Free Not Another Bad Date by Rachel Gibson

massive standing there framed by the door and glancing about. His arms fell to his sides, and although she couldn’t see his gaze, she knew it had stopped on her. She could feel it move up and down her body, touching here, stopping there.
    “Hey, Daddy,” Tiffany called out to him.
    He took off his hat and walked across the gym to the judges’ table. He ran his fingers through his hair as his unhurried stride carried him closer. He didn’t so much as glance at Adele, and she wondered if she’d imagined that whole feeling-his-gaze-on-her thing. She wondered if he’d even seen her at all.
    Zach stopped next to Tiffany and tossed his hat on the table. “Are you just about done here, sugar bug?”
    “Yep.”
    One of the female teachers looked up. “Hello, Coach Z. How’re you doin’?”
    “Can’t complain, Mary Jo.” The corners of his mouth turned up into a smile that oozed Southern boy charm. “You look awfully pretty,” he told the woman old enough to be his mother. “Did you do something with your hair?”
    “Got it done at the Clip and Snip,” she said through a little giggle.
    Adele rolled her eyes and turned her attention to her niece. “I think we need to celebrate. Let’s go to McDonald’s on the way home from the hospital.”
    A frown wrinkled Kendra’s flawless forehead. “We don’t know if I made it or not.”
    “Doesn’t matter. You did a good job and tried your best. That’s all that counts,” she said, as a small crowd filtered down from the bleachers and waited for the judges. A lot of them called out “heys” to “Couch Z.” Most of them were women.
    “I’m going to go stand with the other girls,” Kendra said as she abandoned Adele and moved a few feet away.
    “Adele Harris. I thought that was you.”
    Adele turned and looked into a pair of blue eyes that would have been on the same level as hers if she hadn’t been wearing three-inch heels. “Cletus Sawyer?”
    “Yeah. How are you?”
    “Good.” She gave him a quick hug, then stepped back to look at him. In school, Cletus had been a geeky nerd and they’d belonged to the same drama club. In The Tempest, she’d been Ariel, and he’d played Prospero. He’d been skinny and buck toothed, but he’d filled out some and gotten his teeth fixed. He was still fair-skinned with red hair, but he’d matured into a handsome guy. Not as handsome as the man standing directly behind him, sucking up the attention of every female in the gym. But there really weren’t many men who were better-looking than Zach Zemaitis.
    “It’s good to see you,” she said through a smile. “What have you been up to?”
    “Just livin’. I teach math here at Sterlin’ Park.”

    A math teacher . Zach looked over the math teacher’s head at Adele. Surely she didn’t see anything remotely attractive in a guy with a pocket protector.
    “What have you been up to?” the math teacher asked.
    Zach would like to know that himself.
    “I write science-fiction and fantasy novels.”
    “Wow. Are you published?”
    “Yes. I have ten books published, just turned in my eleventh and am about ready to start my twelfth.” She glanced up past the teacher’s red hair, and her gaze met Zach’s. He wasn’t all that surprised that she wrote fantasy novels. She’d been interested in fairies and druids and other weird shit when he’d known her. He was also not all that surprised that she was a published author. She’d been one of the smartest girls he’d known.
    “Do you publish under your own name?”
    Her beautiful blue eyes looked into his for several more seconds before she returned her gaze to the teacher. “Yes.”
    “Hey, Zach,” LaDonna Simms called out as she walked toward him. LaDonna had been a good friend of Devon’s and was a member of the Junior League.
    “Hey, LaDonna.” She stopped in front of him, and he looked past her big blond hair and returned his attention to Adele. He’d noticed her the second he’d stepped into the gym.