by Isla Jordan
Contents
Copyright
Quarterback’s Heart
One. -Katherine
Two. -Jonathan
Three. -Katherine
Four. -Jonathan
Five. -Katherine
Six. -Jonathan
Seven. -Katherine
Eight. -Katherine
About the Author
Copyright 2016 by Isla Jordan - All rights reserved.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.
Quarterback’s Heart
A Secret Baby Romance
By: Isla Jordan
One. -Katherine
All my life I had been searching for a gift that just keeps on giving, and I lucked out with my pregnancy four years ago. One, I had the most beautiful daughter in the world and two, I now had an ass every man in this small town wanted and tried to grab, squeeze and metaphorically tap! I rolled my eyes at my sarcastic thoughts as I swatted away another hand with my dish towel and made a run for it on my skates. My baby was the most precious thing to me and my entire life, but being pregnant had left me with…generous assets. I really wished I had gone back to being stick thin after I had Caitlin.
“One of those days, huh?”
I looked up from my crappy tips and sighed, it was always one of those days. I might have been treated like a stripper in the cheesy 70s themed diner, but I certainly wasn’t tipped like one! I could barely even afford a box of cereal from my daily tips from these perverts!
“What is the going rate for murder these days?”
Adam grinned, making his green eyes sparkle and reminding me once again there were still good men in the world. He was my true North, so to speak, on my messed up men campus.
“I think you are too pretty to go to prison and besides, I can’t have custody of Caitlin; I’m too pretty to have a kid!”
I laughed and playfully hit him with my dish towel before looking at my watch again. It hadn’t changed since the last five minutes I did that, but I checked anyway. Because ever since Adam got me the job at Note Café a month ago, I wished I could be there every second of the day. But I needed the two jobs to make rent, food and daycare, and neither job paid enough on its own to cover all those.
“Your shift is almost over, Kate. Looking at the poor watch every sixteen seconds will not make time go any faster!”
I frowned, “Sixteen?” that was an odd number to pick, but that summed Adam to a T, odd.
He confirmed it by smirking, “I counted.”
“Adam, you are not a paying customer so I don’t expect you to delay my staff!”
Adam winked and disappeared, the traitor, leaving me with my seething boss. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and planted a forced syrupy smile on my face instead, when all I wanted was to punch his face in along with every other dodgy man in this god forsaken diner.
When my shift finally ended, I was more than happy to hop onto my bike and rush to Note Café. Here I could play dress up and pretend I was the superstar I had always wanted to be. I didn’t have to worry about sleazy scumbags who just wanted a piece of me and I certainly didn’t have to stress about getting more tips. Note café was a fancy place restaurant where the customers wore watches worth my entire life and then some. I had once dreamed I would be one of them, rich and successful. Then maybe I could have given my daughter everything she deserved. But alas, I was just the hired help.
“The hired help getting a new dress tonight,” I screamed to myself as I saw the dress laid out for me today,
It was gorgeous; the kind even Jonathan’s girlfriends would wear. He would take them to a place like this as well. Elegant; expensive and away from the shadows of people like me. But just like Jonathan Mason, even this dress was a dream. I had to give it back after the night came to end, just like my dreams of football star Nate Mason disappeared when the night ended too. I sighed; daydreaming did not pay the bills.
I changed and did some vocal exercises before going on my own little stage; today I would be performing jazz numbers throughout the night. Like the dress and my fantasies whenever I came to this place, they were borrowed as well. I sighed, what was up with me today?! Usually my pity party was reserved for the weekends with a tub of ice-cream as I thought of everything that had gone wrong with my life. This was definitely a bad omen.
My pulse throbbed in my throat as I watched the manager walk toward me, what was going on? He never interrupted me during a performance! I relaxed when I saw the smile on his face though as he slipped me a piece of paper.
“The gentleman in the far left table, number 7, has requested this song. He is about to propose so if you could just go over to them after your first song, that would be great. He tips very well too!”
I smiled and nodded, that I could do. If I was ever good at anything in this world, it was using my voice. It had served me well in many price talent shows. It had served me well when I was screaming in labor and it would definitely not let me down tonight. Maybe I could even buy my daughter a new tricycle if the tip turned out to be well enough.
I took a deep breath when it finally came to singing the couple their engagement song, this memory would be forever in their hearts. I needed to make it perfect for them. I started the song as I walked toward their table, just as the man got down on one knee, how sweet. Everything around them was perfect and the lady shrieked as she stood up. And that was where the perfection ended, because for the first time in my lOne. -Katherine
All my life I had been searching for a gift that just keeps on giving, and I lucked out with my pregnancy four years ago. One, I had the most beautiful daughter in the world and two, I now had an ass every man in this small town wanted and tried to grab, squeeze and metaphorically tap! I rolled my eyes at my sarcastic thoughts as I swatted away another hand with my dish towel and made a run for it on my skates. My baby was the most precious thing to me and my entire life, but being pregnant had left me with…generous assets. I really wished I had gone back to being stick thin after I had Caitlin.
