Fair Play (2 page)

“It’s a chandelier,” I say and hand him my card.

He’s still there in his imagination, trying to figure out what the rest of my tattoo looks like, when he shakes it off and accepts my card.

“Excuse me, sir, would you like a drink?” says a petite flight attendant.

“Yes, water, please. Scarlet, are you thirsty, honey?”

“No, I’m hungry.”

“Just one water please,” he says to the woman and turns back to Scarlet. “I’ll see what Mimi packed for you in the bag, just a second,” he says to her.

“Okay, more pictures please, T.”

“That’s Téa, with an ā sound on the end,” he says, correcting her.

“It’s all right. My dad calls me T, I kind of like it.” I smile and tussle Scarlet’s bouncy curls.

Sexy daddy moves to his window seat behind Scarlet, and we continue to go through the photographs. The flight attendant hands Nick his water. “Are you sure there isn’t anything else I can get you, Mr. Wood?” she asks in a seductive voice.

I wait to see how he responds until she huffs and asks again less seductively.

“Mr. Wood, can I do anything else for you?”

“Oh, sorry, no, nothing else.” I can hear him shuffling through a bag and mumbling to himself. When he answers, he sounds taken off-guard, maybe even a bit flustered.

“Let me know if you change your mind.” Sultry flight attendant has returned, and I’m thinking about punching her in her throat.

It’s obvious this guy is tired and traveling with his little girl. It’s hardly a time to be trying to hook up: does she think he’s going to join the mile high club while I babysit his kid?

“Don’t worry,” I squint to look at her tiny gold nametag pinned strategically next to her overly augmented breasts and find that her name is Penny. “Penny, Scarlet and I will take good care of him, won’t we, Scarlet?” I say and turn to the little girl huddled up against me.

“Yes, we take care of Daddy,” she says, as if this isn’t her first time saving her father from an overzealous flirt.

“Oh, okay then,” she says with a pucker between her perfectly plucked eyebrows. She pushes her heavy cart to the next row where two women in their seventies are waiting. Interestingly enough, her tone is nothing but professional with them.

“Good job, Scarlet. Do you have to do that a lot?”

“When Mimi’s not here, I guard him.”

“Oh, so this is a part-time gig for you?”

“Huh?” She’s not old enough to know what a gig is, I guess.

“Never mind, how old are you, Scarlet?”

“Four, my birthday was yesterday,” she says with pride.

“Wow, four, you’re almost a woman,”

I smile, and she giggles, and we continue to look at my pictures until I notice she is unusually still, and even more unusually quiet. When I look down, she’s sound asleep with her arms wrapped around mine. Her head is leaning against the seat, and her perfect little mouth is hanging open.

I raise my free hand over my head, and Nick pops over the seat right away.

“Oh my God, she’s asleep.” He leans over to cross his arms on the top of our seats and rests his forehead on them with a sigh.

“That bad of a day, huh?”

He lifts his head and looks me straight in the eyes. “You have no idea.”

“She doesn’t seem that bad,” I say and cup her rosy cheek with my hand.

“She’s not. I love her like a madman, but her nanny broke her foot and we’ve been on our own for a week. I don’t know how she does it all the time.”

I want to ask where Scarlet’s mother is and why she’s not taking care of her, but it’s not my business, so I nod sympathetically.

“Well, at least you’re almost home, she can wind down after your vacation in her own surroundings, right?”

He lifts his head and reaches down to gently brush a curl off of her cheek.

“No, I wish it were that easy for her. We weren’t on vacation, we were traveling for work. I’ve been dragging her all over the country for a week straight, poor thing.”

“Oh yeah? What do you do?”

“I play football.”

“Professionally?”

“Yep, I’m the quarterback for the South Carolina Hawks.”

“You’re the Nicolas Wood? Like as in NFA Nico Wood?”

He chuckles, and a blush spreads over his cheeks. This crazy handsome, sexy athlete just blushed when I recognized his name.

“The one and only.”

“Wow, a famous football-playing daddy, that’s awesome.”

“It’ll feel awesome when I get her home. Thankfully we don’t have to go anywhere for a few weeks.”

“Excuse me, sir, I need to have you choose a seat so people can move up and down the aisle please,” says a new flight attendant. This one is full of professionalism and unaffected by Nick’s hypnotizing blue eyes.

“Sure, sorry. I guess I have been standing around for a while. Do you want me to take her?” he asks me, nodding at Scarlet.

“No, she’s good. She’s keeping me warm. I’ll tell you when she wakes up.”

“Oh, you won’t have to tell me, she makes herself known,” he says and disappears behind me to take his seat.

I look down at the little stranger curled up so close to me and wonder about her mother. I don’t have much of a filter when it comes to asking people personal questions, but I lost my mother when I was little, so that’s a subject I won’t touch.

The screen of my tablet is dark, and my eyes are getting heavy. The tiny heater next to me is also making me sleepy. I recline my seat a couple of inches and close my eyes. I know he can see me through the crack in the seats. I feel his eyes on me, and that makes it harder to relax. I’m going to look. No, that will make it look like I reclined just to stare at him. Is that why I reclined the seat? No, I’m tired, it’s been a long day, and I want to rest my eyes.

