It didn’t matter why he was here. He had been sentenced to serve his public service here with these kids and I wasn’t going to let his flirty, cocky personality knock me off track.
9
Crawford
As I walked out of the school and onto the field where the pack of boys was huddled, fighting over the ball, I paused to call Savannah. She had to get me out of this.
I pressed the phone to my ear as if that would make her answer faster. “Damn it, Savi,” I muttered. Where in the hell was she? She knew I had been sentenced to this shit. She should be here for me.
She answered before I was dumped into her voicemail.
“Aren’t you supposed to be saving the world’s children?” she mocked.
“Savi, look, you have to do something. I want out of this.”
“Not happening. You got in a bar fight. This is your only chance of redemption. So suck it up and do the time.”
I looked out on the field. How in the hell was this supposed to work?
“I’m one week away from playoffs. I don’t have time for this shit. You know it. I know it. What’s more important?” I asked, appealing to the sports side of her. If there was anything I knew about that woman it was that she loved to represent a champion.
I heard her groan. “Hawk, you either get your ass at that center every day and work with those kids or you heard the judge—he’s going to release the court statements and make your case public.”
“It’s already public.”
“You know what I mean. He’ll put you in jail. At least this way it’s not officially a sentence. You are volunteering. And the league is ok with this situation if you volunteer. Volunteer work makes you redeemable in their eyes.”
I gritted my teeth. “I’m not fucking volunteering. It’s blackmail.”
“Damn it, Hawk. I don’t have time to waste on a guy who wants to sink his career. The judge threw you a life raft. Take it and work with the kids.”
“You know it’s bullshit, Savi.”
“Doesn’t matter what I think. If I’m going to continue to represent you I need to know you’re going to volunteer there every day. You have to put the hours in there if you want them on the field. Can I trust you?”
“Does anyone care I was defending a woman? She was being attacked.”
“One of your regular whores?” she asked.
I felt the anger sweep through me again. Mia was anything but a whore. I knew she didn’t fit in at the bar. The fact that she was now the one supervising my time at the center only cemented what I knew in my gut—she was a good girl. A good girl I wanted to hold and kiss. I wasn’t done exploring her body. I wasn’t done tasting her. I needed more.
But this situation was fucked up. The way she looked at me five minutes ago, I was going to be lucky if she let me within ten feet of her. At the bar, she was a different person.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Get your hours in. Go to practice. Call me tomorrow. Ok?”
Savannah was such a hard ass. “Fine.”
I hung up and stuffed the phone in my back pocket. I couldn’t help but feel as if I had zero people in my corner. No one thought Crawford Hawkins could do this.
I shouldn’t even be here. I should be on the field practicing with the Sharks, but because some drunken asshole decided it was ok to put his hands on Mia’s ass, after being told time and time again to stop, I had to save her. It damn sure didn’t look like anyone else planned on helping her out.
Everything would have been fine still, if the dumbass would have just paid his tab and left the bar, but no. He had to get riled up and take a swing at me.
He couldn’t walk away.
He couldn’t take no for an answer.
Even after I knocked him back the first time with an uppercut to the jaw, he still kept coming back for more. I just wanted to relax and enjoy a night out with my team. Drink a few beers. Score a little action.
The chair flying through the air was the final straw for me. Up until that point I was trying to take it easy on the drunk. I figured he’d had a bad day and needed to blow off steam, but you don’t strike a man when his back is turned and you damn sure don’t do it with an inanimate object. Luckily Jason, my center, was there to shove me out of the way and snatched hold of the chair before he hit someone else with it swinging it wildly through the air.
When I finished laying into him that time, he didn’t get back up. Joe pulled me to my feet as the police filled the building, blue and red lights ricocheting across every surface.
I was in handcuffs and thrown in the back of a squad car before you could even say who did it. Not that I blamed them much. I was the only one standing with blood dripping down my arms and fingers, pooling on the ground at my feet where the biker lay motionless.
It wasn’t the first time I had blacked out when fighting. I liked to think of it as my escape mechanism. The one tool that had kept me alive over the years when I had no one to protect me.
I was alone.
Left to fend for myself with nothing but my mouth and my own two fists.
I shook my head and kept walking toward the kids.
What the fuck was I doing here?
The kids were setting up the kickstand at what I assumed was the fifty-yard line. It was hard to tell since there weren’t any markings anywhere. I stood back, watching as they bossed each other around.
Someone needed to get out here and cut this damn grass and at least set up markers along the field. I didn’t know how to teach kids in these conditions.
Eventually, they started their version of football. I saw the kid from earlier walk away and hang on the fence. He was the one I had told to get lost. The one that Mia had been protective about. The one that had sent her over the edge. This kid meant a lot to her.
I sauntered over to him. He had dropped to the ground and was picking through weeds.
“Hey, do you know how to throw the ball?” I asked.
He didn’t answer me.
