Page 14 of Learn Your Lesson

I longed for a friendship like that.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t had the opportunity to make friends. I had a few in college. I had some at the school where I worked now. But for whatever reason, I just never… fit in, I supposed. They were nice to me when I was around. If there was a work event, we could all laugh and chat. But it was surface level. It never went deep.

The closest things I had to best friends were my mom and my grandma. We talked all the time, shared inside jokes, and leaned on each other through the good and the bad. Those women had sacrificed so much for me, from their bodies, energy, and time to what little money they had. They’d even gone into debt to put me through college.

I loved them. And I loved spending time with them.

But I could never talk to them about my deepest thoughts and desires, could never be one-hundred percent honest with them. Because so many of the things I thoughtabout, so many of the things I wanted… well, they would never understand.

When I took my seat again, I let myself get lost in the daze of watching players dash this way and that on the ice. There were dozens of pucks on both sides of the rink, and the teams were skating around in a dizzying pattern taking shots on the open net.

My eyes lost focus, the fatigue from the day and the week catching up to me. Starting up the second semester of the school year always felt harder than the first. After the holidays, kids were restless — and so was the staff. We still had months to go, but it seemed everyone was counting down to summer break.

Add in the fact that I unexpectedly took on a second job, and I felt all kinds of off-kilter.

It wasn’t a job I didn’t feel prepared to take, otherwise I would have said no. I’d nannied for plenty of my parents before and always enjoyed getting to know my students better. I also enjoyed having something to do with my time other than be alone. I liked being at home, liked my crafts and my cats and my peaceful quiet. But in the same breath, I always felt like I was itching for a change in routine.

And this was certainly a change in routine.

It was also my first time nannying for someone as high-profile as Will Perry.

I shook my head at the memory of him dropping off Ava at school this morning. He’d slid a check for five-thousand dollars into my hand when he’d walked Ava to class, and although I’d tried with all my energy not to accept it, he’d insisted.

Five grand.

That was more than I made in a month.

There was absolutely zero chance that I’d continue to let him pay me such an astronomical amount, but arguing with a six-foot-four, two-hundred-twenty-pound goalie on the day he had a game didn’t seem like a smart idea.

Besides, that money could help me pay off the student loans my matriarchy was currently buried under. It could help me pay myownbills without stress.

That was the life of a teacher that so many left out. You had to love what you did because you certainly weren’t going into this career for the money.

I blinked, my vision coming back into focus, and found myself scanning the ice for that beast of a man I was now temporarily working for. I knew from the tiny blue and white jersey Ava was wearing that he was number twenty-eight. It was also fairly easy to spot the goalies, as they stood out among the other players.

When I found him, he was standing off to the side of where all the rest of the team was shooting pucks. He hovered close to the glass, facing the rink, and he skated in place, side to side, with his gaze locked somewhere on the ice ahead of him. Then, he crouched low, dodging this way and that with lightning-quick movements and fast-snaps of his limbs in various directions like he was blocking pucks.

The back of my neck tingled with awareness as I watched him, knowing that under that cage of a mask was the scowl that he wore so easily. He was menacing, on or off the ice — and yet, after dinner last night, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a softness under that hard shell exterior.

The way he cared for his daughter, the way his chef seemed to care forhim— it just seemed like there was more to him than met the eye.

And the poor man needed help.

That was more evident than anything else. He’d acted like I hung the moon rather than just helped his daughter get ready for bed. I knew he’d had a string of bad luck with finding a nanny, but had it really beenthatatrocious?

I marveled at his poise as he went through his warmup drills, the crowd getting louder and louder. I took my eyes off him long enough to pay attention to one of the announcements on the jumbotron, and when I looked at him again, my eyes shot wide.

He’d moved down to the ice now, onto his hands and knees, and he was stretching like he belonged on an Olympic gymnast team rather than a hockey team.

His hands were braced in front of him, holding his weight steady as he stretched his hips wide against the ice. One leg was bent, the other extended to the side, and he crouched low to the ice before rolling his hips forward and backward in a rhythm that made heat rush to my cheeks.

It should have been illegal for any man to have an ass like that.

And it should have been a felony for him to move his hips in that way, the way that made it impossible not to imagine what it would be like to be beneath him while he did it.

I tried not to stare. Really, I did. I attempted to focus on the other players, on the fans, on the bright orange fish mascot that was now making its way around the arena.

But my eyes kept snapping back to Will Perry.