9. Noah
CHAPTER 9
NOAH
I ease the door open, not wanting to wake Maddie or Sabrina. My day ran far longer than I expected. I feel like complete and utter shit, both for letting my daughter down and because I’m exhausted. My lack of stamina won’t help me during these first few matches, and shit if that doesn’t scare me.
I trained as much as I could during my time off, but clearly not enough, and now I’m dealing with the consequences.
Once I’ve confirmed that the door is locked, I turn, ready to fall into bed. A figure in the living room startles me, and I nearly jump out of my skin. Shit. Sabrina is perched on the couch in the low light with a glass of wine in her hand, watching me closely.
Fuck .
Averting my gaze, I run my fingers through my hair. “I should’ve let you know I was going to be late.”
I don’t have to look at her to know she’s pissed.
“Don’t worry about me. I wasn’t the one who was heartbroken when you didn’t show up or even text to say you’d be late.”
I close my eyes. Those words are a fucking knife to the heart. “I didn’t have access to my phone.”
She takes a delicate sip of wine, her focus never wavering. The intensity makes me squirm. Dammit.
Why the fuck did I let Fisher convince me to hire her?
“I should’ve figured something out,” I finally say.
She’s barely said a word, yet I feel like I’ve been read the riot act. By a woman half a decade younger than me, no less.
The disappointment lingering in the air is thick enough to suffocate on.
“Listen.” She sets her glass on the coffee table, then homes in on me. “I had horrible, absentee parents. I had to raise myself?—”
My stomach drops. Is that what she thinks of me? That I’m an absentee parent? “What?—”
She holds up a hand, stopping my tirade. “You’re not a horrible father. It’s obvious you love Maddie with all of your heart, but you still have to show up for her. You told her you’d be here to put her to bed, and when you never showed, she was hurt. Things like that… they add up.”
Dropping into a chair at the table, I pick up the bottle of wine and take a swig straight from it.
“You’re right. Things were so much easier when Annie was alive.”
Her eyes fill with sympathy. “You’re doing the best you can while diving back into your career, but that doesn’t make it any easier for Maddie. All she knows is her dad said he’d be here to tuck her in, and then he wasn’t.”
I scrub a hand over my jaw, my stubble rasping against my palm.
Under normal circumstances, I might snap at her.
But I’m too tired to argue. And though I hate to admit it, she’s right .
I let my little girl down.
Deflating, I look at our bedroom door, envisioning my sweet girl curled up with her teddy bear. Tennis is my job, my passion, but she’s my life .
And fuck if I’m not an asshole for getting caught up in my own shit and forgetting that while I lost my wife, she lost her mother.
I huff out a breath and rake my hand through my hair. “I’ll talk to her in the morning.”
Sabrina nods and picks her wine back up. “You might as well have more.” She tips her head at the bottle on the table in front of me. “You’re paying for it, and I picked the most expensive one they have.”
Head lowered, I squeeze my eyes shut. “Of course you did.”
“You owed me.”
“Mhm.” I take another swig straight out of the bottle. “I did. I do .”
Standing, she picks up her glass. “I think I’ll turn in.”
She’s almost to her room when I say, “Don’t go running by yourself.”
When she spins around, her dark eyes are narrowed into slits.
My lips twitch. My traitorous dick twitches too.
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“It’s not safe.”
“Even the hotel gym?”
I shake my head. “No.”
I’m sure it’s safe enough. There are bound to be cameras. But I don’t like the idea of her there on her own.
She plants a hand on the curve of her hip, brow arched in challenge. “Are you offering to run with me?”
“Sure,” I say, surprising both of us. “Running is part of my training.”
“And who’s going to watch Maddie?”
I spin the wine bottle around, balancing it on its base. “She can hang out with Fisher for a while. He’s practically her uncle.”
With her tongue pressed to the inside of her cheek, she looks away.
Fuck . I close my eyes, silently cursing myself for even contemplating what she might look like with that sassy mouth wrapped around my cock.
