Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Boone’s shoulders slumped in relief.
Nettie came at me like a battering ram, throwing her arms around my shoulder. “Thank you for helping save her.”
“I didn’t do what the doctors did, but you’re welcome anyway.” I patted her on the back. “She’s going to be okay. She’ll be hurting for a while yet, but they expect her to make a full recovery.”
At least physically.
Mentally? That was a completely different story.
TWENTY-FIVE
I hope you fall down with your hands in your pockets.
—Beau to Seraphina
BEAU
Our fears were confirmed Monday morning when both Cain and Seraphina were released on a laughably sized bond.
Hell, the assholes that lived down the street from Huxley got a bigger bond than Seraphina and Cain did when they got thrown in jail for drunk and disorderly.
Needless to say, when the semi-final game arrived, no one was in the mood to be there.
Oh, and to make matters worse, Seraphina tried to not only get on the plane with the team—violating the terms of the agreement she made with the court promising she wouldn’t leave the state—but also showed up hours later after chartering a private plane that she also charged to the company card.
Or tried to.
Court had the cards revoked shortly after he’d taken on the role of majority owner. Now, to get a company card, you had to be approved by the entire board in a unanimous vote of approval. And Seraphina hadn’t received that approval yet.
Court had watched as the charge was denied through the bank, the denial of charge notification coming across his phone screen an hour after we’d taken off to Texas.
However, Seraphina wouldn’t be denied.
She’d likely gotten my father to pay for the trip here.
Court and I were seething when we watched her walk into the team box with the rest of us.
Iris was there, as well as Merrill, Court, Charleigh, Boone, Margie, and myself.
The other family members of the rest of the team had decided they would rather be in the stands to cheer on their players.
Meanwhile, we’d gone with the box because none of us were fit for company.
We were all grieving. Even Merrill, who had no connection to Koen or Ida Bell. She was, however, best friends with Magnolia who was heartbroken that she’d lost a new friend in Koen.
Ida Bell remained in a coma, and Boone was torn on whether to remain at home or with his family at Ida Bell’s side.
In the end, it was the matriarch of the family that ordered Boone to be with his wife, and Boone as well as Nettie had agreed with her. Even though there’d been a moment in time that Nettie had contemplated not going to the game as well.
Ida Bell wouldn’t have wanted us to miss anything to sit by her bedside.
So Nettie, as well as Magnolia, were only half here. Half of everyone’s heart was still in Sawtooth with Ida Bell.
Needless to say, my jaw worked viciously as I tried to hold on to my anger at the sight of Seraphina walking into the owner’s box as if she belonged there.
If looks could kill, she’d be set ablaze by the looks on both Court and my faces.
“Before you ask,” Seraphina said as she set her things down. “I have special permission to be here, since it’s, you know, my job.”
What a joke.
Charleigh snorted, looking at Seraphina like a bug she wanted to squish beneath her boot. “Let’s be honest here, Sera. You haven’t done a real job since you were paid to take us home from school. But you fucked that up, didn’t you?”
Seraphina bared her teeth at my friend. “Careful, I could have you kicked out.”
Charleigh snorted. “How? I’m just as much of an owner as you are now, dummy. Or did you forget mathematics? Did being an alcoholic burn off those brain cells that know basic math?”
My jaw protested my poor treatment of it.
I turned my back on her, knowing that it would be near impossible to ignore her.
Luckily, she saw someone she knew and left the suite almost as fast as she’d arrived.
She had, however, left all her things there.
I swept them all into the trash can with the remnants of our meal that no one could stomach eating.
Which had me worried all over again for Magnolia and Nettie.
They hadn’t eaten much in the past seventy-two hours, and they were about to play one hell of a tough game.
Charleigh snorted as she watched my sister’s phone land in a pile of chicken salad.
“We should take the trash out while we’re at it,” she said as she pulled the nearly full trash bag free. “I’ll handle that.”
She had the bag out, and the attendant outside immediately removed it from her hands. “I got it!”
Charleigh came back into the room and leaned against the wall, angry and hurt just like the rest of us.