Summer in Manhattan

He had no idea.

A kid.

Children.

They were complicated.

He avoided them whenever possible. Knew how fragile life was for a child. Families fell apart, kids ended up in the system and if they were like him they ended up in a lot of homes before they found a real one.

He did his part working with the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization but dating a woman who was pregnant…well, she didn’t want to date so that wasn’t an issue.

Frankly, his mind was slammed with a bunch of different scenarios on how to deal with this and the one that would be the easiest would be to be friendly until the end of the first act, fake an emergency work text and leave. Except he was a man and his foster father, the one he thought of as his dad, had raised him to take the right path; not the easy one.

Hoop had grown up in foster care until he’d finally made it to the Fillions’. The man had been gruff and to be honest it had been more of a halfway house where Hoop had been faced with shaping up or going to jail. Pops had reached him somehow and set him on the path he was on now.

“Want to bolt, don’t you?” she asked. She didn’t take her eyes off the stage but he knew all of her concentration was on him.

“Yeah. But I won’t.”

“Why not?” she asked, turning to face him. Those blue eyes of hers behind her dark rimmed glasses were guarded and she had a bead of sweat on her upper lip.

He reached over and brushed it off with his thumb and felt that zing go through him. There was a connection between the two of them and if he hadn’t tried to ignore it when they’d first met, well, maybe things would be different. But they weren’t.

“I can’t get you out of my head, Cici,” he admitted. “And running from you, from this…” he gestured to the two of them, “didn’t really help me before.”

“I’m not the same woman you first met,” she said.

“Of course not. But I’d still like to get to know you better,” he said.

She sighed.

That didn’t bode well for his chances of even having dinner with her tonight.

“That’s a no, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It’s not you, it’s me. I mean, really me.”

“Pipe down over there, the show is starting.”

Cici flushed and then turned to face the stage as Don Pedro came on and Much Ado About Nothing started. Hoop wanted to take her hand and lead her away from here but he noticed that Cici sank back into her seat, took a sip of her smoothie and was entranced by the play. She watched it carefully, laughing at times, and even though this was one of Hoop’s favorite Shakespeare plays, he watched her instead of the action.

When the production was over and they filed out of their seats, he knew she was ready to leave.

“I have that dinner reservation,” he said.

“I know. I’m hungry.”

“Then come and eat with me. We can talk and get to know each other better. No pressure or anything. Just a guy and a girl.”

“But we’re not just a guy and a girl.”

He took her hand in his and started walking on the path that lead to Central Park West and the restaurant he’d booked. “Tonight we are. Just for tonight. We never had a real date.”

“No we didn’t,” she said. “I really liked you.”

“I know. I think it freaked me out a little,” he admitted. He wished it hadn’t but he knew that he liked things, relationships, to be light and uncomplicated and Cici had felt even then like she’d demand more.

“And it’s not freaking you out now?”

“Nope,” he said. “Not tonight. I think you need a night out and I could use one too.”

“Okay but this is just one night. That’s it. Dinner and then I get a cab home.”

“Dinner and then we can see what happens.”

She nibbled her lower lip and narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you want to happen?”

“I have no idea, Cici. You are always throwing my carefully made plans into chaos, so I never know what to expect.”

“Just dinner. That’s it.”

He nodded, but he knew he wanted more. Even as he was making small talk about the play, he was very aware that Cici was different. And one dinner date was never going to satisfy him.

But she wasn’t in a place for anything more. And Hoop would respect that. He would be the friend he knew she’d need. He worked with foster kids and with their birth mothers’ pro bono, trying to bring together families that were broken. He knew how complicated it could be and wanted more than that for Cici.

“Why are you watching me?”

“Just trying to remind myself that you need a friend and not a lover,” he said.

She tipped her head to the side, studying him. “Let’s start with the friend and then we’ll see about the other.”

“Well, friend, why do you love Shakespeare?” he asked.

“Why do you?” she countered.

“When I was growing up, someone gave me a copy of The Tempest. It was addictive. I loved the story and it gave me something to do at night. I was a bit of a troublemaker for a while and had a curfew so if I broke it…I’d go to jail.”

“You were a bad boy?”

“Yes, but not as bad as I could have been. And that’s not as glamorous as it might seem.”

“I was a good girl. If there was a rule, I followed it. Actually, if I even thought something might be a rule I didn’t break it.”

“I can see that,” he said. “But you’ve got a wild side too.”

“Don’t we all,” she said smiling.

“I’m not sure about that. I really don’t anymore,” he said.