Halftime Husband

by McCarthy, Erin

  Poppy wandered away with her milk and I took my coffee to my disaster of a room and attempted to make sense of the mess.

  Willow didn’t wake up until noon and then at one they both wanted to watch the football game on TV. We settled onto the sectional together and Willow told the TV what to do. The screen lit up with the Superdome in New Orleans.

  “There’s Dad,” Poppy said, pointing to the screen.

  As if I hadn’t already spotted him, pacing back and forth, talking into his headset, looking sexy. He wasn’t wearing a golf shirt like a lot of coaches did. He was wearing a team T-shirt. The same logo of the one he’d given me, actually. Not that it meant anything. I didn’t think. Did it? No. Of course it didn’t.

  I was being ludicrous, to borrow Poppy’s word.

  “The quarterback is so hot,” Willow said.

  The quarterback had a lot of hair. Long, flowing blond locks. Not really my type, but I could see the appeal. He was very Prince Charming. If Prince Charming was six-five and had muscles on muscles. “He has good hair,” I said.

  “Offsides,” Willow said, leaning forward suddenly. “Left tackle. That’s a five-yard penalty. Bad way to start a game.”

  “Which team?”

  “Offense.”

  “Is that our team or the other team?” I asked.

  Willow gave me a skeptical look. “Are you for real? Don’t you know anything about football?”

  “I know stuff. Like that a touchdown is seven points.”

  “A touchdown is six points,” Willow said.

  Right. “You know what I mean. After they kick, it’s seven points. And I know who the quarterback is and who the snapper is.”

  “What’s a snapper?” Poppy asked.

  “It’s a fish,” Willow said, turning back to the screen. “Not a football player.”

  “There is so a snapper. It’s the guy who puts the ball between his legs. The one whose butt the quarterback grabs.”

  Poppy and Willow started laughing.

  “That’s the center,” Willow said. “And the quarterback is not grabbing his butt. How were you a cheerleader and you don’t know any of this stuff?”

  “It’s a great shame to my father,” I said. “I never absorbed much of it. I had trouble sitting still as a kid.”

  “We’ll teach you,” Poppy said, gently patting my knee.

  “Thanks.” I had reached the age of twenty-eight without needing to know the ins and outs of football, but for the next few months I was going to surrounded by it, I might as well have a clue what I was looking at.

  The girls were insanely knowledgeable. Poppy didn’t know how to ride a bike, but she knew when a blitz was coming. When Brandon chose to punt on fourth down, Willow said confidently, “I would have gone for it.”

  The commentators did discuss Brandon periodically. Things like “Macnamara has a hard task ahead of him this year even with a quarterback like North. They’re a young, untamed team and it remains to be seen if he can rein them in.”

  Then they mentioned his previous tenure in Seattle and how successful he’d been.

  At halftime, the score was tied and the girls were a wreck. They were very bouncy on the couch and Poppy demanded nachos, saying she needed them to calm her nerves.

  “Nachos calm your nerves?” I asked, skeptical.

  She nodded. “It’s the cheese.”

  That made me laugh. I stood up to figure out how to scrounge up nachos. Brandon and the players were leaving the field. He walked confidently to the locker room, not looking worried about the score at all. It was bizarre to see him on television. And to know that I had sex with him. That we’d been warm and intimate and uninhibited with each other.

  Nachos.

  That’s what I needed to concentrate on.

  Not Brandon’s cock inside of me.

  Chapter Eleven

  Opening my apartment door, I braced myself. Sunday nights were normally full of tears and whining, the girls resentful I had been gone all weekend, and Willow in particular dreading the return to school on Monday. They were always angry and upset, I always felt guilty and overwhelmed, and it had become a dreaded ritual. I was tired and just wanted to sit on the couch and chill, but I steeled myself for a long night before I could reasonably get the girls into bed.

  Except when I stepped inside, instead of the girls coming at me with demands or accusations, there was music blaring and Dakota was talking loudly over it.

