Rod smiles slyly. ‘I planned it all out. Came in yesterday. That awful street lacrosse game just got done in Chicago, so I figured why not drop by and check out the scene. Connor and JJ came, too. Either way, figured it’d be a good time to watch you all play at home. Tali’s here, with your mom. She’s probably being a nuisance in office hours right now.’

No way. No way does Colt just get to hide behind his star teammate right now, ever so conveniently. I want to know why I just had to humiliate myself on the field so he could go on some ego trip. ‘Great. It’s nice to meet you, Rod.’ I smile tightly. ‘But back to the problem at hand. I’d love some explanation about why you just had me demonstrate a shot everyone here knew I wouldn’t make?’

Rod’s eyebrows fly upwards almost comically, and he takes a step back, hands raised in surrender. Colt shoots his friend a murderous look. Good. He deserves to muscle through a struggle alone, for a change.

‘We will talk about it.’ Colt’s voice is low yet stern, and it’s a far cry from the happy-go-lucky I’ve got tired of over the past few weeks. It’s strained.

Then, in a tone so quiet that only I hear it, ‘You’re not playing by the plan, May, and it’s gonna get us shot in the foot.’

‘Maybe I’m not,’ I mutter, ‘but neither are you. Like you said. We will talk about it. For now, though. Why don’t we …’ I return my tone to a fairly normal volume. ‘Why don’t we make sure your friend enjoys his time in Oklahoma?’

Chapter Nineteen

In the Doghouse

Colt

She’s so onto me. And it doesn’t occur to me what kind of implications my personal life might have on our public one, until that practice.

Rod, for his part, isn’t experiencing any sort of stress. In fact, the second his ass hits the chair at the dining table in my parents’ house, he starts yapping with them, and they, of course, have been immediately hooked in by his ever-so-social personality since the day they met, two years back. He’s the kind of guy who, as far as I know, has never needed media training, and has the propensity to chat up a pile of dirt. It doesn’t hurt that his daughter, Talise, is the sweetest angel of a pre-schooler that ever walked the earth, and is currently happily asleep in the guest room, something my mom mentions with delight more than once in between talk about what an ‘easy’ child Tali is.