“Hey.”
She jolted and shrieked, then slapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m so, so…” she started, swiveling in her chair and finding Clayton Barnes standing beside her desk. “Sorry,” she finished on a mumble. “You startled me.”
“Clearly.” His lips tilted up in a small smile, which only made him even more handsome than he already was. Damn the man. “My bad. I bet you’re fun at horror movies.”
“Wouldn’t know, I refuse to go,” she said primly, inwardly wincing at her cold tone. What was it about this man that made her throw up the defenses so fast? “What can I do for you, Mr. Barnes?”
“You can stop calling me that, like I asked you to last time, to start with.”
She nodded once. Each coach had their own preferences. “Coach Barnes, then.”
“Clay.”
“Coach Barnes,” she said firmly. She was a young—fine, youngish—woman in a male-dominated world. She let her professionalism and performance speak for her.
He sighed, and she could tell she’d annoyed him. But if her being professional and dignified in the workplace annoyed him, he’d just have to find a straw and suck it up.
“I met your son, Isaac, back in the offices.”
That gave her pause. “Oh.” Then because her mind began spinning, “Did he say something inappropriate?”
The coach laughed at that. “No, not at all. He was struggling with a bookshelf, I happened to be nearby and helped him out.”
“Maybe Coach Jordan should have split the twenty bucks with you,” she said, inwardly pleased when he chuckled again. It highlighted that he had laugh lines by the corners of his eyes. She didn’t know his age—refused to check the HR files, though she could have—but she’d guess he was early to midforties. Not married from both the lack of a ring and word around the office. She had no clue if he had children, but…
Wait, why was she analyzing the man? She wasn’t looking for a date. Especially not from him. He was ruthless on the field. Watching him coach the players scared her. She recognized all types of coaching, had seen her son experience most of them… There was just something about him that made her shiver when she watched his leadership style.
But when he smiled… okay, fine. Off the field, the man was charming.
“He seems like a good kid, your son.”
That warmed her toward him almost instantly. “Isaac’s fantastic. I can hardly take any credit there, actually. He just sort of came out of the womb responsible and easygoing.”
“He asked me to be his travel baseball coach.”
That… made her sit back and take a deep breath. “I’m sorry, he did what?”
“Hey, easy.” He crouched down on the balls of his feet, one hand on the arm of her chair, blocking her in.
“I’m… fine,” she said, her voice unsteady—mostly due to the proximity of his body and how deeply he was staring into her eyes.
“You went white as a sheet for a second.” His dark blue eyes bore holes through her. “Either your blood sugar bottomed out, or you’re not a fan of me coaching your son.”
“What? That’s not true,” she denied, but the words were forced through a tight throat and came out cartoonish and squeaky. Clearing her throat, Kristen tried again. “Sorry, that’s not… true. I can’t believe he asked you. That was so… exactly something he would do,” she finished on a sigh. “I’m sorry, I hope you were firm when you said no, or else he’ll come back again. He’s tenacious. A quality I usually find endearing, unless it’s being used against me.”
“I said I’d think about it.”
That had her sitting back in her chair again. “You don’t want to do that.”
“Why not?” Something sparkled in his eyes… mischief? It added an element of good humor to the handsomeness she was finding more and more attractive by the moment.
Terrible idea, Kristen. Horrible. The worst.
“The hours are terrible,” she started, “you’re outside all the time. Some of the kids are real shits. Believe me, they’re not all Isaacs,” she added with a shudder. No exaggeration there. Her son and his best friend-slash-teammate were two sweethearts. But so many of the others already believed they were God’s gift to baseball and acted accordingly.
“Not to mention the parents, who are the reason most of those kids are shits.”
“Parents are definitely one thing I don’t have to deal with in the NFL,” he admitted, chuckling a bit. “But it’s the off-season. I’ve got some time, and you know our organization is always pressing community service. It’d be a good example to set for the players.”
How did someone argue with an attitude of servitude? “There’s travel,” she said weakly.
“Being a travel team, I suspected,” he said dryly.