Fourth Down Baby: A May-December Romance (17 page)

We're so absorbed in looking at each other that we miss the first play until Laurie cheers so loudly it almost rattles the windows of the VIP box. “Yeah, Daddy! Show them who's boss!”

I look up to see Troy getting off the turf, the ball carrier flat on his back about two or three yards behind where I think the play started. Laurie's hopping up and down and cheering still, and I give Whitney a look, who winks. “Two-yard loss. Good hit.”

“Well, that's how you know it's true love,” Carrie jokes as she turns back around. “When the man would rather pay attention to you than football.”

Cory and I laugh and turn our attention to the game. Troy flies around, sticking people left and right while Duncan has a strong first game for a rookie, stretching the field and grabbing some key receptions. His play isn't quite as dramatic as Troy's because the Wildcats already have some good offensive weapons, but he gets his touches, and I can tell by watching Carrie that she's proud of his play.

“So Carrie,” I ask during the second quarter, in the middle of a TV timeout, “why aren't you on the sidelines? Whitney said you're interning with the team?”

Carrie nods and points to her belly. “Cammy. The team doctors, but more importantly, the insurance guys, have no problem with me working at practices and in the training room, where I can be twenty yards away from any sort of violence, but they wouldn't sign off on me working the sidelines of a game while Cammy's still in my belly. They say the odds of a sideline play getting out of hand are too large. I can still coach the guys in the weight room and wrap them up all I need.”

“You coach in the weight room?” Cory asks. “Sorry, you never mentioned.”

“Sure do. Coach Taylor, my advisor down at Western, wouldn't hear of it any other way.”

“So uh . . . how much do you lift?” Cory asks, and Whitney chuckles. “What?”

“I've seen this girl at work, Cory. You don't want to know the answer to that question,” Whitney says. “And we're back from time out.”

It's a hard fought game, and the Hawks make a game of it. But the dagger in the heart comes via Troy Wood, who intercepts a pass over the middle with five minutes left in the fourth quarter and returns it to the Seattle twenty, where Duncan Hart catches the touchdown, his first professional TD catch that puts Jacksonville up by thirteen, an extra point later, and the game ends 28-14.

Afterward, we make our way down to the locker room area, where we wait outside while the team makes their press conference comments. Troy and Duncan both get to speak some, although not as much as the head coach. Laurie's hopping from one foot to the next while we wait, goofing off with some of the cheerleaders who have come with the team and have already adopted the little girl as one of their own.

Carrie grabs a seat on the team bus while we wait after giving me a hug and Cory a handshake. “If I don't, the linemen grab the best seats with the most lap room,” she explains with a chuckle. “And tired football players have no sense of chivalry. Patricia, it was great to meet you. Have Whit keep me up to date on things. Cory . . . just remember, and you take care too.”

Duncan's out next, giving Whitney and Laurie hugs before shaking hands with Cory. “So you're Whitney's mom,” the tall, handsome tight end says, his arms rippling with muscle and the hint of tattoos. “It's a pleasure. Some time, maybe during the bye week or the offseason, I'd love to hang out and get to know Silver Lake Falls. Troy was thinking when he does his camp at his old high school, maybe?”

“I'd like that, Duncan. Carrie's great, and Whitney likes you . . . sure. You stop by. You can play with our baby while we get to play with Cammy. It'll be a long distance play date.”

Duncan grins and nods. “Deal. Oh, here's Troy. I'm gonna let you guys have your family time.”

A few other players come out of the locker room, Troy setting his bag down to wrap Whitney in a hug before lifting Laurie up and kissing her on the cheek. “What'd you think, sweetie?”

“You played great, Daddy!” Laurie says, hugging Troy again. “You’re going all the way this year!”

“There are still fifteen more games to the regular season, Laurie, but I like your enthusiasm. Hey, can you help Mommy with her bag? I gotta talk to Patricia and Cory, and it's grownup talk.”

