Beauty and the Running Back (11 page)

Jessa

Dean stares at me, rage and hopelessness duking it out in
his eyes. My fingernails bite into my palms as I hold my hands clenched tight,
trying to keep it together. The lie about this baby being Andoni’s was the best
I could come up with on the spot. If I’d let Dean find out that he was the
father this way, he’d refuse to go back to Rayburn without me. He’d fuck up his
spotless season and miss out on being scouted in the spring. More than that,
he’d insist on being involved. And it wasn’t until I saw him standing on that
doorstep just now that I realized I don’t want him to be involved with this
pregnancy.

What I said is true. We do barely know each other, as much
as it might feel like we’ve been in love for years. I can’t let Dean come back
into my life with months left in the pregnancy. If he was here beside me, I
know that I’d change my mind, want to keep the baby, raise it as our own. And I
can’t let myself commit to that life without knowing, deep down, what kind of
man Dean is. He’s been wonderful to me so far, but I know he has his rages.
What kind of idiot would I have to be to fly blindly into the biggest decision
of my life?

Dean’s body has gone rigid with unexpressed emotion. Even in
this state of near-catatonic anger, he looks as gorgeous as an ancient, angry
god carved out of marble. So complete is his stillness that I nearly leap out
of my skin when he strikes out his arm and sends a glass crashing against the
kitchen wall. Tears leap instantly to my eyes as I watch him realize what he’s
done, watch as guilt enters into the mix of emotions tearing him up from the
inside.

“I’ll clean this up,” he says through gritted teeth, not
even turning to face me, “And then I’m gone. I don’t want to see you, Jessa. I
don’t want to hear from you. At least have the decency to let me get on with my
life after all…
this
.”

The tears slide silently down my face as Dean picks up the
broken shards of glass, working as if I weren’t even in the room. The second
he’s cleared the floor of any lingering glass, he walks out the door and slams
it behind him. No goodbye. No see you later. Just a huge, furious, boundless
nothing. Which is appropriate, I guess, since that’s exactly what I feel like
I’m worth right now.

Nothing.

Dean

Buck and I don’t speak for the entire five-hour drive back
to Rayburn. He scrapped his plans to visit his family as soon as we discovered
Jessa’s secret, and I’ll be sure to thank him. Later. When my mind isn’t a blur
of rage, and pain, and humiliation… and loss.

Just hours ago, I was imagining a future with Jessa. Now? It
turns out our entire time together was nothing but a fiction. I didn’t know the
first thing about her. And now, I never will. How can losing something that was
never even real hurt this fucking badly?

“Do you want to just go home?” Buck finally asks, as we roll
through the Rayburn campus, “You know. Get some sleep?”

“Fuck no I don’t want to go home,” I rasp, “I want to find
the nearest party and drink until I forget my own name.”

That’s all Buck needs to hear. He pulls a u-turn and heads
off onto campus, determined to get me what I need. All I need right now is to
not think. Not feel. Not hurt like a motherfucker. But I’m not sure that
there’s enough booze on campus to put me back together again, now.

Chapter Ten

Jessa

Somehow, the minutes still manage to crawl by. The hours,
the days, and eventually the weeks. I lose track of how many missed calls I
make, how many unanswered texts and emails. As the weeks round out into a month
of silence from Dean, I start to tip toe up to the possibility that I may never
speak to him again. That he may never have anything to say to me, after what I’ve
done to him. What he thinks I’ve done to him.

I knew, the second that I saw him standing on my doorstep,
that I had to find a way to set him free. There his was, with all his shining
potential, with all his power and presence. I couldn’t ask him to stop dead in
his tracks and be my partner, with all the momentum he’s built up. It wouldn’t
be fair. It wouldn’t be right… At least that’s what I keep telling myself. But
if I really have done the right thing here, why does it feel so terribly wrong?

I knew that invoking infidelity would make him walk away.
The only other relationship he’s ever been in ended with his girlfriend
cheating on him, and it turned him off of serious attachments for years. God
knows what’s going to happen now that I’ve reopened that wound by claiming that
this baby is Andoni’s—that my heart and future belong to another man. It was a
desperate lie, but these are desperate times.

And they’re only growing more desperate the closer my due
date gets.

***

I stare at the black and white image dancing on the
sonogram. My baby’s heartbeat thumps quietly but steadily as I look on with
Allison at my side. We’re just about to wrap up the appointment, a routine
check-in to make sure that the baby’s OK at seven months.

