Page 235 of The Locker Room

The Locker Room 203

grown out into his eyes, and he needed a good pore minimizer or

something, because exhaustion and worry had left his face looking saggy

and old. “I really, really hate you.”

Penny grabbed his hand as she negotiated the Denver traffic. She

was so confident driving, he thought miserably. Chris was too. He was

going to be in charge of the driving now, when they didn"t have Tim do

it. He sucked. He went too slow, went too fast, got confused at

intersections. Oh my God. He was going to have to adopt Tim so they

could go anywhere outside of Folsom.

“Stop it,” Penny said softly. “I was teasing. I can see your head

gears getting all stuck. You"re thinking you don"t look good enough,

you"re not good enough to take care of him, to do what you need to do.

You"re thinking like that kid who couldn"t be a grown-up when he was

fifteen. You"re going to do fine, and I think he pulled through all that

surgery just for you, so just… just calm down. You"ve got a playoff in

two days; now stop living up in your head like that. Tell me to piss off or

something, but don"t do that to yourself.”

“You"ve got all this confidence,” Xander grumbled, almost to

himself. “Where do the two of you get all this confidence? The only

place I know what I"m doing is when I"m on the court.”

“I can"t answer that,” Penny told him, turning into the hospital

parking lot. “Or I can, but I think that"s something you need to hear from

my brother. I know you held us all together in the last four days—and I

don"t know why you can"t see it. Now, here. Get out and tell Mandy and

my folks to come down. I"m going to take them home for a while, and

you get him all to yourself.”

“Mandy and your folks? Which one of them are you putting on the

roof?” he asked, unfolding himself from the front seat.

Penny grimaced at him. “Mandy—but we"re putting her stick-