Chapter Four
Simeon
The plan was simple—waste the entire first day on getting-to-know-you icebreaker shit and talking about teamwork and sportsmanship so we could make a real plan for the next day. How hard could it be? Kids loved shooting the shit, right?
Wrong.
“So, you’re gay, right?”
“Ohhhh,” the other kids said in a chorus. Thirteen-year-olds were a trip, and this sassy redhead was apparently going to be the ringleader. Or at least attempt to be one.
The kid’s name was Brayden, and I knew he was going to be a smart little cuss. He’d strolled in wearing skinny jeans and flip-flops—definitely not ready or willing to play football. I wondered who’d even put him in the program. Forcing sports on kids irritated me to no end.
“Yeah, I’m gay,” I said. “But it’s not an appropriate question.”
“Why not? It was on the news. We’re teenagers, you know. We do watch the news.”
“No, I don’t. The news is boring.”
Brayden gave the kid next to him, Jory, a dirty look. “So how do you know stuff?”
“I see it on Twitter.”
“Twitter!”
Brayden looked outraged. No one else seemed impressed. Delilah, a girl with long dark hair pulled back in a massive bun, sat up on her knees and pointed at me. She looked like a mini version of Yaritza.
“I think it’s cool that you’re gay. My moms were excited you’re coaching us.” She looked over at Adrián, who’d failed to introduce himself as he hunched over a notebook and scribbled. “Not so much him, to be honest.”
Damn, these kids were rude as fuck!
“Okay, let’s start over.” I ran a hand through my hair, scratching at the curls and likely making them poof out. “Do you all know each other?”
She gave me a condescending look. “I don’t even live in Williamsburg.”
“So where do you live?”
“Sunset Park. And Nicole lives in Red Hook,” she added, pointing to the girl next to her. “But we go to the same school.”
I didn’t get it. At all. Where I was from you went to the school in your damn neighborhood.
“You know what? Maybe it’s good you don’t know each other,” I said, trying for a grin and likely looking desperate as hell. “We’re all new to each other, so we all have to learn how to work together. We’re probably not going to see much time on the field today, but tomorrow—”
“How do you two work together?” Brayden asked shrewdly. “Aren’t you both suspended after starting a riot?”
Adrián’s head shot up. “Da fuck?”
“Bravo!” I barked. “Watch your mouth.”
He gave me that half sneer/half squint and jerked his chin at Brayden. “You can’t be having these kids spreading wrong info. That’s ridiculous. It wasn’t no goddamn riot—”
“Wow, son. You really have no self-control, do you?”
“It is not that serious. You think they don’t say worse?”
“He’s right,” Jory said, grinning. “Just not in front of my mom. She’d beat my ass.”
“Sounds like a CPS case,” Brayden said, smirking.
Delilah mean mugged him harder than Gavin Brawley at a press conference. “It is not that serious.”
I shot Adrián a glare. “See, man?”
He wasn’t paying attention and jerked a thumb at Brayden, who was still looking between me and Adrián with a smarmy grin. Who knew preteens could smarm that hard? Kid needed a medal.
“It wasn’t a riot. It was a little misunderstanding that got out of hand.”
“I watched the YouTube clips,” Brayden countered. “You tackled him for no reason—”
True.
“Probably because you’re homophobic—”
Also true.
Adrián’s skin reddened. “That’s not—”
“And then you got mad that he stood up to you and started a fight. My mom said you can dish it out, but you can’t take it.”
I couldn’t help it—I laughed. It started as an aborted chuckle, but the stifled sound was even funnier, so before I knew it, loud guffaws were ripping out of my mouth. Adrián was so visibly furious that I laughed harder, my eyes tearing as I slapped my hand against my thigh.
“Now who’s not helping?” he demanded. “You know what? Screw this—no more getting to know you. We’re going to the goddamn park.”
Adrián strode across the room and grabbed a large net bag full of footballs. I caught his upper arm before he could make another move, which was a bold move given his death grill. For a moment, his dark eyes dropped to my hand then back to my face. It was slightly alarming, the possibility that he’d lose his shit right in this center in front of these kids, but I saw him collecting himself. Gritting his teeth and clenching his jaw, and looking damn attractive in the process.
