Under the Lights (The Field Party #2) - Abbi Glines Page 0,44

bigger issues.

I wanted to mention the fact I preferred sitting alone to Gunner when he gave me a ride home today. He’d been driving me home before his football practice this past week, but today they were having a break to rest after their big game this past weekend. So he wouldn’t be rushing me home then leaving. I would have time to talk to him about it.

Maggie gave me her cell number before I left the classroom, and I explained I couldn’t text because I didn’t have a cell, but I could call her from my nonna’s landline. Instead of looking at me like I had lost my mind, she smiled as if that made complete sense, and then we parted ways.

It wasn’t until I was in the parking lot walking toward Gunner’s truck that I realized it was gone. Glancing around, I looked to see if he’d moved it, but he wasn’t here. He must have forgotten me. It was only six miles from here to his house. I could walk that.

Pulling my book bag up higher on my left shoulder, I headed out toward the main road. It was odd that Gunner had forgotten me. Almost as if he were angry with me. I had a gut feeling he was. The tension at the table during lunch had gotten thick, and I didn’t know why. Sure, I was jealous of Serena, as much as I loathed to admit that. But I didn’t say anything to him. He had no reason to be mad at me.

In the past eight months I’d dealt with far more important stuff than this. A guy leaving me to walk home wasn’t a big deal. I would survive.

Hello, Son

CHAPTER 28

GUNNER

My brother’s dark hair and hazel eyes were signature Lawton. He looked like our father. I, on the other hand, did not. Nothing like him. Which made sense, seeing as I didn’t have any of his blood running through my veins. Rhett was sitting in the chair to my left. We were both in high-back brown-leather chairs that sat across from Father’s desk.

Rhett had shown up at the school during last period, surprising me with his visit home. But he said we were meeting with Father at three and he had come to check me out so that neither of us were late. This had thrown me off. We’d never been summoned to the man’s office like this. At least not together. This was weird.

“Did he know you were coming home?” I asked Rhett, who didn’t seem concerned about this meeting.

He nodded. “Yes. He requested I return for this. I told him these were the only few days I had available.”

Had he not questioned him about why we were meeting? “So you just came home because he said to?”

Rhett shifted in his seat, and this time he did seem a little nervous. “Yeah” was his simple response.

Because Rhett was the chosen one, he normally bucked our father at every turn. Coming home like this didn’t seem like something he would willingly do. Unless there was something in it for him.

“He’s late,” I grumbled, hating the wait. I didn’t like to talk to the man, much less sit in his office. A place I was never invited into. The walls were covered in bookshelves, and a painting that probably cost a million dollars hung on the wall over his desk. There were no family photos. Just one picture sat on his desk of him and Rhett last year at a charity event that he’d taken Rhett to but not me. Never me.

“You got something better to do?” Rhett smirked. That expression resembled our father so much that it annoyed me. I didn’t want to dislike my brother because he looked like a man I hated.

The door opened behind us, and Rhett glanced back and appeared pleased that the sorry son of a bitch had walked into the room. I was just happy this would start so it could end. Being in here was uncomfortable.

“Hey, Dad,” Rhett said so casually. They had a relationship that I didn’t have a part in. Never wanted to either.

“Hello, son,” he replied. That was also something that had once bothered me. Him referring to Rhett as son and me as Gunner or boy. Things like that had molded me as a child. Changed me.

Taught me not to trust or love. I had the old man to thank for that one.

“I’m glad you could be here on time, Gunner,” he then