worried about something. As if he was worried about her. “Do you need help?”
She shook her head, kept her gaze down.
“Do your parents know you’re over here by yourself?” he asked.
“My mom’s working. I’m with my dad,” she added quickly. “He’s going to meet me here any minute.” She made a show of looking around, as if she really expected her dad to come strolling along any second now.
The old man looked around but not as if he was scared. More like it was a good thing her dad was coming to get her. One of the boys playing basketball made a basket and the old man grinned.
“My grandson,” he said, nodding at the boy in the white-and-black-striped shorts. “He loves taking those three-point shots.” He tipped his head to the side and read the title of her book.
“The Giver, huh? How is it?”
Sneaking a peek at him, she hesitated. She wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers, but ignoring him felt wrong, too. As though she was being rude. “It’s good,” she finally said.
After all, he looked okay. Normal, not like one of those perverts adults always warned kids about. His bald head was shiny, his mustache and beard gray, his eyebrows dark. He had on glasses, khaki pants and a white button-down shirt.
He stepped farther into the dugout and she moved down the bench some more, clutched her bag in case she had to hit him with it or something.
“I’m always on the lookout for books for my grandson,” he said. “I spend most of the day reading now that I’ve retired. Let me tell you, it’s a pure blessing not having to sneak a few pages at my desk anymore.”
“I got caught reading during math class one time.” Her face heated as she remembered how the teacher had yelled at her in front of the class. How humiliated she’d been when her eyes had pricked with tears and one of the boys had sneered and whispered that she was a baby.
“I’ve been caught more times than I care to admit.” He winked. “But it never stopped me.”
She smiled. “Me neither.”
But she had gotten better, smarter about hiding her books.
“My daughter, Johnny’s mama, she’s the same way, always has a book with her. But getting Johnny to read is harder than pulling hens’ teeth.”
“Do hens have teeth?”
He laughed. Not like a crazy person or anything, just like a nice old man. “No, that’s what makes it so hard.” Sliding his hands into his pockets, he watched the boys again. “He’d rather play ball than do just about anything else, short of eating. But I keep tryin’ to get him to expand his mind.”
He didn’t sound mad, though. More like he was proud of his grandson. Any doubts she’d had disappeared. He was a nice old man. A grandfather who wanted what was best for his grandson, who loved him enough to watch him play ball with his friends, who cared enough about him to know where he was at, what he was doing.
Which was more than she could say about her dad.
“I picked up The Hunger Games trilogy for Johnny a few months ago.”
“I loved those books,” she said, relaxing her grip on her backpack. “Especially Catching Fire.” Had read all three books in two days then had gone back and read them all again.
“I don’t think that boy even cracked the cover of the first one. Said he’d rather watch the movies.” The man shook his head sadly.
Johnny must not know the book was always, always better than the movie. Boys were so dumb.
The old man sent her a sideways look. “Maybe you could help me out. Give me some titles of books you think a stubborn, sports-crazy thirteen-year-old boy might like?”
Should she? She wasn’t sure. Yeah, he seemed harmless and his grandson was there, right there, where they could both see him. And when he sat down, he left plenty of space on the bench between them. Still, he was a stranger.
Her dad would probably have a stroke or something if he found out she was chatting with some man she’d never seen before in her life. But he wasn’t there. He was never there for her.
So she set her backpack aside and told the old man about her very favorite books.
* * *
BREE WASN’T IN the girls’ locker room, the snack room or the hallway. There was no sign of the sneakers she’d worn in or the skates she’d rented.