5. Nelly

Chapter 5

Nelly

T he fact that I’d spent the last week imagining Sebastian’s hands on me every time I touched myself was something I would be taking to the grave.

But that hadn’t stopped me from googling him, and finding absolutely nothing.

No one on any of my socials who looked remotely like him had the name Sebastian Anthony in the greater Atlanta area. Part of me wondered if he wasn’t from here and was just passing through, but the other half of me wondered if everything had been a lie or if he was simply not the kind of person to have social media. It wasn’t like he’d given me his number in return so I could text him, which I probably wouldn’t have done out of sheer embarrassment, but the option wasn’t even there.

And he hadn’t followed up with me, either.

I tried not to let that bother me. It was harder said than done after Morris had practically drilled into me that I was terrible in bed, but I tried nonetheless. Thankfully, Rosie had assigned me to a new client — someone who was offering full-time work for once, with somewhere to stay on their property in one of the superbly nice areas of Atlanta. I’d been trying to get my hands on something full-time for months now, and finally , Rosie had been able to snag me something after the last job had fallen through.

All I knew was that it was a single-father situation and that he played hockey professionally for some local team. The child’s name was Matty, and he was five — a perfect age for me. Little enough to still be adorable and chaotic but old enough to tell me what they need and when.

I took the final few sips of my take-out sweet tea before kicking open the door of my red 2005 Chevy Silverado. It was a hand-me-down from my dad that he’d given me on my sixteenth birthday, and by some miracle, I’d managed to keep it alive for almost ten years.

I’d never set foot in the Peach Arena, but there was a first for everything.

I was only ten minutes early, but Rosie had warned me that the dad I was meeting might be late because of practice, so I was content to sit in the stands if they’d let me and wait around. I’d never once watched hockey — I didn’t even know we had a hockey team, considering how hot and muggy it was here.

I walked through the entrance without any hiccups, and no one even turned in my direction. But it was the man standing outside the double doors that were shut behind him, the ones that lead into the ice rink, that gave me pause. He was clearly security from the earpiece on the side of his head and the uniform, but it was the way he glared at me as if I was trouble that had me second-guessing myself. I’d been told to meet him inside, so surely…?

“Uh, hi,” I said, coming to a stop in front of the stern- faced man with blonde hair and a five-o’clock shadow. “Can I go in?”

“Closed practice,” he said.

I opened my mouth but couldn’t find the words I wanted to say fast enough.

“No puck bunnies.”

My cheeks heated instantly, spreading little fires throughout my face. “I’m not—look, I’m here to meet one of the players.”

His expression fell flat, disappointment radiating from him.

“Not like that,” I insisted, pulling my phone from my purse haphazardly. “I have a meeting.”

“You’re press?” he scoffed. “Your organization should have known better. They don’t do interviews during closed practice times. You’ll have to reschedule.”

“No, I’m not press,” I huffed. I pulled up my email from Rosie about the meeting time, looking for anything in it that would give me information about what to do here, but I came up short. Instead, I turned my phone around to show him instead. “Sorry, I’m not trying to cause a problem. I’m just supposed to be speaking to one of the players about nannying for them, and they asked me to meet them inside.”

“What’s your name?”

“Penelope Moreno. Or Nelly.”

He pulled up his walkie-talkie to his mouth, speaking almost too quietly for me to hear. “Can you check if someone named Penelope Moreno, or Nelly, has been added to the list?”

The list? How fucking exclusive is this?

I didn’t hear the reply that fed straight into his earpiece, but his mouth turned into a hard, flat line as he stared at me. “You’re not on the list.”

“Can you just ask them to ask if any of the players are expecting me?” I asked, flashing him the nicest smile I could muster since nothing else seemed to be working. “I’m sorry, I really don’t want to interrupt, but…”

The security guard sighed exasperatedly as he raised his walkie-talkie back to his mouth, his fingers tweaking the line to radio what I could only assume was a different frequency. “Casey, can you ask the guys if any of them invited someone to practice without clearing it first?”

I could hear the words shouted inside those doors, and despite how muffled they were, they were loud enough to make them out.

“Which one of you didn’t clear a visitor again ?”

The security guard pressed the button to speak again. “Her name is Nelly…”

I wasn’t sure why he was cut off, but a few seconds later, he moved out of the way, motioning soundlessly for the door.

I took that as my invitation.

I pushed open the heavy door, the temperature inside dropping dramatically from the rest of the Arena. I was coming in at ground level, so although I couldn’t see much of the actual ice, I could see about ten men in helmets zooming across the ice in different directions and one older man in the center with a whistle between his teeth.

“Blue, one more set before you leave the ice,” he barked.

I walked my way to the stands as a handful of guys stepped off the ice, pausing at the gate to pop some kind of rubber on the bottom of the skates before walking across the floor expertly on a single blade. Just the ability to balance on them was insane on its own.

One of the few men still on the ice, covered head to toe in black workout attire and a helmet on his head, spat out his mouth guard. “For fuck’s sake, coach…”

The guy’s blue helmet turned in my direction, and I froze halfway down into a seat.

Even across the ice, the familiarity hit me, knocking the wind from my lungs. Shit. No, no, no, no ? —

“One more set,” the coach said again. “Ten more laps of forward cross-overs, and you can get off the ice.”

But that blue helmet stayed locked in my direction.

What felt like minutes but was likely only seconds later, Sebastian cursed something under his breath and spun away from me, taking up position on one side of the rink and setting off. His skates crossed over the other, over and over, kicking up shredded ice every time he changed direction. From where I sat, it looked clean, but the man with the whistle kept shouting words I didn’t understand at him as the pit in my stomach sank lower and lower.

