Once Upon A Half-Time: A Secret Baby Romance (22 page)

“Jesus Christ. This is from last season?”

“It’s why the Rivets won the championship.”

“No.” His voice hardened. “The guys wouldn’t. Jack wouldn’t do this—”

“It wasn’t Jack. The players don’t know. Coach Thompson controlled the information. He was the one who analyzed the photos and developed a game plan to counter the other team’s installations.” I shrugged. “To the league and media, Coach Thompson looked like he had amazing instincts. They called him an offensive genius for a
reason
.”

“And you knew?”

“I’ve been trying to find a way to subvert it. I couldn’t let it keep happening. The team is innocent, but if
anyone
found out, the league would probably suspend our entire season. I had to be careful.”

“You should have come forward. No one would have blamed you.”

I took a shaky breath. “Lachlan, if I had said anything, they would have cut you.”

“Fuck me.” Lachlan sucked in a harsh breath. “How could you not tell me?”

For the same reason I didn’t tell him about the nudes or the pictures they had of the other players. I couldn’t let him get upset, not when I was already on the verge of panic.

“I wasn’t implicating you in this,” I said. “When they said they wanted me to take some pictures—”

He rocketed off the couch. “You didn’t!”

“Lachlan—”

“Fuck, that’s why you went to Atwood?”

I looked away before his disappointed, bewildered,
saddened
stare burned into my memory. The baby didn’t leave a lot of room for guilt in my belly, and I wasn’t about to throw up any more regrets.

I switched the SD cards. “I gave them some of the pictures today. Then they fired me.”

“Jesus.”

“But I didn’t give them
all the
images.” It was the last bit of hope I had. “I kept the ones that showed the bulk of the plays the Monarchs will run on Sunday.”

I ejected the card only to place it in his palm. He refused to look at it.

“Why are you giving me this?” he asked.

I lowered my gaze. “Those are the pictures of the defense. Every blitz they’ll try to run. Every formation they’ve created.”

“
Why
are you giving me this?”

“I want you to have it.”

“
Why!
”

“Because they’re going to cut you, Lachlan! You
have
to show them that you’ve improved. You can’t afford a bad opening season game. If you play well on Sunday, another team will pick you up. You’ll get another chance. Another home somewhere.”

Lachlan pitched the card away. His words struck me, hard.

“I don’t want another home. I want this one.”

“You don’t have a choice. You aren’t playing well.”

“What the fuck do you know about how I’m playing?”

He wouldn’t want to hear it, but I didn’t let him walk away from me. “Because I can see it. I’m there every day at practice too.”

“You have no idea what you see.”

“I know when you’re struggling.”

“You think I can’t handle it?”

“I think you need
help
, and you aren’t asking for it.”

“And
this
will help?”

I hadn’t wanted to fight. “That’s not what I’m saying…”

“You’ve given up on me.”

“Never.”

“You think I fucked up.” His words spit with an anger I didn’t recognize. Something vile and dark that would poison a man like Lachlan. “I don’t need your help. I never needed help. This is football. This is my life. This is what I was
built
for, the only thing I know how to do.”

“Which is why we need to fix this,” I said. “What if they cut you? What about Bast and your mom? Me and the baby?”

“Every fucking day I’m on that field, tearing myself apart, sacrificing my body. I do it all for you.” He shook his head. “And now you think the only way I can take care of my family is if I
cheat
.”

“No. That’s not it.” I reached for him, but he batted me away. “Listen to me. I know you will be an amazing player, but you can’t see past your pride. You have to ask the team for
help
.”

“I can’t have this conversation now. Not with you.”

He raged, inside and out. His steps thundered to the door. My heart went with him.

I couldn’t let him go like this. Not when he was so angry.

So hurt.

“Lachlan, please, let’s talk.”

It was the last thing he wanted to do. “You know…when my entire world started crumbling down, I thought I could come to you.” He dragged his gaze to mine, but the green was muted and dark. “But that was a mistake, wasn’t it? This whole relationship. It’s nothing but a fake marriage built on secrets.”

Not to me.

“Don’t you dare…” My words broke. “You have no idea what I’ve been going through.”

“You’re right. You didn’t trust me enough to tell me.”

“God, Lachlan, if you had any idea what I felt for you, you wouldn’t be looking at me that way.”

