--------------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to the Church of The Reverend Cotton Mather.  This story is
the sole property of the author, and may not be copied or downloaded 
for the intent of profit. Permission is freely given for anyone to 
download or copy for their personal pleasure or use, as long as 
there is no intent to charge money or barter for the privilege of 
acquiring this material.

   (Copyright 2005, revisions c. 2007, R.C. Mather)

E-Mail all comments to RevCottonMather at hotmail dot com
Don't be shy!  I enjoy hearing from you.

---------------------------------------------------------------------


THE COMPETITIVE EDGE:
PLAYING THE GAME III

A Novel

by R.C. Mather



- 46 -

PLAYING THE GAME



"Sean, how busy do you want to be next year?" asked Elena.

We were in the conference room. Danielle, Keisha, Eric, Trent,
Spencer, Jorge, and Theo were also with us. It was Friday, August 2.
There was one more week of camp. I would be on the road all week,
wrapping up camps all over the Midwest. Jesse's was closing on
Wednesday, The Indiana camps were Thursday, Kankakee and Peoria were
Friday, and our home clinics were Saturday. Coach Neville's varsity
clinics continued into the following week, and at the conclusion he
would begin his tryout sessions for the school teams. I looked around
the crowded conference room. It was already too small.

'I wonder if John can move this wall out, make it bigger,' I thought
distractedly. There was plenty of room in the storage area. 'There was
room, if it wouldn't be too expensive. A problem for another day.' I
returned to the question Elena had asked. I knew it was a loaded
question. 'Might as well get right to it.'

"How busy am I going to be?" 

The ladies all glanced at each other, which made me a little
nervous. Danielle and Keisha smiled, and Elena looked down at the
papers in front of her. I had the feeling she already knew what was
on them. She was just using them as a prop.

"Very busy," began Elena. "Mrs. Williams in South Bend is arranging
for the use of two more fields. She says you're going to need them
for next year. Unfortunately, they're going to be a couple of miles
away from the fields we have been using, so we're going to have to
treat it as a separate unit."

"Okay," I said. "Lindsey Marker has been running South Bend, and
she's ready to take on a senior role. I'll talk to her about running
all of South Bend, and maybe all of Northern Indiana."

"You might want to find somebody else for the Hobart and
Merrillville area," suggested Elena.

"Really? Why? Don't you think Lindsey can handle it?"

"Lindsey's probably going to be too busy," said Danielle.

"Uh-oh," I said.

"Yup," confirmed Keisha. "Mishawaka and Elkhart are tired of getting
thrashed by Porter players from South Bend. They want their own
clinics."

"So Lindsey will be taking care of all of the South Bend area," I
said.

"We've got requests from four more AYSO organizations in northern
Indiana, too. Gary, Crown Point, Hammond, and Michigan City. They
want coaching clinics, too."

I looked over to Eric and Trent. "I might have to have one of you
take over Indiana," I said. I didn't want to send either of them, but
it was looking like I might not have a choice.

"Probably not the solution," said Elena. "We can add at least twenty
more programs around here, from Kenosha to Rockford to Joliet. You're
going to need Eric, Trent, and probably a couple more supervising
instructors, just for our area."

I put my head on my hands, with my elbows propped on the tabletop.
"Christ, can we do this?" I asked.

Theo, sitting next to me, clapped me on the back. "You doubled in
size last year to this year," he reminded us. "You can do it again."

"How many times can this business increase in size before we self-
destruct?" I asked.

"Elena will be here to get everything set up, and I'll be here to
look for instructors," said Theo.

"But will you have time to..."

"Buddy," he said with a smile, "it's my job. I'll find 'em."

I stared at him for a minute, but he didn't waver. "Okay," I said.
"If you say you'll find 'em, you'll find 'em." I turned back to Elena
and the girls. "Let the local organizations know it's up to them to
procure the fields. Attendance will be limited by the available
grass. We can run rec clinics and advanced clinics, just like usual,
and ask them to schedule instructor tryouts in May. They will be
responsible for getting the word out, but we'll also do a little
promoting through the local tournaments and advertising in their
local newsletters."

