Halo Violation: A Secret Baby Sports Romance

by Daphne Swan

  What the fuck is her problem? I hope she’s not under the same mistaken impression her father is that Molly is this “little angel” and that I’m this big, bad scumbag who knocked the halo from her head.

  Whatever. I’ll do my best to ignore the attitude because if I piss this girl off, I’m never going to get what I came here for.

  “I assume you know...about Molly...and me.”

  “Yes, Eric. I’m aware of your role in the my family’s latest disaster.”

  “Good. Well, then, could you please tell me what’s going on?”

  “You should be having this conversation with Molly, not me.”

  “I know that!” I close my eyes to take a deep breath to steady my nerves. When I open them, I look Tricia dead in the eye and say, “I don’t know how to get a hold of her. She wouldn’t give me her number.”

  Tricia tilts her head just slightly, probably wondering what her sister was thinking that night. Does she know I was unaware that I’d just fucked Coach’s daughter? Does anyone in that family know—apart from Molly, that is?

  “All right,” she says after a moment. “Here’s the deal: she’s planning on having the baby, and she’s determined to raise it on her own.”

  “On her own?”

  “Yes.”

  “But that’s crazy!”

  “I know, right? I told her my husband and I would be honored to raise the baby as our own, but she wouldn’t even consider it.”

  What the fuck is this chick even talking about? I stare at her for a moment before refocusing and getting back to the matter at hand.

  “And I suppose Molly was never planning on letting me know I’ve got a kid on the way?”

  Tricia gives me what looks like an apologetic shrug. “She’s been very clear about not wanting to get the father involved.”

  I take a moment to let it sink in. Up until this point, I’ve done my best to keep from feeling a connection to this little baby growing inside Molly. Being a college kid, I figured it was likely that she’d want to give it up for adoption. And as much as I hated the idea of a biological child of mine growing up in the world and never getting a chance to meet him or her, I accepted it as a likely possibility. I wouldn’t try to fight it if that was what Molly decided she wanted to do.

  But this...this is a whole different story. Ever since I realized and came to accept what a shitty job my own dad did in fathering me, I have been determined not to follow in his footsteps with my own kid. And because I knew I was far from ready to be a dad, I’ve been religious about safe sex. I’ve never had sex bareback. Never even did the pullout method. Not once. And yet, here I am.

  Well, I don’t care what Molly wants—or what she thinks she wants. There’s no way I’m going to let my kid grow up without a father. Fuck that.

  Luckily I have the foresight not to go all gung-ho on Tricia and start screaming about my rights as the baby’s father. What I need is to talk to Molly about this, not her sister.

  “I want to be involved,” I say in my calmest, most rational voice. “A kid needs both a mother and a father.”

  “That’s what I say!” Tricia says.

  And with that, her icy exterior starts to thaw a little.

  I take things a step further by adding, “It’s not right to keep me away.”

  Tricia nods. “I know she’s young, but Molly is being incredibly immature about this, not to mention selfish.”

  Is this a trap? I feel like maybe this chick is trying to trick me into saying the wrong thing so Molly can use it to justify keeping the baby away from me. But the more I think about it, the more I think I’m just being paranoid. And so I go ahead and push that envelope a bit further.

  “If she insists on keeping me away, the kid is going to develop some major issues. He’ll have to start therapy just as soon as he learns to talk. Molly may think she’ll be able to do an okay job on her own, but she’s just kidding herself. She can’t be both a mother and a father to the kid.”

  Shit.

  As the words flow out from between my lips, the guilt drops down to the pit of my stomach like a lead weight. My own mom did a kickass job in the roles of both mother and father. I feel like a first class asshole implying that she was somehow not good enough.

  “Exactly,” Tricia says.

  The two of us exchange a smile, but my guard is still up. I definitely don’t trust Tricia. Not yet anyway. I haven’t forgotten how she mentioned wanting to raise the baby with her husband. What’s up with that?

