And Gia may have been looking for someone else that night, but she freely admitted to happily ending up with Tanner. She even told me that they had used a condom. It wasn’t like I could accuse him of being any more irresponsible than she had been.
Maybe I had judged him too harshly after all. Maybe I wanted to see a monster to ease the guilt and doubts I had about adopting Izzy.
"Yep, I agree. Those eyes are startling."
I turned to my left to see the cool blue eyes and cocky grin of Tanner Garrick. I recognized it as the standard profile image that could be found on countless websites.
"The rest of him is pretty striking, too," Roxie smiled and turned to me. Her eyes flitted down to my lap for a moment, then she quickly turned back to the website she was looking at.
"Is that TMZ?" I asked. The page she was looking at seemed to be an article, but she'd scrolled away from the headline before I'd had a chance to read it and was looking at other images that appeared lower on the page now. "Wait, what is that? Is that recent?"
"From last night," she nodded.
The pictures were of a crowd of people in what looked to be a bar. The images were focused on two men in the middle that seemed to be fighting. "Is that... is that Tanner?"
Roxie nodded. "Apparently, daddy dearest got into a fight last night. Article calls it 'a drunken brawl between teammates that are known to have had issues in the past'. Guess it's not just women that Flash gets into trouble with."
I sighed. Maybe I hadn't judged him unfairly after all. I couldn’t decide if that made me happy or sad.
Roxie turned a sympathetic expression my way. "It was just a fight. Says neither of them got arrested or anything. The cops didn't even show. It was broken up before it got out of hand. You know how it is. Boys will be boys. Maybe this guy is so filled with excess testosterone he doesn't know how to channel it in the off season. I bet he's dynamite in bed."
"I'd rather not even think about that," I protested.
"Oh really?" The edges of Roxie's lips turned up into a wicked grin as she reached down and snatched my sketchbook from the pillow on my lap.
"Hey!" I protested. I didn't mind people looking at my finished artwork, but that book was filled with mindless doodles that I used to get my creative juices flowing. It wasn't something I normally liked people to flip through.
Roxie turned the paper around so she could get a look at it from the right angle, ignoring my protests and even the pillow that I was now free to hit her on the arm with. She laughed as she held my sketch up next to the screen that she'd refocused on Tanner’s head shot.
"You barely noticed him. You don't want to think about him. Yet you just sat there on your couch, drawing this completely from memory."
I looked between the two images and felt my face heat up. I'd very unconsciously been sketching an image of Tanner.
7
Tanner
One of the best things about being a professional athlete is not having to wear fancy clothes all the time. I can't stand wearing a suit. They're boiling hot and itchy as hell.
But damn if I don't look good in one.
After being on television playing ball or doing the odd commercial, I'm used to turning at least the occasional head wherever I go. Dressing up only amplifies that experience. Even people that would normally ignore me have trouble not openly staring.
Delaney fell into that crowd.
"I'd tell you to wipe that look of wanton desire off your face, Laney, but as you don't have the kid with you today, I guess there's no harm."
Her denial was betrayed by the fact that her cheeks quickly became almost a matching shade to her hair. It was absolutely adorable.
"I was only surprised that you bothered to clean yourself up. Guess you were all out of sweatpants."
I smirked at the thought of her remembering the half-dressed state I was in when we first met.
"And her name is Isabella, and mine is De-laney. I can understand you being too slow to get mine right, but you would think you'd at least learn the name of your own daughter."
"Alleged daughter."
"Well I guess that's what we're here to find out."
I shrugged, noncommittally, and took a seat in a chair opposite her. Reception had told me that Miss Myers was running a bit behind so we had to wait.
Delaney was looking just as gorgeous today as when I'd first seen her. She was dressed up as well, wearing a knee length black skirt and green blouse that seemed designed to draw attention to her eyes, making them stand out from her pale features brilliantly. I was happy to be left waiting if it meant I got to admire her curves for a while longer.
She didn't seem as interested in staring at me, though. Instead, she picked up a random magazine from the pile on the table that separated us and pretended to read it.
She wasn’t about to get off that easy. Teasing her about her name was amusing, but I was sure I could do better.
"Page thirty-seven."
"Excuse me?" she peered over the top of the magazine, doing her best to look annoyed at being disturbed.
"I assume you're looking for a picture of me. I'm on page thirty-seven of that particular issue."
She looked startled, closing the magazine to check the cover of what it was she was pretending to read. It was a Sports Illustrated from a few months back. I recognized it because me and some of the guys had been featured in an article about how we were well positioned to lead our team to victory this year.
Until Bullet fucked it all up. They should have done a follow-up article about that.
Delaney threw the magazine back down onto the pile.
"I think I've read enough about you lately, thank you very much." She was even cute when she was annoyed. Whenever she crinkled her nose it seemed to make the freckles around them darken.
"You've been spending time reading about me? That's sweet. But if you want to know something, it'd be faster if we just go out for a drink later. Then you can ask me all the questions you want."
Her eyes hardened into emeralds as she glared at me. "Are you for real? I'm talking about the news of your bar fight last week."
