They looked at one another again quizzically, then back up at him for the answer.

Joshua raised his hand once more. “Be nice?”

The other boys repeated the answer, nodding fiercely, expressions abashed at not remembering.

Diesel hid his smile. They really were too cute. “Exactly. Be good sports, which means we’ll be nice. If we lose, we smile. We congratulate the winners. And then after the game, we go out for ice cream. If we win, we accept their congratulations and go out for ice cream. Either way, we get ice cream. Except . . . what one thing might keep us from getting ice cream?”

“Being bad sports,” they said.

“You got it.” He looked over his shoulder at the parents who’d gathered to pick up their children. “Moms and dads are here. Line up, shoulder to shoulder, and wait until I call your name. Mrs. Moody will pass out your snacks. What do you say to Mrs. Moody?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Moody!” they chorused as his assistant coach got them lined up and handed out the snacks and juice boxes. Shauna Moody was a nice, motherly woman whose son had played soccer with their league all through school and was now in college and doing well. She credited the league with keeping him engaged and out of trouble, and now that he’d graduated, she wanted to give back. She showed up every week to hand out snacks and bandage boo-boos.

Diesel turned to the waiting parents with his clipboard. He made it a point to greet each adult doing pickup before allowing them to leave with a child. Over the years, he’d coached kids stuck in the middle of custody disputes, and he always wanted to be sure he recognized the person doing the picking up. The last thing he wanted was to allow a child to be taken by the wrong person. Terrible things could happen when the wrong person had access to a child.

This Diesel knew from experience.

The parent of the ninth child on his list hesitated before smiling timidly. “You’re really good with them,” she said, sounding surprised.

He steeled himself for what he thought might be coming, because he’d seen the censure and suspicion in this mother’s eyes from the first practice. “I do my best.”

And he did. No one had given him any kind of good attention when he was five years old. He wanted these kids to have a better role model than he’d had. Which, honestly, wasn’t too hard to achieve. Most of the adults in his life hadn’t given him very much at all.

If this mother wanted to remove her son from his team, he’d be polite. And then he’d call the first child on his waiting list, which right now was at about twenty-five names.