Page 4

MASON

“Pass it. Faster! That’s it,” My coach encouraged the kids as I took the other side of the drills and lined them up.

The skills clinic grew hectic, both of us working the two groups we’d split them into earlier in the day simultaneously.

Balls flew everywhere.

There were more misses than catches, but the air fast filled with raucous shouts and laughter and…

That’s what the game should be about at the kids’ level.

Encouraging fun and making sure they wanted to turn up next session rather than their parents bugging them out the door during their school holidays.

I lapped the group, making sure I earned an extra layer of sweat to prove my worth to them as well as myself, and collapsed on the grass on my back as the last ball flew back into Leon’s hands.

“Please thank Leon Nash for coaching us today!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

It wasn’t much. My voice rasped at the end and I could do with a deluge of water for myself.

The Aussie sun slammed me with late afternoon summer heat.

Hell, I’ll be shagged before the Christmas party later tonight, and I’d need a decent nana nap before I made an appearance at the restaurant.

“I’m getting old,” I muttered.

“Did you just call me old?” Coach stared down at me.

“I said I’m getting old,” I called back.

“Not what I heard. What did you all hear?” He cupped his hand around his ear.

Showpony.

“You’re. OLD!” the kids shouted back in perfect unison.

“Ahhh—” This is so not good.

“Well, go on then.” Coach showed me his back.

Nearly twenty kids turn on me, over a week of school holiday drills beneath the blistering summer sun reflected in their eyes.

Double ahhh.

I squeezed my eyes and mouth shut as they began a game of stacks on , each kid piling one on top of the other with war cries over my torso until Coach called it and I was squished as deep into the dirt as I could possibly be.

Actually, it might be mud now, consisting of my sweat and no small amount of my fledgling coach’s pride.

Just awesome.

I checked the stands as I peeled my flesh from the grit but I didn't spot Nyla anywhere nearby. Brady loitered around, helping me pack up.

I nudged Leon. “Thanks for taking time out to help me today, Coach. It’s good for the kids to meet a local legend.” He didn’t have to spend his time on us but he’d offered, and it did the kids good to see someone else’s face apart from mine.

“National legend, thanks,” he corrected me with a grin, and a slap on the back that stung. “See you tonight?”

I rolled my shoulders. “Yeah, I'll be there. Eight, right?” It had better not be any later, or I’d be in bed.

The team party culture hadn’t interested me this season, a fact I knew Coach would be relieved to hear.

“Don’t be late.” He jogged away like the heat didn’t bother him at all, and ignored the mums simpering at his silver fox style, along with his pay check and share in the club.

As far as I knew, Leon had been single for a long time and enjoyed the bachelor life with an intention to remain single, and no one else to share it—ever. His choices were his own. I stayed out of it. Whatever trauma the man carried had nothing to do with me.

That was a little different from how my life diverged from the rest of the party team of the league when I headed home each night to a small, outer suburbs house that filled with family at least one day of each weekend. Even so, it was far too big and quiet for me during the rest of the week. Hence the afterparty life to fill the space. Plus, there was sort of an expectation within the younger contingent of the team for it.

But I’d quickly found in my first year with the team that the hollow hours post midnight in clubs and spent with randoms in my bed didn’t suit what I wanted, and… That I also had no clear idea of what I wanted in my life apart from a win each game during the season.

More like what I was supposed to need, but hadn’t found yet.

Specifically, that what I hoped to hell was the attention of the single mum I'd been dreaming about for the last week who wasn’t there to pick up her son.

Because someone else stood in her place.

Brady waited beside a man in his late twenties, maybe early thirties, who I didn't recognise near the field gate. The man reached out, and he took a step back. My feet were moving before I made a plan to do anything, and my brain caught up with the program.

“Hey, Brady. Who’s picking you up this afternoon? I haven’t seen your mum about.” I gave the guy an easy smile that he didn’t return.

“This is Stu– He’s my dad.” Brady spoke to the ground and kicked up orange dust bunnies with the toe of his stained running shoe.

“Hi. I’m Mason.” The fact that Brady hadn’t given out my name didn’t slip by me.

I stowed the information safely aside along with the way the rambunctious kid I’d grown more than fond of in the last few weeks curled into himself in a matter of seconds, putting distance between himself and the man who sired him, and stopped.