Laurie nods and goes off with Whit, Troy watching for a bit before coming over to us. He looks bashful, and I’m reminded that despite having a violent streak in him necessary for his profession, he's still a good man and tender at heart most of the time off the field as well. “Hey guys. I haven't had a chance to say it yet, but I'm sorry about Friday night. I went off like an idiot, and it could have turned out a lot worse.”

“But it didn't,” Cory says, giving Troy a half-smile. “And you found that jet for us. I'd say that more than makes us even. Just hang onto your phone better next time, okay? Laurie doesn't need to play Angry Birds.”

“You don't sit on yours.” Troy says in mock outrage, laughing. “That would have solved all this too, you know.”

Cory laughs, and the two bump fists, their bond repaired. Troy gives me a look, and Cory understands, moving off down the tunnel to follow Whitney and Troy. Troy goes all serious. “Mom . . . I'm sorry.”

I smile, touched. Troy's never known his mother really, and it's only on rare occasions during the past few months that he's felt comfortable calling me that. To stop the potential tears, I hug him, giving him a squeeze. “Troy, it's fine. I'm flattered, really. I mean, I know Cory loves me, and you've said it too, but to know I've got two amazing men who are so protective of me is really something. I went so long with no good man in my life, and now I've got two. I'm a lucky, blessed woman. Enjoy your flight home, and we'll talk later this week or something.”

Troy hugs me so tightly, I'm not sure my ribs can take it for a moment before he relents and kisses me on the cheek. “Thank you. Just remember . . . I'm not calling Cory 'Dad,' I don't care when you two get married.”

I smile and pat his cheek, then push him away with a laugh. “Go on, big guy. Fly safe, and I'll make sure Whit and Laurie get to SeaTac in one piece.”

* * *

“
T
his has been
the best weekend of my life,” Cory says as we stand right outside the security gate. “Patricia, thank you.”

I wrap my arms around Cory's waist and squeeze, happy and sad at the same time. “Thank you. For having the guts to say it first.”

“You waited for me to work up those guts, so I can't take all the credit,” Cory reminds me, hugging me back. “And to cap it off, that was one heck of a game.”

“It was,” I reply, thinking more about seeing Cory interacting with Laurie and the way he was gentlemanly with Carrie than anything else. It's the little things, like when he got Carrie a drink before she had to try and fight her way up from her seat, or the way he and Laurie talked happily while discussing the tactics each team was trying. It reassured me that he's going to be a good father and that he's the man for me. “So are you going to be in trouble for coming up here like you did?”

Cory shrugs, not really caring. “I work for a bank, not the Army,” he says, focused instead on running his fingers through my hair. It feels nice, and I only wish he didn't have to go so soon. “Only thing that affects me is the bill, and to be honest, I don't care about that either. I already talked with Whit, and I told her that she and Troy are not allowed to try and go halfsies on the jet we got up here. No way am I letting them do that. So if Troy tries to send you a big chunk of money, you know what to do, right?”

I nod, grinning. “Yep. I'm going to spend it all on Laurie's Christmas gifts. That'll teach Troy, if Laurie gets a pony delivered to their house in Jacksonville.”

Cory laughs and gives me a squeeze. “I love you so much.”

An announcement comes over the loudspeakers, and we look up at the board. “Well, time for you to go through the checkpoint,” I sigh, squeezing. “Your phone is working?”

Cory opens up his new backpack, a gift from Troy, actually, that's emblazoned with the Wildcats logo, and takes it out. “Perfect working order. So I'll give it another test run when I get home, calling my girlfriend.”

“I think she'd like that,” I tease back. “Unless she broke her phone or something.”

“Better not, or else I'm just going to have to give her a video call, and do it naked,” he growls sexily in my ear. “Show her what she's missing.”

“Mmm, I might like that too,” I purr back. “We can talk about that when you get home.”

Another announcement comes, and I pull Cory tight. “Seriously, though . . . thank you. And I know something else after this weekend.”

“What?”

I kiss him tenderly once more, stepping back. “You're going to be a great father. Now get going.”

