Songs for Cricket by Laine, E. (best books to read in your 20s TXT) 📗

fought that battle until my arm got broken. After that, I just played with my brothers and their friends. I did play in the annual powder puff games. The other girls weren’t ever much of a challenge.”

He laughed. I didn’t mention specifically how Dad had stopped me from trying out for the team in high school.

“My brother played and was really good. Though he didn’t love it all that much,” Finn said.

I thought about what football meant in our house.

“In our family, it’s like a religion. My dad pushed my brothers hard to be the best.”

“Why is that?”

I glanced at my hands, remembering all the time he spent with my brothers and totally ignored me.

“Dad might have ended up in the NFL if not for a severe patellar fracture his freshman year in college. That’s a—”

“Kneecap injury,” he finished.

“Yes. He had it surgically repaired, but he was never the same. He transferred from here and went to Harvard.”

“He went here?”

I nodded. “Yep. But you wouldn’t know it. He didn’t want August going here.”

He eyed me curiously. I guessed I didn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice.

“Dads can be interesting. You could say my dad’s favorite is Sawyer over me and my oldest brother Tomas, and probably because out of all of us, Sawyer could play football.”

I blew out a breath, feeling like for the first time someone could really understand my childhood.

“We’re two peas in a pod.”

He laughed with good humor. “Yeah, you’re a girl, and I’m a cripple.” When my eyebrows shot up, he said, “It’s okay to say it. Football isn’t exactly ever going to be my career, and Dad measured his love for us based on our athletic abilities. And well, I get a pass because I wasn’t born this way. Dad actually thinks Tomas is the biggest disappointment because he’s gay.”

I shook my head. “Well, your dad sounds a lot like mine, measuring his children by their dicks or lack thereof.”

“Or where they stick it.” We laughed. “I think Dad thought mine was broken.”

He didn’t elaborate, just chuckled to himself, and I wasn’t touching that topic with a ten-foot pole. Still, it felt good to talk about it. I couldn’t with August because of his instant inclination to fight, and Cooper had his own issues with Dad.

“So namesake, why are you really out here and not out having fun?”

“Finn and Finley,” I accidently said out loud.

His brow arched. I shook my head as my thoughts briefly shifted in wonder to him. He was really cute and appeared almost out of place in his chair. He looked capable of picking me up. It was a testament to the facility in England he’d been living in before he came back to the states to live here.

“Just thinking about our names,” I corrected, feeling my cheeks burning.

“Are you just avoiding my question?”

I shrugged, my thoughts returning to Shepard.

“Some find me easy to talk to, like your cousin, Ashton.” Not everyone knew that Ashton was our brother, and for my parents’ sake, we left everyone in the dark about how my aunt had donated her eggs so that we could be born. “You can trust me to hold your confidence and give it to you straight.”

Ash, he was complicated. I’d just wanted to hug him the first time we’d met. Something he didn’t welcome. I wondered if I’d ever know just what happened to him. I’d tried to break his shell to learn more about him and his mother. I had a curiosity for my aunt I’d been unable to deny. He’d persuaded me not to meet her. Our family history was beyond complex.

“So tell me, Finley, what guy has you sitting out in the dark alone?”

Though my eyes had never left his, I stopped looking inward and focused on him. What was the harm talking to him? A guy’s advice could be helpful. I couldn’t ask my brothers or they would find out it’s Shepard, the object who occupied my heart.

“There is a guy.” It was like the crickets were excited I planned to unburden myself as their night song grew louder, or maybe I’d imagined it.

“And?”

I leaned my back on the wall and stared out into the empty backyard.

“He doesn’t see me, at least not as more than a friend.”

I buttoned up thinking I’d said too much. A friend. I half laughed. That had to be the biggest clue that I was referring to Shepard.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked.

“About what?”

“That he’s not interested. We guys aren’t exactly poets.”

Shepard was. His songs were like windows into my soul.

“I’m not exactly his type.”

“It’s his loss.”

I laughed. “You sound like my mom. She said God gave me exactly what I needed.”

My gaze dropped to my chest, and I closed my eyes, hopping he thought I was being introspective and not judging my chest size.

“I hope this doesn’t sound weird, but you are a very pretty girl, Finley. Don’t let any guy take that away from you. We all have flaws. If I focused on mine, I would have swallowed a bottle of pills years ago. Life doesn’t always give us what we want, but your mom is right. It gives us what we need.”

To take in some of the heaviness that floated in like a storm cloud, I said, “Deep,” and giggled some.

“I can be.” His grin lifted the mood. “You should tell him.”

I snapped my head up and shook it. “That would only make me look like an idiot when he tells me we can only be friends.”

“Love makes idiots out of all of us when you think about it. When you love, you basically give someone else power over you.”

I snorted. “To hurt.”

Solemn eyes held mine. “And to heal.” He was quiet for a minute. “I think about my brother and Ash. They were both a little broken. Then they came here.” I knew about Ash, but Sawyer always seemed so together. “Everything changed for my brother. I’ve never seen him so happy.”

He’d spoken so wistfully,