Fair Game: A Football Romance (97 page)

“Wait, where does this guy work that would make you hesitate to choose him?”

I should have kept my mouth shut. I’m not planning on meeting with him anyway.

“Face to face meetings are common among surrogate mothers and intended parents,” Blake says.

“But what if the intended father is trying to sway the decision in his favor?”

“It’s not breaking the law, if that’s what you’re asking.” Blake places three pieces of bacon and a spoonful of something from a casserole dish onto Ivy’s plate.

“Why do you ask? Is someone pressuring you, Lourdes?” he asks.

“No, of course not.” I wave my hand toward his plate. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”

“Oh, no you don’t. You can’t just change the subject. You never answered my question. What does he do?” Rachel asks.

I take a big bite of my pancake and smile at her.

“You can’t chew forever.”

I chew very slowly, though, and watch her over the edge of my glass while I take a long drink of orange juice before I respond.

“He’s a DJ.”

She lurches forward, coughing, and launches a chunk of cantaloupe onto her plate.

“What? It’s not like he’s a drug dealer or anything. He’s some big time electronic music DJ that tours all over the world. And didn’t you just get through telling me not to be judgmental?”

Blake is patting her on the back and handing her a glass of water. The kids stare wide-eyed while she sputters and takes a drink.

“I wasn’t judging. I choked on a piece of melon,” she says between coughs.

“Didn’t you have some friends in college that were into that kind of music, honey?” Blake asks.

Rachel squirms in her seat and busies herself with cutting her pancake.

“Yes, Autumn and Casey were really into that scene. That’s why I was a little surprised that a DJ would be looking for a surrogate. They can be pretty wild.”

So Rachel had raver friends, huh? She never mentioned that to me. Maybe she wasn’t as squeaky clean as I thought.

“So he wants you to come to a dance club to see where he works?” Blake asks.

“Yep, that’s what he said.”

This will be good. Neither of them will think that’s a good idea, and that will help me stay away from the disaster waiting to happen at Club Fiction.

“Well, it sounds as if he’s interested in having you be their surrogate, enough so that he’s willing to give you proof of his professionalism. I say you should go,” Blake says.

If I had food in my mouth, I would be choking on it right now like Rachel, but instead, I clang my fork against my plate.

“Mommy noisy,” Toby says with a tiny wrinkle between his brows. He looks so much like Terrell when he frowns that it tugs at my heartstrings.

“It was an accident, honey. Mommy will be more careful,” I say sitting up straighter in my chair so he takes me seriously. We don’t mess around at the table at home, and he knows it.

“So you think it’s a good idea, Blake?”

“No, he does not. Blake, I can’t believe you sometimes. It sounds fishy. I don’t like it.”

Blake shrugs and tosses a chunk of bacon to their dog, Buster, who has been waiting patiently for Ivy to drop a scrap of food. Rachel snorts. She hates it when he feeds the dog table food.

“I’m not going, so it’s a moot point anyway.”

“Well, thank God for that,” Rachel says.

She shouldn’t be thanking him yet.

Chapter Thirteen

Liam

She hasn’t answered my text. Maybe she’s already deleted me. The attraction couldn’t have been one-sided, could it? No. No way. I could tell she was feeling it too. She was uncomfortable. Her sense of decency and respect for my marriage ironically make me even more attracted to her.

So wrong, but so right.

She is everything that Amira is not, and that makes this so much harder to wrap my brain around. Why did I have to meet the perfect woman when I’m married to such a profoundly nasty one? Amira’s antics have cost me a lot, including six months’ worth of hot nights with even hotter women all over the world. I can’t let her take away this opportunity for happiness, no matter how improbable it may be.

If she never answers my messages, I’ll never make any of this happen. It’s noon. I have ten hours to make her think this is a good idea. Texting is obviously the wrong medium of communication. I need to call her.

I walk out onto the patio, sit in a chaise, and dial her number. I wonder what she’s doing today. Maybe she’s working, or maybe she’s doing something with her son.

It rings four times, and I’m about to hang up and try again later when she picks up. At first, all I hear are children screaming, but then her soothing voice flows through the line, and that undeniable urge to touch her overwhelms me again.

“How are you today, Lourdes?” A soft breeze flutters my collar as I watch a squirrel expertly balance along the decking.

“I’m fine. Is this Mr. Wild?” she asks.