"I just had a thought," said Eric.

"Hit me," I said.

He held up a copy of "Soccer Today." As part of the compensation
package for all my instructors, I gave them a yearly subscription to
the magazine. I got a group discount for it, and everybody enjoyed it.

"Did you know they have regional advertising available?" said Eric.
"They publish different editions for the different areas of the
country. The same articles and columns are in all the editions, and
the national advertisers have first dibs on space, but you can sign
up for ad space just in, say, the Midwest edition."

"Really? I didn't realize that," I said. It was an intriguing idea.
"Do you know how much?"

"I didn't get that far into it," said Eric. "Maybe your contact in
the group sales office can help you out, though."

"Good thought," I said. "I'll check it out."

"Don't worry about it," said Elena. "I'll handle it. I'll let you
know what the costs are, along with their sales numbers. In fact,
I'll get the costs and publication figures for all the regions. It's
an easy calculation to make sure the cost per reader doesn't vary by
more than a fraction from region to region. If it does, it's a
bargaining point."

I looked at her in admiration. "It's a good thing you're married," I
said, smiling.

Elena blushed. "Good gosh, Sean, I'm old enough to be your..." She
paused, and then she smiled, too. "Well, okay, old enough to be your
older sister."

Everybody around the table got a chuckle from the exchange.



* * * * * * * * * *



I was going to be spending most of my last couple of weeks of summer
break on the road. I had camper presentations to do at every site,
and my last two weekends were taken up with coaching and referee
clinics. I sent Theo and Spencer off as one team, Eric and Jorge as
another, and Trent and I did the ones furthest away.

We scheduled two sets of coaching clinics, one for novice and rec
team coaching, and one for travel and school coaches. Each clinic
covered the essentials in kid and parent management, including those
sideline pacers who can't help themselves, yelling out "instructions"
to their little Tommy or Suzette out on the field. We also gave them
books with drills outlined and diagrammed. The books had
progressively stronger drills, able to take a beginner coach and walk
him through several years of increasingly skilled teams of players.
We put together a different book for the higher-level coaches,
utilizing drills and skill tests culled from travel teams all the way
through Division One college teams. Jesse, Eric, Trent, Spencer,
Posey, and Eddie Whitehead all contributed to this compilation. I
also used some variations we had gotten from Duane Olchick's clinics.
I had written to him, explaining what I wanted to do, and he was kind
enough to send, along with his written permission to use his name and
his drills, some updated drills he and his brothers had developed for
the German national team. It was a drill book worth its weight in
gold, and I hoped we would find at least a few coaches who would
appreciate it. The clinics were two-day affairs, two hours on
Saturday and two hours on Sunday.

Concurrently, for the organizations that requested them, we ran
referee clinics. This was a single session, going over the rulebook
for referees and line judges. The biggest confusion in soccer, both
from a spectator's and from a coach's standpoint, seemed to be the
offside rule. There have been changes over the years concerning what
constitutes offside, and we went over the rule in place. Some of our
local instructors were always in attendance, usually participants in
the clinic, and we used them to demonstrate some of the rules.
Offside, proper throw-ins, corner kicks, goal kicks, free starts,
interference, hand balls, infractions inside the box and outside the
box, legal and illegal defensive setups against free kicks, all were
covered. Our mission was to not only impart the correct
interpretation of the rules, but to help create uniformity in
refereeing. Teams from each area ought to be able to expect the same
quality of officiating wherever they traveled, something that was
sometimes lacking in advanced play.

On top of all this, Jorge and Tessa were running a couple of keeper
clinics at home. We were using these two clinics as a gauge to
determine if it would be advantageous to offer them everywhere. The
response to the initial announcement was very positive, drawing
inquiries from as far away as Oak Grove, twenty miles from our home
base. I had already asked Theo to plan on adding more experienced
keepers to our instructor roster wherever he could.