  “The origins of hip hop are rooted in African music, but also American jazz and modern dance. It started as a street style, created right here in New York City.”

  I dropped my overnight bag and moved toward the living room. What I saw made my mouth go dry. Dakota was wearing the team T-shirt Carson had given her, but she had taken the hemline and pulled it through the neck so that it looked more like a bra or a bikini top than a T-shirt. She was wearing the smallest dance shorts I’d ever seen. They barely rose north of her pubic bone and did not cover all of her ass. Not even close. She had on white socks with black stripes that went to her knees and sneakers.

  If all of that weren’t enough to give me a hard cock, she was thrusting her hips forward. Then she did a few moves that I wasn’t sure were choreographed or just spontaneous but it involved her dropping to her knees, popping back up with very spread thighs, rolling through her back with her ass sticking out, and a seductive walking move with her hand running through her hair.

  I was speechless. Fucking struck dumb.

  “In the early seventies DJ Herc introduced scratching to street dance so dancers could hold moves and stretch out their dance breaks. That’s when dance-offs started. And eventually there were recognized moves like popping and locking.”

  Willow and Poppy were both dressed in tank tops and shorts. They were jumping around to the music.

  “Here, try a move, then a lock. Whatever you want, just freestyle it.”

  Willow was a little shy about it but she did a spin, then froze with her arms crossed. Poppy did some wild semi-cartwheel kind of maneuver.

  “Awesome!” Dakota said.

  Then Dakota did a spin on the ground and froze in a position that had her legs over her head, knees bent. Holy shit. That was both impressive and pornographic. But only because I had been thinking about her nonstop for the last twenty-four hours. Or more like seven months, actually, and she was damn near naked and I wanted to run my tongue over every inch of her exposed skin.

  Poppy spotted me first. “Daddy!” She came running over and gave me a firm, but brief hug. Her cheeks were pink from dancing. “Sorry you lost. Next week will be better.”

  “Thanks, Pop.” The loss pissed me off. I was disappointed with both myself and my players.

  Willow came over. “We’re dancing.”

  “I see that.” I tried to hug her and, to my amazement, she allowed me to. Normally she squirmed away.

  “You should have gone for it on fourth down,” she said, looking full of sympathy. “It cost you later.”

  Nothing like having your twelve-year-old point out your coaching flaws. “You’re one hundred percent right. We were only two minutes in, I didn’t think we needed to be aggressive, but it came back to bite me in the butt.”

  “Live and learn.” She went back to the makeshift dance floor.

  Ouch. I had been dismissed by my own daughter.

  Dakota came over, pushing her hair back and pulling up her shorts, which did exactly nothing. “Tough loss, Macnamara. What can I do? Did you eat? I can order you something. Or pour you a drink? Or we could watch trash TV and make you feel better about your life.”

  That was thoughtful. I didn’t think I’d ever had anyone try to comfort me after a loss before. “I already ate, but thanks. I could use a glass of wine, though. I’ll pass on the trash TV. You three can keep your dance party going. I don’t want to break that up.”

  “You could dance with us.”

  “Dad can’t dance,” Willow said. “He can’t find the beat.”


  Dakota laughed. “That’s impossible. Everyone can find the beat.”

  “Haven’t you ever seen Footloose?” I told her. “I can’t explain it, but I have no rhythm.”

  “Yet you played football?” she asked incredulously. “You realize the footwork in football is really a dance. It’s choreography.”

  “I was a lineman, not a running back.”

  “I don’t know the difference between those two but I’m right.”

  “How can you be right if you don’t know what you’re talking about?”

  “Because I know everything. In a very general sense.”

  “She kind of does,” Willow said.

  “What you are is confident, even when you have no right to be,” I told her. “It’s one of your best qualities.”

  “Thanks,” she said, looking amused. “That was kind of a backhanded compliment, but I’ll take it.”

