A Forever Kind of Love

Chapter 3

Corey pulled into an empty parking spot between two Gauthier P.D. cruisers. He noticed his friend Jamal’s shiny silver-and-black quad cab parked a couple of spaces down. He walked through the front doors of the brick building and was greeted by Manny Gilbert. Manny, who had spent his last two years of high school as shortstop for the Gauthier Fighting Lions baseball team, was now a cop.

“Where are they?” was Corey’s greeting.

“In the back. We left them in the cell.”

“Good,” Corey said. “Safer for them to have bars between us.”

“Don’t be too hard on them. We did much worse when we were on the team.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t coaching the team back then. Any stupid crap they get into reflects on me.”

By the time they reached the cell area, Corey could feel the vein in the middle of his forehead throbbing. The three knuckleheads sat shoulder to shoulder on a bench inside the cell. Jamal Johnson stood just outside the cell door.

He and Jamal had been friends for years, ever since they’d played collegiate ball together. Jamal had decided to make Gauthier his new home earlier this year, and he had offered to help Corey out with the baseball team since the school district had turned down Corey’s request to hire another assistant coach.

“So they called you first?” Corey asked Jamal.

His friend shrugged. “Guess they thought I’d go easier on them.”

He nodded toward Manny, then stood to the side as the man disengaged the lock. Corey stepped into the holding cell, bracing his feet apart and crossing his arms over his chest.

“You three really thought I wouldn’t hear about this?”

“Sorry, Coach,” they said in unison.

“What did they do to the house?” Corey directed his question to Jamal.

“Took the porch light out with a BB gun. Covered a few of the windows with black paint. Pissed on the back steps.”

“Junior high stuff,” Corey snorted, shaking his head. He turned to Manny, who had taken the spot next to Jamal outside of the cell. “How long are they in here for?”

“Coach!” Terrence Smith, his star outfielder, jumped up from the bench. “You can’t leave us here.”

“You did the crime, didn’t you?” Corey fired at him.

“And you were stupid enough to get caught,” Jamal added.

“We were just playing around,” Terrence maintained.

“By vandalizing the assistant principal’s house? You three couldn’t think of anything better to do?”

“They’re lucky Donaldson is out of town. He would demand you three be locked up,” Manny said.

“But, Coach, you can’t leave us in here. This’ll look bad to the scouts,” Pierre Jones, the centerfielder, said.

“Maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to act like a bunch of children instead of young men on their way to college next year.” Corey bore down on them, backing them to the bench. “You think you’ll be able to get away with stunts like this at LSU, or Tulane, or Alabama?” he roared at Andre Thomas, the pitcher and best player on the team. “They’ll kick you out of there so fast you won’t know what’s hit you.”

“I know, Coach,” Terrence said.

“We’re sorry,” Pierre added.

Corey knew he’d gotten his point across when they all crouched back. He noticed Andre Thomas’s chin remained defiantly stiff.

The boy’s recalcitrance incensed Corey even further. He had no doubt Andre had been the ringleader. The kid seemed hell-bent on causing as much trouble as he could around town. He had so much potential, but was flushing it down the toilet because he was more concerned with being a knucklehead. Corey refused to sit back and watch Andre ruin his future.

He cut another menacing glare at his players and stepped out of the holding cell. “It’s your call, Officer Gilbert.”

Manny glanced his way, and Corey knew they were on the same wavelength.

“Well, you know we don’t play favorites,” Manny said in his best take-no-crap police-officer voice. “Just because these guys are baseball players doesn’t mean they can get off scot-free.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Corey had to bite back a laugh. He and Manny had gotten away with more than they should have back in the day. Partly because Manny’s dad had been the police chief. The entire squad used to cut them slack, especially if they were playing Kentwood or Jesuit. Nothing got in the way of a big game against a known rival.

Jamal leaned to the side and whispered to Corey, “We’re not really leaving them in here, are we?”

“Hell no,” Corey whispered back. “We’re in the middle of the season.

“So, Officer Gilbert,” he called. “What’ll it be?”

The trio of hefty ballplayers looked as if they’d shrunk five inches over the past ten minutes. They sat hunched over. Corey was pretty sure Pierre Jones was trembling.

“They’re all still minors, right?” Manny asked.

“Yeah,” Corey answered.

“Since this is a first offense for all three...” Manny paused. One by one, the boys’ heads rose, as if sensing hope. “I’ll let them off with a warning. I’ll leave their punishment up to you.”

The three collapsed with relief, glancing at each other with conspiratorial grins.

“You three really think you just got the easier end of the bargain, don’t you?” Corey asked with deliberate softness as he stepped back into the cell. He closed the gap between them, bending down to eye level with his players before continuing. “By the end of the week, you’ll beg Officer Gilbert to let you back in here.”

The grins vanished.

Corey stood and jerked his head toward the open cell door. All three shot out of the cell so fast, one would have thought they were sleek marathoners instead of bulky baseball players.

As he walked out of the cell, Manny and Jamal were both trying like hell to hold in their grins, neither doing a good job of it. Manny broke first. “Man, you learned more from Coach Edwards than I thought you did.”

“I was channeling him for a bit there,” Corey said. He turned to Jamal. “You’ll never meet a hard-ass like our old coach.”

“Worse than Richards back when we were at Arizona State?” Jamal asked.

“Richards didn’t have a thing on Edwards.”

“He was a mean SOB.” Manny shook his head.

“But he saved my life,” Corey interjected. “If not for Edwards, I would probably be sitting in this jail, or in prison with Shawn and Stefan. I owe that old man everything.”