  “I really need to talk to Molly,” I say, leaning forward slightly to plead my case. “Can you please give me her phone number? Please?”

  She sighs. “I could, but it wouldn’t make any difference. I know my sister. She won’t take your call.”

  We sit there in silence for a moment before Tricia speaks again.

  “I’m probably going to get reamed for this, but...well, it’s really decent of you to take responsibility for your part in all this, Eric. It’s not right to keep you out of the loop.”

  Nice.

  I flash her a smile of gratitude.

  “I know where Molly will be tonight,” she says, reaching for a small notepad and a pen. “Her friend, Helena Mitzou, is throwing a party at her mom’s loft in TriBeCa. I have the address because I accessorized the bridal party for her mom’s third wedding.”

  Jeez.

  Sometimes these rich people really wig me out. I know I’ve got shitloads of money, too, but things like hiring someone to “accessorize the bridal party” are way beyond my grasp.

  Tricia scrolls through her phone, copies down the address on the notepad, tears off the top sheet and hands it to me.

  “From what I hear, it’s going to be a pretty big bash, so you should be able to crash no problem. I would advise going later, though—eleven or even eleven thirty so you blend in better with the crowd.”

  “Thank you, Tricia,” I fold the sheet of paper carefully and slip it into the pocket of my jeans. “Seriously. I really appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome. It’s the right thing to do and...” She laughs quietly. “I guess you’re family now. Kind of.”

  Weird.

  We say our goodbyes, and after I head out, I’m not sure what to do with myself. I’m so eager to see Molly and letting her know in no uncertain terms that I want to be a part of this kid’s life. The afternoon drags by at an infuriating rate, and the evening hours pass even more slowly.

  Ten forty-five rolls around—finally—so I lock up my apartment and go down to the fancy wine shop on the corner. I choose a nice bottle of Dom Pérignon and the Lyft picks me up only moments after I finish the transaction. Traffic isn’t bad at all, especially considering it’s New Year’s Eve, and the driver drops me off just before eleven. I walk into the building like I own the place. I tuck the bottle of Dom under my arm and enter the lobby with a cool, determined look on my face, secretly hoping the doorman won’t give me a hard time.

  “May I help you?” he asks.

  Shit.

  I turn to the guy and watch as he does a double take. He obviously recognizes me, and this is a good thing.

  “I’m here for Helena Mitzou’s party.”

  “Go right on up, Mr. Wenzel. Eighteenth floor, end of the hall,” he says with a star-struck smile. “And you have a Happy New Year.”

  “Thanks, man. You too.”

  As I wait for the elevator doors to open, I’m surprised by how nervous I’m feeling.

  This is it.

  16. MOLLY

  This blows. I’m twenty-one years old, and it’s New Years Eve. My friends are rapidly getting wasted, but I haven’t touched a drop. Obviously. I’m trying to be fun and festive and everything, but it’s hard to keep up the façade. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.

  Then again, what other options did I have? Stay home with Mom and Dad? Yeah, right. Dad still can hardly bring himself to look at me, and we haven’t exchanged more than a handful of sentences since the night of Cody Washington’
s charity dinner. Mom is a nervous wreck. She wanders around the house wringing her hands, and it looks like she’s aged ten years in the past three days.

  I think I’m going to take the train up to Bronxville tomorrow and spend the second half of the holiday in my apartment. Sure, it’ll be a little lonely on my own without Jules—or anyone else for that matter. But maybe it’ll be a blessing. I kind of like the idea of having some time on my own to plan for the baby without having to worry about my academic obligations.

  “Oh my god,” Colette says, as she hurries over to me. She wobbles a little on her four-inch spike heels. “You are not going to believe what just happened.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I just made out with Alexander Worthington in the hall outside the bathroom,” she says with a big, gleaming grin.

  “No way!”

  This is major. Colette had a crush on Alexander all through high school.

  “How was it?” I ask, although I’m pretty sure I already know the answer to that question.