“Yes, and please call me Liam. I don’t think anyone has ever called me Mr. Wild.”

“Ok, Liam,” she says with a nervous cough.

“I wanted to make sure you got my text about meeting me at Fiction tonight. I’m looking forward to showing you around.”

“Oh, uh . . . yes, I did. I was going to text you back. I don’t think I can make it. I don’t have a sitter tonight.”

“No problem. We can do it tomorrow night. If you can’t get a sitter by then, I can hire someone.” I have no idea how to hire a babysitter, but I’m not giving her an easy out. I want to see her, and I won’t take no for an answer.

“Ah well, I don’t leave him with strangers, but I guess I can see if my sister is free.”

“Perfect. I can pick you up, or if you’d rather meet at the front door of the club, I can leave your name so you won’t have to stand in line.” The squirrel stops, and I swear it’s listening to see if my game’s any good. Watch and learn, little guy.

“I’ll meet you there. That’s fine. No need to come here.”

Ha, now that’s how you do it. She said
she will
,
not
maybe
or
if I can.

The squirrel seems satisfied, and so am I.

“Perfect. Ten o’clock tomorrow night it is. I won’t keep you. Have a great day.” Assuming, yet pleasant. She never had a chance.

“Okay, um, thank you,” she says, stammering ever so slightly. God, is it possible she’s sexier when she’s off balance?

We disconnect, and I relax into the chair and smile up at the perfect blue LA sky and sigh. Tomorrow night. If I can convince her that being a famous DJ isn’t all about partying and illegal activities, we might have a chance at her choosing us. She could potentially be carrying my child in a few weeks—not by traditional methods, of course, but my baby just the same.

Chapter Fourteen

Lourdes

What the hell just happened? I should have known better than to answer without looking to see who it is. Now I’m meeting Liam tomorrow night, and I don’t know why or how I agreed to that.

“Too much fresh air?” Rachel comes out the back door onto the porch, where we have been watching our kids and her daycare kids play in the yard for over an hour.

“I go inside for five minutes, and when I come back out, you’re looking all stressed out.” She’s teasing me and she’s right, but I’m not stressed because she left me in charge of six kids. I’m stressed because I think I just sort of made a date with a married man.

“I, uh . . . I got a phone call.”

“Yeah, I see that.” She glances at my hand holding the phone with raised eyebrows.

“You gonna tell me why you’re white-knuckling that phone?” Rachel takes her seat next to me in a bright blue Adirondack chair.

“It was Liam, the guy who wants—”

“To meet you at his club?” She says, finishing my sentence.

“What’s the problem? You told him no, right?”

I take a long drink of lemonade to avoid her question, even though my stomach is churning and the acidic drink isn’t going to help matters.

“Please tell me you said no, Lourdes.”

“I said no?” I say, shrugging and wrinkling my nose.

“Oh God, why did you cave so easily? Is there something else going on here that you need to tell me about?”

“No, God, no. Of course not. What kind of person do you think I am? I thought you knew me better than that. I would never fool around with a married man.”

She looks closer at me and narrows her eyes.

“Why is fooling around the first conclusion you jumped to?”

“What else would you mean?” I ask.

“Oh, I don’t know. That he’s trying to bribe you to choose them over the other couples, maybe. Shit, I hadn’t even thought that he might be interested in you like that. He’s
married
, for God’s sake, and he wants a
baby
with his
wife
. You don’t think . . .?”

Saying it out loud makes it sound ludicrous. Now I’m starting to think that maybe he’s not trying to start something with me. Maybe it’s just my own feelings that scare me.

“No. I don’t know what made me say that. I’m sure he’s on the up and up. It’s just that this whole process is so complicated and the pressure is getting to me. Having someone else’s baby is so different from having my own. When I found out I was pregnant with Toby, I knew I would do anything to give him a good future. With this pregnancy, I’ll have to lug the baby around for ten months and pass it off to someone else and never see it again.”

“That’s the control freak in you talking. You’ve always planned everything out to the second. I was proud of you when you found out you were pregnant with Toby. I thought for sure you were going to lose your shit and have a nervous breakdown, but you didn’t. You just took it all in stride.”

“No I didn’t. I flipped my shit. You just didn’t see it happen. And when I finished, I submerged myself into planning every single detail of our future, everything from my birth plan to the color of the paint in our first house after Terrell and I graduated college is categorized and documented in a massive three-ring binder. I still have it.”

