Make It Count by Megan Erickson Page A

you want to come to my place when you’re finished? I’ll be around all night.”
    Red flags flashed in front of his eyes but he decided at that moment to be color-blind. “Sure.”
    “Great, see you then!” she turned around, light brown hair swirling around her shoulders, and walked back to her table.
    His mom turned to him, her eyes sparkling. “She’s adorable.”
    Alec groaned. “I know. Fuck me.”
    “Stop swearing.”
    Alec sighed.
    “So, the real reason I came is because the victim coordinator from the district attorney’s office contacted me.” She fidgeted and took a deep breath. “Samuel MacEnroe is up for parole.”
    Alec swore his blood leaked out through his pores and was replaced by warm, fuzzy cotton. Because he didn’t think his heart was beating his blood through his veins.
    He hadn’t heard that name for probably ten years. They didn’t talk about him. They didn’t talk about that cool February day when Sargent Michael Stone never came home. They didn’t talk about how they hated Sam MacEnroe with every breath.
    He opened his mouth but the words stuck in his throat. Could you talk without blood? He took a sip of his drink and then cleared his throat. “Okay, so . . .”
    His mother shifted in her chair, the cracked pleather squeaking under her weight. “The coordinator asked if we wanted to write a letter.”
    “A letter?”
    “To protest his parole.”
    Alec did the quick math in his head. MacEnroe would be in his late sixties by now. He’d been in and out of prison his whole life, and had just served a lengthy fifteen-year sentence for ruining Alec’s family.
    “I don’t . . . Do you want to?”
    His mom rolled her lips between her teeth. When she released them, Alec watched the blood rush back to the abused area. “I know this is a lot to ask, but I’m leaving it up to you.”
    “Mom—”
    She turned away from him, and did that teeth-clench thing she always did when she was trying not to cry. He had to fight to keep his own eyes from blurring.
    She spoke without looking at him. “He was the love of my life and I . . .”
    Her voice trailed off and Alec leaned across the table to grab her trembling hand. “It’s okay, Mom. It’s okay.”
    She shook her head.
    “I’ll think about it, all right? I don’t know what I want to do.”
    She nodded tightly and then took her hand from his to dig into her purse. She slid a business card across the table. “Here is the victim coordinator’s information from the DA’s office. You can speak to her directly, if you want.”
    He didn’t even look at the card, just stuffed it in his pocket. He’d deal with it later. “Thanks, Mom.”
    She turned back to him now, so he could see the tears glistening on her cheeks. “If I didn’t have you—”
    “Yeah, well, you do have me, Mom. None of that, okay?”
    A tear dripped off her smiling lips when she nodded.
    “All right, now let’s eat some pie.”

 
    Chapter Eleven
    K AT SAT CROS S-LEGGED on her bed in a tank top and sleep shorts, her notes in front of her on the comforter. Alec spun lazily on her computer chair, his eyes drifting around her room, as if avoiding landing anywhere on her person. It gave her uninterrupted Alec-admiring time, when she was supposed to be studying her notes so he could quiz her.
    Alec had stripped down to a T-shirt because of the wacky heat in her campus suite, his Converse-clad feet propped up on her desk. He had a hole in his jeans and she kept staring at it, wanting to take one of those taunting white threads and pull until the whole thing unraveled in a denim pile on her floor.
    “Your mom is cute,” she blurted. After meeting his mom that morning, she could see where Alec got his cheekbones, eyes and mouth.
    Alec finally turned his attention on her. “Thanks, she’s great.”
    “Yeah? She seems like it. So, you said something before about it being only you and your mom growing up?”
    Alec’s lips shifted and his jaw worked, as if