“You might want to back away from the windows.”
I have a second and a half to race from my hiding spot, into an open room on the opposite side of the hallway, when the entire front face of the building explodes. “Holy shit!” I gasp, realizing that Mike and Luke must have been converging on my location the whole time they were pretending to weigh their options.
The players from the opposite team—the ones who weren’t taken out by Mike and Luke’s twin rocket launchers—race up my stairwell in a panic, and I fire my M16 like Tony freaking Montana, mowing them all down. Their player counter goes from six to three to one to zero, and then a medal stamps onto my screen, boosting my player to a new level of game play.
“That was AWESOME!” Luke squeals, and I lean back in my desk chair with a triumphant grin on my face.
“Dude, look at Hailey’s stats,” Mike praises when the scoreboard appears, and I grin even wider.
“Hailey’s a badass,” I agree, and Mike’s answering laugh turns my cheeks a very not-badass shade of pink.
“I’d save your badass any day.”
“Do you guys want to play again?” Luke asks, and I hate to burst his bubble, but— “It’s a school night.”
“Aw, Hailey, come on. Just one more?”
“You said that last night, and we ended up staying up past midnight—”
“But it’s not even eleven yet.”
“Bedtime,” I order, and Luke groans.
“Play again tomorrow?” Mike asks, and my brother finally relents.
“Okay. Thanks for playing with us again, Mike.”
“Are you kidding? You’re a rock star, kid. That rocket launcher move was sick.”
“Thanks,” Luke says, and I can hear the smile in his voice even from halfway across the country. When he tells me goodnight, I tell him I love him, and he bashfully says it back before saying goodnight to Mike too. Then, Mike signs off without another word, and three seconds later, my phone rings.
“What was that you were saying about me being a bad shot?”
I pull my feet up into my chair with me, a big smile consuming my face. Tonight is the third night in a row that Mike has played Deadzone Five with me and my brother, since he finally talked me into beta testing it, and it’s also the third night in a row that the clock has passed eleven with me listening to the sound of his voice.
“Kind of hard to miss when you have a rocket launcher,” I tease, and Mike laughs.
“You’re just jealous you didn’t get to blow up the entire side of a building.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Honestly, I bet that looked cool as hell from the outside. “You don’t need to rub it in.”
Mike laughs again, and I rest my cheek against my knees, content to listen to the sound of it. Eventually, I say, “I’m glad it was you and Luke though. He really looks up to you.”
“Do you miss him?” Mike asks, and I answer without needing to think about it.
“Every day.” My eyes close, and I add, “He’s the main reason I didn’t move away a lot sooner.”
I’ve always loved the idea of going to Mayfield University, since they offer a very hands-on pre-veterinary program and have an extremely well-known veterinary school, but the truth is, I could have gone to a cheaper school—one that federal loans and state grants would have actually covered—and gotten a degree in animal science much earlier. But even the more affordable schools would have been a few hours from home, and applying to them felt like abandoning my little brother, so I never did. Instead, I worked part-time at random jobs, worked part-time around the farm, took part-time general education classes at the local community college, and hung out with my little brother as often as I could. I probably should have been saving my wages to put toward tuition at Mayfield U someday, but instead, I paid off as many student loans as I could and spent the rest on things like making sure Luke got to eat popcorn at the movie theater and always got more Christmas presents than I did growing up.
“What made you move to Mayfield?” Mike asks, and I shy from the answer. I don’t want him to think of me as a charity case, even if that’s exactly what I am. When Danica’s dad offered to pay for my tuition, my books, and all of my living expenses until graduation . . . I knew I couldn’t turn the offer down. It was too good to refuse.
“Luke’s older now,” I answer simply, reopening my eyes. “And Mayfield is my ticket away from the farm.”
“You don’t like living on a farm?”
“It’s complicated.” I stare at a picture of my family on my desk—my dad and his battered relic of a baseball hat, my mom and her mother hen smile, my brother and his farmer tan, and me, looking like I belong there with cornstalks dying in the background.
“I love my family,” I tell Mike. “I love the animals . . . I love most of what growing up there was like. But . . . I don’t know.” Mike waits in patient silence, and I peel my cheek away from my knees, leaning back in my chair. “I’ve always wanted to make a life, not just inherit one.”
Mike is silent for a while, and I wonder, “Does that make sense?”
“A lot of sense,” he answers, and I relax into my chair.
“Sometimes it makes me feel like a traitor.”
“It shouldn’t,” he assures me. “You should never feel bad for going after what makes you happy.”
“What makes you happy?” I ask, even though I know I shouldn’t. Danica doesn’t know about these late-night games or these late-night chats, and something tells me she wouldn’t like me asking her boyfriend what makes him happy.
“Little things,” Mike answers after a while. “Hearing the crowd sing our songs. Writing new beats with the guys. Eating a good pizza. Playing games with you.”
I swallow, and he rushes to add, “And Luke.”
“Right. Luke.”
“Luke is great.”
“Luke is awesome.”
“He’s practically my best friend.”
I chuckle and walk to my bed, crawling under the covers. “Are you touring in Indiana any time soon?”
“No. Why?”
“I bet he’d love to see you play.”
“That would be cool . . . But we’re actually flying overseas soon. We’re doing a six-week international tour.”
“Where?”
“Asia. Australia. We even have a show or two in Europe, I think.”
“Really?” I ask in disbelief as I roll onto my side and nestle the phone against my ear.
“Yeah. It’s crazy. Our record label had another big band signed up for the tour, but the band broke up, and since the dates were already booked, they asked us to headline it instead. It’s pretty last minute, but—”
“That’s amazing,” I interrupt, and Mike lets out a breath.
“It’s nuts. We’re shooting a big music video in two and a half weeks, and then we’re leaving for Singapore the very next day.”
There’s a long moment of silence, and Mike eventually asks, “You still there?”
“I feel like I should get your autograph or something.”