She shades her eyes and I watch her lips silently count the kids in the yard. She does this every five or ten minutes, but I can’t figure out why, because the yard is surrounded by a six-foot privacy fence.

“See? Control freak. Just relax, and you’ll make the right decision. I have faith in you,” she says when she’s finished her head count.

“So you think I should go tomorrow night?”

“Hell, I don’t know. You’re going to have to decide that for yourself. If you think he’s being straightforward, then yeah, go. It couldn’t hurt. But if you think he has ulterior motives, then no, definitely not.”

She’s no help at all. I’m right back where I started before this conversation. For the first time in my life, I’m ignoring that little voice in my head that keeps me from doing really stupid things. I’m going. I need to see if I’m just imagining this connection or if it’s real. I have no idea what I’ll do either way, but I’ll go crazy if I don’t find out.

“So what are you going to wear?”

I roll my eyes.

“What makes you so sure I’m going?”

“Sister’s intuition. I just hope you know what you’re getting into.”

I don’t, but I’m going to find out.

***

It’s Friday night, and I’m wondering why the hell I didn’t just go to the club last night when he originally asked me to. I assume Thursdays are a quieter night at a dance club. I’ve never done much clubbing. I’m not even sure what to wear. I need fashion advice, and Rachel said she has no idea what people are wearing out dancing anymore, so I called the one person I know who might be able to save me.

Kit Walker is an English major at Berkeley like me, but he couldn’t be more unlike me in every other way. Kit is gay, and he’s fun, friendly, spontaneous, and smart, and he’s got an impeccable eye for fashion. Kit also happens to frequent dance clubs and has agreed to go with me tonight so I don’t feel so awkward walking into a club alone. I know Liam’s meeting me at the door, but Kit has agreed to provide a buffer in case this all gets weird.

I just got home from dropping Toby off at Rachel’s for the night. It’s eight o’clock and Kit will be here in thirty minutes. I’ve scoured my closet and pulled out anything that could remotely be deemed club-worthy. It’s a pathetic array of little black dresses and leggings, one black mini skirt, and a shimmery sleeveless top that I bought on a whim once and never had anyplace to wear.

This all feels too much like a date. Why should I care what I look like? I’m meeting a guy who wants me to carry a baby for him and his wife. It’s not exactly the premise for a fun-filled, drunken night of dancing. Kit will make it fun, though. Everything with Kit is fun.

The doorbell rings, and I pull my robe tight around my waist. I don’t know why. Kit has no interest in women other than dressing them up like dolls. Force of habit, I guess.

I open the door, and as soon as I see Kit, my hand flies to my mouth and I gasp.

“You look amazing,” I say.

“Duh,” he says, eyeing me up and down.

“You, however, need a lot of work.”

“Hey, be nice, Kit. I’m a mommy. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

“No worries, girl. I’ve gotcha. Where’s your closet?”

I point toward the back of the house. Kit’s been here before, but only briefly, and not to give me a makeover. He moves me aside by my shoulder and struts through my house, straight into my bedroom.

“Oh, good Lord. Shut up. This isn’t all you have, is it?” he yells.

When I catch up to him, he’s standing next to my bed with the back of his hand on his forehead and his other on his hip. His eyes are closed and his mouth is hanging open like this is the worst situation he’s ever been subjected to.

“Am I hopeless?” I ask, and I’m seriously considering that I am. Kit is the picture of perfection in his immaculately ironed chinos and pink fitted t-shirt that hugs every defined muscle of his chest. He rocks his loafers with no socks like no other man I’ve ever known, and his skin, nails and hair are better cared for than most women’s. My favorite part of Kit’s look is his hair color. I wish I were brave enough to pull off silver hair with purple streaks. It’s amazing, and so is Kit.

“Nobody’s hopeless, Lovey. I’ll make you gorgeous.”

I breathe a sigh of relief as he walks in a circle around me, inspecting and clucking his tongue.

“Hair. Come.” He shoots his one-word instructions and waves for me to follow him into the bathroom, where he goes straight to work smoothing out my short hair and forming perfect silky waves close to my head. When he’s finished, it’s elegant and stylish and I love it. He can indeed perform miracles. Then he begins to apply my makeup until I hardly recognize myself. I don’t wear much makeup. I have it for special occasions, and even then, I keep it simple, so these smoky eyes and false eyelashes feel heavy and foreign. He gives my lips a splash of color, and afterward, he gushes,
Ooh, you’re everything!
and
Oh, Lovey! I can’t, I just can’t.
He turns me toward the mirror so I can see myself.

