“What about me? We are through.”
“I wanted to come and talk to you.”
“Well, I’m not really in a mood to listen—ever.”
I stepped past him and started walking.
“Alexa, wait. Please.”
His voice sounded so sincere, but he was not following or pushing me. It was my choice if I wanted to stand there and talk to him or not. For whatever reason, my feet sauntered slowly back to where Kip was standing.
“Ok, talk,” I said.
“I’m sorry. I was wrong. I’ve made a huge mistake,” Kip said. “I don’t know what came over me or why I got so scared that I had to just chuck it all and leave.”
“You got scared? Yeah, I’m pretty scared, too.”
“I just think if you give me a moment, I can explain why I did what I did. I can show you why I have so much fear and why I thought it was the best thing for you and the baby if I was no longer in the picture.”
I was intrigued a bit. I wanted answers, but I also didn’t want to face him. I was afraid to let him speak to me. I was mostly afraid that he would draw me right back into his world and I’d stop being angry with him when I still should have been. I was afraid that I would see his side of things and that it would make total sense to me. I wanted to stay angry. I wanted to continue hating him and I wanted to keep him out of my life. But I knew that I’d regret it forever if I didn’t let him speak. I had to at least hear him out and see what he had to say.
“Ok,” I said. “So?”
He grunted and continued. “I’m afraid I’ll be a lousy father. I had a lousy father and a lousy mother. I’ve grown up in a world where you had to be so twisted and thick skinned that you could never actually connect with another person because they would eat you alive if you did. I’ve never felt really warm or like other people until I met you. And this scared me. And when you said you were pregnant, it hit a whole other level of scary. I freaked out. I lost touch with myself and what was important to me. Baby, I’m so sorry.”
Hearing his words melted my heart even as I tried desperately to keep my composure and my anger. I wanted so badly to just hate him for the hell he’d put me through, but I couldn’t. I cared. I loved this man. I could see how he had been worried and scared that he might do our child more harm raising it than just offering money to help care for the baby. It didn’t excuse what he did, but he’d made a mistake that he was trying to own up to. I wasn’t really sure how I felt. I was so conflicted about it all.
“I understand,” I said. “But you really hurt me. You have to see that there are going to be times when you think you aren’t ready for this and you have to go on and be there as a parent. That is what being a parent is all about. I need a partner in this. I need someone I can rely on, someone that I can trust. I can’t be worried that you will flake out again the next time you get scared.”
“I know,” Kip said. “Baby, I’m so sorry. Please give me another chance. I want to be there for you and for the baby. I’ve been thinking of nothing else ever since the moment we parted. What was I thinking? I was out of my mind. How could I stand to live without you? I can’t. I really can’t.”
He stepped forward and wrapped me up in his arms. It felt so good to be there again. The relief washed over me and tears began to fall from my face. I was in so much pain. But this right here felt amazing. It was all I’d been thinking of for days, even through all the anger and the hatred. I swore up and down that I hated Kip, but in reality I just hated what he’d done and how he’d made me feel. My friends were right. They usually were about such things.
But would it all be different now? Would Kip stay with me and be the man and the father that I needed him to be. I was so scared to think of raising this baby all by myself. What would I have done? That was so frightening. I never wanted that life for us.
And now Kip and I would be together. But even through the joy I was feeling right then, I knew it would take a long time before I fully trusted Kip again. After he’d terrified me like that by simply walking away, it was going to take a while before I realized that he would not do it again. Because he could have at any time. That would be the thing that haunted my nightmares for a long time.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kip
I was awakened by my phone ringing. Usually I had my alarm set, but since Alexa and I had just reconciled the day before, I had shut it off. We’d spent the entire night making love and had finally fallen asleep in the wee hours of the morning. I was sleeping really good, too. I was dreaming about something, but I couldn’t recall what it was when I heard the noise of the phone call coming in. It took me a few seconds to realize what was happening and to raise myself from the clutches of sweet sleep.
I opened my eyes and grabbed my phone. I noticed that the time said that it was a little bit after eight in the morning. I hadn’t meant to sleep that long. The person calling me was Bobby. He hardly ever called me.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hey, man! Where are you?” Bobby asked.
“I was asleep still.”
“Oh, man. It’s happening.”
“What are you talking about?” I cleared my throat.
“Michigan. They tested positive for steroids. They are taking back their win over us. Can you believe it!”
I leapt out of bed. “What? Are you sure?”
“Yes! We are in the playoffs automatically now.”
I couldn’t believe this was happening. It was like the answer to my prayers coming true right in front of me. I never would have suspected that something like this would be happening right after I got back together with Alexa. It was like the universe had realigned for me and now everything was happening the way it was supposed to. It was all working out, finally.
“That’s great news! Wow, man. This is beautiful.”
“I knew you would be stoked,” Bobby said.
I ended the call with him and jumped out of bed. I was bare naked and I was now doing my little happy dance as I jumped around the room. I couldn’t help myself. I was feeling too good for words.
