Tags:
Fiction,
General,
Erótica,
Romance,
Contemporary,
Domestic Fiction,
Man-Woman Relationships,
Love Stories,
Sisters,
responsibility,
Football Players - United States
here if I didn’t have to be. Of course I’ve been sitting on hard seats for years now. My boys are twins and they’re into sports. We’ve done it all. Little League, soccer, football, baseball. My husband travels a lot so it’s up to me to show up at the games.”
“It’s great that you want to see them. I’m sure they appreciate the support.”
Barbara wrinkled her nose. “They never say anything unless I can’t make a game. Then they won’t stop complaining. But I’m used to it by now.”
Family, Nicole thought sadly. That’s what people did for each other in a family.
“So,” Barbara said, her voice low. “How do you know Hawk?”
“I, ah, met him through Raoul.”
“Dating him?”
“No.”
“Tempted?”
“No.”
“Because you’re dating someone amazing?”
“Not really.”
Barbara smiled. “So you’re either into girls or you’re lying.”
Nicole laughed. “How are those my only choices?”
“I don’t believe any woman can be around Hawk and not wonder what it would be like to have her way with him. He’s got that body of his. Plus, he’s actually nice. I know it seems unfair, but there we are. He’s single and he likes to play. Rumor has it he’s a real gentleman out in public and a wild animal in the bedroom. They say he can go for hours.”
Barbara fanned herself. “Not that I have any personal experience. He doesn’t get involved with married women and I wouldn’t cheat. At least I don’t think I would. No one’s ever asked.”
Nicole didn’t know what to say. This definitely fell in the category of too much information.
“He used to play professionally,” Barbara continued.
“I’d heard that.”
“It’s an amazing story. He got his high school girlfriend pregnant. Everyone said they wouldn’t make it, but they got married anyway. They lived on macaroni and cheese while he was in college on a scholarship. Had the baby, were blissfully happy. Then Hawk got drafted into the NFL and started making big money. Instead of living on a golf course somewhere, they bought an average house in a regular neighborhood here, in Seattle. Raised their daughter.”
This was the expanded version of what Raoul had told her, Nicole thought. Although she hadn’t known about a child. Hawk was a father? He seemed too flashy and sexually charged for that.
“Then Serena, that’s the wife, got cancer. It was maybe six or seven years ago. Hawk quit the NFL to stay home with her. She died and he became a single dad. He took the high school coaching job because he wanted to give back. He sure doesn’t need the money.”
Barbara pointed to the pretty blonde Raoul had introduced Nicole to earlier. “That’s his daughter.”
“Brittany?”
Barbara looked at her. “You know her?”
“We met earlier. She’s dating Raoul, my employee.”
“That’s her. She’s absolutely perfect. Good grades, head cheerleader, interested in saving the planet. Loves her dad. I console myself that even if I was single and Hawk was desperately in love with me, Brittany would be a challenge to any relationship. She’s a real daddy’s girl. But who can blame her?”
Nicole studied the teenager urging the crowd to cheer, then turned her attention to Hawk. He paced along the sidelines, a clipboard in his hands.
“So he’s not a jerk,” she murmured.
“Not even close. You still not interested?”
“He’s just someone I know,” she said. “Nothing more.”
Not that she wanted more. He was the kind of trouble she didn’t have time for.
She watched him point to a couple of kids and send them into the game. He was totally focused and intense, and he never once glanced in her direction, damn him.
NICOLE SPENT the rest of the game watching the plays and trying to figure out what was going on while listening to Barbara fill her in on everything from which teachers might have a drinking problem to which parents were divorcing. It was an information dump that made her head spin.
When