Chapter 6 Dani #2
A few minutes later, I had a folded shirt draped over my eyes like a makeshift sleep mask and one hand resting on my stomach, attempting to will my nausea into submission. The sectional wasn’t exactly designed for actual sleep, but it was horizontal, and at this point, that was good enough for me.
The lights were low, Clarke was probably off having midday sex with Soren, and for the first time in a long time, nobody needed me for some random caption or cheesy hashtag.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was close.
That was, until I felt the cushion next to me shift under the weight of another body.
I tensed, half-expecting Clarke with another ginger chew or, worse, a player needing content approval. But then I heard the unmistakable sound of Velcro sneakers and the soft exhale of someone much too young to be an adult.
I lifted the shirt just enough to peek.
Brooks’s daughter, Carolina, sat cross-legged at the far end of the couch. Her sneakers were scuffed, her pigtails slightly uneven, and she was holding a spiral notebook in one hand and a purple marker in the other.
She smiled, perfectly at ease. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I said, propping myself up on one elbow. “What are you doing?”
“Working on names for my sourdough starter,” she replied, flipping to a fresh page in her notebook like that answered everything. “Ellie left me alone for too long, and I got bored, so I decided to explore.”
“Ellie?”
“My nanny.”
I sat up fully now, stomach flipping for a whole new reason.
“You ditched your nanny?”
She grinned, pleased with herself.
I swung my legs off the couch and stood, steadying myself. The nausea hadn’t disappeared, but Carolina had distracted me enough that I didn’t feel like actively dying anymore.
She closed her notebook and looked up at me. “Are you going to walk me back?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But I don’t want to go.” Her attention flicked to something behind me. “You and Clarke have better snacks.”
She wasn’t wrong. We did have excellent taste in snacks.
Probably because neither of us ate vegan, like Brooks. Apparently, we both had the palate of a six-year-old girl, and our snack drawer was proof enough—fruit snacks, peanut butter crackers, and enough candy to sedate a polar bear.
I held my hand out to her. “Tell you what. I’ll let you take two snacks back with you if you promise not to wander off like this again. Deal?”
“Four snacks.”
“Two.”
“Three snacks.”
“Two.” Her brows pinched together. “And I help you come up with a name for your sourdough.”
She smiled and placed her hand in mine. “Deal.”
By the time we reached the lower level, Carolina had already polished off a bag of crackers and shot down at least a dozen name suggestions.
“What about Doughly Parton?”
“No.”
“Little Bread Riding Hood?”
“No.”
A light bulb went off. “Crumbelina?”
She giggled and the adorable sound echoed down the hall.
“You are one tough cookie, Chef Carolina.”
We walked side by side, her warm, light-brown hand swinging in mine with casual trust, like it was the most natural thing in the world. It caught me off guard—how easy it felt, how right. I had held a lot of hands in my life, but this one made my chest ache in a way I wasn’t prepared for.
Like maybe I was already starting to understand what it meant to be someone’s mom.
Just as we rounded the corner toward the coaching offices, a door slammed open hard enough to rattle the wall. Less than a second later, Brooks came barreling out, looking like he’d gone from zero to full panic in sixty seconds flat. Eyes wide, phone in one hand, his jaw tight enough to crack.
The second he saw Carolina beside me, he froze.
Relief washed over his face like a wave—sharp tension dissolving in real time—and he ran a hand down his beard before lowering the phone and exhaling hard.
“There you are,” he said, coming toward us. “Jesus, cutie. You can’t just wander off like that. I was about to send the entire security staff out after you.”
Carolina blinked up at him, unbothered. “I wasn’t lost. I was with Dani.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” he muttered, then looked at me.
“To be clear,” I said, offering a small smile, “she came for the snacks.”
“That sounds about right.” He crouched down to Carolina’s level and smoothed his hand over her hair. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. We were just making a list of names for my sourdough.”
Brooks looked up at me, half-exasperated, half-amused. “She told you about that?”
“She showed me the list. I’m invested now.”
He stood back up, and for the briefest second, I forgot how to breathe.
His fitted, black Roasters hoodie did nothing to hide the sculpted muscles underneath.
He had pushed his sleeves up to his forearms, exposing his tattoos.
The salt-and-pepper beard only made his jaw look sharper, more defined, and his square-frame glasses—fuck, those glasses—should not have looked that good on a man who coached for a living.
He met my eyes with something like gratitude and exhaustion in equal measure. “I owe you.”
Oh, I can think of something you can give me.
Fucking hormones.
I coughed. “That won’t be necessary.” Turning to Carolina, I added, “Next time, give someone a heads-up before you disappear like a tiny bread-making ghost.”
“Okay,” she said solemnly.
I thought about telling him then.
The words hovered on the edge of my tongue, ready to tumble out any second. But Carolina was still clutching her cracker wrapper, and Brooks had that weary, dad-on-the-brink expression like he hadn’t sat down in hours—he probably hadn’t.
This wasn’t the moment. It wasn’t even close.
Instead, I cleared my throat and took a step back. “I’ll let you two get back to your sourdough saga.”
“Bye, Dani.”
I waved my goodbye.
Brooks gave me a nod, eyes warm but unreadable. “Thanks again, kit—”
His eyes narrowed. Mine widened.
I turned, walking away faster than I meant to, already regretting the words I hadn’t said. But just before I rounded the corner, I glanced back over my shoulder.
Brooks was still standing there.
And he was still watching me.