“You can count on me.”
Even if it was for all the wrong reasons.
I lay on the padded, clinical bed, the round probe rolling through the cold gel on my abdomen. The gynecologist had been at it long enough that I’d become used to the cool sensation and was beginning to warm up. “I suggest you don’t look,” she’d said when I first sat down. I’d rejected the idea as soon as the images showed on the monitor’s screen. A white blur swimming in a sea of darker blur.
A baby.
My baby.
Julian’s baby.
I looked away, catching a thin breath and closing my eyes. Not a baby, I reminded myself. Not yet.
“Gestation is around eight weeks.” The probe rolled lower, toward my pubic bone. The pressure became uncomfortable. Or was that me? Was I making myself uncomfortable? “I recommend the medical procedure and not surgical.” The gynecologist removed the probe and handed me a wad of paper towels to clean myself with.
I pulled down my shirt and lay still, looking up at the doctor as she set the probe back in its holder. “What’s that?”
“A pill to stop the pregnancy progressing any further. Your womb will become inhospitable for the fetus. Then you’ll come back here in two days and…”
I’d zoned out again. Nodding when required and reverting into the safety of my own head.
“…Your blood tests were fine, and your blood pressure is normal.”
And in two days I wouldn’t be pregnant. In two days, I didn’t know if I’d be able to look at myself in the mirror again and not be repulsed by the person staring back.
The morning of the procedure, something wasn’t right. As I roused from sleep and felt the stickiness around my thighs, I knew why.
Blood.
There was blood everywhere—a trail of slick, deep red seeping out of me and into my pajamas at a speed that was making me nauseous and faint. I pulled back the covers and crawled along my bedroom floor and into the bathroom, reaching for a towel to lay under me before any more spots of thick maroon pooled across the tiles like spilled paint.
I doubled up when a wave of pain came crashing over me and I held onto myself in a fetal position, groaning through the internal torture.
This wasn’t supposed to be happening.
No, I should maybe experience slight spotting. Mild cramps—possibly. But no one warned me about the ugly mess and disgusting state I had ended up in. I cleaned myself as best I could on the toilet and crawled my way back to my bed, grabbing my cell phone to dial the hospital.
Tears dripped onto my screen and I swallowed down the raw lump in my throat. What was there to cry about? I had done this. This entire situation was all down to me. And now, while I bled out uncontrollably all over my freshly-cleaned floors and spotless linen and cotton sheets, I was wholly starting to feel the weight and moral culpability of that choice. One I couldn’t take back and one I couldn’t accept. I was stuck in the consequences of my actions, the pain and blood a retaliation for what I’d done.
I ended a tear-filled conversation with the very helpful but probably seen-it-all-before nurse on the phone. I’d see her soon enough anyway, and she could judge me in the flesh. But not more than I judged myself—hated myself.
And then it hit me as sharply as the cramps did. Crashing into me with the stout force of an iron fist. It hit me hard and brought a fresh batch of tears with it.
I wasn’t crying for the pain, or for the blood, or for the partially ruined carpets.
No. It was none of that.
I was crying because I had never felt more alone in my entire life. And sitting there in my dark bedroom, still a good hour from sunrise, it truly sunk in that I could never tell Julian about this.
A cold damp nudged at my fingertips. I cracked open one eye and then the other. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I sat up and stretched out my stiff neck. I’d lay on my back most of the night with Angel’s head on my chest, but it was safe to say she was worth the few extra kinks in my stiff muscles.
She stirred from my movement, turning to her other side and burying her hands under the pillow. Hair so dark it was almost black fanned over my white sheets and curled over her bare shoulder. I pulled the thin sheet higher up her body. The AC had been switched on automatically and the air was dry and chilly. Just the way I liked it.
Streetlights shone outside, the dark sky a good two hours from sunrise as Dog bathed my hand with his rubbery tongue, one paw outstretched on the bed and the other on my knee.
