Page 19 of A Whole New Play

Coach moves his interrogating stare to me. “No?”

I shrug. “I don’t go around bragging about my career while I’m on vacation.”

“Hm.” He stares at me for a prolonged moment. A bead of sweat gathers on the back of my neck. I tell myself it’s from my workout and not a sign that I’m scared of a middle-aged man.

After a lengthy stare-down, Coach’s arms fall to his side. He cracks a friendly smile and shakes his head. “Well, I’ll be. It’s a small world, eh?”

“Yeah.” The tension in my shoulders releases. “Small world.”

Valerie nods.

Coach hums under his breath, then shakes his head once more. “Well, let me get straight to the point, Jones. I know you need to finish your workout so you can take the twins home.”

I nod for him to continue.

“Valerie is going to be in town for the summer and just so happens to be looking for a job.”

What happened to her job at the big-shot accounting firm?

“I am not looking for a job,” Valerie corrects him with a frown.

Her dad waves a hand. “Maybe not right now, but you’ll get bored if you don’t have something to do.”

“Says who?”

“Says me, the man who raised you and had to watch you behave like a caged tiger whenever you broke your leg sophomore year and couldn’t leave the house except to go to school for six weeks.”

Valerie presses her lips together, her features tightening in what I can only describe as discomfort, but she doesn’t argue.

I look between the father and daughter as they stare at each other. I clear my throat. “Not to be rude, Coach, but what does this have to do with me?”

Coach’s stare returns to me. “You still need a nanny, right?”

Oh... no.

My eyes widen like a deer caught in headlights.

I know where this is going. I can see the conversation play out in my mind, but there is no way I can have a woman I’ve slept with be my nanny. That’s the exact sort of thing I’ve been trying to avoid.

But how do I say that to Coach Palmer without admitting that I hooked up with his daughter? The same daughter I’ve heard him talk about with so much love and affection that I pictured a young teenager with gangly limbs and braces, not the stunning beauty who’s starred in every single fantasy while I’ve taken care of myself in the months since we slept together. And I do mean Every. Single. Fantasy.

Both Coach and Valerie are looking at me, waiting for a response. I swallow past the lump in my throat and say, “Technically, yes. I’m still looking for a nanny.”

“Perfect. Valerie can do it. She was a nanny in high school for a summer and did a great job. And she just moved back into town, so she doesn’t have any commitments that would hinder her working a flexible schedule to accommodate training and preseason games coming up.”

“Dad,” Valerie says in a low voice. “Stop.”

“What? I’m just saying this is a perfect situation. You need something to do, and Carter needs someone trustworthy to look after his kids. It’s an ideal situation.”

It would be ideal if I didn’t know what Valerie looked like naked.

Valerie shifts her feet, no doubt having a similar thought. “Dad, you can’t force this kind of thing. Carter probably wants to get to know me better before agreeing to trust his kids’ care to me.”

“Yeah.” I bob my head, latching onto her excuse, unable to verbalize one of my own. “We should talk first.”

Coach scowls, ready to protest, but he’s interrupted when our head coach, Garret Owens, sticks his head out of the office down the hall and hollers, “Palmer, got a second to go over practice stats?”

“Yes, sir,” Coach calls back.

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