Author: Robyn Carr

Cooper was happy to see that things might not be as bad for Landon Dupre as he thought. The kid played a good game and there was no question he had the town’s support. They thought they had themselves a football hero.

There weren’t many people left. The concession stand was closed up. There were a few groups standing around in the parking lot, probably making after-game plans. The field was dark, the bleachers deserted, the Badger buses gone. Cooper felt a little silly. Before he could think about why he was sitting there getting all nostalgic, he told himself that by now the lines for a pizza or a Big Mac wouldn’t be so long. He headed toward the parking lot.

He was out of the stadium before he heard voices. He couldn’t hear the words but he could tell by the tone that these voices weren’t celebrating or having fun. There was some kind of trouble—an argument of some kind. He told himself to keep going. It could be a drug deal gone bad; it could be a parent/teenager situation. But he stopped walking and listened. A hard, demanding, abusive voice; an answer that he understood—no! Just one word. No. That was all it took and he walked toward the voice.

They were under the visiting team bleachers. In the dark he couldn’t be sure of the number, but he thought it was four or five. Boys. Big boys. At least equal to him in size. He walked softly, wishing he had a gun, then relieved he didn’t—that’s how people get killed, misinterpreting some situation in the dark of night.

“I told you exactly what to do!” a guy said.

“And I told you that wasn’t going to happen! I don’t trip! I don’t fumble.”

Landon!

Cooper walked a little faster. Ten long strides under the bleachers brought them into clear view. Two guys holding Landon’s arms, two guys facing him, one doing the talking. “You don’t want to push this. I’m the team captain! You do what I tell you to do.”

“Lose the game,” Landon said. “You don’t see that as wrong?”

“We wouldn’t have lost! I had to get in that game, asshole, and with you showing off all the time—”

“Hello, boys,” Cooper said. He leaned against a strut, crossing his arms over his chest. “Just congratulating Dupre on his game?”

The boys holding his arms immediately let go. That’s when Cooper noticed a trickle of blood running down the corner of Landon’s mouth. He didn’t get that in the game. It was fresh.

“What are you doing here?” their ringleader, who Cooper now knew to be Jag, demanded. “You some kind of pervert, hanging around the high school after dark, under the bleachers?”

Cooper laughed. He rubbed a hand over his head, giving a lazy scratch. “Okay, let me see if I have this right. You’re about to kick the shit out of your quarterback for winning a game instead of fumbling, tripping and throwing it so you could get in the game in his place, and you wonder if I’m a pervert? Son, I’m going to save you a lot of trouble. Dupre, let’s go. I’m hungry.”

“Who is this dickhead?” the kid asked.

Cooper had to be a little impressed. He did ask it with a great deal of authority.

One of the boys who’d been holding Landon leaned toward Jag and said, “He owns the beach now.”

Jag was shocked for a minute, but then he laughed. “Well then, excuse me, your eminence. You actually own that shit hole on the beach. Well, hell, I guess you must be pretty important.”

Cooper frowned. “Dupre,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“We have business,” Jag said.

“Not anymore. You’re all done here.”

Jag stepped forward and got right up in Cooper’s grill. He jabbed a finger into Cooper’s chest and said, “We’re talking to Dupre. And you. Are. Excused,” he said, giving a singular jab with each of his last three words.

Cooper looked down at the finger, then up at Jag’s face. Then he leisurely grabbed that offensive finger in one hand and bent it back until the kid yelped and went down on one knee. Jag tried to wiggle out, but it was useless. With the other hand Cooper grabbed a handful of the kneeling kid’s hair. He looked over his head at Jag’s posse. “You’re going to want to get him out of here,” he said. “You really don’t want to get into it with me. I hate bullies. Hate fighting. But if I have to fight, I know every dirty trick.”

He released Jag with enough of a shove that he fell backward. Then he met Landon’s eyes.

“Let’s go,” he said again, in a controlled voice. “Now.”

Six

Cooper and Landon walked briskly to the parking lot. There was no question Landon was jittery. “Stop looking over your shoulder,” Cooper said. “I’ll hear them if they’re coming.”

“What if you don’t?”

“I will. Where’s your car?”

“Behind the school, in the student lot.”

“And I suppose they have cars there, too?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s my truck,” he said, pointing. “I’m going to drive you to your car, then I’ll follow you out of here. I’ll follow you home, if you want me to, but I’d rather go somewhere we can get food. I’m not kidding, I’m starving.”

“And if I don’t feel like doing that?” Landon asked.

Cooper didn’t say anything. He waited until they got to the truck and said, “Get in.” Once they were both in the cab, Cooper turned toward Landon. “Here’s the deal. I know what happened tonight. I get it. The kid’s an ass, a bully without a conscience, and he seems to have a posse. I’ve been there, believe me. We’re gonna have a talk about your options—either over food or in your living room.”

