by Kennedy Ryan
Glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one sees me, I try a few doors, all of which are locked. The knob on the last door turns easily, and the door swings open into a dim room, a lamp in the corner providing soft light.
Perfect. Maybe I can even grab a few winks. I sink gratefully into an overstuffed recliner, pushing the button to elevate my feet.
A soft sigh from a chair in the corner startles me. I squint, visually picking through the shadows and find the last person I expected to see.
“Iris?” I ask disbelievingly.
“Shhhh!” She raises an index finger to her lips.
God, her lips.
I’d forgotten how full they are, how wide and luscious. I’d forgotten that her eyes hold a dozen colors hostage and that her hair is a pitch-dark fall of silk. Maybe I didn’t forget as much as didn’t allow myself to remember—I blocked the memory of how this woman is exactly what I would wish for. My imagination, my memory, did her no justice.
She gestures to a blanket-covered lump at her chest.
“Sorry,” she whispers. “Didn’t mean to shush you. She just fell asleep, and I didn’t want to wake her.”
Her.
For the last few months, I’ve thought of the baby as Caleb’s spawn. Now that I’m in the same room with Iris feeding her baby, I can only think of the baby as . . . hers.
Feeding.
“Oh, shit,” I mutter, lowering the footrest. “I’m sorry. You’re . . .” I gesture to the baby on her chest. “And I’m just sitting here like—”
“It’s okay,” she interrupts, smiling. “I’m decent. She’s finally sleeping, and I could use a few minutes of adult company.” She licks her lips and then bites the corner of her mouth. “Stay.”
Even though she asks, I know I should leave. Not to preserve her modesty. She’s right. The blanket completely covers her chest and the sleeping baby. I should leave because I want to stay too badly. Because after more than a year of not seeing her, I have a million things to ask her and a million things I want to share. We’re different people than we were when we first met. I’ve signed a huge contract. I’m on a box of cereal out there somewhere and have been animated in a video game. My life is completely new. And Iris has a baby now, for God’s sake. There’s a part of me, though, that will always think of her as the gorgeous girl swearing at the television in a sports dive, sipping flat beer and pulling for her Lakers. We’re different, but I wonder if the quick, deep intimacy we shared that night is still there. If it’s still the same.
“So how’ve you been?” she asks.
I sit back, raising the recliner again, and grin. “How much time ya got?”
She glances down at the blanketed bundle. “She’ll be in a milk coma for a little while, so probably plenty of time to hear about all your rookie adventures.”
“It’s been a wild ride,” I say, hastily trying to fix the bad impression I probably gave. “I mean . . . I don’t mean wild like chicks or whatever. Not like that.”
One knowing eyebrow elevates.
“Okay.” I chuckle self-consciously. “Maybe a little like that.”
She rolls her eyes and twists her lips.
“Alright. You got me.” I allow myself a wolfish grin. “A lot like that.”
“It’s to be expected.” She shifts a little, tipping her head back against the cushion of the leather couch. “You’re rich, talented, handsome. Single. I wouldn’t believe you if you told me any different.”
“So you think I’m handsome?” I tease her.
She looks away and to the side, shaking her head and laughing softly under her breath. “Like you don’t know.” She pats the little bottom under the blanket. “I’m sure you had no trouble finding . . . companionship . . . before your fat contract. And I’m sure you have to fight ’em off now.”
My smile freezes on my lips. We can laugh a little here in this barely lit room. I have a few minutes with her in a year, but she’s going home with Caleb. She’ll be in his bed tonight. Even now, she’s feeding his child.
My good humor circles a drain until it’s gone, and all that’s left is my futile resentment.
“I’m certainly not fighting ‘em off,” I say pointedly, linking my fingers over my stomach.
She stiffens for an almost-imperceptible second, before resuming her smile and meeting my eyes directly. “I’d be surprised if you weren’t taking advantage of every perk the NBA has to offer.”