“One of those days, huh?”
I looked up from my crappy tips and sighed, it was always one of those days. I might have been treated like a stripper in the cheesy 70s themed diner, but I certainly wasn’t tipped like one! I could barely even afford a box of cereal from my daily tips from these perverts!
“What is the going rate for murder these days?”
Adam grinned, making his green eyes sparkle and reminding me once again there were still good men in the world. He was my true North, so to speak, on my messed up men campus.
“I think you are too pretty to go to prison and besides, I can’t have custody of Caitlin; I’m too pretty to have a kid!”
I laughed and playfully hit him with my dish towel before looking at my watch again. It hadn’t changed since the last five minutes I did that, but I checked anyway. Because ever since Adam got me the job at Note Café a month ago, I wished I could be there every second of the day. But I needed the two jobs to make rent, food and daycare, and neither job paid enough on its own to cover all those.
“Your shift is almost over, Kate. Looking at the poor watch every sixteen seconds will not make time go any faster!”
I frowned, “Sixteen?” that was an odd number to pick, but that summed Adam to a T, odd.
He confirmed it by smirking, “I counted.”
“Adam, you are not a paying customer so I don’t expect you to delay my staff!”
Adam winked and disappeared, the traitor, leaving me with my seething boss. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and planted a forced syrupy smile on my face instead, when all I wanted was to punch his face in along with every other dodgy man in this god forsaken diner.
When my shift finally ended, I was more than happy to hop onto my bike and rush to Note Café. Here I could play dress up and pretend I was the superstar I had always wanted to be. I didn’t have to worry about sleazy scumbags who just wanted a piece of me and I certainly didn’t have to stress about getting more tips. Note café was a fancy place restaurant where the customers wore watches worth my entire life and then some. I had once dreamed I would be one of them, rich and successful. Then maybe I could have given my daughter everything she deserved. But alas, I was just the hired help.
“The hired help getting a new dress tonight,” I screamed to myself as I saw the dress laid out for me today,
It was gorgeous; the kind even Jonathan’s girlfriends would wear. He would take them to a place like this as well. Elegant; expensive and away from the shadows of people like me. But just like Jonathan Mason, even this dress was a dream. I had to give it back after the night came to end, just like my dreams of football star Nate Mason disappeared when the night ended too. I sighed; daydreaming did not pay the bills.
I changed and did some vocal exercises before going on my own little stage; today I would be performing jazz numbers throughout the night. Like the dress and my fantasies whenever I came to this place, they were borrowed as well. I sighed, what was up with me today?! Usually my pity party was reserved for the weekends with a tub of ice-cream as I thought of everything that had gone wrong with my life. This was definitely a bad omen.
My pulse throbbed in my throat as I watched the manager walk toward me, what was going on? He never interrupted me during a performance! I relaxed when I saw the smile on his face though as he slipped me a piece of paper.
“The gentleman in the far left table, number 7, has requested this song. He is about to propose so if you could just go over to them after your first song, that would be great. He tips very well too!”
I smiled and nodded, that I could do. If I was ever good at anything in this world, it was using my voice. It had served me well in many price talent shows. It had served me well when I was screaming in labor and it would definitely not let me down tonight. Maybe I could even buy my daughter a new tricycle if the tip turned out to be well enough.
I took a deep breath when it finally came to singing the couple their engagement song, this memory would be forever in their hearts. I needed to make it perfect for them. I started the song as I walked toward their table, just as the man got down on one knee, how sweet. Everything around them was perfect and the lady shrieked as she stood up. And that was where the perfection ended, because for the first time in my life, my voice failed me. My abrupt stop caused the man to look up at me and the lady to do so as well.
“Katie, what are you doing here?”
That’s what I asked myself every morning. Now my former best friend, the rich and beautiful Helen Mason was wondering the same thing. Great!ife, my voice failed me. My abrupt stop caused the man to look up at me and the lady to do so as well.
“Katie, what are you doing here?”
That’s what I asked myself every morning. Now my former best friend, the rich and beautiful Helen Mason was wondering the same thing. Great!
Two. -Jonathan
“What?” I yawned and stretched.
I chanced a glance at my clock and groaned when I realized it was still five in the morning! Seriously, I really needed to discuss boundaries with my sister. Or at least buy her a damn watch! She was talking about something at a million words per minute and I couldn’t hear a single thing, I also needed to invest in a translator. I sighed as I tried to get a word in but my attempts halting the moment my sister said her name.
