Catching to Win (Over the Fence #3) (15 page)

I don’t even realize he’s moved me until my back hits the bed and he’s pushing inside me, hot and heavy and throbbing.

I gasp again until he covers my lips with his swollen ones. We taste and lick, our sex on each other’s mouths. And then he is speeding up, pounding and thrusting like if he stops he might cease to exist. My brain shuts off and it’s just me, Clint and the darkness.

F
inding a real job is a
job
.

I’d spent the entire week researching and applying to every non-profit that concerned childhood obesity that I could find. I reached out to camps, counseling programs, basically any job out there that was in the realm of what I'd figured out I wanted to do.

And still no calls back. So this is what adulthood felt like.

The weeks had dwindled down to nothing, and in four days we had to be out of the house. Some new set of knucklehead jocks were coming to take our house over. This was going to be their kingdom for the next two years. I envied them so much. I didn't want to grow up. I wanted to stay in the craphole college residence with my best friends and my girl, sitting on the couch and watching sports all day then venturing out to Sammy's at night.

But at the same time, I was looking forward to moving on. Helping children who were currently in the place I'd been in. Those who felt down on themselves and didn't know how to change that. I was damn excited to get started.

I was also pumped to start this new chapter with Kelsey. We hadn't talked much about where we would be, if we would live together, how this would work. As of now I was planning to head back to Alabama for a month or so to get my ducks in a row, check up on my parents. She was going to stay here, work at the preserve and crash with Jackson until we figured something out.

Jackson. I hadn't had time to think about what to do with the tidbit of suspicion that had been nipping at my brain for two weeks. Until today.

I was on my way over to the preserve in my shitty old SUV to confront him, ask him some questions, and get some real information for Kelsey. It’s bad enough her mother lied to her for this long. But to have Jackson, the one parental-type figure she trusts in her life do that to her? She will be crushed.

A pang of guilt hits me in the ribs. If she finds out I've been keeping my suspicions from her, she might be royally pissed at me. But I needed to protect her from the pain of this as long as I could. No sense in hurting her if I am wrong, which I very well could be.

I find Jackson filling plastic tubs full of raw steaks near the tiger dens. His instincts must be razor sharp, because he turns before I'm even within 30 feet of him. He straightens and waves, shielding his eyes with his weathered, tan hands from the sun in his face.

"Clint, nice to see you back so soon. Where's Mother Nature?" He shakes my hand, his eyes peering around me to see if Kelsey is just behind me.

"Just me today, I'm afraid. I thought maybe you and I could talk."

Jackson's face molds into worried frown lines, and I know he knows this isn't going to be a good chat.

"Sure, let me just take this food to the den. How about you meet me up in my office?" He points to a 1980's style trailer that sits just on the crest of the hill. Figures a rugged type like Jackson would refuse to be in the shiny office building down near the front gates.

I nod and make my way up as he carries the red hunks of meat to what I can only assume is going to be a feeding frenzy. Swinging open the rusty, metal door when I reach the trailer, I walk into what has to be an exact replica of Kelsey's bedroom, only office style. Papers and water bottles litter the desk and spill onto the floor. One end of the burnt orange couch is covered in back issues of National Geographic, and the walls are plastered in diagrams of the animal kingdom and species charts. Now I know where my girl got her impeccable tidiness from.

Jackson lumbers in as I'm leafing through a November 2013 copy of National Geographic that features a piece on the O'Brien's. Go figure.

His lean, wiry body moves effortlessly over the mess on the floor. Jackson looks exactly like what you picture when you think of a zoo keeper. He wears nothing but khaki's, has a continual scruffy brown-blonde beard, and his skin is always the color of polished leather. He's like Steve Irwin's clone, except he's got a bit of vintage cowboy mixed in there. And of course, the facial features that match Kelsey's so much its uncanny.

"So what can I do for you, son?"

A weird sensation has my neck hairs standing on end at the word son.

"How long have you known?" I'm not one to pussyfoot around. Especially not when it comes to matters concerning Kelsey.

I see the recognition in those worn brown eyes, but he doesn't play along. "What's that now?"

Deep breath, Bellows. "I know you're her father."

Jackson sucks in a breath and then blows it out. But I can tell in his body language. He's been waiting for this day. Waiting for someone to finally call out the one thing he's been hiding for so long.