  “Oh my god. So amazing. It sucks, though. I really want to take him home with me, but my dad would go ballistic. I hate being back under his thumb again, you know?”

  I definitely know.

  “Sorry, sweetie.” I drape an arm over her shoulder and give her a sad smile.

  She shrugs and then, like magic, she perks up a little.

  “Then again, maybe we could get creative in terms of location,” she says. “Who knows? The night is young.”

  I follow her gaze across the room to where Alexander is standing with his friends.

  “Very true.”

  The door opens, and a very, very tall guy steps into the loft. For a split second, I pray that Helena’s got some new, crazy tall guy friend she hasn’t mentioned to us yet, but deep down, I know that’s just wishful thinking. Height is one thing, but the guy also has the sculpted build of a professional athlete. With a sinking heart, I turn my gaze to him and confirm my suspicions.

  Eric Wenzel.

  What the hell?

  My initial instinct is to flee. I’m tempted to run into the kitchen and climb out the window, to make my way down the fire escape to the street below, but I can’t do that. We’re eighteen floors up, and I’m terrified of heights. What if I fell? That’d be the end of both me and the baby.

  Oh my god. What the hell is Eric Wenzel doing here? And how did he know how to find me? Is he having me trailed or something?

  Oh, this is just wonderful. He must be having me trailed. As if things aren’t bad enough, now I have to deal with some psycho baby daddy monitoring my every move.

  “What’s wrong, Moll?” Colette asks.

  “Looks like I’ve got a stalker.”

  I motion to Eric, and when she spots him, she gasps.

  “No way!”

  It doesn’t take Eric long to single me out. He makes his way across the room, leaving a handful of stunned fans in his wake. Not that everyone has recognized him, but some of the guys are staring at him with mouths agape, including Alexander Worthington.

  “Hello, Margaret,” he says without unclenching his jaw.

  I don’t even know how to respond. He’s pissed; that much is clear. If he’s come here to bitch at me, I’m going to just sit here and take it. I don’t have the strength to defend myself right now. Besides, if he starts going mental or something, it won’t be long before my guy friends jump in and throw him out. Eric may be all muscle, but he’s seriously outnumbered here.

  “How? How did you know I was even here?” I ask.

  “I went by your sister’s jewelry store today. She told me where to find you.”

  I am going to kill Tricia.

  He holds up the bottle of Dom he brought with him and says, “This is for the hostess.”

  After a moment’s pause, Colette says, “Helena. I’ll take it to her.”

  She turns to me, searches my face, and I know she’s waiting for me to grant her permission to leave. I respond with a discreet nod.

  “Thanks,” Eric says, handing the bottle over.

  Colette nods, and with a sympathetic smile for me, she totters off to find Helena.

  “So,” Eric says. “Were you ever planning on letting me know that I have a child on the way?”

  With a weary sigh, I tell him, “I don’t want to do this here. Come with me.”

  I lead him around the corner and through the hall to the back rooms. Helena doesn’t want the party to overflow back here, but I know she won’t mind bending the rules for me—special circumstances and all. I push open the door to Helena’s bedroom and gesture for Eric to enter. I consider taking a seat on the bed, but end up deciding against it. Something tells me this isn’t going to be the sort of conversation that we’ll want to be seated for.

  “Well?” he says. “Did you have any intention of letting me know I’m going to be a father?”

  Oh, shit.

  The fact that he’s already thinking of himself as a ‘father’ pretty much confirms my suspicions. He’s not going to sit back and allow me to raise this baby on my own without his input. Not without a fight, in any case.

  “I didn’t want to burden you.”

  “You didn’t want to burden me,” he echoes.

  “No, I didn’t. Why is that so hard to believe? We had sex one time. There’s no reason for you to pay for it for the rest of your life. I’m the one who’s choosing to have the baby; ergo I’m the one who’s responsible for taking care of her.”

  “And you think you’re up to the task of raising this baby all on your own?”

