Playing for Keeps (46 page)

"Ouch,"
Rob winced.

"Yeah," Nick scoffed. "I wasn't thinking with the right head in that situation, that's for damn sure."

Maddie said, "It was my idea, I accept the responsibility and blame for what happened. But I don't accept the blame for his death anymore, because it was an accident. For months they drilled it into me that
I killed Alec
by my actions. It's taken me a long time to get past that."

"That sucks,"
Rob said. "Why would they do that to you?"

"Payback's a bitch, baby." Nick leaned back in his chair. "They were punishing you for lying to them."

"I think so." She nodded. "But that's not the worst thing they did." Tears streamed down her face.

"Maddie, what is it?"
Rob touched her cheek.

Nick pulled a tissue from the box on his desk and handed it to her. "Say it. I think I know, anyway."

She wiped her face with the tissue and looked at Nick. "They made me have an abortion. They killed our baby."

Chapter Fourteen

Nick started to light a cigarette, then reconsidered and walked over to the open garage door before he lit up. He took a deep drag, and exhaled.

Maddie wiped at her eyes while Rob rubbed her back with one hand and squeezed her fingers with the other. She looked at Nick. "Is that what you thought I was going to say?"

He dropped his cigarette and stepped on it, crushing it out. He returned to his chair and sat. "I was hoping they'd let you have it and made you give it away. This pisses me off a little more."

"How did you know I was pregnant? I didn't even know until they dragged me to the doctor."

Nick chuckled. "Oh yeah, they got that one look at me, and probably hauled you to the doctor the next day. I bet they had you tested for everything under the sun."

She made a face and repeated, "How did you know I was pregnant?"

"You were sick in the mornings, for one thing."

"I thought it was from the Chinese food!" she said, lamely.

"I told you, the Chinese food didn't make
me
sick. You'd get better as the day went on, then sick again the next morning."

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked almost angrily.

He smiled. "Lack of nerve on my part. I would have eventually said something, if things hadn't happened the way they did."

"I had no idea." Maddie pouted.

"You were young!" Nick leaned in toward her. "We're back to that maturity issue."

Rob
looked at Nick. "On both your parts. You should have known better."

"Oh, I knew better." Nick chuckled. "She was just too hard to resist. But we were always safe." He looked at Maddie. "I told you nothing was foolproof. But we were
always
safe."

Maddie sniffed and looked at
Rob. "Which is more than you can say, Mr. Drink-half-a-keg-and-forget-something."

Rob
winced and smiled. "Okay, everyone makes mistakes."

Nick smirked. "So what happened, Maddie? Your parents found out you were pregnant…"

"Yeah. They yelled at me for three days before they dragged me to the hospital and told the doctor to take it out. I was so beaten down by that time I signed whatever they told me to sign, and let them do it. They took me home, told the school I wouldn't be finishing out the semester due to illness, and kept me in my room for two months. It was horrible."

"I can't believe your parents did that to you." Rob looked at her. "They seem so nice."

"Now," she scoffed, "because they feel guilty for what they did back then. They were wrong. It should have been my decision." She looked at Nick. "And yours."

"In a perfect world maybe so. But they were never going to let you and me be together. Your old man came right out and told me that."

"What do you mean, 'told you'? I never gave them any information about you, even though they asked and asked. I wouldn't tell them anything. I never have, not to this day."

He shrugged. "They found out, somehow. How else would they have known where to send your husband?"

Maddie looked at Rob. "I never thought of that. What did they tell you?"

He smiled. "Well, your dad has no idea where you are. Your mom was anxious for me to get over here and save you, because she just knew you were doing something crazy."

Maddie rolled her eyes. "Offering an apology is crazy in her mind, I guess."

"She gave me this address and sent me on my way, pronto. She was pretty worried."

Maddie sighed. "Crazy old bat. You should go back and tell her you walked in on us doing it on the grease rack."

