Kicks for a Sinner S3 (4 page)

Cassie hugged her son and whispered too low for the other children to hear, “You were the best, the very best.” She did not lie. Dean and Jude always kicked too hard and Annie too soft. Her boy performed perfectly. He beamed at her, so proud.

She swallowed her hostility and forced herself to walk over to where Howdy waited by his shiny, new red truck with the double cab and extended bed, much like the one Joe used at the ranch. Nell had gone to make up a box of leftovers for which the cowboy said he would be “mighty obliged.” Did anyone actually talk that way, like the star in an old western movie?

“Thanks for teaching Tommy to kick. Dean is such a natural leader sometimes my son gets left his the dust. I thought he did really, really well. Joe might be right about his not being built for football, so this means a lot to him.”

The cowboy shrugged and leaned his length back against the truck’s cab. “Once the football coach tapped me, my grandpa built me a regulation goalpost in the cornfield. I had a talent for kicking, but I practiced all year round in wind and snow and into the sun to get better in all conditions. Drop a word and I’ll bet Joe would build the right-sized goalpost for Tommy, too. The good thing is kickers tend to have long careers and don’t get beat up as much—even if we are only glorified soccer players. If that doesn’t work out, plenty of other careers to choose from in this big, wide world, ma’am.”

She had the grace to blush again and apologize. “I am sorry I was so rude. You are a vital part of the team. What will you do when you are done playing? Coach other kickers?”

Another loose-shouldered shrug. “Maybe, but I do have a degree in psychology. I thought I might counsel troubled boys.”

“Really? I’m getting my master’s in psychology. I thought I’d like to work with troubled girls.”

He showed no surprise, nor had he about her being Tommy’s birthmother. Probably, Nell filled him in before introducing them. He hadn’t cringed or lost interest because she had an illegitimate son the way some men did. A nice guy and kinda cute.

He gave her that ear-to-ear grin. “Maybe we could go into practice together. Ma’am.”

That raised her temper. “Cut that out! Call me Cassie.”

“So we’re friends now? Friendly enough for you to give me your phone number and maybe go out on a date?”

Panic fluttered inside her like the huge flock of starlings rising into the blue-black evening sky from the fallow cane field across the bayou. Push him away, push him away right now, or you will never be held in Joe’s safe arms. Her mind scrambled for the words to fend him off and they came to her all at once. Something Joe had said very offhand about the Sinners’ punter, Brian Lightfoot.

“Oh, I thought you were gay! I mean you room with Brian Lightfoot, and I understand he’s…” She fluttered her hand back and forth.

Howdy took a turn at blushing and did it very well. “Only on the road. I mean, I’m not gay anytime. The kicker always rooms with the punter. I have my own place, a condo, same building where Joe has his, not the penthouse though, but still real nice.” He stumbled on, all of his cool evaporating like dry ice exposed to the air. “Honest to God, I’m not gay.”

“Are you sure? For a man, you
are
very graceful.”

“Only when I’m kicking. Otherwise, I’m a real klutz.”

“You know what they say about psychology majors—they’re trying to work out their own problems.”

“Maybe I do have some problems, but my sexual identity isn’t one of them. And how about you, Miss Going for her Masters? You must have twice the problems I do.”

Nell got between them, running interference with a plastic bag clutched in her hand. “Here you go, Howard. I put a couple of steaks in there and some baked potatoes, a sack of the veggies, and little containers of my yogurt topping and Joe’s steak sauce. Did you really like it?”

“Sure. I don’t lie about important things—like steak sauce. Just needs to be taken with a little moderation. You surely know how to make a man feel at home, Nell. Thanks for inviting me.” He climbed into the high cab with ease, giving Cassie one last glimpse of his fine, tight ass. To her, he said before he slammed the truck’s heavy door, “Evening, ma’am.”

A gay guy might covet that ass, and a straight girl could appreciate it every bit as much. Cassie exhaled with relief as he drove away.

Nell said all eager and excited, “Isn’t Howard McCoy the nicest young man ever? Cute, too, and the way he has with children. He won’t be single long. What do you think of him?”

“I think I will never see that man again.”

