Page 116 of Play For Me

"We’ve looked into this, Solomon. Her mother is at every local game she plays. She wouldn’t be suspicious of your parents coming to watch a game with the team you’ve been working on.”

I almost laugh. Itwouldn’tbe suspicious for a typical student trainer’s parent to come to a match. My parents, though? Yeah, not so much.

“All you have to do is introduce us,” he takes out his phone and I see his calendar app open on the screen. “What’s the game schedule this week?”

“I’m not going to do that.”

He blinks up at me. “What the fuck do you mean you’re not going to do that?”

“I mean I’m not introducing you to the Ransomes so you can try and buy their land and tear down their youth center.”

His entire body goes rigid. He actually looks like he wants to hit me, something that he hasn’t done since I hit a growth spurt at fourteen and became taller than him. “You’re going to do your part for this family for once in your life.”

For a second, I picture it. Bringing my father and his poison over to the Ransomes. The Ransomes who actually give a shit about each other. Who show up for each other, whether it be cramming into the green room at Silas’s show, or watching Cecelia’s game, or eating Vega’s cupcakes until their stomachs hurt because she’s working on a new recipe.

I think about the absolute wrecked expression on Cash’s face when Cecelia got hurt. How she told me he cried on stage in front of tens of thousands of people and a Rolling Stone photographer when all his boys came out to play with the band for his birthday. I think about Will calling her at least a dozen times after her injury, even though she was still too mad at him to answer. I think about the way the Littles formed rank around Violet that first night at the Sigma party when that asshole was rude to her. I think about Cecelia kneeing him in the balls because he made her best friend cry.

This is a family that actually loves each other. And the idea of bringing either of my parents into that circle makes me feel physically ill.

“I’m not going to do that,” I say again, voice stronger now, not quite so numb. “In fact, you should stay away from them.”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” he snarls out. “Where the hell do you get off thinking you can tell me what to do?”

“I’m done with this conversation.” I make a move to step around him to open the door, but he grabs my arm. The rage in his eyes makes me feel like a scared little kid again, and I actually raise a hand as if to protect my face.

He notices. It only pisses him off more.

“You’re going to do what you’re told, Solomon. This requires zero effort from you. Don’t be such a drama queen.”

I shake his hand off my arm. “You should go.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Not until you stop acting like a child.”

“Dad—”

“You never understood how the real world works,” he goes on, building himself up into a good rant. “People make connections all the time. It’s how things get done. You should always be networking. And you working with this girl?—”

“I’m not even working with her anymore,” I say, without thinking, because I just want him to shut up. I just want him out of my apartment and far away from me.

But it was the wrong thing to say, because his eyes narrow. “What do you mean you’re not working with her anymore? There are two weeks left in the season.”

“The head trainer wants?—”

“You fucked it up, didn’t you?”

Of course that would be his first thought. It obviously must be my fault. God knows he doesn’t think I’m capable of any kind of success.

The fact that he’s technically right, that I did fuck up my clinicals, makes me feel sick. And he must be able to read it on my face, because he goes on as if I confirmed it.

“I knew this was going to happen,” he snarls. “I knew you couldn’t handle working one-on-one with someone else.”

“That’s not?—”

“This is why your mother and I advised you not to follow this career path.”

“You didn’t want me following this path because you said athletics don’t count as a career,” I shoot back. “You said it was childish to work in sports and beneath someone with my last name.”

His eyes glint with anger. With cruelty.