The Volleyball Coach's Surprise Baby

By Alyse Zaftig

When Michelle Owens heads to a summer volleyball clinic in California, she has no idea that she will fall head over heels for her handsome and famous volleyball coach. Soon, she learns that she is pregnant. Can she keep it a secret? Does she want to?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amaretta Sosa
• Release date: May 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781005461638

Book preview

WATCHING A VOLLEYBALL VIDEO

Michelle

When I got home, I was exhausted from the strain of listening to some people drone on and on in speeches. You might think that just sitting there wasn’t much effort, but I just couldn’t handle being in crowds for too long. In addition, I felt heavy guilt and knew that I should be going into the dry cleaning shop downstairs to help my parents. They worked really hard to keep our household afloat, and I had to pitch in when I could. For my whole life, we’d been a family unit, us against the world. Life had never been easy, and our cash flow had never been steady enough to take a real breather. One medical bill could ruin everything. Because I’d never left the country, I didn’t have a passport as some of the girls I had just graduated with did.

Instead of working, I flopped down on my bed and opened my Chromebook. I’d gotten it during the pandemic, and it was pretty fabulous. My school district made sure that I had special educational pricing on both the technology and the Internet plan that I had for it, which was unlimited data. It wasn’t the fastest connection possible, but it got the job done. My dad had made grumpy noises about the expense, but my mom told him that it was educational. He didn’t like it, but my parents made sure that my bill was paid every month.

If Coach Megan Day had told me a lot about Palos Altos’s summer volleyball clinic, I would have told myself that it wasn’t for me and never jumped on the opportunity. In my head, I’d never get into something like that camp, so I wouldn’t have wasted the effort of applying at all. However, I hit YouTube to see what information they had available for casual observers.

Right away, I saw that the thumbnail was Coach Steven Rockford. His body language was relaxed. As the video played, he was talking about the objectives that they had for the summer clinic. I knew that I should send an e-card at the very least to Coach Megan in order to thank her for connecting me to the opportunity, but I felt myself get absorbed by how handsome Coach Steven was. I hadn’t dated at all in high school, because I didn’t have the time or money to deal with it. All the girls around me had spent way too much time and energy crying about this boy or that boy breaking their hearts. In contrast, all the time I didn’t spend at school or studying was required to be spent in the dry cleaning business. My parents were not going to be pleased that I was going away for the summer, but I was 19 and old enough to be on my own. I had the right to play volleyball to get a shot at a scholarship.

If I had a type, Coach Steven would be it. He had carelessly styled hair as if he just ran his fingers through it. He had tan skin, like he spent a lot of time at the beach.

"Hey there," Steven said to me. His voice in the video had resonated in my chest. "What’s your name?"

My hand was between my thighs as I mentally answered, "Michelle."

"I’ve heard a lot about you. I think you’d be perfect for Palos Altos," the dream version of Steven said.

Flashes of us wrestling intimately went through my mind as I finished myself off.

I heard the door to our home open. Scurrying to the bathroom, I cleaned myself up. My parents were kvetching about the people who had come to the shop and banged on the door after our official closing time. The customer was always right, so my parents had given them their clothing since the customers could see them through the glass. We needed to make sure all of our customers came back. I went back into my bedroom and made sure that my Chromebook was firmly closed. I didn’t have time to fantasize about my future coach. I sighed, mentally fortifying myself for a hard conversation. I had to tell my parents that I was leaving for the summer.

ATHLETIC CAREER

Michelle

H ow was graduation, kiddo? my mom asked, making her voice a little more chipper than when she was talking to Dad about how hard their day