Fair Game: A Football Romance (72 page)

“Good, because I don’t want Troy to see me holding your hair back while you barf into the ocean.” She smiles and hands me my tea. I finish half the glass in one drink.

“You’re so compassionate, thanks,” I say, rolling my eyes and setting the glass on the coffee table.

“When’s your mama gonna be home?” I ask as she drops herself into a recliner sideways, dangling her long, tan legs over the arm.

“Not till eight. They close at seven, but she has to clean up.”

“The grill or the salon?” I ask. Her mama has to work at a bar and grill, a hair salon, and a nursing home to keep their house since her daddy left them.

“The grill. The salon’s closed on the 4
th
of July, and the grill doesn’t get any business after six because of the fireworks and all.”

“Okay, do you have to check in or anything?” I need to go home and show my face before my parents go to their friend’s house for a BBQ.

“Nope, we can go whenever. She’s going out with Daniel. I probably won’t see her till tomorrow.”

“Is Daniel the big guy with long blonde hair or the Harley guy?” I ask. Her mama’s been through a dozen guys in the last month alone. I can’t keep up.

“No, silly. Both of those guys are old news. Daniel’s the slick, sexy suit she’s been seeing for a week or so. He’s hot and mysterious and . . . hot.” Wow. For her to say he’s hot twice, he must be volcanic. She’s not usually into her mama’s boyfriends. This one must be different.

“Is he nice?” I ask.

“Yeah, like really polite and stuff. He’s always shaking my hand and calling me Miss Savannah. I think she really likes this one.”

“That’s good, right? I mean, it’s been a couple of years since . . . well . . .”

“Since my piece of shit daddy ditched us and left my mama twisting in the wind financially and emotionally and me fatherless? You don’t have to pussyfoot around, Holland. It’s okay, and yeah, this could be really good if he treats her right and doesn’t turn out to be someone fake or into something illegal. Mama isn’t usually the best judge of character. She follows her heart all the time.”

Ouch. She wasn’t referring to my relationship with King, but ‘hot’ and ‘into something illegal’ hit pretty close to home.

“Sorry.” I twist my lips and press them together. I really do feel bad for both of them, and I admire her mama’s ability to bounce back. I wasn’t married for twenty years like Savannah’s mama, but deep feelings are deep feelings, and I’m not sure I’ll ever bounce back after King.

***

The bonfire was fun until it wasn’t. We were all oohing and ahhing over the fireworks that were being launched up the beach when my flu decided to come back with a vengeance. Troy was in fact a witness to Savannah holding my hair back while I violently threw up at the edge of the ocean.

I wandered down the beach earlier when my mouth started watering and the panic of impending sickness returned. I thought I was alone until I heard Savannah’s voice from behind me.

“Aw shit. Pukey again?” she says, right before I doubled over, wrapping my arms around my waist, and lost it.

“God, I’m so sorry,” I say, panting between retching and dry heaves. “I really thought I was better.”

She waits for me to settle, and when I’m able to stand up, her next words knock me down again.

“Holland, I think maybe this isn’t the flu. Have you had your period since . . . well, you know . . . since King?”

My period? It’s only been like . . . I quickly calculate in my head how many weeks it’s been since King and I were together. It’s been a month, maybe five weeks. I can’t remember when I had my last period. I sway when the dark horizon tilts and bend over when I feel acid in my throat again. It can’t be. It’s just the damn flu. I’ll be fine with a little more rest. I’m sure I just overdid it today in the sun.

“Troy. Come here,” she shouts, and I turn my head to the side. The ocean breeze blows my hair away from my face, and I see poor Troy standing on the edge of the bonfire, where he’s frozen mid-stride. He must have been coming to see about Savannah and stopped when he saw me getting sick. Now, he’s being summoned closer to the scene, and it’s clear that he would rather turn and walk through the blazing fire than come any closer.

“It’s okay. Don’t make him come. He’s freaking out.”

“I need help getting you to the car so I can take you home.”

“I can drive myself. I don’t want you to have to leave the party because of me.” She bends over and gives me a
don’t be a moron
look.

“We’re taking you home. You can’t drive, and I’m going to buy a pregnancy test at the drugstore so we can make sure you’re not carrying a prince or princess in there.” Her eyes move to my belly and back to my face.

“Stop saying that,” I yell, but she ignores me and takes my arm to help me toward Troy.

“We’re taking her home,” she says, trudging through the sand past Troy with me leaning heavily against her. Troy mumbles a weak protest, and Savannah whips her head around, smacking me in the face with the ends of her wild blonde hair. I can only imagine the look she’s giving him, because even with his obvious barf phobia, he’s jogging to catch up with us.

