The Lost Quarterback Returns novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Two Quarterbacks

"Not on this porch," Griffin said.

His voice sounded thin and scraped.

Shanna smiled and stepped back through the door.

"Good night, Mr. Hartsell," she said, and the lock clicked.

In the truck I turned in my seat and looked at him until he looked back.

"Tell me," I said.

"I will."

"Now."

"Alana, I swear I will." He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "Give me until we know about the boy. I can't say it before I know. If he's ours, I'll tell you everything, every word. I swear on Rhett."

"Don't swear on Rhett."

"On my life, then."

"You've sworn before."

He took his hands away from his face.

He looked at me.

"I know," he said.

I let it go, because the alternative was to scream in a parked truck on Pell Street, and Dylan was awake behind that curtain.

I was home by midnight, as I had promised.

At 6:40 in the morning my phone rang.

It was the Academy's night guard.

"Mrs. Hartsell, there's a kid on the home bleachers," he said. "He says he's got to talk to you. He rode two buses. I didn't want to call the police."

"Don't," I said. "I'm coming."

Rhett was standing in the hall in his pajamas, rubbing his eyes.

"Is it him?"

"I think so."

"I'm coming too."

Dylan was sitting on the top row of the empty bleachers with the old football between his knees.

Mist rose off the field.

He didn't stand when we came up the steps.

He looked from me to Rhett, a long look, and then back.

"Mom didn't sleep," he said. "She locked herself in the kitchen and cried. She never cries."

I sat down beside him, a foot away.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"She won't tell me anything. So I'm asking you." His fingers dug into the ball's laces. "Am I the baby from the fire?"

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