Play Maker (Bitsberg Knights Duet)

If something happened to me, we’d be fucked. But I’d be hitting the field in the playoffs, and the entire country would be watching.

Fuck me. No pressure or anything.

2

Shelby

It had become a daily ritual—one that probably had all the neighbors wondering what on earth was going on at the Markson house—but I couldn’t help myself. Every day at three fifteen, the little white mail truck would amble around the corner and come to a stop at the navy blue box in front of my parents’ house. I’d be standing by the front window, one hand on the door, slippers on my feet. As soon as the truck shimmied back to life and started for the Keelson’s house next door, I’d bolt out the door like a starter’s pistol had just gone off behind me. A flat-out sprint to the mailbox later, I’d tear open the front, grabbing the stack of envelopes like a junkie getting their next fix.

And every day, I shuffled back to the house with slumped shoulders, mail dangling from my fingertips.

“Well?” My mom, Veronica, asked as I trudged back inside and kicked the door closed with my heel.

“Nothing.”

“I’m sorry, Shelby. Tomorrow. I’m sure of it.”

The problem was, she’d been sure of it for the last two weeks. Not that it was her fault. The Ohio Bar Association was the one dragging their feet. My test results were probably locked away on some server, just waiting for someone to push print and stuff into an envelope.

I nodded anyway, choosing to buy into her reassurance—at least for the moment. “Thanks, Mom.” I avoided her sympathetic brown eyes as I handed her the stack of mail. “I’m just eager to get started to work.”

“I know, baby. You’re in a rush to get a paycheck and abandon us old fogies,” she joked, patting my shoulder as I crossed through the front room and swung into the kitchen.

“Yeah, that’s it,” I replied with a laugh. I tossed my long, mahogany hair behind me and pulled open a cupboard. “I think it’s safe to say you and Dad are stuck with me for a while. Between student loans and the cost of apartments in this town, I’ll be lucky to get out before I’m thirty.”

My mom laughed softly and opened the fridge. I grabbed two glasses down from the cupboard and took them to where she was waiting with a pitcher of raspberry iced tea. She filled both glasses and then put the pitcher away. “I’m fine with that,” she said. “Especially this time of year. Speaking of, are you going with us to Jensen’s Christmas party tonight? I wasn’t sure if you were interested.” I made a face and she laughed. “Guess that answers that question.”

“Sorry.”

My mom waved her hand. “Don’t worry about it. Your dad doesn’t want to go either. But he promised he’d go with me for at least an hour.”

“I’m working at Aunt Maggie’s tonight, anyway.”

“Oh, that’s right! Do you need a ride?”

A wisp of self-pity curled up in the pit of my stomach. Three weeks ago, my Civic had gone belly up, and I hadn’t been able to afford to get it fixed yet. The estimate from the local auto body shop was a little—okay, a lot—steeper than I’d imagined. “Aunt Maggie is picking me up. I’m not sure if she’ll be able to give me a ride home, though. Kind of depends on the weather.”

I glanced out the kitchen window, a boxy, three-paneled garden window that overlooked the backyard. Mom kept tiny potted plants on the sill and even though it leaked air like mad, she refused to let Dad replace it with a dual-paned upgrade. The sky was grey and overcast and if the sneak preview I got on my little sprint to the mailbox was any indication, we were in for a frosty night. It hadn’t snowed in a couple of days, but every night it dropped well below freezing and left a slick coat of ice on everything.

“How that woman still has her license is beyond me,” my mom muttered as she crossed over to put her empty glass in the sink.

My lips quirked into a smile. “Like anyone could take it from her.”

My mom scoffed and I laughed. Aunt Maggie was a force to be reckoned with. It would take a lot more than a letter from the DMV to get her to stop driving her land shark of a Buick around town.

“Good thing you’re about to be a lawyer. You can bail Aunt Maggie out once she’s caught driving without her license when the day finally comes.”

I giggled and finished off my own glass of tea. “Well, if I ever get my test results.”

“You will, honey.”

I didn’t add in the secret doubt tucked into the back of my mind that silently added: if I even passed. I’d taken the bar exam back in July, and the results were supposed to be sent by Thanksgiving. Well, it was almost Christmas, and I still had heard nothing. That little voice had plagued me telling me I hadn’t studied hard enough, long enough, or that I wasn’t smart enough to be a lawyer. Most days, I could shut it out, but as I wandered off to my bedroom to get ready for the diner, I wondered if I was ever going to get back out on my own again.