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.