  “I didn’t mean it to be backhanded in any way. I’ll put my bag away later,” I said, and headed to the kitchen.

  “You can put your bag away whenever you want,” she said, following me and reaching up and getting a wineglass and putting it in front of me. “Here you go.”

  I stopped in the process of opening the wine cabinet. Shit. I had expected her to yell at me about leaving the bag out because that’s what my ex-wife would have done. But Dakota was the nanny, not my… anything. Of course she would never reprimand me. I was paying her a salary.

  Pulling out a bottle of merlot, I used the electric wine opener and then poured myself a glass. I was wrestling with whether it would be appropriate to offer her a glass or not. I wouldn’t have with any previous nanny. But I couldn’t pretend she was just any other nanny. “Do you want a glass?” I asked.

  But she shook her head. “Dancing and drinking don’t mix.”

  “They do if you’re me. And ninety percent of people out at clubs.” I took a sip of my wine.

  “Dad, do you want a donut to make you feel better?” Poppy asked. She held the box up for me and opened it. “There are two left.”

  “There were six originally. So who ate two? Fess up.”

  Both Willow and Poppy said, “Dakota!”

  She made a face. “Way to sell me out, guys. But yes, it was me and I feel zero regrets over it.”

  I took one of the remaining two and bit it. “Great combo. Red wine and a glazed donut. Classy.”

  “More like classic,” Dakota said. “What dessert would be better with red wine than a glazed donut?”

  “Is this like what drink would sting the most when thrown in your face?” The way her mind worked was entertaining.

  “Something like that. Like, for example, beer goes with apple pie.”

  “Does it though?” I wasn’t sold on that combination. “I think bourbon goes with apple pie. You guys go back to your dance thing. I’m going to sit down on the couch and mentally berate myself for the next hour.”

  “That sounds fun.” She winked at the girls. “Maybe we’ll get your dad to dance.”

  “Yes!” Poppy was on board.

  “Ew, no,” Willow said. “So embarrassing. It’s already embarrassing enough that he’s a coach.”

  “How is that embarrassing?” I asked.

  “Because this is you when you are mad.” Using mime, she pretended to throw off her headpiece and wave her arms around and yell at the ref. She stomped off.

  “Every coach does that. I am not an exception.”

  “Embarrassing.”

  I sank down onto the couch with a sigh and put my feet up on the ottoman. “Sorry. You’re stuck with me.”

  Dakota startled me by coming up behind me and resting her hands on my shoulders. She gave me a quick massage. “You may be embarrassing but we’re proud of you, Macnamara.”

  The massage felt amazing because my shoulders were tense, but also because I enjoyed Dakota’s touch in any form. “Why have you suddenly started calling me by my last name?”

  “All the announcers do.”

  “You’re not an announcer.”

  I closed my eyes briefly and enjoyed the shoulder rub. I tried not to think about what she was wearing or how close her tits were to my head.

  Then she moved away and I sighed again. That had almost felt too good. Too real.

  She pulled Poppy in front of the couch. “What do you want to learn now?”

  “Twerking.”

  Oh, God. The thought gave me heartburn and rage all at once. “Where do you get this crap? Damn social media.”

  “You are so grumpy,” Poppy said.

  “No twerking until you’re sixteen,” Dakota said.

  “No twerking until you’re twenty-five,” I said. “At least. More like thirty-five or never.”

  “Dakota, how old were you when you were in your first music video?” Willow asked.

  “Old. So old. I had already left home.”

  The vagueness of her answer made me think she had been eighteen and didn’t want to tell the girls. I sipped my wine and relaxed, listening to their banter and watching them goof off. This was much better than tears and whining or anger and shoving. It was amazing, actually. A freaking miracle.

  Not a miracle. It was Dakota. They responded well to her.

  I had no illusions that there weren’t going to be bumps, but so far, so fucking good.

  Later, when the girls were in their rooms, allegedly in bed, I locked my bedroom door. Dakota had been in our shared bathroom for twenty minutes and I wanted a shower. I knocked on the bathroom.

