I guess the guy they really want to meet will be there because it's so sports-focused. Thought Lia's connection to football would help them."
Ahh. Of course, Finn and his intrepid best friend would be chipping in for the cause.
My mind started racing, almost so quickly that I could hardly keep up with my own thoughts.
Sports-focused. Athletes and philanthropists, agents and corporate sponsors, all in one room.
There might even be someone from Burton there.
"Just how sick are you?" I asked.
"Sick. If I didn't have a fever, I might try to tough it out, but there's no way I can go." He sighed. "Mom and Dad will be upset because there's no way Lia will go with them on her own."
Listening to him think of others first, I had to admit once again that Finn, on his own, wasn't a complete shit.
A little square, maybe. And Mr. 4.0 Everything definitely had me beat in the brains department, where I excelled was more of a physical nature. Which is why he was in the middle of getting his medical degree that would have him working ninety plus hours a week someday, and I was a semi-professional snowboarder who just lost his main sponsor.
I couldn't do math for shit, but I didn't need to. If any one of my frustrated teachers over the years could point me to a single time in my twenty-six years when I'd needed algebra, I'd eat my favorite Libtech snowboard one bite at a time.
But I didn't hold that against Finn. It wasn't his fault that his mom came from a crap marriage, into the connubial bliss they found themselves in with each other, and the fruit of that union (him) was thereby all good and perfect things. My dad had been a sad, widowed, single father before he met Adele, so he viewed Finn in pretty much the same way my stepmom did.
Finn coughed again, the sound so disgusting that I winced like he'd just sprayed his germs over my face.
"You better not need me to come take care of you," I told him.
"No," he groaned. "But I thought about asking Mom for some of her chicken soup."
"And you think that'll help?" I asked under my breath.
Not quietly enough, though, because he sighed.
"Bauer," he chided. I couldn't blame him. If someone spoke ill of my mom, they'd get an elbow to the throat. God rest her soul. I didn't even really remember my mother, but I'd still punch someone if they bad-mouthed her.
"Sorry." I shifted in my seat, the tires on the highway eating up the distance between the place I called home and the place I came from. It might have been only a few hours on the road, but they were a universe apart from each other for how differently I felt about them.
"Speaking of Mom, I better call her next," Finn said.
"Just ... hang on a second." I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel as I weighed the idiocy of what I was about to suggest. "Maybe I can help."
"You?"
Since I never offered to help our parents, I couldn't even be annoyed at how shocked he sounded.
"What if I went in your place?"
Finn was quiet. "Why would you even offer?"
For a moment, I contemplated telling him I wanted to help. Telling him it was for our parents, but he'd never believe it.
"Maybe I can find someone of my own to schmooze. A new sponsor."
"I don't know, Bauer," he hedged. "I can't imagine them going for it."
"So don't tell them."
"I have to tell Lia," he interjected, voice sounding stronger than it had the entire conversation.
"No, you actually don't."
"I won't lie to her."
"You're a terrible liar, so I wouldn't suggest lying," I told him. "Listen, Finnegan, if Lia won't go alone with our parents, she sure as hell won't go with me, right?"
"Not a chance."
Lia was as much a product of Adele's brainwashing as Finn was after years at our house hearing about the juvenile delinquent who got in trouble with the law and ran away from home at the age of eighteen.
"And you're saying that they want Lia there to impress some guy?"
Finn was quiet again. "Yeah. I guess he's a big Washington fan. They thought maybe meeting Logan Ward's little sister would ... I don't know, give them some way to introduce themselves."
I rolled my eyes because it sounded like Adele's idea. But if it gave me an in to that ballroom, I just might have a chance. "Makes sense."
"So you want me to,"