I manage not to throw up in Savannah’s Durango. The nausea is only mildly annoying by the time we’re home. My house is empty and still as she helps me to bed. She says she’ll be right back. She’s going to the closest twenty-four hour Walgreens for a home pregnancy test.

I don’t want her to. I don’t even want to entertain the idea that I could be . . . I can’t even think it, although it has been a faint whisper in the back of my mind the entire time I’ve been sick. I cannot be
that
girl, the dumb girl who gets knocked up before college and drops out, giving up on her dreams. But what if I am? Oh God, my life will be over. My parents will disown me, I’ll lose my scholarship to Juilliard, my dream of playing with The New York Philharmonic Orchestra will go up in smoke—sixteen years of blood, sweat and tears
over
.

My heart is pounding, and I’m shaking uncontrollably when I hop up, fling my comforter back, and race to my bathroom. I turn on the faucet and splash cold water on my face over and over until the vanity counter is covered in pools and the mirror is speckled with drops of water.

I look up into my terrified eyes. I thought this was over. I was starting to accept that the thing with King was just a huge mistake, probably one of many in my young adult life. But if I’m pregnant, it’s much more than just a mistake. It’s a barrier to my future as big and wide as the Grand Canyon, expansive and impossible to cross and dangerous as hell.

It’s one thing to get pregnant with some kid my own age, but to get pregnant with a dangerous drug lord who has more enemies than I can imagine . . .

“NO. I am not pregnant, and that’s final,” I yell aloud to no one but myself.

I grab a towel and wipe my face and mop the counter and mirror. When I’m done, I go back to my room, turn on the lights, straighten the bed linens, and get out my violin.

I don’t even hear Savannah when she returns. I’m exactly where I want to be, lost in the music, where no one can steal my dreams or crush my heart, where real life won't rear its ugly head and wreak havoc on my future with an unexpected baby.

She gently touches my shoulder, and I jump a foot off the ground and drop my lifeline to sanity—my bow.

She holds up a box containing two pregnancy tests and bites her lip. I squeeze my eyes closed until I see multicolored sparkles behind my lids. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to know. She carefully removes the violin from my tight grip and leads me to the bathroom, where my fate will be proven revealed and sealed.

Chapter Eighteen

King

“King . . . do you have a minute?” Sebastián stands just inside my office door, looking paler than I’ve ever seen him.

“Yeah, sure. You okay, old man?” I lean back in my chair, and the leather upholstery strains against my weight while a knot forms in my gut. Something doesn’t feel right. His usual confident stride is stiff and full of tension when he crosses my office. I watch as he carefully lowers himself into the chair across from me, crossing his legs and dragging his hand down his face, sighing.

“No, King, I’m not. I have something to tell you, and I’m not sure how to do it.”

“You’re kind of worrying me, man. What’s going on? Somebody die or something?”

“I received a phone call this morning, and I’ve spent most of the day confirming the information given to me. I didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily, but now that I know it’s true, it’s necessary.

“Necessary to worry me about what, Sebastián?” He’s a straightforward guy who doesn’t usually beat around the bush. I’ve always liked that about him, but right now, Sebastián is making me nervous. He won’t meet my eyes as he rubs his palms on his thighs.

“It’s about Miss Bennett,” he says, meeting my eyes.

“Holland?” I haven’t spoken her name for weeks, and when I do, a familiar ache begins in my chest again. I’m on my feet in seconds, pushing my chair back against the wall so hard that I hear the faint crack of plaster crumbling onto the floor. Sebastián is up too, backing away from me, holding his hands out in front of him. I told him to keep her safe. There were supposed to be eyes on her twenty-four seven. If something’s happened to her, so help me . . .

“Yes, King. She’s fine, she hasn’t been hurt, she’s fine. Calm down.”

I’m toe to toe with him now, and my vision has gone blurry and red.

“You come in here all cryptic and freaked out, tell me this is about Holland, and expect me to calm down. What the fuck is going on?” I roar.

He steps back and behind a wing back chair for protection from the potential blowback. He isn’t afraid, but he did watch me suffer when Holland was cut from my life, so he knows that any news about her could make me lose my shit. Sebastián is just being cautious.

“Her mother contacted me,” he says, inching around the chair away from me.

“Her mother? Why on earth would her mother be calling you?” I follow him around the chair.

“King . . .” We are playing ring around the chair at this point, and my blood is pounding in my temples.

“Sebastián, you’d better spit it out before I fucking strangle it out of you.” My words vibrate from my lips. My entire body is shaking.

