Offside (35 page)

“The same reason I can't tell my dad about what your dad is doing,” she snapped back. “I promised I wouldn’t.”

Touché.

“Fine,” I said with a sigh. I took a deep breath before opening the car door and the umbrella, trying to do both at the same time and still ending up with water all over the damn window controls. I tried to wipe them off and just ended up getting the seat wet.

I growled, cursed, and then finally gave up. If there was a break in the rain, I'd come clean it up then. Nicole had her lips smashed together to hold in her giggles.

Not appreciated.

I held the umbrella over her and walked her into school, feeling my ire drop significantly as her fingers wrapped around the top of mine, holding the umbrella. I dropped her off at her first class with a quick kiss and headed back toward the lockers.

Paul was there, which meant I didn't have to go looking for him.

“Hey, Paul!” I called out. “I have a question for ya!”

He turned and walked over to me, and we started down the hallway.

Paul grew up in the nearby borough and only started coming to school in town his freshman year when his parents moved into town after some fallout with the municipal council leaders or whatever. I didn't know the details, nor did I give a shit. Their little township tried to run things separately from the rest of town even though they were still bound by the same town charter. They didn't like the rules. My dad didn't like their resistance, and they didn't like him.

Or me.

“You know most everyone from your old town, don't you?”

“Pretty much,” he said with a nod.

“How about a guy named Timmy or one named Ron?” I asked.

“There's Ron Jones,” Paul said. “He's one of the municipal council guys.”

“What about Timmy?”

“Doesn't sound familiar,” Paul said. “Why?”

I ignored his question.

“Does Ron have a family?”

“He's got a couple of kids,” he told me. “I was in the same classes as his daughter, Rachel.”

“Any more?”

“I think she had a sister or something. I didn't really know them too well since my parents never got along with them.”

“Oh, yeah. Okay, cool.”

“Why do you want to know?” he pressed.

“Just curious,” I shrugged.

I turned and walked off then immediately ducked into the bathroom. Thankfully, there was no one else in there. I pulled out my phone and browsed my contact list.

“Hey, Malone.”

“Hey. I need some info.”

“Sure.”

“Whatever you got on Ron Jones, and a guy named Timmy from the next township over.”

“Last name?”

“I dunno. Maybe the same,” I said.

“I know the other name—he's on the council, I think.”

“That's the one.”

“Okay, I'll get back to you.”

Iago’s warning came to mind: “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy.” In the back of my head, I knew Rumple was going to be pissed about me digging into her relationships. I didn’t care. I just needed to know who the fuck Timmy was.

It didn’t take long. Right before lunch, my phone started meowing furiously as I got a call back, but he had nothing on Timmy Jones.

What the fuck?

Nothing interesting came up for Ron Jones, either. Just that he was a council member with two daughters, both over eighteen. I got an address at least, though I didn't know my way around town except how to get to the mall. Like I said, the residents didn't care much for the Malones, so I pretty much stayed away from town if I could. Dad always thought it was best to let him deal with the politicians and keep me away from all of it. There were times he’d bring me along to rub the soccer stuff in their faces, but that was about it. The couple of times I had been to social events with him, it had been pretty obvious we weren’t welcome.

Of course, it might have been because I had fucked one of the alderman’s daughters, and her dad walked in on us.

Whatever.

It was pretty quiet in the lunchroom, and Nicole kept asking if I was pissed at her because she was going to miss my practice. I just shrugged, not really knowing what to say. It wasn't like she was going to tell me anything. She leaned over and kissed the side of my mouth when biology was over, and I felt like a total shit for being such a total shit.

“I just don’t want you to go,” I whispered into her ear.

“I know,” she whispered back. She gave me a small smile before she walked out.

I was already on the field practicing when school let out, so I had a good view of the parking lot as kids starting getting in their cars to head home. I was doing a little ball juggling when I saw a posh Jaguar pull into the lot and drive up next to the main doors. Nicole walked out and got in the passenger side. All I could see of the driver were dark glasses and black hair.

I don't know why that set me off exactly, but it did. I slammed the ball into the goal with my right foot and took off toward the parking lot.

It wasn't difficult to follow them, and I would have stayed right behind them if some asshole hadn’t cut me off and then stopped at the fucking red light as the car Nicole was in kept going. I pounded on the steering wheel and screamed, but there wasn't enough room for me to get around. By the time the light changed, the Jag was out if sight.

Now the township isn't all that big—not even big enough to
be
a township—so I just drove up to the corporation limits, pulled over for a minute, and added the address for Ron Jones into my GPS. Of course, the maps for the area seriously sucked because the subdivision was so new, and I ended up turning around a half dozen times before I finally noticed the huge, mosaic tiled drive that led to a large ranch house. I wasn't sure if I had the right place or not. There weren’t any other cars, not even in the driveway.

Fuck it.

I parked, went up the porch steps, and banged on the door.

Nicole opened it.

“Thomas?” Her expression quickly moved from shock to seriously ticked off. “What the...?”

Of course, now that I was there, I had no clue what to say or do. Before I came up with anything brilliant, the dark-haired guy walked up and stood behind her, glaring.

“I thought Sophie said you weren't going to say anything to him,” he said, his voice as dark as his hair.

