Trusting You

by Ketley Allison

  She stops at my yell, turning with a perfectly arched brow. “Wimp.”

  Then keeps going.

  “No…wait! Fuck.” I hop on one foot but shake the excess pain off, still scrambling, following this mythical creature out into the city streets.

  She’s at the light half a block away.

  “Jesus, you’re fast,” I say to no one, then call over the people dodging me as they curiously look at the man in a towel. “Who the hell are you?”

  She deigns a look my way, stuck while she waits for the light to change. “You don’t remember me?”

  Second head-cock of the day where I’m not trying to get laid, and it’s not even eight. There’s something familiar about her, I just can’t put my finger on it. And, if I’m honest, there’s been so many girls in my past…“There’s no way I’ve slept with you. I’d remember you for sure.”

  The way she surveys me, it’s like…oh man, it’s like scorn. For once, I’m caught unawares.

  “We’ve never slept together,” she says, but when the traffic stops, and she can cross, she comes closer instead.

  Yes, come to me, sexy lady.

  “But you’ve slept with my best friend.”

  My dick shrivels. No.

  “Paige Tobias. The name mean anything to you?” she continues.

  “Not even a little,” I say blithely, and that sets a sexy firelight in her eyes. “Unless it’s yours.”

  The girl gives a nod as if affirming something. “You don’t deserve this. I sure as hell don’t deserve this.”

  I’m honestly confused. “Deserve what? Need I remind you, you came into my home, disrupted my private time, only to yell at my dick. Yeah, I saw you looking.” My smile is like a sideswipe; knocks girls flat.

  Not this one.

  Her cheeks stain pink with irritation. She visibly shakes with it. Her eyes glitter—literally sheen over—with tears.

  Part of me is impressed with her passion. Not many people would step up to the plate for their friends like this. I kind of wish my guys would take up arms, but they’re more likely to search for a six-pack in my apartment than defend my honor—if I possess any, that is.

  Then realization sets in, and I feel bad for a girl wanting so desperately to defend her friend, some chick I can’t remember for the life of me but is worth enough to send this girl over here in a rage. “Your best friend. If I hurt her, I’m sorry. Really. It’s never my intention. I always make sure the women I take home understand I’m not the boyfriend type—”

  “You didn’t hurt her, asshole. You had a daughter with her.”

  The girl covers her mouth abruptly like she didn’t mean to say what she just said.

  Candy-Tara picks that time to come out of the apartment building, hearing this girl’s words. Before I can blink the fact she’s beside me into existence, Candy-Tara slaps me across the face. So hard the angry girl in front of me gasps like she hasn’t expected this moment but kinda enjoys it.

  “You have a kid?” Candy-Tara cries.

  But the sharp crack against my cheek is needed. My brain has put on the brakes, my jaw’s unhinged, my towel might as well come off again because, What the fuck did this girl just say to me?

  The girl sighs, energy seeming to expel out of her in one wave, and says, “My name is Carter Jameson. And you have a ten-month-old daughter.”

  Oh, Jesus.

  Where’s my bacon.

  3

  Carter

  It took me days, weeks, to muster up the courage to get on a plane and confront Paige’s baby daddy, Lachlan Hayes.

  I thought of ignoring it. It was so tempting to dismiss this dude and let the courts handle him. Child Services could inform Lachlan of his DNA match in the form of a baby. This guy means nothing to me—not one iota after I finished my research on him before booking my flight.

  Especially after looking him up on the internet.

  “Ugh,” I mumbled while reading, giving a vigorous syllable to my distaste.

  This king of his college days, man of the football field, running back of record-breaking NFL dreams, is still an ass almost two years later. Every social media pic I spotted of him on my computer, he had his arm draped over a girl, and always a different one. Seemed he didn’t have a preference. Blonde, brunette, pink, rainbow…as long as they were hot, he’d bare his chest for them.

  “God, Paige, what did you see in this jerk?”

  Yet, I couldn’t look away. My finger just kept scrolling and scrolling, my eyes eating up all the words and pictures, the girls and tailored suits, until the last article I came across, referring to some kind of injury. My finger hovered over the mouse as I read.