"Oh, that." I shrugged. "That was nothing. Just a disagreement."
"Disagreements don't usually make the front page of TMZ."
"They do when I'm involved," I retorted. The whole thing was blown out of proportion and I was sick to death of talking about it already. It was bad enough that I had to explain myself to the coach and GM. "Shit like that happens all the time, it's not news. People drink and argue and fight. Only now everyone in the world has a camera and an Instagram account."
"I see. Poor famous you. It's practically criminal how people expect a spoiled, selfish, overpaid jock be held accountable for starting a simple bar fight these days."
"I didn't start it," I growled.
"That's not what the article I read said."
Of course not. Bullet can do no wrong. He really did throw the first punch, this time.
But only after I ran my mouth off.
"Don't believe everything you read."
Delaney looked like she was going to say something else about it but then changed her mind when she saw the look on my face. Instead, she just took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Look, we don't need to argue about this. I really don't care if you want to get into fights or have orgies or—"
"It wasn't an orgy,” I interrupted, knowing exactly what she was referring to. “It was a ménage à trois." Or would have been, if Laney hadn’t shown up when she did.
The correction earned me a withering look, but she carried on with barely a pause.
"The point is, you have your own life and I get it. Did you have a chance to look at those papers we left with you?"
I nodded, opening my suit jacket to show them sticking out from the inside pocket. "Right here if I need them."
She sighed. "Right. If. So… you're okay with signing away your rights? If needed?"
This time it was me who took a deep bre
ath. I thought I was ready to answer that question, but for some reason the word yes stopped in my throat.
It wasn't that I didn't trust the papers themselves. My lawyers confirmed there was no funny business. They agreed that if the DNA tests proved that Isabella was my kid and I wanted nothing more to do with her, signing them was the surest way to make that happen.
But they also cautioned that once I signed them, there was no turning back.
"Garrick? You are going to sign them, right? If needed? Because raising a kid is not something you just do on a whim, you know. And the kind of life you lead is no environment for a little girl."
There was a tone in her voice that I didn't appreciate. A judgment in her words that may have been explicitly unsaid, but still implicitly obvious.
"How many kids have you raised, Laney?"
Whether the startled look on her face was due to the sudden harshness of my tone or the surprise of my question, I'm not sure, but I didn't give her a chance to answer.
"Let me guess. None. You know how many I've raised?"
Again, I only paused long enough for her face to register her emotion—this time confused—but not long enough for an answer.
"Three. That's right. I was twelve years old when my old man ran off with his girlfriend. That meant my mother had to go to work, because that piece of shit never sent her a dime. And every morning after she left, who do you think had to take care of everyone? Yeah. Selfish and spoiled Tanner. I did that for seven years before I signed with the Stars. The money I made by being overpaid meant my mom could finally stop working and come back to her family. But yeah, it also meant I was finally free to live my life."
I was angrier than I should have been, so I paused to take a breath. It wasn't Delaney's fault. None of this was. I always had trouble holding down my emotions whenever I had to discuss my past.
Which was why I didn’t fucking like to talk about it.
"So yeah, don't worry, I'll sign your goddamn papers. Just don't fucking lecture me on what it means to have to give shit up to raise a kid. I know a hell of a lot more about that than you ever will. And I think I've earned a bit of me time at this point, so I'm not going to feel guilty about that, either."
Very few people knew what I'd gone through. I'd done my best to keep the truth from the media, because I didn't want anyone bothering my family or trying to go and look for my father. The last thing I wanted was for someone to drag that asshole back into my life.
I was better off without him. As hard as my childhood was, I didn't regret any of it. I did a damn good job of raising my brothers. They weren't perfect, but neither was I.
Considering the DNA I had to work with, things could have gone a lot worse.
Not that growing up without a father was ideal. It wasn't. It sucked. But growing up without a father was far better than growing up with my father.
He was more of a model of how not to act than anything else. He never hid the fact that he regretted getting married and having kids. Always blamed us for missing out on things he felt he could have done in his life that would have been more interesting. When he left, he told me that he was going to go and live life for himself for once. As if that wasn't what he'd been doing every damn day anyway. Yeah, he was a real piece of shit. About the only thing he ever taught me of any use was how to throw a ball.
Unless you count teaching me how to run and deke. But the only reason I learned that was because I was constantly trying to avoid being slugged.
"I didn't know any of that," Delaney said. She looked as if she'd been slapped, her eyes were wide and filled with emotion. "I'm sorry—"
"Yeah, no one does, so let's keep it that way," I snapped.
"Mr. Garrick? Miss Chase? Miss Myers is ready for you now. Please follow me." The receptionist appeared in the doorway, smiling in her obliviousness.
I launched to my feet.
"Come on, Laney. Let's get this over with."
8
Delaney
I was still in a daze as I followed Tanner's finely dressed form into the office of Miss Myers. I was even too lost in thought to pay attention to how tight his ass was, something that Roxie had demanded I specifically take note of in order to report back to her.
