Jock: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (26 page)

S
erena drives
me to the airport.

I stare out the window the whole way there, watching Houston slide past the window, watching it fall away behind us into the rearview mirror until I’m forced to look forward.

Because there’s only looking forward from here. Because looking back, there’s only Holden, and what might have been, and the knife-twisting, all-consuming guilt that comes with knowing I’m running away from him and everything that might mean.

But I know with every passing mile-marker along the highway that it’s the only way. I know with every fading glimpse of the city behind me that what I
want
there to be with Holden can never actually be.

The player; the jock. The hard-drinking wild man with the broken past. The man whose whole adult life is I’m sure
littered
with the broken hearts of women just like me.

Women who thought they could
change
him.

It’s a tragically silly thought, and I’m smart enough to know better. I’m also well aware of what adding a baby to that sort of mix does.

I turn back to the road in front of us.

* * *

A
fter a final hug
, and lingering tears, and promises to come back after my meeting no matter the outcome, I say goodbye to Serena.

When I’m through security and finally make my way down the huge concourse of the terminal to my gate, I finally find a seat and breathe. I take my phone out and hover over my dad’s name. He knows I’m taking the meeting - he’s even
encouraged
me to take it. But there’s a last trace of guilt for running away like this that’s still lingering, even here when I’m minutes from boarding my flight.

“You’re supposed to turn the damn phone off on the plane, you know.”

I smile, even as emotionally drained as I am.

“Haven’t boarded yet, Dad, I just…” I trail off, part of me almost wanting to tell him right there and then about what
else
is going on besides a possible change in employment.

“I know this is something you’ve gotta do, hotshot,” he says quietly.

I nod, closing my eyes. I try to imagine the life inside of me - the little spark, the little piece of good that’s coming from the disaster of crashing into Holden Cade.

I quickly wipe that from my head, before I start crying right there at the gate.

Stupid hormones starting already.

I cough, clearing my thoughts.

“What about you, Dad? You okay?”

Dad’s officially had Joanne’s things moved out of our house, along with a court order barring her from contact. He’s decisive like that, even though I know he’s hurting from the betrayal.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he sighs. “Been a hell of a month, hasn’t it?” he says with a dark chuckle.

I close my eyes again, only managing a non-verbal nod.

There’s a pause before my dad’s voice comes through the phone again.

“We’re gonna make it through this, you know. Hell, did I tell you the legal guys found a transfer of board voting contract with my name forged on it in her things here at the house?”

He’s told me already, but I still shake my head.

“What’s that mean?”

Dad snorts.

“Mean’s I’ve got that witch by the balls is what it means.”

I laugh.

“And hell, it ain’t all bad, hotshot. Season starts in a week, and I’ve got goddamn
Holden Cade
on my starting line-up thanks to you!”

I squeeze my eyes shut, going quiet.

“What’s eating you, honey?”

“Nothing,” I lie.

That part I can’t tell him.

Not yet.

“I’m just…” I trail off.

“Don’t be,” Dad says quietly. “Don’t be scared, or worried, and don’t you go doubting yourself, honey. Don’t let the world get to you like that, you understand? You’re
my
daughter, and you’re stronger than anyone I know. Don’t worry about the damn interview or whatever that Reece fellow wants, because they’d be damn lucky to have you.”

I smile as a single tear trickles down my cheek.

“Believe me,” he chuckles. “I should know.”

I sniff.

“Dad, just tell me to stay and-”

“Nope, uh-uh. You gotta
do
this. You gotta get out there and see what’s up. Be who
you
want to be and live the life
you
need to live.”

I can hear his smile through the phone.

“Be the strong, capable, take-no-shit woman that I raised, and you go in there and knock ‘em dead.”

* * *

I
linger longer
, as the line forms for the boarding process, staying in my seat and looking out the window at the plane that’ll carry me away to whatever may come next. But it slowly dwindles, until all that’s left is the attendant at the gate, and me still sitting there.

Alone.

“Miss?”

I look up.

“Will you be joining us today?”

No.

No, because this isn’t a plan, it’s just running away. No, because there’s so much left to say, and so much I want to tell him, and I know once I get on that plane, no matter if Serena makes me come back to pack first or not, there’s no
real
coming back.

