Rally (Treasure State Wildcats Book 3)

I opened my bedroom door just in time to hear Maverick’s feral growl from downstairs.

“Give me that remote.”

He and Faye were fighting. Again. Fuck my life.

“I’m not watching football,” Faye said.

“It’s Monday Night Football.”

“So?”

“Unbelievable,” Mav huffed as I started down the stairs.

Time to play referee. Again.

Yesterday, they’d gotten into an argument about how to load knives into the dishwasher. Mav liked blade up. Faye thought that was a great way to cause an accident that would require stitches.

Last week, Faye had used one of Maverick’s Tide Pods for a load of laundry because I’d told her to use whatever was available, and I’d hit the store for more. Well, apparently Mav kept track of his detergent because that had led to a three-day cold war where neither would look or speak to the other.

And the week before that, Faye’s first week in the house, had been so awkward that I’d been tempted to move. We’d tiptoed around each other. Faye had mostly hidden in her bedroom until I’d finally convinced her to come downstairs, telling her that if she kept avoiding all of us, it would only get worse.

I should have let her hide behind her closed door.

Putting her and Maverick in the same room was like asking oil to mix with water.

“What’s so damn important that it can’t wait until after the game?” he asked. The sound of the window shades dropping came next. “Can you stop opening the blinds? It puts a glare on the TV.”

“I don’t mind the glare,” Faye said. “And I need to finish watching this documentary before class tomorrow.”

“It can’t wait until later?”

“No. I’m not going to wait until later. I’m not going to hand over the remote just because you demand it. You have a television in your room. I do not.”

“Is your laptop broken?”

“Why should I have to use my laptop? I’ve been watching for thirty minutes. There’s thirty left. Just let me finish. You can miss part of a football game.”

“I shouldn’t have to miss part of a football game I watch every fucking Monday just because you waited last minute to do an assignment for class.”

I reached the bottom of the stairs as Faye shot off the couch, one hand in a death grip around the remote as the other balled into a fist.

Maverick stood with his hands planted on his hips, and if not for the coffee table separating them, I think she might have clocked him in the jaw.

“I’m almost done.” She pointed the remote to the TV. “In the time you’ve been arguing with me, I could have been watching. Let. Me. Finish.”

“This is bullshit.” He threw his arms in the air. “This is my TV, and I’m paying for the fucking subscription you’re using, so I’m going to watch whatever the hell I want.”

Oh shit. That was the absolute last thing he should have said. The color drained from Faye’s face.

I opened my mouth, about to tell him he’d crossed a line, when the remote flew through the air.

She launched it. He caught it.

“Mav,” I warned as Faye stormed out of the living room for the kitchen.

“Don’t.” He shot a glare over his shoulder before plopping onto the couch to change the channel. “This is on you.”

Because I’d invited Faye to move in without talking to him or Erik first.

Yeah, not my best decision. And Mav seemed hell-bent on making me pay for that mistake. At least Erik hadn’t cared. Though over the past two weeks, he’d stayed even more at Kalindi’s place. Either because they were absorbed in each other, or because he wanted to avoid the tension under this roof.

Damn it. I swallowed a groan.

This was supposed to be a good thing. Faye needed a decent place to live, and I didn’t regret moving her here. But there was a reason I preferred to make plans.

Spontaneity usually bit me in the ass.

“Can you just . . . back off?” I asked Maverick. “Tonight’s game isn’t even going to be good. You can miss the first quarter. Let her finish the documentary.”

“Of course you’d be on her side. Figures. Is this another Halsey situation?”

Was he always going to throw that in my face? “Mav, I’m not choosing sides. I’m trying to keep the peace.”

“Should have thought about that before you moved her into the house,” he muttered. “You have to pick a side.”

What he was really saying? Pick his side.

Prove that I was more loyal to him than to a woman. First Halsey. Now Faye.

Hadn’t we played this game enough?

I ground my molars together, keeping my mouth shut before I said something I’d regret. Then as the pregame announcer’s voice blared through the TV’s speakers, I went to the kitchen, where Faye was standing in front of the open refrigerator. “Hey.”

Faye slammed the fridge closed so hard the condiments in the door rattled. “Where’s my dinner?”

I blinked. “Huh?”

“My. Dinner. It was in a white container with my name on the top. Did you eat it?” She pointed toward the back of Maverick’s head. “Or did he?”

We both knew it was Mav. And we both knew he was listening.

“Sorry. I didn’t notice your name.” I’d take the fall for Maverick if it meant the fighting would stop.

“Right.” Faye crossed her arms over her chest, her jaw flexing.

“I’ll make you something else for dinner.” I raked a hand through my hair, moving to the fridge to reopen the door.