He shook his head. “What’s it matter? You don’t have any confidence in me. You don’t think I’ll survive in the league. And maybe I won’t. But I hoped you’d be there in case I…”

“In case what? If you
failed
?” I said the word he was unwilling to speak. “And what if you do? What then?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He retreated to the door.

“I’m not done talking.”

“Yeah, but I know everything you’re gonna say.”

“No. You’re only hearing what you want to hear.”

“I’m hearing
exactly
what I
need
to hear. You don’t think I can cut it, fine. Then what are we doing here? Why are we even doing this?”

“Because I’m trying to help you? Because I care about you? Because I’m trying to make it easier on you?”

“I can make this a hell of a lot easier, Elle.”

Lachlan didn’t look at me. He slammed the door and left me in a dark, frustrating silence. I whispered after him, wondering just how much I’d lost in those heartbreaking seconds.

“I’m doing this because I love you.”

T
he door slammed behind me
.

And I knew I fucked up. I was getting pretty good at it.

Three times now I’d nearly ruined my life.

The first was when Victoria and I decided we didn’t need to use a condom. I screwed up again when I let Mom adopt Sebastian instead of taking responsibility for him myself.

And tonight, like a jackass, I’d yelled at Elle. I blamed the woman I loved for my life turning to shit.

That
was a rookie mistake.

Elle was right. About everything. I needed help. Hers. Jack’s. The team’s.

That was the reason she kept secrets from me. Not that she didn’t trust me, but because I was jammed too far up my own ass to think of anything but my own pride.

It had to change.

I’d made a promise to my family that I’d provide for them. I’d do everything in my power to protect that promise…but did that include lying, stealing?

Cheating?

What the hell was I going to do?

I pulled into my driveway. A red Kia parked in front of my garage.

Son of a bitch. I knew who owned it. Of course she’d come to my house.

Victoria waited for me on the porch, kicked back on a patio chair.

“You’re out late,” she said.

I kept my voice low. “What are you doing here?”

“Can I come in?”

“You can get off my property.”

Victoria frowned, twisting a dark curl in her fingers. She handed me a manila envelope.

“I think you know what’s inside that,” she said.

“Guessing it isn’t sunshine and rainbows.”

“It’s a lawsuit—”

I ripped the envelope in half and tossed the pieces on the porch. “Drop it.”

“Not until I have my son.”

“He’s not your son.”

Victoria thought she could argue with me. “Only because you won’t let me be a part of his life.”

“You
chose
not to be a part of his life.”

“I was young and foolish,” she said.

Like it made any damn difference. “But now you’re older and broke.”

“I’m going to fight until I get rights to my son.”

“You want to see your son?” I was done playing. “Fine. Follow me.”

Victoria smiled like she’d won some great victory just stepping into my house. She claimed the chaise lounge in my living room. Elle’s chosen throne. I said nothing. Didn’t yell. Didn’t get mad.

I brought her the photo albums Mom had put together. The ones from when Bast was little.

“Let’s see what the kid’s been up to.” I opened the first album. “Here’s Sebastian on the day he was born. You probably never saw him in the incubator or on the oxygen. Remember? Because you told the nurses you
never wanted to see the brat
. You wanted
the nightmare to be over
.”

Victoria stiffened. “Lachlan, I had
just
given birth.”

“That doesn’t excuse you. Look at him.” I pointed to the picture of my premature son. “Sick and underweight, because
you
refused to eat towards the end of the pregnancy. You didn’t want to
show
.”

“I was a
teenager
.” Victoria slammed the album shut. “I was scared.”

“Yeah? So was I.” I opened the next album, lingering on a picture of me holding Bast when we finally got home. “Here’s his crib. I had it in my room so I could switch off with my Mom on feedings and changings. This was his first bath. He peed all over me, but Mom said I did the same thing to her during my first bath. Here’s him in his bouncer—he loved that fucking thing. Cried like a banshee the day it broke. Mom and I had to search the couch cushions and in the seat of the car to scrape together enough money to buy a new one.”

“What’s your point, Lachlan?”

“The point? The point is that here…” I showed her a picture of my smiling, exhausted mother bouncing a three-month-old on her hip. “This is his
mother
. This is the woman who raised him. Who fed him. Who changed him, swaddled him, sacrificed her sleep, her time, her
life
to raise a baby that wasn’t hers. He was happy and healthy because of the work she did.”

