His pizzas arrived, and after he paid the bill, he stood up. “I don’t know, man. Everybody loves a good comeback story.”
I tried to smile. “Thanks.”
Clapping a hand on my shoulder, he grabbed his pizza boxes off the bar. “Take care. Let’s do this again—I’ll get out of movie night next time.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I waved him off, fighting a small pang of envy, which surprised me. I’d never wanted a family at all, let alone a family tradition taking up my Friday night. But watching him walk out of the bar with dinner for his wife and kids while I sat there by myself was pretty fucking depressing.
I paid my bill but I was still sitting there finishing my beer when I heard a loud voice behind me.
“And then that asshole head case Shaw had the nerve to tell me to sit down.”
My jaw clenched. My gut tightened. Bad things were about to go down—I could feel it in my bones.
“I don’t even know why they let that guy near the team. He just fucked up their winning streak with his goddamn yips. There was a college scout there too. He probably blew my kid’s chances at being noticed.”
I got off the stool, went over to Brock’s table, and stood right behind him. “The only thing blowing your kid’s chances of being scouted is you. I guarantee he was noticed—for the wrong fucking reason. Your big mouth.”
The guy got out of his chair and stood chest to chest with me. I had at least five inches on him, and I was in way better shape, but that didn’t mean this idiot wouldn’t throw a punch. Actually, I was hoping he would.
“You need to mind your own business, Shaw.”
“I heard my name. My name is my business.”
He poked my chest. “You jinxed my kid, you fucking loser! You jinxed the whole team! And you need to get the fuck out of here before I show you with my fist how I feel about that!”
I smirked. “Go ahead and show me, if you think you can.”
The guy immediately took a swing at my face, but I blocked it easily and delivered a quick, hard jab to his solar plexus that knocked the wind out of him and sent him sprawling back across the table. It was clear he was not going to get up and fight back.
At that point, the manager of the place came rushing over, but I was already on my way out. “Sorry,” I said to him as I took off for the door.
Adrenaline pumping, I stormed down the street to where I’d parked, got in my car, and slammed the door shut.
Motherfucker. I’d just punched a parent.
He’d deserved it, but still. David was going to kill me. Virgil was going to be disappointed. And given the media attention to my “dark side,” the school board was probably going to ban me from all future events.
Angrily, I banged the heel of my sore hand on the steering wheel and started the engine.
Why couldn’t I get anything right?
I drove over to April’s, stopping on the way to pick up a bottle of whiskey. My anger and self-loathing were at an all-time high, and I needed something to numb it. Using the key she’d given me this morning, I let myself into her condo and went straight to the kitchen, pulling a glass from the cupboard and pouring myself a shot of Templeton Rye.
After tossing it back, I poured another, and I was just lifting it to my mouth when I noticed a photograph on the floor by the kitchen table. Carrying the glass with me, I went over and picked it up.
Right away I recognized Chip Carswell and wondered why the hell April would have a photograph of him. I turned the picture over. On the back was written Charles Andrew, age 17.
Huh, his real name was Charles. I hadn’t realized that. I tossed back the second shot and looked at the front again.
Wait a fucking minute.
I froze and stared at the kid in the photograph.
At his dark eyes. And his long arms and legs. And his big hands. And his cocky grin, complete with dimple.
It was a boy. They named him Charles, after his father and grandfather.
The floor quaked beneath my feet. Sirens went off in my head. My vision clouded over.
My empty glass clattered to the floor. I grabbed the back of a kitchen chair to keep my body from going down next.
I couldn’t believe it. It was too crazy, too out there. Real life couldn’t be this fucked up, could it?
But the proof was right there in front of me.
Chip Carswell was my son.
Twenty-One
April
All day long, I’d been in a state of panic.
What should I do? Tell Tyler right away? Wait until I saw him? Say nothing at all?
No. I had to tell him. But how was he going to take it? Would the realization throw him too far off balance? Would he panic and retreat? Or was I overreacting? Maybe once he got over the shock, he’d see the blessing in knowing his son. After all, he’d matured a lot since the day he’d asked me not to put his name on the birth certificate. He wasn’t that freaked-out kid anymore. Maybe he’d see it as a sign from the universe that it was time to unlock that box and own that part of his identity.
Was it too much to hope for?
As Coco and I set up for that evening’s huge wedding reception, I fretted endlessly. Picked up my phone a thousand times and set it down again without calling or messaging him. Imagined every possible response on his part, from shock and denial to pride and acceptance.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” Coco would ask every now and again, looking at me suspiciously.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
But I wasn’t. The knowledge was burning a hole in my brain, and it was growing bigger with every passing hour. The reception began, but I was distracted and withdrawn all night. People would come to me with easy questions or requests, and I’d stare at them blankly like they’d spoken a foreign language. Coco had to pick up a lot of the slack.
Eventually, she just sent me home.
“Look, I can handle this,” she assured me. “You’re not yourself tonight. Go home and get some rest.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes. Go.”
