The Wide Receiver's Baby (21 page)

Chapter Twenty Three

Chase

“We need to wake them up.”  I tried to get Reg to get them up, but he was drunk and practically in a coma.  Shit, the dude could sleep.

It was way past five.  I thought about the little girl, my daughter, probably wanting to eat or something.  We didn’t even order breakfast when we’d arrived.  Eating wasn’t exactly on my mind, but the noises coming from my stomach made me think of food and it woke me up.  I hadn’t eaten anything in hours.  All I had been doing from the time we left to the time we returned was drink alcohol.  My head pounded like there was no tomorrow. 

I gave up trying to probe and poke Reg into waking up.  It was clear he was well out of it.

I sighed as I thought about hitting the shower and then going into their room.

I wondered if they were even awake.

I shook my head and then decided to take a shower.  I’d passed out after we kept drinking straight from the bottle of whiskey, and shit, I didn’t even remember what we were talking about.  Both of us were due in class and, just as I thought about Dad, he called.

“Dad?”  I hesitated to say more as I picked up the phone.

“Chase, you okay?  Did you survive the fight?”

Shoot, I’d told him about going to New York to watch the fight.  I wished I hadn’t.  It was the last thing I wanted to talk about.

“Yep.”  I was being short with him. Just so he didn’t drag the conversation on any longer. 

“Where’s Mommy?” the little girl asked as she walked into the room and tugged on my pants.  Shoot, I hadn’t even heard the door open or realized that she was standing next to me.  I heard Dad take a long deep breath, probably wondering what was wrong with me.  I had put the past behind us when it was clear that Kayla wanted to keep away.  At first, our relationship was strained, but as time went on we went back to the way things were - until now.  Until I found her again.

My head started to hurt again as I bent down.  “Dad, I need to go.”

“Chase, who’s—” I cut him off and turned off my phone to stop him from calling again.  Shit, he had heard her.  I was hoping that with her sweet little voice he wouldn’t have.  I wasn’t ready to talk to him about it, especially when I needed to talk to Kayla.

It felt so sad, looking at her sweet, innocent face.  Kayla had brought her up in a world with complete strangers when I could have brought her up in a safe environment.  I put my anger towards her mom aside and whispered as I stroked her hair away from her face.  “It’s okay.  Maybe she’s in the bathroom.”  That was the only place she could have gone to, because I’d made sure the damn door was locked on the inside and she couldn’t leave.

I wanted her gone.

But not yet.

Not until she gave me some answers. 

No lies.

Just the truth.

“Bathroom?” she repeated.

Curiosity got the better of me.  “What is your name?”

I couldn’t help but touch her.  I laughed because she looked as if she had been in an electric chair, her hair was all over the place.  She had her vest on the wrong way around and she was so cute.  Her bright blue eyes smiled as she said, “Sydney.”

Wow, Kayla had even given her my mom’s name.  My granddad used to travel a lot, and one of the places he loved was Australia.  He used to have one of his offices there, and I even have some family still in Australia.  That was why he named my mom Sydney.  After his beloved city.  I had told Kayla the story, and she had used my mom’s name to name our daughter.

Why?

If she had gone out of her way to run away from me, why name our daughter after my mom?

None of it made any sense.

“Why are you sad?” Sydney asked as I became lost in my thoughts for a minute.  I shook my head and took her hand. 

“Let’s go and find your mom.”

She smiled as she had done when she’d tugged at my pants to ask me where her mom was.  I could tell they were close by the way Sydney had smiled as Kayla held her in her arms when Reg brought her to the car.  Also, by the way they held on to each other in the back of the car.

If she loved her so much, then why did Kayla keep her away from me?

I thought I’d made it clear that the boisterous life I used to lead before we hooked up was a thing of the past.  I wasn’t a danger to anyone, especially Kayla and my little girl.

***

We headed to the room.  I switched on the lights and the bed looked as if it had been in some kind of wrestling match.  The same way it used to look after Kayla had had one of her nightmares.

That was it!

Kayla used to blame those nightmares on studying and Economics.  It was all starting to hit home.  At times she would wake up screaming in the middle of the night.  Kayla would fob me off by saying that she used to have anxiety attacks as a kid.  I didn’t believe her back then.  I just thought that our relationship had just started, and that when she was ready to completely open up to me, she would. 

I walked to the bathroom door.  I opened the door slightly and slowly, pretending that I was playing a game with Sydney.  She was obviously used to it because she seemed quite excited about being quiet.  For a brief second, I wondered where else they had been sneaking around.  That was when I heard Kayla humming in the bath.  She was probably trying to soothe her wounds with some warm water.  Her tune wasn’t one of joy, it was more one of relief.  I didn’t recognize it, but I listened for a brief moment as she moved in the bath.  I was tempted to open the door to watch her as I had so many times before, wondering what was going through her mind, but I didn’t.  I shut the door.

It finally dawned on me that all this had nothing to do with me.  Kayla had been running from something or someone
before
we got together. 
Before
she ran away.  Reg was right.  She was running from something.

The question was what?

Or, rather, who?

Chapter Twenty Four

Chase

“Are you hungry?” I whispered as I bent down and rubbed my belly, trying to emphasize what I was trying to say.  It was silly, because everything I had said up till then she had clearly understood, but I had no idea what to do with a kid.

I’d had limited contact with my little cousins, and none of my friends had kids.  Well, not that they knew about.  Or that I knew about.