“Be cool, man,” I said. “They’re just kids.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious.” He jerked his arm away from me and swept a steely glare over the kids. “Let’s go see what you can do.”
Adrián
They were awful.
Out of all twelve of them—a number that made no sense to me—only three could catch a football. Six of them didn’t feel comfortable tackling, and one kid was way too enthusiastic about it. We were gonna have to have a little chat with him later.
The worst part wasn’t even the lack of skill. I hadn’t expected we were gonna uncover the next Reggie White out in hipsterville. What had me on edge and ready to tell a thirteen-year-old some stuff about himself was their constant harping about grown folks’ business they had no idea about and had no reason to discuss. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the kids and their parents were all very aware that I was the asshole bully who’d wound up justly suspended, and Simeon was the popular gay QB with the heart of gold who’d been unfairly persecuted for defending himself.
Some of the kids had a little homophobia, which caused them to gravitate towards me, while the others sneered and stuck to Simeon. Our tiny crew—this amount of players legit made no kind of sense—was divided as hell.
“This isn’t gonna work.”
Simeon dumped the bag of balls in the corner after the kids had all cleared out for the day. “You’re quitting already?”
“Did I say that?”
“You just said it’s not gonna work. What the hell else did you mean?”
“I’m talking about the way these kids act,” I snapped. “They caught on to you thinking I’m a jackass and went right along with it. And you letting that Brayden punk get away with talking about the gay shit didn’t do us any favors either.”
“Adrián, the entire country knows I’m gay.”
“Okay, and . . . ?” I lowered my voice just as it rose, not wanting Yaritza to hear us arguing. Again. “You can’t let a kid start talking about your personal life, man. It opened up a whole Pandora’s box of bullshit—”
“Pandora’s box,” Simeon repeated.
“Yeah, man. Do you know what that is?” He pursed his lips at me, eyes narrowing, so I went on without waiting for a sign that he knew. “Anyways, we need some ground rules. No personal talk, no bullshit about the fight.”
“And no cursing,” he said.
“Okay, but if I have to watch my mouth then you need to lay off criticizing me in front of them. If you act like I’m a dumbass, then why should they listen to me?”
Simeon paused in his tidying with both big hands braced on the back of a chair. The muscles in his biceps were bulging out against his T-shirt from that position. I wondered if I also dwarfed all the furniture in the room, and if so, why these kids weren’t even the slightest intimidated. They’d had zero qualms about talking shit. I could almost respect it since I’d been exactly like them as a youth.
“All right, all right, you might be onto something there, partner.”
“I know I am. I’m smart as hell.”
“Okay, smart guy, then tell me what we’re going to do with these damn kids. I’m a little thrown for a fucking loop or twenty by all this. I seriously thought we’d have some help.” Simeon ran a hand through his hair, giving it a rumpled just-rolled-in-the-bed look. “Like, to be honest, I figured a real person would be in charge and we’d just hang out and toss the ball a few times.”
I cracked up. “A real person?”
“You know what I mean, man! A real teacher. Not a couple of immature-ass NFL players! They threw us to the wolves.”
“For real.” I stopped laughing long enough to realize Mel and Casey had probably done this on purpose. “Hey, how much do you think they’re charging these kids to be here?”
“Nothing. I made sure or I wasn’t gonna do it. They got in on a lottery system, though.”
“Oh. That’s good.” Why hadn’t I double-checked the pricing? Simeon was consistently a better human than me, and it was irritating. “Anyways, we need a plan. There’s so much wrong with this program I’m starting to think it was created just to piss us off. We don’t even have a normal number of players!”
Simeon grimaced. “I had the same thought. Maybe we should talk to Yaritza.”
“No. You can talk to Yaritza, you kiss-ass.”
“Pansy.”
“Look who’s talking.”
He gave me a serious look before rolling his eyes and shoving me out of the way. We marched out of the rec room and into Yaritza’s office like we were about to go ask our commanding officer to release us from the Army. Or however the hell shit like that went down. Actually, doing that was probably illegal.