Literally, he stopped moving.

In nearly two weeks of hosting the summer football clinic, that was something I’d never seen Brady do. Unless it was for his personal form of preferred activity, or sleeping, I doubted it happened often.

“You’re the coach, are you?” The man turned to face me, holding out a floppy hand that resembled some variety of fish pulled out of its environment. “Stuart Jennings. I’m Brady’s father.”

“Nice to meet you.” I made contact with him for as little time as possible. The cool, moisture coated palm glided against my gritty once. I suppressed a shudder.

Pale eyes swept over me, taking in the dirt that covered my body, the ink decorating my skin. Hell, even down to what I wore and beyond. I met his gaze head on. In my lifetime I’d endured far worse from kids teasing me about where I was born, not being able to read and write like them when I first came to Australia, why my family looked different.

But in front of Brady I refused to back down before the bully I recognised this man to be.

Thank you for showing me who hurt Nyla. Stuart’s wasn’t a face I’d forget anytime soon.

But right now couldn’t be the time to focus on the woman who had held my attention over the past weeks while I wished she stood before me instead of her ex-husband or whoever in the hell this man was to her.

“Are you okay this afternoon?” I asked Brady casually, like I did at the end of most sessions. Only this time I word my sentences a little more carefully.

The hell are you doing, getting involved in someone’s family? But I knew what I was doing, and why. Because this kid was my responsibility until he left this field. If he didn’t feel safe, he wasn’t leaving with someone he didn’t trust at all.

No matter who that might be.

“I had fun today, Mace,” Brady said in that still muted voice that sounded nothing like the kid I coached.

I gritted my teeth. “Yeah? You did well. Are you good to practise those drills or do you need to grab any kit from my Coach before he leaves?”

I raised a hand and waved over my head, knowing Leon would be watching the exchange, too. Both of us had a radar for this sort of bullshit and any predatory behaviours. He could wipe the floor with my ass later for getting involved when I should back the hell up, but I couldn’t force my feet to move away.

Stuart cleared his throat pointedly.

“Nah, I’m good. It’s Stuart’s day to take me home.” Brady puffed out a breath. His fringe fell over his eyes, obscuring his face.

“Dad,” Stuart corrected his son.

Brady didn’t say anything.

I nodded when he didn’t step away, either, or produce any sort of protest, at a bit of a loss on where to go with this. Stay the hell out of family shit that’s not your problem . The voice in the back of my head snarked away at me, unfettered. But my stomach hit ground zero in a full body gravity slam that left me nauseated at leaving Brady alone.

“Alright,” I said softly. Brady peered at me through his hair, and I swore my heart broke on the gravel beneath my feet. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? We’ve got some new drills to work on and the Granny Grapple.” I didn’t have anything new planned, and I’d be hungover as fuck but I’d make something up just to keep my word.

“See you.” Brady tramped away from me through the car park, heading for the only sports car left in the entire lot.

I smiled and waved when he turned back with a half-hearted grin and didn’t feel any of it. Nor did Coach’s huff behind me sting, knowing it would cost me an extra leg day or other punishment session of my own because he watched the whole event unfold. I’d have to fess my ass up because lying to the man was the worst idea I’d had all day.

But his words jarred me back into reality.

“You have a heart, Mace,” he muttered.

“Yeah?” I raised my eyebrows, watching the sports car bunny hop its way out of the parking lot. He can’t drive for shit, either.

Some part of me loved knowing that Stuart had extra flaws. The other half of me instantly worried for Brady’s safety.

“Yeah.” Leon coughed into his fist. “Just make sure you find the line of where to stop, and know where your involvement needs to end. Don’t go too far and you’ll be fine.” His voice cracked at the end of his mini speech, and he coughed into his fist a second time.

I pivoted on my heel to face him. “Is that why you never let anyone in, never get close? Because you got involved one time?”

He sent me a crooked smile. “You just earned yourself two sets of Tour de Stade, my friend. Starting tomorrow morning before your clinic. See you bright and motherfucking early.”

I clenched my teeth and smiled through the pain I could already feel radiating through my thighs at the concept of running the stadium stairs twice in any short period, even when I knew he’d rest me, though the kids wouldn’t. “Sparrowfart it is.”

So much for getting in that nap.