Somethin' About That Boy

“I don’t,” I murmured. “I’m okay… and you’ll meet Perry on Friday.”

“I will,” he muttered, sounding amused. “Tell me what’s up with your phone. I’ll bring another one with me if it’s beyond repair.”

I grimaced. It likely was, but I wouldn’t have him pay for it if I didn’t have to.

“Thanks, love you, Pops.”

“Love you, too, kid. Tell Ford you’re my favorite.” With that he hung up, making me grin.

Ford rolled his eyes, having heard my father’s parting comment.

“Typical,” he muttered just as Perry made it to us.

I reached out and pulled her to me, grinning when her sweaty face came into contact with my shoulder. “Good game.”

She smiled weakly, her eyes going to Ford then to me.

“This is my brother, Ford,” I introduced them. “Ford, this is Perry.”

Perry held out her hand, and my brother took it carefully.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, his eyes coming to me. “Got a bit worried when you didn’t come home, so I came to see if you were still here. When I saw your bike in the parking lot and all the cars, I decided to come inside.”

Perry breathed out heavily. “Vance is a problem.”

Ford nodded his head. “Agreed.”

I sighed. “There’s nothing I can do about him, though. It’s not like I can tell his parents that he’s a dick. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but he’s not doing anything ‘illegal.’”

“Yet,” Perry muttered under her breath.

Ford looked at her with amusement on his face. “Agreed.”

Perry grinned at him.

“I’m going to go get changed,” she said softly. “I came out here because I wanted to see you. But I need to go get my bag and stuff before Coach closes the gym.”

I squeezed her tight to me, then let her go. “Meet me at the locker room exit.”

She pulled away, gave my brother and me a wave, then jogged back into the gym and disappeared from sight.

“He’s going to fucking hurt you,” Ford muttered as he watched her disappear.

I sure the fuck hoped not.

“Want to go grab pizza with Ashe and me?” he asked when I didn’t respond. “We’re going to Pietro’s. Bring Perry.”

I felt my heart clench. “Do you like her?”

“She was sweet,” he said. “So not someone I would’ve pictured you with, to be honest. Much different from your other girlfriends.”

I agreed. My other girlfriends had been more along the lines of Symphony and not Perry, that was for sure.

But I found that I kind of liked the way Perry didn’t seem to ‘take up my time.’ She was more along for the ride and didn’t make me feel like I was obligated to spend time with her. It was more of a want.

“Mom’s gonna love her,” I admitted.

“Mom’s gonna start planning your wedding,” Ford countered as he slapped me on the back. “Let’s go wait for your girl. Then I’ll make sure y’all get to the bike okay.” He paused. “Her dad’s okay with the bike?”

I grinned at that. “He didn’t tear me a new one when I saw him at the game earlier.”

We walked out of the school then, shoulder to shoulder now.

I’d finally caught up to him in the height department. I still had a bit of filling out to do shoulder-wise, but I knew that one day I’d make it.

Ford took after our dad. And Ford was resembling him more and more lately.

I, on the other hand, took after my mother and I still had a lot of growing into my skin to do. But I was going to get there. That was for sure, if Ford’s transformation was anything to go by.

When we made it outside, I led him around the school to the locker room exit, then leaned with him against the brick of the building.

“How’s Ashe today?” I asked curiously.

When I’d seen her this morning, she’d been in a shit mood. Apparently, someone had broken into the cat shelter she worked at and tried to steal their cats. Meaning she’d been woken up in the middle of the night to go deal with the police since the owner of the shelter had been out of town.

Needless to say, when I’d seen her this morning when she was getting home and I was leaving, I’d said a few words to her and that’d been it. Mostly because she’d gone inside and had gone straight to bed with only a few words to me.

“She’s okay,” he said as he leaned his shoulder next to me. “Pissed. They were trying to steal the cats because they thought that we were going to kill them. When, in fact, we’re a no-kill cat shelter. Which surprised the stupid kids.”

“Kids?” I asked curiously.

He nodded. “This generation is a bunch of morons. They hear something on Facebook, and all of a sudden it’s gospel and true. They don’t fact check at all.”