I blinked a couple times, ridding myself of the last hour of sleep I clearly wasn’t going to get. “You want breakfast?” Dumb question. Of course, he wanted breakfast. Then his walk. His routine was as rigid as mine.
Dog followed me downstairs into the kitchen, hovering around my feet as I put out his fresh food and refilled his water bowl. It was still too early for my appetite to surface, so I sat in the kitchen and finished two bottles of water while Dog shoved his nose around the inside of his bowl, the ceramic dish sliding across the marble floor.
My cell ringing from my bedroom obliterated the sounds of his sloppy eating. “Shit,” I muttered, darting from the kitchen and taking the stairs three at a time to snatch my phone from the bedside table. Angel lay on her back, rubbing one eye as I answered the call from an unknown number. A sleepy smile curved her mouth and an ambush of dirty thoughts barreled through my mind before I said, “Yeah?”
It was a female on the other end of the line. A really awkward sounding one. “Hi, ah, you don’t know me. My name’s Rebecca Hale. Julian—your dad—gave me your number. I hope that’s okay.”
My mood flatlined at the mention of my dad. “What do you want?”
Angel propped her weight onto her elbows, the sheet falling to her waist and her face replicating how I felt.
“I guess you’re my stepbrother,” the girl on the phone said.
Rebecca. My dad’s wife’s daughter. Susan Hale already had one kid from her first husband when my dad came on the scene. Now they had another one. A girl whose name I couldn’t actually remember. But Rebecca was the oldest and not related to me at all. Not even by surname. We shared no attachment. No reason for phone calls.
“Are you there?” she said.
I took a steadying breath to mask my agitation. “I’m here.”
There was an extension of silence before she said, “Are you upset I called? Your dad thought I should reach out to you and, I’ve always wanted to meet you.”
I had no idea what to say. None. It was way too early for this crap, and her timing was terrible. Add to that how she got her hands on my new phone number. There was no other way the information could have found its way into my dad’s hands other than through my mom. I certainly hadn’t given him it, and Taj had enough sense not to piss me off like that.
“Ah… now’s not a good time for me.”
Angel’s face contorted with more confusion. She was sitting upright now, awake and immersed in what was going on.
“Oh. Right. Um, well, this is my number I’m calling from, if you ever want to get in contact with me. I’d love to get to know you… finally.”
“Sure. Maybe you’ll hear from me.” I ended the call, staring down at my phone with a heavy frown.
“Who was that?” Angel asked.
I dropped my phone back onto the bedside table and scrubbed a hand over my hair. Angel’s concern grew, a frown above her eyes outweighing my own. “Rebecca,” I said, gathering my thoughts. “My dad’s stepdaughter.”
“That was you sister?”
“She’s not my sister,” I quickly corrected. “She’s no relation. My dad’s family, not mine.”
“What did she want?”
“I’m really not sure. To get to know me?”
“That’s the first time she’s called you?”
“First time I’ve ever heard her voice. I’d also prefer it to be the last.”
Angel’s eyes tracked my movements as I paced the bedroom floor, my a
nger brewing at whatever shit my dad was trying to pull. I hadn’t heard from him since he showed up uninvited at the draft in Chicago and forced us all to endure an entire evening with him while he carried on like he was father of the year. I didn’t mind him when he kept his distance, but I didn’t want to see him or spend time with him. Changing my number meant severing the last direct contact, but now my mom had put an end to that. Taj liked having him around, I could easily go without. I was past needing a part-time dad, and his absence didn’t bother me one bit. It was when he crept back on the scene I naturally grew suspicious. He wasn’t a something-for-nothing kind of man, and now he was dragging Rebecca into his games.
It wasn’t her fault. I supposed he was her dad, biological or not. He’d been there for a big part of her life. Missing for a big part of ours.
But who the fuck cares, right?
“Hey.” Angel freed herself of the sheet and crawled to the foot of the bed, her hand reaching out for my wrist. “She didn’t do anything wrong, Julian. Forget about her and your dad for now, and then consider it later. Another time.”
