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Noelle heard her front door open, followed by the familiar sound of her best friend kicking off her high heels as she trooped through the front hall.

“Do you ever go to your own house after work?” Noelle mused, back to her friend.

Lea laughed. “Never on a Friday night.”

“Moocher,” she cracked open a beer for her friend. “How’s the hard life of a wannabe-lawyer?”

Groaning, Lea took a sip from the bottle. “I’ve only got what? Two years of law school left before I can take the bar?”

“And infinite summers of internships before you find a job,” Noelle said.

“Internships,” Lea scoffed. “Maybe I’ll just become a TV nanny.” She looked at the time. “Speaking of which, if I don’t change now, we’ll miss the start of your first TV show!”

The pilot was airing that Friday night on network television. The following weekend would bring a huge party with interviews, red carpet exposure, and all sorts of celebrities. Noelle had been to one before, for the second season premiere of Eileen’s show.

“Okay,” Lea reentered a few minutes later and pulled out the carton of ice cream from the shopping bag she had brought. “Ice cream, beer, and popcorn. Let’s do this.”

They settled onto the couch with their food and drinks on the coffee table in front of them. As the intro to the show began playing, Lea slapped Noelle’s thigh, squealing.

“This is so exciting,” she was practically vibrating.

Noelle, not wanting to admit how nervous she actually was, shrugged and reached for her phone.

“Isn’t it?” Lea continued, but Noelle stayed quiet. “Fine. We can play the quiet game. But I won’t share my ice cream.”

Noelle was okay with that. She wasn’t quite sure what angle the producers were going to show her from and she was hopeful they didn’t have anything up their sleeves. They sat next to each other for nearly fifteen minutes in silence before Lea spoke again.

“Who is that?” her jaw hung open.

“Who’s who?” Noelle pried the ice cream away from her friend. Lea pointed to the screen. They were showing footage from the night the cast had gone to that bar downtown and Noelle had run into the guy from the coffee shop again.

“Tyler?” he was in the back of the frame Lea had paused it on, sitting at a table with a large group of guys.

“Tyler,” Lea repeated. “Tyler.” She snatched up her own phone and began tapping away on it.

“Do you know him?” she asked, curious. Did her friend know him?

“I know of him,” Lea turned her iPhone screen so Noelle could see. “I also know he’s a really good hockey player.”

“Hockey player?” Noelle took the phone and began scanning through the Instagram account Lea was showing her. Tyler was a professional athlete?

“He played back home in Boston,” Lea spoke of her hometown. “Got traded this summer.”

“I thought you said he was good?”

“He is,” Lea insisted. “It’s like baseball, babe. There are a lot of other things that go into a player being successful. He didn’t quite fit the…system.”

“The system?” Noelle asked.

Lea hesitated. Noelle should get to form her own opinion. “Yeah, the system.”



Tyler let himself into Jamie’s place. The party was in full swing, even though Tyler was only getting there a half hour late. A television show was on in the living room that a handful of the WAGs were watching. The party had spilled into the dining room, kitchen, hallway, and out onto the patio and into the backyard.

“Tyler! My man,” Jordie slung an arm around his shoulders. “Glad you could make it.”

“It’s not even your house, dude,” Tyler laughed.

“It’s my blood’s house though,” he said. “That’s kind of the same thing.”

“Kind of,” Tyler shook his head as Jamie approached.

“Glad you made it, Segs,” Jamie greeted him. “You found the place okay?”

“Yeah,” Tyler lied. Jamie’s directions had been pretty shitty. “No problems.”

“Great! Well, food’s in the kitchen, drinks on the deck, and beer pong in the dining room,” Jamie pointed out what Tyler had passed on his way in.

“What are they all watching in there?” he jerked his head towards the house.

“Some new reality show about nannies here in Dallas,” Jamie shrugged. “They’ve all been talking about it for days.”

“Nannies?” Tyler asked. A show about glorified babysitters? That was considered entertainment?

“Right?” Jamie rolled his eyes. “Isn’t there something else to make TV about?”

Tyler mingled, enjoying the warm air and good beer. There were plenty of options all lined up to talk to him, but he wasn’t interested in rocking the boat just yet. After joining in on a game of Frisbee – beers in hand – Tyler trekked back into the kitchen, stomach growling.

Scooping up a handful of pretzels, Tyler wandered into the living room. Hopeful that the flat screen had been switched to some summertime baseball, he rounded the corner.

It hadn’t.

Scattered around the room were several women, all concentrated on the screen. They sat in clusters, in cliques.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” one of them, a brunette with bright red nails, muttered. “We’re watching this like a bunch of little school girls.” Another one, sitting on the other side of the couch, ‘shhh’d her.

On the screen was another group of women sitting at a table outside, drinking. They were all beautiful, ranging in age from Tyler’s age to maybe 30. The location, though, it looked familiar.

But then there was one girl – woman? – that looked even more familiar. Noelle – with two ‘l’s. She was a Dallas Nanny? The scene must have been from the last time he’d seen her at the club that was more like a bar.

“The TV doesn’t do her justice.”



“Segs,” Shawn Horcoff bumped his legs with his stick. “My wife’s first night out in Dallas and after she won’t shut up about how you’re supposedly friends with some girl from that reality show they’re all freaking out over?”

“I don’t know if I’d say friends,” Tyler grimaced as they waited for the next drill to begin. “But I’ve bumped into her twice before.”

“Bumped into?” Jordie joined in, waggling his eyebrows.

“Not in that way, you little fuck,” Tyler shoved him. “Like, coincidentally. I haven’t, like, done anything since I got to Dallas.”

“Damn,” both of the other men muttered.

“Okay, okay,” Jordie surrendered. “But riddle me this, O chaste one, would you?”

“With her?” it was probably rhetorical. “Hell yeah.”

Jordie pushed him out of the way as he took his turn running the drill. “So do it.”