Chapter 24
Duffy
“The next person who jumps in the mud is doing laps,” I said, wiping the splatter off my face.
“You’re seriously going to make kindergartners run?” Connor asked, his eyebrows raised.
“You’re seriously going to ask me that when you have zero mud on your face?”
Not only was he so tall they couldn’t face-hoosh him if they wanted to, but the kids had fallen madly in love with my fake boyfriend and were behaving like little angels around him.
In their defense, he was pretty easy to love that morning.
He was wearing baggy sweats, a whistle, a baseball hat, and a pair of smart-looking glasses that made me want to climb on his lap and ask him to help me balance my budget.
Or…something.
Bottom line: He looked stab-me-in-the-face-with-a-fork hot in glasses.
And he was ridiculously, absurdly, unbelievably great with the kids.
When I’d filled in for my dad in the past, I basically just yelled generic instructions to the whole group, as in “Make sure your flags are on tight” before running a play.
But Connor was that guy. He talked to every player, he dropped down to a squat so he was at their face level when he gave them little tips; it was adorable and perfect and absolutely swoony.
I was pretty sure the parents were never going to welcome my dad back—or me when I had to fill in—because we would always pale in the shadow of what Connor brought that morning.
“Zoey, you need to get lined up,” he said as the girl with two uneven ponytails stood at the line of scrimmage, facing the entirely wrong direction.
As in, her back was to the play.
“It’s too windy to look that way,” she said, shaking her head but not turning around to face him. “It’s too windy, Mr. Cunningham. I’m gonna get blown over on that side.”
“But how are you going to know the play’s starting if you aren’t in your spot?” he asked, so incredibly sweet. If it were me, I’d just yell that we couldn’t start until Zoey got in place.
“We get to be done as soon as we finish running this three more times,” he said, crouching down so he was closer to her height. “So you’re this close to being in the warm car, kiddo. Just turn around—I promise you won’t blow down—and give me your toughest stance.”
I was literally thinking It’s never going to work when she turned around and got into position without another word.
“Attagirl, Z,” he said with a grin, and I was pretty sure every person at that practice—me included—fell madly in love with him that instant.
When there were five minutes left in practice, the sky opened and the coldest fall rain poured down. Everyone got soaked, but the kids just screamed and giggled and jumped in the puddles until their parents grabbed them and they all dispersed.
Connor wasn’t fazed, either. He simply popped open the trunk of his car, loaded everything up, then grabbed a blanket for me to sit on so I didn’t get his seats wet and muddy.
“God, it’s like you were born to be a flag football coach,” I said as I buckled my seat belt. The seat belt stuck my cold, wet clothes to my skin and I shivered, wishing the blanket was a bit larger so I could wrap myself in it.
“No, I’m definitely not,” he said as he pulled out of the parking lot. “I think it’s just that compared to you, I seem very patient.”
“Are you saying I’m impatient?” I said with a laugh as he cranked up the car’s heater, because I absolutely was.
I liked kids, but I also didn’t have a lot of tolerance for all their complaining and distractedness and propensity for giving me honest feedback on how much of a failure I was as a coach.
Coach Tony doesn’t do that.
Are you sure about that, Coach Duff? I don’t think that’s right.
“Little bit,” he said, but I could tell it wasn’t a dig.
“Listen, I can’t help but notice you’re shivering,” he said suddenly. “My place is really close; do you want to take a hot shower there while I get my bags together?”
“Oh, geez—how long until you need to be to the airport?” I’d forgotten that he had an away game to get to. “I can take an Uber home so you can go pack.”
He’d picked me up on the way to practice.
“Actually,” he said, looking like he was working through an idea, “if you want a hot shower at my place, I can pack while you clean up—killing two birds—and still have plenty of time to drop you off on my way to the airport.”
“Oh. Okay.” I sounded calm, but I was freaking out inside. He was seriously suggesting I shower at his place…as in be naked while he’s in the next room? Like it was no big deal?
He hesitated for a moment. “You’re also welcome to stay at my place so you aren’t alone at your dad’s while he’s in the hospital, if you want,” he said. “But no pressure.”
Oh my God.
What was happening?
He was offering to let me crash at his fancy apartment?
I wanted to so badly, so unbelievably badly holy shit, but that article popped into my head again. That stupid non-evidentiary-based article that haunted me on a daily basis.