Cory shoulders his backpack and waves, still dumbstruck by my words. Just as he goes through the metal detector, he turns back and waves again. “I love you!”

“I love you too!”

His words lift my heart on the drive back to Silver Lake Falls, and I feel ready for whatever's coming next. When I get home, my phone buzzes, and I see a text. It's from Dani.

How was the game?

Good. I'm a lucky woman, u know?

I know. U good 2nite?

Yeah. Thanks. Let's get together maybe Wednesday or Thursday for coffee or something?

Deal. Pete just signed up for some BJJ classes at the rec center to stay in shape. We can talk while he gets sweaty.

Thought that was ur job. G'nite, Dani.

LOL. G'nite, Patricia.

I
'm walking
on clouds when I pull my bike up outside the PacFran building Tuesday morning, locking up my frame and taking my helmet and seat up with me. I dropped off a suit in my office yesterday, and after this morning, I'm ready to conquer the world.

Part of it is that I've just finished what was perhaps the most erotic, motivating exercise session in my life. Building off of Patricia's comment about naked video chat, I hooked my home laptop up to my television with an HDMI cable, moved my couch and coffee table around to make space, and this morning, starting at six, Patricia and I exercised together in our respective living rooms.

Everything was fine, and I was enjoying her choice of music when we got through our warmups and then started the calisthenics, but then Patricia took off her t-shirt, leaving her in just her sports bra.

With that, our game was on. With each exercise, we did something to display ourselves to the each other, sometimes taking off a piece of clothing, sometimes posing as we alternated exercises. It was hard to focus when she did her squats with her butt facing the camera, still in her shorts but the waistband rolled so that they were short and sexy. When we finally wrapped up at six forty-five, both of us were coated with sweat, and at least in my case, it wasn't all from the exercise.

I get to my office and change quickly, making sure to wipe down in the building's locker room before sitting down at my desk. I've got a few margin calls that I want to make sure I can jump on, and as the market starts, I see that I predicted right. The computer manufacturer I'd shorted Friday releases their sales report, and it's even worse than the market expected, and I'm able to sell my short shares at a good profit before ten. I sit back and smile, logging my work and making sure everything is updated. While most of the shares involved were my personal ones, I don't often use client money for short sales or other overly risky trades, but Tyler Paulson asked me to get in on this one, and five thousand dollars of it was his money as well. He'll like that I turned his five thousand into seventy-five hundred in just four days. Chump change, but Tyler's learned from Troy and Duncan. He knows that the chump change builds up to big bucks quickly.

I shoot him an email with the results and stretch, feeling good. Stepping away from the market, I turn to my oversight paperwork when my office phone rings. “Cory Dunham.”

“Mr. Dunham, it's Xander Roberts. Can you come to my office please?”

His tone of voice brooks no argument, nor does it sound like he wants to give me an
atta-boy
for that sweet little short sale. “Okay, sir. I'll be right there.”

On my way up the elevator to the thirty-third floor of the PacFran building, I can't help but feel like he’s going to blast me about what I overheard. Nothing official, of course. He can't prove anything, and if he does, he knows I can go to the SEC, but I still think that perhaps my nose is about to get rubbed in it. Great.

“Fuck it.” I laugh softly. “I know what's important.”

The doors to the elevator open, and I go down the hall to Xander Roberts's office. At least the prick has the magnanimity to not have his son here too. “Mr. Roberts?”

“Sit down, Dunham,” Xander says, safe and sound behind his desk that's roughly the size of a barn door and most likely made of wood that would make any environmentalist have a stroke. He waits until I unbutton my suit jacket and sit down before he launches on his obviously prepared little speech. “Cory, what are the Ten Commandments?”

“It's been a while since I've been to church,” I reply, trying not to roll my eyes. Really, this crap?

“Not those. The PacFran Ten,” Xander says with measured patience. I can't help it this time. A tic does escape my mask as I realize what he's trying to use to smack me. The PacFran Ten.

