Quarterback's Secret Baby (Bad Boy Ballers) (11 page)

Lena continued, as if I hadn't said anything. "You didn't see us, but we saw you, Kaden. Tash and I, we went looking for you after you didn't come back to the gym for over two hours. When we did find you, you were all over Kelsey Richards. Had your tongue about halfway down her throat if I'm remembering correctly, didn't you?"

Oh shit. They saw that? Tasha saw that? "No," I said as my brain scrambled to find the right words. "No, Lena, that isn't - goddammit, that isn't what-"

"So that wasn't you? You didn't have your hand on her ass? You weren't kissing her? That's weird, Kaden, because it certainly looked like you."

Fuck. I could feel anger rising in my chest in response to her tone - at her obvious disinterest in hearing me out. "No!" I said, barely keeping my voice below a shout. "No, that is not what fucking happened, Lena."

"Whatever, Kaden. I've got to go to class now so you have a nice day."

And then she walked away, leaving me red-faced and spluttering in the hallway. I called out to her to wait, to give me a chance, but she didn't even turn around.

I was so angry after that interaction, and my mind so unwilling to accept the underlying total fuck-up, that I just wandered the halls for a few minutes, breathing heavily and then, eventually, punching a random locker so hard the door came off the hinges. It was only then, staring dumbly down at my reddening knuckles, that I could wrap my head around the truth. Tasha had seen what had happened between me and Kelsey. She had no idea that I had been convinced it was her! The first emotion I experienced that wasn't anger was simply hurt. Tasha thought I could do that? That I
would
do that?

I had to talk to her. That was it, there was nothing else to be done, I had to see her face to face. And how the hell was I going to do that with her avoiding me and refusing to respond to any of my messages? I was going to have to go to her house. Yeah, I should have thought about it a little before blundering off to where she lived, but I was in a panic at that point, desperate to tell her the truth, to assure her that I hadn't intended to cheat on her in any way.

I decided I would drive to Tasha's house and wait for her to come home. No further thought than that came into it. I needed to speak to her and she was ignoring me, so the only possible thing to do was to go to her house. I peeled out of Reinhardt High's parking lot so fast the Suburban left rubber on the road and then drove to Tasha's house. It looked quiet inside, I couldn't see anyone, so I turned off the engine and settled in to wait for her to get home, convinced that all I needed to do was talk to her.

A few minutes later, as I was gazing down the street, waiting for her to appear, there was a series of swift knocks on the driver's side window. I whipped around in my seat to see Ray, Tasha's brother, standing there. His arms were crossed and he did not look happy. He tried to open my door but it was locked.

"Open the door." He demanded loudly.

I was bigger than Ray. If it came to it, I knew I could take him. But that wasn't going to happen, it wasn't going to come to that. Because I was innocent of what it appeared everyone close to Tasha thought I had done and as soon as I explained it to them everything was going to be fine again. At least that was the plan. I unlocked and opened the door and climbed out. Ray did not take a single step backward.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, eyeballing me hard. "I think you should leave."

"Wait," I said, holding up my hand and backing off, trying my best to look unthreatening and conciliatory. "Ray, just wait. Let me explain. I need to talk to Tasha. I need to-"

"I don't think you need to explain anything, my friend," Ray cut me off. There was no warmth in his voice, and up until then, Ray had been really cool with me. He'd never pulled any of that 'protective big brother no-one-is-good-enough-for-my-sister macho bullshit. "Tasha told us what happened. We know everything. There's really not much else to say, is there? I mean, come on man, you got busted and now you have to live with it. Now get the fuck out of here before I stop being so nice."

"No," I said. "Ray, listen. I'm not here to deny anything Tasha saw. I'm just here to explain. if I could just talk to her - explain what actually happened, then-"

"Who do you think I am?" Ray asked, cutting me off again.

"What?"

"Who do you think I am?"

I didn't know how to reply to that so I didn't say anything. Ray continued:

"You think I never got myself into any shit like this before Alisha? You fucked up, man. You fucked up and you're not going to be able to weasel your way out of it. I get that you're a football player and hey, I can even sympathize with you. This must be a new experience for you, huh? Getting rejected? Well, Tasha isn't one of your little cheerleaders, OK? She's not going let shit slide. You had your chance, you blew it. Maybe you'll even learn something from this, I don't know. But right now, you need to leave. You need to leave and you need to stop trying to contact my sister, you got that?"

Ray took another step towards me as he spoke and I took another step back. He took another step, bumping his chest against mine and I struggled to suppress the urge to shove him away.

