Page 3

MASON

“We’re late. I’m?—”

“Sorry. It’s okay, Nyla. You don’t have to keep apologising for life getting in the road of anything. We’re not going anywhere.” I high fived Brady and smiled at his mum.

“You remembered.” She twisted her apron at her waist. “We were short staffed, and I don’t make a habit of being late.” The twisting increased.

I kept the frown off my face, fixating on hers by some miracle, but only just.

Who the hell ever hurt her to make her react that way overturning up ten minutes late to football practice just flew to the top of my shit list.

“Hey.” I rubbed my knuckles across her upper arm, the brief contact freezing her in place.

But her twisting stopped and her hands relaxed, if only for a second.

“Why don’t you head up into the stands for a bit? It’s shadier there and the afternoon will get pretty hot if you’re staying.”

Nyla watched me for a moment.

Her mouth opened like she might say something else, then the moment passed.

My hand dropped. She nodded, backing up, and headed to the seating area I had gestured to before.

Without a good reason to keep her engaged, I turned to the kids I was supposed to be focused on for this session.

“Alright.” I jogged the last few paces, noting the gaggle of kids knotted together, and where Brady stood off to one side.

“Hey, you wanna help me put these out?” I tossed a stack of cones his way.

He caught them, looking surprised and grateful in one.

“Uh, sure, Mace.”

Feeling like a Jedi with a purple lightsabre, I pointed out where I needed everything to go and directed the other kids into a few line drills and warm up stretches.

Brady joined in as soon as he was done setting out the cones for me.

“Let’s start out with a circuit…”

I launched into the training program I’d spent the better part of a month working on to make sure it was both age and skill appropriate for the kids who had signed up, watching them work through the quick thirty to forty second rotations that tested their hand-eye coordination, ball skills, reflexes and endurance.

After their first few sessions, their skills had levelled up and I adjusted each kid into groups accordingly.

I wasn’t surprised when Brady was my star player of the morning, but he was.

“You’re doing great, mate.” I passed him the ball.

“Keep your passes tight, watch where the player is running, where he's going to be, alright? You’ve got this.”

“Even if they’re a lot bigger than me?” His brow furrowed.

I grinned. “Yeah, but you’re faster.”

He let out a whoop and darted around the much bigger kid pelting at him to snatch the ball out of the air and kept on running, well past the try line.

I cupped my hands around my mouth to holler down the field. “Don’t forget to put it down or you don’t score!” That hadn’t been the point of the drill, but it didn't matter. They were having fun and Brady was suddenly the most popular kid on the pitch.

The kids were panting and sweating halfway into the session, but we'd all learned a lot about each other. Me, where everyone was at just by watching them, and them that I wouldn’t be the kind of coach, even for the short term, who they could just push over and spend the next few weeks twiddling their thumbs in the grass or slouching off.

I loved this game, and if I couldn't get some of them to love it along with me by the end of the clinic, then I wasn’t doing this part right.

“Alright, grab some water.

You’ve earned the break.

”

I called a timeout on their tenth time around the circuit before we hit some more serious skills.

Not that the upskill would be all that serious.

I wanted the kids to have fun and enjoy the game, but I also wanted them to go home and be able to at least pass the ball better with their cousins and friends or whoever the hell they played backyard footy with over the Christmas school holidays.

Even with the late afternoon shadows creeping across the short mown grounds that browned off nicely until it rained again, heat beat down on the back of my neck.

I flicked my collar up, glad I’d sent Nyla to the shady area.

A quick glance her way confirmed she watched her son practice, though a small frown decorated her face.

I jogged backwards as I studied her, calling the kids back to their drills.

A lump formed in my chest as I remembered the assumptions I’d made the first time I met her.

Fuck it, I knew better than to judge anyone.

Hell, people had done the same thing to me and my family when I first turned up in Australia, barely able to read and so behind in my classes that it took me two years in high school to catch up.

I sure as hell couldn’t sit still in a school room and I’d bet my month’s wages Brady suffered the same issues as I had, sans the language barrier.

“Are you watching my mum?” Brady ran beside me like a little wraith.

More than that, he freaking well kept up with me.

I started and bit back a swear word a kid his age shouldn’t hear but probably already had in some schoolyard or other.

“Ahhh—” Busted . I didn’t need to add lying to my tally for the day already.

“Yeah, I was watching your mum, kid. Just checking she’s alright in the heat.”

Not checking her out, but it came close enough .

I’d just add perving on married women to my list. I winced.

Coach will have my ass if he catches me.

“I check on her too. She works hard. Stu– My dad doesn’t do much but piss her off.”

“Language,” I said absently.

“Your Dad isn’t around, huh?” I cursed myself half a second later for asking.

“Nah. He’ll pick me up later in the week. Gotta look after mum. Hey!” Brady ran off to police one of the kids who had broken the rules of the game I’d set up a few minutes before our time out.

The other kids scattered as he approached.

My attention diverted, I watched him work through the next set of drills, seeing a younger version of myself.

Eventually, I pulled him aside as the games ended and sent the kids darting to the goal posts at the end of the field for a cool down run.

“Hey, Brady. You’re doing awesome out there today.” Giant brown eyes similar to his mother’s stared up at me.

How did I know that exactly?

I told myself not to ask myself stupid questions so I wouldn’t seek the wrong sort of answers.

“But man, I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything, Mason.” The kid jigged on both feet, displaying a decent sense of balance.

I grinned. “I need you to practice the skills we did today.”

