Mr. Suit & Tie
julian
Football practice was calculated chaos. Seven and eight-year-olds did not listen, no matter how many cones we set out or how many times I told them to square their shoulders.
Practice had just started, and I’d already counted three water bottles rolling toward the street, two boys wrestling over the same ball, and one shoelace knotted so badly I’d thought about cutting it off.
Still, I kept the whistle tight between my teeth. Zion was running defensive line drills, and Tre was supposed to be teaching the receivers a route, but was instead teaching them a touchdown dance, and Raschad had taken a small group to run drills on the far side of the field.
“Bring it in! Line ’em up!” I blew a short blast, and the boys scrambled into a ragged line.
I dropped to one knee, level with them, and tapped the chest plate of Zhaire’s pads.
“Good stance, Z. Keep your base wide. Bryce, chin strap tight. Precision, fellas. That’s how we’ll win this season. Water break!”
They nodded, their little faces serious as they scrambled to the sideline to grab their water bottles. I stood, scanning the field, and my eyes drifted past the turf to the bleachers.
Most of the parents had done their drop-off and left.
Practice ran two hours, and most folks had better things to do than watch eight-year-olds chase a ball around in the heat.
Very few parents stayed. She was one of them, sitting in the middle row, off by herself, well clear of the two or three mothers down low with their iced coffees.
She hadn’t taken her eyes off her son since the first whistle.
Alyssa Carter, Raschad’s sister, down from Jersey for the summer with her son Micah, who had become tied at the hip with my nephew Zhaire.
I’d crossed paths with her at Simone’s a week ago, and maybe a year and a half before that in Jersey for Zhaire’s sixth birthday.
Both times we’d traded a hello and kept it moving.
There she sat, spine straight, shoulders back, watching the field like she was already about to come half out of her seat.
She wore a honey-highlighted pixie cut that required confidence and bone structure to pull off.
She had both. I looked exactly as long as it took to register her, and not a second longer.
“Offense! Run the sweep!” Tre called.
Micah lined up at running back. He was soft-spoken, and half a size smaller than most of the boys, but I noticed early he had grit.
The ball snapped and he took the handoff, then hesitated, hunting a hole that wasn’t there, and another kid came through the line and put him on the ground.
Good hit. Micah went down, the ball squirting loose, and when the whistle killed the play, he didn’t get up.
He stayed on his knees, shoulders heaving, tears cutting through.
I walked over, took his hand, pulled him up, then walked him off to the sideline. I wasn’t about to let the rest of the boys watch him cry. I crouched in front of him and held him by both shoulder pads so he had to look at me.
“Look at me, Micah.” His eyes were wide and glassy.
“The ground is a terrible place to stay. In this game and out of it, you’re gonna get knocked down.
But we don’t stay down. We take a breath, wipe our face, square our shoulders, and get back up.
Every time. You a boy who folds, or are you a WadeHouse Knight? ”
“A-a Knight,” he hitched.
“Then act like one. Head up. Go on back out there.”
I stood, expecting him to jog back to the huddle, but he never got the chance. Before he could take a step, a voice cut across the humid air.
“EXCUSE ME!”
I turned, and there she was, storming onto the field like she had a personal vendetta against every blade of grass in her way.
She was taller than average, maybe five-eight or nine.
Slender but with curves that made it hard not to notice how she moved.
Tank top and shorts that showed off her long legs.
Gold hoop earrings catching the sun. Every step clipped into the turf with her hips counting out the beat of her walk.
I didn’t stare long. Just enough to register what anyone with eyes would: she was striking. Stunning. She stopped in front of me, tipping her head back to take in all six-three of me, yet still managed to look at me like I was the smaller one.
“So you’re the coach.”
“All season.”
“Hmph.” She ran a slow look down me and back up, and whatever she found did nothing for my case. “And that gives you the right to be out here barking at my baby like he’s a grown man behind on his rent?”
I glanced toward Micah, who was trying to look very interested in his cleats. “He fumbled a handoff,” I said. “I pulled him aside to—”
She lifted one finger, not quite in my face. “Don't 'fumbled the handoff' me, Mr. Suit and Tie."
I looked down at my t-shirt and joggers, then back up at her.
“I don’t care what you have on.” She waved my outfit off before I could make the point. “And I don’t care how many people jump when you clear your throat, you are not about to talk to my son like he’s an intern or something.”
Behind me, Tre made a sound that started as a cough and quit halfway.
