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I unlocked the door and headed back down the stairs.

“Yeah, Dad?” I asked as I walked into the kitchen where he was chowing down on Chinese food. My book bag was open, and my homework folder was sitting in the middle of the table.

“What the fuck is this?” he asked, shoving the sketch I had just finished over toward me.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

“Um…”

“That's not a fucking answer.” He smacked his hand down on the table, and I jumped a little.

Might as well get it over with.

“I went for the art class instead of study hall,” I told him. I tried to brush it off. “Another easy A for my senior year…ya know?”

“Goddammit, Thomas!” He slammed his hand down on the table, and I cringed. “You should be out on the fucking field during that time! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“My last period is open,” I told him, “and I go to the field at lunch. I figured—”

“Bullshit,” he snapped. I started to reach for the sketch, realizing too late how big a mistake that was. He grabbed it, tore it up, and crumpled the pieces in his hand. “You don't focus on this shit. Soccer, asshole. You focus on soccer, and that's it, you hear me? You think Real Messini is going to want to look at your fucking coloring?”

“No, Dad,” I admitted. He shoved the torn paper into the bag of empty soy sauce packets and fortune cookies before tossing it in the garbage can.

“Drop that fucking art class tomorrow.”

My stomach tightened as if there were big balls of pizza dough in it, but I swallowed hard and replied.

“Okay.”

Shakespeare phrased destruction as “dash'd all to pieces.” Somehow, that line from The Tempes

t came to mind though I wasn't sure why, so I tried to think about something else.

Now how was I going to get Rumplestiltskye to tell me her first name?

CHAPTER 3

OUT OF PLAY

“Hiya!”

Heather Lones plopped herself down beside me at lunch just as I was finishing up and about ready to head out to the field.

“Hey,” I responded, not really wanting to talk to her.

“So, you know the dance is coming up next weekend, right?” She popped her chewing gum in her mouth as she bounced up and down in the plastic cafeteria chair.

“Yeah,” I said. I knew where this was going and didn’t want to hear the rest of it.

“So, do you want to go with me?”

“Busy,” I told her as I stood up to leave.

“Do you already have a date?”

“Not the point.” I started walking away, but she followed.

“Thomas!” she whined. “You don’t have to spend all your time on the field, you know.”


Tags: Shay Savage New Adult