Rob
looked at her. "Yeah, I'm sure that's what I should tell her. Got a 'Plan B'?"

She looked at Nick. "You talked to my father?"

"Oh yeah." He chuckled nervously, and lit another cigarette. He walked over to the open door and stood there to smoke it. "He came here a couple of weeks after the accident. He let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I was never to try to contact you again."

Maddie was shocked. "What did you tell him?"

Nick shrugged. "I knew I was never going to see you again, but he pissed me off and I got in his face. I can't repeat most of what I told him."

Maddie blinked. "Really? You told him off?"

"Put some fear into him, is more like it. I told him you were nineteen and of legal age to make your own decisions. I said if you wanted to see me, it was up to you, and that I'd take you back in a New York minute." He looked down and shuffled his feet a couple of times. "He said something else that pissed me off, so I proceeded to tell him what I'd do to you once I got you back…and how much you'd enjoy it. He left right after that."

"Oh my God!" Maddie flopped back into the sofa, laughing.

Rob shook his head. "No wonder they spent so much time brainwashing you. They were scared shitless that you'd go back to him."

Nick gave a little
smile. "That might have backfired on me. But I was really pissed."

"I never knew any of this." Maddie shook her head. "I was so naïve."

Nick stomped out his smoke and returned to his seat. "Zoey said she saw you once or twice around campus that next semester. I thought maybe I'd hear from you then."

Maddie shook her head. "My parents sent me to live with an aunt and uncle who kept very close tabs on me. I went to class and back, no phone calls or going out. I was repeating the same classes I'd taken in the fall, so it was incredibly boring."

Nick looked at her. "It had been weeks. A phone call was too much to ask?"

Maddie chuckled. "Oh shit, you still think you're funny, don't you? Well, I'm sorry, but I was totally beaten down when I got back here. I was mortified about everything that had happened. Frankly, I thought you'd be so angry when you found out about the abortion that I didn't know what you'd do."

He smiled sadly. "I just would have taken care of you. That's all I ever wanted to do."

They were silent for a minute, then Rob said, "Can an outsider make an observation here? It seems to me that Maddie went from one man taking care of her to another." He looked at her. "But when you finally got up the strength to take off and leave, you found out that you could take care of yourself. Now you're one of the strongest people I know."

"I don't think so." She shook her head.

"Hey." Rob put an arm around her shoulder and wiggled it. "Remember just a few days ago, your father said he was glad you had me to take care of you? Remember what I told him?"

She sniffled and nodded. "That I didn't need anyone to take care of me."

"And you don't," he repeated. "But we take care of each other because we want to, because we love each other, right?"

"Of course." She nodded.

Rob
looked at Nick. "Maddie was in a car accident this past summer, did she tell you?"

"No!" He looked at her and tilted his head.

Rob continued, "It was the scariest thing I've ever witnessed. She was returning a rental car and had our seven-year-old in the back seat. I was driving right behind her with the babies. Some drunk son-of-a-bitch ran a red light and smashed into her. I truly thought I was going to lose it, right then and there."

Nick whistled. "Holy shit! What happened?"

Maddie shrugged. "Nothing but a broken foot."

Rob shook his head at her. "A lot more than that. I go running up to her. Maddie's wedged in there real tight, they have to get the fucking Jaws of Life to get her out. Sophie's fine, but they want to take her to the hospital to be checked out. So there I am with my little girl leaving in an ambulance by herself, Maddie stuck in the damn car and two babies in the truck behind us. I didn't know what the hell to do. Maddie's all calm-like, giving me instructions on who to call, and what to do. I swear, I wouldn't have been able to handle it without her strength."

Nick smiled at her. "I knew you had it in ya. You were always a tough little cookie."

She laughed. "You should have seen me the next day. I totally freaked out when it hit me that I had been in a
car accident
. I took it out on him, I'm afraid." She nodded toward Rob.

