Page 65 of Wright Together

“Dad wouldn’t let me go,” he grumbled. “He doesn’t trust me to be unsupervised.”

“What if you were playing?”

He eyed me like I’d grown a second head. “That’s foradults.” He said the word like a slur.

“It’d be fine. You’d play a few games until you go back to the city. No one will care. We’re Wrights, remember?” I told him. “We run this town.”

Colton straightened. As if he’d probably heard it before, but not in the context that I’d given him. Honestly, it was a realization that I was still reckoning with.

“I’ll even ask your dad,” I offered.

I didn’t know why I was helping the him so much, but I couldn’t leave him like this. One mistake could cascade into a row of dominoes that he might never come back from. Sure, most fifteen-year-olds were moody, hormonal monsters, but I liked this one. So…

“You’d do that?”

“If you get me my coffee, then yes.”

Colton laughed as he came to his feet. Some of the morose behavior falling off his shoulders. “Deal, boss.”

I watched him head out of my office with his chip back on his shoulder. Little shit. My coffee had better be hot because I was about to go to bat with Jensen Wright for him.

Eve blinked at me from the passenger seat of my Lexus on the way to the game later that week. “You did what?”

“I got Colton on The Tacos.”

“But…what? How?”

I cleared my throat. “A good deal of cajoling.”

“Explain.”

“Well, I called his dad.”

“You called Jensen.”

“Sure did,” I said with a grimace. “It was super fun. In the end, he agreed to let him play. He and Emery are coming to the game tonight, too.”

“But is he even any good?” Eve asked with a hint of desperation.

I laughed when I realized that was what she was really worried about. “I have no idea.”

“Well, he’d better be. Isaac is going to kill us if we bring on a fifteen-year-old kidandhe sucks. Maybe we can bench him.”

“Eve.”

“I mean, he can’t be worse than Nora. Love her to death, but ball-handling skills aren’t her strong suit.”

I snorted.

“Don’t make that sexual.”

“Oh no, never,” I said with a smirk. “Maybe later, we can practice your ball-handling skills.”

“Shut up,” she said with a laugh, smacking my chest.

“It’s going to be fine. He went to a private school in New York. The only thing I’ve heard him talk about other than drinking and girls is soccer. I’d guess he doesn’t completely suck.”

“He’d better not. Or you’re in for it, Whitton Wright.”