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Tori shook her head. “It was great to meet you, but I don’t think it would work.”

She left him standing there, dumbfounded, in the middle of the bar, surrounded by his teammates as she walked away. He hadn’t a clue what he’d done wrong or how to fix it if he even saw her again.

Five

“Please stop kicking the ball against the wall,” Tori told Emmett.

She was on the verge of pulling her hair out already while sorting through the schedule for the upcoming basketball season without the ball hitting the wall over and over.

“I’m practicing my shots, mom,” Emmett told her.

“Practice dribbling for a little while. I’m begging you.”

He muttered something she didn’t catch, but he stopped kicking the ball at the wall. It wasn’t that the wall couldn’t take it. It was her own frustrations that were in the way.

Emmett had permission to play in the gym while she was working as the door to her office was just off the side of it, and she could keep an eye on him. Tonight was just too much.

That and she hadn’t let go of thinking about Chance since he’d asked her out Saturday night, and she’d just walked away from him. She wasn’t even drunk, just stupid,or nervous, or something.

Now she needed to get this schedule in order and accommodate all the time requests she could from the coaches and make sure everyone got to play each other. And she had to do it for each league, while accommodating the other ones because there weren’t too many gyms to play at. Oh, and certain refs didn’t work in some age groups.

As the Athletics Manager, it was her job to make sure everything went smoothly with the scheduling and staffing but today she was over it. She loved her job most days, tonight though, not so much.

Ellis Ward, the Parks and Recreation Director, had asked her to stay late tonight to discuss some new program he wanted to do. Not that there was room in the budget for that, but she’d agreed. Now it was only getting later, and she wanted to go home.

“Hey, little dude,” she heard a familiar voice echo through the gym.

Please, no,she thought.It can’t be him.

Standing to take a look, sure enough, she saw Chance in the gym with Emmett, passing the ball across to him. With no idea why he was here, she didn’t dare interrupt. This was how she was used to seeing him, from afar.

“Mom!” Emmett waved. “Look who’s here!” He passed the ball back to Chance.

“I see,” she said. Taking a small step out of her office, she waited for Chance to approach her.

“I didn’t know you work here. I swear.” He held his palms up as he pleaded his innocence.

They hadn’t discussed her job, so unless he was stalking her, which she doubted, she didn’t think he was here to see her.

“I am here to talk to Ellis about a soccer clinic with me and some of the guys from the team. When we talked the other night, I had an idea to do this, but I really didn’t know you’d be here,” he continued.

Taking pity on him she spoke. “I believe you. I’m the athletics manager for parks and rec.”

Chance’s eyes got wide. He must have realized that he’d have to work with her now to pull it off.

“Come on. Ellis is in here.” She led him into the small set of offices and knocked on Ellis’s door. “Ellis, you’ve got company.”

Ellis was a round man. There was no other way to put it. The type of many that definitely enjoyed a few beers but only after work. He was also perpetually sweaty.

She leaned over and whispered in Chance’s ear. “Don’t shake his hand.”

Chance looked at her confused, but as Ellis got closer, you could see the thin sheen of sweat on him even in the crappy, old, artificial light. She watched as Chance noticed it and then stuck his hands in his pockets.

“Good. I’m glad you two have met. You’ll be spending a lot of time together in order to pull this off.” Ellis was saying. “Join us, Tori, so we don’t have to repeat anything.”

Chance looked at her, and she could feel his heavy gaze all over her body. The tingles of awareness had her suppressing a need to shiver.

“I have to go get Emmett first.” She escaped into her own office to take a deep breath before retrieving Emmett and depositing him into her office with his tablet.

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