  Lachlan was hit hard, the wrong way, his knee blown out, during his very first game in professional football.

  There was a link under the article that read CLICK HERE FOR GRAPHIC DETAIL. And like the bait it was meant to be, I clicked.

  It was a video, with close to a million views. I turned the volume up and bent closer to the screen. The thunderous white noise from the crowd sounded first, then the official announcer, discussing the set-up for the next play. Lachlan was number 18 according to the article. I tried to find him on the field. I thought he was the player running back and forth behind the line of large, padded men readying for the quarterback to hoist the ball.

  That’s the extent I can talk about football. Paige and I attended many college games, yet I couldn’t tell you the plays, the yards, the positions. I could tell you when a touchdown happened since that’s when the stadium went wild and a ton of beer spilled on me.

  “We’ve got a rookie on the field, Lachlan Hayes, who comes with plenty of pressure on his shoulders,” the announcer said through my computer’s speakers. “Heisman Trophy winner, captain of his alma mater, he’s got plenty of stats to his name, too. We’re looking forward… Plenty of fans are eager to see what he can do, especially after his magic on the field during pregame season…”

  While the announcer’s jabbering, the QB punts the ball between his legs, immediately redirecting the announcer’s chatter. There’s a scramble, some confusion, then—there—Lachlan had the ball. He was running close to the sideline, ball tucked under his arm, gaining yards, leaving the opposing team behind, when—BOOM—out of left field, literally.

  He…he’s…

  Oh, God.

  I thought only dolls could bend sideways like that.

  And break.

  The viral video had me cringing. Lachlan’s writhing in the field, the cameraman unable to pan out or focus anywhere else. He, like the rest of us, was plenty human and wanted to see it all, regardless of how grotesque it might be.

  I tilted my head, following the new angle of Lachlan’s leg. God, that was some career-ending shit.

  I’d’ve felt sorry for the guy if the pictures of him and various women had also stopped. But, of course, they grew in proportion the day after it was announced he couldn’t play football anymore. In these recent pics, his eyes were more hooded, his shirts not buttoned properly—if they were at all—his drinks frozen in mid-slosh as he posed, mouth mawing open like he’s one second away from insulting the person behind the camera phone.

  Drunk.

  “A drunk, dastardly bastard. And you slept with him, Paige.” I shook my head, my finger tapping against the mouse.

  No wonder Paige never mentioned who Lily’s father was.

  To be fair, online accounts alone weren’t enough to put him into asshole territory. At first glance, anybody would think he engaged in pretty typical college-guy, then pro-athlete, debauchery. It was also the remembrance of him that gave him the dick flag. The fact that it was almost two years after college and he’s still babooning through life the same way he did during our senior year when Paige and I first had the chance of meeting college royalty.

  Oh, did I ever remember Lachlan Hayes. Got to witness firsthand how he captured that dick flag and kept it close. I just didn’t know Paige slept with the guy that same night.
>
  We’d always talked about how hot he was, laughing as we took cringing sips of Fireball and munching on M&Ms and Skittles on our dorm room bed. But that’s all Lachlan Hayes was in our conversations—gorgeous, unobtainable, a guy who absolutely, one hundred percent, ran with a different crowd. It was no secret most co-eds crushed on him, and he knew it.

  What Paige didn’t know was, I crushed on him, too.

  Stupidly. I tell myself now it was more in a celebrity way, with no chance in hell of ever finding out if he and I could work. I mean, the chances of meeting the guy were slim, never mind engaging in conversation with him or—gasp—dating him.

  So, imagine my surprise when the last college party we went to, he was there. Lachlan Hayes, in all his glory, with all his buddies, drunk and twisted on championship fame.

  He’d seen me that night. Our eyes clashed and held—mine widening the longer I realized he was staring. Then, like a lizard unable to blend into its surroundings, I scurried away, too scared to do anything about Lachlan’s clear and sudden interest.

  Little did I know, Paige was able to conquer that same fear.