Elena had made an appointment for me at the Park District offices of
Spring Lake, a nearby bedroom community that was growing very fast.
The village had been constructed nearly overnight out of vast farm
fields on the edge of the metropolitan area. Huge housing
developments were splashed across the landscape, and as fast as the
crews could finish a house, people were moving in. The village also
had big shopping districts to accommodate the influx of residents,
giving them a good tax stream. Their village parks system was quickly
becoming one of the best in the state. Not only did they have money
to put in good equipment, but they required every builder that wanted
to come in and develop more empty land to deed a substantial piece of
the property to the Park District. As a result, they had a lot of
money to spend, and a lot of land to spend it on.

One of the trustees of the village, Madelyn Essex, had two sons in
Porter camps, and she had asked the head of the Park District to meet
with me. Trent and I stopped in there one Friday afternoon, on our
way to Indiana. The offices were in a new, red brick building next
door to the Village Hall. We walked in and looked around. There were
more offices and conference rooms than they needed by far, but they
had built for the future. We wandered around a little looking for the
right office, and finally came into a reception area. There was a
perky thirty-something lady at a giant curved desk. She looked like
she spent a lot of her spare time in the gym. There was a brass
nameplate on the corner of her desk that read April Oldham.

"Can I help you?" she asked brightly.

"Yes, we're here to see Mr. Lightner," I said.

She gave us one of those dismissive looks kids our age receive
often. "If you're looking for summer employment for next year, boys,
we won't be taking applications until after Christmas."

Trent, standing a little behind me, snorted. I was well used to the
misjudgment, however.

"We're not here to apply for jobs. I have an appointment."

"Oh. Okay, then. Your names?" She shifted right into proper
receptionist mode, the temporary slip already in the past and
forgotten.

"Sean Porter and Trent Abbott."

"And what is this concerning?" she asked with false enthusiasm.

I just looked at her for a moment, until the happy, vacuous
expression began to fade. "It's concerning the appointment I have
with Mr. Lightner," I said.

She scowled for a moment, until it finally occurred to her I wasn't
kidding. She picked up her telephone and punched a couple of buttons.
She waited a few seconds, and then said irritably, "A Mr. Porter and
Mr..." She looked up inquisitively at me.

'I should have written it down for her,' I said to myself. 'Or maybe
it was time to order some business cards.' "Abbott," I said.

"...Mr. Abbott to see you," she said into the telephone. "They say
they have an appointment..." She paused, listening. "Oh... okay,
then..."

She carefully put down the phone. Carefully looking just past me
again, she said, "Mr. Lightner will be right out."

"Thank you very much," I said. Trent and I stepped away from her desk.

"Friendly," he muttered.

Before I could reply, the office door opened and a man in his middle
years stepped out.

"Mr. Porter? I'm Dan Lightner," he said, stepping over and holding
out his hand.

"Sean Porter," I said. "This is Trent Abbott."

"Mr. Abbott, great to meet you," said Lightner. "Come on in."

"Please, call us Sean and Trent," I said. "Anytime somebody says Mr.
Porter, I start looking around to see if my dad is here."

Lightner chuckled. "I understand completely, Sean. You can call me
Dan."

He walked around a large desk strewn with paper, architectural
drawings, and what looked like wood samples.

"Sorry about the mess," he said, indicating his desk with a sweep of
his hand. "Every builder coming in wants to have as much control over
the look of the parkland they're donating as possible, even down to
the color and type of mulch around the plantings." He picked up a
couple of the wood chips. "So they send me this stuff, as if I care
what color the wood chips are going to be. Anyway, have a seat."

Trent and I took the two chairs facing his desk, and Dan sat down
with a sigh.

"So, Madelyn suggested we might be able to help each other out," he
said.

"It depends on what you need help with," I said. "I'm no good with
mulch colors."

He chuckled. "Neither am I," he said. He gave me an appraising look.
"So what are you good at, Sean Porter?"

I knew at that moment he had done his homework on me. Negotiations
had opened.

"I can kick the air out of a soccer ball," I said nonchalantly. "And
I've got some friends who can teach kids how to do it, too."

"Soccer's a hot-button topic right now," said Dan. "Every
neighborhood wants a soccer field, or a baseball diamond, or a pool.
Or all three." He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. "Me,
I'm partial to open lands and playgrounds."

