Chapter 5: The Lawn

The man who got out of the pickup was big in the belly and the shoulders.

He wore a tire shop shirt with the sleeves cut off.

He left the engine running and the driver's door open.

"Bodie!" he yelled at the house. "Get out here."

Bodie stood up from the couch.

The Texan stood up too, slowly, and the floor creaked.

"Stay inside," I said to both of them.

I went out the front door, and I heard the cameraman come out behind me.

I didn't tell him to stop.

"Who are you?" the stepfather asked.

"I'm Bodie's coach."

He looked at the brace on my wrist and laughed.

"You're the cripple from the TV. His mom showed me."

"What do you need?"

"I need him home." He pointed at the house. "His mom's sick of him being gone. His sister cries."

"He sends half his pay home every month," I said.

"Half." He spat on the dead grass. "He lives under my roof, he pays like it."

"He doesn't live under your roof."

"He will when this little video game team goes under. Everybody in Fresno knows you're last."

Bodie had come out onto the step behind me.

He was holding the purple hair tie on his wrist with his other hand.

"I'm not coming home," he said.

His voice cracked on "home."

The stepfather walked past me toward the step, and I moved into his way.

I did it without thinking, the way you step in front of a door in the game.

He stopped with his chest a foot from mine.

He was bigger than me, and I had one good hand.

"Move," he said.

"No," I said. "He's eighteen, and he has a contract, and he's at work. You're standing on his job."