“Thanks. I owe you one.” But as I packed up to go, part of me dreaded the conversation ahead. As I drove home, the knots in my stomach pulled tighter. As I walked up to my own front door, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so nervous. Actually, maybe I could—it felt a lot like going over to Tyler’s house the night I told him I was pregnant.
That night had ended with me crying alone in my bed.
Please, God, let this one be different.
I let myself in, and the first thing I noticed was the silence. “Tyler?” I called, heading for the kitchen.
That’s when I saw him sitting alone at the table, staring morosely at the surface.
No, not at the surface—at the photograph of Chip.
My stomach dropped, and I sucked in my breath, grabbing the wall for support. I’d thought the picture was in my bag with the letter. It must have slipped out when I’d tucked the envelope in my bag. I closed my eyes and swallowed.
“How long have you known?” he asked angrily.
I looked at him and took a breath. “Just today.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to.” I moved closer and set my bag on the table. “But I didn’t want to do it over the phone, and I had to go to work.”
“I feel like I’ve been hit head-on by a fucking freight train.” He shook his head. “You realize this is the lefty? The one I’ve been working with?”
“Oh, God.” My stomach turned over again. “No, I didn’t realize that. You never mentioned him by name, Tyler.”
“Well, it’s him.”
I took the letter from my purse, telling myself to be patient. Of course he was going to be upset. “I opened this right before I left for work,” I said, sliding the handwritten pages across the table. “The photo was inside.”
He started to read, but then pushed them aside and stood up. “No,” he snapped. “I don’t want to know
this. I don’t want to know any of it. I don’t want to know him, and I sure as hell don’t want him to know me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said helplessly, my throat growing tight. “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way, but Tyler—I didn’t know! I had no idea he lived so close, or attended Central, or played baseball!”
“I’m not saying it’s your fault.”
“What are you saying?”
Agitated, he began to pace, one hand on the back of his neck. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I just know I don’t want to be Chip’s father. He doesn’t need me fucking up his life.”
“Tyler, what are you talking about? You don’t have to be his father!”
“Are you planning to keep it a secret, who you are to him?”
“No. That’s kind of the point—I don’t want to keep it buried anymore. But your name never has to come up.”
He stopped moving and turned to face me, his expression incredulous. “And you think people won’t figure it out? You think the media won’t have a fucking field day with this? You think they’ll respect our privacy?”
“How would anyone find out? The only people who know you’re the biological father are my family, and I trust them.”
“April, use your head! This is a small town. You’re already the subject of speculation because of me. As soon as people realize you’re his birth mother, they’ll immediately start doing the math and guessing at who the father was. The timeline works. They know we were friends.” He pointed at the picture of Chip. “The kid looks exactly fucking like me. He’s a lefty pitcher. It’s not rocket science. It’s third grade shit.”
“What do you want me to do?” I cried, tears starting to fall. “I’ve worked so hard to get to this point, where I don’t feel ashamed of this. Knowing him is important to me, I don’t want to go backward!”
“I’m not saying you have to go backward,” he said defensively. “I’m saying that I can’t stay here. It’s for his own good—and for yours. I’ve already booked a flight out.”
“What? No! Tyler, don’t go.” Fighting tears, I went to him and placed my hands on his chest. “Let’s talk about this. I know you’re upset—I am too. But we can figure it out together.”
“There’s nothing to figure out. I’m leaving.”
“But . . . but what about your coaching job?”
His expression was grim. “I already blew it.”
“How?”
“I got into a fight with the asshole dad. I’m sure I’m already fired.”
“Can they do that? Just because of an argument?”
“It was more than an argument, April. I punched the guy. In a public place. Yet another embarrassment. I don’t even know why you’d want me to stay.”
I felt like I was in quicksand. “Don’t run away from this. We’ll get through it, Tyler. I don’t care what people say. Let them talk.”
“You think that now, but I promise you, it wears you down until you hate getting up in the morning.” He exhaled through his nose, jaw clenched tight. “And eventually you’ll hate me for it.”
“No, I won’t! Can’t we at least—”
“I’m sorry, April. This is all my fault.” With that, he shouldered by me and headed for the door.
I followed him on trembling legs. “So that’s it? You’re just going to leave?”
“I’ve got no choice.”
“But . . . what about us? What about all those things you imagined sharing with me? What about that life you envisioned?” Catching up with him, I grabbed his arm and yanked him around. “Don’t you feel something for me?”
He swallowed, his expression tortured. “You know I do,” he whispered. “I’ve never felt for anyone the things I feel for you.”
I shook his arm. “Then look at me, Tyler. Look me in the eye and admit you do have a choice, and you’re choosing to run away out of fear of what some stupid jerks will say. You’re choosing them over me.”