Alexa began to get wind of this and slowly wake up on the other side of the bed. It was late enough that I was not too concerned about her losing any sleep. She was a morning person like me.
“What’s going on?” She asked.
“We are back! The team. We are in the playoffs!”
“What? How did that happen?”
I explained it all to her. She was ecstatic. “That’s great! I’m so happy for you.”
I wrapped her up in my arms and kissed her hard on the mouth. “This is phenomenal. I have a chance to redeem myself after that horror show I put on in the last game.”
“It wasn’t that bad, was it?”
“Oh, yeah. It was. I was so distraught over what happened with us that I just couldn’t get my head in the game.”
“Aww, well that was your own fault, jerk,” Alexa said with a grin.
“I know,” I replied. I kissed her again. My manhood started to rise to the occasion as her lips touched mine. I was getting that sweet feeling…
And Alexa noticed it too. She quickly reached down and began to massage my thing in her hand, squishing it while it was still soft and feeling it harden in her hand. She smiled widely and kissed me some more applying a little tongue to the kiss this time. Her fingers encircled my flesh and began to stroke me. I tried to keep my head clear as she did so and my lust grew exponentially.
I pulled the cover out of the way between us and positioned myself right between her legs. I found her familiar wetness and slid into her body with the greatest of ease, slicing through her last bit of resolve. We were already in that space where foreplay was no longer necessary. This was our third lovemaking session in the past six hours.
My lips pressed down harder on hers as my hips bucked in and out of her body, rocking her against me. Her soft moans spurned me on to fuck her harder, letting her body slide over my shaft and with the slightest bit of pres
sure I was able to go more deeply. As I pushed into her, Alexa raised her legs up to accommodate me. I pulled her closer down on the bed until I was now ramming into her as I folded her body over a little bit to achieve maximum insertion.
She was tighter than I ever remember feeling on me before. I truly believed our bodies were designed strictly for each other. We fit too perfectly and made each other feel things that should not have been humanly possible.
“Fuck me harder,” Alexa demanded. Her eyes were locked on mine in an intensity that I had sorely missed. I did as she commanded and rocked my hips harder against hers. My head was spinning with desire and with imagination. It was like I was sucked into some kind of a beautiful fantasy world where everything just clicked for me. It was the ultimate of what I’d been searching for my entire life.
I ran my fingers through her hair as I made love to her. Her beautiful face was filled with joy, and passion. Her smile was sweet and perfect as those amazing eyes locked onto mine. I kissed her harder on the mouth this time, shoving my tongue into her mouth matching that rhythm with my body’s.
Then I hugged her tightly to me. I wanted to feel her soft warmth against my body. The way we fit together was nothing short of magic. I could tell she was getting close. The way her moans were increasing with intensity and with volume, the way her hips were bucking a bit faster, her whole body eager as could be to come hard on mine.
I pulled out all the way and then dove deeply into her, repeating the move over and over, occasionally pausing to throw off her anticipation. “Please… give it to me…” she groaned.
I did it again and again. Finally, I started to feel that I was about to expel my juices inside of her. It was time for release. I was almost there.
I held on tightly to her body keeping her as close to me as possible and blocking her from rocking her hips. No, she was going to stay still while I humped her with everything that I had. And I did so that.
“Here I come!” I yelled as I opened up my release and she came hard with me.
Afterwards we were both too spent to even move much. But the day was just starting, and soon our appetites got us moving to the kitchen where we made pancakes with lots of syrup. I happened to be a great chef when it came to pancakes. I had an old secret recipe that I’d picked up from one of my nannies when I was younger.
“This is so good,” Alexa said. “If I’d known you could cook like that…”
“What?”
“I’d never want you to take me anywhere,” she teased.
I kissed her and said, “I’m sorry, but my culinary talents only extend to pancakes.”
“Well, at least you have talents in other areas of your life,” she said.
I smiled at her and gave her a wink while I started up the coffee pot.
“So, San Diego?” Alexa said. “We haven’t really talked about that.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I’m starting training camp there in April.”
She looked at me with a mix of pride and confusion in her eyes. “So, what does that mean? You’re officially moving to San Diego then?”
I smiled at her. I was waiting for the right time to officially do this and this kind of made sense right now as she was asking me this question. I walked over to my kitchen junk drawer (where I knew that she would never look) and I pulled out a small box. Concealing it in my hand, I dropped it into the pocket of my pants.
“Yeah, I’m moving to San Diego,” I answered. “I kind of have to.”
“I see,” she replied. “Um…well, what sort of arrangements were you thinking of?”
She was so cute. Her sweet face was looking up at me with those bright eyes and that innocence on her smile.
“I was hoping my fiancée would go with me,” I said.
Before she had a chance to really respond, I dropped to one knee and pulled the ring out of my pocket. She gasped and dropped her fork in mid-air. It fell from her hand and clattered on the floor at her feet. The tears were instantaneous.