“Yeah, well, when you can’t have what you really want,” I say, locking our eyes together, willing her not to look away, “you settle for whatever’s available.”
She laughs, but it rings false before she glances away and adjusts the blanket around the baby. “A man like you should never have to settle, August.”
“Same goes for a woman like you, Iris.” I plow through my hesitation to ask her the question I hope she would ask me if she saw me compromising my ambitions. “Are you settling?”
She swallows, the muscles moving in her slender throat, and takes a deep breath before looking back to me. “I’m not settling. I’m doing the best I can with the hand I’ve been dealt.”
I don’t know everything that has transpired in the year since I last saw her, but it doesn’t matter. She got pregnant. I know she has to be responsible, but putting all of her eggs in Caleb’s basket is a mistake. It’s one I can’t allow her to make, at least without warning her again. We’ve only met twice, but she feels like my friend. A friend I’d probably enjoy kissing and fucking, but a friend nonetheless.
I get up and walk swiftly over to the couch, squatting and looking up at her. If you didn’t look closely, you’d assume she was as serene as any mother nursing and nurturing. But she’s not any mother. And when I look into the turbulence of her eyes, she’s certainly not serene.
“Iris, don’t lose sight of what you want.” I risk touching her, gripping the hand in her lap. “You got pregnant, but that’s not the end of your dreams. You’re too young and talented and amazing to abandon your ambitions running after Caleb while he pursues his.”
“I’m not running after him,” she says stiffly, snatching her hand away. “You don’t know the choices I had, the hard calls I had to make.”
“I’m sure you did what you had to do because that’s the kind of woman you are.” I recapture her eyes but don’t try to recapture her hand. “But you’re only proving my point. You did exactly what you had to for this baby. Now do what you have to do for yourself.”
She looks at me, her emotions naked and spread across her face, watering her eyes. Her lips part, but whatever she plans to say gets cut off when the little bundle on her chest squirms, shifting, and the blanket falls away.
And holy Shit. I’m looking at Iris’s breast.
The nipple is piqued and the color of fresh plums against the dark gold of her skin. A milky drop clings to the tip. I can’t swallow or breathe, but my mouth automatically opens, my body demanding I suck. I should look away. I’m probably creeping hard, but I can’t help it. My fingers fold into my palms, aching to trace the blue–green network of veins just under her skin.
When I finally look up, Iris is as paralyzed as I am, watching me watching her. Her mouth falls open, her breath coming hard, heaving her breasts, one covered and one exposed to my greedy eyes. The air thickens with all the urges I’ve been suppressing and drowning in meaningless sex with other women. This is the woman I want. Crazy as it may be, this is the one I want. I couldn’t move from this spot if the place were on fire.
“You are so fucking beautiful.” My voice is hoarse and urgent. “We barely know each other. I get it, but I can’t stop thinking about you, Iris.”
My words snap the thread tying us together, and she hastily, belatedly jerks up the bra, fastening a flap and pulling her blouse together.
“August, don’t.” She runs a hand over the back of her neck under the hair spilling past her shoulders.
I saw her nakedness, but I’m the one exposed. I can’t hide how much I w
ant her. I’ve felt more connected to her in the little time we’ve spent together than I have to any of the women I fucked this last year.
“Do you think about me, too?” The question I promised myself I wouldn’t ask forces its way out.
“I can’t think about you.” She squeezes her eyes shut, clamping her teeth tightly on her bottom lip. “I’m with Caleb. We have a daughter, a future.”
“A future?” I snap. “With him? Gimme a break. He’s probably cheating on you already.”
A muscle clenches along the smooth line of her jaw. I’m on the road enough to know the married players get as much ass as the single ones. I’ve known Caleb a long time. That man always wants his cake and to eat it, too. No way he isn’t tapping anything he can pull when he’s away. If Iris were mine, I’d be faithful to her. There’s not a woman alive who could tempt me if I were hers. I want to confess it all to her, but she wouldn’t believe me.
