I was so screwed. Her Unca David would fix everything, right? Those sad eyes made me want to just buy the damn horse for my niece. What was I to do with all the little rug-rats when they gave me that look? I needed to suck it up. If I couldn’t say no to my three-year-old niece, I was done. I looked around and spotted my mom, the queen of dream-crushers. She would tell Mac ‘no’ for me. I waved her over.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Ms. Zoe has to sell Bolt, and Mom and Dad said, ‘no,’” Mac said, and then she turned to me. “Unca David fix.”
My mom looked at me and burst out laughing. Mac was confused and began to cry. Mom bent down and hugged her.
“Honey, it’s okay. I was laughing at your uncle. Something you need to learn is men are worthless. You need to stick with us girls.”
I shook my head. Wow. I never realized that girl power was taught at such a young age. I left my mom to fill my niece’s head with nonsense. Okay, I was a coward and ran off to find my brother to find out what was really going on.
◊◊◊
I tracked my brother down.
“Congratulations,” Greg said as I sat down next to him.
“Huh?”
“You were named Player of the Year, again.”
“Oh. I’d forgotten the All-State Team would be announced today. Who else made it?”
“At Lincoln, Ty, Wolf, and Tim were all on the first team. Johan was on the third, and Yuri and Roc received honorable mentions. They said you were the first two-time winner. And this was the first time a high school has had three straight winners, with Bill winning before you,” Greg said to fill me in.
“I honestly didn’t even think about it. I’d assumed that with my injury, I wouldn’t have a shot at it and put it out of my mind.”
“Wesleyan had a couple of players make the list. Damion Roth was named to the first team, and Mike made the second. His numbers were better than yours,” Greg said to earn a light punch on his arm.
“Dick.”
“Hey, I’m just telling you what I read.”
“Damion’s numbers must be sick for a receiver. He’s at least half of their offense,” I said.
“Try sixty-four percent. I hope you can figure out how to stop him. He also has the most twenty-plus-yard plays of any receiver this year.”
“We’ll stop him. We have to, or it’ll be a long day,” I admitted.
Tami had told me that Damion would have to go to a junior college. Even with Wesleyan’s help, he had too much ground to make up grades-wise. That made me a little sad because if he did qualify, he would be rated a five-star recruit. When you considered that there were currently only thirty-five in our class nationwide, having two from our state would have been a huge deal. Over the last five years, our state had only produced three five-star recruits. Being a five-star put you in the top 0.1% of all recruits.
Four-star comprised the next four hundred; that was only 1.3%. Wolf and Ty fit that category. Three-star were the next fourteen hundred or 4.7% of all recruits. This was where Tim landed in the pecking order. It was also where Mike was listed on the recruiting sites, despite his inflated numbers because of Damion. No, I wasn’t bitter. I would have to check to see if it were possible to catch him in passing yardage during the State Championship game.
The subject changed from football to Mac’s horse.
“The little devil. She thought her Unca David would fix it, did she?” Greg asked with a hint of irritation in his voice.
“I didn’t say I would do anything,” I assured him. “If it’s money …”
“No. Zoe’s parents don’t want to have the horses if she’s not around. They have enough on their hands with the farm. Roc will be leaving in a couple of years as well. They decided they should start looking for new homes for the horses. A neighbor knows Bolt and has offered to buy him at a fair price. Zoe clearly didn’t want to sell him, but she knows them, and they would take good care of Bolt. I couldn’t blame her.”
“And you don’t want to buy him because of the upkeep,” I finished.
“That, and I would have no idea what to do. It’s not like we could just take Bolt to Grandma’s farm and have her take care of the horse. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”
I just nodded my agreement. Greg could tell it bothered me that Mac wouldn’t get to ride anymore. I knew that she and Greg had used riding as daddy-daughter time.
“What you could do is give her riding lessons for a Christmas gift,” Greg suggested.
“Isn’t she too young?” I asked.
“Zoe knows someone local who teaches young children to ride on ponies. She’s probably too young, but Zoe said she would talk to them and see if they would make an exception. I guess it’s mainly her riding the pony while they lead it around. She’d love to be able to ride alone.”
“I’ll talk to Zoe and get the information. If you have any other ideas for Christmas gifts, let me know. Just remember, I want to be the cool unca.”
“No worries. My kids think Phil’s a goof. He’ll never be the cool uncle,” Greg said.
I smiled.
“We should break him in on watching the little ones,” I suggested.
“Who would watch him?”
“Good point,” I admitted.
