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Pip was only five, for God’s sake, and he’d been around Victor and his niece enough to know that she attached herself to others with reckless abandon. The little girl didn’t know a stranger, and he suspected if she thought there was something going on between him and her mother…well, to be honest, Dean wasn’t sure how Pip would react to that. And he wasn’t ready to find out.

Not while his own thoughts about this unexpected— Hmm, he wasn’t sure it was right to attach the word “relationship” to this thing, but he couldn’t come up with another word to describe this new association with Vivian.

While it probably wasn’t completely professional, Dean and Victor spent a lot of time together outside of work. Since returning to Baltimore, they’d resumed the close friendship they had shared when they were teammates, and truth be told, if someone asked Dean who his best friend was, he would say Victor.

Which was why Pip lit up every time she saw him, screaming “Coach Dee” at a volume that should be reserved for soldiers returning from war. Over the course of the past year, he’d become a frequent visitor in her life.

He’d spent a great deal of time with the little girl during the off-season, while Vivian was in Africa. Because Victor and Belle were taking care of Pip, there had been plenty of times when she’d tagged along on his and Victor’s meetups around the city, and she was always there when Dean came over to Victor’s house for a cookout around the pool. Dean wasn’t even sure Vivian knew how much time he’d spent with Pip this past summer.

If Dean became a part of Vivian’s life, then things didn’t work out…

Pip wouldn’t just lose her mom’s boyfriend. She would lose Coach Dee. The man who had taught her to ride a bike, who kept candy in his desk at work just in case Victor brought her by the arena, and who’d given her a PWHL Barbie doll—complete with stick, puck, jersey, and helmet—for Christmas this past year.

Dean couldn’t blame Vivian for protecting her daughter. Pip deserved stability, consistency, someone who stayed.

Dean had spent his entire adult life proving he wasn’t that guy. He’d walked away from Ellie, even after she’d placed that gorgeous six-month-old baby in his arms. Then he’d spent two decades pretending monthly support payments and birthday gifts somehow qualified as fatherhood.

McKenna had forgiven him and was giving him a chance to be a part of her life now. But he couldn’t forgive himself.

So what the hell was he doing? The logical answer when she requested a proper date would have been to end the affair before it became something neither of them could walk away from.

Instead, he’d agreed. Like an idiot. A hopeful idiot.

Somewhere between Boston, teaching Pip to ride her bike, and going to sleep for a second time with Vivian curled against his side, he’d stopped thinking about whether or not he should fall for her.

He simply was.

Dean threw his head back, sighing heavily. “Atta boy, Dean,” he muttered to himself. He was a forty-four-year-old commitment-phobe who’d been emotionally constipated for decades.

So, of course, he’d pick the woman who came with the one responsibility he’d always managed to avoid. A family.

Add in the fact he was sleeping with his best friend Victor’s sister, and yeah…he was fucking everything up royally.

His gaze drifted through the window to the center console, where a small paper bag sat waiting. He’d promised to make their first date special. Flowers had seemed too obvious, plus, they could lead to questions from colleagues at work or at home from Pip, depending on where she took them.

So, he’d bought her a big box of dark chocolates from a little shop downtown, recalling her casually mentioning that it was her favorite, something she only ever got on her birthday or for Christmas because it was too expensive to be an everyday treat.

Dean had never been the type to buy women gifts, but suddenly he was turning into one of those guys. And the scary part was, he liked it.

His phone buzzed.

Managed my escape. Be right there.

He glanced up when the elevator pinged and the doors slid open. Vivian stepped off wearing dark slacks and a green sweater that complemented her honey-colored complexion. She smiled the second she saw him standing by his car, and for a moment, his stupid heart forgot how to beat.

As she approached, she quickly scanned the surrounding area, then walked right up to him, giving him a quick kiss hello. “Hiya, stranger.”

He hadn’t seen her since the morning after the firepit, thanks to the road trip, followed immediately by two back-to-back home games. It had been a full week, yet it didn’t feel like they’d been apart that long. Mainly because they had been texting every single day.

At first, the texts had been little more than touching base, quick catch-ups. However, they quickly became more frequent, as he found himself wanting to share funny snippets about something one of the guys said or did, share some of his frustrations about how the team played, or just to send a meme or GIF that reminded him of her.

On the third night of his road trip, he started texting her about the game, a brutal loss that hit harder than it should. After five minutes of rapid back-and-forth texting, Vivian had finally just FaceTimed him, claiming her thumbs were getting tired. They’d talked for nearly an hour, both of them snug in their beds. It had so felt natural and easy, they’d done the same thing the next night. And the night after that…

Now, he didn’t want go to sleep without seeing her face and hearing her voice.

He opened her car door for her, and she gave him a knowing grin.

“Promised you I’d pull out all the gentlemanly stops.”