Chapter 5

Five

“P lease stop kicking the ball against the wall,” Tori told Emmett.

She was on the verge of pulling her hair out already while sorting through the schedule for the upcoming basketball season without the ball hitting the wall over and over.

“I’m practicing my shots, mom,” Emmett told her.

“Practice dribbling for a little while. I’m begging you.”

He muttered something she didn’t catch, but he stopped kicking the ball at the wall. It wasn’t that the wall couldn’t take it. It was her own frustrations that were in the way.

Emmett had permission to play in the gym while she was working as the door to her office was just off the side of it, and she could keep an eye on him. Tonight was just too much.

That and she hadn’t let go of thinking about Chance since he’d asked her out Saturday night, and she’d just walked away from him. She wasn’t even drunk, just stupid,or nervous, or something.

Now she needed to get this schedule in order and accommodate all the time requests she could from the coaches and make sure everyone got to play each other. And she had to do it for each league, while accommodating the other ones because there weren’t too many gyms to play at. Oh, and certain refs didn’t work in some age groups.

As the Athletics Manager, it was her job to make sure everything went smoothly with the scheduling and staffing but today she was over it. She loved her job most days, tonight though, not so much.

Ellis Ward, the Parks and Recreation Director, had asked her to stay late tonight to discuss some new program he wanted to do. Not that there was room in the budget for that, but she’d agreed. Now it was only getting later, and she wanted to go home.

“Hey, little dude,” she heard a familiar voice echo through the gym.

Please, no, she thought. It can’t be him.

Standing to take a look, sure enough, she saw Chance in the gym with Emmett, passing the ball across to him. With no idea why he was here, she didn’t dare interrupt. This was how she was used to seeing him, from afar.

“Mom!” Emmett waved. “Look who’s here!” He passed the ball back to Chance.

“I see,” she said. Taking a small step out of her office, she waited for Chance to approach her.

“I didn’t know you work here. I swear.” He held his palms up as he pleaded his innocence.

They hadn’t discussed her job, so unless he was stalking her, which she doubted, she didn’t think he was here to see her.

“I am here to talk to Ellis about a soccer clinic with me and some of the guys from the team. When we talked the other night, I had an idea to do this, but I really didn’t know you’d be here,” he continued.

Taking pity on him she spoke. “I believe you. I’m the athletics manager for parks and rec.”

Chance’s eyes got wide. He must have realized that he’d have to work with her now to pull it off.

“Come on. Ellis is in here.” She led him into the small set of offices and knocked on Ellis’s door. “Ellis, you’ve got company.”

Ellis was a round man. There was no other way to put it. The type of many that definitely enjoyed a few beers but only after work. He was also perpetually sweaty.

She leaned over and whispered in Chance’s ear. “Don’t shake his hand.”

Chance looked at her confused, but as Ellis got closer, you could see the thin sheen of sweat on him even in the crappy, old, artificial light. She watched as Chance noticed it and then stuck his hands in his pockets.

“Good. I’m glad you two have met. You’ll be spending a lot of time together in order to pull this off.” Ellis was saying. “Join us, Tori, so we don’t have to repeat anything.”

Chance looked at her, and she could feel his heavy gaze all over her body. The tingles of awareness had her suppressing a need to shiver.

“I have to go get Emmett first.” She escaped into her own office to take a deep breath before retrieving Emmett and depositing him into her office with his tablet.

“Have a seat, Tori.” Ellis motioned to the empty chair as she returned to his office.

“Emmett’s good?” Chance asked.

If he was still trying to get her to go on a date with him, things like asking about Emmett were going to win her over. “He’s good,” she answered.

“Excellent.” Ellis pulled out a flyer and handed it to her. “Chance here tells me we have you to thank for the idea of getting the FC involved more locally.”

Tori swallowed, unsure how to answer. “A little.”

“Then it works out great that you’ll be in charge of heading this up.” Ellis smiled like he’d done something to be proud of.

“When?” she asked.

“As soon as we can fit it in. The season for us is about to be over so I’d like to do it before the guys spread out and enjoy their time off,” Chance answered.

She already had a lot on her plate and this was a lot of work. A great idea, but a lot of work. “What all did you have in mind?”

The three of them talked for the next hour about what could and couldn’t be done, what legal forms would be needed, and the cost. At some point, Emmett had snuck in and was sitting next to Chance and showing him something on his tablet.

Tori had pages of notes to go through and a basketball schedule to complete. The thought of what effort this was going to be still made her hesitant, but it would be good for the kids so she’d do her best to make it work.

“I’ll need a few days to see what I can come up with,” Tori told them.

“Understandable,” Chance said.

Ellis blustered for a moment before spitting out his objections. “I’d really like to see this happening tomorrow,” he told her.

Calmly, Tori rose from her seat and motioned for Emmett to join her. “I understand that, but I don’t have the free time right now to work on it.” Turning to Chance, she added, “if you can make it to the fields on Saturday around eleven, I can go over what I’ve got so far.”

Chance nodded. “Sounds great to me. I’ll see you on the pitch.” Grabbing a sticky note off Ellis’s desk, he wrote something on it. “Here’s my number if you have any questions I can help answer about logistics or anything.”

He was so sweet her teeth hurt, and she didn’t know what to do with it. Taking the paper, she added it to her notes. “Thanks. I’ll see you Saturday. Ellis, I’ll give you an update once I have it together, and then once Chance approves it.”

She left before he could argue, but not before Chance could excuse himself. He followed her out, taking Emmett’s hand as they walked the few steps to her office door.

“Bye, Chance,” Emmett said.

“Later, dude,” Chance smiled at her son. “See you Saturday, soccer mom.”

She let it go unanswered and watched as Chance walked away. Damn, he was a sight to watch.

Ellis cleared his throat next to her, causing Tori to jump.

“We need to make this happen,” he told her.

“I know. But we also need to make sure we have the space and the time available. And it’s short notice so if we’re going to do it we need to make sure there’s a good turnout.” She’d already been thinking about it when they were talking.

“That’s all true. I think the best bet would be to cancel practices for the week so parents won’t have conflicts. That would mean doing it before the season starts.”

He was right, but it meant an even shorter timeframe to work with. “I’ll see what we can do. Let me look at the calendars and I’ll give you an update. Best I can do unless you want to take over finishing the basketball schedules?”

Ellis choked like she knew he would and started making excuses for not helping with that. She hadn’t expected him to help. Everyone left the scheduling to her, it was exhausting but she could handle it and knew how to make it work. There were just a lot of moving pieces with another one added in now.

“I’ll keep you posted then,” she told him. “Come on Emmett.”

Emmett joined her, no doubt ready to go home and get out of the office.

“How do you feel about chicken nuggets for dinner?” she whispered.

“Yes!” Emmett jumped.

It had been a long day for both of them, and if chocolate milk was the best choice he made tonight, then it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

“Let’s get it and take it home. I think it’s a good night for a movie,” she told him.

Emmett talked her head off as they grabbed their fast food and headed home. She’d been cranky with him a bit too much this week and felt bad. This was her apology though he probably didn’t even care anymore.

Tomorrow she’d start working on Chance’s plans and the schedule again. Tonight she was going to spend with her son. Everything else could wait.