Rob
smiled and ran a hand over her cheek. He looked at Nick. "She had a reaction to the pain pills they gave her. She was delirious there for a while. She asked me to play the guitar for her. She said it always made her feel better."

Nick looked at
Rob.

Rob added, "I've never played the guitar."

Nick turned to Maddie and grinned. "Bruce Springsteen, right?"

"Hell yeah." Maddie nodded.

He shook his head and chuckled. "Well Maddie, I think everything worked out the way it was supposed to."

"I know." She looked down, and a tear fell. "But it just wasn't right what they did. It wasn't like I was a fifteen-year-old kid in high school. I was
nineteen
, and going to college."

"Well, you were
enrolled
in college, anyway." Nick grinned at her.

She wiped her face and
smiled at him. "Shut up. It was all your fault. If you hadn't been so damn personable that night at Lost Wages..."

He held his hands up. "Hey, what can I say? I think it was Ty and Zoey's fault for taking you there. If you would have gone to that Sigma-whatever party like Junior wanted you to, your life would have been totally different."

She looked from Nick to Rob and back again. "Thank God I didn't!"

Both men grinne
d, and Nick said, "Whatever happened to Zoey? I never saw her after that spring."

"She met some guy and they decided to backpack across Europe over the summer. I actually went with them to the airport, and then I took off. I never heard from her again. Of course, she had no way of knowing where I was."

Rob said, "That was the day you got your tattoo."

"Yeah." Maddie nodded.

"Tattoo?"
Nick's eyes bulged. "What the fuck?"

She laughed. "I was trying to decide what to do. My bags were packed and I knew I couldn't go back to
Hartford. I got a little tattoo, nothing like yours, and then I hopped a bus to Oklahoma City. Zoey was from there, and she made it sound nice and boring. I was ready for a change."

Nick asked, "What happened to your car? Why didn't you just get in it and drive?"

She shook her head. "My parents kept my car. I had to ride busses that whole term."

"Another nice touch,"
Rob added sarcastically.

Nick stood up and put his hands on his hips. "Where is this tattoo? Any place I can see?"

Maddie looked at Rob, and he nodded. She stood and unbuttoned the top of her dress. She pulled it back and showed Nick the little heart.

"Holy smokes." He ran a finger over it. "It's pretty, but I would have never pictured you for it."

Rob said, "Show him your other one."

She looked at
Rob. "It's a little harder to get to."

"Nothing he hasn't seen before."

Nick grinned. "You got another one?"

She lowered that side of her dress, thankful she'd worn a bra. She turned and showed him the larger heart on the back of her shoulder.

"Oh my lord." He touched that one, too. "That's nice work. I like the little drops of blood."

Maddie raised her dress and buttoned it up. "Rob has a matching one on his shoulder, with my name, and the kid's names around it."

Nick nodded. "Cool."

"So." Maddie leaned against the desk "Whatever happened to Ty? He was so nice to me."

"He liked you a lot. He moved to New York and bought his own shop there. I still touch base with him now and then. He has an old lady and a couple kids."

Maddie smiled. "Tell him hello for me, if you see him again. And what about Fritz?"

"Still working for me. It's just the two of us now, and a part-time bookkeeper. We do okay. I got me that big TV, anyway." He grinned.

She grinned back. "Good for you." She thought a minute and said, "The pool hall is gone. I drove by there."

"Damn strip mall. Just what we needed, another bank and a place to buy cell phones."

Rob
shook his head. "Corporations are taking over, I tell ya…"

Nick chuckled. "I need to get something from the back real quick. Do you mind?"

"Go ahead." Maddie nodded, and watched him walk back there.

Rob stood up next to her. "If we want to make that visitation, we should probably start back."

Maddie looked at her watch. "You're right. I just need another minute to tell him goodbye."

He pulled her close and kissed the side of her head. "You can give him a little hug if you want. Not too big of one, of course, just a nice friendly little one."

"I love you," she whispered to him.