“Hey,” Yaritza said, waving from Sheila’s desk. “How’d it go? The kids looked happy.”
“Those kids are rude as all hell,” I complained. “They need my mother here to tell them how to act.”
“All kids are rude,” Sheila said, laughing. “You get used to it after a while and then you just laugh.”
“I will never find some thirteen-year-old talking mess funny.”
“You won’t, but I will,” she said.
Simeon snorted. “We had some questions about the camp. Namely, we don’t have enough kids.”
Sheila and Yaritza exchanged glances.
“All the summer camps I went to as a kid had at least twenty players. Anything less and it’s a real bitch to get in effective practice.”
“Yup,” I said. “We’re gonna have to cross-train them in every position, line drills are gonna be a nightmare, and if someone is out for a game—”
“Game? There aren’t any games.”
This time it was me and Simeon exchanging glances.
“Say what?” we chorused.
“It’s just a camp, guys. A primer to football. Noncompetitive practice and play.”
Horror overcame me and struck me silent. Luckily, Simeon was articulate enough for both of us.
“That’s dumb,” he said.
Annoyance flickered over Yaritza’s face, and Sheila pointedly turned away. She didn’t even pretend to do another task. She literally just stared at the doors as if picturing herself walking through them to escape the awkwardness of her supervisor reaming two famous NFL players.
“Look.”
It was never a good thing when someone started with “look.”
“The two of you are football players. It’s your thing—”
“Our thing,” Simeon repeated. It sounded like he was going for slow and sarcastic, but his accent wouldn’t allow anything but a rapid-fire blend of consonants and syllables. “What you mean thing?”
“Yeah, baby—”
Yaritza’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Don’t start with the ‘baby.’”
“My bad.” I held my arms up in surrender. “For real, miss. That’s my bad. I say it all the time. I even say it to Boudreaux.”
“He does,” Simeon said.
She didn’t look convinced but went on. “I know you two take football seriously, but as I told you before, the purpose of this camp is to teach the kids teamwork and leadership skills. Not to teach them plays and line drills and how to get concussions.”
“That’s very nice,” I said. “Sweet actually. To reduce a lifetime of work to—”
“Oh, calm down. You’re both like twenty-seven.”
“Sweetheart—”
“If you call me one more condescending sexist pet name—”
“I’m sorry! Fuck.” I ran a hand over my hair before shooting Simeon a look. “Can you just do the fucking talking? Christ. I’m incapable.”
“Glad you finally realized it, Bravo.” Simeon shouldered me out of the way and leaned on the edge of Sheila’s desk, addressing Yaritza. “We’re sorry. There was obviously a misunderstanding, and we’re not teachers or licensed professionals who should be left alone with children—”
“Technically, you’re not left alone as long as me and the other camp counselors are here.”
Simeon ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek. His smile strained. “Ms. Yaritza, we suck at this. Do you want small children to have a bad summer because we’re bad teachers? Is that what you want? No, it’s not what you want, because you’re an intelligent, kind professional. Children are our future, but our future will be bleak as fuck if you let me and this asshole guide them.”
By the time he finished his awful speech, Yaritza was shaking with silent laughter. She had to cover her mouth with her hand to contain it, and her eyes were tearing.
“I’m glad you find this amusing,” I said. “But it’s a tragedy. It’s a fucking tragedy. And you know what? Other people are going to find it equally tragic. Like the helicopter parents we were warned about and the media, when they come out and start filming the Bravo and Booty show.”
“Booty.” Yaritza raised an eyebrow. “Huh.”
There were a lot of assumptions packed into that syllable, emphasized when she looked between us and bit back a smile. Why did everyone thing Booty was some kind of sexy nickname?
“Can you just help us?” I demanded. “For real. We’re drowning. It’s my job to get beat to the ground by four other dudes my size on a regular basis, and you know what? Those little-ass kids owned my ass more than any game no matter how bad. Even the time I played with a broken wrist.”
“Did you?” Yaritza cocked her head. “Impressive.”
Oh. Lovely. All it took was an injury story to get a smile out of her. Or a somewhat warm smirk.
