Dirty Tackle: A Football Romance

by King,Imani

  I saw Maddy’s eyes widen. “I think that it would be best to ease Scarlet into this whole thing, Shane. I know you are eager to spend time with her, and I want that too. I want that for the two of you as much as anything, but this is still brand-new, and you’ve never been around a kid before.”

  “Remember, that’s not my fault,” I said. I felt the anger starting to rise again, but I needed to keep my cool. The last thing I wanted to do was get into conversations about things like custody. Although I didn’t think there was a way that I would ever be able to forgive Maddy, I could tell just by my short interaction with Scarlet that she was a good mom. I only hoped that I could be half as good a parent is she already appeared to be. Of course, she was the one who had all the practice.

  “I know this is my fault. I know you are angry at me, and you have every reason to be. I just don’t want us to have too many changes being thrown at Scarlet all at once. Can we just go slow? Let’s give her some time to get to know you and for you to get to know her. And then as that relationship builds, we can talk about what makes sense for a visitation schedule, if that’s what you want.”

  “Of course, that’s what I want!”

  Madeleine gulped hard at my raised tone. Then she looked down at her hands. “You have a busy schedule, Shane. You have practiced for hours every day and then have to watch more footage at night to prep for your games. You’re gone half of the season on the road, and you’re gone again for training camp before the season starts. That’s assuming that God forbid no injuries happen that would sideline you. We just have to take things slow.”

  I sensed there was something else that she wasn’t saying but hinting at nonetheless. “What else do you have on your mind, Madeleine? What else is it that has you hesitating to let me be able to spend time with my daughter?” I saw a rise of color in her cheeks. Oh yes, there was something else that she had to say, and it didn’t take a genius to guess what it was. I knew my reputation. “Are you afraid that I’m gonna bring a flock of women around her?”

  Maddy slipped her lower lip into her mouth and started to bite on it. It was ironic that I had just noted the same tendency in our daughter the day before. “I don’t want to start an argument, Shane. I just know what I’ve read in the paper. I also know how quickly things moved between you and me despite the fact that I tried to keep you at a distance. When you see something you want in that regard, you go after it. I just don’t know that that’s the best environment for Scarlet to be around on a regular basis.”

  Now she really had me pissed off. “So the fact that I have a reputation as some kind of playboy means that I can’t be a good father or make commonsense judgments when it comes to the type of people I bring around my daughter?”

  I could tell that Maddy was getting flustered. “Like I said, I don’t want to argue. Let’s just take things slow from here. I’m not going to deny you access to seeing Scarlet, but I think it makes sense that we should both agree on the parameters around those visits until you have developed more of a relationship with her.”

  I hated this. I hated this idea, and more than anything else, I hated the fact that I knew she was right. My logical brain was agreeing with her, but every emotion inside of me wanted to rail against the idea. Still, Maddy was her mother, and she did know her far better than I did. And although that wasn’t my fault, it was still the fact of the matter.

  “So what exactly are you proposing?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “At the beginning of every week, let’s just determine what your schedule looks like, and we can plan from there. I think for the time being, it makes sense if the three of us spend time together during your visits with her.”

  It was so ironic that I had been trying so hard to get Maddy to spend time with me, and now that she was freely agreeing to it, I didn’t want her there. That was a lie. Because somewhere in the back of my head, I had some type of fairytale vision of the three of us walking through the park with Scarlet in between us holding both of our hands. It was the picture-perfect family that I had never had.

  This thought made me angry because it made me long for something that I never thought I could have. If I’d been asked even twenty-four hours ago about the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, I would have said it was Maddy. But I couldn’t trust her now. She had betrayed me.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said. I looked at my watch and grimaced. Time had flown by. It had already been a couple of hours, and I knew that I needed to get back to the practice field. I’d already been gone for three days, and although the coach was willing to let me take the week off to grieve for my father, I was itching to get back on the field. The old man didn’t deserve to make me miss a game.

  “Okay. You know where to find me when you want to talk more about it,” she said.

  I stood up, and she stood up with me. Scarlet ran over to us immediately with a concerned look on her face. “Daddy? Are you leaving?”

  I didn’t hesitate in reaching down and pulling her up into my arms. She was so light that she weighed barely more than a feather. I loved how she innocently threw her arms around my neck to give me another hug. “I was just going to ask your mom if she might think about bringing you to work with her tomorrow. You can see the stadium and the locker room and everything behind the scenes.”

  “Oh, that would be awesome!” Scarlet said.

  I saw Maddy had a look of chagrin on her face, which was partly the reason I hadn’t asked her before suggesting it to Scarlet. If I was going to see my daughter on a regular basis, I wanted to start tomorrow. Hell, I wanted to start today, but I knew that I needed to get to practice.

  “I guess I can make arrangements for that to happen,” Maddy said.

  “Yeah!” Scarlet said. I set her down, and she clapped and jumped up and down. That made me laugh again.

  “I guess we’ll see you tomorrow then,” Maddy said. I could see again that there was something more than she that she wanted to say. I knew that there was another conversation to be had. Things had been left open between us, and then this had happened. But I wasn’t in the right headspace to be able to give her anything. For now, I was focused entirely on Scarlet.

