Sweet Spot

Meaning they could have been in bed. She smiled. “Typical guy. Blaming someone else.” But his words made her oddly happy. She liked knowing he’d had a good time, too. Not that she liked him or anything. Well, she liked him, but it was in a “we have a bargain to get through” sense. Not liked him as in any romantic way.

“We’ll reschedule,” she said. “After all, I’m yours to command, so to speak.”

“Good.” He motioned to their server and asked for the bill. “I’ll call you tomorrow and we can set up a time.”

To have sex. She felt her insides quiver. “Just say the word and I’m ready to purr.”

HAWK SET UP THE CHAIRS in the room. It was Sunday and there would be the usual postgame film meeting in an hour.

Despite the less than satisfying ending to his date the previous evening, he was in a damn good mood. Everything was going right. The team was winning, Brittany had picked six different colleges to apply to, and he had a hot woman he not only liked to talk to but make love with at his beck and call. Oh, yeah. It was good to be him.

He heard footsteps in the hall and walked to the doorway. Nicole hurried toward him, looking intense about something. He grinned. While they wouldn’t be able to do anything significant, they could probably manage some hot kisses in his office. That would-

She stopped in front of him, waving a piece of paper. “You just think you know everything, don’t you?”

That didn’t sound happy. “What’s wrong?”

“Gee, what an interesting question. What’s wrong? Hmm, how about the fact that your key player is lying to you about where he lives?”

“Raoul? What are you talking about?” He grabbed the paper from her. “What’s this?”

“His paycheck. I know money’s tight for him, so I decided to deliver his check. I went by his house. The address he gave me is an abandoned building. I couldn’t believe it. So I went inside and someone is living there. I saw clothes and a sleeping bag, a couple of flashlights and this.”

She fished a Pacific High School T-shirt out of her bag. “Does this look familiar?”

Hawk couldn’t believe it. Raoul, living like that? How could he not know? Raoul told him everything. “He never said a word. How long has this been going on?”

“That would be my question to you, Coach. Knowing about this sort of thing would be your job, not mine.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE,” Hawk insisted. “There’s something else going on. There’s no way I wouldn’t know.”

“I can’t wait to hear the explanation,” Nicole told him, obviously still upset. “He’s a kid, Hawk. I don’t care that he just turned eighteen and legally he’s an adult. He shouldn’t have to deal with crap like this. Living alone in a run-down building?”

“He’s not.” Raoul couldn’t be. Hawk would have known. He cared about his players. He was involved in their lives.

A few minutes later he heard the guys start to arrive. He sent several out to Nicole’s car to collect the desserts she’d brought and asked Raoul to join them in his office.

Hawk watched him as he entered the room. The teen looked exactly the same. There was no hint that anything was wrong.

Maybe Nicole had overreacted, he thought. Maybe she’d misunderstood the situation.

“Have a seat,” Hawk said.

Raoul looked between them. “What’s going on?”

Nicole tried to smile. “Nothing too scary. Don’t worry. We aren’t sending you off to aliens for medical experiments.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“It happens more than you think.”

Nicole’s attempt at humor didn’t make Raoul seem any more comfortable.

She sighed, then held out his paycheck. “I forgot to give this to you on Thursday. You didn’t work yesterday and I didn’t want you to wait to have the money. So I drove by your address, thinking I’d give it to you.”

Raoul stiffened slightly. Color darkened his skin and he ducked his head. He also didn’t take the check.

“I can explain,” he mumbled.

Hawk’s gut tightened. Dammit all to hell, how had this happened? He wanted to yell at someone, but no one in the room deserved that, except maybe himself.

“We’re listening,” he said, doing his best to sound neutral and calm.

Raoul shifted his weight. “I got kicked out of my foster home a few weeks ago. The guy was hitting the kids and his wife. I tried to stay out of it, you know. Because I was so close to turning eighteen. But I hated it, so one day I decided to show him what it felt like to be beat up by someone.”

He looked at Hawk. “I didn’t hurt him, I swear. I just roughed him up.”

“I know you didn’t hurt him.” Even if the bastard deserved to have a few bones broken.

“He threw me out. I figured they wouldn’t say anything to social services if I didn’t. That they’d just keep the money. They did. I have an appointment for next week with my social worker. To report the guy. But I wanted to wait until I was eighteen and out of the system.”

Raoul swallowed. “I’ve known about that old building for a long time. No one goes there. It’s pretty safe. So I set myself up there. It’s okay, Coach. I’m okay.”

Hawk didn’t know which emotion was stronger-the desire to find the guy who’d been hitting his kids and finish what Raoul had started or pride at the young man his player had become.

Nicole glared at him. “You didn’t know about any of this, did you?” She turned her fury on Raoul. “You’re living alone in an abandoned building? That’s so not okay. Pretty safe isn’t good enough. You need to be living in a real home, with plumbing and heat and a roof that doesn’t leak in forty-seven places.”

“It’s-” Raoul started, but stopped when Nicole glared at him.

“Don’t you dare say it’s fine,” she yelled. “It’s not fine. Nothing about this is fine.”

Hawk appreciated her passion and energy on the subject and knew she was right. Raoul couldn’t live like that. On a purely practical level, winter was coming. He’d freeze his ass off without heat.

“I’m not going to a shelter,” Raoul said, backing up. “I mean it. I won’t live there.”

Something about the way he spoke told Hawk the kid had been in a shelter before. What had happened that he knew so little about his star player? He thought he knew everything about his guys. And why hadn’t Raoul come to him for help?

“You’re not going to a shelter,” Hawk said. “We’ll figure something out. In the meantime, you can come live with me.”

Nicole and Raoul both stared at him.

“Not a good idea,” she said.

“Coach, that’s really great, but…”

Then Hawk got it. “Brittany,” he muttered. Having her boyfriend living under the same roof wasn’t smart.

He thought about the other parents he knew. Who would be willing to take in Raoul? He was legally an adult. Did that make the situation easier or harder? There wouldn’t be any need to go through the foster system, but he was hardly some cute, little, cuddly kid.

Nicole muttered something under her breath then said, “He can live with me.”

Hawk stared at her. Raoul looked stunned.

“What?” she asked them both. “I have a spare room at my house. I’m in the school district. He already works for me. Someone responsible has to keep an eye on him.”

She turned to Raoul. “If we do this, there will be rules. No parties, you keep my hours. You do your homework, you go to class. You’re an adult now, so you’re expected to act like one. But a responsible one. Not some jerk who comes and goes as he pleases. If that’s too much for you, then you need to be somewhere else.”