The Talk of the Town

Chapter Three

“What were you talking to Coach Q about?” Shania asked as soon as they got in the car.

Halle glanced over at her daughter. Shania was the complete opposite of her. Shania was going to be tall where Halle was lucky to be considered average height at five foot six. Sports had honed her daughter’s athletic build whereas Halle had accepted no amount of CrossFit or cardio would do much to shrink her curvy figure. They both were passionate and cared deeply, but Shania was more likely to get into an argument defending a call in some game versus Halle who was willing to go to bat over a social injustice. If Halle hadn’t delivered the eight-pound baby herself, she’d swear the hospital had mixed something up. But despite their different personalities, Halle loved her more than anything.

“I was talking to him about how things were going with practice,” Halle said, pulling the car out of the parking lot. She turned up the air-conditioning and cracked the windows.

Shania’s eyes narrowed and she stared back at Halle. “What about practice? I can tell you about practice.”

“Nothing more than usual. How are things going? How did you do?”

Shania sighed and fell back in her seat. “You told him to make me starting wide receiver, didn’t you?”

“Why would you say that?” Halle tried to sound innocent but failed. Shania knew her mother too well.

“I knew I shouldn’t have told you. You can’t just make me a starter.”

“Don’t you want to be a starter?”

“I do, but I’ve got to earn it. Coach Q says there are no favorites on his team. Only those who try hard.”

“Do you believe that?” Halle asked.

He’d looked ready to explode when she’d asked him if he’d treat Shania any differently because she was a girl. She could feel the outrage radiating off him in waves. In that moment when he’d slid off those shades and hit her with the full extent of his intense, dark gaze, she understood what the women around town saw in Quinton Evans. The man exuded raw, masculine energy. If she were into brawn over brains, her heart might have fluttered. Her question had insulted him, but she didn’t feel guilty for it. Her daughter was an anomaly on the team, and she needed to make sure her coach really supported her.

Shania sighed. “I do believe him, but there’s this kid who just moved to our school. Octavius something or other. He’s going to be starting wide receiver.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he was the starter at his last school. He’s some kind of star and really good. Coach Quinton watched him all practice.”

“That’s favoritism,” Halle said, lifting a finger. And he’d tried to be so smug with her with his I evaluate all players speech. The man’s preference was already noticeable to the team.

“It’s football,” Shania countered.

“Well, you can’t give up before you even get to the finish line. Coach Evans’s one job is to coach that football team. I asked him to make sure he coaches you. Not just push you to the side.”

“He teaches math,” Shania said.

Halle frowned, confused by the comment. “Who teaches math?”

Shania raised her brows. “Coach Q. He teaches math.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Shania chuckled and gave Halle that my-silly-mom look that let Halle know she was proving to be out of touch. “You said his one job was to coach, but he also has to teach math.”

Halle considered. “I thought coaches always taught PE or something.” At least in her years of working as a teacher the coaches at the middle school stuck to physical education or maybe social studies. She’d assumed the same thing took place with Coach Evans.

“They can teach other things. He teaches algebra and maybe an honors math class. I don’t know for sure but that’s what I’ve heard.”

“Hmm,” Halle said again.

She felt a little guilty for assuming he didn’t teach a core class. But to her credit, she didn’t spend a lot of time considering Quinton Evans. Yes, he was handsome. Tall, dark skin, with broad, muscled shoulders, piercing dark eyes and a chiseled chin his beard only enhanced. He’d gotten a lot of attention from the single female population of Peachtree Cove when he’d first moved to town. At that time, the rumor mill confirmed he was dating some model or actress that he’d been with during his time as a professional player. That had immediately put him off Halle’s radar. She didn’t want to say she was prejudiced against athletes, but she could say her ideal type wasn’t someone who spent more time focusing on a sport than what she considered to be more serious matters affecting the world.

“He makes me think about my dad.”

Halle slammed on the brakes at the stop sign. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel and her heart jumped to her throat. She took a deep breath. Overreacting whenever Shania brought up her father only made her daughter dig deeper.

“Why in the world would he make you think about your dad?” Halle asked, trying to keep her voice even.

Shania watched Halle like a hawk. Halle realized too late she’d been set up. Shania understood Halle didn’t like talking about her father. Lately, she’d taken to bringing up the topic randomly and throwing Halle off because she wasn’t prepared. Like now, as they drove home from football practice.

