For the Children

“An old folks’ place.”

“Doing what?”

“Nothin’ much.”

“They pay you to do nothing?”

“I read, okay?” Abraham’s tone was only a notch below nasty.

“You read to the old folks who can no longer read for themselves.”

“Yeah.”

“And they pay you for that?”

“Yeah…sure. I mean, well, no.”

Kirk grinned. Abraham was a good kid. He volunteered at an old folks’ home. And he couldn’t tell a lie.

“Okay, buddy, just this once you can miss. But no more, got that?”

“Yeah, Coach, I got it.”

“You make it to next week’s scrimmage and you’re on the team.”

“’Kay.”

“See ya soon.”

“Yeah, my mom’s coming. I gotta go—”

Kirk’s grin faded as he hung up the phone. Abraham’s tough-guy facade had dropped completely when he’d realized his mother was near, his voice taking on an unsettling edge that Kirk wasn’t going to forget—or ignore.

An edge of fear.

BLAKE’S STOMACH HURT again. He was dressed and just waiting in the locker room, waiting for Coach to call them for warm-ups. Their first scrimmage game, and his mom was going to be there. What if he screwed up? Would she hate that?

She was already worried sick about Brian.

For that matter, so was Blake. He glanced over to where his brother was pulling on game socks and shoes. Because it was just an unofficial scrimmage game and no one was suiting up, Coach was going to let Brian play if someone got hurt. Brian hadn’t had lunch again that day.

Blake wasn’t telling Mom, though. Just like he wasn’t telling her how much his stomach hurt. He was the oldest. The man, now. He could handle it a

ll.

As long as Brian quit being so stupid and started eating… He could handle everything as long as nothing happened to Brian.

Mom was worried about that. A lot.

Blake shoved his new uniform shirt into the bottom of his backpack. As far away from Brian as he could put it. There was no way he was going to wear it over his T-shirt like the rest of the guys.

Not when Brian didn’t have one to wear.

“You’re going to get to play, Bry,” he said now as his brother ambled over.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Brian seemed cool, but Blake could tell how hard it was on him being here with the team but not part of the team. His brother wanted this bad. Worse than he did. And he wanted it pretty bad.