I took a knee in front of him. “Listen, about earlier … I didn’t mean to be a dick.”
His eyes popped up. “Miss Bristow says we can’t say that word.”
“Oh, right.” I rubbed the back of my head. “Sorry I was a jerk. That better?”
He nodded.
“Looks like they already have a game started over there. Want to try a few passes with me?” I offered.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I guess so.”
I jogged over to the mesh bag full of peeling leather soccer and footballs. I grabbed the one that was the least banged up and handed it to Cameron.
“I’ll run long and you throw it. Just put your whole body into it. Got it?”
He looked at the ball in his hands as if I had handed him a bag of candy. I’d seen that look before.
I took off in the opposite direction. It had been a long time since I had been on this end of a throw. I waited while the boy positioned his fingers on the laces. His chewed his tongue, concentrating on what his move was going to be.
“I’m open, Cameron,” I called.
He stepped back and then propelled the ball forward. It spun perfectly, landing against my chest. I gripped it tightly with my swollen fingers and then sent it flying back through the air to him. Kid had one hell of a fucking arm on him.
I gripped the ball and sent it soaring toward him. He caught it effortlessly with a gigantic grin on his face and jogged to my side. I felt like I had apologized and he accepted it in the lost language of men. But to appease the woman inside and to make sure my ass didn’t end up in jail tonight, I figured I better make it official.
“Good catch, man.”
“Thank you.”
“Everything good between us?”
“Yeah. Definitely,” he replied, kicking up the dry grass at the field's edge.
“Sweet. Go long.”
I backed up a few paces as he darted down the field as fast as he could. After about ten yards he glanced back at
me and juked to the left. I sent the ball flying straight to him.
Some kids have to work every day on a certain gift that they want to pursue later in life. They strive every day to make it better, to become stronger, faster, greater.
And then you have some that are born with all the talent they will ever need or want already inside of them. All they need is a little guidance and someone to believe in them.
This kid was born with talent. Pure talent.
Now he needed guidance and someone to believe in him.
10
Mia
I watched from the window in my classroom as Cameron rolled across the ground after being tackled once again by Crawford. I watched as he pointed and directed each kid, yelling over the loud excited noises that come with coaching boys.
He was a natural with them.
Which I supposed made sense. He played professional ball after all, but sometimes you can play a certain sport and know everything there is to know about it and still not be able to teach it to a soul.
Or you could be like my dad and love the sport, but have no athletic ability. I laughed to myself.
Daddy loved football since he was a little boy, no older than three or four. He liked to joke and said there was a crossfire somewhere in his brain between the stage of knowing what to do and making his body actually do it.
It didn’t change his love of the game, though. He watched it religiously every single time the Sharks had a game. If the Sharks were home, then he was at the stadium, cheering them on. If they were away, then he had the grill fired up and the television blared pregame to postgame.
In a way, football had always been a part of my life too. Without my mom, it was how Daddy and I spent our time together. I bet that drunk driver didn’t think about that when he got behind the wheel. He didn’t realize how he would change my life. My dad’s. End my mom’s. My fingers tingled with the anger. I stopped to take three long breaths.
She had been gone twenty years. My dad did the best he could. He was an awesome dad. An amazing dad. A dad who played both parenting roles and was one of the best judges in DC. But it didn’t make the pain hurt less. It didn’t make the memories fade. I missed her.
I pulled myself out of my funk when I noticed two of the kids on the field shoving each other over God knows what. I rushed through the main center and down the hall to the back door. When I flung it open, I was surprised to find that Crawford had already handled the situation. Both boys were running a lap around the field, each one holding onto opposite ends of the football.
I walked across the field, careful not to let my heels sink into the grass, and joined the kids as they observed the two boys jogging inside the perimeter of the fence.
“What is this?” I asked. I didn’t want him to know that I saw the fight, or that I already guessed at the meaning of his exercise.
“Something an old coach of mine used to make me do whenever I fought on the field,” he answered. “When we are here on this grass, we are our own family, we look out for one another. We don’t fight. If we have a problem, we talk it out.”
“I see. Did those two forget how to talk?” I prodded.
“Temporarily. But after a lap holding the ball, they should remember. That or they will be too exhausted to even care what they were fighting about to begin with.”
I tried to hide my smile. “And what happens if they drop the ball?”
“They start over. Like I said, they won’t be worried about fighting when they’re done.”
“Ahh. Great strategy.” I looked up at Hawk. His eyes followed the boys. “I guess you don’t need me, then?”
He shook his head. “I’ve got this covered.”
“Ok.” I turned to leave.
When I got back to the rear door of the building, I heard the other kids on the field start to cheer the two running on.
“Come on, guys, you can do it. Just a little further.”
“You got this.”
“Woohooo!”
I grinned. This was the first time in almost four years working at the school that I could remember every single child on the field working together toward one goal.