"You're not a big sports fan?" asked Trent.

"Oh, I love sports," said Dan with a smile. "Swing sets and
basketball courts don't take up as much room or resources as soccer
or baseball fields."

"So, just because your residents want it, you don't feel you need to
provide it?" I asked. It was a leading question, and Dan recognized
it right away. He smiled in appreciation, understanding that I, too,
had done my homework.

Dan leaned forward again, and propped his elbows on his desk. "I
didn't say that." He stood up suddenly and strode over to a big map
of the Village of Spring Lake on the wall. He tapped his finger on a
section of the map that indicated a big, empty piece of land on the
outskirts of the village.

"See this? Four hundred and fifty acres of the flattest, dullest
land in the county," he said. "And I'm buying it."

"And what are you going to do with this dull, flat piece of land?" I
asked.

He turned, crossed his arms, and favored us with a tight smile. "Got
any suggestions?" he countered.



* * * * * * * * * *



Over the course of the summer, my friends and I fell into a weekend
routine. A bunch of us would gather together on Saturday afternoons
over at the Lehigh house. Jake worked until five on Saturdays, but
Jaimie was usually there with us. We would set up a volleyball net,
or play softball in the field behind their house, and a bunch of our
old high school friends would stop by. Jaimie and Jake took charge of
food, firing up the grill late in the day, after Jake got home from
the store. Trent, now that he was legal, brought beer for us, and
Eric and I made sure the coolers were stocked with sodas and Gatorade.

Later, after dark, we would go to a movie, or perhaps we would stick
around and play silly games in the field. Hide-and-seek in the woods
could be adventurous at night, and sometimes we would just take a
bunch of blankets and look at the stars. If it rained, we would go
into the basement and continue our party there, turning on the stereo
and hauling out the Trivial Pursuit game.

Late one Saturday night, our impromptu party was winding down. Jake
and Jaimie had gone to a movie with Tiny and a bunch of others from
the football team. Tracy and Ronny, the last remaining with us in the
basement, helped Kayla and me clean up. The girls put the remnants of
our snacks away, and Ronny and I filled up a trash bag with paper
plates, cans, and stale chips. Once we were done, Tracy and her
boyfriend said goodnight, and left by the kitchen door. It was after
midnight, and Kay's parents had gone to bed long before. There was a
light on over the sink, and we turned everything else off before
going back down to the basement.

The stereo was tuned to an FM station. As we passed through the
doorway, Kayla flipped the switches, turning off the lights. I
flopped down on the couch, and found myself under attack. Kayla leapt
on top of me, pinning me to the cushions. She grabbed the sides of my
head and kissed me, hard. Her mouth was open, and she forced her
tongue into my mouth. I instinctively put my hands on her hips and
succumbed to her aggression, letting her take whatever liberties she
wanted with me.

Her tongue was a deep, thick intrusion, exploring and tasting. Our
saliva mixed, and things got heated very quickly. Her pelvis began
grinding on me. I was a little surprised to feel my cock already hard
and stimulated as she rubbed her pussy up and down against my turgid
rod.

Without breaking the kiss, she began tugging on the hem of my shirt,
roughly pulling it up. She gathered it up below my chin, and then
finally she stopped kissing me long enough to pull it off over my
head.

Before I could recover at all, she renewed her attack, pressing
herself against me again. This time, as she thrust her tongue in and
out of my mouth, she began to work her own shirt off. She pushed it
up over her shoulders, and then reached around with one hand and
unclasped her bra. I kept my hands on her hips, out of the way,
knowing any help I offered would have been rebuffed. This was Kayla's
play, and all I could do was tag along.

She had to lift up from our kiss one more time so she could yank her
shirt and bra off her body. She put her hands on my bare chest,
leaning against my pectorals, and stared into my eyes. The intensity
on her face was so strong it was almost palpable.

"What do you want, Sean?" she whispered.

"I want..." What did I want? I wanted to know where she was going in
a couple of weeks. I wanted her to be mine, only mine. I wanted to be
with her, and I wanted her to be with me. What did I want?

"What, Sean? What do you want?" she asked again.