Back in the very early twentieth century, in the days of Rockefeller, JP Morgan and others, PacFran was a small bank, one that established itself on the Pacific Coast to allow the local businesses in the area to work together to not have to deal with the robber barons and the railroad cartels who were basically running shit in San Francisco. Pooling what money they could, they established PacFran, nobody anticipating the explosive growth of the San Francisco area through the decades as first the trade with Asia, then the growth of the US Navy in the area fueled booms in lots of sectors, with finance itself and later IT and computer tech adding their own booms.

While some of the initial companies that founded PacFran have folded, merged, or just separated themselves from PacFran, there are still ten of the originals, known in the firm as the PacFran Ten. There is one rule with the PacFran Ten, namely that you never, ever put in a trade option or in any way mess with them in such a manner as to make it look like PacFran doesn't have total and complete faith in those companies. Armageddon could come, and PacFran would still tell clients to invest heavily and long in the companies. Personally, I just make sure that I never put any money at all into the PacFran Ten, and I never talk about them at all with any client. Safer that way.

“Of course I know the PacFran Ten, Xander,” I say, ignoring his last name. I'm a Vice President now, dammit. I can at least talk to the man without acting like a supplicant. “I never touch them.”

“Really? Then why was I notified this morning from our IT department that you sent out a general sell recommendation to five of your clients on shares of Alameda Ship Yards?”

“Alameda Ship Yards?” I ask, perplexed. I mean, I know what Alameda Shipping is. It handles Navy contracts and is one of the larger shipbuilders in the area. “Why would I do that? I don't have any clients with shares in ASY.”

“That's not what the emails state. According to what you sent, you told five clients that they should divest all shares in ASY because, and I quote here, 'they're not going to get that Naval contract they're hoping for. Expect their shares to plunge in the next two to three weeks.' Now, can you explain this?” Xander turns his monitor around, and I look at what is supposed to be my email, but the time stamp's all wrong, there's no way I could have sent this email, and I don't even recognize the recipients.

“I didn't send this. I don't know what kind of fuckery is going on, but this says I sent the email at eight in the morning Saturday. At eight in the morning Saturday, I was in Silver Lake Falls with my girlfriend. We were in bed together.”

“Can you prove it?” Xander asks, still cocky. “Can you prove you were in Washington?”

“Yes,” I shoot back, getting pissed as I get to my feet. “I secured a private jet with my credit card at roughly ten o'clock Friday night and flew to SLF. Unless the company thinks I spent fifteen thousand dollars on a jet just to cover my ass on an email that would net me what, a few hundred bucks in commissions?”

Xander's cocky confidence looks a bit shaken, and I realize something. This is all a set-up. I sit down, shaking my head. “I don't give a fuck what those emails say. I didn't do it. What's going to happen about it?”

Xander thinks quickly, his index finger tapping on his desk. “Okay, Cory. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. When the board heard about this, they were ready to throw you out on your ass, but if there's a chance that this is some sort of . . . elaborate prank on you, then I'll exercise the discretion they granted me.”

“Which is?” I ask, settling back. He's putting on a performance, a one-man-show for his own benefit, really, but the truth is that he's had the ax ready for my head since he cooked up this little plan. “Demotion?”

“Oh, not at all. Your numbers and hard work have proved that you deserve a VP slot. Instead, think of this as a lateral transfer. PacFran has offices all over the world, as you know, and we recently had a slot open up in our Bangkok office. They need a new VP for the branch, and you should fit the bill just fine.”

I blink, stunned. Bangkok? “That's the death office,” I hiss, sitting back. “Fucking Bangkok?”

Bangkok, where executives go to ride out the rest of their careers. Dealing with the Thai government, the lightyears of red-tape, the corruption, and just in general the situation in Southeast Asia, you can't help but get dirty. And as soon as you do, the countdown starts on when you get caught and canned. Either you can stay clean and get canned for not performing, or perform and get canned for breaking some rule or another. Nobody gets out of the Bangkok office alive. At least, no American has that I know of.

“One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble,” Xander says like it's some sort of quote, but I don't catch the reference. “Think of it as a good challenge for someone of your business IQ. You transfer next week. Good day, Mr. Dunham.”

