The Wide Receiver's Baby (22 page)

Chapter Twenty Six

Chase

Of all the clothes that Reg could have gotten for her, why did he have to make the one woman that I wanted to hate so badly look sexy?  She wore black jeans and a matching black shirt.  Any other girl would have looked a mess, especially after having their butt kicked so many times in a fight. 

I couldn’t take my eyes off her when she walked in, smiling at me.  It was the first time that I had had direct eye contact with her since I found out about Sydney.

“You ready?” I asked as I held Sydney’s hand tightly. 

Kayla nodded, and Reg broke the ice by saying, “Good, so Sydney, Chase and I are dying for a bite to eat.”  He headed to the door.  I saw something in her eyes when Reg spoke.  It was almost as if she was upset when he said her name.

Maybe it was me being paranoid. 

Her pale skin looked as if she had spent the last few years locked away somewhere.  It wasn’t the tanned complexion that she used to have at Stanford.  She was thin, really thin.  I thought about the pain that she had inflicted on her opponent yesterday and wondered how she’d done it when she was merely skin and bone. 

“Right, let me just get my coat and Sydney’s.  It’s cold out.”  She left before either Reg or I could tell her that we were just going downstairs to the restaurant.  We could have ordered room service, but the idea of being stuck in this room felt claustrophobic.  Reg didn’t hesitate to agree to us to eating downstairs.  He said that he needed to eat the whole menu.

“I’m fucking starving, man.  What is she doing in there?” Reg asked impatiently as we stood at the door.  I went back to her room and knocked on it. 

“Kayla.”  She didn’t answer, so I was a bit forward and just opened it.  For some reason I had lost all my manners when it came to her.  I knew how to be a perfect gentleman when it came to women.

But standing with my daughter at my side, the daughter I hadn’t known existed thanks to Kayla, washed that side of me away.

As I opened the door, I saw her just sitting on the bed with her hands covering her face, crying.  She was silent, but I could tell she was crying by the way her body was jerking up and down.

“Kayla, everyone’s hungry.”

I felt cold for saying it, but I knew if I comforted her she would want sympathy, and right now, I couldn’t give her any.  Not without her telling me the truth.  For Sydney’s sake, I would put on a brave face.  But there was only so much I could take.  Sydney let go of my hand and walked towards Kayla and reached out for her mom.

“Mommy, I am hungry too.”  

Kayla quickly wiped away her tears and apologized to Sydney with a kiss.  Sydney fascinated me once again; she had assumed that her mom was hungry and that was the reason for her tears.

I knew if Reg and I didn’t eat soon there would be a war on our hands.  That would be the thing to settle us all.  Kayla grabbed her coat and, as she walked past me, I smelled the strawberry shampoo that she must have used and she whispered, “Sorry.”

I simply nodded.  I had a feeling that she was apologizing for everything, not just for delaying us all.  I could have comforted her again by reassuring her that it was okay. 

But the truth was, it wasn’t.

She had lied.

Left.

And, worst of all, she’d had my baby behind my back.

It was going to take a lot more than her saying ‘sorry’ for me to forgive her.

As we all stepped outside, Reg was holding the elevator.  He looked as if he was on his last breath. 

“At last!  Sydney, are you as hungry as me?” Reg said as the elevator doors closed. 

She laughed and said, “Yes, I am.”

He nodded.  They both laughed as everyone’s stomach growled like angry bears. 

“We’re all hungry.”  She laughed again. 

Sydney really broke the ice as Reg asked her what she wanted to eat.  She talked about hot dogs, fries, and her favorite joint, McDonald’s.  We definitely were not eating there.  Reg reassured her that the food in the restaurant was just as good.

He knew the menu by heart.  He had brought quite a few girls up to the suite in this hotel when he wanted to be discreet.  Which was often.  Sometimes, he felt like keeping his business to himself, and at times I had joined him for a meal here.

He was right about one thing.  The food here was good and, maybe like Reg, I would be ordering the whole damn menu too.

***

We all ate as if we hadn’t eaten for a month.  Reg, Kayla, and I had two main meals.  Kayla consumed her meal a lot more quickly than Reg and I.  She wasn’t ladylike about the way she ate either, which was something I wasn’t used to with her.  She used to be a really slow eater, claiming it was the best way to enjoy a meal.  That was clearly the old Kayla.  The new one was starving. 

