“I do,” he said confidently. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching my mother endure what she has, it’s that women are a hell of a lot stronger than anyone gives them credit for. And if Paige has her heart set on playing football?” He shrugged. “I would never be the one to tell her that she couldn’t do it.” He paused. “Mostly, because I hate being wrong, so I wouldn’t take that chance.”
I scoffed, shaking my head and letting out a long breath. “I’m scared,” I admitted. “She asked me if I’d let her play next year. She turns ten in March, and for her birthday, all she wants is to go to football camp next summer and play little league.”
“I think you should do it.”
I swallowed, all my mom senses prickling to life under my skin. “What if she’s bullied? What if she gets hurt? She’s never done more than toss a football around with her father, and he hasn’t even taught her much but how to line her fingers up on the laces.” I looked at Jordan. “I want her to have an equal opportunity, but you and I both know that’s not usually how it works.”
Understanding settled in his eyes, and he nodded, lips pressed together. “Well… I understand your concern, and I can’t say that none of that will happen. She will probably get bullied. And as someone who has played football all his life, I’d say chances are pretty good that she’ll get hurt, too.” He paused. “But, isn’t that the risk we take with everything? If all we did was play it safe… would that really be living at all?”
I’d never heard so many words out of Jordan Becker’s mouth than I did in that park that morning. He was always a man of quiet reserve, but it was like I’d found the secret to splitting him wide open.
Football.
My eyes trailed from where his gaze held me, down his chest, bare and glistening and smothered with a reddish, clay-like mud. His body was that of a Greek god — broad shoulders, narrow waist, calves that were bigger than my head. I used the mud as an excuse to catalogue every hard ridge and deep valley of him, all the while pretending like I wasn’t suddenly aware of how hot the mid-morning August sun was.
Mud covered him in patches on his abdomen and arms, and almost every inch of the skin on his legs. It specked his cheeks and forehead, matted his short hair, even peppered the inner canals of his ears. I let my eyes stray to his basketball shorts, which I would hate to be responsible for cleaning, before I found his eyes again.
His stormy eyes.
“So… did you have to fight your way out of the jungle last night or something?” I cocked a brow.
Jordan chuckled, grabbing the back of his neck. “Uh… I like to run in the mud.”
I blinked. “I’m sorry, you what?”
He nodded behind where I stood, and when I turned, I found his Bronco just as dirty as he was. There was a bucket of soapy water and a large sponge next to it, along with a hose from the park’s free car wash station.
“I don’t know,” he said when I turned back to him. “I went mudding with a friend in high school when I got my first truck at sixteen, and I guess that’s where it all started. I used to take my little brother a lot, and then I started going by myself. And… well… one time when I was out there, I got stuck, and I had to run back to the main pit to find someone to come dig me out. At first, it sucked. But, then… something happened. It was like… I don’t know, like I had this moment of total clarity, of a complete clearing of my mind. It was just me and my body, and even though I was sore as hell the next day, it was like I’d taken a hit of some magical drug rather than gone for a run.” He smiled sheepishly. “Been addicted ever since.”
I smiled, and for a long pause, our eyes connected the way they had in the locker room the night before. Only this time, there was no anger, no accusation. We were standing in an open park, and yet somehow it felt like we were in the smallest room, like the oxygen we shared was limited.
“Sydney,” he said, swallowing. “I—”
“Mommy!”
Before Jordan could say whatever it was he had to say, Paige flung her arms around me, panting after the sprint she’d just made toward us.
“I’m hungry,” she said. “Can we go eat lunch?”
I glanced apologetically at Jordan, but he waved me off.
“We sure can. What do you feel like having?”
“Hmm…” she tapped her finger to her lips, just like I’d done earlier, and my heart swelled. I loved little moments like that, when I saw pieces of me in her. “Macaroni and cheese!”