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“Have a seat, Tori.” Ellis motioned to the empty chair as she returned to his office.

“Emmett’s good?” Chance asked.

If he was still trying to get her to go on a date with him, things like asking about Emmett were going to win her over. “He’s good,” she answered.

“Excellent.” Ellis pulled out a flyer and handed it to her. “Chance here tells me we have you to thank for the idea of getting the FC involved more locally.”

Tori swallowed, unsure how to answer. “A little.”

“Then it works out great that you’ll be in charge of heading this up.” Ellis smiled like he’d done something to be proud of.

“When?” she asked.

“As soon as we can fit it in. The season for us is about to be over so I’d like to do it before the guys spread out and enjoy their time off,” Chance answered.

She already had a lot on her plate and this was a lot of work. A great idea, but a lot of work. “What all did you have in mind?”

The three of them talked for the next hour about what could and couldn’t be done, what legal forms would be needed, and the cost. At some point, Emmett had snuck in and was sitting next to Chance and showing him something on his tablet.

Tori had pages of notes to go through and a basketball schedule to complete. The thought of what effort this was going to be still made her hesitant, but it would be good for the kids so she’d do her best to make it work.

“I’ll need a few days to see what I can come up with,” Tori told them.

“Understandable,” Chance said.

Ellis blustered for a moment before spitting out his objections. “I’d really like to see this happening tomorrow,” he told her.

Calmly, Tori rose from her seat and motioned for Emmett to join her. “I understand that, but I don’t have the free time right now to work on it.” Turning to Chance, she added, “if you can make it to the fields on Saturday around eleven, I can go over what I’ve got so far.”

Chance nodded. “Sounds great to me. I’ll see you on the pitch.” Grabbing a sticky note off Ellis’s desk, he wrote something on it. “Here’s my number if you have any questions I can help answer about logistics or anything.”

He was so sweet her teeth hurt, and she didn’t know what to do with it. Taking the paper, she added it to her notes. “Thanks. I’ll see you Saturday. Ellis, I’ll give you an update once I have it together, and then once Chance approves it.”

She left before he could argue, but not before Chance could excuse himself. He followed her out, taking Emmett’s hand as they walked the few steps to her office door.

“Bye, Chance,” Emmett said.

“Later, dude,” Chance smiled at her son. “See you Saturday, soccer mom.”

She let it go unanswered and watched as Chance walked away. Damn, he was a sight to watch.

Ellis cleared his throat next to her, causing Tori to jump.

“We need to make this happen,” he told her.

“I know. But we also need to make sure we have the space and the time available. And it’s short notice so if we’re going to do it we need to make sure there’s a good turnout.” She’d already been thinking about it when they were talking.

“That’s all true. I think the best bet would be to cancel practices for the week so parents won’t have conflicts. That would mean doing it before the season starts.”

He was right, but it meant an even shorter timeframe to work with. “I’ll see what we can do. Let me look at the calendars and I’ll give you an update. Best I can do unless you want to take over finishing the basketball schedules?”

Ellis choked like she knew he would and started making excuses for not helping with that. She hadn’t expected him to help. Everyone left the scheduling to her, it was exhausting but she could handle it and knew how to make it work. There were just a lot of moving pieces with another one added in now.

“I’ll keep you posted then,” she told him. “Come on Emmett.”

Emmett joined her, no doubt ready to go home and get out of the office.

“How do you feel about chicken nuggets for dinner?” she whispered.

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