Page 50 of Well Aware

“Nope,” I said. “That’s next on the agenda. I’m gonna send y’all back to the airport on the bus. Then I’ll hitch a ride with this hellion in an Uber. That okay?”

That was what I’d had to do on the way here.

No bus, not even a nice chartered one, would be giving Iris Baker a ride anytime soon.

“That’s fine,” she said. “You’ll beat us there.”

We would.

The bus was slow.

Plus, the women were socializing.

I had no idea how much they could talk.

“I’m staying, too,” Court grumbled.

Talk went back to the game, and the line ref who’d called that outrageous offside call.

By the time we were finished, and I was set to meet with the head ref, my blood was once again boiling.

It was, of course, hard to see everything that had happened in the game from the stands. However, after hearing all the hair-pulling and kidney punches that’d gone on throughout the game, and seeing some of the battle wounds, I was furious.

I knew this was a professional game, and with it came some physicality.

However, when Nettie pulled up her shirt and showed an eight-inch gash from four fingernails raking down her back that were bleeding and bruised, followed by Magnolia showing me a bruise on her back the size of a grapefruit, purpling and growing by the second…

“Get on the bus,” Iris ordered as I said that I was headed to talk to the official.

Magnolia flashed her a sweet smile and blew her a kiss.

Iris caught it and placed it against her tiny little chest, right over her heart.

This kid…

With the booster in hand, we walked through the maze of hallways to the official locker room.

When we got there, it was to find the line ref bursting out of the door and nearly flattening us.

He didn’t look up as he pushed around me and stormed off.

It was as I was watching him go that I looked up to find my sister standing there with my father, as well as the head official.

They were having a chat, and it pissed me off because they weren’t even supposed to fucking be here.

“Excuse me,” Court said, interrupting their talk. “I believe that if we’re going to discuss my team, we better do it with the majority owner.”

My lips quirked when the head official’s eyebrows went up. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I’m the official owner as of yesterday,” Court said.

My dad’s and sister’s faces flushed when Court said, “You can leave.”

“This is my team, young man,” Dad signed.

And since my sister, Seraphina, didn’t know enough sign language to be able to translate what he said, it literally fell on deaf ears.

I chose to lean my back against the door and watch the show.