Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 85453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Chapter 28
McKayla
My mother’s eyes shoot to mine when I enter the kitchen to help her prep platters for the harvest dance tonight. She’s been eyeing me differently today like she knows something about me has changed. She won’t call me out on it because she isn’t one of those horrid in-your-face mothers. She lets her children flourish without hundreds of restraints, easily done since we live in the middle of whoop-whoop.
“What was that game you were playing out there?” She nudges her head to a patch of concrete at the front of the detached garage Cash has named the halfcourt. “I’m not sure I’ve seen a game like that before.”
A smile stretches across my face. “It’s how we study.”
Her tone is as high as her brow when she asks, “You study by pegging balls at Cash’s head?” She can barely conceal her chuckle when she adds, “So why are we sending you to a school? Roddy would have happily helped you study.”
I fetch one of the beans off the platter and playfully throw it at her head before plopping my backside onto the kitchen counter.
Bad move. Even though Cash was super attentive and gentle after our romp in the bunkhouse, I am aching like I ran a marathon. You must use every muscle in your body when you orgasm, otherwise what excuse do I have for my spasming muscles?
Spotting my grimace, my mother asks, “Are you okay?”
I nod, confident I’ve never been better. “During our first tutoring session, Cash struggled with basic equations. He knew the answer but struggled to show evidence as to how that answer came about.” A smile creeps across my face. “Then one day the library was booked out, so we went to the court.”
“Basketball?”
I nudge her with my knee. “What gave it away?”
She smiles like a proud mother before gesturing for me to continue with my story.
I do after only the quickest fan of my face to cool the heat on my cheeks. “Cash is a different man on the court. He’s always cocky.” I grin at my mother’s underhanded mumble. “But there’s something about the stadium that frees his neurosis. The answers come to him quicker, and he learns without realizing he is.”
My mouth gapes when she asks, “So he performs for tricks?” After filling the gap with a sauteed bean, she says, “What? That’s the only way your father operates.” She moves to the refrigerator to gather up the platters she made earlier. “Where do you think your philosophies come from?” Since she isn’t technically asking a question, she continues talking. “They didn’t come from me.”
She isn’t rubbing my father’s ego. She is being honest. We weren’t homeschooled by my mother. She is a beautiful woman with a massive heart, but at times, I’ve often accused her of having a peanut-size brain. My father taught me everything I know. He is a genius wrapped up in distorted packaging.
We’re very much alike.
“Although I love the concept and agree his dynamic changed the instant you handed him a basketball.” She peers lovingly at Cash and Benji playing hoops on the old ring my father installed when Roddy entered the world four inches longer than standard newborns before finalizing her reply, “But if Cash can’t put the theories into practice during an exam, he will struggle to get a passing grade.”
I wish she was wrong. Regretfully, she isn’t.
I’ve yet to find a way to get Cash to put my practice to paper yet.
Well, except that one time.
“It’s weird,” I admit, my brows pulled together. “Because yesterday at the bunkhouse when we were studying…” I add on the last part purely for me. Cash sullied me in a way I can’t wait to recreate. However, I don’t want my parents to know that. “I hit him with the hardest equations in the book, and he didn’t falter. But today, when I went back to the practice questions Professor Ren sent over, he struggled.”
While covering the platters with Saran Wrap, my mother ponders for a moment. I assume she’s realized the reason for my pause earlier but am proven wrong when she heads for the makeshift desk at the side of the kitchen. “Your father has been trialing a new study program for Benji. It might help Cash.”
The papers she thrusts my way are complicated but exciting at the same time. “This is a college grade assessment.”
“I know.” My mother waggles her brows, the pride on her face doubling. “But hand Benji a standard middle-school equation, and he will struggle for hours before eventually giving up.”
I stare at her, lost and confused as to how Benji can ace tests for people years older than him but not comprehend math equations for his own grade.
She relieves my confusion two seconds later. “Geniuses don’t see the world like everyone else. There are many Americans with IQs in excess of 400 who fail basic mathematics.” She shrugs like what she says doesn’t hit me like a ton of bricks. “But give them a complex equation no one can solve, and they’ll most likely solve it. Perhaps that’s Cash’s issue. Maybe the puzzles are too simple, and he needs something more challenging.” I realize she’s noticed the change in me when she squeezes my hand and mutters, “Maybe he needs someone like you to push his limits.”