Gilly had something to be proud of. My success so far hadn’t come from anything I’d earned. I’d been given everything all my life, and this was something I really wanted to do.
“Gilly, I’m shocked right now that you’re not happy for me. This is something good. I want a baby. Why is that so bad? Why can’t I just do that? It’s a brilliant plan.”
“It’s a dumb idea, Abby. You haven’t thought this out at all. It’s something that could have serious repercussions.”
“It won’t. I’ll have the baby and take care of it myself. The father won’t even have to do anything.”
“Do you hear yourself? You’d be better off going to a sperm bank than doing what you’re doing.” His frown deepened.
“No, I want it done the normal way. I want it that way because it will be more real to me. No matter what happens.” That was the one part I wanted to be real.
“With some random guy, Abby? You have to be so careful these days. There are all sorts of nutcases hanging around. You can’t just get with some random guy for this plan you think is so brilliant.”
I frowned. “It’s not really that random. I’ve made a list of potential guys I narrowed down on Tinder. Guys who want families. They even said so. Nice guys too.” God, maybe I shouldn’t have told him that part because the look on his face now was even more enraged.
“Tinder?” His voice actually rose by a whole octave and he reminded me of my father when he was mad. “Fucking hell, Abby. Everyone on there is there for sex. You can’t just pick someone and do this. It’s crazy. You’re crazy for thinking this will work.”
I absolutely hated it when he called me that. As if we didn’t get up to all manner of stuff together. Sure, I’d admit that I had the tendency to be a little more on the eccentric side, but I wasn’t crazy, and I wasn’t going to sit here with him calling me that and telling me how dumb my idea was.
I stood up, set my hands on my hips, and glowered at him.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Away. I’ve decided I’m not hungry.”
“Woman, you just got here.” His nostrils flared.
“I don’t care.”
“Abby, you can’t expect me to be on board with a fucked-up idea like that. What kind of friend would I be to just agree with you? What did everyone else say? I’ll bet they thought this was a pile of shit too.”
“Everyone? I’ve only told you because you were the most important. I foolishly thought you’d be happy for me. It’s a baby, Gilly. If I’d known you were going to act like an ass, I would have kept it to myself.”
“I’m the ass?” He widened his eyes again, giving me that incredulous stare that told me he really did think I was crazy.
“Yes, you’re the fucking asshole, and as of now I’m not talking to you.”
“Oh my God.” He sighed then started saying something else about shit, but I didn’t stay to hear the rest of whatever he had to say. I’d had enough.
It seemed some things were best kept to yourself. I hated arguing, and especially arguing with him. Sometimes I felt I relied on him too much because the damn universe chose him to be my lifeline, and when we argued, everything else felt like shit.
Well, not today. Everything else could go to hell except my plans.
I didn’t care what he thought.
I was still going to do it. This was my life. I wanted a baby, and no one was going to stop me.
My plan would kickstart tonight on my date with Jeff.
Chapter 2
Gilly
* * *
Jesus Christ…
She was going to be the fucking death of me.
I knew it now. I knew it. Abby was going to be the death of me.
All I could do was stare after her as she walked away. These days, that silver hair of hers always seemed to look more striking when she was mad at me, which seemed to be happening more often than not recently.
When her hair had been brown, I never noticed, then she’d had it dyed that color just before Christmas when she started to go all weird on me. While I thought the color looked fantastic on her, I was definitely not impressed with her, her attitude and this bout of craziness that seemed to be ongoing and everchanging on a weekly basis.
I was pretty certain this new crazy idea had given me another gray hair. Every week I found a new one, and it was because of her and her crazy ass.
I swear to God Abby was the weirdest girl I’d ever met in my life, and it seemed to me that I was destined to find my end because of her.
I stood up and left a twenty-dollar tip on the table for the glass of tap water I’d had and left, frustrated.
Anyone else who’d just won the Super Bowl would have been walking on a cloud. Not me. Right before the game, I’d been on edge.
I’d been on edge since the moment Abby made this change in her life and started searching for Mr. Right. That was a little over six months now.
Suddenly, something had unlocked in me when I realized what she was doing. Something unlocked and reminded me that once upon a time, there were a few instances when I thought we could be more than friends.
The last six months of her going on her weekly dates had me on edge. When she was just messing around for fun, it didn’t bother me. Then she started talking about finding this perfect guy who would give her everything she wanted. Now, there was this shit today.
A baby.
Hearing that was enough for me to lose my head, and I wished I could say it was just Abby who had gotten to me.
Right now, it felt like every single thing.
The training schedule, the intense hard-as-fuck football season, the Super Bowl, and thank you, universe, there was also that text on New Year’s Day from my ex.
My ex-girlfriend, Giselle, who’d crushed me when she left my ass three years ago. She was someone I never thought I’d hear from again because it was clear that when we broke up, she was done with me.
I never texted her back on New Year’s Day. In fact, I brushed it under the rug as a possibly drunken mistake because she hadn’t kept in touch over the years, so why would she have suddenly messaged me?