Options were sparse. I hadn’t had a chance to hit the grocery store since before our game this weekend, and I’d had a full day of classes, so I hadn’t had time to go in between school and practice.

“Turkey sandwich?” I asked, opening the drawer with lunch meat. Did we even have bread?

“I can’t have lunch meat.”

“Oh. Right.” Shit. At her first appointment, the doctor had reviewed a long list of foods she couldn’t eat. Sushi. Soft cheese. I’d forgotten about the deli meat.

I opened the freezer, shifting a bag of peas out of the way. “How about pizza? I could make this sausage pizza.”

She shook her head. “Sausage gives me heartburn.”

“It does?”

“Yes. Being pregnant apparently means heartburn is my body’s new party trick. And I don’t like the sauce.”

Damn it. “What would you like?”

“The chicken and potatoes that ‘you’ ate.” Her air quotes might as well have been two middle fingers to the guy in the living room.

“I’ll go get you dinner.”

“Forget it,” she muttered. “I’ll figure it out myself.”

“No, I said I’d get you dinner.”

Maverick chose that moment to turn up the volume. It clicked three times as the commentators talked about the Seahawks punter jogging onto the field.

“Mav, do you mind?”

He clicked it up twice more.

For fuck’s sake. “Thanks, man.”

“Welcome.” He raised a hand and gave me a thumbs-up.

My nostrils flared, but I stayed rooted to my spot, refusing to let myself move for fear that I’d smack him upside the head.

“Anything else from the store?” I asked Faye. “Name it. I’m buying.”

She flinched and her eyes blew wide. “Wow.”

“What?” Was everything that came out of my mouth going to piss these two off at the moment? Probably.

Maverick clicked up the volume. Again.

“Are the reminders that I’m poor going to be an everyday thing?” she asked. “Or just for Mondays?”

“Whoa.” I held up my hands. “I didn’t mean anything by that.”

“Sure,” she deadpanned. “Just like you didn’t mean anything when you told me the internet was on you. Just like you didn’t mean anything when you left a twenty-dollar tip for a ten-dollar meal at the diner on Thursday. Just like you didn’t mean anything when you recalculated rent and it’s fifty dollars less a month. I told you, I didn’t want your pity.”

“It’s not pity.”

“No? Because it sure seems like it from here. Would you have said any of that, would you be offering to buy me whatever I want from the store, if I hadn’t told you I was broke? Would you have made sure to fill Maverick in on my financial situation so he could throw it in my face every chance he gets?”

Christ. I hadn’t expected Mav to be an asshole about the money. I’d just asked him not to nickel-and-dime Faye for her share. That I’d cover it. “Faye, I’m just trying⁠—”

Maverick turned up the volume again, so loud the vibration pulsed against my skin.

“What the hell, Maverick!” I shouted at the same time Faye snapped, “Can you please turn it down?”

“Fine!” he shouted and shot off the couch. “The TV is yours.”

He punched the off button on the remote. With a flick of his wrist, it went sailing into a couch cushion, hitting with a muffled thud as he stomped to his bedroom and slammed the door.

It took a moment for the noise to vanish. The silence that followed was unbearable.

“Damn it.” I tilted my head to the ceiling, staring at a blank spot for a few heartbeats. “When did we start arguing so much?”

“When we moved in together.”

My fault. This was my fault. “I’ll get you some dinner.”

“I’m not hungry anymore.” Before I could stop her, before I could make it right, she walked away, through the living room and up the stairs. Faye didn’t slam her door, but it closed loud enough for me to hear.

Well, even if she wasn’t hungry now, when she was, I wanted her to have some dinner.

I swiped my keys off the counter and went outside, letting the cool night air chase away the fury and frustration burning beneath my skin. It took nearly the entire drive to the diner before I unclenched my jaw and relaxed my fingers on the steering wheel.

Was it really so bad for me to want to help Faye? I had a full-ride scholarship with a monthly stipend. There was a reason Maverick, Erik and I hadn’t found a fourth roommate.

We didn’t need the help on rent.

But the last thing I wanted was for Faye to feel . . . less.

I parked at the diner but didn’t get out of the car. Dolly’s had a lot of character, but it was old and rundown. I’d forgotten just how chipped the exterior paint was in the weeks I’d been coming to visit. I’d stopped noticing the faded colors and rough parking lot.

Mostly because when I came here, I wasn’t looking at the building. I stared right through its filmy windows to the dining room, searching for Faye.

She worked harder than she should have to work. I wanted to help after she’d told me about her money problems, except my idea of helping had only made it worse.

Maybe I’d only dig myself even deeper by coming out here tonight, but I climbed out of the Yukon and walked into the restaurant. Dusty was at a table in the empty dining room with a newspaper open on its surface.