“I have to try to make this work, August.” She rubs the downy hair of her daughter’s head. “There’s a lot at stake.”
“Your future is at stake.”
“August, we’ve met all of twice and—”
“Correction. Today makes three,” I say, adding a smile to show I know how ridiculous it sounds.
The tight lines around her mouth loosen some, too. Humor softens her eyes.
“I stand corrected. Today makes three,” she says, slowly sobering. “But you can’t expect me to walk away from the man I’ve been with for two years. For what? A feeling? An attraction?”
“So you are attracted to me?”
She aims an exasperated look at me, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. I can be . . . attracted to someone without acting on it. That doesn’t mean I’m walking away from my relationship, the father of my daughter who’s taking care of me and my baby.”
“I’d take care of you, if that’s what you wanted.” I force myself to stand, though I’d be content to sit at her feet all night. “But the girl I met in that bar didn’t want to be taken care of. I’d do everything in my power to help you follow your dreams so you could take care of yourself. And then we’d both know you were with me because you wanted to be, not because you had no other choice.”
I pause, letting my words linger in the air, letting her hear the truth behind what I’ve said. “Ask yourself if Caleb would do the same.”
I’m about to press my point a little more, take advantage of these few, rare moments as much as I can, but the baby chooses that moment to open her eyes.
I’m lost all over again.
Her complexion hovers between the lighter tan of her father and the deeper gold of Iris’s skin. Dark curls frame a tiny face with a button of a nose and a rosy bow of a mouth. The daughter captivates me at a glance, just like her mother did, and my heart falls right out of my chest and lands at this baby’s feet.
“She looks just like you,” I whisper, unable to look away from the little dusky-haired angel in Iris’s arms.
Caleb’s eyes stare back at me, though, a blue so dark they’re almost violet. “But she has her father’s eyes,” I say, my teeth gritted and my jaw clenched.
“Yeah, she does.” Iris stares down at the baby. Her expression doesn’t soften or hold that maternal adoration I’d expect.
For the first time, I see past how beautiful Iris looks, and I see something else. Or maybe I notice the absence of what I’ve seen before. A spark. Life. Vitality.
“Are you doing okay?” I ask softly. “I mean, really okay? What’s going on with you?”
Surprise flits across Iris’s face at my question before she blanks her expression. “I’m fine.”
“Not overjoyed? Deliriously happy?” I tweak one of the baby’s curls, grinning when she gurgles with something close to laughter. Caleb may be an asshole, but his daughter is gorgeous. Perfect
“I just . . .” She sighs and twists her lips into a grimace. “I don’t know, August.”
“Hey. You can talk to me.” I smirk and shrug. “After all, this is our third conversation. Surely we’re past keeping secrets by now.”
A husky laugh is her only answer. For a few seconds, I wait in the silence, unsure if she’s going to tell me anything. She presses her lips together, and blinks rapidly, but not before a few tears escape over her cheek.
“I don’t feel like a mother. I feel . . .” She pauses, maybe searching for the right words. Maybe she already has the right words and doesn’t want to say them.
“You talk about that girl you met in the bar,” she continues, brushing impatiently at her tears. “She’s gone. I was offered the job of my dreams, the opportunity I’ve been working toward for years, and I had to turn it down because of this pregnancy.”
“I’m sorry,” I say softly. “I know how badly you wanted to get into sports.”
“I still do.” She sniffs and lifts eyes liquid with disappointment. “But what if I never—”
“You will, Iris,” I cut in.
“I feel like I’m becoming everything I never wanted to be, and I’m not sure how to stop it. I didn’t want this pregnancy.” Her voice pitches low as if, even though her daughter couldn’t possibly understand yet, Iris doesn’t want her to hear. “I didn’t want . . .” She doesn’t say it, but she glances down at the baby snuggled into her chest, and the unspoken words come across loud and clear.