“Wait,” I say, as the technician starts to go.

“Is everything OK?” she asks.

“Yes, it’s just…” I take a deep breath, “Could I know the
sex?”

The technician’s eyebrows raise. “I thought you wanted that
to be a surprise, Jessa?”

“I’ve changed my mind,” I tell her, “I want to know.”

“Jessa,” Allie says softly, holding my hand, “It might be
harder, knowing.”

“I don’t care,” I tell her, my eyes misting over, “That’s my
baby in there. Mine and Dean’s. I want to know who it is I’m carrying. I have
to.”

Allie looks up at the technician and nods her assent.

“All right then,” the older woman says, “Jessa, you’re going
to have a boy.”

A boy.

A dozen images flood my mind’s eye before I can stop them. I
see a newborn boy in the hospital nursery, opening his big brown eyes for the
first time. I see a tow-headed toddler pleading to go higher and higher on the
swing. I see an energetic kindergartener in a football helmet the size of his
entire body, giving it his all at pee-wee practice. I see the boy’s father,
looking on with so much pride that it bursts out of him in all directions.

“I’m having a boy,” I whisper, my head falling back against
the exam table as tears roll down my cheeks. “And Dean has no idea.”

Allison and the technician help me up, being as gentle as
can be. But even their softest of touches can’t stop the ache that’s taken
brutal hold of my heart. I have to own up to the truth. The truth that’s been
sitting hard in my gut for the entire month since Dean found out about the
baby.

I’ve made a mistake.

My body is exhausted as I walk up the steps to Allison’s
apartment. She watches as I step inside, my mind a million miles away.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she whispers, “Tell me what
I can do to help, Jess.”

“There is one thing,” I breathe.

“Anything,” she says, placing her hands on my shoulders.

“Would you check the Rayburn football schedule?” I ask her.

“What? Why?”

“I need to be there,” I tell my sister, “This can’t be over
yet.”

Dean

“Crash,” Coach says from the locker room doorway, “I need to
see you in my office.”

I close my locker and slip into a black tee shirt. My
clothes are all fitting a little tighter these days. I’ve put on ten pounds of
muscle in the last month. Guess that’s what happens when you try and fix a
broken heart with endless hours at the gym. My heart is still in pieces, but
I’m in the best shape of my life. At least that’s some kind of consolation.

“What’s up?” I ask Coach Cahill, leaning against the
doorframe of his office.

I try and keep my eyes focused on him, but of course they
dart right over to the framed picture of Jessa sitting on his desk. The
unexpected glimpse of her sends an ache through my core. Yeah, I’m still pissed
as hell that she didn’t tell me about her pregnancy. But as this month’s worn
on, and I’ve gone on blocking her out of my life, I’ve started to realize how
bleak her situation must feel. I mean shit, her parents don’t know she’s
pregnant, the dad is on the other side of the world, and she’s only a freshman
in college. It’s a rough fucking hand, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
Jessa’s made it perfectly clear that she doesn’t want my help.

“I got some pretty exciting news for you,” Coach says,
dragging my mind back to the present moment.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“I just got off the phone with another NFL recruiter who’s
interested in showing up for our game this Friday,” he tells me, “That’s three,
in total.”

I straighten up, interest piqued.

“And let me tell you something,” Coach goes on, “They’re not
here for Royce, that’s for damn sure. They’re here to see the famous Crash
Carter.”

“They said that?” I breathe.

“They sure did,” Coach smiles, an expression I wasn’t sure
he was even capable of. “Now, I know it’s just a spring game, but you’re gonna
have to play like a man possessed this Friday. This game could be your ticket
to the big league, son.”

“I’ll make it worth those recruiters’ while,” I tell him.

“Oh, I have no doubt,” Coach says, standing up and offering
me his hand, “You’re one of the best college players I’ve ever had the pleasure
of coaching, Crash. College football isn’t the end for you, I know that much.”

I accept the Coach’s handshake, but find it hard to look him
in the eye. The secret knowledge of what Jessa’s going through is a millstone
around my conscience. But it isn’t just the guilt that’s eating away at me as I
stand here before her father. It’s resentment of him. If he could have just
made his daughters feel safe in his home, maybe Jessa wouldn’t have had to run
away to Europe the second she turned eighteen. Maybe if the Cahills had bothered
to talk to their daughters about love, and sex, and their bodies, Jessa would
have known all her options in this situation. Coach has no fucking idea what
his kid is going through as he stands here shaking my hand. And it’s taking
every ounce of willpower I possess not to rake him over the rails for that.

