He dragged his feet. “You aren’t really serious about this, are you?”
“Of course I’m serious.” She stopped, her hands on her hips. “You afraid an old woman is going to show you up?”
“I don’t see any old woman here,” he replied honestly.
She smiled brightly at him. “Aren’t you sweet? But don’t think that’s going to get you out of showing me how to kick a soccer ball.”
He watched as she marched over to the grass and kicked off her shoes. She gave a little squeal, probably because of the cold, but then wiggled her feet in the grass, a childlike look of delight on her face, before she turned to him. “Come on, slowpoke. I’m not going to live forever.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” he said as he kicked off his shoes too. He looked down at his big feet in the grass—it was an odd sensation.
For some reason, a memory surfaced of him playing soccer with Ortiz and a few other kids in his complex in Encino, barefoot on the grass. They’d probably been about seven at the time. He remembered falling onto the grass and laughing with them, though he couldn’t remember what had been so funny.
Back then, he’d loved to play soccer. He realized that it’d been after he went to Ghana and decided to play competitively that he’d lost his joy for the game. It became a means to an end—a way to get his dad’s approval.
He didn’t need anyone to point out that he was still chasing his dad’s approval too.
Lottie bent from side to side, like she was warming up. “Okay, I’m ready. Bring it, Gilbert.”
He hesitated a second before he dribbled the ball over to her with his feet. “I’m not used to anyone calling me Gilbert. I’ve been Daniel Osei in my career. It’s my father’s last name.”
“So you set your mother’s last name aside and used your father’s for playing ball.”
He stopped the ball with his foot and studied her. “You don’t look or sound judgmental.”
“That should be a good thing,” she said with a glint of humor.
“Yeah, except it was a dick move on my part.”
“Maybe sometime you’ll go back to being Danny Gilbert. You still have time. Look at me. I’m eighty, and I’ve got a new job and a potential boyfriend.” She waved her hand at him. “Come on, big boy. Give it to me.”
He nodded to the ball. “I’m going to kick this to you. You stop it with the bottom of your foot and then kick it back to me with the side of your foot. Butgently,” he stressed. “The last thing I need is for MacNiven and Pascal to come after me for letting you get hurt.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, leaning a little forward in anticipation of the ball.
He kicked it to her so that it’d stop right in front of her regardless.
But to his surprise, she stopped the ball with her foot and then quickly shot it back to him with heat.
Eyes narrowed, he caught it with his foot. “Did you play me, Lottie?”
She grinned cockily. “Imayhave played a little soccer back in the day. It was eons ago though.” She rubbed her hands together. “Is that all you’ve got, Gilbert?”
Like he was going to go up against her hard. But he lowered his head and shot her the ball with a little more force.
Like before, she stopped it expertly, laughing at herself. She flipped the ball up onto her toes, let it fall, and then kicked it to him.
“Show-off,” he said, amused. Because it brought her such obvious joy, he kicked it back at her immediately so she could do it again.
She dribbled it between her legs, slowly, but with way more skill than the average person. As she kicked it back to him, she said, “Tell me about your dad.”
He tripped and muffed catching the ball. It rolled past him, just like it did every time he’d faced off against MacNiven.
“Goooaalll,” she called out, drawling the word like she was a sportscaster.
He couldn’t decide if he was annoyed or amused. “There’s not much to tell.”
“You expect me to believe that?” she asked with an arch of her brow. “You just missed a ball that you could have stopped in your sleep.”