“She says Holland is pregnant and that you’re the father, King. She’s threatening to go to the authorities if you don’t speak to Holland and get her to have an abortion.”

Time stands still. I stare into Sebastián’s eyes. His words travel through my ears and into my brain, where they are slowly absorbed. The connecter between audible and processed thoughts seems to have gone on vacation, though, and the words ‘Holland is pregnant’ are stranded at the train station, unable to be understood.

“She’s very adamant that her daughter is going to Juilliard this fall, and she wants you to pay her tuition and encourage Holland to have an abortion in exchange for her silence about your business.”

The only words that have been allowed onto the train platform in my brain are Holland, pregnant, abortion and Juilliard. The rest of them disintegrate in the air between us, unimportant and insignificant.

She wasn’t on birth control. Why did she lie? She was drunk and she said she never drinks. Why didn’t I think about that? Oh God, she was probably a virgin. Things are beginning to make sense—the pain, the look of surprise on her face, the speckles of blood. Fuck, how did I let this happen?

I’m on autopilot as I stalk out of the apartment and through the empty club down to the parking garage. Sebastián stumbles out of the elevator a few moments after me, yelling something about blackmail and flying off the handle. I slam the door of the Rover, blocking out Sebastián’s warnings, and jam the voice command button before I pull out of my spot. I cruise past a very distraught Sebastián and watch him yell and wave his arms all over like one of those air dancer blow-up characters outside the car dealerships. I keep my eyes straight ahead, but when I look in the rearview mirror, he’s sprinting toward a car to follow me. That’s all right with me. I might need some backup.

“Phone.” I say, and a pleasant robotic female voice asks if I’d like to dial by number or name.

“Name.” The hands-free device beeps, and a lump forms in my throat when I speak her name for the second time in weeks.

“Holland Bennett.” I’m surprised Sebastián didn’t remove her from my auto dial list.

“Dialing Holland Bennett,” says the disembodied voice.

I have no idea what I’m going to say, I just need to speak to her. I need to know if it’s true. I need to hear her say it with my own ears . . . we’re having a baby. Oh my God, a baby.

I’ve become a master at repressing my desire for Holland. There was no hope, no way to fix this. I buried it deep in that garden of temptation, and I’ve stayed far, far away from it.

And now . . . now there may be a life growing inside of her, a life that we created, a life that will permanently tie us together forever . . . the thought is mind blowing.

Every muscle in my body burns and twitches when I think of holding her in my arms again. My heart aches to tell her how much I need her. Surprisingly, I have no doubts about whether or not I want her to have our baby. If she is indeed pregnant, I do. I need her to know that I’ll be there for her every step of the way, that I’ll take care of her and keep her safe. If she will have me—fuck that. She
will
have me. I’m not taking no for an answer. This is my child too.

I drag my hand through my hair and punch the steering wheel. Goddamn it, Sebastián had better have his facts straight. If there’s no baby and I go barging back into her life . . . no, he wouldn’t tell me something like this if he weren’t sure, and he was sure.

Speeding and weaving in and out of traffic, his words begin to sort themselves out in my mind. Her mother wants to blackmail me? Really? She has no idea who she’s dealing with. I have the law in my back pocket all over the world, but much more so here in Houston and Miami, where I need insiders to keep the flow of drugs moving smoothly across the border from Mexico and into the ports of Miami. Nobody is going to blackmail King Romero, and nobody will be fucking murdering my child. As far as paying for Holland to go to Juilliard, fuck yeah, I would have done that anyway if they had asked. I don’t take kindly to threats, and Holland’s mom is about to find that out the hard way.

“No answer.” The feminine robotic voice says. I didn’t really expect her to answer. Her mother is probably monitoring her calls, waiting to see what I’m going to do. What
am
I going to do?

Glancing in my rearview mirror, I see Sebastián floating through traffic, following me at a discrete distance in my Bugatti. He would choose that car. He loves it, and I never let him drive it.

“Call Sebastián,” I say, and instantly we are connected.

“I see you. Hang back in case I need you. I’m going to her friend’s house across the street, Savannah, remember?”

“Yes, sir, how could I forget?” If I know Sebastián—and I do—he’s rolling his eyes when he sighs into the phone. Savannah caused quite a fuss that first night in the club while trying to find Holland, and Sebastián was the one who had to deal with her bossy, overbearing, sassy mouth.

Sebastián is a very dominant man. The only person in this world that he takes orders from is me. He’s assertive and powerful. The people under him in my organization fear him, and rightly so. When he gives an order, they know it’s not just their job on the line. It’s their life if it’s not carried out to his liking.