I was more nervous about being around her than she was with me.  She seemed kind of responsive to me, from holding my hand to smiling when I asked her a direct question.

But right now, with her mom lost in her own world, that meant that I had to look after her, and the only thing I could think that she would want, was the same thing I was dying to do right now: eat.

Sydney nodded frantically, then she rubbed her little belly as it started to growl like mine.  She smiled at me.  Sydney didn’t even know me, but I wondered for a split second as I lifted her small frame and held her in my arms if she knew who I was.  Sometimes children know that a stranger is more than just a stranger.  I was her dad.

She hadn’t heard my voice or seen me before, yet she raised her hand and stroked my face.  I looked at her for a split second.  “Are you okay?”

She nodded and gave me a kiss on the cheek.  It was the most precious thing in the world.  A kiss from my daughter.

The one that I had found out about a few hours ago.

She just gave me a kiss. 

Right then, I was distracted by my overbearing stomach, which made it clear it needed to eat. I noticed  her cold feet and hands.  She was walking around with practically no clothes on. 

“How old are you, Sydney?”

She replied happily as I took a dress out of the closet. 

“Two, but I’m nearly four.”

I laughed as I squeezed her tight. 

“So you are, my dear.”

She shook her head.  “No, my name’s Sydney, not a dear.”

She was smart too, which meant she was clearly mine.  We walked into the living room on our way to the other bathroom.  I didn’t even look across the room to see if Reg was still sleeping, but he confirmed that he was awake when he spoke, “Hey, looks like someone is enjoying their gift,” Reg said as he sat up.

I paused for a minute before I reached the bathroom.  “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

He nodded as he struggled to get off the bed and, like a gush of wind, he passed us and went to the bathroom. 

“Great!” I sighed as he headed towards the bathroom, which was exactly where I was going to take Sydney.  I could only think by the way he was stumbling to the bathroom that he needed to pee.  He came out in a flash.

“Sorry, I needed to pee.”

“We need to eat.”  I nodded as I passed him.

“We do, because I starrrving,” Sydney said.  Reg and I laughed as she hugged me, and I rushed to brush her teeth, wash her face, and put her in some decent clothes.  As for her hair, I would try and do something or maybe get Reg to do it.  He had a big family.  There were lots of kids in it, due to him having three brothers and two sisters and God knows how many aunts and uncles. 

“We all are, Princess,” Reg said as I shut the door to get her ready. 

As I sat her down next to the sink, she said, “My name’s not Princess or dear, it’s Sydney.”

I smiled as I replied, “Sydney Princess. What about that?”

She smiled as I said it.  She liked the sound of that. 

And so did I.

Chapter Twenty Five

Kayla

“Kayla, Sydney is seriously hungry, you need to get out of there.  She hasn’t eaten all day.”  I didn’t know how long Chase had been thumping at the door.  Being with Chase again was drawing out all the bad memories.

Maybe I was kidding myself; the memories had never gone away.  They were just nightmares, but today, ever since I saw Chase at the fight, I was having them with my eyes wide open.  Thoughts about the reason I ran away from him kept running through my mind.

“Coming!” I called out.  I had lost all sense of time.  I didn’t even think about Sydney being awake and in unfamiliar territory.  How would she feel with this man?  Normally, she was with the sitter or Willy.  Always with someone I trusted.

Now, she was with the one person she never knew existed.

Her dad.

I could pretend that she wasn’t his.  Tell her to come out with some other name.  There are plenty of blue-eyed and blond-haired babies, so she didn’t necessarily have to be his child.

Shit, baby girl, she’d told him her name.

I named her after his mom.  Just because it felt like the right thing to do when I had done so many wrong things.  I should have told him why I left.

Shit, there were so many things I should have done.

But, I didn’t.

The real me died in a fire three years ago.  The girl he knew as Kayla didn’t even exist.  She wasn’t brought up in Kentucky.  She never went to school there and moved to Dallas.  Those were all lies fabricated by Mom.  She was good at telling stories; when you’re married to a monster like my dad and have to go to work with a black eye most of the time, you get good at stories.  She used to say to me, “Lying has become my second skin”.

I didn’t understand the meaning of that until I changed names, dyed my hair, and waltzed around telling everyone that my name was Kayla.  It was the name of a girl that I used to go to school with, she was my best friend.  I didn’t understand the meaning of friendship again until I went to college.  That was when the ghosts of the past were put behind me, only to surface while I slept.  During the day I walked around campus as if I was normal.  As if I belonged.  At night, I tucked myself safely in Chase’s arms, hoping he would keep me safe.  That was until that night, Dad’s birthday, when all ghosts became real.

Dad wasn’t dead.

He was looking for me.

I had a feeling that he wouldn't stop until he found me.

I put my clothes on and headed out to the living room.  I tried to erase all my thoughts of the fight, but my body was still hurting.  I tried to walk straight, but I had a bit of a limp.

My arms ached from the punches that I’d received from Natalie as she’d tried to become a champion once again.

What had happened to my new identity?

My money?

My things?

I shook my head. Reg had already said that Hannah had found out.  Maybe if she saw the ID, then she would come after me.  Make me her prisoner.  That could be the only explanation of the message that Willy gave Reg.  It was to stay safe and keep as far away from Hannah as possible - and that was exactly what I had to do.  Besides, Sydney wasn’t the only one who was hungry.  I felt light-headed and dizzy, so I knew I was too.