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“And if one does open, you aren’t going to be ready for it.”
Brian didn’t respond.
“Tell you what,” Kirk offered, his gaze moving between the twins. “Blake, you come see me during lunch tomorrow, and you and I can have an honest talk about the severity of your stomach upsets, and we’ll go from there.”
The boy’s eyes lit up. “Okay, Coach, thanks.”
“Brian.” He nodded at Blake’s brother. “I want you to keep a log of everything you eat. You have to turn it in to me before you’re allowed to practice each day.”
“Yes, Coach.”
“And I want to see balanced meals there,” Kirk added. “I want you to tell me how large of a serving of everything you actually ate, not just what your mother put in front of you.”
“Can I do it in pencil or does it have to be in ink?”
Kirk shook his head. Working with kids was so different from anything he’d ever known.
“I don’t care what you write with,” he told Brian. “Nor do I care if it’s on a napkin, in a notebook or on your arm. Just get it to me.”
Brian grinned. “Yes, Coach.”
“Now scram, you two. I imagine your mother’s outside waiting for you.”
At ten after five, he knew she was. He’d called her earlier to try to talk her into a game of tennis that evening and, during her very ladylike rejection, she’d mentioned her light calendar that afternoon. She’d be at the school by five to take the boys out for pizza, she’d said. Then they were going shopping.
Not that he could tell them. Valerie’s boys had no idea their coach even knew their mother’s first name.
Let alone that he had a slight case of hero worship for the beautiful judge.
“Abraham, hold on a sec, will ya?” Kirk called as the boy started to head out with the twins.
The young man turned back. “Yeah?”
“Have a seat.” Kirk indicated the long wooden bench, straddling one end.
Abraham sat on the very corner, hunched over with his backpack on his shoulders. Turning his head, he looked at Kirk.
“You’re an incredible basketball player, Abe.”
Staring, Abraham said nothing.
“The game could very well be your ticket to whatever freedom you crave—whatever you want to achieve in your life.”
Still silent, the boy sat there, perched for flight.
“Think of it,” Kirk said. “Free to go, to make your own destiny, to study, to become whoever you want to be.”
Kirk didn’t bother to subdue his intensity. This young man, who touched him in such an elemental way, was on the brink of making the most important deal of his life. And if he made it with the devil he could be sentencing himself to seventy years that were far worse than anything he was experiencing now.
“As your coach, I need to know what’s holding you back.”
Abraham stared at the floor. The boy was harder to read than many of the hardened and world-wise businessmen he’d brought down in his time.
“I know you care about the game.”
Kirk understood the boy’s silence. And was concerned.
“I also want you to know that I care about you.”
