“Who told you?”
“Hannah sat with us for the last part of the game.”
Gabe pinched the back of his neck. “I’m just checking it out. It’s not a sure thing. And the team will be fine. ESPN has sent a guy out to replace me. He’s a good coach.”
“He won’t be any better than you.”
Brent tugged on Gabe’s sleeve. “Is it time to go home yet?”
“Almost.
“Baby-sitting tonight, huh?” Mike said.
Gabe remembered Mike telling him to invite Hannah out and grinned. “Just trying to be a good coach.”
Mike chuckled. “I didn’t buy that before, and I’m not buying it now.”
“Gabe?” Brent interrupted. It was the first time Brent had used his first name. Obviously, Hannah’s boy was getting impatient. “Can we go? Please?”
“Why are you in such a hurry?” Gabe asked.
“I want to play with Lazarus.”
So that was it. “But we’re not going to my house, we’re going to yours.”
“Can’t we pick him up first?”
Gabe opened his mouth to explain about the long drive, then changed his mind. They had a wait ahead of them. They could easily make the trip to the cabin. And Brent’s eagerness gave him an idea. He smiled at the little boy. “Hey, Brent. You know, I have to go out of town for a few days. Do you think you can watch Lazarus for me?”
Brent’s eyes rounded. “You’re going to let him stay with me?”
Gabe had planned on taking the dog. But leaving something of himself behind with Hannah seemed…comforting. “If it’s okay with your mom.”
“She won’t care. I’ll just beg her if she says no.”
“Let me ask her first, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Gabe?” Mike said.
Gabe turned back to his friend. “Yeah?”
“Whether you come back or not, I want you to know that I appreciate the fact that you were willing to take over for my father. I know he would have been proud tonight.”
More emotions ripped into Gabe. With everything that had been going on lately, he felt as though he’d just been taken out of a freezer, that every nerve in his body was burning as the feeling returned all at once. “Your dad was a good man, Mike.”
Mike nodded. “I’ll be watching the Countdown on Sunday. Knock ’em dead,” he said with a grin, then put his arm around his wife and walked away.
“Can I push you?” Brent asked, breaking the silence.
Gabe dragged his eyes away from his half sister and his best friend. He almost said the usual, that he’d rather manage on his own. But when he looked into Brent’s hopeful young face, he changed his mind. “Sure.”
“Cool! You’re the only one I know with one of these,” he said.
Brent managed to move Gabe only as far as the pavement before his strength gave out. “I’m tired,” he complained. “Can I can ride in front with you?”
Gabe shifted in surprise. “Aren’t you getting too big to be sitting in someone’s lap?”
“I’m only seven,” he said.
It’d been a long time since Gabe had held a child. Suddenly he missed his niece and two nephews, wondered how he could have let so much time pass without visiting them.
“I can fit,” Brent added encouragingly.
Seeing a strong resemblance to Hannah, Gabe smiled at the boy again. “Okay, come on.”
The scent of good old-fashioned dirt lifted to his nostrils as Brent climbed into his lap and, for the first time since the accident, Gabe wondered what it would be like to have a son.
The stadium lights snapped off as they reached the truck. Normally, Gabe knew he’d still be thinking about the game. It had been amazing, and promised great things for the rest of the season, especially with Blaine gone. But something—maybe the protective feeling he had for the young boy in his lap—seemed to beckon him toward a new challenge.
Maybe football wasn’t the only thing in the world, after all….
KENNY DIDN’T THINK he’d ever been so tired in his life. The game had taken everything he had. But they’d won. He still couldn’t believe it. Even with a broken arm, he’d thrown two touchdown passes.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Hannah said as they drove home from Dr. Hatcher’s office. “Is the pain getting worse?”
Kenny gazed down at his new cast. Because the bones in his arm hadn’t shifted, the doctor didn’t need to set them, but the X-ray and casting process had taken nearly two hours. Now that it was close to midnight, there weren’t many cars on the road, and all the businesses they passed, except the Honky Tonk and the gas station, looked eerily abandoned. “No, the pills helped.”
“You tired?”
“Beat.” He wished his brain would shut down along with his body, but he couldn’t stop thinking. About the pride on Tuck’s face as the team carried him off the field. About Tiffany, who’d rushed over as soon as they let him down to make sure he was all right. He could still feel her hand gripping his good arm as if she didn’t care that he was all sweaty, the crazy way his heart had thumped when he gazed down into her blue eyes. “Call me tomorrow,” she’d said.
Call her…He was going to call Tiffany Wheeler….
Then there was Blaine, who’d glared at Kenny with so much hatred as they passed on the way to the locker room. If Blaine managed to hang on to his job, Kenny would never play for the Spartans again. He knew that, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter so much anymore. Tonight was what had mattered—and he’d passed the test.
“Where do you think Dad went?” he asked above the Avril Lavigne song playing on the radio. After the game ended, Russ had checked to make sure he was okay, then stalked off. They’d called from the doctor’s office to tell him Kenny’s arm was broken, but he hadn’t answered.
His mother glanced over at him. “Who knows? He’s mad at me again, and when he gets mad at me, you know he makes himself scarce. I’m sure he’ll call you first thing in the morning,” she added. “He has to be incredibly proud of the way you played tonight.”
Russ wasn’t be proud; Russ was disappointed that Kenny had gone against his wishes. But his father had only been hoping to hurt Coach Holbrook, which seemed stupid to Kenny. Why should the Spartans have to lose just because his father didn’t like the new coach? “Why’s he mad at you?” he asked.