Page 56 of Lucky Shot

I nod. “No. I’ve got it.”

He purses his lips and nods. “You’ll have to make notes of all these quirky things you do that I don’t understand so that one day when you’re off at some elite academy, and I’m left here, I know what to do.”

I roll my eyes at our running joke. “Of course I will.”

“Much appreciated,” he says with a mock tip of his hat before I shove my hands in the pockets of my sweatshirt and jog across the parking lot to the street beyond.

Mr. Macias has lived next to the facility for as long as I can remember. Long enough that he recalls the time I broke his fence and lied about doing it. And how I used to steal the flowers off his wife’s pride and joy rose bushes. When Patrick passed away and I was about to go under and lose this place—inexperience, overwhelming debt, and lack of a plan on how to move forward will do that to you—Mr. Macias left a check under the door for me to find one morning to help keep the lights on for another month.

But when he lost his beloved wife, he lost the buffer to his grumpiness, and I have nothing but respect for him when everyone else is scared of him.

My heart pounds erratically in my chest when I knock on the door. I can hear the television playing behind it, see the lights on, but make sure I’m in the middle of the porch with the light squarely on me so that he doesn’t open the door with his gun leading the way.

“Who is it?” he grunts out despite knowing damn well he’s staring at me from behind the peephole.

“It’s Whitney Barnes, Mr. Macias. From next door. The soccer academy.”

“I know who you are,” he says as several locks unclick before the door shunts open. He leaves the barred security door in place as he eyes me.

It’s been quite some time since I’ve talked to him face to face. He’s aged—something I noticed that’s happening faster since his wife passed away. His hair is grayer and his body a little fuller, but the same intense, imposing eyes glare at me from behind the door.

“Big star over there, huh? Mucking up parking on the street and having people throw trash.”

“Yes. I apologize for that. It’s been. . . rather unexpected.”

“Too many disrespectful kids and asshole adults.”

“I understand why you’d think that.”

“So is he a superstar? The guy with the fancy car who’s lucky he still has rims and tires?”

I chuckle. “Very.”

“Why’s he there?”

“He lost a bet,” I say, “but then you know that already. You know everything that happens around here.”

For the first time, I see a crack in his smile. “I do indeed. Word on the street is that all this”—he waves his hand flippantly—“noise has you raking in all the dough over there.”

I snort and roll my eyes. “Any dough I take in is already accounted for. Those bright red past-due stamps are aggressive to say the least.”

He laughs. “Miss Whitney, you’re all right. But you need to make sure to keep that money out of sight. You know as well as me there are some . . . unsavory characters around here that might do bad things to get to it.”

“I do know. Yes.” I look over my shoulder and then back to him with a soft smile. “About all that dough coming in.” I reach into my pocket and pull out a check addressed to Mr. Macias in the amount of two thousand six hundred and twenty-two dollars. His eyes widen when I hand it to him. “I believe this is owed to you as well.”

His Adam’s apple bobs and he blinks rapidly as he stares at it as if he’s fighting back tears. “What’s this?” His voice cracks.

“You and Mrs. Macias helped me—saved me—from going under. After what a . . . brat I’ve been to you over the years, you could have written me off and let me drown. You didn’t. It was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.” Now it’s my voice that’s thick with tears. “That’s the money back plus interest. A dollar for every day of it.”

“Whitney,” he murmurs and wipes at his cheek with his eyes fixated on the rectangle of paper in his hand. When he looks up at me, tears are welling in his dark brown eyes. “She was right.”

“Who?”

“Millie. My wife.” His smile beams. “She told me you were a good kid and worth all the trouble you’d caused over the years. That you were doing good things for this community. She told me if we helped you out, you’d pay us back someday.”

Jesus. I came here to repay the grumpy old man who scared me as a teen, and now my chest aches with a love I never knew I could feel for someone in this situation. “She was a special woman,” I say.

“She was.”