"I want you," I said simply.

She arched her back and guided her small breast to my lips. I opened
my mouth to tongue her nipple, already swollen. She moaned softly as
I nibbled on her tender flesh.

"Then take me," I heard her whisper.

I grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up. I felt like my
strength had doubled, no doubt from the flood of hormones ripping
through me. I lifted her weight off me, twisted on the couch, and
practically threw her on her back, onto the cushions. She looked up
at me seriously as I reached for her shorts and ripped them down, off
her hips. She lifted up her legs so I could take them off, and then
she lay back, her knees splayed, while I fumbled with my own shorts.
I shucked them off and tossed them aside. I knelt on the couch,
between her legs, and held my cock out. I aimed the tip at her
center, and she watched me intently as I rubbed the head against her
very wet pussy lips. Her folds opened for me as the helmet of my cock
found the place it wanted to be, and I let go and leaned forward over
her. We concentrated on staring into each other's eyes as I pressed
forward into her, and I could see the progress of my cock, as well as
feel it, by watching her reaction.

When I was as deep inside her as I could get, Kayla closed her eyes,
arched her back, and sighed.

"Yes," she said softly.

When I didn't move, just happy to be where I was, she opened her
eyes again. Now there was amusement to be seen.

"Go," she commanded. "Go hard."

And so I did. I pulled out slowly, savoring the feel of her walls
against me, until just the head was still embedded. And then I
slammed into her, as hard as I could, and I repeated it, fucking her
just the way she wanted it.

I was driving the breath out of her as I worked her. She gave out a
breathy huff on each downstroke, and drew in a ragged breath as I
pulled out and readied for the next drive. This was no lovemaking
with finesse; it was lusty, wet and sweaty sex. Perhaps, in our
future, there would be soft caresses and whispered words of love, but
in the now of that Saturday, there was no room for gentleness.

Kayla hit a high on my first penetration, and quickly built up to
another as I worked her. For myself, about sixty seconds into our
session, I came hard, emptying into her, but it didn't make much
difference to me. We were both so hot and ready to go, I kept on
stroking into her, savoring not the climax but the additional heat
and moisture I felt inside her, losing only a fraction of my
hardness. I kept on fucking her, and she kept on fucking me back.

By the time I was building to my second climax, Kayla was coming
over and over. She had her legs wrapped around me, her pelvis tilted
up to take the pounding I was giving her, and she was crying out
softly. Sweat was dripping from my nose and landing on her throat. I
stopped for a moment, deep inside her, and bent my head down to lick
off our combined sweat that had accumulated in the small of her
throat. While I was in the vicinity, I took her distended nipple
between my teeth, and I bit down on her gently as I resumed moving in
and out of her. Her eyes rolled back in her head, the movement of her
hips got ragged instead of rhythmic, and her pussy muscles tightened
against me.

It was the trigger. I felt my cock painfully contract, and the pumps
activated. I spurted into her for the second time, each spasm
splashing her walls with my seed. I groaned and collapsed on top of
her, and she held me to her sweaty body, one hand in the small of my
back and the other on the back of my head.

We rested like that, together, until our breathing began to calm. I
could feel the sweat drying on my back, though the heat we shared
where we touched, from sternum to thigh, was still slippery and warm.

Finally, I sat up. My spent cock slipped from her warm cavern,
loosing a dribble of our combined spend. I sat back against the
couch, feeling the front of my body cool in the basement air. Kayla
sat up and leaned against my shoulder. Her hair was plastered to her
forehead, and it was damp on her neck and shoulders. She put her hand
high up on my thigh as I put my arm around her to hold her close to
me.

"You surprise me," I said.

"That's a good thing," she murmured. She curled her legs up beside
her on the couch. She raised her left arm and captured my hand. She
pulled it closer to her, and held it against her breast. I tucked my
fingers beneath her breast and held it in the palm of my hand, a
small and soft presence that seemed to fit perfectly. She began to
slowly run her fingernails up and down the hair on my thigh, sending
shivers up my spine. I was mildly surprised to feel my cock give a
little twitch in response to her light touch, combined with the feel
of her female flesh in my hand. Kayla must have noticed, too, because
she began running her fingertips over my enlarging cock. She lifted
it up so she could explore my balls, and my cock responded. Before
long, it was pulsing with my heartbeat, bobbing against my stomach.
She grasped my stalk and began jacking me.

