Nothing. You’ve got nothing that will fucking get through to me, old man.
He tips back in his old wooden desk chair and studies me, fingers clasped into a steeple. Balancing on the legs, Coach taps his chin with the tips.
It’s on the verge of my tongue to tell him if he wants to get through to me, he can stop calling me Mister Daniels. Second, he can cut the bullshit and tell me the reason he pulled me into his office after practice.
After a long stretch of silence, he leans forward, the springs on his chair emitting a loud, scraping metallic sound, his arms coming to rest on the desktop. His hands glide over a sheaf of paper and he plucks one off the top.
“Tell ya what we’re going to do.” He pushes the paper toward me across the desk. “The director of Big Brothers Mentorship Program owes me a favor. You have any experience with kids, Daniels?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Do you know what Big Brothers is?”
“No, but I’m sure you’re about to enlighten me,” I retort, unable to stop myself. Crossing my arms, I adopt a defensive pose most people find intimidating.
Not Coach.
“Allow me to educate you, Mr. Daniels. It’s a program designed to match a youngster with an older volunteer—such as yourself—that acts as a mentor. Hang out with the kid. Show him he’s not alone. Be someone dependable that isn’t going to bail. Typically, they’re good kids from single-parent households, but not always. Sometimes the kids are left alone, deadbeat dads, that sort of thing. Sometimes their parents just don’t care and they’re left to fend for themselves. Know what that’s like that, son?”
Yes. “No.”
The sadist drones on, shuffling the stack on his desk. “There’s an interview process I think you’d fail with flying colors, so we’re cutting through the red tape and pulling some strings. You know why? Because you have potential to be successful and you’re pissing it away by being a callous little asshole.”
His chair creeks in the cellblock of an office. “Maybe what you need is to give a shit about someone other than yourself for a change. Maybe what you need is to meet a kid whose life is shittier than yours. Your pity party is over.”
“I don’t have time to volunteer, Coach,” I grit out.
Coach grins up at me from his desk, the overhead lights reflecting off his thick glasses. “Too goddamn bad then, ain’t it? You either take the volunteer hours, or you’re off the team. I don’t need a smoking gun on my hands. Trust me, we’d find a way to carry on without you.”
He waits for my answer, and when I don’t immediately respond, he presses. “Think you can handle that? Say, Yes, Coach.”
I nod tersely. “Yes, Coach.”
“Good.” Satisfied, he grabs a yellow No. 2 pencil and tosses it at me. “Fill that sheet out and take it with you. You meet your Little Brother tomorrow at their downtown office. Address is on the form.”
Reluctantly, I snatch the pencil and paper off the desk but don’t look at it.
“Don’t be late. Don’t fuck this up. Tomorrow afternoon you’re going to see how the other half lives, got it son?” I nod. “Good. Now get the fuck out of my office.”
I glower down at him.
His raspy chuckle hits my back when I turn toward the door. “And Mr. Daniels?”
I stop in my tracks but refuse to face him.
“I know it will be hard, but try not to be total prick to the kid.”
Coach is a total asshole.
Not that I give a shit, because I’m an asshole, too. There isn’t much I care about these days, so why would he think I’d care about some fucking kid? Especially one being forced on me?
My friends call me merciless; they claim cold blood runs through my veins, that I’m impossible to get close to.
But I like it that way; I like creating distance. No one needs me, and I need them even less. Happiness is a myth. Who needs it? This anger brewing inside me is more tangible than any happiness I’ve forgotten how to feel, never having been anything but alone.
It’s suited me fine for fifteen years.
I’m still fuming when I waltz into the grocery store, grab a cart from the corral, and push it up and down each aisle with purpose, tossing food in without slowing my stride.
Steel-cut oats. Agave nectar. Walnuts.
I saunter to the nutrition and organics section, hands automatically reaching for the protein powder, gripping the black plastic container in one hand, and lobbing it in among the deli meat, bread, and bottles of water.
Turning the aisle and pushing the cart on the right side of the aisle, I skid to a halt, almost plowing into a little girl on her tiptoes, reaching toward a shelf. Her black curly hair is pulled tightly into two pigtails, her string-bean arms straining toward a box she’ll never reach.
Even on the balls of her feet.
Plus, she’s in my way.
“Dammit kid, I almost hit you,” I growl. “You might want to pay more attention.”
She ignores my warning.
“Can you get that down for me?” Her grubby little fingers wiggle toward a red box of sugar cones, forefinger pointing toward the top shelf. I note that her tiny digits are painted glittery blue, and there are bits of dirt encrusted under her nail beds.
“Should you be talking to strangers?” I scold down at her but pluck the box off the shelf anyway, gruffly shoving it toward her grasping hands. Glance around. Notice for the first time that she’s unsupervised. “Jesus Christ kid, where are your parents?”
“At school.”
“At school?”
“My dad works and my mom is in college.”
“Who the hell are you with?”
The little squirt ignores me, tilting her head, narrowing her unblinking beady brown eyes at me. “You’re saying bad words.”
I’m not in the mood to play nice, so I narrow mine back. “I’m an adult. I can say whatever the hell I want.”
“I’m telling.” Her little mouth puckers disapprovingly and I can feel her silently judging me; I bet she’s a real joy to have in class.
“Yeah, okay kid—you do that.”
“Summer?” calls a loud feminine voice from somewhere around a corner. In a flurry of gray and white, the owner of that voice comes skidding around the corner, gasping for breath when she sees us.
“Oh my god, there you are!”
She falls to her knees.
Pulls the scrawny kid to her body in an embrace. “Oh my g-god,” the woman repeats, stuttering. “Sweetie, you cannot just walk off like that! You scared me half to d-death. Didn’t you hear me calling your name?”
The kid—Summer, apparently—holds her ground, trying to wiggle free. “I was getting ice cream cones and sprinkles.”
“Summer.” The woman pulls the little girl into an embrace. Takes a shaky breath. “Summer, when I-I couldn’t find you, I thought someone had kidnapped you. I thought I was going to have a h-heart attack.”
“I was right here, Vi,” the kid squeaks out into the woman’s jacket, fighting to breathe through the struggle cuddle. “This boy was getting my cones.”
This boy?
I put my hands up. “Whoa kid, do not drag me down into the gutter with you.”