FOUR

Howard McCoy left Joe’s Lorena Ranch and Chapelle, Louisiana in a cloud of dust and a mighty roar of his truck’s engine. He breezed through Morgan City and across the swampy region south of there that brought him out on I-10 and back to New Orleans again. All the way, he muttered, “She thinks I’m gay,” and ran a mental inventory of any characteristics making Cassie Thomas think that. Other than having to room with Brian Lightfoot, he couldn’t think of a thing, but men saw stuff like that differently. He should ask Brian. No! The last thing he should do was pal with the punter.

Gregory, the doorman at the condos, raised his eyebrows when Howdy pounded through the front doors without waiting for him to open them. Mumbling under his breath, the kicker stalked by swinging a white plastic bag and gave him only a curt nod instead of the usual cordial greeting. At the elevator, Howdy turned back and pressed a dollar into the concierge’s hand.

“Thank you, sir, but I’ve done nothing for you.”

“Back home when I was a kid, we had a cuss jar. If Grandpa or me said a bad word, we put a quarter in the jar. Tonight, you are my cuss jar. I figured for inflation.”

“I do appreciate the tip, but you did not swear at me, sir.”

“I did. You just didn’t hear me. Don’t make it right as Grandma would say. Tell me, Gregory, do I seem gay to you?”

Gregory took the requests of his patrons very seriously. He gave Howdy a good once over and back again, shook his head. “No, not at all, though your western demeanor might be attractive to men of that persuasion. You know in a
Midnight Cowboy
,
Brokeback Mountain
sort of way.”

“Thanks, I needed to hear that. Evening, Gregory.” He returned to wait for the elevator. As the doors slid soundlessly open, someone called, “Hold it for me, Howdy.” He winced without turning, got inside, and held the button down to wait for the new arrival because that was the way Grandma had raised him. “Always be polite, Howie. Polite goes a far way in getting along with people.”

He got along with everyone including Brian Lightfoot who had just invaded his space. Joe put in a word for both of them with the condo board. Now, Howdy had a place two floors beneath Joe’s city penthouse and two flights above Brian Lightfoot’s apartment. Inevitable they would run into each other frequently, sometimes share rides to and from practice, but they didn’t room together!

“So, how went the day at Joe’s ranch?” Lightfoot inquired.

The man did have a beautiful, flawless smile, a smooth olive complexion, liquid dark eyes, and artfully tousled black curls. Shorter and slimmer than McCoy, he exuded a fruity scent of cologne into the small space. Howdy hesitated to inhale too deeply lest the punter think he enjoyed the aroma and bought him a bottle. Brian had a reputation for being a generous and spontaneous giver of gifts often accepted rather reluctantly by the straight men on the team.

“Fine,” Howdy answered shortly, keeping a good space between them.

“Not so fine, then. I’ve gotten to know you well, Howard McCoy, after all those days we spent together on the road. Something has you ‘riled’ as you would say in your charmingly old-fashioned way. I am here to listen, all ears, really.”

“You don’t know me
that
well!”

“Give me a try.” Brian smirked suggestively.

“See, that’s why she thinks I’m gay, that right there.”

“Ah, a woman of course. I might have known. They can be such bitches. Tell your friend Bri all about it. Was it Joe’s wife? I can’t imagine Nell bringing up the subject, especially with all those children hanging around.”

He wanted to spill to Brian, he really did. The youngest man on the Sinners’ team, a replacement for the venerable and legendary Ancient Andy Mortenson, he didn’t quite feel like one of the gang yet. The punter, starting a couple of years before him, had settled in as well as any kicker with the rest of the team. A lot of the guys actually thought of these special team players as only one step up from the soccer field just like Cassie. Not Joe. Joe treated everyone equally, though he could show temper if anyone of them failed to deliver during a game.

“Joe and Nell introduced me to this girl, young lady, woman, tall, slim but with a—a…”

“Big rack?”

“Nice bosom and sorta reddish-blonde hair.”

“Strawberry blonde.”

“I guess. Well, she took a dislike to me before I could say howdy and stomped off to sit under a tree.”

“What? She didn’t immediately fall for your rustic charm? A suggestion, try practicing ‘hello, nice to meet you’ instead of saying ‘howdy’ to everyone. That’s how you got your nickname which will stick to you forever unless you stop saying it.”

The door opened on Brian’s floor. He held the button to keep the elevator from moving. “Stop by my place, and I will give you a few more pointers.”

