Page 43 of Fight For Me

“Night.”

I grab an extra blanket from the hall closet so I can set up a little bed for George on the floor in my room. It takes zero coaxing to get him to lay down and he’s asleep within minutes.

I don’t have the same luck. I skipped my pain meds because I know they’ll knock me out. I can’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t have left Alex alone out there. It’s probably stupid, but I want to be able to hear her, to be lucid in case she needs anything. So I lay there for what feels like hours, staring at the ceiling, replaying every moment of the night over in my head.

Wyatt

“Nice kick!” I shout to my little sister, but she’s already streaking off down the field, following the ball, her braided pigtails flying out behind her.

“Shit,” I mutter to my parents, who are sitting on a blanket on the sidelines with me and a currently snoozing George. “When did she get so fast?”

“Takes after you,” Mom says, her eyes never leaving the ball. “Offsides,” she mutters, a second before the ref blows his whistle.

“I think she takes after me,” Dad says. We both ignore him. Everyone on this blanket knows Cash Ransome doesn’t have an athletic bone in his body. Hell, even the mangy dog at my feet probably knows that Cash Ransome doesn’t have an athletic bone in his body. The man didn’t know the first thing about soccer before he met me and my mom.

That didn’t stop him from attending every one of my games over the years, though, from the kid’s rec league back in Huntington to my high school team. And it obviously hasn’t stopped him from watching my little sister play, either.

“Did she tell you about the travel team?” Dad asks, pride oozing from his voice.

“Are you kidding? She won’t shut up about it.” CeCe was offered a try-out for a pretty exclusive travel soccer league. It’s a huge time commitment, both on her part and for my parents, but they haven’t said a word to dissuade her. If she gets on the team, they’ll figure out how to make it work.

CeCe’s team is up by three—two of those goals scored by my sister—so the coach brings out the subs late in the second half. CeCe looks over at us once she’s on the sidelines, a very uncharacteristically shy smile on her face when she waves at us. Once again, I feel like an asshole. Dad said she’d been bouncing off the walls since he told her I was coming to the game. It shouldn’t be such a rare thing for me to show my face at these things.

Only when CeCe is off the field does my mom tear her attention away from the action. Samantha Ransome is pretty serious about her soccer. She played all through high school, too, and she was damn good. She’sstilldamn good, regularly smoking me and the younger kids when we kick the ball around in the backyard.

“How’s your hand?” she asks, eyes going straight to my bandaged wrist where it rests on George’s back. The doctor had allowed me to lose the sling after my follow-up appointment yesterday, but the hand is still pretty useless.

“Little achy,” I reply. “Mostly numb.”

“And you start physical therapy next week?”

“That’s the plan.” I get a weird feeling in my stomach whenever I think about physical therapy, and I’m not sure why. Surely the surgery itself was the hard part, and the surgeon assured me it had gone as well as could be expected.

Mom’s eyes are concerned as she studies my face, and I shift on the blanket, uncomfortable. She’s always been way too good at picking up on whatever I’m thinking about.

“How’s it going at the condo?” Dad asks, and I’m relieved for the subject change.

“Fine. Producer is annoying as fuck.”

Douchebag Scott had been thrilled last Saturday when he arrived at the condo and saw that we’d rescued a dog the night before. Apparently, a couple rich kids rescuing a stray makes for great TV. Of course, he’d insisted we make it look like Fox and Everly were there, too, especially after I refused to let him interview me about it. I’d almost lost my shit when he suggested we put George back where we found him so they could record the trio re-enacting the rescue itself. Asshole.

He grumbled about it, but satisfied himself filming footage of the three of them going to the pet store to buy supplies, making up posters to hang in the neighborhood, calling shelters, and endlessly debating a name for the dog.

That was the other thing—he thought we should change the name. Make it related to the show in some way, maybe something fashion themed. I thought it was kind of bullshit anyone else had a say, since Alex and I were the ones who found him in the first place, but I wasn’t going to make a big deal about it. We probably won’t have him for much longer anyhow. The vet hadn’t found a microchip but said the dog was in pretty good health for a stray, a small cut on his paw notwithstanding, indicating he probably had been taken care of not long ago.

I’d been surprised when Alex had put her foot down on the name, insisting George already had a name and we weren’t going to change it. When she got all fierce like that in defense of this dog, it made my chest feel all warm and soft inside. Because, obviously, I’m a giant loser.

“He’s not being inappropriate with the girls, is he?” Dad asks, tone sharp, and I jerk a little, my thoughts yet again consumed by Alex Fraser.

I consider the various times over the past few weeks when I’ve seen the guy leering at either Everly or Alex and clench my fists. “Not really. He makes a few comments I’m not crazy about. And he’s always trying to get them to wear skimpier clothes on camera.”

Dad makes an angry noise in the back of his throat and Mom pats his leg. “They’re big girls,” she soothes. “They can handle themselves.”

“I’m just glad you’re there,” he tells me.

At least one of us is,I think to myself.

Things at the condo have felt strained to me over the past week. Alex seems tired all the time. She’s been spending a lot of hours working at the shop site. When she is at home, she’s pretty much shut up in her room with her computer and spreadsheets. And since cameras are forbidden in the bedrooms without permission, the crew has been bitching about her behavior all week.