“You had a plan?”

She nods, giggles. “I was so desperate for you to notice me standing on the sidelines, waiting for you.”

“Funny,” I say. “I always felt like you were the star player and I was up in the nose bleeds.”

“You know what we are?” she asks, settling her hand on my leg.

I lift her hand, kiss her wrist. “We’re idiots.”

“The worst kind.” She removes her seatbelt just long enough to sit in the middle. She rests her head on my shoulder, says, “Lachy’s going to have a blast with all his friends and his big brothers coaching his team. It’s going to be fun.”

It’s not fun. Not at all.

Lachlan introduces me to his friends as his best friend. He introduces Cameron as his bestest friend. Traitor.

I’m quick to realize that coaching The Misfits will be nothing like I thought. It’ll just be watching over a bunch of seven to eight-year-olds and making sure they don’t fucking kill each other.

After three weeks of rehab and appointments and cooking and cleaning and taking care of Laney without sexing her, The Misfits are born, and the name doesn’t do them justice.

“Quit eating crayons on the field, Bug Eyes!” Cameron yells, wearing the same uniform as the team—white and red and blue, the colors of the Preston Construction’s logo.

“Stop peeing in your mitt!” Lincoln shouts.

“Yeah,” says Liam. “Stop peeing in your mitt!”

The back of the twins’ jerseys says: Twin 1 and Twin 2. Cam’s says: Best Coach. Mine says: Bestest Coach. Laney designed them. Clearly, I ordered them.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

LUCAS

“Is that everything on the list?” Logan asks Laney, walking toward the checkout at the grocery store.

Lane sits in a wheelchair while I push her around. She hates the chair but the crutches are starting to bruise her armpits, and we both knew we’d be in the store a long time. She wanted to make The Misfits snacks for their game later in the afternoon, and when Laney makes anything, it has to be perfect and slightly over the top. I told her sliced oranges and water was the norm. She’s baking them cookies.

“I think so,” she says, her gaze shifting from the cart to her list, tick, tick, ticking off items.

“I can come back if you’ve forgotten anything,” I say, because I know how important it is for her to do this. It’s not as if she has a lot of anything else going on, and I can tell she’s starting to go stir-crazy.

Logan starts loading the items from the cart while I get out Dad’s company credit card—part of his sponsorship deal. That’s when we hear two women ahead of us gossiping about that Kennedy kid and the builder’s daughter and The Night the Town Turned Red and Blue and Black. I look down at Laney, but she’s looking down at her hands. “That poor Kennedy kid,” one of them says, “he must’ve been so lost to do something so horrible.”

I clench my jaw, my fist. I start to speak, but Logan beats me to it. “That poor Kennedy kid tried to kill my brother’s girlfriend, his best friend, our sister from another mister, lady!” he shouts. I should tell him to stop. I don’t. He adds, “Now hurry up and buy your super-sized tampons and twelve-inch dildo and shove them up your ass!”

Swear, the look on her face is worth listening to her bullshit. She looks first at Logan, then to me. She ignores Lane sitting in the wheelchair, the aftermath of that poor Kennedy kid. “You Preston punks!” she scolds, aghast. I smile up at her, insist I pay for her groceries. Kill her with kindness and her guilt. Once her bags are packed and in her arms, Logan calls her a whore and Laney finds her voice. “Have a phenomenal fuck you day, bitches.”

Logan cackles, high-fives her. I tell her she just earned a handy, and she high-fives me, too. And that’s what life is like in our small town: The poor Kennedy kid, the builder’s daughter, and the Preston punks—the topic of all gossip. But gossip is like dust, floating in the air, temporarily marring the things it lands on. It’s not forever. It’s not us.

“Hey,” Cameron says, stepping beside me as I keep an eye on the game.

“First base is that way!” I yell, pointing to the base. “You’re running to third! Come on, boys!”

“Yeah! Come on, boys!” Lachlan shouts, hitting the ground with a bat. “Remember, righty tighty, lefty loosey!”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Lincoln tells him.

Cam shakes his head, lowers his voice. “It’s true, though. Lucy’s definitely not tight anymore.”

“Dude!” I turn to him. “That’s so wrong.”

He shrugs. “So I was just walking past Bug Eyes and Freckle Face and Snot Eater’s moms—”

“You really need to learn the kids’ names, man.”

He scoffs. “It’s hard enough for me to remember all your names. I think I’m doing pretty well.”

I go back to watching the “game.”

He says, “They were talking about Kennedy’s mom.”

I ignore the twisting in my gut at the mention of his name. “What about her?”

“Apparently she’s here.”

I face him. “Where?”

He points to Lane sitting in the stands wearing the team jersey. She mentioned she felt left out so I ordered her one. The back of hers says: Lucas Preston’s. Sitting next to her is a woman I hadn’t seen since before Lane left the hospital.

“Snot Eater’s mom said they’ve been sitting together, laughing and talking for half an hour. Is it her?” Cam asks.

“It’s her,” I confirm.

“What the hell is she doing here?”

“I have no idea.”

The umpire calls the game, and Cam and I both whisper, “Thank fuck.” Then we gather our shit, gather the kids who belong to us. He takes the gear and my brothers to the minivan while I make my way toward Lane. She stays seated, Mrs. Kennedy stands. “Hi, Lucas,” she says, her voice soft. “Your team definitely has… potential.”

“I don’t know if potential is the right word,” I tell her, but I’m looking at Lane who’s looking down at her hands. “Mrs. Kennedy, you mind if I have a minute with my girl?”

“Sure,” Mrs. Kennedy says. “I’ll be down by the dugout.”

I wait until she’s no longer within hearing distance to sit next to Lane. “That was a little rude, Luke,” she tells me.

“What is she doing here? Is she giving you a hard time?”

“No.” She scoffs, shakes her head. “She’s not like that.”

“So what did she want?”

“She wanted to thank me. And you.”

“For what?”

Laney faces me for the first time since I sat down. “For giving her the courage to leave her husband. She gave him the divorce papers a couple of weeks ago, and he signed off on it. He’s leaving her the house and leaving town.”

I nod slowly, look over at Mrs. Kennedy standing by the dugout, wringing her hands as she watches us. “I’m happy for her.”