“My sister is there!” he said. “I don’t need her all into this. She will seriously make it worse. Even worse than you have!”

He lifted eyebrows. “Did she go to the game?”

“She was there. But she takes her own car in case I have someplace to go. I never do, but in case.”

Cooper started the truck. “Call her. Tell her you’re going out for a burger and you won’t be late.”

“Can’t we do this some other time?” he said. “Like when the whole town isn’t packed into the joints? Just let me out at my truck and I’ll—”

“Call her. Drive to Cliffhanger’s and I’ll follow you. I doubt the whole booster club will be hanging out there. And we both know where most of the team will be. On the beach.”

Landon sighed, giving in. “Turn left into the parking lot. That’s my truck, the green Mazda. I’ll call my sister from the truck....”

“Make it a quick call, will you? I’m sure those boys are pissed off and trying to decide what to do to you next.”

He started to get out of the truck, then looked back at Cooper. “What if you are some kind of pervert?”

“I just saved your life. Now I’m going to feed you and give you a few pointers. Don’t make me regret it.”

“That’s what perverts do,” Landon said.

Cooper leaned toward him. “Perverts don’t let you drive yourself. You’re making me tired. After we talk about assholes like Jag, we’ll talk about perverts. Now go!”

Mac drove his aunt Lou and the younger kids home after the game. Once he got them all inside, he said, “I’m going to take a run through town, make sure all is quiet....”

“It won’t be quiet after a win like that,” Lou said as she reached into the refrigerator for a diet cola. “Don’t go sitting out on the hill, spying on the beach.”

“I don’t do that,” he said to her back.

“Yes, you do,” she said, leaving the kitchen.

He stood there in indecision for a moment. Then he reached into the refrigerator, grabbed two beers and left the house. The night was clear and cold and there were a million stars. He only drove about ten blocks, to a neighborhood perched on the hill right above the main street. He parked and walked up the steps to the porch and knocked, hanging on to the beers in one hand.

Gina answered in her plaid winter jammies and heavy socks. “What are you doing here?”

He gave a shrug. “I’m in search of adult company and I’ve had enough of Lou. I’m sick of her bossing me around.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘Don’t go sit on the hill and spy on the beach.’” He held a beer toward her. “Come on out.”

She grabbed her jacket off the hook inside the door and slipped into it, turned off the porch light and then accepted the beer. “What were you going to do?” she asked.

“Sit on the hill and spy on the beach,” he said.

She laughed at him. “I guess you think no one notices you there.” She sat on the top step and twisted the cap off the beer. “Just what do you think is going to happen out there?”

He sat beside her. He twisted off his own cap. “I’ll know it when I see it,” he said, taking a pull on the beer. “My relationship with Lou...it’s getting to me. We’re like an old married couple.”

“Well, at least you recruited her,” Gina said. “And why wouldn’t you be like that? You’ve been together longer than most people our age have been married. Don’t be stupid. Don’t complain. You’d be lost without her.”

“I’d be lost without her,” he agreed. “Maybe that’s what annoys me. It’s unnatural.”

“Don’t cry to me. I live with my mother.”

“Here’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” he said. “Are you going to work at the diner for the rest of your life?”

“Probably. Why?”

“Aren’t you almost done with your degree?”

“Almost. I even have some credits toward a master’s. I’m a real speed demon. A short seventeen years to my high school diploma and almost a degree.”

“Shouldn’t you be looking for something better? Where you don’t have to wipe up after people?”

“Seriously?” she asked. “Are you seriously asking me that?”

“Hey, I have no degree at all. No almost about it.”

“Okay, first of all, Stu takes very good care of me. I make more money at the diner than I’d make a lot of other places. I’ve become indispensable to him, so he has to keep me happy. And I can do everything I need to do—go to school part-time, take care of Ashley and keep up with all her activities, help my mom in the deli, get the days off I need as long as everything else is covered. Second, my degree will be in social work. I’d have to work for the county. The pay is miserable.”

“But there’s benefits,” he said.

“I have benefits. Maybe not the best benefits, but...”

“Retirement?” he asked.

“A little,” she said. “Not that I expect to retire. What are you getting at?”

“I don’t know,” he said, slumping a little bit. “None of my business, really, but sometimes I think you work too hard.”

“You’re right about that,” she said. “But I have a good gig going, Mac. One kid with a granny backup, a decent if not extraordinary education, some benefits, a boss who lets me take any time I need.” She took a drink of her beer. “This was a good idea, a beer. Thanks. I could use better advice, though,” she added.

He chuckled. “I’ll remember that.”

“See that you do. It’s really beautiful tonight. You don’t notice things like that when you’re in the middle of a wild and crazy football game.”

“Have you met the new doctor yet?”

She shook her head. “Have you?”