“Don’t patronize me,” she said, shaking her head.
“Just make sure you wear good shoes,” Tony said. “It’s supposed to rain overnight and you know how shitty that field is.”
“Oh, God,” she said. “Not again.”
“What’s this about?” I asked.
“I coach a flag football team one weekend a month, when my buddies can’t do it. Sometimes Duff helps me.”
“Is that right?” I said with a grin. Somehow I could absolutely picture her coaching a little kids’ football team. She probably busted their asses, too.
“She has no patience for their shit, but they love her anyway.”
“What time is practice?” I asked, loving everything about this.
“Eight in the morning, because my dad’s a sadist.”
“I don’t get on a plane until later in the afternoon tomorrow, so I can help if you want.”
Tony grinned at Duffy and said, “I knew there was a reason why you were wasting your time being single all these years. You were waiting for a good one.”
“Oh, my sweet Lord, are you for real right now?” she said, making a face at her dad. “Connor offers to stand beside me during a practice and you act like he’s turning water into wine. He could be the worst boyfriend in the world for all you know.”
“But he’s not,” Tony said. “I can tell.”
“Oh, you can tell,” she said with an eye roll.
“He sent flowers, ordered in dinner for us, brought you to the hospital, and volunteered to help with practice. After putting us up in the suite. Tell me what about that isn’t a good boyfriend.”
She looked over at me and opened her mouth to respond, but paused because she didn’t have a good answer.
I shot her a triumphant smile. Point goes to Cunningham.
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 wasthatguy. 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.