"How did you guess?"

I snort, still not knowing if I should have my defenses up with this guy. "How could I not know? You practically cloned her. She has all of the same mannerisms. Jesus, she's got your damn nose. I don't know how she's never noticed."

"Because I've managed to stay just far enough out of reach for all of these years."

"You're an asshole. Lying to her like that. I thought you cared about her."

Rage sparks in his eyes as he slams his palms flat on the cluttered desk. "Don't walk onto my preserve, into my office, and pretend to know something you have absolutely no idea about. You have no clue just what it’s been like to lie to her. To live 20 years of my life orbiting around my child who I can't even claim as mine. Don't you dare accuse me of that."

I back down, dropping into a chair as a sign of peace. "So then tell me. Why lie for all of these years?"

Jackson slumps, all of the energy leaving his body. As if telling his secret has left him bereft and empty. "Well, I'd have to start at the beginning."

He pauses, his face drawn up into a thinking scowl. "I met Madeline O'Brien just a year after I'd graduated college. I had spectacular dreams of traveling the fields of Africa, saving animals from extinction and all that. She'd just burst onto the scene with Hugo, the wonder couple who was blazing the trail in zoology. I was smitten, and she was lonely. Late nights in the lab led to a talking, which led to a friendship, and then you know what happened after that. I was in love with her, although I never knew her feelings in the whole matter. Then one day, things just stopped. She wouldn't even look at me, left to start research in Panama. Hugo approached me, told me I could keep my job and a place in their empire if I promised never to breathe in the direction of his wife again."

He wipes a hand over his face, trying to erase the grief so evident in his features. "Of course, years later I realized what had happened. She'd gotten pregnant. We'd gotten pregnant. And instead of stay with me, she chose him. She chose her career and greatness and all of the things it meant to stay married to Hugo O'Brien. The first time I saw Kelsey..."

Jackson's voice cracks. Its then I know that this secret has been eating away at him for decades.

"Madeline and Hugo came for this new exhibit being put in, gazelles I think. And they'd brought the baby. Of course I'd heard she'd given birth years ago, I tried not to follow them too closely. It’s easy when your bosses are traveling to different continents every week and you're just a lowly employee in their Virginia preserve. But seeing Kelsey for the first time, Christ. I knew instantly. She was probably four or five, with these fire engine red locks that were down to her butt because she wouldn't let anyone cut her "lion's mane." She ran right up to this pack of elephants and began playing with their trunks. No fear, just joy. I knew then that she had to be mine. I felt like I was seeing a ghost, a long lost piece of my heart that I had only just discovered was missing. I confronted Madeline immediately. At first she denied it, but I pressed her. Told her I'd take her to court for a paternity test. That's when I really pissed off the ice queen. She told me I'd be hurting my own daughter, dragging this scandal through the press. So I used it as leverage. Told her she had to settle close by with Kelsey, someplace where I could see her often. That's why they chose Mitchum. And so I started a relationship with my daughter. A friendship. I looked after her as best I could, all the while slowly cutting out my own heart that she was living under another man's roof."

I see tears in his eyes. In the middle of this shitty metal can, this man who seems so solid and formidable, is crumbling like an ant beneath the glare of the microscope. I hear the wind squealing in through the crack in the trailer window, and don't know where to go from here. "You have to tell her, she deserves to know."

"This secret, it’s become a part of my soul. I wouldn't even know where to start..."

The door cracks open violently behind my chair, sending shockwaves through the entire metal tube. And in the opening stands Kelsey.

"Baby-" It’s the only thing I get out before she silences me with a finger. I know better than to speak again.

Jackson and I stand there, two idiots caught with our proverbial pants down as she glares at us. It’s more than a glare. Those hazel eyes are onyx, all of the rage has been sucked from the world and transplanted into this gorgeous pixie. Red tendrils stand up this way and that, her face shines with a fresh coat of glossy tears. She must be tearing holes in her palms by how hard she's clenching her tiny fists.

"You can start by getting the fuck out of my life." Kelsey's words are venom, meant to cause bodily harm to Jackson.

"Kelsey, I can explain...I never, I never wanted you to find out this way. Please, can we just talk?"

