Page 8 of Caught Up In You (Indigo Royal Resort)
Anna looked at her pointedly, like she knew Leona better than to trust that she would hold her tongue when it came to Cullen Cruz. Truth be told, her mother probably did know her better than she gave her credit for, especially since her sass and smart mouth had been something she’d inherited from her mother. Every time they’d gotten into some knock-down, drag-out fight when Leona was a teenager, her father would simply laugh and tell her it was because she and her mother were cut from the same cloth and that for as much as he loved the spark in both of the women in his life, he did prefer when they used their powers for good and not evil.
Leona looked over at her father, still asleep in his chair. It broke her heart to think about him not being able to work like he used to. While he’d made a mostly full recovery from the stroke, the doctors wouldn’t sign off on him going back to work as a mechanic full-time. While the shop still had some minor work for him that didn’t require he get underneath a vehicle, it wasn’t enough to keep him around for forty hours a week. So much of who he was had been defined by his profession that Leona couldn’t help but feel like he’d lost a little of himself through this whole process, and it broke her heart.
“Do me a favor, would ya, love?” her mother asked, gathering the laundry off the table. “Go grab your brother from the park? Camp should be finishing up here soon.”
“Sure thing, Mama,” Leona said, grabbing her purse and keys. While she certainly didn’t want to see Cruz any more than she had to, she figured she could stay in the car easily enough and remain hidden. And if nothing else, this would be the perfect opportunity to potentially bend Josef’s ear about picking a better role model.
Chapter Five
Cullen had asked Saul the night before to pick him up a little earlier on Tuesday morning so he could arrive at the park and get a run in before the kids arrived. He’d slacked on his exercise routine a bit in the past weeks, but figured teaching kids about conditioning and fitness was a good motivator to be taking his own conditioning and fitness seriously—especially if he was going to convince a team that he wasn’t really retiring and to give him a spot on the squad. As they pulled into the parking lot, both men were taken aback to see Josef, the small speedster from yesterday, already on the field.
“Looks like you got an overachiever on your hands, sir,” Saul said as Cullen climbed out of the town car. Cullen just grunted in response, not sure how to interpret the kid being out here all alone so early.
Standing back a bit, he watched Josef as the kid did some basic suicide sprints, although not at his full pace, and then dribbled a ball up and down the length of the field. The kid didn’t look like he was out there trying to show off. If anything, he looked more like he was just keeping himself entertained as he killed time. There was something about this kid, but for the life of him, Cullen couldn’t figure out what it was. He reminded him of himself in a way, but there was something else too.
Cullen approached the field slowly, not wanting to startle Josef, who was bouncing the ball on top of his knee. He didn’t want to seem like he’d been watching him, either, so he tried to be as nonchalant about greeting him as possible.
“Young man, you are certainly here quite early,” he said.
“Hi, Mr. Cruz!” Josef greeted him excitedly.
“You can dispense with the mister, I told you that yesterday.”
“I know, but Lena told me that I have to mind my manners and that, even though you say it’s okay, it’s disrespectful to call you anything other than Mr. Cruz,” he said, rushing out the words.
Cullen couldn’t help but chuckle. Whoever this Lena was sounded like a stickler for the rules and who was he to undermine how this kid’s family was trying to raise him. He knelt down until he was closer to eye level with him. “Ok, well, Josef, I’ll make a deal with you. When we’re on the pitch, it’s just Cruz, but any other time—when you’re talking to your parents or anything like that—then it can be Mr. Cruz. Does that work for you?”
“Deal!” Josef held out his hand to shake, as if sealing their deal formally. Cullen laughed again and took the little outstretched hand in his, shaking it firmly.
“You didn’t answer my question though. What are you doing here so early?”
“You didn’t actually ask me a question,” Josef corrected him. “You just commented that I was here early.”
“Touché,” Cullen responded. Was he really being outsmarted by a kid? Looked like it. “So, I’m asking now. Why are you here so early?”
“My mom had an early shift, and we only have one car, so she dropped me off early so I didn’t have to walk.”
“Gotcha,” Cullen said, understanding the tough balancing act of being a kid in a family whose income flirted with the poverty line. It hadn’t been all that long ago that he was that kid. “Since you’re here, how does a run sound?”
“With you?” Josef asked, his eyes widening in excitement the same way they had yesterday. Cullen nodded, holding back a smart-ass response about making him run with Saul, figuring the kid might not understand the sentiment. “That’d be awesome!”
“Let’s go then!”
The two of them jogged lightly around the pitch at first, but then wandered a little farther into the park. Once they got moving, Cullen found that Josef was actually quite the chatty little kid, telling him all about his family—how his dad had a stroke and couldn’t really work anymore, and how his mom had started putting in extra shifts to try and cover the gap. He talked about his older sister who didn’t live with them anymore, but who he got to see after school sometimes.
Lad sounds an awful lot like I did at his age, Cullen thought. Minus the sister bit…
Cullen understood it wasn’t always easy being in a family like that—one that made ends meet some months better than others. Although it certainly didn’t seem like Josef wanted for anything, and he was a happy kid, he still understood that not everything fit in the family budget and that sometimes sacrifices had to be made, such as being some place early because there was only one car and mom had to use it to get to work.
“So, who’s your team?” Cullen asked.
“Feyenoord Rotterdam,” Josef answered proudly.
“The Dutch league? Seriously?”
“Yeah, Coach De Jong, who was my gym teacher in elementary school and my rec league coach, is from there and that’s who he’s a fan of, so I get to see the games because he invites people over to watch,” Josef explained.
Cullen nodded in understanding. He could certainly understand and appreciate that, since despite growing up in London, he’d become a Liverpool fan due to a neighbor in the building being a Reds fan and introducing him to the sport in much the same way.