I was proud of him for keeping his cool while dealing with the intoxicated, demanding girl who was insisting that her best friend had been roofied and kidnapped.

Fifteen long ass minutes later, I’m pulling into Savannah’s driveway, trying to decide whether to barge in or call first. The adrenaline bubbling up inside me makes the decision, and I jump out and head up the shallow flight of steps in front of her modest middle-class home. I ring the bell and turn to face Holland’s house directly across the street. It’s similar to Savannah’s except the lawn is manicured and the house is maintained better. A train whistles in the distance, and just when I’m about to bang on the door, it swings open and the air around me seems to go missing.

“Holland,” I whisper. My voice has abandoned me. She’s even more beautiful than I remembered, if that’s even possible. Her eyes widen and she clutches the doorframe as she staggers back, and her hand flies protectively to her abdomen. That one natural, instinctual reaction is all I needed . . . we’re having a baby. Being this close to Holland again jump starts my heart and calms my soul. No one else affects me this way. She’s my home, and I’ve been away far too long.

“King . . . what are you doing here?” Her voice is quiet and timid, almost afraid.

“I think you know very well why I’m here.” I raise my hand to caress her cheek, but she turns away. I gently take her chin and turn it back, but she bows her head, unwilling to meet my eyes.

“Holland, you can’t push me away. This is something we have to face together, no matter what the world says about our age or our careers, no matter what you think of me and what I am. This child, our child, is more important than any of that.” I step into her space and place my hand over hers on her belly. “I’m not leaving you alone in this. Can I come inside so we can talk? If you say no, I’ll pick you up and take you somewhere else anyway, so . . .”

“Well in that case, yes, I guess you’d better come in.” She steps aside to let me pass. As I move past her, I take her hand in mine and lead her into the living room, where Savannah is watching television in her swimsuit.

“Holy shit.” She drops the bag of chips she was eating onto the couch, and her mouth hangs open with a few chips still visible.

“Nice to see you too, Savannah. Can we have some privacy?” I know it’s rude to ask her to leave the room in her own house, but I don’t care. I need to be alone with Holland.

“You’re asking me to leave my own living room so you can make my best friend feel like shit?” she yells, unfolding her legs from underneath her to scoot to the edge of the couch. ‘Mama bear’ looks like she’s preparing to launch off the couch and attack me—a man five times her body mass. She’s annoying as fuck, but I have to admit that I love her fierce loyalty and protectiveness.

“Hold on, firecracker.” I hold up my hand.

“I’m here to help and offer support, and you have to admit that we have some things to talk about.” She’s on her feet now, with her hands clenched into little fists at her sides. We both look at Holland for direction, and when I glance back at Savannah, she’s looking at our hands. She raises her brows high before returning her eyes to Holland, but she doesn’t pull away or drop my hand.              

“Are you okay with this? I mean do you
want
me to leave? I’m not going anywhere unless you tell me to. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone with him, Holland. He’s a drug deal—”

“That’s enough,” I say, cutting her off.

“I’m not here to discuss how I earn my living.” I face Holland and take her other hand, placing them together in mine. “I just want to talk, that’s all.” She nods, and Savannah huffs off, stomping down the hall and leaving us alone.

“Just yell if he upsets you. I’ve got Daddy’s shotgun back here, and I know how to use it,” she yells over her shoulder.              

Fuck. Savannah and a shotgun. Just what I need today.

“Don’t worry, I don’t think she really knows how to shoot it,” Holland says, shaking her head.

“I heard that, and yes I do,” Savannah yells and slams a door somewhere down the hall.

“She’s all bark and no bite.” One corner of her mouth lifts in a small smile and she shrugs.

“I’ve told you before that I like her protectiveness, even though it’s completely misplaced when it comes to me. I’d never intentionally hurt you.” I pull her against me and wrap her arms around my waist. I slide my fingers behind her neck into her soft, thick hair and place my other hand on the small of her back. I bury my nose in her hair and breathe in the woodsy, citrus scent that I will forever associate with Holland. She doesn’t resist, but she also doesn’t melt into me the way she used to. Her muscles are stiff and tense, and her hands are still.

“I’m so sorry.”

“For what?” Her voice is muffled against the jacket of my suit, and as much as I don’t want to, I release my hold on her. As soon as I do, she takes two big steps away and begins wringing her hands. I fucking hate seeing her unnerved because of me.

“For leaving without saying goodbye, for putting you in this position, for not suspecting, for not knowing. My eyes slide down her long, delicate neck, past her perfect breasts, and rest on her abdomen.

“You couldn’t know. I didn’t even know. There’s nothing to apologize for.”