She stepped closer. "You have my child out here crying like he just got jumped!”
“It’s football,” I said evenly. “Contact sport. I push them because—”
“And I’m a contact mama.” She closed the last of the distance, close enough now that I caught her perfume. “You push my kid, Julian? I push back.”
The field went dead quiet. Even the kids stopped pretending to run drills.
"Micah's a good kid," I said, keeping my tone steady. "Football's gonna knock ‘em down. I want them to know how to stand back up. I push because I want them to be strong."
“You’re running these kids like they’re in boot camp,” she snapped. “They’re not soldiers. This is supposed to be fun.”
I met her eyes, unblinking. “Discipline is fun. It teaches them commitment. Consistency. Structure. Things they’ll need in life.”
She sucked her teeth. “Structure is fine, but where’s the nurture? The t-l-c? He’s upset and you’re barking at him like he's a grown man with a job!”
I should've been irritated. Instead, I caught myself noticing the fire in her eyes. She was standing there furious and fine, chest going fast, that haircut framing a face that didn’t have a single flaw, and the disciplined part of me had quietly clocked out and gone to stare at her mouth.
I absentmindedly licked my own lips, then blinked and shut it down.
Hard. She was Raschad’s sister. Raschad was about to be my brother-in-law.
So that’d make her my… what? Sister-in-law?
No. Family adjacent? I shook my head slightly trying to rid it of uninvited thoughts.
I heard my brothers behind me. Tre whispering to Zion: "You see this?"
I caught a laugh deep in my throat, and she saw the half-smile I tried to swallow. She squinted at me. “You think this is funny, Julian?"
“No.” I cleared my throat and put it away. “I think you came out here for a fight. And I’m not gonna give you one.”
That stopped her. I took a breath in and out, and nodded once. “I respect how you feel. And I'll do better.”
She blinked, like she hadn't expected me to give her anything.
Her shoulders dropped an inch, though her stance stayed ready.
Then she started pressing her lips together, rubbing them against each other, quick and nervous.
A tic, almost. "He's seven. It’s… been just him and me for a while.
So, I'm gonna be loud about protecting him. "
"I can respect that."
She looked at me then she dipped down and ran a hand over Micah’s afro. “You good, baby?”
He gave her a thumbs-up, then looked at me. “Can I go back in, Coach Julian?”
“Go ahead. Helmet back on.” I patted his shoulder and turned to face her, and her expression was softer.
“Don’t break him.”
I held her eyes so she’d know I wasn’t just handling her. “I won’t. You have my word.”
She gave me one short nod, turned around, and walked back toward the bleachers. I stood there frozen, watching her the whole way.
Tre slid into the space she left, delighted. “Can’t even lie, Jules. Raschad’s sister fine as hell. But you keep staring at her like that, you gonna set the woman on fire.”
I put my eyes back on the field. “Shut up, Tre.”
Zion came around and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Braver man than me. She was about to fillet you right here on the fifty.”
“She’s got a right to be protective,” I said, and raised the whistle for the next drill, but my head wasn’t on the field anymore.
Raschad jogged over from the far end, where he’d been running a few kids through extra reps. He’d missed all of it. Probably for the best.
“Good practice,” he said. “Boys look solid.”
“They need work.”
Zhaire bounded up. “Uncle Julian, did you make Aunt Alyssa mad?”
Raschad’s eyebrow climbed. “What happened?”
“Nothing that won’t work itself out.” I shouldered an equipment bag.
Tre, incapable of leaving a thing alone, piped up. “Your sister came down here ready to file a lawsuit. I’ve never seen Jules thrown off like that before.”
Raschad looked at me, contrite. “Look… I should apologize.”
“For what?”
“Told her she didn’t need to be here. That I’d watch Micah.” He shook his head. “Alyssa… she’s been through a lot. She can be overprotective.”
“I gathered. Nothing to apologize for. She’s doing what mothers do.”
He nodded, and went to help gather equipment and round the kids up.
I loaded the last of the gear into the shed and stood by the door a minute, looking out at the field. Mr. Suit and Tie, I thought and chuckled to myself. I wasn’t even wearing a suit, but apparently my energy came pre-pressed.
When the last kid’s parent picked him up, I got in my Range Rover and drove home with Alyssa riding along in the back of my mind the entire way.
three weeks later
If I’d had it my way, I would’ve gone home right after the ceremony.