Sydney played with her food and ordered that hot dog that she seemed to have set her heart on.  She thanked Reg for the meal and said, “This is better than hamburgers at McDonald’s.”

We were ready to have a proper conversation.  Reg didn’t hesitate in breaking the ice. 

“Kayla, I hope you don’t mind.  As much as I would like to know what is going on at the moment, I think that you and Chase need to talk.”

His words surprised me because he hadn’t said anything.  That was what I had wanted too, but I didn’t even know where to start.

Why she had run away would probably be a good place to start, followed by why she had my baby and decided that she couldn’t even tell me about her.

Her voice was merely a whisper.  “We do need to talk.”  She nodded in agreement.  I felt relief as she said it.  It was quite early, and we were the only ones in the restaurant.  Most people would come and eat around seven.  It was only six and it had turned out to be great timing on our part.  It was better to talk out here at a private table than in the room.  It was neutral ground.

The color was back in her cheeks after she had a couple of glasses of wine and ate a couple of steaks, and it made her appear completely different to the thin, worn-out woman that Reg had carried out of the boxing stadium.

“Did Willy give you anything for me?” Kayla asked Reg. 

His green eyes lit up as he said, “She’s sitting right next to you.”

That was obviously not the response that she expected.  “Anything else?”

He looked surprised as he replied, “No.”

Then he walked over to Sydney and said, “You ready to have some fun with Reg?”

“Mommy, can I?” she asked as she looked at Kayla.

“Sure.”  She nodded as Reg grabbed her in his arms like a precious jewel and said, “Let’s leave Mommy and…”  He hesitated before he said my name.  “Chase, call me when you’re ready.”

I nodded.

I didn’t thank him.  I thought about it, but he’d disappeared by the time I was ready to open my mouth. 

The dim lighting and the scenic view distracted me for a minute, and then, as she reached out for her glass of wine, I moved next to her and said, “Talk.”

Chapter Twenty Seven

Kayla

I took a deep breath and slowly sipped my wine.  I wished that he hadn’t moved so close to me.  I was feeling a little light-headed.  Not as much as before, but enough to know that I’d had a bit too much food and maybe wine at this moment in time.

I hadn’t touched any alcohol in years, because Hannah was very strict.  She bought all the food that I needed, and she drove with me or had someone pick me up anytime I went on a trip.  She never gave me money.  At first it felt great being taken care of and never having to worry about paying for things.  But, after a few weeks, it became clear that my lack of cash and freedom were to keep me prisoner.  Even when I was eight months pregnant, I still had to go to the gym, watch the other girls fight, and predict who would win at the next tournament. 

“I’m not used to drinking wine.  It’s been a long time,” I explained as I took another gulp, trying to avoid his strong scent.  He must have brought clothes too or maybe Reg had gotten them for him.  He had changed into a white shirt and the jeans from last night.  I used to love that look on him, especially when he hadn’t shaved and had a bit of stubble.  It used to tickle me. 

His hair was a bit longer than I remembered.  Strange, I never thought it would suit him, but he still looked the same, whereas I looked a complete mess.  I wasn’t exactly big to begin with but, with my strict diet and fitness regime, I had worn away.  Eating too much and being able to indulge in food and drink again made me feel whole.  Even if it wasn’t in the best type of circumstances.

I wanted him to hold me.

To tell me that everything would be alright.

That he still loved me and would keep me safe.

Instead, he turned my chair around with one hand just as I was about to grab the glass of wine once again.

“Talk.”

He used his hand to turn my face so I was looking directly at him.  I didn’t want to, not when he was so mad.  His eyes were so bright, they appeared to be almost on fire.  I knew there was no way around it.  I had to tell him the truth.  How he felt about me after was something I’d just have to live with.  I saw the way Sydney looked at him.  The way he looked at her.

They were complete strangers, yet there was love in their eyes.

She had asked me a couple of times about ‘Daddy’.

I had joined a baby group, and she had seen mommies and daddies together and asked one time if Willy was her daddy.  I laughed at the idea of it, but her question was innocent and she knew nothing better at the time.

“Where do I start, Chase?  What can I say?”