  “Yes, I do! At the risk of sounding totally full of myself, I am an extremely capable person. I’m also resourceful, logical and adaptable. I’m confident that I’ll do a great job. An amazing job, even.”

  “And what about when the kid starts asking about his father? What will you do when the kid comes to you, crying his eyes out because of how much he envies the relationships his friends have with their dads?”

  I don’t know how to answer. As a matter of fact, I had been pondering that very scenario, and I haven’t yet come up with a hypothetical solution.

  “I hate to say it, babe, but you’re fooling yourself. You may be capable and resourceful, but you sure as hell aren’t logical.”

  “What?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Fuck you.”

  He shrugs. “Any logical person would see that it’s best for a child to have both a mother and a father raising him. I’m not sure what’s driving you to deprive your child—our child—of that. I don’t know if it’s pride or immaturity or just plain stupidity.”

  Stupidity?

  “Fuck you, Eric!”

  He shrugs again.

  “Sure, sometimes it’s unavoidable,” he says. “The world is full of deadbeat dads, leaving mothers with no choice but to raise kids on their own. Sometimes they do a great job, and that’s fantastic, but how many of these women are raising kids on their own by choice?”

  “You know as well as I do that some of them most definitely are,” I inform him.

  “I’m not talking about successful career women who are unmarried and decide to go with artificial insemination—women with money for nannies and shit. I’m talking about unplanned pregnancies. How many of those women do you think actually turned away their kids’ fathers when they came to them and said they wanted to be involved?”

  Again, I don’t know how to answer. The fighter in me wants to point out that some of the women in question most certainly would turn away their baby daddies for any number of reasons. Maybe the guys were abusive, or they were drug addicts. Maybe they were mentally unhinged or mean drunks or dangerous criminals. Who knows?

  But I do know this won’t help my argument in the slightest bit. Eric isn’t violent or addicted to anything. Nothing like that—at least not as far as I know, he isn’t.

  “You’re carrying my child, Molly,” he says in a lower, softer tone of voice. “I want to be involved in every way possible. It’s my ch
ild as much as it is yours.”

  I bite down softly on my lower lip, unable to tear my gaze away from Eric’s eyes. Such fierce emotion emanating from them! It’s obvious that he’s sincere, and I can’t help but feel a twinge of guilt for the way I’ve been acting. There’s no denying the fact that I’ve developed an incredibly strong bond with my baby over the last few weeks. I figured that was because the baby is growing inside of me, because she’s a part of me.

  But maybe Eric has been experiencing something similar. Just because the baby isn’t inside of him doesn’t mean he can’t feel connected to her.

  The thought of there being a child out there with his eyes maybe, or his smile, or his size...

  Please, God, not his size. I can’t give birth to an eighteen pounder.

  I feel myself warming to him, wanting to involve him. But there’s one thing I absolutely must address before opening my arms and welcoming him in.

  “I don’t doubt that you feel that way now, Eric, but what if you change your mind a few months or, worse, a few years down the road? I can’t run the risk of letting my child become attached to you and then have you fade out of her life because you decide you’re too young to be a dad, or you meet some amazing woman and decide to start another family or...who knows what reason you might have?”

  Suddenly, his face is awash with anger. His eyes narrow and for a moment there, he looks truly frightening.

  “That will never happen,” he says. “Never. Do you hear me? Never.”

  “Umm...okay.”

  After a brief pause, his expression softens into an uneasy smile.

  “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to freak you out there. It’s just that the scenario you mentioned hit home. My own dad—he wasn’t around that often when I was growing up. And I swore I would never, ever do that to my own kid. I may fuck up in any number of ways, but there’s no way in hell I’m not going to be there for this kid, Molly. You can count on that.”

  “Really?” I whisper.

  “Of course.”

  He tilts his head to the side, no doubt wondering why my eyes are filling with tears. Hell, I don’t even know why my eyes are filling with tears. I really thought I wanted to raise the baby on my own with no help, but suddenly, the idea of having someone by my side to help shoulder the responsibility is a huge, huge relief.