Making It Right (Most Likely To #3)

He couldn’t wait.

“Finals and then state,” Coach Ward said, clasping Tim’s hand. “I can’t believe I have two runners going.”

“You forgot the Masters meet.”

Coach Ward waved Tim off. “Semantics.”

“Coach, let me get a shot.”

Drew caught his breath long enough to see a camera pointed at the two of them.

Without pause, they both straightened toward the camera and smiled.

“Drew!” his mom called from the sideline, her hand waving frantically in the air.

He smiled and waved back.

“Go say hello.” Coach Ward shoved his arm. “She drove all the way here.”

He looked beyond his mom.

“Your dad volunteered to take the shift,” Coach Ward told him.

Drew sucked in his disappointment. Fitzpatrick could have stepped in. Had in the past. His father had barely spoken to him for a month. Between the stunt with Mrs. Walters and finding the dog. Drew shivered. Thinking about the animal made his stomach twist.

He ran across the track to the fence line to talk to his mom. The short fence allowed her to reach over and hug him, sweat and all.

“I’m so proud of you.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

When she tried to hug him a second time, he pulled back. The mom hug after winning a race was a onetime thing.

“Do you want to ride home with me or take the bus with your friends?”

The bus sounded smelly, but Tina hadn’t run her race yet, and sitting next to her with his hand on her thigh sounded better than listening to mom music all the way back to River Bend. “I’ll go on the bus. You don’t have to stick around.”

“I don’t mind.”

She probably didn’t, but he wasn’t going to be the reason she was stuck in the bleachers all day.

“Is Dad still mad?”

“He’s fine, honey. He’d be here but someone had to work.”

That wasn’t how Drew saw things. “Whatever.”

“He tries.”

“Sure.” He called bullshit on that. Drew looked over his shoulder, saw the kids lining up for the next race, and used that as an excuse to walk away. “I’ll see you at home.”

She lifted her hand in a wave as he turned.

For a brief moment he wondered if his father would bother visiting him when he went to college . . . or would it just be his mom?



Pizza and teenagers . . . because everything was better with melted cheese.

The team had taken up several tables. Wyatt and Mel sat with several other kids, and a couple of the parents had stuck around to join the pizza party. Jo and Gill sat with her distance team.

River Bend had an excuse for a pizza parlor that had changed hands multiple times since she was a kid. Jo knew there was no way out of joining the team after the meet for pepperoni and sausage. Gill, on the other hand, had no idea.

He was handling it well, considering the amount of attention he was getting from the team. Once the boys learned that he’d served as a marine, talks about state finals and prom ceased.

“That is badass.”

Jo didn’t call Drew on his language.

“It’s a job.” Gill downplayed his role.

“I think it’s brave.” Maureen sighed into the word brave.

Tina jabbed an elbow into Maureen’s side, helping the girl snap out of her moony look in Gill’s direction.

When Gill squirmed, Jo hid a laugh behind her soda.

“What made you join?” Drew asked.

“It was the right fit for me at the time. Are you thinking about joining?”

Drew shrugged. “I dunno.”

Jo listened intently. She thought Drew was headed for college. The military wasn’t something he’d ever talked about.

Tina leaned into Drew’s arm. “What about school?”

“My dad’s a cop. Seems the military might work for me. It isn’t like I’m staying in River Bend.”

“I don’t know, dude. Having people shoot at you doesn’t sound fun,” Gustavo said.

“Do people really shoot at you?” Tina asked.

“In war.” Gill picked up a slice of pizza, shoved half of it in his mouth.

“People shoot at cops, too, Tina.”

“I know that. But Drew doesn’t want to be like his dad.”

“No one shoots at the cops in River Bend,” Tim added.

Gill exchanged glances with Jo.

She thought of her father, hoped no one noticed the tension she felt inside.

“The only time Coach fires her gun is when she’s target practicing, isn’t that right?” Drew asked.

“That’s the goal,” Jo said.

Wyatt walked up to their table. “We’re headed out in ten. Next bathroom is in Waterville.”

Tina and Maureen scooted back and took the hint.

“You’ll be back tomorrow?” Wyatt asked Jo.

“Afternoon,” she confirmed.

Tim leaned over to say something in Drew’s ear. They both snickered. The guys were worse than the girls.

She pointed her finger in their general direction and narrowed her eyes.

“I didn’t say nothin’,” was Drew’s response.

“Let’s keep it that way.”

A few minutes later Jo was shuffling kids out of the busy pizza joint while Gill pulled his bike close to her Jeep.

Tina stepped up beside her as kids filed onto the bus.

“Hey, Coach?”

“Yeah?”

Tina held out her hand. In it was a homemade business card. “A girl in the bathroom handed this to me.”

Jo peered closer.

Finals? with a question mark was written in a fuzzy font. Let me take away the pain.

There was an Instagram ID under the caption.

“A tutor?”

Tina took the first step onto the bus. “She looked strung out, practically shoved this in my hand.”

Drugs.

“What did she look like?”

“I don’t know . . . like a teenager.” Tina boarded the bus without any details.

Drew was behind her.

“Have fun, Coach.”

Jo felt a smile she couldn’t hide. “Can’t stop yourself, can you, Drew?”

He laughed and followed his girlfriend.

The roar of Gill’s bike followed the doors closing on the bus and it pulling away.

“Ready?”

She was going to follow Gill to his place since she didn’t know the way. “Not yet.” She turned back to the pizza parlor.

“You’re still hungry?” He swung his leg off his bike, the size of him standing beside her a welcome comfort.

Jo handed him the card. “Someone gave this to one of my girls. Sounded like something you’d be interested in.”

She waited while he read it.

“Take away the pain.” Gill took in the parking lot while Jo relayed what Tina had said.

They walked back in together, one of the kids behind the counter saw them. “Forget something?”

Jo smiled. “Yeah.” Without elaborating, she walked toward the restrooms while Gill pretended to check out the table where they’d been sitting.

The women’s bathroom was empty. She checked both stalls and poked through the trash.

She caught Gill’s attention and shook her head. They both scanned those left in the place. A few families. A group of guys, somewhere in their midtwenties, filled a booth.