“Oh. Okay. That’s…good. Do you think…”
“I have a shot?” I finished for him. “Maybe. We’ll see. It could seem like a complication or a solution depending on how you look at it. We’re finalizing funding to build retail storefronts—Wood Hollow’s answer to Home Depot. We’ll sell treated wood for flooring, doors, paneling, fences, and so on. We don’t like commercial conglomerates in these parts, but we need the products we’re selling to big companies. So why not cut out the middleman and do it ourselves? Anyway…if we get the funding, and we should—I’m going to be busier than I already am. Sure, my kids are my priority, but I’m not a stay-at-home dad.”
“So what? That doesn’t matter. You told me showing up is what counts. And you always show up, Coop. Always.”
I pulled Silas into my arms and held on tight. Yes, there were battles ahead, but I didn’t have to fight them now.
One thing at a time. One day at a time.
And tonight, I had Silas.
CHAPTER 20
SILAS
Kids were funny as fuck. My experience with them was limited, but coaching a group of nine-to-twelve-year-old boys and girls, or pre-tweens as some Internet expert called them—required me to catch on quickly.
Things I’d learned so far:
A. Nine, ten, eleven, and twelve-year-olds were either rule followers or savvy anarchists who exploited loopholes in their favor.
Rhys La Rue, Chase’s best bud and Cooper’s best friend’s son was a scrappy little hellion with the toughness of a Doberman and the personality of a Labrador. Today at practice, he’d caught a fade route pass I’d thrown to the end zone. Great catch, and I’d told him so. However, he’d been out of bounds and the points didn’t count.
“That’s not fair,” he’d argued. “You clapped. If you clap, it should count.”
“Sorry, man. You deserved the shout-out. Well done. But touchdowns have to be scored in bounds. Them are the rules.”
“We gotta change that,” Rhys had grumbled.
Of course, he conveniently forgot his ruling when the other team ran a similar bum play.
B. They had weird hobbies.
Lola Lynwood, a ten-year-old from Elmwood brought her collection of bottle caps to practice…just because. That inspired Joaquin to share the Pokémon cards his uncle had given him. And since I’d once been the proud owner of a killer Pokémon card collection and was very curious about why anyone would want a jug full of bottle caps, I’d cut practice fifteen minutes early so we could check out the cards, the bottlecaps, and play tag till pickup.
C. They were fact junkies.
I’d been in the middle of explaining what a no-running zone was when Taylor Colfax adjusted his glasses and spouted,
“Did you know that Saturn could float in a bathtub?”
“Uh…” I’d tucked the football under my arm and squinted. “No.”
“It’s true.”
“Cool. All right, back to football.” I’d clapped and continued, “We’ve got a five-yard no-run zone, which means you have to pass the ball and?—”
“I heard it rains diamonds on Neptune,” someone else had piped up.
“Oh, that’s so cool.”
“And on Uranus too.”
“You said ur-anus,” a wise guy had snickered, inciting a round of merriment.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
