Chapter Twenty-Seven Lily
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lily
“You’re terrible at this.”
“You were a lot more patient of a teacher with my daughter.”
I swatted his hands away from the mixer.
“Yeah, because she wasn’t terrible.” Barrett didn’t budge, even when I tried to shoulder him aside.
Like moving a fucking tree. I gave him a brief annoyed look, and he conceded a few inches of space, allowing me to glance inside the mixing bowl.
“Quit hovering over my shoulder like a creep; you’re not going to intimidate me. ”
“Not trying to.”
I snorted, then used the spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl. “See? You’re missing half the ingredients here. I told you to do this while I was getting my socks.”
“You’re already wearing socks,” he pointed out.
“More socks. Looking at the snow makes them feel colder.”
With a sigh, Barrett kicked off his slippers and nudged them in my direction. As I shoved my double-socked feet inside, I wiggled my toes and sighed happily.
Barrett motioned for the spatula, and I handed it to him, glancing quickly at his face.
On day two of our snow-pocalypse, we’d traded in for a very different vibe. It wasn’t so much rampant sexual tension as it was sweet and innocent because we’re not sure what to do with each other now that all the proverbial cards are on the table.
After we dozed for a bit longer, I took a quick shower and tried very hard not to make eye contact with my reflection because I did not want to see the collateral damage of my little mental breakdown in the midnight hours.
When I was done, face cleaned and damp hair slicked back off my face, Barrett was busy in the kitchen making french toast.
Two meals in a row, folks, and I didn’t even have to take off my underwear. It was some kind of new world record.
He did some work at the dining room table after breakfast, talking to Bridget more than once. Two other men called him, and they discussed things like draft picks and plans for the combine, and it all sounded incredibly official.
It was a nice morning, all in all. Without being asked, Barrett pulled the electric blanket off my bed and transferred it to the couch, where I blasted that sucker up to high and curled up with my Kindle to read.
Fine, half the time I was staring at him over the edge of my Kindle, gaze darting back down to the screen anytime he raised his from his laptop and tablet.
There was no lingering eye contact. Just a guy doing work and a girl reading steamy fanfiction about the same two idiots falling in love.
At least, until he brought out the glasses.
They had dark frames—black, maybe—and he pulled them out of a nondescript leather case before sliding them onto his face. My throat went dry, and my Kindle was slowly lowered all the way down into my lap, lest it interfere with the untapped professor fantasy playing out in front of me.
Barrett noticed, doing a slight double take when he caught me gawking.
“What?”
Intelligent words seemed a bit beyond me at the moment, so I settled on, “Glasses. Why?”
His mouth softened in a wry grin, which absolutely twisted my stomach in knots, and he adjusted them on his face. “Staring at screens most of my day. Makes my eyes tired after the season is done. I know, they probably make me look older.”
“Yeah, practically geriatric,” I said airily. At least, I tried to say it airily. It came out all choked and wonky. Even though his mouth didn’t move, I’d swear it in a courtroom, the man’s eyes smiled. “It’s not attractive. You should take them off.”
Barrett hummed, then went back to work, glasses still very much on his face.
I rolled my eyes and tried to focus on my story.
After a few hours of relative peace, he forced me to watch Rudy, sitting at a respectable distance away, still wearing those fucking glasses. When I surreptitiously wiped my cheeks at the end of the movie, he didn’t gloat, just handed me another tissue.
I swiped it from his hand. “How many tissue boxes do you have around this house? They keep popping up everywhere.” I blew my nose and wadded up the tissue in my hand. I wasn’t going to admit this just yet, but watching that movie made me feel like I’d run through a brick wall for Rudy.
“Two.” Barrett stretched an arm over the back of the couch, his fingers coming dangerously close to my braid. If he kept looking at me like that with those damn hot-teacher frames on his face, I’d mount him like a bike. “I just keep moving them wherever you are, just in case.”
That one comment was the only time we’d danced around what happened the night before, just innocuous enough that it didn’t make me want to hide under blankets all day.
“Funny,” I said, peeling off the blanket. That was about the time I informed him he was helping me make cookies. It was either that or ask if I could sit in his lap and stare at his face, and I wasn’t sure he’d agree to that just yet.
The TV remained on in the background, Barrett having switched it to a sports talk show after the movie was over, and with the sides of the bowl finally scraped and the dough acceptably mixed, I caught him watching the talking heads discussing his first season as a coach in Buffalo.
“You know what I’m gonna say,” the first guy said, leaning back in his chair.
“I thought he was too young to be a head coach at his last job, but he did all right because the system and the players were established. But starting over in Buffalo, with a new quarterback he didn’t draft, was a recipe for disaster.
When he benched Archer Evans, I thought that man had lost his mind.
” He shook his head. “End of the Barrett King era before it could even start.”
His coanchor tossed a piece of wadded-up paper in his direction. “Go ahead, say you were wrong. I want to hear the words coming out of your mouth. My man Barrett did his thing, and there’s no arguing it. That guy needed his ass benched. Not many coaches would’ve had the stones to do it.”
“I reserve the right to change my mind.” The first guy held up his hands. “That’s all. I’m not saying I was wrong, but I need to see what they do next season before I actually admit he can hack it as a head coach.”
I narrowed my eyes at the screen, wondering who the hell these guys were and why they got to talk shit.
Barrett continued scooping dough onto the cookie sheet. “This is a good size?”
“Little bit bigger,” I told him. “No one wants a dinky chocolate chip cookie.” He scooped another one, and when he glanced up, I nodded, continuing to study him when he made another ball of dough exactly the same size as the last one. “Is that weird?” I asked.
“What?”
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 I have 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 penis and know 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. ”