A biting laugh bubbles up from her throat, sarcastic and cruel. "You had 20 years to talk to me. 20 years! You lied to my goddamn face my entire life. When I was crying to you about my parents, about Madeline. You knew how alone I felt, how misguided I was."

Jackson makes a strangled noise in his throat, but Kelsey presses on.

"And you!" She rounds on me, her nostrils flaring and voice breaking on a sob. "You promised me. You told me to trust you. How long have been keeping this from me? I guess that honesty only applied to situations you decided were important."

I move for her out of instinct, trying to wrap her in my arms. "Roo..."

"No! Do not touch me. I never want to see either of you again. You are not my father," she shouts at Jackson, who whimpers. "And we are over."

I feel like I've been smacked in the face. Gutted. My chest has been flayed open and fried.

Kelsey's halfway down the path to Jackson's trailer when I shake the body-numbing grief I'm currently under the spell of. Sprinting from the office, I shout her name, trying to catch the sand that's quickly slipping through my fingertips.

Before I can reach her, she's throwing her Jetta into reverse, the tires kicking up lung-filling dust into my face. And then she's gone, speeding out onto the main road through the gates.

I bend at the waist, feeling like I've been socked in the gut, the balls, the throat. I can't breathe properly. What the fuck did I just do?

But I know what I did. I committed the one sin I promised her I'd never commit. I broke her trust. And now the gypsy is in the wind again, running from anything that might hurt.

I
don't even stop
at home to collect any of my belongings. I just steer my car in the direction of the airport and put my mind on autopilot.

I don't want to think. To feel. Feelings are raw and they hurt like an elephant's tusk being shoved through your sternum. Which is why I always fucking avoided them.

Why couldn't I have just stuck to the plan? Live like a free bird, never fall in love, fucking protect myself.

I can't even process what I'd just heard. It’s like my internal hard drive is crashing bit by bit.

Jackson is my father.

It’s a sick, cruel joke and the universe is laughing at me. He's been planted two feet in front of my face this entire time.

My heart has been cleaved in two and then shoved into a blender. I'm not even sure I can feel it anymore, except every time I picture Clint's face it does this dramatic twist that makes me feel as if I'm going to vomit.

I park the car in overnight parking, not even bothering to realize that it will probably be towed when I don't return for it. People pass by in a rush, bags and spouses and toddlers in tow. Cabs screech to a halt in front of each gate, and a cop's whistle blares over the entire ecosystem of the airport.

I realize I don't have my passport on me, which means escaping the country is out of the question. I don't know where to go. Minka is back at the house, with Clint. So that's a no. Mitchum is definitely a no, too obvious and my parents could always unexpectedly stop in. Right now I have no desire to be on one of their preserves; Jackson will surely get word of it.

The lightbulb in my head finally shines bright. New York. I'll go to Chloe.

The flight to the Big Apple is a blur. I have one too many gin and tonics. The stewardess looks worried when I ask for a fifth, but she still brings it. I don't know if the haggard expression on my face wins her sympathy, or if she's regarding me strangely because I'm in zoo keeper khakis with dirt from the grounds still smeared on my face.

As soon as I hit the terminal, I felt swarmed. I’d forgotten how crowded New York was. My senses went into overdrive, taking in pixels of the noise and motion around me. I felt that at any moment I’d have a full on breakdown.

Hitting the pavement, I hailed a cab. Only to realize I had no idea where Chloe and Miles lived in the city. A sob broke from my lips, and I could feel the dam I’d so carefully laid into place start to give under the weight of my emotions.

Chloe picked up on the second ring. “Hey, Kels!”

At the tinkling, cheerful note of her voice the tears started to rush out. I relayed half of my story in hurried sobs and hiccups, with Chloe confusedly shouting into the phone. Finally she gave me the address, promising to meet me out front of their building.

I practically cry on the shoulder of the cab driver when I hop in, but somehow discerns the garbled address I give him.

Chloe is waiting, her long black hair swaying in the wind. Those pink ballet pointe shoes are slung around her shoulders, almost like another organ.

I run out of the yellow taxi and into her arms. Thankfully, my best friend doesn’t question me. Just puts her arm around my shoulder and ushers me inside.

