Back in the Game (Champion Valley #2)
Erin Kern
One
I want to sign up for ballet lessons.”
Stella paused in the act of locking the doors to her dance studio and eyed the tall, broad-shouldered kid who’d caught her at the end of a long day.
“You want ballet lessons?” she repeated.
Matt West nodded. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat as though nervous. “I know some of the other guys on the team are taking lessons from you. They said it helped with, like, their balance and stuff.”
Stella turned to face him. She always had extra time for a student in need, but technically Matt wasn’t a student. And the other football players she was helping had come in with their parents.
“Matt…” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Does your dad know you’re here?” Not that Stella was looking to see Brandon West, but she needed to make sure she had his permission to get Matt enrolled.
“Uh…not exactly,” he answered.
She turned the key in the lock again and pushed the door open. “Why don’t we go inside and talk?”
As Matt followed her inside, Stella wrestled with the uncomfortable and conflicting feeling about what to do. It wasn’t the kid’s fault his father was sex on a stick who’d given her more fantasies than anything she’d had as a teenager. It also wasn’t Matt’s fault her one and only date with his dad had ended in disaster.
She should come up with an excuse. Tell Matt she didn’t have space in her schedule. But when she glanced at him and spotted the hopefulness in his brown gaze, she knew turning him away wasn’t an option.
“Why don’t you tell me what made you decide to come see me?” she said.
Matt rocked back on his heels. “Some of the guys said your classes were cool. And you were helping them and stuff.”
“Do you have an idea of what specific things you’d like to work on?” she asked. “I’m assuming your coach gave you areas that need improvement.”
“Yeah, you know”—he shrugged—“I have issues with my balance and flexibility. Coach says I might have a shot at a scholarship if I work on those things.”
She could totally help him with that. Except…
“I would love to get you signed up today, but I need your dad here.”
Matt winced and shook his head. “I can’t just, like, sign his name on whatever release form you have?”
If only. Because that would work better for the two of them, but she couldn’t go against her own rules. “It’s not really a release form, just more like signing over permission. And since you’re under-age, your dad has to come in here and sign you up.” Unfortunately.
Matt was silent a moment, as though searching for a way to get around having his dad involved.
She offered him a sympathetic smile, because she remembered what it was like to be seventeen. “You can’t go behind your dad’s back, Matt. You need his permission.”
His shoulders slumped. “But I know he won’t go for it. He’ll say ballet is for girls and I need to find another solution.”
Sounded like how Brandon would react. “Maybe you’re not giving your dad enough credit. Maybe he’s more progressive than you realize.”
Matt laughed and shook his head. “Trust me, he’s not.”
“Why don’t you try first?” she suggested. “Go home, broach the subject with him and just see what he says.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “When I was six, I asked for a Ken doll for my birthday and he bought me a set of army guys instead.”
In that case…“Maybe…” Dear God, don’t say it. “Maybe I could talk to him for you first,” she blurted out, because apparently, her mouth didn’t get the memo. “Give him an explanation of ballet training and its benefits.”
Matt’s face brightened so fast that it almost overshadowed her insane plan to put herself in Brandon’s path. “You’d do that?”
She shrugged as though it was no big deal. No big deal to come face-to-face with the man who sent her into more cold showers than a shirtless Ryan Gosling. “Sure. But you still need to talk to him. Don’t let your dad think you were deliberately trying to go behind his back.”
One side of Matt’s mouth curled up, and holy kick-in-the-stomach if he didn’t look just like Brandon when he did that. “But I kind of already did.”
“Yeah, but you don’t want him thinking that you did,” she corrected.
He scratched the side of his face. “But won’t he know I did after you talk to him?”
Hmmm, good argument and one she wasn’t prepared to answer. “I’ll handle that when I talk to him. I’ll let him think it was my idea and I came to you instead of you coming to me.”
Matt blinked, then slowly shook his head. “Yeah, I don’t think that’ll work.”
She placed a reassuring hand on his arm, even though her own doubt made her fingers tremble. “Trust me on this. I can handle your dad.”
Yeah, piece of cake. Because the last time she’d tried to “handle” Brandon West, she’d thrown up rotten sushi all over him.
Brandon West had just picked up his double bacon cheeseburger with extra tomato when a shadow fell over his table, piercing the solitude he’d been enjoying with his solo lunch. For a second he waited for the person to realize they had the wrong table, when his gaze touched on the outline of long hair, narrow shoulders, and hands firmly planted on hips curved to such perfection that Brandon almost whimpered.
Until he remembered who those hips belonged to and the crystal-clear blue eyes that came with them. Eyes that were filled with trouble almost as often as they held promises of steamy kisses and twisted bedsheets.
He chewed slowly as she plopped herself down in the wrought-iron chair across from him and gave him a smile so wide that he almost made the mistake of thinking she was dropping in to say hi.
“I need to talk to you about something.”
“All right, fine.”
Brandon watched in horror as she reached across the table and snagged an onion straw off his plate.
Before he could tell her to keep her hands to herself or, better yet, move the hell along, his server appeared. As though he were waiting for an opportunity to give Stella a reason to stay.
“Can I get you anything?” the guy asked.
Stella tilted her face up to the waiter. “I’ll just have whatever he’s having—”
“No, she’s not staying,” Brandon interrupted.
“Maybe just put mine in a to-go box,” she suggested. “Mr. Grumpy Pants is a bit socially inept,” she whispered to the server.
“Christ,” he muttered to himself.
The waiter left without another word, probably because he still wanted his twenty percent tip. Smart man.
“Start talking, Stella,” he said.
“I think you should put Matt in ballet training,” she said in a rush.
Brandon paused with his glass of Coke halfway to his mouth.
“Ballet isn’t just for girls,” she continued. “Some of the best dancers in the world are men. Ever heard of Mikhail Baryshnikov?”