She didn’t want her. The baby. She didn’t want her.
“I’m an awful person,” she says, her words tortured and choked in sobs. “But I’m determined to take care of her. I want it to be enough, for her to be enough, but I resent everything all the time. It’s all I feel. Everything else seems . . . faded. One minute I’m completely numb, and the next I feel too much, and I’m a blubbering mess.”
An ironic smile quirks her lips, even as tears streak down her face. “See what I mean? I’m all over the place.”
“Maybe you should talk to someone.”
“You’re probably right, but Lo’s so busy with her own life, and my mother . . . God, she’s too happy I’ve ‘snagged’ myself a baller. She thinks I’m whining and complaining about nothing. Why would I need a job? Why would I want to work when this is the meal ticket most women would kill for? I can’t talk to her.”
“I was thinking more like talking to your doctor,” I say quietly. “I’m no expert, obviously, but maybe it’s depression or something. You’re not a bad person, and I don’t think you’re a bad mother. Maybe you’re someone who hates she had to put her dreams on hold and whose hormones are out of whack.”
Her eyes widen, and she glances down at her daughter, biting her lip.
“Maybe,” she finally mutters. “No one’s suggested that before. Not that I’ve talked to anyone about it.”
“Might help. What’s her name, by the way?” My voice is practically polite, not giving away a hint of how seeing this beautiful baby affects me, of how her mother affects me.
“Sarai,” Iris replies, a small frown crinkling between her eyebrows. “It means princess.”
“She looks like one.” I quirk my lips when Sarai seems to smile at me. I don’t know if babies actually smile at this stage, but warmth washes over me just the same.
“August.” Iris’s pause is loaded with hesitation and resolve. “I meant what I said. Caleb is taking care of us. He has to until I’m in a position to get back on my feet. I need to try to make it work. You understand that, right? I can’t . . . we can’t . . .”
Her lashes drop, and she shakes her head. She doesn’t need to say anymore. Her gorgeous face is so earnest.
She’s too good for him. I knew that right away. She wouldn’t be the girl I can’t stop thinking about if she were disloyal. If she were a cheat. Still it’s only a matter of time before Caleb shows his true colors.
After I walk out this door, Iris and I will keep living our lives, going about our business as if these few moments didn’t shake my foundations, but one day she’ll walk away from him. She’s too smart and too good not
to.
And when that happens, I’ll be there.
10
Iris
There have been days I’ve wanted to hurt myself. Maybe even hurt my baby. I’m an awful person, but an honest one. All I can do is hope these feelings aren’t who I really am. I hope this isn’t the mother I will be forever, but this is who I am today.
I read the lines I wrote weeks ago. My counselor recommended I write my unfiltered thoughts down in a journal. That advice came with a prescription that had me feeling better about life in general relatively quickly.
All-Star Weekend was a turning point in so many ways. I was feeling low that day in the room designated for nursing mothers. My conversation with August, his suggestion about post-partum depression, opened me to the possibility that maybe there was more to what I was feeling than just my own selfishness. Than just resenting my circumstances. It prompted the conversation with my doctor that has led me out of that dark, desolate place.
I close the journal and lock it in the nightstand on my side of the bed. I’m not that woman anymore. It has only been a few weeks, but Sarai, my princess, has shifted to her rightful place—the center of my world.
“You’re mommy’s princess, aren’t you?” I coo down to her, going through the motions of changing her diaper. I nuzzle the soft pads of her tiny feet, eliciting a little snicker from the gorgeous baby on my bed. Maybe I’m a biased mama, but I think she’s the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen.
But August thought so, too.
When August walked in, I was shocked but also so pleased to see him. So pleased I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind. Those charged moments when the blanket fell from my breast and I gaped at him like a hussy instead of immediately covering myself. I was frozen with shock, and if I’m honest . . . God, I hate admitting this even to myself. The way he looked at me, so hungry and reverent, I just wanted more of it.
