Forever Promised by Amy Lane Read Free Book Online

those , do you?”
    “No, seriously! Deacon, they’ve got their kids with them—I don’t think it’s like that!”
    Deacon eyeballed him suspiciously and then turned around to look. Sure enough, the parents—lots of women in tank tops and walking shorts and men in cargo shorts and T-shirts, all between Deacon and Collin’s age—were gathering their children and their fold-up chairs and blankets and dragging them inelegantly toward Deacon as he walked off the practice field toward the car. A few of them were waving and calling his name.
    Deacon’s eyes opened wide and if Collin didn’t know better, he’d say Deacon Winters, the family patriarch and center of any storm weathered at The Pulpit, was terrified.
    The first woman of the group drew near, panting and out of breath. “Wait… up… a… sec…,” she breathed and then looked behind her. Her son was galloping up quickly, and her older son was running toward them in a flurry of schoolbooks and dropped papers, because apparently he’d been doing his homework while his little brother was practicing. “Jason!” she screamed. “You dropped your math!” and the kid turned around like a capering puppy and hustled back to fetch it.
    “Whew!” she said, smoothing her hair back. “I thought you were just going to take off!”
    “Well, uhm, yeah,” Deacon said, looking to Collin as though being sought out in a crowd was completely bizarre.
    Collin shrugged back. Well, you couldn’t always pick your social situation, could you?
    “That was the plan. What can I do for you….”
    “I’m Megan, Tyler’s mother,” she said. She smiled at him, warm and genuine. She was a tall woman, taller than Deacon, with blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and posture that didn’t give an inch, although she had a few to spare. “And I can’t believe we let that situation go on for so long. Parry’s mother—Benny? Is that right?—anyway, she’s been distracted a little. I’m not sure she saw how bad it was. But, uhm, anyway. So, do you want to coach?”
    Deacon’s jaw dropped, and Collin looked at him, curious. It couldn’t have been that out of the realm of possibility, could it?
    But then Collin vaguely remembered the gossip that had circulated through his mom’s diner when Deacon had come out during a trial for assaulting an officer, and thought that maybe, well, for Deacon, it was like a slingshot into the sun.
    “I beg your pardon?” He still had his eyes wide open, like a possum in the headlights, and Collin almost smacked him to ask him what was wrong.
    “Yes,” Megan said as Collin blinked and looked at Deacon again. “You’re very good with her. We all saw you practicing while we were waiting for Coach Douchecanoe”—Collin choked on a smirk—“to get here. I’m already team mom—I’ve got no problem helping you with all the administrative stuff. We just need someone on the field who can deal with other people’s kids and not want to use them for highway piñatas.”
    She was so earnest, with big blue eyes and a sort of long-faced prettiness, that when she said things like that, Collin just wanted to fall to the ground and kick his heels in the dust laughing. He couldn’t wait to tell Jeff about this woman. Jeffy would probably come out to watch the games just to talk to her, because Jeff liked people who could crack him the fuck up.
    “I’ll be assistant coach,” he said quickly. Martin was going back down south for his final year in high school, and, well, Collin and Jeff missed him already. Collin had discovered he liked kids, liked his sisters’ kids, liked the kids at The Pulpit, liked the kids at Promise House—just generally liked spending time with young people. Jeffy wasn’t half-bad at it either. They were neither of them looking to adopt, but still…. “I still play rec-league soccer,” Collin said, and Deacon nodded because the guys had been out to a few of his games (much to his embarrassment—Jeffy’s pom-poms