"You've got it wrong," I said, not even caring how desperate I sounded by that point. "You're wrong. There's an explanation. I just need to talk to Tasha. I just need to talk to her for five minutes."

Instead of replying, Ray took another step, bumping into me harder that time. The fury boiling in my chest - at the injustice of the whole situation as well as the unfamiliar effort it was taking to hold back physically, an effort Ray in no way seemed to be appreciative of - rose higher.

"Back off," I said, quietly.

"What?"

I said it again: "Back off. Just, please, man..."

'Don't tell me to back off you little shit," Ray shouted, leaning in so I could feel the spittle as it landed on my face. "Don't tell me to back off on my own fucking property after you do my sister like that! I thought you might be trouble, you know. When she told me you were the quarterback at Reinhardt. But then I met you, you spent time with us, shared meals with us - meals that Tasha cooked! But you seemed like a stand-up guy, you had all of us fooled, not just her. But now I'm telling you - and listen to me carefully because this will be the last time I tell you - leave. Now. Get the fuck off our property before this gets a whole lot worse than it is."

When he had finished speaking, Ray put his hands on my chest and shoved me angrily towards the SUV. I shouldn't have reacted, but it was instinctive. Something deep and furious inside me came rushing up to the surface and I shoved him back. Then I swung at him and missed, doubling over as he got me in the ribs, causing me to stumble backward. He was stronger than he looked.

And that was it. I charged at him with all the righteous anger boiling inside my guts and knocked him back onto the lawn. I wasn't even thinking at that point, I was just in pure animal mode. I was raising my fist and struggling to hold Ray down when a thin scream rang out behind us. Both of us - Ray and I - turned towards the scream and I think we both knew who it was before we saw her standing there, her hands over her mouth and her eyes wide.

The look on Tasha's face brought me right back down to earth. I jumped off Ray and backed away, holding both hands up even as I saw, as if from the outside, how it looked.

"Tasha," I pleaded. "Tasha, wait, wait. Please fucking wait, this isn't-"

She flew at me, screaming, lashing out, hitting me with her backpack and her fists, screaming at me to leave, to leave her alone, to never contact her again. Tasha's words were worse than any blow Ray could have landed. All he'd done was enrage me. Tasha shattered my heart. The look of hatred in her eyes, the ice in her voice.

"How could I have been so wrong about you?" She sobbed, helping her brother to his feet. "I seriously - I don't understand. Kaden, who does this? What kind of person does this? What happened at prom wasn't enough? You have to come to my house - my house! - and attack my brother?!"

I knew it was done. There was nothing I was going to be able to say, not with Tasha in near-hysterics, crying and screaming at me at the same time as she was holding Ray back. It was the definition of an ugly scene. I felt my shoulders slump forward as it sunk in that instead of convincing her to hear me out, I'd actually just succeeded in making things much, much worse. Worse than they had been, and that alone was pretty fucking bad.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, shocking even myself at the sound of my own voice cracking. "I'm sorry. I didn't come here to - Tasha, I came here to explain. I'm so sorry-"

"Just go." She said, breathing hard. "Go."

So I turned around, partially so I could open the door to the Suburban and climb inside and partially so she wouldn't see the tears in my eyes. Behind me, I could hear the sounds of the two of them consoling each other and then their footsteps as they walked towards their front door. I had to say something. It wasn't a conscious choice, I just felt that something needed to be said. I couldn't just leave it like that. She was just about to go into the house when I leaned out and yelled after her:

"I love you, Tasha. I love you! I only came here to explain myself!"

Did she pause before she walked inside or did I imagine it? I couldn't tell. And it didn't matter anyway, because a pause wasn't going to fix anything. I punched the steering wheel as I backed out into the street, swiping angry tears off my face. It was my fault. Fucking all of it was my fault. Kelsey Richards groping me - that wasn't my fault. But the rest of it was. I was the idiot who decided that doing shots of straight vodka at my high school prom was a good idea. I was the moron who had just tried to fight Ray.

I was shaking with anger the entire drive home, crying and not even bothering to try to stop myself, full of self-loathing and a feeling of utter futility. On the football field, that pride was a bonus. Coaches praised me for the way I never backed down. NFL scouts nodded with approval. And at eighteen years old I had just been given one of the most profound lessons of my life - that bulldozer shit doesn't always result in a win.