I want to protest. Hell, most of me wants to punch Xander right between his eyes. Maybe I can break those Oliver People's glasses he wears. Instead, I shake my head and go downstairs, looking for Jackie. Maybe she can help me out.

Jackie's in her office and looks up when I knock. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

“No, but you're looking at one. I just got done receiving a death sentence from Xander Roberts. He wants to transfer me to Bangkok.”

Jackie leans back, her face pained. “Bangkok? What'd you do to get that?”

“He says I put in a sell order on Alameda Ship Yards, but I don't have any clients in there. Hell, I wasn't even in town at the time.”

Jackie nods and leans forward. “Sucks, Cory. How'd they do it?”

“Fuck, I don't know. Hacked my email, I guess,” I say, running my hands through my hair. “I haven't asked for much from anyone, but is there anything you can do? I mean, long distance between San Francisco and Washington is one thing, and Patricia's cool with that, but she's pregnant now. No fucking way can we do this between here and Bangkok, and she can't come live with me in Bangkok. No way in hell would I ask her that.”

“Hmm, that's too bad,” Jackie says, and I hear something new in her voice. She's not upset about this at all.

Still, I don't react. Investing is a lot like playing poker. You have to show your cards at the right time. And I'm good at that game. “So who do you think they're going to bring in to take my slot? Lin? She deserves it most.”

“Lin? Oh no, she's accepting a transfer to the London office,” Jackie says casually, as if we were discussing the weather or that the Dons won their opener Sunday. “Most likely, Dylan's going to be promoted.”

Dylan. After all the talk of him burning this place down, and I meant every word, they tab Dylan? Fuck my life. “So that's how it is.”

“It is,” Jackie says, another hint of something in her voice. I get up and go to her door, closing it before turning around. “What are you doing?”

“Who do you owe?” I ask, laying it out. The time's right. “There's no way you would accept Dylan as your direct report, especially as one of your VPs, if you didn't have a reason. So which is it, Xander or Dylan?”

Jackie's normally nice smile turns shark like, predatory, as she removes her emotional mask and gives me a nod of respect. “For a financial genius, you certainly let yourself get played with the way Dylan got under your skin.”

“Why, Jackie? I mean, seriously.”

She shrugs and folds her fingers underneath her chin. “Because it'll help me. I bring Dylan up, Xander owes me. Of course, Dylan won't say anything since he thinks that he's getting a smooth ride on two fronts, since I've been fucking him for two months now. He's a good fuck, I'll give him that. What that idiot doesn't know is that I'm keeping him right where his Daddy and I want him.”

I blanch, realizing what she's saying. “You're fucking Xander too?”

“Oh, not so crude as all that. He can barely get it up any more after his bypass surgery. But he has other things he enjoys. So I do as he wants, we keep Dylan right where we want him, and Xander and I both have a shield and dirt on the other. He can ruin me. I can ruin him. We just needed to get rid of the people who actually have some morals and are smart enough to get in our way. Lin was easy. She's ambitious and she's totally single. She's going to do well in the London office and can be out of my hair there, and I don't have any ill will toward her. That just left one person. You.”

I nod, understanding it all, even if I don't like it. I shake my head, sighing. “You know, everything you just said about you and those two, I should be disgusted . . .”

“Hmm, turned on, huh? I never pegged you for that.” Jackie laughs. She stops when she sees that instead of being upset, I'm looking at her with pity. “What?”

“I said I
should
be disgusted. I feel sorry for you, Jackie. Can I ask—you don't have to answer, obviously—what led you to be this way? Or have you always been a two-faced bitch?”

Jackie laughs harshly, shaking her head. “You say that like it's a bad thing. Don't you know? Life's a bitch sometimes, but that means I’m going to win in the end, because I'm the baddest bitch in the building. You've got until Wednesday afternoon here to get your shit ready to transfer to Bangkok. You fly on Friday. Take the rest of the day off. I'm sure you need to pack.”