Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
“Will do,” Jeremy said, and hung up.
Jeremy collected a notepad and pen on their way to the kitchen, and it took only a few minutes to figure out the most concise way to warn their teammates. Cat had the best handwriting, so she was put in charge of writing out drafts as Laila and Jeremy suggested them. Jean only had to stick around long enough to approve the final version, and then he and Kevin were sent on their way while the other three divvied up the Trojans between them.
Jean wasn’t sure what else to do, so he led Kevin to the study and pulled up one of the Trojans’ games on his laptop. He didn’t know how much they’d get to watch before they were needed back in the kitchen, but it was better than risking another conversation.
Kevin got distracted as it was buffering and plucked up the yellow wristband Jean had set on the shelf. He twirled it between his fingers, frowning a little as he tried to sort out its significance. Jean took it away without bothering to explain where it was from and dropped it in his desk drawer. As he was sliding the drawer shut, Kevin caught hold of it to stop him. His free hand darted in and came back with one of the postcards Jean had hidden in there.
Jean kept his gaze on the computer screen while Kevin stared down at the vandalized card in his hand. He was slow to set it aside, and he did so only to pull two more out. Jean wasn’t going to sit here while he checked every single one, so he finally said, “They’re all like that.”
Kevin chucked the cards aside and went to collect a second chair from one of the other desks. He was drunk enough to be clumsy, and after dropping it a second time he settled for dragging it the rest of the way. “They have always been boorish assholes. I never understood why you liked any of them.”
“You wouldn’t,” Jean said. “Your world revolved around the two of you; you didn’t have any space or time for them. But I knew them.”
“Or thought you did,” was the cool response.
Jean ignored him in favor of turning the game on. It was enough to shut Kevin up for about twenty minutes, and then the camera briefly cut to the Trojans’ bench. Jeremy was in an animated conversation with Ananya and Shawn as they watched their teammates play. At the first glimpse of Jeremy, Kevin muttered a disbelieving, “Law school.”
“He called it family tradition.”
The noise Kevin made gave his opinion of that. “His grandfather’s fault, most likely.” He said nothing else, so Jean dug his elbow into Kevin’s side in a silent demand for an explanation. The Trojans scored, and the teams reset. Kevin sat back with a satisfied smile before finally saying, “Arnold Wilshire is a sitting senator for Texas. It was mentioned in most of Jeremy’s early interviews, and I know I showed you those. Did you read any of them, or were you too busy fawning over his phot—”
Jean elbowed him again as hard as he could and checked the empty doorway. “I couldn’t read well enough to bother with so much text. It gave me a headache.”
“They were supposed to be a warning, Jean. If you didn’t read them, you missed the entire point of me sharing them.” He waited like he expected Jean to ask what lesson he’d missed and sighed when Jean refused the bait. “You can’t tell me his family hasn’t come up a single time this summer.”
Jean thought of the vacant smile Jeremy wore for hours after visiting home, the insinuation that his brother Bryson was a bastard, and the way Jeremy had cracked when Joshua messaged him in June. Jeremy’s quiet, “Felt like I’d been waiting forever, so it wasn’t at all fair to come from her first” had been jarring enough to center Jean when nothing else could, but he’d thought he misunderstood until he saw Jeremy’s house. So much larger than Laila’s, but so lifeless, it was more a showroom awaiting a staged photoshoot than a home. How someone so warm had survived such a cold place, Jean didn’t know.
“We don’t talk about family,” Jean said.
Kevin only shrugged and let it slide. They were able to get through the next fifteen minutes uninterrupted, and then Kevin got a call from the studio that a link to the final cut had been forwarded to his email. Jean ceded his laptop to Kevin and went to collect his teammates, but he stayed in the kitchen as they left. When Cat hung back to wait for him, he only shook his head.
“I do not want to see it.”
She nodded and left without argument. Jean cleaned out the fridge to keep himself busy. He’d scrubbed down half of the cabinet fronts when the others made it back to him. He heard their shoes and the scrape of the stools, but he kept his attention on his work so he wouldn’t have to see their faces. The ruse lasted only until Jeremy came and crouched beside him. Jean dropped his hand to his thigh and waited.