Not to what we almost had.

“Yes,” I say out loud, standing and picking up my bag.

I take a deep breath as I make my way to the gate and the older woman standing beside it.

“I’m ready.”

I pull my boarding pass out of my purse and pass it to her. She scans it, and she’s passing it back to me as I reach for my suitcase handle, when the voice from somewhere inside my heart comes booming from
behind
me.

“London!”

I freeze.

“Stop!”

The voice booms down the long terminal concourse.

His
voice.

I swallow the lump that forms in my throat before I slowly turn, and the boarding pass drops from my fingers.

Holden is running full tilt down the crowded terminal towards me, shoving people out of the way and ignoring the looks and camera flashes of people who recognize who he is.

The bag drops from my other hand, and I start to move towards him, like autopilot.

Like magnets.

Like something I can’t say no to.

“Miss?” the airline attendant says sharply. “Miss, you can’t just leave your bag here.”

But I’m walking away. I’m moving towards him in slow motion as he shoves his way through the crowd, his eyes locked on me.

“Miss!”

Holden pushes his way through the last of the crowd, and then we’re face to face. We’re a few feet apart, just
standing there
, staring at each other, waiting for something to shatter that last distance between us.

“I fucked up.” His voice is edged as his eyes lock onto mine. “Actually, I’ve been fucking up for pretty much as long as I can remember,” he says quietly.

“Holden-”

He shakes his head as he holds up a hand.

“Hang on, let me finish.”

A crowd with camera phones out is starting to form around us as people recognize the sports superstar standing there in the airport. But he’s ignoring them as he steps closer to me.

His eyes
locked
onto mine.

“I’ve made fucking up a cornerstone of who I
am
, and I was pretty damn good at it too,” he spits out. “Until I met you.”

I can feel my heart pounding as he takes a single step towards me, slowly shaking his head.

Cameras are flashing, the crowd is murmuring quietly, and the room is spinning as he moves right in front of me.

“How’d you even get in here?” I say.

He grins, pulling a ticket out of his pocket and nodding at it.

“Bought the first flight that came up.”

“To?”

He shrugs as he looks down at the ticket. “Japan, apparently.”

“And what’d that cost?”

“Like six grand for the last-minute, day-of ticket.”

My brows shoot up.

“You spent six-thousand dollars just to get to me, huh?”

He smiles.

“Yeah well this really hot contract negotiator actually got me this pretty sweet signing deal to play for Houston.”

I bite my lip, shaking my head at the titters from the crowd around us as he just looks at me.

“London, I could promise you a bunch of shit, and tell you how much I’m going to change.” He shakes his head. “But I don’t think either of us want to be that much of a cliché.”

“So what do we do instead?” I say softly, feeling my heart about to beat out of my chest.

“How about we do
this
instead.”

The whole world suddenly spins as Holden drops down onto his knee in front of me, his hand reaching up to take mine.

“How about I
show you
how much I’ve changed. How about I show you every
single
damn day how much you’ve changed me, and how much you and this,” he nods at my belly, “how much you both mean to me. How about I never fucking
stop
showing you that you’re the key. How about I wake up every day for the rest of my life and make sure you know you’re the greatest fucking thing that’s ever happened to me.”

I can feel my pulse thudding in my ears, my breath coming ragged in my throat as I stare down into his steely blue eyes. I’m completely oblivious of the crowd around us at that point - like it’s just him and I in this frozen little moment.

“You could go,” he says evenly. His eyes move to my belly again before they drag back to my face. “You could go and do this by yourself. You could get on that plane, and go to Denver, and take the job, and you could never see me again. And I could probably go on without you here.”

His jaw tightens along with his fingers around mine.

“I could put my head down and just drown it all in booze like I’ve always done.” His eyes lock onto mine. “And I could live the rest of my life without you, London Jacobs.”

Time stops for just one second.

“I just
really
don’t want to.”

And suddenly, he’s reaching into his back pocket and I’m staring at the box he’s opening in front of me.

The ring glitters gold and diamond in the neon and fluorescent airport lights as the crowd gasps and cameras flash around us.