“Please?” Simeon asked, smiling. “Come on.”
She cracked. “Fine. This is my advice to you—split your time half in and half out. Two hours in the Center working on . . . I don’t know, let’s call it sports theory and sportsmanship because that’s what we’re pushing for. Break it up into three or four activities so the kids don’t get bored. I warn you, their attention spans are short and games get stale real fast. For the second half of the day, you take the kids out to the high school’s field and do your thing.” Yaritza looked between us. “Sound good?”
I made a seesaw motion with my hand.
“Yes, ma’am,” Simeon said. “Thank you.”
“And I’ll check in instead of throwing you out there to sink or swim.”
“Thank the sweet Lord,” he added, like a good little church boy. “You are a wonderful woman, Ms. Yaritza.”
She rolled her eyes again but couldn’t help a laugh. “You guys are out of control, but sweet. Even you,” she said, nodding at me. “I honestly didn’t know what to expect from you guys, so I was being hard on purpose, but . . . this is a nice surprise.”
“I’m glad one of us had a nice day,” I muttered.
Yaritza patted my arm. She didn’t even squeeze my bicep or do anything remotely flirtatious. I was losing my touch. Either that, or sulking detracted from the dimples. “Tomorrow will be a better day as long as we all work together,” she said.
We returned to the rec room to finish cleaning up, and I had to marvel at where I was supposed to be right now versus where I actually was.
“This is some freeze-fried bullshit,” I said. “I mean, I really could just blow this off, but Casey is my boy and that would be cold. Also, the media would say I’m a big bitch who couldn’t handle it, and that is just not true. I can handle anything. I could be locked in a room with your ass for two months and it’d be better than this shit. I feel like writing apology letters to every teacher who ever had to deal with me.”
Simeon’s mouth tugged up before he flattened it into a scowl. He was trying hard to maintain his dislike, but it didn’t come naturally. I was too damn likeable.
“Look,” I said, forcing seriousness into my tone. “All jokes aside, we need to have a come-to-Jesus if we’re going to make this thing work.”
“Tell yourself that, boo. I know how to be professional.”
“Yeah, you know how to flirt with our supervisor and be all sweet, but even those little-ass kids could tell you can’t stand me. If those pretty eyes of yours were lasers, they’d always be set to stun.”
I was trying to get him with flattery, and he knew it because that was his MO. But even so, there was a moment when he faltered. A widening of his eyes, parting of those full lips, and the faintest of sharp inhales.
“Oh, come on,” I drawled, loping over to him with a wolfish smile. “Don’t get all shy now.”
“I’m not,” he said quickly. “Your flattery is as effective on me as your dimples. Not at all.”
“Oh yeah?” I stopped walking when I was right in his personal space. Watching, waiting, and kind of wanting him to sweat. “My dimples work on everyone. One smile and panties fall at my feet.”
“Smile? Heh. I don’t expend that many calories to get my fuck on. All it takes is one look.”
“One look,” I repeated.
“Yup. A single glance across the bar and a guy knows I want their pants around their ankles . . .” There was a pause, just a breath, and a wicked glint passed over Simeon’s eyes. “And their dicks in my mouth.”
Holy shit.
“Nervous yet, straight boy?”
Holy shit.
“Struck dumb?” He tapped the side of my head. “Everything okay in there?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just shocked you came right out and said it like that.”
“Why? Is it a secret that you like going down on women?”
“Uh. No. Besides my mom’s cooking, it’s my favorite mea—”
Simeon covered my mouth with his hand, cringing, and I couldn’t help laughing. Loud, unabashed, unfiltered, guffaws that had my lips brushing against his palm as my eyes teared. He jerked his hand away, but not before grazing my lips with the tips of his fingers.
“All of that shit talk,” I said with a gasp. “And you got nervous about me talking about eating pussy.”
He cringed again. “Fuck you.”
“Just admit I win.”
“Is everything a competition, Bravo?”
“Dude, we’re athletes. Of course everything is a competition.”
Simeon graced me with a chuckle. “Okay, you right. But if we’re keeping score, the game has just begun. Next time, I’m gonna get you good.”
“Bet.”