I instinctively lift my hand to touch my face, and he slaps it away.

“Ah, ah, ah, don’t go messin’ with my work now. We need to figure out your clothes. Come,” he says, taking my hand to drag me back to the bedroom.

“You sure are a project. What am I supposed to do with this?” He holds up my favorite little black dress with two fingers like it’s a hideous old rag.

“That’s my favorite dress.” I stick out my bottom lip and he laughs.

“There’s nothing here. This closet is dead to me. We must shop. Hurry.” He leaves me hanging in the middle of my bedroom. I’m in my robe with full makeup and hair, with no clothes. Shit. I guess I’d better throw something on, because apparently,
we must shop
.

After forty-five minutes in a little shop that Kit says only he knows about, I am trying to gracefully get into his car in higher heels than I’ve ever worn, higher than any woman should wear. The dress he chose for me is a sparkly pink, skin tight, sleeveless little number with a zipper all the way down the back. It’s tight but it’s got some spandex in it, and it flexes and moves with me so it’s not uncomfortable. Kit says I’m
living this dress
, and I’m not sure what that means, but it’s good, because he’s smiling and proud like a daddy dressing his daughter for her first daddy-daughter dance.

He claps his hands together and pays with a black American Express card.

“I thought you were a poor college student.”

“I am, but my boyfriend isn’t, and he pays for my clothes and whatever else I may desire.”

I roll my eyes and he bats his lashes. I love Kit. I think Kit has just become my best friend.

“Wait, wait,” he says to the cashier, holding up his hand.

“Jewelry.”

“Oh no, Kit. I can’t let your boyfriend pay for my jewelry. I’m already going to have to get a loan to pay him back for this dress and these shoes.”

“Oh, nonsense. He’ll never even notice the charges. He never checks his statements, and I have permission to spend whatever I want. Now let’s see . . .” He leans over the glass counter that holds a case of costume jewelry—at least, I think its costume jewelry. Shit, it had better be costume jewelry.

“We need that and oh . . . those. Those are absolutely everything,” he says.

The cashier opens the cabinet with a key and pulls out a ring with an enormous pink square cushion stone held in place by four claws that resemble actual animal claws. He takes my left hand and slips it onto my ring finger with a gasp. The cashier nods her head in approval.

I ask him, hoping that I’ll use his quirky slang appropriately, “Am I living it?” I must be, because his eyes light up and he nods his head up and down enthusiastically.

“Earrings,” he says, and the cashier pulls out matching drop earrings with smaller stones. He removes them from the padded display and slides them into my ears.

“Mirror,” he says to the cashier. He’s so bossy, but she’s happy to comply and hands him a mirror. I look at myself and agree that these items have completed my look for the evening.

“Ring it up, Lovey,” he tells the cashier, and I pout. He catches the lip and dramatically takes me by the shoulders.

“What? What is it? You don’t like the earrings?”

Now I feel really stupid. He’s being so generous and kind by dressing me up, paying for it, and accompanying me to the club tonight, and I’m acting like a complete baby.

“No, I love them. Thank you so much, Kit.”

“What’s with this then?” He flicks my full bottom lip down with his middle finger.

“You called
her
Lovey.”

He throws his head back and laughs. “Is that all? I’m sorry. I’ll reserve that one just for you from now on. Better, Lovey?” I nod, and he kisses me on both cheeks in a very proper English manner.

I don’t dare look at the total on the register or the receipt, and neither does Kit. How cool would it be to not have to worry about money like that?

Outside, Kit helps me into the car and I grip my seat all the way to Fiction. Kit drives like a maniac.

When we pull up, he gets out and walks around the car with the confidence of a matador and opens my door. He takes my hand and dramatically helps me out. People are looking—gawking is a better way to put it—and it’s embarrassing. Kit smiles and takes a step away, as if to show me off to the crowds and photographers who are standing in line waiting to get inside. Oh God, this is mortifying. I am not cut out to be the center of attention, and we are without a doubt the center of attention right now, with cameras flashing and people whooping.

“Smile, Lovey, or I’ll give one of these people your nickname,” he says through his teeth with a broad smile.