His face fell a bit.

“I dunno if Mum will let me throw a ball about in the townhouse.”

A laugh ripped from my chest. “Yeah, I can understand that.” I fished in my pocket for some spare change.

“How about you practice this for me? I want you to put a coin on your elbow, and catch it again. Can you do that?’ I demonstrated, placing the silver coin on my elbow, jerked my arm away, and caught it, then stacked another on top and did the drill all over again.

Brady’s eyes widened. “Hell yeah!

I mean, yeah.” His voice dropped a few octaves when my eyes narrowed at his language.

“I can do that, Mason.”

“Good man.” I ruffled his hair and dropped the coins into his palm.

“I want you to do one other thing for me.” Several, actually, and the first is ‘look out for your mum’ .

But I only met her a few days ago, and it wasn’t fair to put that on a kid who hadn’t hit his tenth birthday yet.

But if his family situation was what I suspected, it was going to happen anyway.

“Sure.” Brady jiggled, clutching his coins.

I knelt to his level.

At my height I still towered over him a bit, but at least we were closer to eye level this way.

“Buddy, tomorrow I’ll need your help when we set up. Putting the circuit out, helping out packing up.”

“Maybe helping keep everyone in line?” He perked up.

I laughed out loud. “That might be my job. Don’t take it away from me, okay?”

He laughed too and scampered around me, clutching his handful of coins.

“Mum!”

I pivoted on my heel to find Nyla standing behind me, her arms wrapped around herself.

“I hope you haven’t been bothering your poor coach. He looks like he’s had his hands full as it is.”

“He’s been great, haven’t you buddy?” I grinned at Brady.

“I’ve been good. Promise.” He grinned and chowed down on the handful of snacks his mother handed him from apparently nowhere.

“Uh huh.” Nyla’s lips twitched as she suppressed a fond smile.

Those pretty brown eyes slid my way.

“I saw what you did there, when he was…” She bit her lip, glancing down at Brady, but the kid wasn’t listening, booting one of my spare footballs about.

“When he decided he’d take on the coach’s roll for me?” I said easily.

She nibbled her lip and slid her hands into her apron pockets.

“That. Yes. He...does it at school, too.”

“Have the teachers talked to him about it?” I canted my head to one side, watching her reaction and had a good guess at what her answer would be.

She shrugged. “They don’t seem to care.”

“Mmhm.” I watched Brady kick the ball about for a while longer.

“What is that noise?”

I blinked at Nyla, nonplussed.

“What noise?”

“That throat thing you just did.”

“Mhmm?”

“That one.” She pointed a cracked fingernail at me, noticed, and hid it away.

It took everything in me not to grab her hand, pull her into me, and tell her not to hide just because she had a broken nail from work, because I could figure that much out for myself.

But I managed to keep my hands to myself while her son circled us, kicking the ball about with a decent amount of skill.

“That sound.” She nodded decisively as I rubbed my hand over my mouth, staring down at her.

A smile of my own threatened my lips.

“That sound says Brady reminds me of me as a kid, and that his teachers should be doing more to help him out. But maybe I can. Not that I’m qualified, exactly.” What the hell am I doing?

This definitely came under overstepping my bounds .

“You…were, you are like Brady?” Nyla corrected herself as she stepped into my space hesitantly, pivoting on her heel to watch him play.

“He’s so?—”

“Enthusiastic. Full of fun. And he means so well. That’s the main thing, Nyla. Don’t let that drive to be joyful turn inward, to anger. If it does—” I pressed my knuckles to my chest, over my heart.

“It’ll hurt like hell here.”

“You’re talking from experience.” That was not a question.

Her head canted to one side, the sunlight striking her cheek in a brilliant glow of golden skin.

“Aren’t you?”

That one was a question, and I had to answer her.

I swallowed. “Yeah. Let’s say my teenage years sucked a bit, but I was lucky and had some good family who cuffed the back of my head when I needed it and pulled me into line.” I forced a smile when she frowned.

“You don't like the idea of that.”

“It sounds violent.”

“It was love.” I grinned at the memory. “My cousins knew I was being a little shit, excuse my language.” I winced after pulling Brady up for his all day. “And that I needed a reminder to behave like a human, just like everyone else. There's no room for pedestals in family. We’re all the same. The day my call came that sent me to Australia, we all left together. That’s what family is for.” I shrugged as she watched me, her eyes dark and huge and luminous.

And glittering.

Nyla breathed out. “I wouldn’t know.”

My heart lurched in my chest. “Brady told me a bit about his dad?—”

That’s all I got out before she pivoted again, moving faster than I would have given her credit for, but apparently that speed was a trait Brady drew from his mother’s side.

“Brady, it’s time to go.” Even her voice was abrupt as she covered ground in short, quick steps that put distance between us a hell of a lot faster than my brain could process.

I rolled my lips inward but didn’t chase after her, flexing my fingers at my sides. Brady kicked the ball back to me. I caught it one handed returning his wave, though my mind flickered to the logo embroidered on her work apron that wasn’t covered for once. Cowboy’s Pitstop, along with the Busty Betty pictured next to the words.

Who knew, maybe I’d get lucky with the team Christmas party over the coming weekend. Because I had the feeling we’d be in the same space for a few hours, and I wouldn’t have the distraction of twenty kids under my responsibility to take my attention off the pretty mum with the soul deep eyes that I wanted to drift away into.

Actually, I kinda didn’t care if I fell into her with no safety net in sight.