13.

"Yo, Turner!"

Jonah greeted me with an enthusiastic wave as I walked into the theatre club's rehearsal space, making the five other girls and guys still present in the room also turn to me.

By calling me 'Turner' he immediately set the trend. I guessed I'd have to get used to responding to my surname both with the theatre kids and with the football guys.

"Turner?" a black-haired guy with dark, phoenix eyes lounging in the burgundy chair repeated. "Coach Turner's son? Heard you sucked at football, though."

"And I heard y'all sucked at paintin' your sets," I shot back jokingly. "Which is why I'm here."

"Ooh," one of the other theatre kids exclaimed, and Jonah and a bunch of others started laughing.

"I can see why people like you," Jonah told me, getting to his feet. He gestured me to follow him. "Come on, I'll take you to our storage. Corey and Becky already brought your work here last Sunday."

"Bye, Turner!" One of the girls called after me.

I vaguely smiled at her over my shoulder, still preoccupied with what Jonah said. People liked me. Was he referring to Atticus, too, or was I simply looking too hard hints?  Probably the latter. My brain made connections where it wanted to see them. Not where they were logical.

"What kind of prop adaptation were you thinkin' about anyway?" I asked, following Jonah down the hallway with my hands in my pockets.

"Well you see..." Jonah said, opening twin doors that lead to a storage space with a sheepish smile. "Our next project will kind of have nothing to do with animals I'm afraid."

"So, a complete redo basically," I concluded. "A whole new design and lots of work."

Jonah clapped his hands together in a pleading gesture. "Yes, but you'd get credited on the website, and you'd get free tickets to every school play, and flowers on stage after every show, as long as you attend Pinewood if you do it?"

I pretended to be thinking it over for a moment. "Fine," I finally replied. "It sounds like fun. I've never designed stage props before."

Jonah sighed exaggeratedly in relief. "Great! Of course, you wouldn't be working alone. We have many other techies. We could just use someone with more experience in painting, aka you. Would you like to meet some of them? I can introduce you."

"Sounds like fun," I said, earnestly meaning it. Unfortunately, a glance at my watch said no to socialising. "I have to go, though. I'm goin' to the football match."

"Right. You have to cheer on your dad's team I suppose... and your stepbrother, Atticus."

Jonah was watching my reaction very closely. Given that I knew what I knew about Atticus made it extremely hard to act natural. My laugh sounded like the fake work- laugh I'd heard Mom use around clients she'd later vent about when we got home.

"It's obligatory for me to visit their matches," I said. "Don't think I'll get out of it until my mom arrives. She's still looking for houses."

At this rate, she'd have to live at a hotel for a while before she'd find anything that matched her high expectations.

Jonah prodded my ribs with his elbow and grinned widely. "Don't act like it's a punishment now. You don't enjoy watching all those fine jocks? Not your type?"

He looked way too much into my replies again, and it felt a lot like fishing for answers. Maybe Jonah thought he was being subtle. Maybe I wouldn't have noticed his prying, or thought he was  prying, if I hadn't seen the chat. I decided to go with honesty anyway.

"I don't mind the view," I casually remarked.

Jonah's grin widened, and I just wondered if he was going to report back to 'Atty' tonight what I'd said. In my mind, I saw him behind his laptop, legs like a pretzel and cackling like a Disney villain while he egged Atticus on.

I  mentally shook the image off. "Are you goin' to the game, too?"

"Nah." Jonah casually strolled over to the door of the storage space, and I followed him. After we were both out, he locked the door with a smile still playing on his lips. "Varsity jocks are not my type, and football is not my sport. But, enjoy the game and the view, Kade. Talk to you later."

Jonah whistled a tune that sounded vaguely familiar, probably some musical tune, as he walked away from me. He constantly left me feeling like I'd just been thoroughly trolled and played.

With a sigh, I also turned and headed to the football fields.

Dad and Chiara stood on the field when I arrived, watching Atticus, Corey, and the other football guys doing their warmup.

The stands were only half-filled given it was early, but Dad still gave me the stink-eye when I approached him and Chiara.