  “See you later, alligator,” I said to Scarlet as I swiped a finger across her nose. She laughed and waved to me.

  It was harder than I ever imagined to walk away from her. And even as I missed her, I felt the tug of missing Maddy as well.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Shane hadn’t been the only one that needed to get back to work. Considering I had just started my new job and then asked for three days off, I was amazed that they had let me go. Now I was back to work and back in the field. I had to ask my mother to bring Scarlet to the stadium during after she got out of school.

  Scarlet had been so excited about the visit, and it had been difficult for me to convince her that she shouldn’t go to school and start telling everyone about Shane being her dad quite yet. It was still all new, and I didn’t want anyone telling her that she was fibbing and making up some big story. I thought that would have been devastating for her.

  I still wasn’t quite sure how Shane was going to handle things from a media perspective, but the fact that he wanted to bring Scarlet to the football stadium indicated to me that he was more than okay with people knowing about her. That was a big relief when it hadn’t seemed like a big deal at all. There been a part of me that had been concerned that once he found out, he would try to bury her like a dirty little secret.

  Why couldn’t he understand that this—all of this—was part of why I’d kept Scarlet to myself all these years?

  But watching him with her at the park had been magical. I had lain awake the night before, kicking myself over and over for the poor decisions I had made back then. If I hadn’t have done that, things might have been different between us. The ‘should-a, would-a, could-a’ thoughts running through my head were going to be my undoing.

  It didn’t help that my body ached for him
. Even in those few short days preparing for the funeral, we had found a rhythm in our nights together. We reached for each other as soon as we were back in our room, and it had been so easy for the rest of the world to slip away. We had been free to explore each other in every way possible.

  I shook those thoughts from my mind. They didn’t do me any good. They only made me feel worse.

  When my mother arrived at the front gate, I went down to meet them. Scarlet’s eyes were as wide as saucers as I saw her taking in the huge building around her. “Thanks for bringing her over, Mom,” I said.

  “Your father should be here this evening.” My father was coming up that evening to have dinner with my mom.

  “It’s okay if you want to head back right away. She can stay with me for the afternoon,” I said.

  My mother gave me a concerned expression. “You just have to give him time, sweetie.”

  I looked away from her then. As frustrated as I was with my mother, she still knew how to read me like a book, and she could tell I was upset. “I know.”

  She gave my shoulder a small squeeze. “Things have a way of working out the way they’re supposed to. You just have to trust in the process.”

  I wondered if she was talking about me or herself then. I knew I had been incredibly self-centered lately with everything I had been going through with Shane, but I had heard the low tone of anxious conversations happening every night when she talked to my dad. They were trying to figure out the best way to liquidate all of their assets so they could pay off the enormous amount of debt that they had in front of them. What I was able to help them with was barely making a dent. I knew she was worried, and I can see the bags under her eyes that told me she hadn’t been sleeping well either.

  “We’ll figure it out. We always do,” I said.

  She smiled indulgently at me and nodded. Scarlet put her hand in mine as I led her back towards the gym and my office. Several times we passed players in the hallway, and she walked up to each of them to say hello. I couldn’t help but smile. Football players would seem enormous to an eight-year-old girl, but she wasn’t letting their size intimidate her. I got plenty of curious looks, but mostly they just waved at us in a friendly kind of way that I appreciated. So far everyone I had met on the team had been great. Everyone except for…

  As if my thoughts had conjured her into being, Olivia Watson appeared in front of us. She looked at me and then look down at Scarlet with a look of distinct disdain on her face. “You can’t have kids here. You gotta have a waiver signed and have it cleared by the front office.”

  I didn’t comprehend why this woman continued to choose to be so despicable to me. Then I had to remember that she had warned me to stay away from Shane because she believed that he was hers through some kind of some misplaced possessiveness. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Shane about what Olivia had said to me the week before with everything that had happened, and I figured now wasn’t exactly the best time to address it either.

  “My daughter has just come for a visit.” Man, was she going to be surprised when she found out exactly who Scarlet was. There was kind of gleefulness inside of me when I thought about it. That would take the bitch down a couple of notches.

  Olivia sniffed. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. If it gets back to my father, it’s your funeral.” Then she moved around us and strode away from us down the hallway.

  Scarlet watched her with a thoughtful look on her face. “She doesn’t seem very nice.”

  It was amazing how perceptive children were. “She’s not,” I said truthfully. I didn’t figure there was any reason to try and hide that fact, even though I always wanted Scarlet to give someone the benefit of the doubt. Olivia had proved she didn’t deserve that courtesy, though.

  We walked into the gym, and I saw Marvin waiting for me on the bench outside my office.

  “Hey, Doc!” he said. His smile got even broader when he saw Scarlet standing there next to me. “Hey, I didn’t realize you had a mini me!” He got down on one knee and stuck out his hand. “’I’m Marvin. What’s your name?”

  I appreciated Marvin’s openness and warmth right away. Scarlet seemed quite taken aback, probably because Marvin was the size of a tank. “Scarlet.”