“I—”
“Ah-ah. Another time.” Raised on her knees, her torso long and lean in a strappy, silk camisole, Angel placed her arms around my neck, guiding my head until my lips were on hers and my hands met her waist. The wild, dirty thoughts made a thunderous return, but a busy morning meant they’d have to wait until tonight.
“I’m going to take a shower, fix a protein shake and then shoot off to practice.” Coach was feeling generous, starting the day early at six a.m. for a one o’clock finish, so some of Thanksgiving could be salvaged for the players with kids and families waiting on them.
“You’ll be back for lunch?” Angel asked.
“It’s dinner, babe. What’s the chances you’ll be on the menu?”
“Every chance, if you feel like a late dessert. You want to eat me, Julian?” Angel struggled to keep a straight face, her teeth pinned to her full bottom lip. She couldn’t even say the word ‘sex’ without turning cherry red. So fucking ridiculous and hot at the same time.
I overpowered her body with my own, pressing her down onto the mattress flat on her back, her hands secure between mine. “Not eat. I plan to feast.” I smothered her laughter with a kiss. Her mouth, her neck—under the neckline of her camisole. I was growing hard anticipating putting more of her in my mouth, and her breathing that’d turned labored and erratic was a sign it was time for me to let her go before I started the feast early, out of sheer greed.
I traced the thin scar from her recent contraceptive implant on the inside of her bicep with my thumb. “Should it have scarred like that?” Fading yellow and purple bruising decorated the skin around the raised pink line.
“The nurse was abnormally brutal. I’ll live.” Angel pulled her arm away, inching her head forward to drop a chaste kiss on my lips. “You should get a move on. You don’t want to be late.”
On my roster of shit I had to get done today, picking up coffee and donuts for every guy in the O-room sat top of the list. On a normal day, the donuts could stand to wait until the weekend, but today was Thanksgiving and I had rules to follow—a pecking order to file into—and I did it without any noise.
The real hype surrounding me didn’t truly blow up until after I’d declared I was drafting a year early, and then all bets were off. I was catapulted into a life with heights I’d never known before. I’d liked to have thought college ball prepared me for the level and pace of pro-ball, but there was never a chance of preparing me for the possibility of losing everything at the drop of a hat. Being dismissed from my team and sent packing with nowhere else to go. College is a secure four years or more. The NFL doesn’t make promises it can’t keep. You don’t turn up on time to your meetings, knuckle down and do what the coach says? Suffer a serious body or head injury that sidelines you for an entire season or longer? There’s the door, close it on your way out. There’s no guarantee another team will be rallying for the scraps.
So, I’ll bring the coffee, fill the water coolers and all the other shit those vets want, because that’ll be me one day. I planned on making sure of it.
Twenty minutes ahead of schedule, and one of the first into the training facility, I dropped off the coffee and donuts in the O-room, grabbed one of the playbooks and pulled out a seat at the middle table. The lights were dimmed, and the projector was set up at the front of the room. As much as I could’ve done with the extra boost to wake me up, I didn’t touch any of the takeout coffee cups. I couldn’t stand the stuff, so I opened the playbook instead and loaded Sunday’s condensed game against the 49ers on my phone. We won that game by four points, and I’d broken down the full sixty minutes already, play by play—twice—but there was no such thing as too much criticism in football. I could always perform better, change something about my game, whether it was angles, my footwork, driving and passing. Everything could be improved, worked on and finetuned.
“Rookie, why are you always the first guy here? You out to make the rest of us look bad?” Elliott Neal, running back, swiped one of the coffees from the table and two donuts from the box. He nuked his drink and sat at the table in front, turning his chair backward with two meaty arms slung over the frame, and inhaled his second donut in two bites. “What’s your plans for tonight? I know a couple of the new guys are heading to Shae’s place to watch the game and have a few beers.” Shae Carter, backup safety and general loudmouth.