I turn and head back out into the locker room before I blow
Jessa’s spot. I’m still devastated about what went down between us, but her
life is hard enough as it is. I won’t add onto the heartache by causing her
parents to disown her. But unanswered questions eat away at me as I gather my
stuff and head home. I never even got to ask her what she was going to do when
the baby was born. And now, after a month of shutting her out, she probably
never wants to speak to me again.

Stepping out into the April afternoon, I fill my lungs with
fresh spring air. But as many breaths as I take, I can’t clear the toxic
feeling from inside of me. In my anger, I failed Jessa in the biggest way. So
what if the kid’s not mine, I still could have been a friend to her. I didn’t
need to make her pain all about me. Jesus, I can be an egocentric prick
sometimes. And now, it’s probably too late to be there for her at all. If I
hadn’t lost my cool, maybe there’d still be a chance for us.

A slim chance, but a chance nonetheless.

If I’d known back in August that I’d be playing in front of
three NFL recruiters this coming Friday, I would have been walking on air for
the entire week leading up to the game. My performance at the Bowl this winter
has made me a hot commodity, and everybody knows it. I always thought that a
career in football was the one thing that I needed to be happy, to feel like I
was really living my life. But now…?

I shake the dour thoughts out of my head. I fucked things up
with Jessa, and I need to deal with the consequences. But beyond that, I need
to make sure my future is still secure. And that means that I need to stop
beating myself up and get my head in the game before Friday rolls around. I was
a football player long before Jessa Cahill came into my life, and I’m a still a
football player now that I’ve lost her. It may not be much, but it’s something
to hold onto.

And hell—right now, I could use something to make me feel
alive again.

Chapter Eleven

Jessa

I stare up at the formidable walls of the Rayburn University
football stadium through the windshield of Allison’s car. Was it really just
this past fall that I was here, cheering on the Red Birds as Dean led them to
victory after victory? It feels more like a decade has passed since those
simpler times.

There’s a tap at the passenger side window, and I look over
to see Blaire’s red curls illuminated through the glass. I unlock the door as
my friend jumps into the parked car, giving me a huge bearhug the second she’s
inside.

“You’re here,” Blaire says, taking a good look at me, “And
you’re pregnant as
fuck
.”

“Yeah, I’m aware,” I laugh, smiling at her from the driver’s
seat.

“I just can’t believe you came back,” she says quietly, “I
thought you wanted to keep this whole baby thing a secret?”

“Well. Secret’s out,” I sigh, shoving a hand roughly through
my hair, “Dean and Buck drove up to Boston for a surprise visit about a month
ago.”

“Oh, shit…” Blaire breathes.

“Yeah. It wasn’t a pretty scene,” I sigh, letting my head
fall back against the seat.

“But then… What are you doing here? And all by yourself?”
Blaire asks.

“Allie couldn't get away from school,” I tell her, “It’s her
last semester of undergrad, so shit’s crazy up there. But she was nice enough
to let me borrow her car.”

“You drove all the way down from Boston? For a football
game?” Blaire asks, “I’m sorry, but I don’t get it. What’s the point?”

“The point is, I made a huge mistake with Dean,” I tell her,
“Not only did I keep this baby a secret from him, I lied about some other guy
being the father to try and protect him.”

“Protect him from what?” Blaire asks quietly.

“I don’t even know,” I say around the tight knot in my
throat, “From being saddled with me and a kid he didn’t ask for for the rest of
his life? From throwing his life away for some girl he barely even got to
know?”

“Hey,” Blaire says, taking my hand in hers, “Any guy would
be lucky to be saddled with you, Cahill.”

“Thanks… I think?” I smile sadly.

“So what’s the plan for tonight?” Blaire asks, trying to
distract me from my pain.

“I have to find a way to talk to Dean,” I tell her, “He’s
not answering any of my calls or texts, I’m not sure he’d let me into his
apartment if I showed up. This is the only place where I can be sure to find
him.”

“But aren’t you worried about your dad seeing you?” Blaire
asks.

“You bet your ass I am,” I tell her, “But that’s a risk I’m
just gonna have to take.”

“Well OK then,” Blaire says, looking up at the stadium,
“Let’s get in there and find your baby daddy.”