“I’m not here to apologize for the past,” she said.

“Wouldn’t forgive you if you tried.” I grinned and flipped the album to when Bast was a bit older. “We took this when he said his first word. Know what it was?”

Victoria scowled. “
Momma
?”

“
Lockin
.
I
was his first word. That was the greatest moment of my life.”

I flipped the pages, proudly displaying picture after picture of Sebastian’s smiling face. Elle could have framed him better or used brighter lighting or posed him
just
right, but nothing was as beautiful as his smile, even taken on grainy cell phones and disposable cameras.

“His first steps,” I said. “His second Christmas. His third birthday. Everything.”

“Our child is beautiful.”

“No. He’s not
our
child. You’re not his mother. That’s the way it stays. I won’t let you confuse him, and I won’t let you get anywhere close to him.”

“I’m just trying to do the right thing,” she said.

I slammed the book on the coffee table. She jumped.

“Bullshit. You’re trying to get money.”

“You’re being absurd.”

“Why else would you wait until I signed with a professional football team to decide you wanted to play mommy? You’re looking for an easy way to get paid, and you’d ruin a little boy’s life to do it.”

“He deserves to know his mother.”

I lowered my voice, growling the threat. “You want to fight me on it? Fine. Sue me. Then you’ll be front and center to all the money you’ll never get.” I leaned over the chair, inches from her face. “I will spend every last cent to my name on the best goddamned family practice attorneys in the country. You will never take him from us. I will make it so that Sebastian never even knows your name.”

Victoria swallowed, her confidence breaking.

“Maybe he’ll never know that I’m his father…but I will do everything in my power to protect my son.”

“You’re overreacting.”

Never. Not when it came to Bast. “Do you even want him?”

“Do you?”

“More than anything in this fucking world.” I towered over her. “I love him, and if you loved him too, you’d give him up.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you’re gonna see a different side of me. Something ugly. Not nearly as charming. Fair warning.”

Victoria exhaled. She tensed, and I really wasn’t looking forward to pressing any assault charges if she dove for me. But even she had some common sense.

She nodded, her eyes hard. “Fine. Keep the kid, but you’re making a mistake.”

“Made a lot lately—what’s one more if it protects him from you?”

The words she spat were colorful as she slammed the door behind her. I’d have a nice key scratch in my Lexus, but at least I was rid of her.

For all the good it did me.

The adrenaline rushed through me. Drowning me. Aching in me. I collapsed on the couch.

For five years, I had never admitted Sebastian was my child. Suddenly, he was all I could think about, the only word on my lips, the one who deserved so much more than I could offer. He didn’t know I was his father, but I’d never forget that he was my son.

The thoughts burned in me. I paced the house. Worked out. Struggled to eat. Sat in the darkness. Nothing helped. Nothing eased that pit in my chest, suffocating me in every passing second.

It was late, well past his bedtime, but I didn’t care. I grabbed my keys and sped through town, running stop signs to make it to Mom’s house before she turned off the lights and went to bed.

I held the key to her front door in my hand, but I didn’t feel right just barging in.

Maybe that was the problem?

I knocked at the door, hard. Mom peeked outside before chastising me under her breath. She wrapped her robe over her pajamas and ushered me inside.

“Lachlan, it’s eleven o’clock at night. What are you doing here?”

“I…I wanted to see him.”

“Again, Lachlan…It’s
eleven o’clock
. He’s in bed. Like you should be.” She tapped my forehead. “You have three days before your first game. Don’t make me scold a professional football player. Go home. Go to bed.”

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep.”

“Lord have mercy, Lachlan Maxwell Reed, the things I put up with. Come in.”

I crept into the house. I used to need to step quietly, avoiding the spots on old, rotten floors that creaked loud enough to wake Bast. Mom’s new house was six thousand feet of spacious luxury. The kid couldn’t have woken up unless the skylights collapsed.

Fantastic. Another thing to worry about.

Mom herded me into the kitchen. She dropped me into a seat at the only piece of furniture she refused to throw away—our old kitchen table. It was dwarfed by her massive kitchen—the sort of Italian styled granite masterpiece she’d always wanted. I bought her new appliances, brand new pots and pans, and a high-tech touch screen that controlled the entire house from either the monitor or her iPhone.

