He’d started, revealing his silly thing to be that Donny’s nickname for him when he was a kid had beenSharkybecause his name was Fin. The kids had laughed and had embraced the exercise wholeheartedly. It had evolved—or maybe devolved was a better word, given how the silly things got progressively sillier—from there and, at the end, the kids were looking at him as though he hung the fucking moon.
Also, he’d got in some ball skills—win/win.
And Winnie was on the sidelines again. When he first spotted her, he’d waved and signed hello. Although she didn’t respond, she didn’t hide behind her grandfather’s leg either.
He was ending the session by giving the kids chances at shooting for a goal. In the mini games Fin had run the last two days, none of them had even got close to the net, but they knew that was the whole purpose of the game and they were all busting a gut for the opportunity to have a go.
So,what the hell. If putting the ball into the back of the net—even if it meant letting them all shoot their shot from a metre in front of it—was what put a spring in their step and gave them the impetus to train every day and do their best, then he was happy to oblige.
He was pleased he’d had the conversation with Sweeney in the car because her advice had been so very insightful. So, he assumed, was his, if the number of times he’d clocked her lying on the ground with her camera pointed at the action was any indication.
Fin hoped his advice was as successful as hers.
‘Your go, Sharky,’ came a little voice from somewhere behind him after all the kids had taken their shot and put it in the net.
Fin turned to find nineteen little faces smiling at him, nodding and murmuring, ‘Yeah,’ and, ‘Go, Sharky.’
Okay, maybe heshouldn’thave told them that particular anecdote. But they were looking at him with genuine excitement and, after finally building some kind of rapport with them, he wasn’t going to spoil it by insisting they call him Fin.
‘Yeah.’ Donny joined in the call. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got,Sharky.’
Ignoring his cousin, Fin turned to Alex, who was holding the ball because he’d been the last to shoot. Fin grounded the ball in the spot where all the kids had taken their shots.
‘Whaddya say,’ Donny said as Fin prepared to tap it through the posts, ‘we make old Sharky work a bit harder for it?’
There was a collective,‘Yaaaas!’
Donny grabbed the ball and the crowd of kids parted like the Red Sea. He placed it several metres back from the penalty line, which was already ten metres from the net. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got,Sharky,’ he declared again as he headed into goal to defend the space.
‘You sure you want to do that?’ Fin put his foot on the ball. ‘Haven’t you collected enough green skidmarks on that pretty face of yours the last few days?’
‘Talk’s cheap,’ Donny taunted as he squatted low, his legs apart, his elbows resting on his thighs as he weaved back and forth on the spot.
‘You can do it, Sharky,’ a kid called.
Tori, ever the loyalist, called, ‘Block him, Dad.’
He heard one kid whisper loudly, ‘You have to be Superman to kick that far,’ and he grinned. As a fully grown adult who had played Gaelic all his life, he wasn’t worried about the distance. It was getting it past his cousin that was the tricky part. Given his innate clumsiness, Michael Murphy had tried to limit Donny’s chances of hurting himself by naming him goalie from the get-go.
Consequently, Donny had become seriously fucking good along the way. Although it had been a while, so there was that.
The kids jostled and called encouragement to Fin as he backed up four paces, visually lining up the shot while ignoring Donny, who was now playing to both the kids and the adult audience around the sidelines by shuffling back and forth along the front of the net like a crab, straight out of SpongeBob SquarePants central casting.
Which was kinda brave for a guy who fell over as often as Donny.
The kids thought it was hysterical, though, and Fin grinned, thinking again how right Sweeney had been about getting the kids laughing.
‘You ready for this?’ he called to his cousin.
‘Bring it on, Sharky,’ Donny responded, settling himself front and centre of the net.
Fin glanced at the ball then back at the net. ‘Top left-hand corner,’ he said, pointing to the spot.
Donny grinned. No way was he falling for the deliberately misleading direction.
Running in, Fin jabbed the ball hard in the opposite direction to the one he’d indicated. His cousin was prepared, though, breaking right. And he even got his fingertips to the ball, but not enough to stop the very satisfying rustle of ball hitting net.
Fin punched his hands in the air in triumph then quickly pivoted around to see the kids cheering, their faces excited as they ran in his direction. The sidelines had also erupted into celebrations. High on the moment, he held out his arms like an aeroplane, cried out,‘Yaaaas!’and zoomed away, his little band of Banshees following behind, their hands outstretched.
