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bullet, sizzling past the Paper Airplane and whistling dead center through the dangling picture frame. When it hit the ground forty yards away, it took out a divot. But Marcus drew no satisfaction from being able to throw such a perfect ball. He could launch one half a mile and have it swish through the eye of a needle, but it wouldn’t do him any good if he fell to pieces every time a linebacker got close. All the practice in the world with picture frames wasn’t going to change that—not unless the frames learned to hit back.
    He was heading to retrieve the ball, dragging his feet, when a familiar tall figure hopped the hedge and jogged into Three Alarm Park.
    A blizzard of thoughts swirled around Marcus’s head: He’s a weirdo who doesn’t have friends his own age. He broke a window and stuck me with the blame . His internal voice was drowned out by Charlie’s words from their last encounter: I love the pop ....
    The old guy packed a wallop like a pile driver.
    If I can take a hit from him, I can take one from anybody ....
    He turned to the newcomer. “Tackle me.”
    If Marcus had been expecting the question “Why?”—it wasn’t going to come. The man was up to full speed seemingly in the first step, a look of unholy glee on his middle-aged features. In a heartbeat, the gap between the two of them had vanished, and Charlie was airborne, his body parallel to the ground. Marcus didn’t even try to get away—not that he could have if he’d wanted to. Powerful arms clamped around his midsection just as the tackler’s shoulder struck, a battering-ram shot that knocked him both up and back. He hit the ground hard, but not half as hard as the impact when Charlie landed on top of him, a full-body hammer blow.
    Dazed and grass stained, Marcus scrambled up, unable to imagine how so much pain in so many places could all come from a single collision. He struggled to assemble a string of curses, but the wind was so thoroughly knocked out of him that he mustered no more than a rasp. Without waiting for his breath to return, he launched himself at Charlie, hitting him low and sending him sprawling.
    â€œClip!” Charlie roared. “That’s a ten-yard penalty!”
    â€œNo rules!” Marcus managed to wheeze.
    The ball lay ignored a short distance away as the two traded tackles for the next forty-five minutes. Marcus knew he was taking the brunt of the exchange, but he was getting his licks in as well, never allowing himself more than a gasp or two before running back at his opponent.
    How was it possible for a man of fifty plus to wipe up the park with a kid less than a third his age? And not just to do it, but to love doing it! Whenever Charlie was making bone-jarring contact, the expression on his face was nothing short of bliss. Like Mozart at the harpsichord or Edison tinkering with some invention—it was something he was just meant to do.
    By the time they took a break, Marcus was one deep, penetrating ache from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. The only thing preventing him from limping was that both legs were equally bruised. He felt a distinct throb from each individual rib. Ditto his arms, his shoulders, and his back. If there was a spot on his entire body that wasn’t in agony right now, he was too exhausted to find it.
    He watched in amazement as Charlie scampered effortlessly up a steep groove in the Paper Airplane and relaxed in one of the granite folds. “You’re a lightweight, Mac,” he said disapprovingly. “You pack a pop like Tinker Bell.”
    â€œMy name is Marcus.” The misfire brought Marcus back to their previous meeting—more specifically, to how it had ended. “You know, you really stiffed me last week. The guy hasn’t called yet, but that broken window is going to cost at least a couple hundred bucks.”
    â€œA lot of windows get broken around here,” Charlie said