didn’t have to go at all,” Nat whispers to me. Despite our thirteen-year age gap and the fact that I live on campus most of the time, we get along. It was fun when Dad got remarried last year, a small family affair in our backyard, and all of a sudden I had a little sister.

I’d spent the previous twenty years as an only child and long been over it. Solitude, entertaining myself alone—they’re not my favorite.

“They’ll have a lot of desserts there,” I whisper back. “And I bet some lemonade or fruit punch.”

“Oh okay.” Her eyes squint like she’s calculating the value of all that sugar.

“Do it for the cake, Nat,” Dad interjects, voice laced with humor. Guess we weren’t being that quiet after all.