“I don’t understand you, Noah.”
I take a long swallow of the wine. “Trust me, I don’t either.”
With a sigh, she turns, her dark curls swishing around her shoulders.
When her door clicks shut behind her, I look down at my disloyal dick. “Get your shit together.”
Even though I don’t need to shower, I find myself there anyway, jacking off to thoughts I shouldn’t be having about my mouthy nanny.
Sabrina looks nervous. It’s strange to see the usually unflappable woman look suddenly unsure.
Maybe she didn’t think I’d really be up and waiting for her.
“Hey, Sabrina.” Fisher, who’s sitting at the dining table, holds up an orange slice in greeting, clearly having helped himself to room service on my dime.
“Morning,” she chimes in a cheery tone that belies her expression.
She bends down and adjusts the sock on her right foot, then does the same to the left for good measure. When they’re precisely how she wants them, she double-checks her perfectly tied laces.
“You’re stalling.”
She straightens and hisses, “I didn’t think you were serious.”
With a chuckle, Fisher reaches for a bagel. “Oh, you’ll figure out soon enough that he’s always serious.”
I narrow my eyes on my supposed best friend. It seems like he might be gunning for a demotion.
“I can run on my own. This isn’t necessary.” She waves her hand at my idiot friend, as if dismissing him. “I can be back in time to take care of Maddie.”
He clucks his tongue and dips a knife into the container of cream cheese. “You wound me, Sunshine.”
Sunshine .
My hackles rise. What the fuck? Why does Fisher have a nickname for Sabrina?
It’s too friendly. Too… cutesy.
When she flashes a smile in his direction, anger ignites in my gut. I bite my tongue so I don’t tell her not to smile at him. If I do, Fisher will give me all kinds of shit.
“Let’s go.” I snap my fingers.
She rolls her eyes. “Are you sure you can keep up, old man?”
Old man?
“I’m only twenty-seven.”
“Really?” She arches both brows. “You act like you’re ninety-seven.”
I turn to Fisher, who’s snickering in amusement. “We’re going. Call if you need me.”
“Have fun, kids.”
Outside, the car I arranged is waiting for us to take us to a nearby park.
“I ran on the streets yesterday and it was fine. We don’t need to do all this,” she argues as I usher her into the back seat.
I slide in beside her and sit back with a groan. “You’re lucky you came back at all.”
She scoffs. “Do you know something about crime here that I don’t? It can’t be worse than in America.”
I turn to her, my bare knee brushing hers, sending tingles coursing through me. “Are you calling me overprotective?”
“You said it, not me.”
As if to prove her point, I blurt, “Put your seat belt on.”
She sticks her tongue against the inside of her cheek, just like she did last night, and slides the belt across her chest. Once it’s latched, she peers over at me. “Happy now, old man?”
I close my eyes. She’s never going to drop the old man thing now.
“Immensely.”
We’re quiet the rest of the way to the park, where there are very few other people out this early. With any luck, we’ll make it back to the room before Maddie is up. I’d hate to be gone when she wakes up after I let her down so spectacularly last night. But the thought of Sabrina running alone made me want to throw up.
Sure, maybe I’m overprotective, but violence against women is a problem all over the world. She should be able to run in peace—either at the gym or in public—but the reality isn’t always so simple. My sister was attacked once on a run. By some miracle, a passerby saw and she wasn’t hurt—not physically, anyway—but the trauma of that event has haunted her ever since. So, no, I can’t stomach the thought of Sabrina running alone. I could tell her why , but I guess I don’t really care if she thinks I’m just an overbearing asshole.
“How many miles do you usually run?”
She shrugs, tying her hair back. “It depends.”
I turn my baseball cap backward. There’s not enough light out yet to worry about shielding my eyes. “On what?”
“How many I need.” She looks away when she says it, leaving me with the impression that this might be a vulnerable admission for her.
Sabrina Howard is trying to outrun something, but what?