“I know, I’m just ... can’t not think it, you know?” He looks away. “Perkins went through a shit ton of trouble to try and keep her a fucking secret. He was dead set on keeping her away from me, from us, called me out and cornered me on every little thing. It wasn’t easy to be Brayshaw with him lurking around.” He meets our eyes again. “Why go through the trouble and risk us putting him in a ditch? He knows if it wasn’t so risky at that point, we wouldn’t have hesitated to get rid of him.”
“Maybe it was because he cared about the mom?” I ask.
Cap shakes his head. “We hoped he did, but he kicked them both out the second he caught us fucking. He never cared about either of them.”
“I wanna know why Dad allowed Perkins to fucking stay at the school when he’s a slimy ass bitch,” Royce says.
“Exactly!” Cap throws his hands out, anger etched across his face. “What’s the fucking deal, man?”
What has him so edgy?
“Pac man.” I wait until he looks my way. “Are you worried about the test?” I ask point blank.
He reaches out gripping my hand. “Not in the slightest, but it makes me feel like a piece of shit,” he admits.
Are you sure?
He squeezes my hand.
“We’ll do some digging on Perkins, but stay sane, man. One thing at a time. Let’s focus on getting her fucking home,” Maddoc tells him and he nods. “You want us to come with you for the paternity test?”
He swallows, dropping his eyes. “Yeah.” He looks to me. “I want you all to come with me.”
“Then we will,” I tell him.
I wrap my arms around Raven as my brothers slip past us.
“Town’s news crew will be here later, they get first dibs on interviews after the champ game.”
“Interviews?” She frowns. “How long will that take?”
“‘Bout a half hour, they know to come to the three of us first if they want time from us, but they’ll wait until after Coach’s speech, let us get showered and changed, and then meet us in the locker room. We don’t talk with the school reporters and shit.”
“So what you’re saying is it’s gonna be a good minute before we get out of here tonight?”
I chuckle, sliding my lips across hers, and nip lightly. “Yup. You good with that?”
“I’m good with that.” Never one to surrender, she nips back.
“Now, Brayshaw!” Coach calls, and I growl against her lips, pulling away.
“Sit by our bench.”
“Yes, boss.”
After she slips into the gym, I enter the locker room and head right for my locker. I start stripping down right away, my brothers and the rest of the team already halfway dressed.
“You good, brothaman?” Royce asks Cap quietly, pulling his jersey over his head. “You been zoning out all day.”
I quickly pull my game jersey on and turn, leaning my shoulder against the locker to block us off from the others.
Cap laughs lightly, his eyes tightening. “Yeah. Hard to fucking focus right now.” He looks at us. “I was gonna wait, say something once we got out of here and Raven was with us, but fuck it.” He glances behind us seeing nobody near. “I couldn’t handle it, so I called that designer lady Dad mentioned, just to see if it was true, and she really did talk to him already.”
“That’s ... good news, right?” Royce asks warily, noticing the same brittle expression on Cap’s face.
“Cap?”
He tilts his head slightly. “I don’t know. She was talking ideas and I just sort of sat back and listened, in shock and shit, but then she started saying how she could run a wire across the hall that would allow us to talk with each other at night, some fun little kid toy thing or something.”
“And?”
Cap’s eyes lift to mine. “And across the hall is Raven’s room. Turns out she’s under the impression the room across from mine is the one she’s decorating.”
“It makes sense she’d need to be closest to you. She doesn’t know us yet and that’s where she’d be most comfortable.” Royce shrugs, looking my way. “Maybe he figures RaeRae will move into your room?”
My face tightens.
“Maybe he didn’t stop to consider it?” Cap asks, hopeful.
“Maybe he plans on her not being there,” I say, and they frown. “That just means we need to set him straight. She’s an area we won’t budge on. He’ll understand.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Cap sighs, his shoulders relaxing. “So, do I trust that all this won’t make it worse with Zo? I mean all the shit Perkins threatened, the group home assholes being on the property, all the shit we’ve pulled ... I can’t lose the little time I have with her.”
“With him home, things are different, the threat is higher,” I tell him.
We all know it’s true, that’s why he says, “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Coach comes in right then, smacking his hand against the row of lockers as he makes his way to the center, and everyone faces forward.
“This is it, gentlemen. Last fucking game of your high school careers. Some of you will move on to play in college, some of you will never play again, so make tonight count. Go out there, give every ounce of yourself, and walk away tonight as district champions.” Everyone cheers, and he nods. “Graven Prep will not make this easy on you, make them wish they had.”
He lifts his hand and it starts, wolf calls surround us until each and every one are in sync. He starts clapping and everyone follows. “Let’s go boys!” more howls. “Let’s fucking go boys!”
We jog from the locker room, through the hall and burst into the gym.
The crowd stands and starts screaming, my baby right there, front and fucking center just behind our bench as we take our lap around the gym, stopping once we make it back to our court.
“No sign of Collins or Donley,” Cap whispers, and I nod.
I’d looked, too.
“This is our game, brothers.” Royce smacks both our backs as he jogs past, moving in to his warm-up drills.
Damn fucking straight it is.
There’s nothing like home court advantage for a champ game.
This is our school, our fucking people.
They will not beat us in our own house tonight.
They might just fucking lose.
Down by eleven, they can’t get their shit together. For every shot they make, Graven Prep makes a three-pointer. For every three-pointer Maddoc makes, they get free shots from a fucking bullshit foul.