Then I got another text this morning.
It was Giselle congratulating me and letting me know she was back. When we were dating, she was a Victoria’s Secret model. She broke up with me when she got signed to Chanel and got this opportunity to tour the world.
I was all in for a long-distance relationship, but she wanted out. I couldn’t believe that she wanted out of something I thought was good. A near two year relationship I thought was serious. But, I was a blind idiot who never actually saw her for what she truly was. Manipulative, vindictive, and the kind of woman who would chew you up and spit you out. People tried to tell me but I never listened. I just allowed myself to get lured into her, and I fell hard and fast. Never saw that I was just in a trap and she’d ditch me when the next big opportunity came around.
I didn’t realize that she had her eyes set on some other guy. Some pompous French fashion photographer she got with days after we broke up. At the time he had deeper pockets than me.
It was bad enough that I had to see her face all over the place on billboards and fashion magazines because she got really famous for a little while, but then there were pictures of her with that guy and others.
Now she was fucking back and wanted to see me.
I never even got to talk to Abby about her because of the bomb Abby dropped on me.
A baby.
Of all the ideas she could have ever come up with, why would she want a baby?
Jesus, Lord… how was I going to talk her out of this one?
Okay, I understood the why of it. It was because of Porsha and Bella. They were both pregnant. Porsha got married. Bella had plans for marriage after her baby was born, and the whole change it brought with it seemed to have snapped Abby into overdrive and on this spiral of erratic behavior that was getting to me.
I got to the stadium an hour later
and grabbed a protein bar from the stash in the locker room. Coach Simpson always kept some out back just in case we needed something to eat before training.
While the football season was finished and most football players didn’t have to worry about training for another couple of months, The Centaurs were different.
We trained just as hard as The Gladiators did. It was a victory to beat them, but even I knew that if the old-school players were still playing, we wouldn’t have had a fucking chance in hell.
Joshua Mancini retired last season, and so did Gage Montgomery. The linebacker and the quarterback who made miracles. The whole team worked like one hive mind, but those guys had their own mind that was separate from the team. I’d never seen anything like it, and while I considered myself a great quarterback, I was nothing in comparison to them. Who I liked to compare myself to was Tristan Bouchard, our talent scout. He’d played for The Rams as quarterback and was, at one point, my idol.
He also happened to have a girl for a best friend. He married her and they had kids now. Before that, they reminded me of how I was with Abby. She came to every game and all the major training sessions. Always there and never far.
I must have followed his career for the last twenty years. Nothing, not even winning the Super Bowl, could compare to five years ago when he picked me for the team at drafts.
It was the day of recognition for the chance it gave me. I knew I was good, and he gave me a chance to show just how good I could be.
Eric threw a ball at me as I turned the corner. He widened his eyes and laughed because he didn’t expect me to catch it. Eric Declan was the first linebacker for the team. I also considered him a friend.
“How come you’re so early, man?” He grinned. He looked like he’d already worked out because sweat dripped from the spikes of his black hair.
“Lunch ended quicker than I thought.” In the sense that it never happened. I wished I’d eaten before leaving the house this morning. Now I’d have to train on empty.
“Did she piss you off again?” Eric chuckled.
“Yes, how did you guess?” I rolled my eyes sarcastically.
“What happened now?”
“You don’t want to know.” I was hoping that by tomorrow, Abby would have seen sense and abandon the baby idea. I’d call her tomorrow and check. Normally, after an argument that ended with her calling me a fucking asshole, I would have checked on her tonight. But… maybe all that foolishness had to stop. This baby idea was very serious, and I wanted to give her time to think about it.
“Is it that bad?” Eric quirked a brow.
I sighed and shrugged out of my shirt. When he looked at me shirtless, he started laughing. It was because of my new tattoo.
The day we won the Super Bowl, we got wasted. Actually, it was more than that, literal Hangover style wasted, what my grandfather would have called plastered. He was English and a real cockney English guy who loved his drink. Very similar to Abby’s grandfather, who was Irish, but her granddad was worse on a different level, and who I thought she got her crazy from.
I got wasted on their level of drinking and got Abby’s name tattooed right across my damn heart.
Abby Cartwright.
Could I remember getting it? No.
When the guys saw it the next day, they all ripped into me because they swore there was more than friendship between Abby and me, but I’d managed to style it out because Tristan was famous for having his player number on his chest along with the initial of his best friend’s name. It was a Z for Zoe. At least he wasn’t as dumb as me and had her whole name inked on himself.
I could paint that however I wanted, but I doubted that it would go down well with the next woman I was with and asked me who Abby Cartwright was. Abby didn’t even know about it herself.
“Bro… I wish I could advise you, but I first of all wouldn’t know what to say, and I think I would still stick to my guns in my analysis of you two.”
I shook my head at him and held up my hand. “No, Eric, please do not go down that road.”