"Again, you surprise me," I said quietly.

Kayla giggled, and then dropped down to my lap. Holding my revived
cock in her hand, she brought the head to her lips and began to lick
around the helmet. She ran her tongue all the way down, and then up
the underside, making me tense up.

"I taste myself," she said softly.

I groaned as she took me fully into her mouth. "How do you know it's
the way you taste?" I asked, my thoughts getting a little ragged with
her ministrations.

She mumbled something, but with her mouth full I didn't understand
what she said. It didn't matter, because the effect of her mumbling
set up a harmony within me, and the fires were lit once again.

I tried leaning over so I could play with her at the same time. I
reached over her smooth, round ass and found her leaking pussy. I
began running my fingers through her folds, gathering up lubrication,
and then I jabbed two fingers into her. She accepted it for just a
few minutes, but then she moved off the couch and away from my
intruding hand, onto her knees in front of me, never losing the
connection between her mouth and my cock.

She worked me with her mouth and tongue until her jaw got tired, and
then she kept me on the path with her magical hands. I could only sit
back and admire her handiwork, distracted as I was by the internal
fireworks she was setting off.

She was not going to be denied. She worked hard for it, returning
her lips to the task as she fondled my sac. Since I had already gone
off twice, it was a long and slow process of building me up again.
She took her time and did it properly, alternating between using her
hands hard and fast and using her lips and tongue gently and
caressingly.

It worked. My body began to clench in anticipation. I wasn't sure
how much semen I could have left, but whatever was there was about to
be expelled. I put my hand on the top of her head.

"Kay... I'm going to..."

She shook her head and tilted up to look at me. She locked eyes with
me as she gave me one last effort. I could see it in her eyes at the
same time I felt it deep inside. I gave her all I had, and she took
it, every drop. When she had it all collected, still looking me in
the eye, she smiled at me around my cock in her mouth, her eyes
showing their amusement, and she let the milky spend dribble out and
down my shaft. She lifted off my cock and began to lick it all up
again, off my softening cock and from my wiry pubic hair around the
base. She also gave my balls a quick laving for good measure, just to
make sure she got it all. Once she was satisfied there was none left,
she got up and collapsed in my arms on the couch. I wrapped her up
and held her tight.

We stayed that way for a long time, naked and happy to be together.



* * * * * * * * * *



A couple of days before I was to leave, I had one more meeting with
Dan Lightner. When I walked in this time, April Oldham smiled at me
brightly, my best friend in the whole wide world.

"Good morning, Mr. Porter," she said brightly. "Mr. Lightner is
expecting you."

She ushered me into Dan's office and closed the door softly behind
me. I could only smile and shake my head.

"Yeah, I know," said Dan sympathetically.

"Don't take my reaction too seriously," I said. "I'm not the one who
has to work with her every day."

"Good point," said Dan with a grimace.

He had a drafting table set up in a corner of his office. We sat on
stools in front of surveyor's blueprints of his flat and dull
farmland. He had already made some preliminary sketches on layouts,
and we spent the next three hours working on fitting in three
baseball fields, a swimming complex, volleyball pits, parking,
concessions, and a whole bunch of multi-purpose fields. Soccer
fields. Quarter-size fields for small fry, half-size fields for
scrimmages and small teams, full fields for competitive and
tournament use, they could also double as flag football fields,
Ultimate Frisbee or disc golf fields, and could even be used for high
school cross-country events.

"Do you think you can really use all these fields?" asked Dan once
we had an idea of the scope of the project.

"Oh, I can use them," I said. "And your AYSO will use them even more."

