Page 59 of Recipe for Rivals

My impulse was to refuse her, but then I had an idea. “Can you wrap up a plate of dinner to go?”

She gave me one quick, searching nod. “Of course.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

DUSTY

Brody had gotteninto another fight. Henry had found him trying to wash the blood from his nose and puffy lip in the locker room late in the evening. How he’d gotten in when all the doors were locked was anyone’s guess, and nothing would induce him to explain. He sat in the coach’s office, wearing his P.E. clothes and a heavy scowl. Water dripped from grown-out hair onto his heathered gray shoulder, but his arms didn’t move from their stiff position on the armrests.

I’d put the plate of Nova’s lasagna in front of him and he eyed it greedily but wouldn’t budge. Something was definitely going on with this boy.

When he was with the team, he was a born leader. Alone like this, he was just a sulking kid waiting to find out how much trouble he was in.

Henry stepped out to call Brody’s grandma. I was sitting on the edge of my desk, my arms crossed over my chest. “If you tell us what happened, we can help you. You know the school has a low tolerance for fighting.”

As inzerotolerance. I was hoping the fact that it was aSaturday night and the fight didn’t appear to happen on campus were going to work in his favor.

He said nothing, so I continued, “They won’t be happy about breaking and entering, either.”

“Then don’t tell them.”

That was my impulse, too. But at some point Brody needed to learn his actions had consequences. If we coddled him through school, he’d make the same mistakes when he left us, but the consequences would grow tenfold.

The little voice in the back of my head reminded me that maybe all Brody needed was a little coddling. No, not that. Maybe just someone in his corner. I’d hoped helping me out with the kids on the flag football team would be a good distraction for him, but was that my attempt at recreating history? I’d quit fighting and straightened out after Henry had made me his assistant and forced me to work with him to pay off my idiocy in tagging the school with spray paint.

Brody hadn’t done anything destructive like that. At least not to anything but his own face. And maybe someone else’s too.

A million little things floated through my mind.You need to step up. You can’t act this childish when you’re eighteen in a few months. The team is relying on you to make it to state your senior year, so don’t screw it up. Care about your standing and your future enough to quit jeopardizing both. None of those words left my lips. When I looked at the deep grooves on his forehead and the defiance in his posture, I deflated.

Brody didn’t need another lecture. He needed to feel like he mattered enough to try.

I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Who’s giving you trouble?”

He kept his mouth sealed shut.

“Are you the one starting it? Because I have a hard time believing that.”

“It’s stupid,” Brody said.

That wasn’t much, but hey, at least we were makingprogress. “The fight, or the reasons for it?” Both, obviously, but I wanted to know what he meant.

Brody sulked lower in the chair. “It didn’t mean anything.”

So, both. Like I’d thought. “Were these the same kids as last time?”

Brody looked away, making me think they were. At least that meant he wasn’t going around fighting anyone he could. There was a reason for it.

“Listen, I get it. You don’t want to tell me anything, and you don’t have to.” I pleaded with Teenage Me to send me the right words. “I’m not judging your choices, though. That would make me a hypocrite. I’ve been in your shoes so many times, I can’t hold the fighting against you. Just know I’m here if you need someone, okay, B? If you need help, you can come to me. I’m not going anywhere.”

He looked up, some of the tension leaving his rigid posture. We sat in silence for a minute, Brody watching me as if imagining me getting in fights and being a punk kid. Or maybe he was debating whether to trust me. We were so close, I could taste it. He had opened his mouth to speak when the door opened with a metal clang, the blinds crashing against the little window, and Henry came back in.

Brody promptly closed his mouth again.

I swore under my breath.

“Your grandma’s on her way,” Henry said. “What do you plan to tell her?”

Did she have to leave work for this? I saw her at Pleasant Gardens most evenings I was there. It wasn’t often she was on the morning shift and had the night off.