Page 52
“Would make,” Rhodes corrected. “They’re not real.”
“Humor me. I have cancer,” she retorted. I could practically feel Rhodes’ glare through the phone, and Jude wore almost the exact same expression. That joke wasn’t new. Mrs. Kennedy used cancer like other people used a coupon code whenever she wanted to win an argument or make her sons uncomfortable. It was probably horrifying to anyone who didn’t know her. To us, it was just her. If things got too heavy, she found a way to make everyone laugh before they drowned in it.
“Theoretically,” he began slowly, “unicorns are just horses with horns. The horns would probably be made of bone or keratin. And from all of that, we could loosely—and I do mean very loosely—infer that unicorns would neigh and make other horse-related sounds.”
“But would they make other sounds?” Wyatt asked.
“Maybe,” Rhodes said. “But again, they’re fictional, so I can’t tell you one way or another.”
“You’re more fun when aliens are involved,” Jude told him.
“Aliens are real, unicorns are not.”
That single sentence had all three of us cracking up, and even Mrs. Kennedy laughed.
“Are we done now?” Rhodes demanded. “Because you three have a game to get ready for.”
“We are,” I replied loud enough to be heard. “Bye, Mama K! We’ll see you tonight!”
“I have a sign with your name on it, Theo,” she told me. “And Wyatt, your name is on the back. And Rhodes had an official team jersey made for me with your number, Jude.”
“He did?” Jude frowned.
“I did,” Rhodes replied. Jude didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. The tiny shift in his expression said it all. Rhodes probably had no idea what that jersey meant to him. Or who knew? Maybe he did. “Well, I’m hanging up now before I get asked more stupid questions.”
“There’s no such thing as stupid questions,” Mrs. Kennedy chastised. Rhodes made a sound that had all of us laughing again. “Bye, boys. I’ll be the loudest one there tonight.”
She wouldn’t be, not after chemo, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying. We all shouted a messy combination of I love you and bye at the phone, none of us caring whether anyone else could understand before Jude ended the call.
The room was quiet as I watched Jude carefully put up all his walls again—the one that told us he was fine, even when he wasn’t. We’d let him because that was our role in this. When he was ready to talk, he’d talk. Until then, our job was shenanigans and distractions, a job we took very seriously.
“All right!” Jude exclaimed, clapping his hands together once. “Time to get lucky!”
“You already got lucky—”
“Twice.” He grinned, and I ignored him.
“I just want to shave your head,” I continued.
“Maybe you should nick him,” Wyatt suggested. “Or carve your name in his head.”
“No,” Jude snapped. The sheer speed of his answer made me grin.
“Do I get extra luck for that?” I asked.
“No!”
“Can you sign his head?” Wyatt replied before gasping dramatically. “Do you know how much his head would be worth once you’re in the NFL?”
I looked thoughtfully at Jude's forehead, and he scooted the chair away from me.
“I’m going to fucking kill you both,” Jude threatened with absolutely no malice in his voice. As if either of us would take him seriously anyway.
What followed was absolute chaos. Jude complained about every pass like I was personally ruining his life, even though he’d voluntarily done this every year since high school. Wyatt kept trying to convince me to leave designs on the sides. At some point, I grabbed a marker and tried to sign Jude’s freshly shaved forehead. He launched out of the chair to stop me, and unfortunately, the chair didn’t survive.
By the time we were finished, there was hair everywhere, Jude was bald, Wyatt was laughing so hard he was wheezing, and whatever jitters we had about the first game of the season had vanished.
CHAPTER 19