  “Scarlet. That is a very pretty name for a very pretty girl,” he said. “You come to help mom out at work today, Scarlet?”

  Scarlet giggled. “I’m not a doctor.”

  “You’re not? I thought they gave out those doctor degrees to just about anyone who wanted one,” Marvin said. He winked at me. I couldn’t help but chuckle too. His humor was infectious.

  “Let’s get you up on the table, Marvin. Stretch your shoulder out, and see that everything is still healing properly.”

  I positioned Scarlet on the bench that Marvin had just vacated. She had watched me work with patients before, and she was good at sitting by and just watching. She would occasionally ask a question of me or Marvin, and we just continued to work through them. Marvin finally sat up at the end of the session. He moved his shoulder back and forth. “You are some kind of miracle worker. My shoulder feels great. Way better than before,” he said.

  I gave him a light tap on the top of the muscle. “Well, if you’d quit trying to run into Mack trucks at every opportunity, you’d make my job a lot easier.”

  He chuckled. Then his eyes settled on a place over my shoulder, and he grinned again and gave a wave. “I suppose that’s your next appointment, huh?”

  I knew that it was Shane even before I turned around. Regardless of what was going on between us, my body was innately tuned into him. I thought that if I ever needed to find him, I’d be able to locate him anywhere.

  I turned and saw that he was in his practice uniform. He was so damn handsome. Before I could say anything else, Scarlet squealed and jumped off the bench. Just as she had done a couple of days before, she sprinted across the room and launched herself at her parent, only this time it was Shane instead of me. It was a good thing he was used to catching things that moved quickly at him.

  He laughed as he scooped her up and gave her a big hug. Marvin watched the scene with a look on his face that told me he probably had started to get a sense of what was going on.

  “He’s really happy,” he said in a low voice.

  I shook my head sadly. “He’s not happy with me, if that’s what you’re saying.”

  Marvin looked at me. “I’ve known that man for a long time. I’ve seen him with a screw or two loose. I’ve seen him party hard. I’ve seen him make a wicked path through every defender on the field to score a touchdown. None of those things have made him light up inside the way he’s been for the last week since you came back into his life.”

  “He’s angry at me,” I admitted.

  “Well, whatever it’s about, I know that you’ll work through it. There’s no way the two of you don’t belong together. Anybody with eyes could see it.”

  I thought about what he said. He got up and shook my hand and then made his way across the room. Shane met him halfway, and I heard a mumbled conversation. Then he motioned down at Scarlet, and Marvin started to laugh. It was a deep belly laugh of pure joy. Then he shook Scarlet’s hand again and slapped Shane on the back. If he hadn’t known before, he definitely did now. I saw him give me a sympathetic look, as if he now fully understood my situation. He gave me a small nod and a thumbs up signal. It was nice to know that somebody believed we could work things out. I just didn’t know if I was as confident as Marvin was for our future.

  Shane motioned for Scarlet to follow him, and he walked over to me. “I’d like to give Scarlet a tour of the field. Maybe introduce her to a couple of people. I can have her back in an hour or so, before practice starts,” he said.

  This was it. The first time that I was supposed to trust my daughter entirely in the hands of her father. I knew that I had to start letting go and start letting him into her life. I was just a little hurt that I hadn’t been invited to be part of the tour as well.
/>
  “Okay,” I said. I looked down at Scarlet. “You mind your manners and listen to everything that your daddy says, okay?”

  She nodded vigorously. “I’ll be good, Mommy. I promise.”

  I felt my chest constrict as I watched the two of them leave the room, Shane’s huge hulking form and Scarlet’s small, petite one next to him. It was the kind of picture that I always envisioned in my mind when I thought about my daughter finally being with her father.

  I sat down on the table and stared off into space as I waited for my next patient. I knew that it was going to be a longer afternoon than I anticipated.

  By the time that Shane had come back with Scarlet an hour later, a new plan had started to form in my mind. I didn’t know if Shane could ever trust me again. All I could do was give him time with Scarlet and watch their relationship develop and grow.

  “How about I make dinner for us at your place tonight?” I asked hesitantly. “I know you have a game tomorrow, so we can make it an early night.”

  “I didn’t think you knew how to cook,” he said with a knowing look.

  I held up my cell phone. “I’ve got all of the best restaurants in the city on speed dial.”

  “Can we, Daddy?”

  “Of course, pumpkin. I think that would be great,” he said. He didn’t seem all that thrilled at the idea that I was going to be joining them, though. Still, I was grateful that he hadn’t completely disregarded the idea out of hand.

  “Seven o’clock?” I asked. He nodded in agreement. “I’ll see you then.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  When we walked into Shane’s building later that evening, Scarlet had tried looking everywhere at once. “It’s so big here,” she said.

  I knew exactly what she meant. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t provided a comfortable somewhat middle-class apartment for us for our new home. But this was moving up to the big time. Shane’s luxury condo in downtown was the kind of place that most people wouldn’t even get to see in their lifetime. It was the epitome of extravagance. I figured there was a part of him that thought he deserved it, and he had earned it. He had come from extremely humble beginnings and made something great out of himself.