We began talking about who would provide what for the fields. I knew
Dan would have a lot to answer for when he unleashed his proposal,
and I would have to do all I could to help him with expenses. If he
could show the village trustees he already had a tenant for part of
the property, his grand plan had a much better chance of success. I
agreed to provide nets, striping equipment and supplies, and big lock
boxes for storage on each field in exchange for consideration on
lease costs. It would be very expensive for Porter Enterprises, but
if it went through, I would have my home base set up into the
foreseeable future. Room for Jesse's tournaments, room for explosive
growth throughout the entire area, and a chance to cut down on the
number of splintered locations we were finding ourselves traveling to
all summer long, made it a very attractive proposal. I would still
operate in my own hometown, of course. I owed the community, and
Coach Neville, at least that much. But I could have the bulk of my
clinics located in Spring Lake, on the best soccer complex in the
state. It was a long-term plan, one we probably wouldn't realize for
at least two years, but it was a plan for the future of Spring Lake,
as well as the future of Porter Enterprises.



* * * * * * * * * *



I was packing up my car for the trip back to Florida, and I still
didn't know Kayla's plans for college. It was frustrating the hell
out of me, especially considering we were now as physically intimate
as we had ever been.

Elena was continuing negotiations with Dan about the soccer complex,
and she and Keisha had also come up with a workable logo for us. She
sourced uniforms in green and red for the instructors, shorts and
shirts and warm-up suits. She was researching kit bags with the
Porter Enterprises logo embroidered on them, and requesting quotes on
soccer equipment for Spring Lake. It had been a very good year for
the Porter Enterprises checkbook, so good I was even considering
buying a newer car, but I was concerned about my increased expenses
over the winter. 'Do we have enough?'

"We have enough," said Elena. 'At least she's confident about it,' I
thought glumly.

"Even with the rent here?" I asked again. She had answered this
question twice already, but she was a mom. She was patient with me.

"Even with the rent," she confirmed. "And if we run into unexpected
expenses, I've already talked with a couple of bankers about some
financing."

"Debt? Oh, shit," I said.

Elena laughed. "Do you know how rare it is for a business to be able
to run, not to mention grow as fast as this has grown, on cash flow
alone? Bankers are standing in line to help you out, Sean."

"Can we afford it? Interest rates..."

"Are falling," she said. "Besides, you have Irwin and John behind
you. You are fine. Trust us, Sean. You're fine."

"I trust you," I said. "It just makes me nervous."

"Nervous is okay," said Elena. "As long as it doesn't paralyze you."

All I could do was leave it in her capable hands over the winter.
Between Elena in the office and Theo out looking for instructors, I
knew Porter Enterprises was being cared for, but it was still my
baby. My name was on the door.



* * * * * * * * * *



Kayla, Jake, and Jaimie were with my parents and me the morning I
was leaving. I was meeting up with Spencer at a rest stop south of
the city. We would convoy from there to Gainesville.

"See you over Christmas, Seanster," said Jake. He wrapped my hand in
his meaty paw and squeezed hard. He tried to mash my knuckles, but I
had gotten a little wiser to his tactics, and had not allowed him to
get a good grip on my hand.

"Okay, dude," I said.

"Good luck this season," said Jaimie, giving me a hug. "We'll be
reading about you, I'm sure."

"Oh, God, I hope not," I said. "That would probably mean I fucked up
somehow."

She leaned back and looked at me, a big smile on her face. "Somehow
I doubt that," she said.

I turned to Kayla. "Well?" I asked. "Anything you want to tell me
yet?"

She smiled. "Sure," she said. She slid gracefully into my arms and
gave me a soft kiss. "I love you," she said softly.

"I love you, too, but you're driving me crazy," I replied, just as
softly.

She leaned in to whisper in my ear. 'Here it comes,' I said to myself.

"There's a letter waiting for you at your apartment," she said. With
that, she let me go. She stepped back and stood next to my mom.

"And you said I played a dangerous game," I grumbled. "You seem to
have mastered the art."

She looked as if she was going to say something, but then I saw her
resolve slip back in place.

"Just remember how I feel," she said. She glanced a little self-
consciously at my parents, but they had no reaction. They knew where
we stood with each other.

I shook my dad's hand, gave my mom a hug, and got in my car for the
drive back to school.






(Continued in Chapter 47)


  
CE46