The Game Changer The Final Score - By L.M. Trio Page 0,93
never be able to let her go. She deserves more than being bogged down with the baggage that has now become my future. It’s not the baby I worry about. The baby will be in our family anyway, and no matter what, Deanna will always be my family. I need to protect her from Lora Rae, though. She’ll stop at nothing to make her life miserable.
“I’m sorry,” she says, teary eyed and embarrassed at her desperate attempt to throw herself at me.
“Don’t apologize to me. This is my fault,” I say angrily. I’m furious, but not at her. I turn away and storm into my room, locking the door behind me, knowing if she were to come in, I’d be unable to resist.
***
(Jesse)
I tiptoe as quietly as possible when entering our house. Thankfully I was right about Luke, he’s sound asleep. I turn on the temporary floor lamp in our master bedroom and step on the blue tarp spread across the floor. I look around the bedroom, impressed that he was able to finish painting the room, as I enter our bathroom to undress for bed.
When finished, I quietly close the door behind me, leaving the smell of paint behind as I quietly creep down the hallway to the spare bedroom. I softly climb into our temporary, air mattress bed next to Luke.
“Hey, babe, I missed you… everything okay?” he asks sleepily pulling my body to his as his arms wrap around me.
“It is now,” I whisper.
***
I feel Luke stir as I barely open my eye to see the light shining through the window. He kisses me below the ear, moving closer and molding his body to mine. Usually we love this time of morning, waking up together, but not this morning. I don’t want to face him. There’s a good chance I won’t be able to hold back if he questions me about last night. I lie still, keeping my eyes tightly shut, not giving in to the tingling sensation I’m feeling from his kisses along the back of my neck. Thankfully, I’m saved by the ringing of his phone. He jumps out of bed and goes into the other room.
***
(Luke)
“Yo, what’s up?” I whisper to Mikey, curious as to why he’s calling so early.
“I need to talk to you. Can we get breakfast?”
“Yeah, sure. What’s up? Everything okay?” I can tell something isn’t right in his voice, he sounds winded.
“That’s what I want to talk to you about. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
I jump in the shower in the main bath, trying to figure out what is going on. I throw on a pair of jeans and t-shirt and re-enter the spare room. JJ is still sleeping. I lean down and kiss her cheek. She stirs a little, but doesn’t open her eyes.
“I’ll be back in a little bit,” I whisper.
“Where are you going so early?” she asks sleepily.
“Mikey called. I hope everything’s okay. He wants to talk. It’s got me worried, it’s not like him.”
“Well, just be there for him,” she says lazily.
“JJ, what do you know? What’s goin’ on?” I ask, realizing how quickly she rushed out last night. “Last night you rushed off ‘cause De needed to talk and this morning, Mikey just happens to call me, asking to talk. Is that a coincidence?” She doesn’t answer. I walk around to her side of the bed to face her. Her eyes are closed. “And stop pretending you’re asleep.”
“I am sleeping. I’m tired,” she answers with her eyes tightly shut.
Once again, we are interrupted. This time it’s Mikey’s fist pounding on the door, sounding as if he’s about to knock it down.
“I love you,” she calls out guiltily as I leave the room.
I answer the door to Mikey’s pounding fist as he nervously paces the porch. It’s unusually cold outside, but he’s sweating.
“Yo, dude, relax,” I whisper, opening the door to let him in.
“Nah, I don’t want to come in. You ready?”
“Yeah, let me grab a jacket.” Mikey continues to pace while I grab my hoodie out of the closet. I’ve only seen Mikey like this one other time and that was when I was in trouble. His nervousness is making me uptight.
I jump on my bike and follow him as we head towards the beach. We pull into a parking space across the street from a coffee shop and Mikey walks quickly in its direction. I have to