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Probably, that was why he’d become a Bull. The closest thing to being part of a team a guy like him had left, once he’d fucked up college and his dream of the NFL.
“He’s a great kid, isn’t he?”
“Well, I’m biased, but yeah. He’s almost perfect.”
“I can’t believe I had anything to do with making him.” As soon as he said it, he could have punched himself in the dick. Now he was wide open for Marcella to say something shitty—probably something extra shitty for being true.
But she didn’t. She was quiet for several seconds. As Eight began to relax from his tense anticipation of her comeback, she said, “I guess it means you’re not all bad.”
He turned her way. She’d leaned back on the bench a bit, so he had to look over his shoulder to meet her eyes. They were deep, dark brown, but the sunlight gave them glints of gold and red.
“Careful, Marce. That was almost nice.”
Her eyes held with his, and she smiled up one side of her face. “I promise not to make it a habit.”
The shared look continued until the whistle blew, signaling the beginning of the second period. Marcella sat up straight, and Eight turned to focus on the game. He picked out Ajax right away.
As the teams settled into position, Eight realized that he didn’t want to leave right away after. He wanted to talk to the kid, ask him about the stuff on his list, tell him that he’d been impressed by his playing.
He wanted to play family for a little bit. Try it on for size.
Marcella stood up as play got back underway. Eight stood, too, and this time, he went to her side. Thinking about how to ask her for a favor, he finally decided on, “What’s going on after the game?”
“Hmm?”
“I guess … can I take you guys for lunch? Pizza?”
She turned—her whole body, not just her head—and stared up at him, a frown creasing the skin between her arching eyebrows. “What?”
“Are you not hearing me or not understanding me?” Or option C: just being a bitch for the fun of it, he thought but did not say.
“You want to go out with us for lunch?”
“Is that okay?”
Her eyes studied him closely before she said, “I’m trying not to start a thing, Eight, so please understand that and don’t get pissed. But I have to ask: what do you want to happen here?”
He did get pissed. Immediately. But he clenched his fists and rode it out. Making a scene on the sidelines of a kids’ soccer game would be counterproductive. Not that he yet understood what he was trying to produce. So he gave it a beat or two and tried to work out how to say something that wouldn’t blow the whole confusing thing up.
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Big picture, I honestly don’t know. I’m feeling my way. I asked because I …” Shit, he felt like he was giving her permission to shove her claws into his gut and take hold of an organ. His liver, or something. “I asked because I don’t want to motor right after the game. I want to talk to him about it. So right now, that’s what I want to happen.”
More studying of him. If there were an Eight exam, she’d be ready. “You scare the fuck out of me, Eight.”
All his adult life, he’d cultivated that response. Becoming a scary motherfucker had saved him, and more than a few times. Getting big and bad and angry had stopped the abuse when he was a teenager. It had made him a good lineman and gotten him a scholarship. He’d fucked it up later, but that scholarship had forever broken the choke chain his aunt and uncle had had on him.
But that was not who he was trying to be now. “I don’t want to scare you. I am doing everything I know how not to.” He turned back to the game and watched one of Ajax’s teammates kick the ball to him, saw his kid get immediate control of it, find an opening, and run like hell toward the goal, deking around opposing players until he had a nearly clear shot. He ran, set, kicked, and scored. The other team’s goalie dived for a save and then lay there with his face in the grass when the ball went by him.
“YEAH!” Eight shouted, pumping his fist. “ATTABOY AJAX!” Beside him, Marcella was whooping it up, too, as they watched his team mass around him, slapping hands and bumping fists before they trotted back into position.
How had he made a kid like that? How?
When the moment settled, Eight turned to Marcella and just spit it the fuck out. “I want to do one good thing in my worthless fucking life, Marce. That’s what I want.”
Goddamn, he was handing her fucking nukes to obliterate him with.
Her eyes searched his yet again, but there wasn’t anything buried deep. He was the same inside as outside.
Still, she eventually sighed and nodded. “He loves pizza, of course. Lunch would be good.”