“I didn't,” Nicole responded. She glared at me. “What are you doing here? How did you even
get
here?”

“In my car,” I replied.

“Don't be a shit!” Nicole yelled back at me.

The guy laughed.

“I saw you leave school...” I started to say, but I trailed off.

“You followed me?” she gasped.

“Not…exactly…” I stammered. “I lost you in town.”

“Then how did you get here?”

“Um…”

Shit.

“Dammit, Thomas!” Nicole yelled. She turned sideways to look at the man and ran her hands through her hair.

“I just want to know what the fuck is going on!” I finally yelled. I wasn’t really mad, just fucking frustrated with all of this shit.

“You don’t belong here,” the dude said, and I was pretty sure he must be Ron Jones. He looked a little familiar, like I might have seen him at a council function. “You aren’t welcome. Get back in your car and go.”

“Ron,” Nicole said softly. “Please—he’s already here…Once he sees…”

Nicole’s voice trailed off as a loud, unearthly wailing sound came from inside the house. It was like nothing I had ever heard before, and I immediately took a step away from the door.

Ron snickered.

“He won’t tell anyone,” Nicole said confidently as she walked back into the house.

“What, out of the goodness of his heart?” Ron didn’t even bother trying to hide is contempt.

“Don’t fucking yell at her!” I really, really didn’t like him talking like that to her. I took a step forward again but then realized I was making a move on a local bigwig. I faltered then heard that insane sound again and cringed.

Nicole disappeared behind the door, and I fought the urge to go in after her. I mean, it’s not like this guy was going to punch me or something to stop me. As a public figure, he knew better than to do something so stupid. Nicole was only gone for a second, and when she came back, she was holding…

…a little kid.

A baby, really.

“Thomas,” she said with her eyes shooting those beautiful blue daggers and her kitten claws set to castrate, “this is Timmy.”

“That's Timmy?” I said, unable to hide my astonishment.

Then my entire body went cold, and my stomach lurched.

The kid wasn't like a newborn, not that I had much experience with babies at all, but he was sitting up in Nicole's arms and looking at me, and I knew that little babies couldn't hold their heads up. He was looking around from face to face like he was trying to figure out what was going on, too.

Timelines started flashing through my head.

Nicole had been partying after her division championship.

Division championships were typically the end of the fall season.

If she…if she got…

Fuck.

“Is he…is he yours?” I looked at her eyes and was in full-blown panic mode. What if this kid was hers? What if she had a baby from one of those fuckheads? What if…what if she was planning to raise a kid when she got out of high school?

What the fuck would I do about that?

I'd fucking help her. That's what I'd do.

Images flashed through my head in rapid succession: Nicole and I with little Timmy on walks in the park with her pushing a stroller; taking picnics on her living room floor with him crawling around us; seeing him get a little older and taking him to the beach; teaching him to kick a ball into a goal.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Nicole shrieked at me. “Of course not! I'm just helping Sophie!”

For a second, I was disappointed.

Then my higher cognitive functioning kicked in, and I was seriously fucking relieved.

“Nicole, you need to stop talking,” Ron said with his deep, ominous voice.

“Ron, please!” She turned to him, and her eyes begged. “He won't tell anyone. I swear he won't. Will you?”

She turned back to me, and I could only nod as I tried to wrap my head around whatever the fuck was going on. Ron glared at her.

“That's between you and Sophie,” Ron finally said. “But you keep your mouth shut until she gets home.”

Nicole sighed and looked back at me again.

“Go home, Thomas,” she said after a moment. “I am seriously fucking pissed at you, and when I'm done here, I'll be at your house to set some fucking limits. You got it?”

Ron snickered again.

I already hated the fucker.

But I couldn't be too pissed because even though she was obviously really mad at me, she said she was going to come and talk about it. Hopefully, that meant I was at least going to be offered my three shakes.

Or was it time to castle?

Fuck.

How do you play these games when the rules don't make any fucking sense?

At least she wasn’t showing me a red card. Not yet, anyway. I could handle a booking as long as it was just the cautionary yellow.

“Okay,” I said quietly.

Nicole handed the baby back to Ron then placed her hand gently on my chest and pushed me from the doorway onto the porch. She closed the door softly behind her and looked up at me.

Claws still out.

“I'm going to try to work this out,” she seethed, “but you have really, really made this difficult! Why couldn't you just trust me, huh?”

“I trust you,” I replied.

“The hell you do!”

“I do!” I said more adamantly.

“Then start acting like it! When Sophie gets back from work, I'll talk to you. For now—go!”

She turned around and went back into the house, shutting me out as I stood there on the porch with my mouth hanging open.

I closed it, turned around, and walked slowly back to my car.

For some reason, Shakespeare whispered in my ear the phrase “not so much brain as ear wax.”
S
omehow, I thought I might have run out of “Get Out of Jail Free” cards in this Monopoly game.

Now, was she going to take my queen?

CHAPTER 19

THE TWELFTH MAN

My phone meowed just as I was pulling out of the driveway.

I had left it on the passenger seat when I went to find Nicole.

Two missed calls.

I checked the number.

Shit, shit, shit.

Before my shaking hand could hit the recall button, the phone was meowing again.