“Can you imagine? I had been trying to get a hold of her for so long and then I just bump into her the day Jamie proposes, I tell you Nate, it’s fate!” she rambled on.
My mind was still stuck on the word Katie. Katherine Forster. My sister’s best friend and the most interesting girl I had ever met. Even now just thinking of her brought a smile to my face even though it had been years since I last saw her.
“Nate, are you still there?”
I wondered if I could get away with remaining silent until she gave up. I loved my sister but I had a killer hangover and needed a few hours to fix myself up.
“I will call you in an hour, okay? I’m not…up yet.”
I heard her sigh dramatically and mumble something about brothers who didn’t care about their little sister’s lives before the line went dead. I could live with her tantrums, usually nothing a new bracelet couldn’t cure, but I couldn’t live with this headache. Another headache stirred beside me and I groaned again, how could I forget about that?
“What time is it?”
“Time for you to go.”
She scowled as I got out of bed and made for my shower, wondering how I had returned home with her anyway. I always made an effort not to bring a girl home because they all became clingy afterwards, and I did many things but not clingy. I heard my door bang as I enjoyed my warm shower, making a mental note not to drink again at the next victory party. Not that it was an option with the guys all pressuring me to have fun, but I needed to get my life in order.
I loved football, hell, I more than loved the sport! I was obsessed with it, my very first love. Ever since I saw my fist game and was old enough to join the school team, I had studied, breathed and slept football. So when a scout had sported me and deemed me good enough to play in the big leagues, I had lived football. But my life off the field was a mess and that’s the part I didn’t love.
Being famous had come with beautiful women, expensive drinks and private jets. Jonathan had slowly disappeared and Nate had been born. I had been young and excited then, now I just saw the same old record that was my life. It was all the same; the girls had the same hair and rack size, the same lack of heart, and ‘Jonathan’ had had enough of it all. My sister’s engagement was the perfect reason for a getaway and some soul searching. I called her back as soon as I got out of the shower and made sure I was alone again, luckily I was. I hated the morning after awkwardness just as much as the next guy.
“Hey little sis.”
I could picture her rolling eyes as she scoffed, “Don’t you little sis me! First, I don’t see you for months and you don’t call me. Then when I call you, you leave me to go and take out the trash.”
“Helen-”
“Don’t even try to deny it, mister, I know you.”
That made me wince, had I become that predictable? I really needed to change a few things in my life, or a lot of them.
“I’m sorry. Anyway tell me about your big news, I can’t believe my little Helen is engaged.”
I removed the phone from my ear as she screamed, chuckling when she started telling me the entire story. I waited patiently this time as she told me what a great guy her fiancé was, because I was truly and genuinely happy for her. My sister was a handful sometimes but she was also the most loyal and nicest person I knew, she deserved to be happy. I would have asked if she wasn’t rushing it or if she didn’t feel like she was still too young or something like it, basic protective instinct. But I trusted her and knew if she felt at all that this was not a forever kind of deal, she would have said no.
I was hoping she would tell me more about Katherine, because I couldn’t come out and just ask her. Not without revealing that I had what was probably an eternal crush on her best friend and never even told her about it. I would never hear the end of it and I had promised Katie that Helen wou
ld never find out about us. So when my sister finally got around to telling me about her chance meeting with Katherine, I was more than willing to listen.
“I was so happy to see her and of course I had to invite her to the engagement party, which you are attending by the way. No negotiations.”
I smiled, as if I would ever miss it. Not only did I want to be there for my only sibling, I needed to see the rest of my family and now I needed to see Katie again. Even if it was only for just one day. Because Katherine had always been too good for me, even more so now that the media had labelled me the year’s most elusive bachelor and number one heartbreaker. One thing they didn’t know though was that once upon a time, Katherine Forster had broken my heart. And no one had been able to fix it since then.
I began packing right away, I had a flight to catch. Going back home could only mean good things, and if those good things included Katie, then I was more than happy to go.
Three. -Katherine
I sighed as I went through my clothes a third time, even though I knew a dress wouldn’t magically appear. I just kept hoping that maybe I had missed something; something I could wear to a fancy lunch at the Masons’. But no, the only dress that looked fancy enough was three sizes too small, thanks to my new treasures. I had last worn it to our high school farewell dinner, so of course it wouldn’t fit. But a desperate girl had to try.
After my chance meeting with Helen, we had talked and did some catching up. Rather, she had talked and I had apologized the entire time. She was having none of it though, and wanted us to go back to the way we were. I didn’t know if that was possible, or if I even wanted it. But the words maid of honor had been mentioned and I had left Note Café as fast as I could. I had, however, agreed to attend her engagement party, but I wasn’t making any promises.
“Are you still alive or have you pulled out all your extensions?” Adam called out.