“Nah, I’ll pass. What’re you getting up to?” Nealy had a wife and baby at home, but I knew for a fact his wife was trying her hardest to move in the mother-in-law, and tensions ran high in the Neal household.
“A big ol’ turkey and then a nap I’ve been fucking dreaming about, man. Give me a bed any day over alcohol and more football, that’s all I need in this life.”
I laughed, slipping my phone into my pocket. Nealy sucked powdered sugar from his thumb, the room filling up with the rest of the offense. “You spending this one alone?” he asked.
“My girl’s in town. Doubt she’ll be cooking a turkey, though. She said she will, but she hasn’t even bought the thing.”
It should have been Angel, Taj and my mom, but plans fell through and they’re both spending the holidays at Gary Rollins’ place instead. My mom’s boss-slash-boyfriend who I’m pleased I don’t have to see. He’s not my favorite person, but I’m probably not his either. I was surprised at Taj, though. It was like he was avoiding coming out here.
“You got a picture of your girl on that phone of yours?” Nealy drained his coffee, crushed the cup and sauced it clear across the room, into the metal trash can at the foot of the snack station. “You never speak about her, no fucker here’s seen her. I’m starting to think you’re making this chick up.”
I flinched when a slab of flesh cut across my vision, an inked hand slamming down a magazine in front of me. Carlion’s palm was nearly as big as the cover. Pity it wasn’t big enough to stop me from dropping back in my seat with a groan. I’d never hear the end of this.
“There’s your man right there. Look at his woman, fine as all hell and too good for you, Rookie. You pay her to be seen with you in this, or what?”
“That’s right, I’m paying her.” I nudged the magazine away from me with the tips of two fingers. Nealy flipped it around and opened it to center page, and more of Angel’s face and body.
The distorted angle didn’t make her look any less gorgeous, and I shut down the grin that tried to reveal to every guy here how gone I was. Seeing her on the glossy pages gave me ideas to blow off this meeting, practice, my workout, go home and have her up against the wall. The floor, kitchen counter. I didn’t care what room it was, what surface. I just wanted her. Every day of the week, in as many ways as possible. Front, back, under, on top—on her side.
“Seats, guys.” Offensive coordinator, David Callahan, walked into the room, the rest of the offense dispersing to their seats for the first meeting of the day.
Carlion took
back the magazine and rolled it up. “I’m keeping this.” And then the asshole tapped me on the head with it.
The meeting dragged on for three hours, Callahan detailing the offensive game plan for Sunday and what he expected from the Rams. How we could counter they’re defensive plays on the day. We ran through the downs and left the first meeting with our assignments—some of them new that required implanting to memory—then it was on to the full team meeting. A brief forty-minute overview of not just our upcoming game and opponent, but a breakdown of practices for the rest of the week.
The scheduled hour of practice that followed, before lunch, didn’t last an hour at all. It was over an hour-twenty. Every player—and coach—wanted to get home to someone, family or friends. And the single guys on the team were desperate to get out to South Beach, Nikki Beach, or even fly out of state for the night, back for the daily grind to start again tomorrow. So no one sat and enjoyed lunch. Lunch was grabbed from the canteen in huge quantities and eaten in record time.
In the weight room, Masters stepped back from the trap bar deadlift, his body drenched with sweat. He took off his black and gold Beats, looping them around his beefy neck. “If this is Leban…” he said in one breath, bending down and slipping his cell from inside his sock. “Dude sends me a picture of his kid every day. Is anyone else getting hit with this shit? ’Cause I swear, cuz, I’m at my limit of baby. I don’t even have my own, why’d I want this constant harassment?”
I lay on the incline bench on my stomach, with a plate in each hand. “You’re the chosen one, Masters. If you’re really lucky they might let you babysit.”
“You love it,” Nealy piped up. “Give Leban another week and this place’ll be bring your kid to work day.”
Losing Seven (Falling for Seven Book 2) Page 14