  Realizing this makes me feel like I never truly knew her. Not in the way I thought.

  So, when I got off the plane to New York City, when I stepped up to Lachlan’s door this morning, finger trembling as I buzzed, fist shaking when I took the stairs to his apartment door and knocked, I didn’t think he’d recall who I was.

  Now here we are, sitting awkwardly in Lachlan’s living room—and that’s putting it kindly. Old, stinky clothes are flung over the upholstery; single socks discarded on the floors like they were forced to search on their own for their mate since their owner gave up on them. And… do I see? Yes, I see. A woman’s lace thong hanging over the kitchen faucet.

  “Um,” Lachlan says eloquently.

  He leans forward in a wooden kitchen chair he dragged over from a table two feet away, facing me on a sofa that I hope, hope, hope, did not feature in his sexcapades last night. Sadly, it smells like it might’ve.

  “Can I get you a drink?” he asks.

  “Sure,” I say. “Coke, if you have it.”

  He lights up. “I do.”

  Lachlan practically leaps out of his seat, and I notice the slight, almost indiscernible limp in his left leg as he strides six feet into a small kitchenette. Bottles rattle as he opens the fridge. Beer, probably.

  I should take this time to further survey this apartment, a second-floor walk-up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but I don’t need to. It all adds up—the smells, the tangled clothes belonging to both sexes, the mussed-up hair, the face of Lachlan Hayes. I know enough.

  He returns, cracking open the can of Coke and leaving the tab up as he passes it to me.

  “So…” Lachlan sits back down, rubbing his palms against his knees.

  He’s dressed in black-and-red athletic shorts and a vintage Van Halen tee. I’m trying to reconcile the college eye candy he was to the man who’s in front of me, with one eye half-closed like he’s attempting to reconcile this day with real life.

  There were two ways this could’ve gone. Lachlan’s instant denial coupled with a good few seconds of blubbering. Maybe the paleness of shock capped off by cracking his head on the pavement when he passes out. Or, Lachlan could be stunned senseless, stupefied by the fact that of the many, many women he slept with, he shockingly happened to knock one up.

  I see he chose the latter.

  “Do you want to know her name?” I ask.

  “I want to know…everything.” Lachlan shakes his head, dislodging some stupor. “So, it’s a girl? I have a girl baby?”

  I angle my chin in an attempt to soften my scorn. I must remember, this guy has no clue. He didn’t expect me to come into his home and scope out his place like he was a father needing to take care of a kid. He didn’t know when he woke up this morning there would be a baby somewhere that needs him.

  “Yes,” I say. “Her name is Lily. Lily James Tobias.”

  “Cool.” Lachlan nods. “That’s a cool name.”

  “Uh-huh.” I scold myself to cut back on the sarcasm.

  “So, um…” Lachlan licks his lips, and I almost want to pass him my Coke so he can take a drink and collect himself.

  “I’m sorry to show up and drop a bomb on you like this,” I say instead. “If it could’ve been any other way…I mean, had I known earlier, maybe I could’ve prepared you somehow…”

  “You?” Lachlan sits back, his legs splayed out in a wide V. “But didn’t you say it was another girl whose baby this is? You’re not—”

  “No. Definitely not.” I set the can down on the scuffed glass coffee table. “My best friend, Paige, is Lily’s mother. You heard right.”

  “Okay, so, why are you here instead of her? Why are you telling me this? Is she afraid to confront me or something?”

  I’ve been dreading this part. “Paige is dead.”

  His hands fall right off his thighs, hanging loose as if without bone. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “She—”

  “Dead?”

  “Cancer,” I say quickly, so I don’t have to sink into the memories for too long. “She was diagnosed soon after she had Lily. She lived about nine months after that.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “I know.” Despite my attempts, I tear up anyway and use the cuff of my denim jacket to swipe them away. It only manages to smear streaks across my cheeks.

  “That fucking sucks,” he says.

  I dig my nails into the denim. If it were possible for a single glare to open a hole underneath a person and send them into a demon realm, mine just did.