That was a cop out.  I was emotionally blackmailing him for all my mistakes.  But they weren’t mistakes; I was protecting him and her.  I never knew it would end up like this.

He shook his head.  “Don’t get me fucking mad.  Speak, woman.  Let’s start with the night you left.  The cameras show you were at the bar.  Then, the next thing at the ATM, then poof, gone up in smoke.”  His voice was stern and I knew there was no way of getting around it.

“I saw my dad in the bar and—”

“But how is that possible when your dad is dead?  You said he died from lung cancer.”  He put his hand in his hair, completely baffled by my statement.

It was a lie, one Mom said would stop people ever questioning about my dad.  “He died from cancer.  No one ever wants to talk about cancer, so that is the last you will ever hear on the subject.  No one likes talking about the past.”

She was right.  Even in school, whenever I said those words, the conversation would always stop there.  No one would ever mention it again. 

“It was a lie.  Mom said that if we told people cancer, they would never ask.” 

I turned to take the wine and sipped it some more.  He did the same thing and poured the rest of the bottle in both glasses.  He moved my chair closer to his, but that made me want to do anything but talk.

“I saw him in the bar and I panicked.  So, I grabbed what money I could and left.  Living on the streets, I found out I was pregnant—”

He sighed.  “You need to look at me when you speak, and you need to tell me why both you and Mary go around saying your dad died from cancer.”

I wanted to get up and walk away, but I couldn’t without Sydney and, if I did, I wouldn’t have any money - or Chase.

I didn’t know what to do.

My eyes darted around the restaurant but, before I could even contemplate my next move, Chase puffed in my face like a dragon.  “Don’t you even think of walking out on me again.  If you loved me, which I think you did, you won’t.”

He had me there.

“I did love you.  I still do.”

I was trying to reach out to him, to tell him that I still had feelings for him and that none of what had happened in the past, or even today, was me trying to hurt him.  Make him see that I was the same person that he fell in love with, but I had made some bad decisions, which had felt right at the time.

But having to face him, having to tell him the reasons why, was the one thing that I was trying to avoid all along, and there I was, telling him the truth, and I was scared.  I was fucking petrified. 

“Chase, I’m so damn scared that when I tell you the truth, when you know why I left, you’ll hate me.”  I pleaded with my mind, body, and soul for him to have an open mind.

Instead he just spat back, “Too late for that.  I hate you already.”

I dropped my head, knowing that there was no way to get through to him.  If he called the authorities, I was pretty much dead.  Dad was alive and looking for me.  He would see to it that I was dead one way or another.  He couldn’t have been looking for me to congratulate me on getting into college.

There could only be one reason he wanted me, and that was to make sure I was dead.

I boldly faced Chase.  “Mom and I tried to kill my dad, and that night, the night I ran away, it was because he fucking found me.”

The words were ringing in his ears.  The look of contempt was removed, replaced by a look of concern.

“You’re a murderer.  Why would you want to kill him?  What could he have done that was so bad?  That made you want to kill your own father?”

I had expected him to walk out.  To tell me that he never wanted to see me again and to leave Sydney behind.  Now, he was doing the unexpected, and I didn’t know how to react.

“You saw me in the fight, right?”

He nodded, speechless, though he tried to open his mouth and speak.

It was a silly question, but one that I needed to ask to make my point.

“That was my mom and I with my dad for years.  He used to hit me like that.  Not with a hand, but with a fist.  Or a kick.  Or whatever he happened to have in his hand at the time.”

“So you fucking leave.  You don’t fucking try and kill him.”  He stood up and bent down every time he spoke., trying to make sense of it all.

I had disgusted him once again, because this time he went back to doing what he had before.  He stopped looking at me.

“You and I, upstairs now.”  He pointed in my direction and spoke to me as if I was a naughty schoolgirl who needed to be punished.  What he didn’t know was that our reason would be clear once I told him the whole truth.

As I stood up and swiftly sat down again, I spat, “Not if your dad is a cop!”

Now, he was the one in shock.  The one who was left speechless yet again.  He waved to the waiter.  I took the key for the door off the table, and I felt sick, uncertain whether to leave or wait for him.   It was one thing to live a nightmare of a life; it was another to tell the one you love the truth about your past.