Oh hell, who am I kidding? I roll my head toward the slit in the seats and just as I thought, he’s watching me. He’s sitting there with his elbow on the armrest and his chin resting on his hand, gazing at me. I smile, and one corner of his mouth lifts in a smoldering smirk.

I need my camera. That is the sexiest look anyone has ever given me, and I want to capture it and keep it forever, but I can’t. This little napper on my arm is keeping me from reaching my bag with my camera in it.

Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to snap it when I do their family photo shoot. Crap, I never looked for a ring. I glance back at him, and he places his palms together for a moment and presses them against his cheek, closing his eyes. Then he opens them, and I get the hint.

I nod and close my eyes and smile again because I’ve seen what I wanted to see. No ring on his left ring finger, and no tan line.

Perfect.

Nick

Ben watches as I lay Scarlet’s limp body into bed and pull up her plump unicorn comforter. “That’s one tired little toddler.”

She doesn’t move a muscle. Her lashes don't even flutter when I kiss her on her forehead. She never looks more like her mother than when she’s sleeping. Her face is relaxed, her bottom lip pouts, and the corners of her mouth naturally turn up into a hint of a smile. Mariah was always smiling and full of energy just like Scarlet. I wish she could be here to watch her grow up.

Mariah never got to see one second of her daughter’s gorgeous face. She never got the chance to hear her giggle and sing and talk, and Lord, that child can talk your ear off. Mariah would have loved that she chatted almost as much as she did.

“She’s had a long week, and without Mimi, it’s been hard for her.”

“What’s going on with her? Is she going to be able to come back with her foot all jacked up?” he asks. Ben is my best friend and teammate on the Hawks. He’s single, but he’s not into the player scene, so he hangs out with the old dad on the team, me.

“I don’t know. Last time I spoke to her, she was doing better and planned on being back to work in a week in a limited capacity. That was a couple of days ago, though, I’ll have to call her again tomorrow.”

“Yeah man, I don’t know how you get anything done hauling her around everywhere with you.”

I cross my arms over my chest and slowly turn to face him. He’s standing in the entrance to Scarlet’s room. With brows lifted high, I wait for him to apologize for making my precious daughter sound like a burdensome sack of potatoes.

He holds out his palms in surrender. “I didn’t mean it like it sounded, man, you know I just don’t know how you do it, you’re fucking superman, man.”

“Watch your language.”

He gestures to her with one hand, taking a step forward, “But she’s asleep.”

“Her mind is a sponge. She’s subliminally picking up everything we’re saying. You probably traumatized her for life.”

He stands with his mouth agape, unsure if I’m messing with him or not. I am messing with him, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Let’s go watch a movie or something. I need to unwind.”

“And you can talk to your little online girlfriend, too.”

“Shut up, Danielson, I don’t have a girlfriend. That damn website is full of sluts and women looking for deep pockets and old men on their deathbeds. I don’t know how I let you con me into setting up that account anyway.”

“You need a woman, that’s how. Mr. Wood needs to get some wood.” His eyes pop, and he gyrates his hips in a circle like a stripper and ends his incredibly un-sexy dance with a powerful thrust accompanied by two fists pounding on his pelvis.

I roll my eyes and push past him into the hall. He chuckles and pulls the door shut. I reach back and open it a couple of inches so I can hear her if she wakes up.

Downstairs in the theater room, he grabs the remote and shuffles through the selection of movies on the screen. I sit in my chair in the front row and check my messages.

And my dating app.

I told Ben I wasn’t interested in anyone, but I did see a profile that caught my eye a couple of days ago. I haven't had time to look again until now.

I should have asked the woman I met on the plane tonight out on a date. Téa was beautiful, in a wild, untamed sort of way. Not my usual type, but I'm beginning to think I should scrap the type concept altogether. Scarlet seemed to take to her, which is great and at the same time unusual. I still can't decide if I'm ready for the dating scene again. I've been burned so many damn times that the idea of asking a stranger out is unthinkable.  These days I feel like it's mandatory to have a background check before allowing someone into our world. 

So instead of allowing natural chemistry to lead me to ask someone on a date, I come home and check the online profile of a different stranger. At least this way I know a professional has screened them. Or at least that’s what the company touts.

“You gonna interview for a new nanny?” Ben asks.

“No way, not until I’m sure of what’s going on with Mimi. She’s raised Scarlet since birth. She’d be devastated if she lost Mimi. I don’t think anybody could replace her.”

“I’ll do it,” he says, standing up straight and tucking his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans.

“She’d be better off on her own. Sit down and choose a movie.”

“Harsh, dude.” Ben plops down and throws his legs over the side of a chair and picks Remember the Titans just to irritate me.

I look at him when the opening music begins, and a smirk spreads across his face. I do love the movie, but this would make it the hundredth time this year.

“Something else, anything else. I can’t watch this again.”

