The Game You Play (Rixon Raiders 2)

I shuddered.

“Oh dear God, I’m becoming my mother,” I grumbled, suddenly wishing I’d have signed up to wizards and muggles or JROTC.

“You want to make memories, right?” I nodded, unsure where she was going with this. “Then you need to think big. You need to think so big that when you look back at high school in twenty years’ time you can say you had zero regrets.”

“Zero regrets, I like the sound of that.” Even if it did terrify me.

“Ready to show me that list?”

Was I?

I doubted I’d ever be ready, but if I wanted senior year to be epic, maybe I needed Mya’s help more than I cared to admit.

“I’m home,” I called, dropping my keys on the sideboard and making my way into the kitchen.

“Hey, sweetheart, how was your day?”

I spent the day evading this hot guy’s text messages, overhauled my bucket list with my new friend from the city, and seriously considered cutting class. But not wanting to give my mom a heart attack, I went with, “It was the usual. You’re home early?”

“Dentist appointment. I scheduled you for next month.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

She pushed a glass of juice toward me before going back to the pan of spaghetti. It was Tuesday which meant spaghetti. Tomorrow would be pot roast, and Thursday Mom liked to live on the edge with steak and chicken fajitas.

“Me and your father were talking yesterday and thought now is a good as time as any to start contacting businesses in the city who might be able to give you an internship next summer.”

“It’s only November, Mom. Isn’t that a little premature?”

“Absolutely not. Making the right contacts now could be crucial for your future.”

“I’ll get right on that,” I murmured, tapping out a tune on the counter. “Hey, Mom.” I asked after a couple of minutes silence. “What’s the most adventurous thing you did in high school?”

She glanced over her shoulder, brows pinched with confusion. “Adventurous thing?”

“Yeah, like sneak out after dark or make out behind the bleachers.”

“Felicity Charlotte Giles, what on earth has gotten into you?” A slight pink streak appeared across her cheeks.

“It’s for a school project,” I lied. “For English.”

“A project you say, well,” she dried her hands on the towel shoved into the waistband of her pants, “Let’s see, there was that one time me and your father played hooky to go down to the lake for a picnic. We’d been dating six months and he wanted to make it special. Then there was the time we made out at the back of Mr. Kavendish’s classroom during Romeo and Juliet, that was particularly daring.”

“Rad, Mom.” I mocked, feeling my stomach sink.

“Sorry if my stories aren’t cool enough for you, baby, but we were good kids. We didn’t go looking for trouble and we were happy to live within the rules.”

I knew the story well. My parents were high school sweethearts who went on to college, graduated, and found jobs in the city. Together. Then I’d come along, their unplanned surprise, and upset all their plans. They never made me feel anything less than loved and cherished, but sometimes I wondered if their overbearing interest in my future was their response to having a child they weren’t prepared for.

“Do you ever regret only ever being with Dad?”

The lines around her eyes deepened. “The school really wants to know this stuff?”

Shrugging, I quickly fumbled for something to say. “They want us to compare senior year back in the day to senior year now, that kind of thing. They didn’t really give us set questions or anything. I just thought... well, you and Dad have been together forever. That can’t have always been easy.”

“Were we young? Of course we were. But when you know, you know, sweetheart. And I took one look at your father and knew he was the one.”

“What do you think has been your recipe for success?” Because where a lot of marriages ended in heartache, my parents had weathered the storm.