It was enlightening and heartwarming. I wished I could capture it and save it forever. I realized I could. I ran to my office, grabbed my cell phone, and raced back to the rear exit. I pressed record as the boys passed the field goal posts. The rest of the team jumped and cheered for them. They had less than twenty yards left to go. I followed them all the way, capturing each and every moment until the very end. When I panned out, I caught Crawford Hawkins staring directly at me with a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. His eyes locked onto mine. I could feel the heat in his gaze from across the field.
I wanted to run from him. I wanted to turn and shut the door behind me, locking it soundly afterward. But I couldn’t move. I was held immobile by his tranquilizing stare. Chills broke out along the flesh of my arms, traveling upward to my chest. My nipples hardened and I shivered.
I fucking shivered from the top of my head to the bottoms of my feet.
One look.
That was all it took, and I knew that if I let that man get his hands on me again I would never be the same.
So why did I have to fight every single muscle in my body to get it to turn and walk inside instead of back across the field to his side?
11
Crawford
After a week of volunteering at the center, I started to realize the impact I had on the kids. It was kicking my ass splitting up my time between the Sharks and the kids, but I had a sudden need for both.
Mia hadn’t made things any easier. Every time I saw her all I could think about was the night at the back of Catch. But she wouldn’t let me get close to her.
A bell rang in the distance and at least two dozen kids started to rush the field. I watched as Cameron melted into the background, not wanting to be a part of the group.
For some reason, it bothered me. I’d observed it for days. They were like a pack of dogs, picking on the puppy. If I had a few minutes alone with Cameron, he wasn’t that shy. I’d gotten to know the kid. But as soon as the older kids showed up, he retreated faster than a guy on special teams trying to dodge a tackle.
One of the older kids picked up the discarded football and the children started to sort teams. I strolled over to Cameron and waited for him to make eye contact with me.
“Why are you not over there playing?” I asked him.
“They don’t like it when I play.” His voice was quiet. I wanted to wipe the smudge of dirt from his cheek but I stuffed my hands in my pockets. I knew he had a no-contact policy.
“Why not?”
“Because they said only kids with families should play. No one is going to come see me play so there is no point.”
“The little shits said that?”
Truth was, I didn’t know Cameron’s story. Not all of it, anyway. But I wasn’t always the star quarterback. I didn’t always play in the AFA. I had a past. One I wasn’t proud of. Only that I had survived it.
Cameron’s eyes widened.
“Sorry. Language.” I shrugged. “Don’t tell Miss Bristow.”
He smiled lightly.
“Let’s go. If you want to play, you’re getting in that game.” I almost slung my arm around his shoulder.
“No it’s ok, really. I don’t mind not playing.”
“Well, I only play with the best so unless you come, I’m not playing.” I smirked. All week, I had been tossing with him. I’d never seen so much natural talent.
“Really? You think I’m good?”
“Damn straight kid, now let’s go.”
He ran ahead of me. Before I even reached the huddle, I already heard the kids telling him they didn’t want him there. That he didn’t need to play. I listened, wanting to hear every word. Every second that passed made my blood run hotter.
I didn’t get how little kids could be so mean and hateful to each other. What the hell happen
ed to playing together and having a good time? Why did they give two damns about who had what or who was who? These little fuckers had no idea how good they had it. It pissed me off even more.
“No one wants you, Cameron. Even your family didn’t want you. You can’t even find a new family to want you. You suck. Go away.”
I saw the poor little guy trying his best to be strong and stay there. He was doing what I asked him to do. It filled me with pride. I wanted to wrap him up in a tight hug and let him know that he had someone in his corner.
There was a ringleader in gangs. There always was. I walked to the center of their circle. I turned my head to the left and the right as if I was searching the crowd for someone and then I pointed to the oldest kid. I could see Cameron out of the corner of my eye. His shoulders dropped and his whole body looked like the world was sitting on top of them. No eight-year-old deserved that.
“What’s your name?”
There was fear in the kid’s face. “J-Jamie.” He swallowed hard. Suddenly the ring leader wasn’t the badass he thought he was.
“Well, Jamie. We’ve known each other how long?”
True, I hadn’t memorized their names. The only one I really kept an eye on was Cameron.
“A week, sir.”
I nodded. “Yeah. A week. Thought we could scrimmage today.”
I heard them whisper around me.
“Ok.” Jamie wasn’t entirely sure where I was going with this.
“And I get to choose the team captains. You know what the Sharks expect out of their QB?”
The kids around me shook their heads.
“They want some damn loyalty.” I’d apologize for the cursing later. “They want someone they can count on. A man who will have their back on game day. Not some dick, talking shit about them.”
I glared at each and every one of them.
I flicked my hand, beckoning Cameron to come stand next to me. He was slow to push through the crowd. I handed him the ball and then looked out at the rest of kids watching.
My Playboy Fiance Page 51
