Fair Game: A Football Romance (16 page)

I bite my tongue when the urge to say
fuck Cherry
floods my mind. I cross the room and grab our clothes from the floor and hand him his shirt.

“You’re mad again.”

I sigh, “I’m not mad, Adam. Well, maybe a little. Why do you have to find her? You can’t hurt her without getting in trouble yourself and if she did it, she’s not going to be hanging out on her front step smoking a cigarette. If she’s got two brain cells to rub together she’ll be hiding, or running, and what would you do if you did find her?”

“I told you, she has something of mine.”

“Do you think she left it behind?”

“If she wants to keep breathing.”

I hook my bra and wiggle into my jeans.

“You’re not serious. Nothing’s that important.”

He pulls his shirt over his head and pierces me with steely cold blue eyes. “I am deadly serious and this is important, more than you know.”

“Educate me then, what’s so important?”

“You said you didn’t want to talk anymore today, remember?”

I adjust my sweater and place my hands on my hips.

“I didn’t want to talk about all the crap we are dealing with.”

“Well, this is a big part of that, and we do need to discuss it, but I want to …”

“Find out if he found Cherry, yeah, I know.” I roll my eyes and stomp to the bedroom door, flinging it open.

“He’s all yours,” I say to Grant as I pass him and flop onto the tiny couch. He follows me with his eyes and then looks into the bedroom at Adam.

“Did you find her?”

“No.”

“What about …”

“No, nobody’s seen either of them.”

“Fuck!” he yells, punching the bed.

“I’ll go back out, but I wanted to check in and you weren’t answering your phone.”

“We were busy,” he says simply, and Grant grunts.

“Help me up, I’m going back out with you.”

That brings me off the couch to interrupt their conversation.

“Over my dead body.”

Adam raises his eyebrows high, daring me to cross him.

“I mean it, you’re in pain and I’m supposed to be taking care of you. If you’re going, I’m going too.” I cross my arms over my chest and Adam throws up his hands.

“Fine, give me some pills and let’s go.”

Turning on my heel, I make my way to my purse on the couch to get his Percocet. With the pills in my hand, I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and hand it to Adam as Grant pushes him past me in the wheelchair.

Adam pops the pills with a swig of water and hands the bottle back to me on our way out the door. I hand him his coat and slip mine on while he struggles into his. If Grant would slow the hell down, I’d help Adam.

The elevator carries us back into the main house and the sound of Grant’s obnoxious dog barking echoes through the house. Lord, why would you want an animal that barks like that? I have a headache after listening to it snarl and howl for less than two minutes.

We are quiet as we load Adam into the Rover. Grant pushes the wheelchair off to the side of the car and closes the door when I’m securely inside. I wonder what they plan on doing when we get to wherever we’re going with no chair.

“What did you mean when you said you hadn’t found
either
of them? I thought you were just looking for Cherry.”

I’d planned on asking right away, but things started moving fast and I forgot. Grant flashes a look at Adam in the rearview mirror, and Adam gives a quick shake of his head and his lips press into a straight line.

“What? What are you two keeping from me?”

“I’ll tell you about it later.”

They’re looking for more than one person, that much is clear, and if Adam wants to wait, then I guess we’ll wait.

The past hour has been medicinal for our relationship. We have reconnected on a level that I didn’t think we ever would. There’s much more to work on, like this mystery person Adam wants to talk about in private.

When we have been driving for twenty minutes, I notice the neighborhood we are entering is less than reputable. The houses are run down, yards are in a permanent state of overgrowth, and the number of pedestrians increases exponentially.

People who look like drug dealers, gangbangers, prostitutes, and junkies congregate on corners and in doorways of neighborhood grocery stores. When I called Cherry a whore, I was insinuating for the most part because I’ve never really met one, but this place is confirmation that my instincts were right.

“Was Cherry a hooker? Like an actual prostitute?” I ask.

“Yeah, she can clean up nice when she wants, and she targets athletes. She came onto me the first week I was here, when I was torn up about you. I was wasted and I didn’t know the guys on the team well, so nobody warned me when we left together.

“The rest of that night is a blur. We went to a hotel, that much I remember. I almost choked when I saw the bill the next day.”

“Sorry to interrupt, Adam, but isn’t that Sharee?” Grant says, pointing to a petite woman in a thigh-length fur coat. Her skinny bare legs jut out from under the coat, making it look like she’s only wearing a coat and heels, and hey, maybe she is.

“Yes, stop the car.” We lurch to a stop by the curb and Grant jumps out while Adam lowers the window to call her name.

“Sharee, have you seen Cherry?” he asks.

When she can see who is talking, her mouth pops open and her eyes grow wide. Sharee pats the woman standing next to her on the shoulder and turns to run, but Grant is already there. He takes her by the upper arm roughly and drags her toward the car, thrashing and smacking at him like he’s trying to hurt her. If he gave her a couple hundred bucks, she’d probably let him lead her anywhere.

Grant switches his grip from her arm to the back of her neck, steering her toward Adam’s window. When they are close, he gives her a shove to close the last few feet separating her from Adam. She huffs and looks back at Grant, calling him a name that I can’t make out.

“What chu want, pretty boy?” Sharee asks, rolling her neck side to side with attitude.

“I want Cherry, where’s she at?”

“You don’t usually be wanting her, why you interested ta-day?”

“Don’t fuck with me, Sharee. You’re her best friend. I know you know where she is.”

Sharee peers past Adam into the window at me. “You got yo-self a prime chunk a chocolate in there, don’t cha? What chu need with Cherry?”

“Listen, bitch, you better tell me where they are or I’ll have Grant here take you behind that building and force you.”