"You're late," he snapped when I got into earshot. "The game will start in ten. I don't have time to give you instructions now."

Oops, right, I was supposed to observe carefully tonight, and Dad had mentioned wanting to give me pointers on what to pay attention to during the game. How to watch the game. I was kind of glad I was late, because, well, too much. Just, too much. Football overload. I was an amateur player and certainly didn't need the varsity treatment from Dad.

"Sorry, Dad," I said, deliberately not promising to be more on time in the future.

Dad's shoulders rose and fall as he sighed. "Pay attention to the Defensive Ends. That's the position you're likely goin' to take in your team."

"Yes, Dad," I hastily replied before he could force more quick instructions on me. "Let's find some seats Chiara, before all the good ones are gone."

Thankfully, Chiara agreed with a bright smile, and we took a seat somewhere near the centre of the stands.

For some people being alone with your stepmother at a football game would be awkward, but nothing was further from the truth for Chiara and I. We bought hot-dogs, confessed to each other we didn't understand much of the game, but cheered with the rest of the crowd whenever Pinewood scored.

They won by what I believe was a big amount judging from the excitement, which also really helped set the mood.

Chiara ran down to hug Atticus after the game, and even if she was way smaller than he was, she still somehow engulfed him rather than the other way around.

"Well done, well done!" she exclaimed, pressing two kisses to Atticus' cheeks.

Even Dad looked a bit happier than usual. His lips were at a 10 degrees slant, rather than -10 like usual. Seemed like winning football games could make us a happy family.

A fact more people picked up on.

"Uhm, excuse me?" a timid, male voice sounded behind Atticus. Atticus literally had to take a step to the side in order for me to even see the guy. It wasn't because he was small either. It was just that Atticus was huge in his football attire.

The guy had brown, very protruding eyes, and a camera hanging around his neck. "I-I'm Landon, a reporter for our school newspaper," he said, stuttering with both Dad's and Atticus' harsh gaze on him.

"What can we do for you, Landon?" I asked, deciding to try and put poor Landon out of his misery.

"I, uh, I'm writing an article about Pinewood's victory tonight," Landon said, gratefully focusing his attention to me. "I thought I'd be nice to get a picture of the coach's family f-for in the article. Could I take your picture?"

Dad wasn't entirely in favour. Chiara was. This meant the picture was taken.

It ended up on the school website with a caption: Coach Turner, his wife and two sons, and a brief article covering Pinewood's spectacular victory during the first football game of the season.

I read through the article while laying on my bed, but my eyes kept jumping to the caption. Coach Turner, his wife and his two sons. I cringed. We didn't look alike, Atticus and I. Chiara was originally from Southern Italy. She and Atticus were brown, Mediterranean. I didn't know where my ancestors originally came from. Germany, I believed. With some English people in the mix who were responsible for my surname.

The way the article stated things though, it almost made it sound like—

There was a knock on my door.

"Yeah?" I asked, pushing myself upright in my bed.

Much to my surprise, Atticus was standing in my door opening. This was the first time he'd approached me. Ever. It completely threw me off, and filled me with an incessant need to fill the silence.

"Hey, did you see that article on the school website?" I blurted. Oh my God stop talking.

Atticus blinked, a crease forming between his eyebrows. That's the confused face he made when I said something weird, or when he couldn't figure out why I said what I said.

"I haven't," he replied.

Hey, guess what? They depicted us as actual brothers, and phrased the caption like that, too. Silly, right.

I wisely didn't speak my mind. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to care about that. I wasn't even completely sure if that chat message had been about me.

I cleared my throat. "I mean, what's up?"

The crease between Atticus' eyebrows deepened, but he didn't pursue the topic website article further. "I'm going to the gym. You coming?"

"Oh, yeah! Of course." I jumped off my bed. "Let me quickly grab my stuff. Be right down."

I ended up staring at the website picture for a few moments longer, before packing my stuff, an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach.

What was my own caption for underneath that image? I still hesitated between the one that was already there, and 'if you decide to pursue this, and it was about you, let's explain a thousand times to people we're not related.'