“Aw come on, it’s a classic, you can’t ever get tired of a classic.”

“The Sound of Music is a classic, how about we watch that again?” I say, looking at him sideways with my eyebrow arched. Scarlet has been on a serious Sound of Music kick lately, and anyone who has spent five minutes with her knows it.

“Yeah, okay, you made your point. What do you wanna watch then?”

He tosses me the remote, and I scroll through a couple of movies and choose Star Wars. When I look to see what he thinks of my choice, he shrugs and kicks out the footrest on the seat to get comfortable.

You can never go wrong with Star Wars. As the opening crawl begins, the lights automatically go down, and I scroll through the list of prospective dates that Match Pro has come up with for me.

There are hundreds but one, in particular, stands out. She’s still here. Her online name is Lastgoodwoman10, now who could resist the last good woman? I click on her profile and learn she is nearly as private as I am. She isn’t giving away anything about herself other than general appearance and interests to help match her with someone on the dating site.

She’s half black, half white, in her late twenties lives in the Midwest, vague, has a bachelor degree in something, vaguer, and is looking to build a serious relationship - no hookups, no bootie calls, and no one-night stands. I like that. I’m too old to be messing around with that scene anymore.

Dating has been a problem for a long time. When your wife dies giving birth to your child, it changes your outlook on life. Scarlet is my everything. I couldn’t focus on anything but her when Mariah died. I pushed myself so hard to be the best father and mother that it almost ended my career.

I couldn’t see the importance of anything but her. I was blinded by my grief and the guilt that this perfect little child would have to grow up without a mother.

Gradually Coach, my teammates, and my therapist made me see that it wasn’t my fault and that she was a perfectly healthy, well-adjusted kid, even if she only had one parent.

When Scarlet turned two, I started to feel more comfortable with the idea of getting out there and meeting women.

That is, until I met the kind of women who went after professional athletes. I married Mariah straight out of college, long before I became famous, so I wasn't used to the piranhas. 

Most of the women hanging around pro football players aren’t looking for a wholesome family man.

They want to fill their bodies with drugs and alcohol and party until they drop, and they want to do it all on a rich athlete’s dime.

Nope, not happening. I’ve spent too long creating a good name for myself. I’m not going to let some whore ruin it for my little girl and me.

I can’t put my finger on what stands out about Lastgoodwoman10. Maybe it’s because she claims to be the last good woman out there. That shows she's got some confidence.

I shoot her a quick message.

--I like your profile, what there is of it, let me know if you’d like to chat sometime. I’d like to get to know more about you. Emmett

Match Pro uses aliases until a couple decides to meet in person. I couldn’t think of anything as clever as Lastgoodwoman10, so I went with my middle name.

The text isn’t much, but it’s a start.

“You gonna play around on your phone all night or watch this old ass movie with me?”

“All right yeah, I’m watching, I'm watching.” I toss my phone onto the table and kick back in my seat like Ben.

I don’t think I even made it to the part when the stormtroopers raid the ship before I fell asleep.

Hours later when I try to adjust my stiff legs, I open my eyes and look down at the top of a head full of light brown curls wrapped in a unicorn comforter.

Scarlet has rarely spent the whole night in her bed since Mimi’s been gone. Her whole world has been turned upside down by the simple turn of an ankle.

I should have been planning for the day something would happen to Mimi. She’s getting on in age; I knew she couldn’t nanny forever. I should have had a backup plan or someone younger who came in part time once in a while to relieve Mimi and groom Scarlet for the inevitable transition.

The problem with that plan is that I don’t want to offend Mimi. She’s the perfect nanny, she never asks for time off, never gets sick, she has a solution to every scheduling problem, she homeschools Scarlet, and I know it’s only preschool, but it’s important, and finally, she lives right here in my house with us.

Yep, I’m spoiled. I live with Mary Poppins.

“Hey, Letty, Daddy needs to get up,” I say, rubbing her back.

“I sleep with you,” she says, mumbling against my shirt.

“Yes, you can sleep with me, but we need to get into my bed. Put your arms around my neck.” I stand and wait for a second while the blood returns to my legs and feet. Scarlet wraps her legs around me and snuggles into my neck, and I breathe in the faint scent of her strawberry shampoo.

Even when she needs a bath, she smells like an angel.

I look back at Ben snoring in his recliner and decide to leave well enough alone. He knows where the spare bedrooms are if he wakes up, he’s slept in them enough times.

Upstairs in my room, I turn on the nightlight I keep on my dresser for Scarlet and kick off my shoes. I pull back the duvet and without even disentangling myself from her little body, I slide under the covers. I burrow down into my pillow with her still wrapped around me like a baby monkey and close my eyes.

“Love you, Papa Bear.”

“I love you too, Letty. Go back to sleep, okay?”

“Okay.”

I think about the day ahead. I visualize what I have on my calendar - practice, meetings with the team, dance, and gymnastics with Scarlet. There is one thing that I would like to have on my calendar that currently isn’t. It's something that I hadn’t even thought about until earlier tonight. Something I lied about in front of my daughter.

Family pictures.