Page 116 of Single Dad Dilemma
I tilted my chin toward the TV. “Hearing them talk about you like that?”
Barrett shook his head. “Used to it by now. This is pretty tame. They had a field day whenever Griffin and I used to play against each other. ‘The Brain versus the Brawn,’” he said dryly. “I won that first matchup when I coached, and it took weeks for the chatter to die down.”
From my perch sitting on the counter, I picked up a clean spoon and filled it with dough, pulling it off with my fingers and popping it in my mouth. Barrett watched me, his gaze heavy and soft.
“Want some?” I asked.
“And get salmonella? No thanks.”
“Please. I’ve eaten my body weight in cookie dough the last decade. I think they just made that shit up to keep the cookie companies in business.” I got another spoonful and hummed happily upon eating that, too, which made Barrett shake his head. “So. These dudes think you’re too young to be a coach?”
“Some of them.” He used his finger to slide the dough out of the spoon onto the sheet, carefully getting more. The man was meticulous in everything he did, and for such a bossy asshole, he really did take instructions beautifully. “But if I let other people’s opinions sway all my decisions, I’d be stuck. I do what I’m good at and let my performance speak for itself.”
He and I were more alike than I ever realized, even if we went about living life in very different ways. His convictions allowed himself to be anchored in one place—not only visible in what he chose to do but also under immense pressure. Mine kept me anchorless, drifting along with the tide. No pressure. No one watching.
Until him.
“Did you like playing better? Or coaching?”
“Playing,” he said quietly, staying focused on the task at hand. “I miss it all the time. But ... my knee and a few big concussions made that decision pretty easy. The faster I wreck my body, the less time Ihave with my kids. I wasn’t willing to make that trade, no matter how much I love the game.”
Well. Wasn’t he just ... perfect. If his worst flaw was the dedication he showed to his job, I was in a world of trouble walking away from this man. Knowing my luck, he’d have a beautiful penisandknow what to do with it. Seriously, if he was as good in bed as he was at everything else, I’d weep.
I blinked, clearing my throat as I brought my thoughts back to more polite conversation.
“Do you ever get sick of it?” I asked.
“My job?”
I nodded. “Watching football all day. Dealing with cocky athletes. Living your life fifteen minutes at a time. Being beloved by millions,” I teased.
His smile was barely there, and flutters bloomed in my stomach at the sight of it. “I’m only beloved as long as I’m doing my job well.” He scooped up the last of the dough and handed me the bowl so I could scrape the edges. “That’s what you accept the moment you say yes. It can end badly, and in this league, it often does. If I make poor decisions, or don’t have the right staff in place. If my players don’t buy in to the way I run the team. We all know the risks, but we do it anyway.”
For a woman who’d spent her entire adult life avoiding risk, I didn’t miss the subtext of what he was saying. But he wasn’t being preachy. If he were, it would have been easy to dismiss it.
“Why?”
Instead of answering right away, Barrett turned and washed the cookie dough off his hands, using a towel left on the counter to dry them before he turned, gently prying the spoon from my grip. My face heated as he stood between my legs, one hand braced on the counter just to the side of my hip; the other, he used to scrape the spoon into the bowl again, collecting no more than a teaspoon of remaining dough.
He held it up to my mouth. After forcing a swallow, I licked my lips and opened my mouth, waiting for him to set the spoon againstmy tongue. His eyes were locked on my mouth, but instead of giving it to me, he turned the spoon and fed it to himself.
I scoffed, smacking him in the stomach as he ate the dough. He gave a lopsided grin that echoed in the unsteady thud of my heart.
When he pulled the spoon out of his mouth, I had to fight the urge to lock my thighs around his hips, wrap my ankles around his ass, and make him stay right where he was. The counter height in this place wasperfect.
“What point are you trying to prove, other than you’re a criminal tease?” I said icily.
It said something about Barrett that my bitchy little outburst didn’t deter him in the slightest.
“When things are good enough, important enough”—he held my eyes unflinchingly—“when we love them enough, we take the risk, because we damn well know the reward is worth it.” Like he hadn’t just tossed out the fucking L word, Barrett held up the empty spoon and gently tapped the tip of my nose with it. “You do it too. It just doesn’t feel as scary because you’ve never gotten sick. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, or it’s not real.”
I snatched the spoon out of his hand, and he emitted a quiet laugh, nothing more than a pleased little rumble in his chest, and oh, how I wanted to press myself up against his body to feel it. I knew what it was like now, to be held by him, and his little risk/reward speech was feeling very real as I considered the ramifications of shifting forward a few inches.
“Have I rendered you speechless?” he mused.
“No. I’m just thinking.”
He hummed.
