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“Trust the fucking wide receiver to make it all about speed,” Tanner grumbles.
“Catch me if you can,” I fire over my shoulder as I take off out the door.
Hunter’s house is right on the beach, so I make a beeline for the sand. As I do, Hunter’s eleven-year-old nephew, Brent, starts running beside me. “Hey, Shawn! How are you?” He’s fast for a kid, but no match for me, so I slow down a little to give him a chance to keep pace.
“Doing good, man. How are you?” I reach out a hand for a fist bump as we hit the sand together.
“I’m okay.” He sounds like he means it, which is a nice change. As is the mischievous light in his eyes. His mother died during the middle of last season and he’s had a lot of bad days since then. But Hunter and his fiancée, Emerson—who are his legal guardians—have him and his sister seeing a grief counselor once a week. Looks like it’s helping a little.
“Oh yeah? What have you been doing in school?” I ask as we both hit our stride.
He rolls his eyes. “Why do adults always have to ask about school? I do other things, you know.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
Before he can answer, Hunter passes us with a loud whoop and a cocky grin. About thirty seconds after that, Tanner does the same.
“Looks like we caught you,” he mocks as he trucks on by. And “trucks” is definitely an apt description, considering he’s six foot seven and a solid two ninety.
I glance over at Brent to find him looking back at me, tongue stuck between his teeth in a show of fierce concentration. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asks before I can say anything.
It startles a laugh out of me, but then I nod, quickly forcing a matching look of determination on my own face. “Let’s smoke those suckers.”
“Exactly!” We do another fist bump for luck and then lay on the speed.
I’m careful to let Brent set the pace so that I don’t outdistance him, but lucky for us the kid’s a born sprinter. He shoots forward like a missile, sheer will making up for the fact that his legs are half the length of his uncle’s.
It takes us about forty seconds to catch up with them and another twenty to pass them. Knowing Brent can’t sprint for much longer, I pick a finish line that’s close by as I call out, “Last one to the lifeguard tower buys lunch.”
Hunter and Tanner are closing in—I can hear their footsteps pounding on the sand right behind us. But there’s no way I’m going to let Frick and Frack back there beat Brent. No way in hell.
Angling myself a little to the right, I run directly into their path, deliberately slowing down so they’ll have no choice but to do the same or run me over. And no matter how much they want to win, no way is either one of them going to risk injuring the Lightning’s best wide receiver on a lark.
At the same time I block them, I yell, “Go, Brent, go!”
He glances over his shoulder, sees the three of us breathing down his neck and lays on a final burst of speed. He crosses the make-believe finish line seconds before the rest of us do and from the smile on his face, you would think he’d just won a gold medal at the Olympics.
Which makes all of us grin because the kid deserves whatever joy he can find in this world. Losing your mom to a painful disease at any age sucks. Losing her that way when you’re ten is a fucking nightmare. I should know.
“So, what’s the winner get?” I ask Hunter.
“Besides bragging rights?” he answers, brows raised.
“Bragging rights are understood. But Brent just blew past three of the best players in the NFL. I figure that deserves some kind of reward.”
“Ice cream!” Brent screams, jumping up and down. “Lots and lots of ice cream!”
“I think lots and lots of i
ce cream can be arranged.” I glance over at the other two. “What do you guys think?”
“I think that sounds like a plan.” Hunter grins.
“Me, too.” It’s Tanner’s turn to fist bump Brent. “Stick with me, kid. I know how to build the best ice cream sundae in seven states.”
Brent’s eyes go wide. “Is that true?” he asks me.
“Absolutely. Tanner’s sundae-building expertise is the thing legends are made of. In fact, I think he’s being modest. It’s probably more like seventeen states.”
