Page 27 of Man Advantage

“He might be brown.”

“Brown’s good,” Cole said.

He set the drawing on the counter by the window and lined it up where it wouldn’t get knocked over. Ford looked at the dishes.

They finished the kitchen together, Ford washing and Cole drying. Upstairs, Charlotte was giving orders to the stuffed animals who lived on her bed. Neither of them mentioned the drawing.

He went up at eight to say goodnight. Charlotte was already in bed with the moose jammed under her arm and the hall light cracked to the exact width she required. She had a book on her chest that she was saving for Cole.

“Is he coming?”

“He’s coming. He’s wiping down the counters.” Ford sat on the edge of the mattress and pulled her blanket straight.

“Does it hurt today?”

“A little.”

“More than Tuesday?”

Ford stopped. He had no idea what she meant. “About the same,” he said.

She accepted that and held the book out to him. “You get one page. Cole gets the rest.”

Ford read his one page. On the way out, he stopped in the hall with his hand on the doorframe and tried to remember what had happened on Tuesday.

Downstairs he put the rest of the dishes away, got two beers out of the fridge, and sat down to wait. It took two more books. When Cole finally came down, he looked like he’d lost a negotiation he’d never had a chance of winning.

“She played me,” he said.

“She played you before you sat down. I don’t know why you keep trying to hold the line.”

“Because she says please and I forget I have a spine.” He dropped onto the other end of the couch.

Ford handed him a beer and stretched his legs out along the couch.

Cole pulled Ford’s feet into his lap without asking about it and worked a thumb into the arch. Ford let his head drop back against the cushion. He closed his eyes and stayed there because this was the hour they got and he wasn’t going to spend it moving.

“I kept Halsey after practice,” Ford said. “We went through his tape for an hour and a half.”

Cole dug a knuckle into his instep. “Did he listen?”

“He didn’t argue with me once. That’s a first.” Ford balanced the bottle on his chest. “He’s going to be good. He’s got hands you can’t teach.”

“He asked what I’d have done on the second one against Springfield. Took me twenty minutes to answer him.” Ford opened his eyes and found the water stain he’d been meaning to look into since October. “I was still working on it in the truck on the way home.”

Cole’s hands went still. “You liked it.”

“That’s the part that keeps me up.” Ford set the bottle down on the floor. “I’m teaching the kid who takes my net, and I liked doing it.”

Cole started up again, slower. “I saw Theo pull you this morning.”

Ford put his forearm over his eyes. “Yeah.”

“You okay?”

“I sat in the driveway a while before I came in. Didn’t want Charlotte to see my face.”

Cole squeezed his ankle once. “What’d he say?”