He shook his head, his eyes full of pain and longing. “I’m choosing to leave in order to spare you and Chip a lot of pain. I’m not who you think I am.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. “You know what? Maybe you’re right. Maybe I have been seeing you all wrong. Because the man I see isn’t a coward. He’s not afraid to face whatever life throws at him. He’s braver and stronger and better than this.”
He struggled for words, his neck muscles taut. “I ruin everything, April. I don’t live up to expectations. I’m doing this to protect you.”
“Bullshit.” I let go of his arm. “You’re doing this to protect you—because you don’t think you deserve to be loved. You’re leaving because you don’t want me or Chip or anyone else to see the real, flawed, imperfect version of you. You think all you had to offer anyone was a million-dollar arm, and since that’s gone, you’ve got nothing to give. But you’re wrong.”
He was silent, his hands flexing.
“And you know what else? Never, not once in eighteen years, did I feel you had betrayed or abandoned me when I was pregnant. You had to go after the life you wanted, and I understood. I wasn’t part of it.” I lifted my chin. “This time is different.”
I saw his shoulders tense up, his jaw tic. For a moment, I thought he was going to take me in his arms, tell me I was right, kiss me and hold me and say he wasn’t leaving. Say he would stay and face his fears. Say he would forgive himself and stop caring about what other people would say, because he was falling for me, and this time was different—this time he wanted me in his life. This time he would stay.
But he didn’t. He turned away from me, opened the door, and stormed out, yanking it shut behind him.
Twenty-Two
Tyler
I left April’s with her words lodged in my chest like arrows.
How could she think I didn’t care for her or want her in my life? She was the best thing to happen to me in years. She’d made me laugh and smile and feel alive again. She’d given me hope.
But dammit—she didn’t understand! She had no idea what it was like to fail, to disappoint people who believed in you, to be forced day after day to confront the fact that this wasn’t the life I was promised.
And wouldn’t that be exactly what she said to me when she discovered the truth about me? That I wasn’t just flawed, I was defective? I wasn’t just imperfect, I was broken?
I drove straight from April’s to the airport, since I’d already gone to the hotel and packed up my bags after discovering the photo on her kitchen floor. My gut instinct had been to get the fuck out of this town fast, but once I’d booked a flight and checked out of my hotel, I realized I couldn’t do it. I owed her a goodbye, at least. Even though I’d known it would be gut-wrenching to tell her I was leaving, I wanted to see her one last time.
Maybe someday she wouldn’t hate me for it.
What happened wasn’t your fault, Virgil had said yesterday in the dugout—not that I believed him. But if it wasn’t, did that mean there was some other force working against me? Was it fate? The universe? God? Whatever it was, it was powerful enough that it had taken me down at the top of my game. It had beaten the unbeatable. Sunk the unsinkable. And it continued to work against me even now—the sleepless nights. The tireless media. The assholes in every corner bar and barber shop. I’d never be able to escape it. Why would she want to take that on?
And Chip. Jesus Christ. That poor kid had been through enough. There was no way I could handle him knowing who I was, and there was no way for me to act like everything was normal. I couldn’t face him. I didn’t want to. Staying out of his life had been the right decision the first time around, hadn’t it? That’s why leaving now was the right choice too.
But goddamn, it hurt like hell thinking I’d never see April smile at me again. Or hear her laugh. Or kiss her lips or smell her skin or put my hands in her hair. And I’d never forget the way she looked at me—like I’d ripped her heart out and crushed it—before I walked out the door.
I knew how she felt.
My heart was crushed too.
Twenty-Three
April
How had I not seen this coming?
Devastated, I stood crying at the front door, waiting for my tears to run dry, but they refused. Eventually I turned off all the lights, locked the door, and dragged myself upstairs.
If you’ve never cried after a breakup while brushing your teeth, let me tell you—it’s horrible. You’re watching yourself in the mirror, blubbering with a mouth full of foamy toothpaste, thinking that this is the worst you’ve ever looked and it’s no wonder he doesn’t want you.
I put on my pajamas and curled up in my bed, going over the last ten days again and again in my head. What had I missed? Where had I gone wrong?
At first, I was convinced it had come out of nowhere, but the more I sifted through the events of the previous week—or at least the last twenty-four hours—the more I could see that it hadn’t.
The restaurant debacle. The nightmare. The news story. Losing his coaching offer. Discovering Chip—his lefty—was his son.
Admittedly, it was a lot.
But he didn’t have to run away! And he wouldn’t have, not if he felt for me what I felt for him.
That was the sad truth of it. He hadn’t felt what I felt. He hadn’t imagined a future for us, not really. He’d just been playing with an idea. Playing with my heart. He’d told me right from the start he wasn’t interested in a serious relationship, hadn’t he? Nothing that would lead to love, marriage, a family.
And I’d been so blinded by the idea of him wanting me, by the seductive notion that I was enough to change his mind, to break through his walls, to show him his best was yet to come . . . well, it wasn’t the first time I’d been irresponsible with Tyler Shaw.
Unforgettable: A Small Town Second Chance Sports Romance Page 21