  “More than you could ever know,” I grit out. Then I clear my throat. “Paige’s parents are both dead. Same with her grandparents. She was an only child. Her parents had no family. You see where I’m going here.”

  “Uh, yeah.” Lachlan blinks. “But what about you? You’re here.”

  I nod. Can’t help but picture Lily holding her hands out to me so she can be picked up. Squishing her cheeks with my kisses. Squeezing her chunky, adorable thighs and letting her rip out of my hold so she could crawl to her mother, little legs and hands smacking across the floorboards.

  “I’m not family according to the courts,” I say. “The law says you’re the next of kin. Of course, a DNA test will have to be done to prove you’re the father, since Paige never put you on the birth certificate, but—”

  “Wait. Hold up. Stop right there.” Lachlan spears out a hand, palm out like he could physically keep me from saying anything more. “I’m not…no way. I can’t have her. You can’t bring her here.” His voice is getting higher the longer he talks. “I’m no father.”

  “Lachlan,” I say quietly. “You’re all she has.”

  “Locke, call me Locke.”

  I shake my head. “Fine. Locke. You’re all she has.”

  “No, I’m not. There’s you. Let me sign whatever I need to sign, and I’ll hand her over to you. You can be her new mom.”

  I am zero-point-two seconds away from flinging myself into his face, claws out, maybe using my teeth to chew off his nose. I expect Lachlan—sorry, Locke—to be shocked, upset, deny, deny, deny. But I didn’t think he’d be so cavalier as to dismiss Lily’s mom and want to hand Lily over to someone else like she was a trophy he didn’t want, then go on about his day.

  “Hey—ow!”

  I throw the half empty can of soda at him instead.

  “You haven’t even met Lily, never mind seen her,” I say, coming to a stand and seething. “You have no clue what a wonderful, vivacious, incredibly gorgeous baby you made, and I was willing to give you credit for that. How could you know when Paige never clued you in? But here? Now? Lily is with a foster family. You got that? Strangers who didn’t raise her, people who the state employs to take care of a baby until a family member can get her. And believe me when I say I wish, with everything I have left in me, that I could be the one to take her. That it could be me to hold her,
tell her everything’s okay.” My voice cracks. “But I can’t. Some judge in Gainesville tells me I can’t. So here I am, trying to find Lily a person who wants her as badly as I do.”

  Suddenly, a cool, collected calm falls across my shoulders, and I level Locke with a look. “You know what? You’re right. You don’t deserve her.”

  His brows jump like I’d tossed so many words at him and he was still collecting the meanings.

  “You want to sign away your parental rights, fine. But here.” I fumble in my back pocket, pulling out my phone and angrily tapping until I find what I need. “This is her.”

  Lily was almost six months old on her playroom floor in the picture, stubby legs splayed out in a V, her favorite toy bunny in her hands, gumming it up for the camera with a toothless smile. Her blonde ringlets were just coming in, little curlicues around her ears. Her eyes, a stunning blue, were no less bright even while crinkled with a grin.

  “I…” Locke lifts his hand for the phone as if programmed on automatic. “Oh, my God.”

  “This is who you want to pass off to strangers. This little girl who has done nothing but bring light into our lives, who did nothing to deserve losing her mom. All she asks is to be loved.” I smack my chest. “And I love her. Which is why I’m here, before CPS comes, before you’re given some official document instead of Lily’s face to decide whether you want her, to tell you that Lily…” I glance around Locke’s space, cringing outwardly and deep down in my soul. I can’t give her up like this.

  “You’re terrible for her,” I admit.

  Locke peels his eyes away from my phone’s screen. “Huh?”

  “You’re a bad idea.” I nod, cross my arms, swallow, and pretend not to notice how his expression has softened, how he strokes the screen like he’s bringing Lily to life. “But you’re her father. And Lily doesn’t need a new family. She needs her father.”

  “I can’t…” He blacks out the screen and gives it back to me, but is still bemused. “This is a lot to take in, you understand. I need time to figure this out. You have to give me the decency of a minute.”