I could only hope that whoever I was meeting would approach me before Sebastian got off the ice.

“Your fucking edges, Blue!” the coach yelled. “Lean harder, let the momentum carry you!”

He went around.

And around.

And around.

Over and over, the maneuver looked the same in my eyes, but the coach's shouts became less frequent and less aggressive, so I could only imagine there was some form of improvement.

Over and over, I waited patiently, trying not to look like I was obviously staring at the man on the ice.

Over and over, I told myself that whoever I was meeting was probably just getting changed first and would be back out any second to speak to me.

But by the end of the final lap, Sebastian was taking off his helmet and pulling plastic from his mouth, shooting a glare at the coach who gave him the weakest thumbs-up in history as his player skated toward the exit.

The same exit that was directly in front of me.

“Hello, Nelly,” he huffed, stepping off the ice and putting that same rubber covering on his skates as the rest of the guys. His dark hair was soaked and plastered against his forehead, drops of sweat dripping from his chin. “Guess it’s time to chat.”

I wanted to throw up and climb him like a tree all at the same time.

Chest heaving, he set his… stick against the clear divider between the stands and the rink, one hand grabbing a fistful of the bottom of his black shirt. He lifted it, inch by inch of his abdomen suddenly wildly on display as he raised it to his face and used the fabric to wipe away the downpour of sweat. Everything was out — his abs, his pecs, his nipples, oh my God .

He was built like some kind of Greek god, like Achilles himself.

“Cat got your tongue?” he asked, but the playfulness I’d seen on his face last week was gone, hidden behind a mask of irritation.

“No, I just…”

“Did you stalk your way into getting this gig?” he laughed, but it sounded angry, as if he was disappointed and frustrated with me, even though I’d done nothing other than show up to a meeting that was requested of me. As if he wasn’t the one who had taken my number and never followed up. As if he wasn’t, apparently, the reason I was here.

The realization that he was the single dad in question was starting to click in my head, and nausea climbed my throat. “What? No. Of course not.”

“Mmm. Seems unlikely, Moreno,” he said, his lips pursing as he dropped his shirt back into a normal position and saved me from staring at his body.

“I work for Rosie,” I insisted. “I have for two years. I didn’t even know I was meeting you here. I wasn’t told a name or anything, and I’m assuming you weren’t either. She just assigned this to me. Do you seriously think I’m so insane that I would have followed you around for a week trying to figure out who you were and somehow wormed my way into a job you needed filling?”

He shrugged. “It wouldn’t be unheard of.”

“I’m more than capable of taking a hint when someone doesn’t call. I wouldn’t do that,” I snapped, and dear God, I immediately regretted it.

His nostrils flared wildly as he stared at me, looking like a bull about to charge. Everything about him seemed less inviting than he had been last week, every part of him oozing irritation, exhaustion, and just general unease, to the point that I almost wondered if he’d been replaced by a carbon copy of himself with a worse attitude.

“Look, I can just go,” I grumbled, pushing up off the seat and nearly startling myself as it folded back into itself. “If this is even an inkling of what it would be like to work for you, then I’m not interested.”

A damp, sweaty hand wrapped around my forearm — the same hand whose fingers had been buried inside of me eight days ago. I stared down at it, trying not to imagine what they’d looked like as he slid them out, trying not to picture the clear lines of sticky fluid holding them together.

Even though he was a dick, it was harder than I wanted it to be to push those images from my head .

“Stop,” he huffed. “I’m sorry, it’s been a shitty practice, so I’m not in the best headspace right now, and you appearing out of thin air threw me off even more. I do need a nanny. Desperately.”

“Right. You just wish it wasn’t me,” I deadpanned.

His mouth opened but closed almost immediately, his jaw clenching. “I’d need you more than full-time. Round the clock most days, last-minute calls, evenings, and weekends when I’m playing out of town. This wouldn’t be a steady schedule. I’m offering exceptional pay in exchange. Can you do that?”

I blinked at him, surprised by the amount of detail he was willing to just drop on me after accusing me of stalking him. “I don’t have any other clients right now.”

He huffed out another exhausted breath. “So that’s a yes?”

“How much are you paying?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

“Six per week.”

I snorted. “Six hundred a week? For that much work? That’s not exceptional?—”

“Six grand.”

What?

I froze, my gaze locked on his light blue eyes as he stared me down. The lightest bit of stubble coated his jawline, a new addition since I’d seen him clean-shaven the last time, and as the thoughts ran wild in my mind of everything I could do with six thousand dollars every week, I didn’t know what else to say.

“Six… grand?” I choked out.

“Per week,” he clarified, as if he hadn’t already said that. His fingers tightened around my arm, almost hard enough to bruise. “That exceptional enough for you, Nel? ”

I swallowed down the pooling saliva in my mouth. “Yeah.”

“I need you to start immediately,” he added, his eyes flicking between mine as he moved just an inch closer. How the hell is he so stable on skates?

“I don’t have any plans,” I said. “Like, ever.”

He nodded, his mouth contorting as he sucked his teeth. “I need to clean up and pick up Matty from school. Meet me at my house in a couple of hours. You can meet him, see if you two mesh.”

Shit. That was immediate. “I don’t know where you live?—”

The side of his lips tipped up just barely in the smallest smirk as he raised to his full height, towering over me with an extra few inches added due to the skates. I was barely level with his pecs. “Not a very good stalker, then, are you?”

I didn’t have the chance to reply as he grabbed his stick and maneuvered around me, taking off in the same direction the rest of the guys had gone.

He glanced back at me over his shoulder. “I’ll text it to you.”