“Maybe you should go down that road. You two are very unique. Like an old married couple. A very old married couple. Grandparents old. You have her name tattooed on your chest, and you can’t remember getting it there. Maybe that part of you that you keep holding back no longer wants to resist. You want her bad man.” He chuckled. “It’s all coming out now, behold the tattoo.”
“Like fuck it is. I’m barely alive now.” I pulled on my jersey. “That woman would send me to an earlier grave than scheduled, or to the asylum.”
“Whatever, man.” He stood up and tossed me a bottle of water. Then he gave me a lopsided grin. “Her sister’s hot.”
I gave him a sharp stare. “Which one?”
“All of them.” He laughed. “But specifically Mia. She doesn’t venture to these parts much, does she?”
She didn’t. As far as I was concerned, Mia hated any kind of sport. He was referring to last week when Mia came to pick Abby up.
“She hates football, and athletes aren’t her type,” I told him.
“I’ll beg to differ.” He smirked, giving me a knowing look. “She seemed to like me just fine.”
I raised my brows and gazed at him. “Really?”
“Uh huh, and let’s just say that woman is just as fiery in bed as she is outside it. A real wild thing.”
I didn’t know why I was even surprised. Mia was just as bad as Abby when it came to guys, although I figured Abby was the worst at one point. It was before she made this change.
She’d always been like that though. Always. And more like a man than a woman. Boy crazy, then man crazy. I’d watched that sweet girl who used to invite me to her Barbie doll tea parties grow up into the ‘It girl’ who every guy wanted to get with, and she didn’t stop them. She had her first kiss before me and even had sex before me. Miss Abby lost her V-card at sixteen to a college guy in his sophomore year.
Come to think of it, that was the first thing she’d ever told me that she thought was a good idea.
It was the first time she’d shocked me, but unlike today when I yelled at her and called her crazy, I found that guy and beat the shit out of him. I was always tall and big for my age, so at sixteen years old when I found that motherfucker who was then either twenty or twenty-one, he was no match for me.
Hearing Eric had been with Mia shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it sort of did because Eric was a dog when it came to women. Everyone knew that and I’d hoped Mia had better sense than to fall for his shit.
I’d bet he had her just for one night and left. That was his style.
“Wouldn’t mind another round with her, although she does seem to be the clingy type.”
“Clingy?” I asked. I might have been protective of Abby because she was my friend, but I was the same with her sisters.
He glanced and me and must have caught the glare in my eye that should have been a warning to watch himself.
“I mean, just the type to have expectations. Like she expected me to be there in the morning, or stay after. You know what I mean.” He chuckled.
I actually growled at him and was about to ask him to elaborate because if he did what I thought he was saying, that wasn’t okay, and it wasn’t okay to tell me. My mouth opened to say the words, but something caught my eye.
No. Not something… Someone. Someone who made me think the universe was definitely out to get me.
Giselle Montblanc walked toward us as we turned to go out to the field. She was waiting by the bleachers and smiled when she saw us coming.
Eric leaned in close. “Damn, Gilly, you get all the fine women. What the fuck’s your secret?”.
I just looked at him, not answering.
“Catch you later, man.” He sighed and walked away at the same time she approached.
Giselle looked like she was walking on the runway and ready for it too. That long white blonde hair flowed out around her like a cape. Liquid and fluid, flowing with the wind. He
r bright green eyes sparkled as she looked me over and smiled wider at me, like we were old friends.
I wished I could have looked happier to see her, but I couldn’t even fake a smile.
“Hey there handsome,” she beamed.
“Hi.” I gave her a nod.
“Is that how you greet me after a forever of not seeing each other? Gilman Hawkins, I know you can do better than that.” She looked me over with expectancy, but I gave her a shrug.
It always felt odd when people full-named me.
It was Abby who christened me Gilly at three years old because she couldn’t say Gilman. Gilly was easier for her, so she’d called me that, then everyone else did too. The name stuck.
“Not sure what you want me to say or be like. I said hi.” Considering the way we broke up, I was surprised she thought I’d still be okay to talk to her.
In typical Giselle style, she laughed. “Oh, Gilly, are you still hung up on our breakup?”
“No. I’m not.” That was the truth. The truth, too, was also that I used to love her and now I didn’t. Took a while, but I got there. Maybe it was because she was the first woman I felt I could see myself with in the future and she just played along, which I now knew was because of who I was. The new quarterback for the Centaurs.
I was an only child who came from a family who’d worked their way up in life. I wasn’t rich like Abby. My parents were investment bankers. My mother and her mother met in college and became life friends. In terms of wealth, though, my family was just above average compared to the usual Orange County wealth.
Me though… I fucking hit the jackpot when I landed this gig with The Centaurs. Five years now, and I’d attracted all sorts of women. This one had been the worst. I’d been naïve at the time and never saw she was after me because of status.
Pregnancy Scandal: Bad Boy Bachelors of Orange County BK 2 Page 2