Besides her, the building was empty.

Was that why Faye didn’t work on Mondays? Because there were no customers to serve? Why did Dusty even open? Did she really have to keep hours seven days a week?

“She’s not here,” Dusty said.

“Yeah.” I walked over and pulled out the seat across from hers. The paper was open to the obituaries. “Light reading?”

“Something like that.” She folded the paper in half, pushing it to the side. Then she leaned back in her chair, studying me while I studied her. “Did Faye ever tell you that it was me who sent you the text that she was pregnant?”

“No.” But maybe I should have guessed. Dusty didn’t seem like the type to pull punches. A short, frank text fit her personality much more than it did Faye’s.

“She wasn’t sure how to say it. So I said it for her.”

“Okay,” I drawled. “What else is Faye not sure how to say so you’re going to say it for her?”

“She’s terrified.”

“That I did know.”

Dusty scoffed. “Not of the baby, though that has her freaked. She’s terrified of you. I doubt she even realizes it yet. But she’s not going to let herself get attached. She’s too scared.”

“That I’ll hurt her?”

“Yes. That you’ll hurt her like her mother. Or that you’ll disappear like her father.”

Fuck, Faye’s parents sucked. In her position, maybe I’d be scared too. But I wouldn’t leave her. I wouldn’t leave my kid.

“When I’m playing football, I visualize plays. I see the field and the players and before I throw the ball, I see it in my head, where it’s going. It’s different with this. When I close my eyes, I can’t picture what he or she looks like. The baby.”

I couldn’t imagine their laugh or hear their cry. The whole concept of fatherhood was still fuzzy.

“But I’m going to be there,” I told Dusty. “I’m the guy who’s going to teach him how to throw a ball. I’m the guy who’s going to help him with math homework. The guy who will carry him on my shoulders so he can watch a parade.”

The corner of Dusty’s mouth turned up. “Him? You think it’s a boy?”

“Oh. I, um . . . I guess. Or a girl.” I hadn’t meant to say him. I guess I hadn’t even realized until this moment that I had been thinking of the baby as a boy.

Dusty sighed and leaned forward, her elbows to the table. “I think you see more than you realize. And I think maybe that’s what scares Faye the most. That she can see you there too. She’s never going to wish for something. She learned a long time ago that she’s not the lucky type. This is not going to be easy for you, Boy Wonder.”

I let the nickname slide. “I want to help. I’m trying to help. But she doesn’t make it easy.”

“No, she does not.” Dusty grinned, like that made her proud.

Faye took after her in that regard, didn’t she? Capable. Strong. Proud. Like a damn brick wall.

Maybe the only way through was with a sledgehammer. Or maybe I’d just lower my shoulder and push the whole thing over.

Starting with a dinner.

“I ate Faye’s leftovers she brought home for dinner tonight.”

Dusty frowned. “She eats about five things at the moment. You know how hard it is to cook for someone who doesn’t like sauce?”

“You know she doesn’t like sauce?”

“Of course I know.”

“Then why do you send her home with lasagna?”

“Because my lasagna is damn good. I keep hoping she’ll change her mind and give it a try.”

I chuckled. “She won’t. She’s stubborn.”

“Boy, do I know that too.” Dusty stood from her chair and collected her newspaper. “Give me ten. I’ll make you some pancakes to take home.”

“Thanks.”

Dusty disappeared to the kitchen, leaving me in the quiet restaurant. When she returned, the pancakes were wrapped in foil and she had a takeout box of scrambled eggs.

I raced home, and when I knocked on Faye’s bedroom door, the food’s container was still warm in my hand. “Faye?”

No answer.

I turned the knob and peeked inside.

The lights were on. The blinds were open. Her shoes and backpack were set neatly beside the door. The air smelled like apples and soap, clean and fresh.

Faye was asleep on the bed, curled into a pillow on top of her covers.

I crossed the room without a sound, not wanting to wake her up as I set her food on the nightstand—it was a TV tray, not a nightstand, but I hadn’t tried to get her anything better.

Other than the bed, that tray was the only furniture in the space. The two pieces had been enough to almost fill that closet of a room at her ex’s trailer. But here, the room looked empty. Too empty. She needed a desk. Maybe a dresser. But unless she asked, I wasn’t offering.

She looked so small as she hugged the pillow, her knees drawn into her chest.

I bent, about to touch her shoulder and wake her up, when I noticed her face.

Twin tear tracks had dried on her cheeks.

It knocked the wind from my lungs.

We couldn’t keep doing this. Something had to give. But what?

I left the food on her nightstand. And closed the door on my way out.