“Are you-” I’m reeling - my mouth opening and closing without any words coming out. “Holden, you don’t have to,” I shake my head. “You don’t have to just because-”

“I
have to
because I can’t imagine going another day of my life without you,” he says evenly. “I
have to
because I’m half of who I am without you.” He holds the box up to me, his eyes never leaving mine. “I
have to
because I love you, London,” he says softly.

The surrounding crowd is
silent
, all leaning in and hanging on the words left unspoken on my lips.

“Miss?”

The silence is broken by the sharp voice of the airline attendant behind me.

I turn.

"Will you be joining us today?” she says again tersely, arms crossed over her chest.

I turn back to the man kneeling in front of me.

Our eyes lock, and I know.

“No,” I say without turning back to her. “No, I won’t be.”

The crowd around us starts to erupt into cheers as she sighs loudly, while Holden just beams up at me.

“And as for
you
,” I say sharply, raising a brow at him.

He grins.

“
Yes.
”

I’m still saying it -
yelling it
- over and over again as he jumps to his feet, scoops me in his arms and starts to twirl me around. The crowd goes crazy around us, cheering, and snapping pictures and videos as I bury myself in his arms.

And I don’t need any spreadsheets for this, or statistics, or data analyzation.

Because I’ve got a gut feeling

And sometimes, that’s really all you need.

I
could say we waited
, and took it slow, and planned, and then eventually got married way down the road after the baby was born and when things made more sense.

But that would be a
damn
lie.

After all, planning ahead? Playing it safe? Waiting?

Yeah, apparently not exactly our style.

Okay, it wasn’t like we went out and found a church on the way home from the airport that day. But there we were five months later, London looking like a damn goddess with a 2nd trimester bump and a white dress as I somehow managed to convince myself I wasn’t dreaming and said “I do”.

Now, that wasn’t the simplest five months in the world, I’ll say that. Again, I could make up this big story about everyone immediately loving the idea of our relationship, but again, that would kind of make a damn liar out of me.

Truth be told, her dad was
slightly
less than thrilled upon hearing the news.

Well, actually, “less than thrilled” is the nice version. Archie Jacobs’s
actual
reaction upon hearing that his darling daughter was planning on marrying a guy like
me
who’d
knocked her up
was to jump from his desk, grab the shotgun mounted to the wall of his office, and level it at my fucking chest.

Jesus, welcome to freaking Texas, huh?

Thankfully, the woman I love happens to be a hell of a negotiator.

Like I said, it wasn’t the simplest five months in the world, but I fucking
worked
for it.

I quit drinking, for one. Full stop. Sure, a big part of it was to show Archie I was capable of being the kind of guy who deserved London. But waking up in a fucking bathtub with your career and your heart in shreds around you sort of has that kind of effect on you.

Well, so does one of your best friends dangling you off a tenth story balcony.

So, I quit. And wouldn’t you know it, my game got a
whole lot
better. Remember that whole thing about turning this shit team around and taking it to the playoffs?

Yeah, nailed it.

The western conference championships were last weekend, and guess who was fucking there?

First time in seven years, baby.

Not to mention, we
crushed
it, and for the first time in two decades, Houston’s going to the super bowl.

So yeah, after five months of quitting booze, taking his team back into relevancy, and showing him every damn day how committed I was to London, I think I finally won Archie over.

Hell, the man wept at the wedding.

Shit,
I
almost did.

And it gets better. See, having a
winning
team – especially after
not
winning for so long – tends to get people to pay attention. People like the manager for my favorite bearded linebacker, which means next year, Max and his family are coming down here to Texas.

I can’t fucking wait.

But all of that is secondary.
All of it
runs second string to the most important part of all this – the fact that somehow, a professional fuck-up like me somehow managed to
marry
a girl like London.

Well, former fuck-up.

I got lucky, and you better believe I know it. I got a second chance, and I got a new lease on life. I’ve got a new home town I can be a hero for, and a new
little life
to be a dad for.

We’re naming him Brandon, by the way.

I could talk about how me somehow coming out on top of all this, and getting the girl, and getting that happy ending goes against every bit of logic and probability. But life ain’t a bunch of numbers and statistics, and it sure as shit ain’t a spreadsheet. Life’s about following that hunch, and chasing that little feeling.

Life’s about listening to your heart, and let me tell you, finally shutting up and listening to mine is the best play I ever made.