F
or the first
few days I crash in Miles and Chloe's second bedroom, I simply sleep. The pain of finding out the truth coupled with Clint's lie is too great. I can't let it prick the surface of my skin, so I invest in some great sleeping pills and give myself over to the bliss. By the fourth day, the grieving-binger stage hits. Good thing New York is the city that never sleeps. Which means I can order pizza, Chinese food and milkshakes to my heart's desire, and they'll be dropped of on my doorstep at even the latest of hours.

I hear Chloe and Miles whisper-arguing late at night when they think I’m not listening.

“We have to tell him where she is!” Miles hisses at her, clearly concerned about his best friend. His best friend who also happens to be a lying sack of shit.

I haven’t turned on my phone since I got here, refusing to tell anyone where I am. From what I can tell, Miles and Chloe haven’t tipped Clint off.

“She trusts us. I’m not betraying that. And we haven’t even gotten the full story. You have no idea what he did to send her running. What if he cheated on her?”

“Clint!? Yeah right! I’m pretty sure he was a virgin before he met Kelsey.”

Right on one count, Farris.

I wish he cheated on me. That would have been easier to swallow than what Clint had actually done.

It’s not until the fifth, sixth and seventh days do I realize that I'm still tired to the bone. So doused in drowsiness that it is physically hard to walk at times. And after I vomit every morning on those days, I attribute it to the crap I've been putting in my stomach. That is until I'm sitting on Chloe's couch, watching an episode of Law and Order SVU while the happy couple is at work, when the teenager on the screen finds out she's pregnant.

And then it hits me.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. No, it can't be. I sit in stunned silence for what feels like hours.

I have to know. Besides my real parentage, I have never been the kind of person who would rather not be privy to information. I'm direct, straight forward. What you see is what you get. And so if I'm preg...I'm having trouble even thinking the word. If I
am
, I need to know.

Good thing New York has a Duane Reed on every goddamn corner. Who knew this store was even still in business?

I act like a ninja in the store, as if the entire population of Mitchum, NC, my hometown, might pop out from behind the aisle at any moment. I pull my hood down further on the walk home, feeling the eyes of strangers judging me. In reality, they can't even see inside the bag, much less care what I'm doing.

Finally, I'm back in Chloe's walk up, trembling in the bathroom. Slowly, I unwrap the test from its packaging. This is the most surreal moment of my life. Even more surreal than finding out Jackson was my biological father. I can't actually believe I'm here in this moment, doing this. It feels like I'm out of my own body, watching from somewhere in the corner. I'm the girl I would make fun of for being alone, taking a pregnancy test in her best friend's bathroom.

The noise from outside the window, which usually keeps me annoyed during the day and awake at night, is dull and muted. I feel like my heart is about to fall out of my throat and flop onto the floor like a fish, caught and fighting for its life on the deck of a dry boat.

I make quick business of peeing on the stick, of course getting some on my hand and cursing myself for ever being stupid enough to land in this predicament in the first place.

Whoever invented these things is the devil? Wait three minutes? Sure, I'll just go knit while I await the results of a stick I just pissed on that may or may not change my entire life.

I spend the full three minutes alternating between pacing the small bathroom and trying not to pull my hair out. When it’s finally up, I throw my hands over my face, peeking out from behind my fingers like I'm watching The Exorcist alone on Halloween. 

Just rip the band aid off, Kelsey.

I move to the sink, where the piece of plastic that holds my future sits. My stomach is in my toes, all of the light in the room focusing like a spotlight on the test. It’s like I have tunnel vision. Looking down, I see the two faded blue lines running perpendicular to each other. A plus sign. I'm pregnant.

Fuck.

Thoughts don't even register in my brain. I slide down the wall into a sitting position, not realizing the fat, salty tears rolling down my face until the collar of my shirt is practically soaked.

I must sit there for hours like a zombie, because next thing I know Chloe is talking at me, words that don't register, and darkness as set in.

She flicks on the light. "What are you doing?" Her voice is incredulous.

I glance up, not really making out her whole face from behind my veil of tears. Its then that I find her staring at the pregnancy test still sitting on the counter

"Oh, Kels..." The shock and sheer worry on her face make me find my voice.

"I guess you were really right when you said I was going to have Clint's babies..."

And then I burst into tears.