I could tell by how passionate and angry he'd been that his story was true. It wasn't just some made up celebrity sob story designed to make them seem more real and relatable. If it was, I'm sure I would have heard it by now.
No. You don't keep a story like that to yourself unless it pains you to think about.
It was looking like there was a lot more to Tanner Garrick than I'd given him credit for.
But that still didn't change anything.
Sure, he may have had a rough time growing up, but his past didn't make up for how he chose to live his present. Fights and threesomes? Those qualities might do for a party boy bachelor, but they didn’t mix with fatherhood.
"Good morning, Miss Chase. Mr. Garrick. Sorry to keep you waiting."
"That's fine." Tanner's response was curt, just shy of being rude. He was probably biting his tongue in an effort not to tell her to just get on with it already. After the conversation in the lobby, I couldn't blame him if he just wanted to leave as quickly as possible. I was anxious to put this whole thing behind me, as well.
"It's no problem," I added, forcing a tight smile onto my face.
"Okay, well let's get right to it, then." She lifted a manila folder from her desk and gestured toward Tanner. "I have the results of the DNA test. They conclusively prove paternity. You are the father of Isabella Marcelo."
I watched for a reaction, but Tanner's face was unreadable. He simply nodded.
I couldn't imagine what was going through his head at that moment.
"Which leads us then to the question of her guardianship. As we discussed last week, since her mother's passing, Isabella has been taken care of by her maternal grandparents as well as Miss Chase. Mr. and Mrs. Marcelo are in their sixties, however, and although they are willing to raise Isabella if need be, they are also comfortable with having Delaney, who they've known since she was only five years old, adopt her. I've spoken at length with both parties, and am satisfied that this would be in the best interest of the child."
Tanner blinked now. His mouth moved as if he was chewing on something he didn't agree with.
"Best interest of the child?” he spat. “Since when is a child being raised by someone completely unrelated to them a better option than their own biological father?"
My heart skipped a beat. Miss Myers frowned at the question.
"These conclusions were actually drawn before we were aware that there was a biological father in the picture. As soon as we were informed of your identity, we discussed our options and then contacted you—"
"Hang on," Tanner interrupted. He turned his gaze to me. "You didn't tell them that you knew who I was until a week ago?"
My tongue raced along my dry lips as my heart began to make up for its previous skip by doubling in speed. Miss Myers spoke before I could.
"It wasn't last week. It was a couple of weeks ago. It took some time to locate your address, discuss options, draw up the papers necessary—"
"But Gia died months ago, right?" He interrupted again, but didn't wait for an answer this time. His blue eyes were icy as they focused on me. "And yet you still waited until two weeks ago to tell them about me. Why?"
Pushing past the dryness in my mouth, I found my voice. "I didn't think you'd want anything to do with a child, so I didn't think it mattered anyway. But then... when things started to get organized in terms of the adoption, I realized it wasn't fair to Izzy not to even—"
"Wasn't fair to Izzy,” he repeated. “What about to me?"
I wasn't prepared for this attack at all and found myself groping for answers. "I just didn't think it would be important to you…"
How could I? I didn't know your story then. No one did. You're just a bad ass football player. A dirty jock that likes to get int
o fights and have group sex. That's the image you've built for yourself.
The words sped through my mind, but now that I knew that they weren’t the whole story I couldn’t bring myself to voice them. I couldn't fault him entirely for his anger. He had family and father issues that were well earned.
But that doesn't mean he'd be a good father himself. He said he'd earned his me time. There's no me time when you have a kid.
Tanner sat for a few moments in silence. I had no idea what was going on behind the oceans of blue that stared at me. Miss Myers came to the rescue one more time.
"The important thing is that she did eventually tell us about you. I feel it necessary to point out that Delaney was the only one that Gia had told about your real identity. She could have kept that information to herself forever, and no one would have ever known. And I should also point out that in the majority of cases like these, the father wants nothing to do with the child." It was hard to tell from her tone, but I knew that Miss Myers personally believed that to be a good thing. I hadn't asked for her specifically because she was known for her compassion towards men in cases like these.
Tanner finally shrugged and sighed. Maybe he realized that whether he believed himself judged fairly in the media or not, he could hardly blame me for assuming he wasn't interested in giving up his party-filled lifestyle to start raising a kid. Still, I couldn't help but feel a little bit guilty.
We both turned back to the CPS worker. Miss Myers was wearing the same tight bun that she always wore, and her dark eyes were as stern as ever as she focused on the man in front of her. The folder with the test results lay on her desk, her hand resting on it as if she was ready to pick it up and wave it around if Tanner started to deny his paternity again.
"Okay then," she continued, clearly intending to move this meeting past where it had gotten derailed. "This leads us back to the issue of Isabella and her future. As I said, the option is on the table for Miss Chase here to move forward with a legal adoption. She has been vetted, and although there were some initial concerns regarding her financial situation, given that she is an artist with no stable job to rely on, Mr. and Mrs. Marcelo have agreed to provide support in that area where necessary and have already set up their wills and a trust for their granddaughter."
Dirty Jock Page 4
