“Am I not allowed to touch my toes?” I asked with a wry smile as Jack looked up at me with an adorable glower.
He shook his head firmly. “No.”
“Why am I not allowed to?”
Jack thought for a second, glancing back at Harper, who I realised was still smiling as he dug through the cupboards for some bowls. I wondered if he was going to get involved, but I wasn’t sure he had a reason to. This whole morning had thrown me for a loop, and I almost wanted a time machine to go back a couple of hours and reset things, even if it meant Jack crawling into my bed to snore and kick me in the ribs.
“Okay,” Jack said with a dramatic nod. “Touch toes.”
“Thank you.” I stretched my hands above my head and felt a pull somewhere in my back.Please don’t let this go wrong.The last thing I needed was to injure myself trying to impress my child—and the gorgeous new nanny who was watching me with interest.
I leant forward and swooped my arms down, ignoring the stretch in my hamstrings and calves as I reached for my feet. Despite my overall level of fitness, reaching my toes was not something I was expected to do on a regular basis… and definitely not without a warm-up. But stubbornness had always been a feature of my personality, even when it was detrimental.
Fuck, the Knights sports therapists were going to have a field day with me.
“There,” I said in a strained voice as I brushed my fingers across the end of my toes and stood up quickly, trying to pretend it hadn’t been as difficult as it actually had been. Fuck me, since when had touching my toes been that difficult? I knew rugby had put my body through the wringer but this was ridiculous.
Jack opened his mouth, probably to tell me I hadn’t done it properly, but Harper quickly cut in. “Jack, shall we have some breakfast?” He looked up at me and smiled as he nudged his glasses up his nose. “I know you said you sometimes eat at training, but I think I’ve made enough porridge to feed a small army. Do you want some too?”
“Er, thanks, sounds great,” I said as I watched him direct Jack over to his booster seat at the kitchen table, pushing down the rising tide of irritation inside my chest.
Harper was here to make my life easier and stop me from drowning, nothing more. And that was all he was doing.
So why did I suddenly feel like I’d made a mistake?
CHAPTER FOUR
Matty
“Matty?Are you ready? We’re going to start drills,” Devon said, tapping me on the shoulder and nearly making me jump out of my skin as I spun around to face him. “Shit, sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s fine, sorry.” I shook my head and tried to focus on what I was supposed to be doing. My mind had been wandering all day as I tried to resist the temptation to constantly check in on Jack and Harper, even though Jack would have been at nursery until about an hour ago.
When I’d first decided to hire a nanny, I’d installed nanny cams around the house so I could easily check in. I hadn’t needed them for a while, but they were still connected to my phone. All I’d need to do was open the app.
I’d talked myself out of checking them over lunch because watching Harper when he was home alone felt like it might be crossing boundaries. Or maybe it was because I didn’t want to see him doing something like yoga and be reminded that I’d struggled to touch my own bloody toes.
But Jack would be home now and I was itching to excuse myself for a couple of minutes to make sure everything was okay. I didn’t think anyone would care, although I would have to explain I’d hired another nanny and fend off the inevitable round of questioning about them, which would culminate in someone—probably Danny—expressing his surprise about hiring a male nanny and someone else—probably Hunter or Mason—taking bets about how long it would be before I sent Harper packing.
And while I knew I was getting a reputation as a difficult arsehole, I didn’t want them to confirm it.
Not today.
If I hadn’t gotten so lost in thought, I could have said I needed the toilet and nipped into the changing rooms, but it was too late now. Everyone was waiting for me, watching me expectantly.
“Everything okay?” Charlie asked as we gathered in a group to start some passing drills. “You seem a bit out of it today.”
“Just tired,” I said, waving my hand dismissively.
“Mate, you’re always tired,” Danny said with a grin. He was one of the wingers and a mouthier man I’d never met.
“It’s called being a parent, Daniel,” I said, resisting the temptation to smack him around the back of his mulleted head. “I live in a permanent state of exhaustion. And then I have to come here and deal with your shit.”
“I thought by three they were supposed to be better sleepers? Please tell me it gets better,” Harry, another winger, said weakly. He and his wife had a daughter who was coming up on her first birthday and who’d recently decided sleep was for the weak.
“Er, sorry. No. I mean it might. All kids are different.”
“Yeah, and it can change all the time,” Frankie said with a firm nod. “My two slept like logs for eight or nine hours a night from six weeks until they were five, but now? Up at the crack offucking dawn every day. I’m usually in bed by eight just so I can cope when they start jumping on me.”