  “Dakota, are you going to be much longer? Can I come in and take a shower?” Maybe she was putting on a bunch of face crap and could do that in her room. I was tired and wanted to just fall headfirst into my bed and sleep.

  “You can come in.”

  I opened the door and stepped into the bathroom. What I saw made me forget entirely about sleep. Sleep didn’t exist. Sleep was dead to me. Sleep could fuck right off.

  Because Dakota was standing up in the bathtub. Not lying in the bathtub. Not submerged, artfully covered in bubbles. Not raising one foot above the water in a teasing peek. No. She was standing. She was standing and she was completely naked, hair piled on her head, water and bubbles sliding down over all of her curves.

  Lots of water.

  Not a lot of bubbles.

  Just wet skin, pink nipples, and her bare pussy.

  There wasn’t a towel in sight.

  “Help me out,” she said, holding her hand out. “I gave the tub a test drive.”

  I wanted to give her a test drive.

  “I approve,” she said.

  “What?” I couldn’t even process what she was saying.

  “The tub. I approve of it.”

  “Oh. Great.” I took her hand and stood there like a stone statue with a hard cock while she raised a leg, making the view even better, if that were even possible. “You do know you’re torturing me, don’t you?” I asked.

  “How is this torture?” she asked, with a smile. “It’s only torture if you can look but you can’t touch.”

  “Oh, I’m going to touch.” I felt like the kid who had been given the keys to the candy store.

  “I thought you said you were tired.”

  “And yet, here you stand, naked, covered in water droplets, skin flushed from the heat. That leads me to believe you want me to fuck you.”

  “I believe your conclusion is correct.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed behind my ear. “It feels like it’s been forever.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. “It’s been a very long three days.”

  “There’s no way it's only been three days.” Her wet body pressed against my T-shirt and dampened it. “We must have fallen into a time-warp continuum.”

  “Then we’d better not waste any more time.” I didn’t even bother to offer her a towel as I took her hand and led her to my bedroom. She could dry off beneath me on the bed.

  Paranoid, I checked the door again just to make sure it was lo
cked. “We have to be quiet,” I told her, flicking on the TV as a cover.

  “I can be so quiet. You’ll never even hear me. It will be like I’m not even here.”

  The shit she said. I let out a laugh before I caught myself. “That kind of defeats the purpose, then.”

  Dakota grinned as she lay down on the bed. “It sounded better in my head than it did out loud.”

  Ripping off my shirt and pants I climbed into bed and propped myself up over her. “You’re both adorable and sinfully sexy. I don’t know how you manage it.”

  “It’s a mystery.”

  I kissed her, then dug in my nightstand for a condom. I reached between her thighs and found her already wet. I raised my eyebrows. “What was going on in that tub?”

  “I may have started without you,” she said.

  Damn. I loved how uninhibited she was. Dakota owned her sexuality and that was a hell of a turn-on.

  Then she pushed her hand on my chest. “I want to be on top. I’ve been thinking about riding you all day.”

  I shifted out of the way. Like I was going to argue with that. “Whatever you want.”

  When I was on my bed, she wasted no time. She eased herself down onto my cock and I gripped her hips, still warm and damp from the bathtub. A few random bubbles still clung to her skin here and there. She started to move on me, slowly, rolling her hips.

  It was a great view. Her hands went up to her hair and her eyes drifted closed. She clamped her lips closed, clearly trying not to moan. I would have never thought silent sex could have its own strange appeal, but with her, it did. Reaching up, I cupped her breasts and teased at her nipples.

  That forced a small cry out of her mouth before she caught herself.

  Then she reached one hand out to grip the headboard and found a faster rhythm. Her hair fell forward, hiding her face from me. I wound it around my hand and yanked it back so I could see her face. She gave the tiniest of gasps at that, her eyes glazed with passion, cheeks and chest flushed pink with arousal.