notable. Sure his height added advantage for a junior high player, but more than that Jaden had an inner ability that shone through. Shoulders back, head high, the boy was clearly invested in the coach’s advice, nodding agreement all the while.
Trent hesitated.
Should he interrupt this?
He’d been so sure of himself last night, so downright eager to push his presence on the boy, but now he second-guessed himself.
Was he pushing in to punish Lyssa or build rapport with his son?
Jaden.
The name slipped off his tongue like butter on warm bread.
Chris turned, noted him and waved. “Trent. I heard you were stopping by. Come and meet my friend Jaden.”
No backing out now. Trent eased forward, keeping his pace even and his face neutral, not an easy task when what he wanted to do was examine everything about the boy, top to bottom. Talk to him, get to know him.
Give him time.
Lyssa’s breathy voice came back to him, a woman pleading for her son.
He shoved that aside as he drew near and stuck out his hand. “Jaden, hey. I’m Trent.”
The boy nodded amiably. “Good to meet you, sir.”
Polite. Straightforward. Nice, good qualities. Lyssa had done well.
“Trent, Jaden and I were just working on the three Ps,” Chris offered.
Trent ticked off his fingers, remembering. “Pressure, push, pull.”
“Yeah.” The boy’s smile stabbed through him, because part of Trent wanted the smile to be aimed just at him. Deep down, he hated that he was standing alongside his son, his boy, and the kid had no clue he was shoulder-to-shoulder with his very own father.
But the smile soothed as well, the boy’s obvious well-being and good adjustment a huge balm to Trent’s tattered soul.
“I’ll take center,” he offered. Trent exchanged a look with Chris. “I’ll snap to Jaden and then you can give him the lowdown on what to do next. What to watch for.”
“Good deal,” Chris said.
“Hey, guys! Can we work with you?”
Two boys roughly Jaden’s age straddled worn bicycles at the field’s edge, their looks hopeful. Chris arched an eyebrow toward Trent. “You mind?”
“The more the merrier.”
A smile eased the tension he’d noted in Chris’s jaw, just enough to tell Trent the other man knew the score, and that raised a question in his mind. Did Chris know because it was that obvious or had Alyssa told him?
The former, Trent decided. He was pretty sure that Alyssa would keep this under wraps as long as she could, but with the striking resemblance between father and son, people would know. That thought was confirmed the first time he saw Jaden lob a spiral that hit his targeted receiver dead-center, the ball’s spin textbook-perfect.
“You played before moving here?”
Jaden shrugged. “Not like on a team or anything.”
“No?” The boy’s reluctant admission raised Trent’s ire. “Really?”
“I just practiced a lot.”
“Well.” Trent mentally chalked the boy’s response on his check-this-out-later list and nodded. “It worked. You’re solid. Try this, though, when you fade right.” Easing back, scanning down field, Trent appeared to be heading right but ended up to the left.
Jaden laughed appreciation for the move. “Do it again. I was too busy watching you to see what your feet were doing.”
Trent demonstrated again, noting how Jaden studied his foot moves as if committing them to memory. “That totally jukes the other team.”
“Until they figure it out,” Trent admitted. “But it’s a good move to have in your arsenal.”
Jaden nodded. “I’ll practice it at home. I like learning new things.”
That statement said a lot about the boy’s nature. Open. Eager. So much like him. Another knife stabbed Trent, regret twisting within. How he would have loved to guide the boy’s first step, his first pass, his first no-training-wheels two-wheeler ride.
But it hadn’t happened, and there was no recouping time. Trent’s childhood made him understand that better than most.
Three more middle school boys came along and joined the impromptu drills. Studying Jaden’s moves, seeing his easy leadership among the other boys, Trent shoved regret aside more than once. Chris left the group with a quick nod of understanding to Trent about an hour later, just minutes before Alyssa pulled to the curb. She stood alongside her car watching, not interrupting Jaden’s session, the cool evening breeze making her draw her yellow hoodie tighter.
Trent left the boys to their own devices and trotted her way, pretending not to notice how his approach hiked her anxiety. But her body language spoke volumes. She tightened her stance, shifted her gaze and nervously bit her lip. He couldn’t read her full expression because her eyes were shaded by inexpensive sunglasses, the setting sun blinding the east side of the field.
“How did it go?”
“He’s amazing.”
A tiny smile of agreement softened her clenched mouth. “He is.”
“He says he never played formally. Is that right?”
A frown replaced the smile. “That’s right.”
“Who taught him?”
“He’s self-taught mostly. I had a DVD of old Super Bowl games and he’d watch that thing again and again, studying the moves of the players, the teams. And then he’d practice in the backyard, or in his bedroom. He’s been running plays since he could walk. So much like you.”
Her last words were spoken on a breath of wind, light and soft, wafting away, almost as if she didn’t want him to hear them.
But he did.
“Does your husband work with him?”
Her jaw tightened before she shrugged. “He did. Some.”
Anger mixed with envy shimmied upward, grabbing Trent somewhere around his throat. He couldn’t imagine having a kid as smart, bright and capable as Jaden and not working with him, not coaching him, not spending every moment he could to help the boy develop skills that opened doors of opportunity. What kind of man shrugged off a kid with Jaden’s capabilities? Was it because he was the boy’s stepfather?
Trent’s defense mechanism clicked into high gear just as Alyssa tried and failed to stifle a yawn. She shook her head. “Sorry.”
Something in the way she said that, the way she tried to cover her move, tugged Trent forward. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
She wasn’t. He could see it. Feel it. But, hey, not his business, right?
She yawned again, then looked downright aggravated beneath the dark lenses. Surprising both of them, Trent reached out and tipped her shades up.
“Hey.”
“You’re exhausted.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” Guilt edged away a corner of anger. “Is worrying about me keeping you from sleeping?”
The look she slanted him had “duh” written all over it.
Growling, he strode two steps away, ran a hand through his hair, turned and came back. “Listen, I—”
She forestalled whatever he said with a shake of her head. “The last thing I