“I was thinking he’s someone like Coach Q, right?”

“What! No, he is not someone like your football coach,” Halle said confidently.

“Think about it. He’s into sports, I’m into sports. Coach Q is tall, I’m going to be tall. One kid even said we look alike. Be honest, my dad looked like him.”

Halle visualized Quinton and then Shania and immediately pushed the thought aside. She refused to make any comparisons between Quinton Evans and her daughter’s father. She’d made sure that Shania’s father wasn’t anyone like him.

Halle waved off her daughter’s words. “Shania, stop asking me about your dad. You don’t need to worry about him. And don’t ever put your football coach and your potential dad in the same sentence. It takes a lot less than that to get gossip started in this town.”

Shania crossed her arms and huffed. “Why can’t I worry about my dad? It makes sense that I need to know who he is.”

“Your dad isn’t your dad in the traditional sense. Think of him as a donor and move on.”

Shania scoffed. “Number one, that’s nasty! Number two, that’s not helping. Why won’t you just tell me about him? I don’t understand why this is a secret.”

Halle didn’t have the heart to tell Shania that her description was the closest Halle had ever come to the truth about her father. She couldn’t tell Shania that she didn’t know who her dad was because he had been a donor. A nameless, faceless man whose contribution to a private sperm bank had resulted in the greatest blessing of Halle’s life.

“This isn’t a secret,” Halle said, focusing on the road instead of glancing over to meet Shania’s gaze. “He just...isn’t involved. I wouldn’t know how to reach him if I tried.”

Shania leaned over and peered at Halle. “Have you tried?”

She hadn’t. Exchanging contact information hadn’t been a part of the deal. Just the description of the type of donor she’d been interested in. A Black man, who was healthy and excelled in academics. Someone like Gregory. Not like Quinton.

“Shania, I get it—”

“No, you don’t. You knew your dad. You had a family. I don’t. You don’t know how I feel.” Shania didn’t yell. Instead, she spoke quietly, in a small, disappointed voice. Yelling might have made it easier for Halle to get defensive. Instead, guilt fisted her heart.

The conversation had gone in a direction Halle didn’t want it to go. “You’re right, I don’t. But trust me when I say this person isn’t who you want in your life and he doesn’t want to be in ours. I want you to have a father, too.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I want to get married one day. Maybe even have another kid.” She glanced from the road to Shania. Her daughter’s eyes were wide, and her mouth had fallen open.

“Are you serious? I didn’t know you wanted another kid.”

Halle shrugged. “I’m not against it if the opportunity comes.” She hadn’t thought about kids much while she’d focused on raising Shania and progressing in her career. Now the fantasies of being in a relationship and settling down with the right guy had Halle thinking about having another child. She wasn’t too old to start over.

“But when will the opportunity come? You don’t date.”

“I do date.”

“You’re not dating now.”

“You don’t know that.” Halle hadn’t told Shania about the coffee meetup with Gregory. Only because she wasn’t sure if it would go anywhere.

She didn’t date often after her last serious relationship ended when Shania was still in fifth grade. After they’d broken up Shania had asked about the guy constantly for weeks afterward. Although she hadn’t made it a habit to introduce dates to Shania, she had thought that relationship might go somewhere. When she saw how hard the breakup had also been on Shania, Halle vowed to stop dating until Shania was old enough to understand that Halle going on a date didn’t mean the guy would stick around.

Shania’s eyes lit up. “You like someone?”

A vision of Gregory popped into Halle’s mind. That and the promise for dinner with him on Friday. The corners of her lips lifted. She hadn’t been excited about the possibility of dating in a long time.

“I do.”

Shania gasped and placed a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God, who got you smiling like that? Do Aunt Tracey and Imani know? Are they hooking you up?”

Halle wiped the smile off her face. “How about you focus on football and let me focus on my dating life.”

“You do have a crush. That’s so cute! I can’t wait to meet him.”

Halle had to get through dinner first. She didn’t want to get Shania’s hopes up too soon. There were still so many things to settle on. First she’d get through her dinner with Gregory, and then, hopefully, another date. And then another.

“Trust me, when you meet him, you’ll be happy,” Halle said grinning. And she’ll never have to worry about her daughter daydreaming about the possibility of Coach Quinton Evans being her dad ever again.