Specifically, the bullet point that said: “Be Elusive.”
Jumping at the offer to sleep in his bed was the opposite of elusive, right?
“That’s really nice,” I said, already homesick for the luxurious apartment I was rejecting. “But Dale Earnhardt needs me.”
“File that under things I never would’ve expected any of my friends to say,” he muttered with a smirk.
But all I heard was the f-word.
Friend.
He’d just called me his friend.
It made sense in this context, since he was just making a joke about the cat’s ridiculous name, but my stomach sank anyway.
In an instant, I was no longer buzzing over his offer, because what did it mean? Were we landing in a friendly place where he was comfortable suggesting I crash at his place when he wasn’t even going to be there because he was no longer trying to move this thing between us forward?
Had we stalled?
A weight settled uncomfortably in my chest.
When we got to his apartment, I felt a little shy because I didn’t know what to do with all my questions and insecurities.
I needed to know where we stood, but the words didn’t come out.
Thankfully his cats chose that moment to come running at me, distracting me with their chaos the second we stepped out of the fancy elevator.
Sammy—the fat orange one—jumped onto the couch and immediately coughed up a hair ball while one of the other ones rubbed against my leg like she’d been waiting for my arrival.
So I had to snatch her up.
While Connor cleaned up the hair ball situation he gave me shit about dripping water all over his fancy floors, so I was blessedly able to momentarily stop stressing about things I couldn’t figure out.
“Come on, I’ve got stuff for you,” he said, walking into the other room.
I followed, my stomach doing a somersault as we crossed through what appeared to be his bedroom.
That is a huge bed, I thought, trying not to look but failing miserably and gaping at that massive mattress that Connor Cunningham slept in every night.
Ahem.
Be cool, Duffy.
He didn’t stop until we were in the main bathroom, which did nothing to calm my jumpy pulse as he walked over and turned on the shower.
The water started running and I swallowed as he spoke calmly, like prepping the shower for me was normal behavior for him.
“The last time my sister was in town, I bought her a pair of sweats at the pro shop that she didn’t like, so they’ve literally never been worn but they will probably fit you if you don’t want to put your wet clothes back on,” he said.
“God bless you and your sweats-hating sister,” I said as he went to go fetch them.
When he returned with neatly folded sweats, he opened the cabinet and handed me two fluffy white towels. “You have to let the water run for a few minutes before it gets hot.”
“Okay,” I said with a nod, taking the towels from his hands, unable to look him in the eye while he talked about the shower.
“I’m going to let you shower while I pack. We should probably leave in about thirty minutes, if that works for you.”
“It does,” I said, even as my brain spun in cartwheels about us and big bedrooms and running showers.
“Thank you. Um, for everything. For taking me to see my dad last night, for being cool about canceling the date, for helping out with football this morning; I kind of think you’re maybe sort of an okay dude. ”
“Whoa, watch it—my head is going to get huge if you keep talking to me like that,” he said, his voice quiet as he smiled down at me.
Suddenly, I was hyperaware of how close he was standing.
Of the way he was towering over me.
Of the way his blue eyes were penetrating mine.
“It’s already huge, let’s be real,” I teased, my teeth chattering.
His eyes dipped down to my mouth and God, I wanted him to kiss me so badly.
My breath was trapped in my chest as we looked at each other and I was hit with a wave of total confusion because how was it possible we were just friends?
Things with Connor felt so much more like a relationship than any of the actual relationships I’d dipped in and out of in the past.
“The way I want to kiss you right now,” he said quietly, the heat of his gaze holding me in place. “I’m a dick, I know, because you’re soaked to the bone and shivering, yet I cannot stop myself from looking at your pretty mouth and remembering. Fucking wanting, so badly, to do it again.”
“So do it,” I said on a breath, my knees threatening to buckle as his words burned through me. It felt bold and a little too brazen to taunt him, but I said anyway, “Unless you’re chick—”
His lips landed on mine as his large, warm hands came up to cradle my cheeks.
He angled his head as he ran his tongue along my lips, and then he dived right in and kissed me like he’d been on edge all day, just waiting in breathless anticipation for me to give him permission.
It felt like he’d snapped, like my taunting words were the command he’d been waiting for, and now it was on.