Page 1 of The Scrum-Half (Lincoln Knights #3)

Matty

My kitchen was a disaster and I was too fucking tired to give a shit.

There was porridge all over the inside of the microwave, a variety of coffee and juice stains smeared across the counters—which were white marble because childfree me thought they’d look nice—washing-up piled in the sink, a stack of recycling by the door that I hadn’t gotten round to taking out in nearly a week, an overflowing bin, clean washing still in the machine from yesterday, a puddle of milk and cereal sitting on the breakfast island where I’d knocked Jack’s bowl over while trying to make him breakfast, plus the bananas in the fruit bowl were starting to go brown, which meant we’d get fruit flies if I didn’t deal with them soon.

And to top it all off, we were supposed to have left for nursery and rugby training fifteen minutes ago.

Anyone who thought I had my fucking life together could take a fucking seat, or maybe empty the dishwasher, because I was so far from organised it made me want to scream.

“Jack! Come on, mate, are you ready?” I asked as I put the porridge-covered microwave plate in the sink and told myself I’d deal with it later.

Thank God Mrs Finch was coming tomorrow to clean, although I knew I’d be up late making the house look reasonably tidy before she arrived because I couldn’t let her deal with all this shit, even if it was her job.

“Jack?” I walked out of the kitchen searching for my toddler, who I could have sworn was right under my feet two minutes ago.

I really needed eyes in the back of my head.

Luckily, there was singing coming from the playroom and I breathed a small sigh of relief.

All I needed to do was coax Jack out of his play castle, get his shoes on, get him into the car, and we’d be golden.

And while getting his shoes on and leaving the house were monumental tasks in themselves, they at least felt achievable.

Or maybe I was too goddamn tired to think through what was involved.

“Jack, are you ready to go?” I asked, sticking my head around the door, my mouth falling open as I looked at the sight in front of me.

My two-and-three-quarters-year-old son was standing starkers in the middle of the playroom, holding an open jar of Nutella with a box of Cheerios sprawled across the carpet at his feet.

It looked like he hadn’t gotten far into his plan, whatever it was, but there was still Nutella on his hands, arms, feet, chest, face, and even in his hair, where he’d also stuck a few Cheerios for good measure.

Two fucking minutes. That was all it had taken for my clean, dressed, ready-to-leave son to turn into a sticky, chocolate-covered gremlin. Fucking Christ.

“Jack,” I said slowly as I took a deep breath. “What are you doing?”

“Having breakfast,” he said, sticking his hand back into the Nutella. Jesus Christ, where had he gotten it? I could have sworn it was in a high cupboard, well out of reach of his sticky paws. And how the hell had he managed to get it in here?

“Right, but you’ve already had breakfast and now we have to get ready for nursery,” I said as I walked towards him slowly, trying not to spook him because the last thing I wanted was for him to go pissing off around the house.

I might have been faster than him, but Jack had a cornering speed I’d never manage.

“No thanks, one minute,” Jack said, crouching down to pick up another sticky handful of Cheerios. I knew he had no idea how long a minute actually was. It was just something he’d picked up from Hannah and me.

She was going to piss herself laughing when I told her about this. I’d barely managed to live down the jam incident.

What the fuck was it about small boys and getting starkers? Or smearing themselves in whatever was closest?

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But we have to go. Can I have the Nutella, please?”

Jack looked at me and frowned, his round little mouth forming into a pout. “Why?”

“Because we don’t eat Nutella out of the jar. It’s not nice.”

“Why?”

“Because other people have to eat out of it too.”

“Who?”

“Me, for starters,” I said, gently plucking the jar out of his reluctant hand and looking around for the lid, which was nowhere to be seen.

“But you’re Daddy.”

“Yeah, mate, I am.”

“You don’t count.”

I sighed and tried not to laugh. The brutally honest phase of toddlerhood was not something I’d been prepared for.

Come to think of it, there was none of parenthood I’d been prepared for.

If I had a time machine, I’d go back three years and slap past-me in the face for naively, and arrogantly, thinking being a parent was going to be easy.

I’d been so spectacularly wrong on every single level, and while I loved Jack more than life itself, being a single dad was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

“Sorry, buddy, but I do.” I picked up the box of Cheerios with my other hand, realising it was now at least two-thirds empty.

I’d need to remember to get some more when I next went shopping or there’d be hell to pay.

Jack was still frowning, like he was mulling over my response.

I was going to need to find some baby wipes before we left because there was no way I could take him to nursery with Nutella and Cheerios in his hair, not to mention all over the rest of him.

“Jack, where are your clothes?”

He did his best approximation of a shrug, shooting me an “I don’t know” expression that would rival most teenagers’. At least when he got to that age he might actually eat the Nutella with a spoon.

“Please tell me where your clothes are,” I said, putting the Nutella and Cheerios on a high shelf of a nearby bookcase. They weren’t totally out of reach but it was the easiest place to leave them while I figured out everything else.

I was going to be so fucking late to training it wasn’t even funny.

Thank God our head coach, Clive, was understanding or I’d constantly be in deep shit.

This couldn’t keep happening, though, not if I wanted to stay as team captain.

The lads needed someone responsible to rely on, and although I’d tried to hide just how out of control things were at home, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d started to twig.

“I took them off,” Jack said, waving his hand in a grand gesture at himself and somehow leaving a smear of Nutella down his stomach.

“I can see,” I said as I moved towards the play castle, because I was ninety percent sure they’d be in there since it was Jack’s favourite hideout. “Why did you take them off?”

