The Duet Read Online Free

heads on the field, bounced off the building, then off some poor unsuspecting girl’s head, before rolling to a stop between left field and short stop.
    I was already rounding third by then.
    My feet were light and I could smell victory. I knew that not only would I get to play kickball every single day from that day on, the kids would also be talking about this moment forever. It would be the stuff of legends.
    I was maybe five steps away from home plate, when my legs flew out from under me and I landed with a whoosh in the dirt, face first. I saw the red rubber ball and the hands that held it come down toward my shoulder, and I opened one eye to see the sand covered plate just inches from my head.
    That fat Stanley had tripped me. He cheated and I was hopping mad.
    “You’re out!” he screamed. “Now go play with dolls and wear pink or whatever you stupid vaginas do. This game is not for you.”
    He turned his back to me. I rose to my hands and knees, spitting out dirt and plotting whether to take him out at the knees or go at him from the side and get in a good gut shot. But before I could stand up, Stanley was tackled to the ground by Cooper. I was so amazed, I fell back and sat down hard on my butt.
    “Get off me, Cooper, you jerk!”
    “You cheated,” Cooper said in a much calmer voice than his opponent. He was sitting on top of Stanley now.
    Stanley was flailing his arms and crying, though Cooper hadn’t really laid a hand on him, other than knocking him over. “I did not! She’s out, fair and square. And the deal was she had to get a home run to be on my team.”
    “Fine,” said Cooper, smacking Stanley on the head as he stood up. “She can be on my team then.”
    And that was that. From that moment forward, Cooper and I were inseparable. And we never lost a kickball game in all the years that followed.
    With Cooper, came his big wonderful family, and honestly, I don’t know how I would have survived without them. My mother worked three jobs to afford the rent on the house we lived in; but despite her efforts to give me a better life, I would have rather lived in our old dingy cheap apartment and spent time with her, than in that fancy ranch house she had to work so hard for. She was never around, so the O’Donnell’s took me in.
    I had never missed a Sunday dinner in all the years I lived there as a child, and I hadn’t missed one since I’d been back. The rule was, if you were within an hour of the house, you showed up. But I was pretty sure Cooper was wishing he was very far away right about now.
    Mr. O’Donnell sat stoically at the head of the table. Occasionally I caught him sending tentative glances at his wife, followed by a murderous gaze toward Cooper. He was likely planning to give a stern speech about Cooper and Jay’s latest brush with the law, but clearly Cooper was too hung-over to hear a word of it.
    I tamped down my worry over Cooper and my discomfort around Jay, and dug in to my heaping plate. Sunday was the only day I ever ate well, and it would be a shame to let all that food go to waste.
    I was piling on seconds of mashed potatoes and the most delicious sausages ever to grace any Sunday table, and readjusting my waistband on my skirt, when the chatter at the table finally began to pick up.
    “I’m just saying, you should start building a portfolio. It’s never too early,” Shane Jr. was saying to Tommy. He worked in some kind of bank or investment firm – not the one I’d recently been escorted from – and he worked all the time. Tommy, his own mouth full of food, just rolled his eyes. He was not exactly the plan-ahead type. His business was selling ads in an online fitness magazine. He travelled a lot and worked strange hours. He was permanently in a state of jet lag.
    “Dad, has Cooper lawyered up yet?” Michelle asked Mr. O’Donnell. “Because I work with this guy who said…”
    “He doesn’t need a lawyer, Michelle. The charges are minor and whatever the