The heat of a blush climbed the column of Howdy’s long neck and suffused his face. “She thinks I’m gay because I room with you on the road, so this isn’t going to help. Cassie is really homophobic. Kept taking verbal swipes at me all through dinner.”

“Tell Uncle Brian how you responded to that.”

“I handled it like trash talk. You know when a guy on the other team says, ‘I’m coming to get you, Howdy, and break that pretty leg of yours.’ I say, ‘Try it. The Sinners have the best protectors in the league. You’re the one who will end up in the hospital.’ Then, I put it behind me and go on about my business.”

Brian gave him an arch smile. “So you told this be-otch you would put her in the hospital?”

“No, no! Don’t be ridiculous. I paid her some pretty hot compliments like I heard Joe would do back in the day. That shut her down. After I taught her son how to kick, she became downright friendly.”

“Nice move. You can always get to a broad through their kid.”

“Hey, I like teaching kids kicking, but how would you know about broads, women, I mean?”

“Let’s say I’m not exclusive in my tastes. Now stop being silly, come to my place, have some wine, and we’ll work this out.

“I don’t think so.”

The elevator bell dinged, someone else demanding its use on another floor.

“Howdy, did I ever hit on you?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m not trying to seduce you now. Come along. That’s probably the grande dame on the ninth floor. Any minute now, she’s going to call Gregory and say the elevator is out of order. You don’t want to enrage her. She already hates having the building and I quote, ‘overrun with athletes of questionable moral character.’ Don’t give her more ammunition to have us tossed out.”

Howdy stepped into the small, marble-floored and perfectly maintained foyer. A spindly table held a golden urn filled with two dozen obscenely beautiful cream and pink-edged hothouse roses, each one perfectly formed and in the act of unfolding to reveal its tight inner core like the labia of a naked woman.

“Hey, how come I don’t have flowers in my entry?” Howdy questioned.

“I pay extra for them. After a hot, sweaty practice, I like to be welcomed home by a pleasant scent and a beautiful form.”

“Okay, I think I can do without the flowers.”

Brian unlocked his door and stood aside to let Howdy pass. The kicker took a few long strides into the center of the room, but hesitated to sit on the white microfiber sofa or sully the sheepskin rug under the glass-topped coffee table with his dirty sneakers.

“Sit,” Brian ordered. “What do you have in the bag?”

“Leftovers. The thickest steaks you ever did see, baked potatoes, some of Joe’s steak sauce and Nell’s yogurt topping. Want some?”

“That would call for a nice pinot noir.” Brian made a graceful pivot toward the wine rack sitting on the breakfast bar and took down two inverted glasses from an overhead rack. He selected, opened, and poured a bottle with panache. “We’ll allow that to breathe while I heat up the steak and potatoes in the microwave. Let’s dine here at the bar. Hand over the food.”

“Okay.” Howdy took a seat atop a red leather and chrome stool while Brian fussed in the kitchen getting out utensils and plates, disrobing the potatoes from their foil wrappings, and popping them into the microwave.

“Talk while I cook,” Brian directed.

“So, this girl thinks I’m gay because I have to room with you on the road. Do I look gay to you?”

“Absolutely not! Horrible flannel shirt, nice snug jeans and tight T-shirt, but your outfit really doesn’t come together.” Brian poured the wine and gestured to Howdy to drink.

He took a big swallow. “Good. The T-shirt is kind of an accident. I shrunk it in the wash.”

Brian studied the kicker’s hands wrapped around the globe of the wineglass. “When did you last have a manicure?”

“Um, never. ‘Keep your nails short and clean, that’s all you need to do,’ Grandpa said.”

“See, so not gay.”

“Great! And that’s why you never hit on me.”

“Howdy, even if you were gay, I wouldn’t hit on you. I require a certain level of sophistication that you simply do not have. You are not my type.”

“Who is? Don’t answer me. I already know. If he swung that way, you’d want Joe Dean Billodeaux. Cassie wants him, too. She preened for him in this pretty blue sweater. I thought maybe she intended that for me, but I figured it out by the end of the day.”

“Well, Joe is the man of my dreams, but approaching someone so ragingly hetero usually results in getting beaten. Besides, I would never hook up with anyone on the team. I am tolerated for my elegant and precise punting abilities, but nothing more. Sometimes, I’m lonely. You know Ancient Andy wouldn’t stay with me, and he had enough clout to get a private room like Joe. Had it put in his contract.”