“Alexa, will you be my wife?” I asked.
“Yes! Of course! Yes!” She exclaimed.
I put the ring on her finger and held her in my arms as I stood up and she leapt into my hold. She was going to be my wife. This was really happening. There was no hesitation on my part, nothing that would ever have convinced me that this was a bad idea. I wasn’t sure how those thoughts had ever entered my brain and taken such a strong hold on me before this.
I couldn’t have been happier holding my future bride in my arms. She kissed me hard on the mouth over and over again as she moved to my neck and then back to my mouth. “I love you! I love you so much baby!” Alexa exclaimed loudly in my ear.
“Oh, honey, I love you more. I promise you that I will always do my best to be the best husband and father that I could ever be. I know that with you by my side we can take on the world and accomplish whatever we want to.”
“Yes, honey… we can,” Alexa said. She was bawling tears of pure joy down her beautiful cheeks. Watching that light in her eyes was the most satisfying thing that I have ever seen. There was a purity there, a sweetness that I used to have and one day thought I might be able to recapture. Maybe Alexa would actually show me how. Maybe our kids would. Kids…? Yeah, I thought I might enjoy it if we had several kids. I wasn’t sure how many Alexa wanted to have. There would be plenty of time to have those discussions later.
“I’ve got to call my parents,” Alexa said. “They will want to know this pronto.”
“I think your dad wants to shoot me,” I said. “And I can’t say I blame him.”
“Well, he will have to learn to accept you and your mistakes as I have, or else I’ll beat him up. I’m daddy’s girl, in case you can’t tell. He is forever wrapped around this.” She held up her little finger.
I laughed hard. That girl was such a cut up.
She called her parents and told them the good news. They seemed to take it well. Her parents, unlike mine, really just wanted their daughter to make her own decisions in life and to be happy. Even if they didn’t agree with those decisions.
I wished I’d had that. When Alexa was done speaking with her parents, she asked me if I was going to call mine. I looked at her and shook my head. “They will find out one way or another, but not from me. I’m sure my dad would just try to turn the wedding into some sort of PR stunt. I’m not having it.”
“Ok,” she said. “Maybe one day I can wear him down and mend this rift between the two of you.”
I shrugged. “Maybe you can. If it can be done, honey I know you can do it.”
She kissed me and I held my soon-to-be wife in my arms. I never wanted to let her go. I would be by her side from now until the end of time. Nothing would ever pull me apart from my family again.
Epilogue
Alexa
One Year Later…
“I almost don’t want to go back to San Diego,” I said as I took in the view of the sunset from the beach. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and San Diego got some nice ones.
“Yeah, but that is where I makes my money,” Kip said beside me on his beach chair.
“True, but you have enough money as is. Do you really need to go back to work?” I pleaded. I hated that our little vacation was over with. We’d just spent the last few months of the off season together relaxing as a family. I was working quite a bit with my online streaming channel, which had become rather large, and I was loving every minute of it. Kip had finished his first season playing in the pros and he’d been outstanding. They were all blown away with how well he’d shaken the title of rookie and played like a seasoned veteran right out of the gate.
Now we were on our second official honeymoon in Hawaii. My parents were taking care of our daughter Ava. She was the most precious thing on the earth to us. We were so blessed to have been given such a beautiful baby girl. She was perfect. I’d done my best to be a good mother, and Kip was the most amazing father. He was so kind and patient. He was everything to her. S
he was definitely daddy’s girl and she was going to be a little heartbreaker. She already had Kip eating out of the palm of her hand practically. I had to step in and be the tough parent sometimes. It was funny.
My brother Billy was playing football in a Canadian league. He had not been given any offers to play in the NFL, but he was still trying. At the very least he was no longer in my parents’ house and he had not spoken to me or Kip in almost a year. He didn’t come to the wedding, even though I invited him solely at my parents’ insistence.
It was a good thing. He would never approve of Kip and I and he saw Kip as being his sworn enemy until the end of time. That was fine with the both of us. He was a jerk, a totally worthless human being. I had tried with him, but it would have taken a lot for him to find any way back into my good graces. I wasn’t sure there was a way.
“Yes, I do. I love playing ball. You married a ball player,” Kip said with a grin.
“Yes, I guess I did. But how about you play for another five years and then retire. Do something where you are home every night and not working twelve hours a day.”
“I’ll think about it. That’s a long ways away. I’ve got things to accomplish before then.”
“So, you are going to miss Ava’s entire childhood?” I asked.
“No, I’ll still be there for all the important things,” he replied. “I’ve loved being with her the past few months. You know that. You see the way she is with me.”
“Yes,” I smiled.
“But I do think that she is lonely and would benefit from having a brother or sister her age.”
I laughed. “Oh, so now you want to have more kids.”
“I do,” he said seriously. “Why? Don’t you?”
“Yes, of course I do,” I said. “I just wasn’t sure if you were thinking of that anytime soon.”
My Friend’s Sister Page 17