“So they won’t get dirty.” He spoke slowly, thinking through each of the words, and I smiled to myself because even if I was frustrated and ready to scream, I was proud of how well he was vocalising everything.

“That makes sense. But you know, next time you want some Nutella for breakfast, you can ask me and I’ll get you some, okay?”

“’Kay.”

I wasn’t sure he would, but it was a win, so I’d take it. And as I bent down to look in the castle, I got another because there were all Jack’s clothes in a pile, complete with his socks laid out on top like he hadn’t wanted to lose them. It was sweet, really, all things considered.

Now all I had to do was convince him to put them back on…

“Okay,” I said as I grabbed his clothes. “Come on, we need to get you cleaned up and then—”

Jack shrieked out a laugh as he saw me stand up, and without a backwards glance he shot off out of the playroom at full speed, his giggling bouncing off the walls as his tiny footsteps thundered on the polished wood floor of the hallway.

We were going to be so fucking late.

Fifty minutes later, with Jack caught, hastily wiped down, dressed, and deposited at nursery, I finally arrived at the training ground for the Lincoln Knights Rugby Union Club.

It was already half nine, so I knew everyone would be well into their session in the gym and I cringed thinking about what I’d already missed that morning.

I’d be able to get the notes on the team briefing and the overview of the week ahead, but as captain I should have been in the room to hear it firsthand.

After the last few nanny disasters, I’d kept telling myself I didn’t need any help, but I was starting to think my pride was going to lead to a very painful fall.

“Hey, you made it,” Bailey said as I slid into the gym.

He and Hunter were partnered up and working at the squat rack nearest the door.

Given how tall Hunter was, they weren’t the best matchup but they refused to be split up, so we rolled with it.

As long as they got their workout done, it didn’t matter to me or any of the coaching staff. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, shooting him a half smile as I tried to pretend nothing was bothering me. “Just an incident with the Nutella.”

Bailey chuckled. “Same situation as the jam?”

“Not quite as bad. Thank God the playroom doesn’t have a cream carpet.”

“Cream carpets around kids are always a bad idea,” Hunter said as he racked the squat bar and shook his legs out.

“Cream anything around kids is a bad idea,” Bailey said with a grin. He looked me up and down, tilting his head slightly. “You look stressed.”

“Yeah, well, you try chasing a chocolate-covered toddler around when you’re running late and see how relaxed you are.” There was a sharp edge to my words that I heard as soon as they left my mouth, and I winced. “Sorry, I don’t mean to snap. I’m so fucking tired today.”

“Didn’t sleep well?” Hunter asked, changing the plates on the bar as he spoke.

“No. Jack came into my bed at three—he went straight back to sleep but then spent three and a half hours kicking the shit out of me.” My back twinged as if to make a point.

I’d need to try and get a massage to get the knots worked out—it couldn’t hurt any more than how I’d gotten them—and then I needed to think of a better way to sleep that didn’t involve getting pummelled by tiny, unconscious toddler feet.

“Sounds rough,” Hunter said. “You need a break.”

“When’s Hannah back? She’s still in New York, right?” Bailey asked as he took a swig from his water bottle before he prepared to do his set. I really needed to get to my station instead of standing here gassing, but I was so tired it didn’t feel like a priority.

“LA,” I said. “She’ll be back in a few weeks and then she’ll take Jack for the weekend. She’s working in London at some point soon too, so that’ll be easier.”

Hannah was Jack’s mum, my ex on-and-off girlfriend-slash-friend with benefits, and the absolute definition of a corporate baddie.

She was a high-powered forensic accountant and if you saw her walking into your office, you either started praying or destroying hard drives.

While her primary office was in London, she spent a lot of her time working abroad, wherever her firm sent her.

It was one of the reasons I had sole physical custody of Jack.

We got on well, though, and she tried to take Jack for one weekend a month alongside calling him every single night.

But she was never going to be around enough for day-to-day help, and I’d always known that and never resented her for it. It had been my choice to take custody, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

“That’s still not really a break, though,” Hunter said, picking up his water bottle. “It’s only a couple of nights and we’ll probably be playing.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty much solo parenting, so I don’t get a break.”

“Okay, you need help then,” Hunter said. “Don’t try and deny it.”

“Yeah but… nothing ever works out. I don’t know why,” I said, trying to dodge the question. I’d tried hiring nannies before but it’d never ended well because apparently I was difficult to work with. Which I thought was ridiculous, but it wasn’t my call.

Hunter and Bailey were both staring at me now with identical expressions of yeah, sure , arms folded across their chests. “Are you serious?” Bailey asked. “You have no idea why?”

“Fine, I’m just particular,” I said sourly.

“Anal is another way to put it,” Hunter said.

“I wouldn’t say anal.” I sighed and stroked my beard, groaning when I realised there was half a Cheerio stuck to it. “Fine, maybe a bit. But Jack’s my son, and I don’t want him in the care of just anyone!”

“Weren’t you using an agency?” Bailey asked with a frown. “Surely everyone they hire is qualified?”

“Yeah, they are.” Very qualified in fact. Some of the best in the country. But that didn’t stop me from being particular.

And apparently my particularness meant I was this close to being removed from the agency’s books and blacklisted. Which was why I hadn’t gotten back to them recently about finding anyone new. Plus a revolving door of nannies wasn’t good for Jack either.

I’d convinced myself I could do everything and still make things work with training and my role as captain, but this morning was proof that wasn’t the case.

Maybe it was time to give them another call.

And maybe this time, things would finally work out.

If they didn’t… well, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.