“Late for practice.”
“Practice?” Kingsley asked as they headed down a side street. “I thought we were playing. Just you and I.”
“You’re too good. You need to be on a team.” S?ren pointed ahead of them to a soccer field behind a small school. He saw about twenty-five people milling about on the field, kicking balls back and forth. Most of them looked to be teenagers— boys and a few girls. But a few were their age, in their twenties and thirties. One girl with a swinging ponytail wearing short shorts and knee socks jogged past them and waved at S?ren.
“What are you doing to me?” Kingsley asked.
“Congratulations, Kingsley. You’re the new striker on our intermural church league team.”
“Were you this weird back in high school?” Kingsley asked. “Or is this a side effect of prolonged celibacy?”
“You can’t say no. We’ve already ordered your T-shirt.”
“Definitely weirder since high school.”
“The wisest thing my confessor ever told me was that I could be a priest and have fun.”
“Church league soccer is your definition of fun?”
“It is when you win. But First Presbyterian slaughtered us last week. We lost four to one.”
“Aren’t Presbyterians Calvinists?” Kingsley asked. S?ren hated Calvinism.
“Now you know why I need you to help me destroy them.”
“If I help you destroy the Presbyterians, what do I get in return?”
“My gratitude?”
Kingsley stayed silent.
“My eternal gratitude?” S?ren upped his offer.
Kingsley still said nothing.
“A night with Eleanor once she’s old enough?”
Kingsley narrowed his eyes at S?ren and stroked his chin while considering the offer.
“You and her both? My bedroom?”
S?ren paused.
“If you’re clean,” S?ren finally said, “and if you behave, don’t get yourself killed between now and then, and if she’s amenable to the idea.”
“Agreed,” Kingsley said.
“Then it’s a deal.”
Kingsley took the soccer ball out of S?ren’s hands.
“First Presbyterian will never know what hit them,” Kingsley said. Side by side they ran on to the field, and in short order, Kingsley had taken command of the team. The team assumed, rightly, that being European, Kingsley could play better than they could, and they willingly followed his direction. The younger players especially were in awe. For a perfect two hours Kingsley didn’t think once of his impending test results, not once about Robert Dixon’s tape, not once about taking out Fuller’s church.
And not once did he think of S?ren as anything other than an annoyingly good player on his team.
When practice ended, they walked back to the church sweaty and tired. But it was a good sweaty, a good tired.
“Admit it, you had fun,” S?ren said. “Fun that didn’t involve sex, drugs, or blackmailing and/or bribing a district attorney.”
“I don’t bribe DAs for fun. That was a favor to you.”
“And I appreciate it. So does Eleanor, even if she doesn’t know what you did on her behalf.”
“She’ll make it up to me someday,” Kingsley said, attempting to goad S?ren and succeeding.
“I said if she’s amendable to the idea. She might not be.”
“You can’t even say that with a straight face.”
“I admit it’s unlikely.”
“You know,” Kingsley said, taking his keys out of his pocket. “I would have joined the team without you giving me a night with your girl.”
S?ren smiled and turned away, heading to his church. In French he called back.
“I would have given you a night with her without you joining the team.”
Kingsley laughed. Maybe there was hope for that priest yet.
19
“DO YOU WANT A STRAIGHT PIN THROUGH YOUR future children?”
“No.” Kingsley sighed.
“Then, young man, I’d suggest you hold still.”