Sharee lifts one corner of her mouth and shrugs. “Aight, if that’s how you wan-it, he’s fine. But ya’ll better have a couple bills to cover me. I can’t be wastin my time or ol’ pimp daddy over there gonna rip my weave out and make me eat it.” She hitches her thumb over her shoulder, gesturing to a muscle-bound black man leaning against a building with his knee bent and his foot against the wall like he’s holding it up.

Adam opens the door, causing Sharee to fall against Grant, who is standing behind her making sure she doesn’t bolt. I grab his arm and try to pull him back, but he’s not really trying to get out.

“Take her around back, give her what she wants, but only after she tells you where they are,” he says, slamming the door.

Grant and Sharee disappear into a dark alley. Grant nods at Mr. Muscle as they walk by, and Sharee swings her hips like she’s still trying to attract a customer.

Adam puts the window up but keeps his eyes on the entrance to the alley.

“He’s not going to …”

“I don’t think she’s his type.”

“So she just hustled you for a couple hundred bucks?”

“Yeah, it’s easier than standing here all day arguing with her ghetto ass.”

I suppose he’s right, she was pretty sassy.

Not two minutes later, Grant strolls out of the alley and Sharee sashays back to her corner.

“She doesn’t know where Cherry is, but she left Harper at Kareem’s.”

“For fuck’s sake, why did she leave her with him?”

“She must have been desperate.”

Grant pulls away from the curb and makes a U turn in the street.

I’m dying to ask about Harper and Kareem, but the car stops after only a block and Grant jumps out and up the steps to a stoop in front of a crumbling townhouse.

He bangs on the door and when no one answers, he tries the knob. It’s open. I wouldn’t think anyone in this neighborhood would leave a door unlocked, unless they are the people to be afraid of.

Adam is leaning forward, holding onto the headrest of the seat in front of him so he can see the door Grant just disappeared into. I flatten my body against the seat so he can see easier and notice his lips moving silently. I think he’s counting. Is he counting the seconds it takes Grant to exit? What the hell is going on here?

I’m done wondering and I’m about to ask when he jumps in his seat.

“Yes, fuck yes!” he yells.

“Yes what?” I turn to see what he’s so excited about and see Grant barreling down the sidewalk, carrying a child under his arm. He opens my door and shoves a tiny crying girl into my lap.

“Hold on,” he says, slamming the door and jumping into the driver’s seat.

Seconds later, a man explodes from the front door of the townhome spouting profanities while Grant peels away from the curb.

Adam plucks the little girl from my lap, and she presses her face into the curve of his neck and wraps her legs around his waist like a baby monkey.

“Daddy,” she whimpers against his skin.

Daddy?

“I got cha, sweetheart, it’s all right now,” he says.

Their embrace is familiar, and the relief rolls off of him like ocean waves as he strokes her long wavy blonde hair. Her little fingers thread into his shaggy hair at the nape of his neck and her shoulders begin to shake when she cries.

He has a daughter.

With Cherry.

This is what he needed to talk to me about. I don’t know how to feel, my emotions are crashing into each other from every direction like a thirty car pile up on the interstate.

He has a child with another woman, and I’m jealous. As ridiculous as it is, that is the first emotion I pluck from the emotional wreckage, and it’s the one I feel the strongest. We were supposed to have kids together, not with other people.

Guilt is next in line when I watch her cry on her daddy’s shoulder. She’s just a little girl and she’s been traumatized. How can I be jealous?

I turn and look out the window at the cold dead winter world flying by. Last week I was drinking beers in my favorite pub with my best friend, and my biggest problem was a big drunken oaf hassling her.

Now I’m on the other side of the country reunited with the only man I’ve ever loved and learning he has a child with a whore. Oh, and let’s not forget the blackmailer at the center of it all, Vinnie, the creep I was considering having a relationship with. God, how did I get here?

“We lost him,” Grant says, checking his mirror.

“Keep driving around, he might not be on foot anymore,” Adam says.

“Don’t let him get me, Daddy. Please don’t let him take me away.”

“I won’t princess, you’re safe. I promise you can stay with me and Amethyst.”

I return my gaze to the scene playing out in the seat next to me, surprised to hear him speak my name. He reaches over to take my hand and he pulls me into their embrace.

“Harper baby, this is my best friend Amethyst.” She turns her head in my direction and rests it on his shoulder. I’m stunned at how much she looks like Adam and also how much she doesn’t look like Cherry. She has his saucer-sized cornflower blue eyes and deep dimples in her cheeks that show even when she’s not smiling. Her hair is brown, but it looks like she has blonde roots. Somebody’s been dyeing her hair? Adam’s used to be darker when we were kids; it lightened up with so much exposure to the sun over the years. Out of all of his brothers and sisters, two are blonde like Adam. They share the same full lips and perfect completion, and the way Harper pouts when she is sad like right now is identical to her daddy when he was in elementary school.

Harper loosens her grip on Adam’s hair with her hand that is closest to me and reaches out to touch my cheek.

“You’re pretty,” she says. I smile and mirror her action, cupping her perfect cheek in my own hand.

“You’re pretty too. You look exactly like your daddy.”

A smile slowly spreads across her tear-stained face and I swipe my thumb across her cheek, wiping away the moisture. She does the same to me and I’m surprised to find that I have tears on my cheeks as well.

I look from Harper to Adam and shake my head at the incredible resemblance.

“Carbon copy, huh?” he asks.

“Yeah, it’s uncanny.”

Harper and I drop our hands from each other’s cheeks, and she pulls away from Adam’s chest, fixing him with serious eyes.

“Where’s Mommy?”