When I got home I went straight to my room and didn't come out for two days. Skipped school, missed a football practice, didn't eat. It was only on the third day, when my dad forced my bedroom door open and demanded to know what the hell was going on that I partially emerged from the deep, dark pit of despair I was in. It was awful. And it wasn't just awful because Tasha was gone or because I'd finally been made to pay for my recklessness and unwillingness to back down - it was awful because it was scary just how low I could go. Before Tasha, there had been a halo of invincibility around me. Kaden Barlow. Reinhardt High's quarterback, breaker of all the records, shoe-in for the NFL. I was the golden boy and soon I would be the king - everyone believed it. Even me. And then suddenly I'm in my room in the dark, raging at myself and the world and unable to give even a single shit about football or my 'career' or anything except Tasha Greeley and the fact that I'd lost her.

My dad had a sandwich with him. He set the plate down on my bedside table and then sat down in the chair in front of my desk, looking at me.

"Son, we've left you alone for two days. You've missed school and football. I think it might be time to talk, don't you?"

I didn't want to talk. Not because I thought my parents didn't care - I knew for a fact they did - but because I knew they wouldn't be able to help. Would they be able to somehow get Natasha to hear me out? Would they be able to get her back for me? No. And nothing else mattered. I also knew they would try and do that thing where older people romanticize the suffering of young people, try to write it off as puppy love or a learning experience or something like that. And I was pretty sure I was going to lose my shit if someone tried that on me when I was in that state of mind.

Still, my dad deserved an answer.
He
hadn't done anything wrong.

I looked over at the sandwich. "Is that soppressata?"

"Yes, it is. Your mother drove to the city to get it - she knows it's your favorite."

I almost started fucking crying again at that damned sandwich. I mean, I didn't, but it almost happened. My emotions were all over the place and that in itself made me feel even more like a freak, like someone who wasn't me.

"Well, thanks for that," I said, picking up the sandwich and taking a bite. I should have been starving but the flavors were just dull in my mouth. I didn't take a second bite. I looked up at my dad.

"I fucked up."

"Yeah, we assumed as much. Now, don't get angry, but we called the school. We called your coach. No one has any idea what's going on with you. The police haven't called, either, so I assume you haven't done anything illegal. What is it, Kaden? Your mother is worried sick."

My head felt heavy on my shoulders. My body felt weak. I was going to sound like the world's biggest pussy if I told my dad what was really going on. But what choice did I have?

"I fucked up with Tasha. I got drunk at prom and some girl kissed me and Tasha saw it. Now she won't speak to me."

To his credit, my father took what I told him seriously. He ran his hand over his chin and nodded.

"Yeah, I figured it might be something like that. At least after we talked to the people at school. You got drunk at your prom? Hm. I suppose I'll leave the question about where you guys got alcohol for some other time. And Tasha caught you kissing another girl? Is that it?"

"I wasn't kissing her!" I burst out. "Jesus! No one will believe this! Dad, can you just listen for a minute? Without interrupting? Just one minute?"

"Sure, son. Not a problem."

"OK. I was drunk. Not just a little drunk - I was really, really drunk. I was supposed to meet Tasha in the gym but time got away from me because - yeah, because of the drinking. Anyway, this girl Kelsey Richards has been into me for a long time. She came up behind me and started grabbing me. I thought it was Tasha - I thought she'd come to find me when I didn't meet her in the gym. So, yeah, I turned around and started kissing Kelsey, but only because I thought she was Tasha! And as soon as I realized it wasn't her - which was, like, five seconds or something like that - I stopped. And dad, I wasn't even tempted, I was grossed out. I was really pissed at Kelsey, too, but then Steve Carlson started going all white knight and I was so wasted anyway that I just wandered off to who knows where. Aaron Sokolsky took me home and I spent the night there and then, well, Tasha just stopped talking to me. She's totally ignored all my messages, e-mails, calls - all of it. She's avoiding me at school. So I can't even explain myself! And it's driving me fucking crazy!"

I sat back a little on my bed, breathing quickly because telling my dad the story had just brought it all up again, all of the unfairness and anger and hurt.

"So this all happened at prom?" My dad asked. "What happened two days ago? Why have you been in your room for forty-eight hours now when prom was days ago?"

Shit. I was going to have to explain the rest of it, too. I looked down at the comforter on the bed and sighed.

"Because I went to her house to try and talk to her - what else was I supposed to do?"

"You went to her house, OK. And what happened at her house?"

My dad wasn't stupid. He knew there was more to it.

"I went to her house and got into a fight with her brother," I said, so quietly my father had to lean forward to hear me. "She came home and saw it and she just, she started screaming at me to leave her alone. So I left. Drove back here and that's why I've been in my room for two days."