Stuck on You | All American

Chapter 6

    "He's coming." I whisper to Dillon as I slid back into my seat, I set the orange carton in front of him. "Do it."

He nods his head, lowering his head to hide his smile so Spencer wouldn't catch on to what we're about to do. From my peripheral I see Spencer walk into the room, I bit back my laugh by turning my attention to my phone. Even though he wasn't in the best mood since we lost against Hawthorne last night, he's been beating himself up all night. And this is just a harmless joke to bring him out the slumps. Hopefully.

Spencer sits beside me, reaching for the carton of juice but Dillon beats him to it. Carefully handing it to Spencer as he says, "don't want you fumbling the juice now."

I couldn't hold back laugh any longer when Spencer snatched the juice out Dillon's hands. "I see y'all got jokes this morning."

"Tension breaker." Dillon shrugs. "Had to be done."

Last night game was a fierce battle, Hawthorne proved to be strong competitors. Their quarterbacks and his team were making nothing but smart plays, in the beginning it was hard to even move the ball. They were more than good but it's not like we were losing, in fact, we were even tied with them in the last stretch of the game. All we needed was to get the ball to the endzone, Spencer raced downfield in a beautiful solo run but suddenly he fumbled and got tackled. Giving Hawthorne the win.

After the booster party, I had went to Chris house and he went home but by time I got home he wasn't there. So, I waited up for him and when he finally came home I noticed that something was off with him but me kept dismissing me. And I know that everybody has their bad days on the field, but there was something more going on than him having a bad day.

"Hey, I got this for you." Spencer places a comic book on the table and slid it towards Dillon who eyes light up. Dillon smiles as he starts flipping through his new comic book, he turns towards me and says, "I'm sorry I lost last night. I had the ball and I know y'all are counting on me."

"Stop beating yourself up about it." I tell him. "And it's not like you ruined their winning streak, they weren't winning games before we came anyway, so no damage. But are you ready to tell me what was wrong with you?"

"Just a bad day." Spencer avoids my eyes, he's definitely hiding something. "But no more bad days. We went to Beverly to win."

The sound of feet hitting the floor has me turning my head to see Mom walking down the hallway, she pulls out a chair and join us at the table. "Listen, Spencer. I asked you to take this shot to give yourself a chance at something more. So, what if you lost a game? Win or lose, you are so much more than what you are on that field. You push yourself so hard trying to take care of us all. And you've been like that ever since your daddy left, trying to prove something to yourself and to him. But you can't hold up the world on your own, baby."

Since Thursday evening, we haven't been back to The Bakers house, going to school from home. It was clear during that booster party that Billy hadn't consulted with all his family about us moving in, and we were giving him space to do that. And with tonight being Sunday, we're going to find out what the verdict is.

"Hey, we were hoping y'all made it back in time." Billy says when he sees us. "Hope you're hungry."

"Dad's making his famous ribs." Olivia informs as she picks up a tray of biscuits, heading towards the patio door that Laura is holding open with a glass pitcher filled with lemonade. "He just mixes two sauces together, but it's actually pretty good."