Life was so different now, yet when the stress wore us down, she still kept the Oreos in the top cabinet. I retrieved the snack that kept us awake during the colic, teethings, bouts of colds, flus, ear infections…

Mom passed me a glass of milk and sat beside me.

“What’s going on, Lachlan?”

It would have been less pathetic to run back to my mother, upset and crying. Instead I faced her like a man, one bound to disappoint her again.

“You know…” I crumbled the cookie to dust. “I never thanked you. For everything.”

“You’re here at eleven o’clock at night to
thank
me?” She stifled a yawn. “Son, a text would have sufficed.”

“No, I mean…” The cookie dust tumbled everywhere. Mom sighed. I didn’t let her clean it up. “
Thank you
. For what you did. Taking in Sebastian. Packing everything up and traveling to another state so you could be close to me in college. Cheering me on. You’re the reason I got where I am.”

Mom had gotten older, and more than a few of the greys in her hair were my fault. Still, she squeezed my face in her hands and smiled, as bright as ever.

“It’s nothing a mother wouldn’t have done for her son.” She tapped my nose. “It’s what any
parent
would do for their son.”

“I wish I had done more.”

She rapped on the kitchen wall. “I think you’ve done more than you realize.”

“It’ll never be enough. I didn’t do this right. I never should have given him up.”

“I know it’s hard for you to see, especially after all our dreams have come true, but we did it, Lachlan. The hard work and harder decisions paid off.”

She gestured to the multitude of Ironfield Rivets trinkets, magnets, and various memorabilia scattered around the kitchen. Her collection was starting to rival Elle’s.

“You’re a professional football player,” she said. “Don’t believe what the media says, and don’t you dare get discouraged. Achieving your goal isn’t frightening. What’s scary is holding onto it, worrying that somehow, someway, you’ll lose it all. But this is your
success
, Lachlan. Embrace it.”

“It’s not mine,” I said. “It’s
yours
and Bast’s. I had to get here. I had to make it.

Mom sighed. “It wasn’t a mistake for you to keep living your life. It was the only way to give Bast the life he deserves.”

“I want to do more than just give you money.”

“Neither Sebastian nor I ever wanted
money
from you. He just wants
you
. You don’t even realize how much he idolizes you. You’re everything to him. No, he doesn’t call you Daddy, but he knows how much he is loved.”

My chest tightened. “I should have been more involved.”

“The door was never shut. You have every right to be here as much as you like. He’s getting older now, and he’s going to need you more and more.”

I rubbed my neck. The tension was practically crushing me. One good clip from a linebacker and I wouldn’t have to worry about getting cut—I’d be killed.

“Should I…” I swallowed. “Should I tell him I’m his father?”

“That’s up to you,” she said.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“You’re asking if you should confuse a five-year-old boy to ease your conscience?”

“That’s not…”

“Will it make any difference if you tell him? Can you love him any more if he knew the truth? Would it make his life any easier, any better?”

I didn’t have to think about it. “No. There’s no way I could love him more.”

“Then you have your answer, for now, while he’s little.”

And when he got older? When he learned the truth? He’d be upset. Mad. Betrayed.

But he’d never be able to say I wasn’t there to help him.

Mom touched my cheek. “I am so proud of the man you’ve become.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“Why?”

Christ. If I didn’t say it, the stress would probably pop an artery. “Elle’s pregnant.”

Mom’s reaction to this pregnancy was better than her last. She reached for an Oreo to eat instead of the nearest newspaper to beat me with.

“Well…” The cookie lowered. She cleared her throat. “You are apparently…very virile, son.”

“Science could study me.”

“I really rather they don’t.”

I stared at my hands. “I’m in love with her.”

“That’s an improvement over the last time.”

“And I’m going to take care of her.”

“You’re already married,” she said. “Ahead of the game.”

She was joking, but I didn’t laugh. My chest tightened, and I had no idea if I could speak the words.

“How can I do this?” I whispered. “How can I have
this
baby myself, raise him, live with him, be an actual father to him? What about Bast? Doesn’t he deserve the same?”

Mom took my hand. “Are you going to forget about Bast?”

“No.”

“Will you ever turn your back on him?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then I’m going to tell you a secret, Lachlan. Something you might not realize yet.” Mom smiled, gentle and honest. “There is enough love in your heart for Sebastian, for this baby, for Elle, and for any other children you may sire…which might one day become an exponential number.”