Quarterback's Secret Baby (Bad Boy Ballers) (20 page)

"I don't know," I said. "I've never been a puker. Especially over good things. Oh Alisha, I can't - I don't think I can deal with this right now, I don't think I can face that lunch again, I-"

Alisha smiled and hugged me. "Tash. Calm down. Here - take the keys and go wait for me in the car, I'll meet you out there in a few minutes, OK?"

"OK."

I did what she said, walking straight out to the car and sitting in the passenger seat - I was way too out of it to drive. In my head, I did some math. My periods had never been that regular and I didn't really keep track of them most of the time - there was no reason to - but it did feel, at least, like it had been awhile. I looked up into the rearview mirror and saw panic in my own eyes. It wasn't possible. There was no way. The odds were too long.
But what if it's true?
I forced the question back into the recesses of my mind before I had time to face it.

Alisha put her hand on my knee when she got into the car. "OK, I told them I was driving you home because you're not feeling well. Don't worry, Tash. We got this. Even if you are pregnant-"

"Alisha!" I squeaked.

"What?" She asked, looking bemused.

"Don't just say it like that! We - we don't even know yet!"

"You're right, we don't. That's why we're going to the pharmacy right now to get some tests. You're right, we don't know. But what just happened in Manzino's is textbook knocked-up Tash. If you aren't then no big deal, life goes on. I'm just saying that if you are, we got you. I got you. Remember what a disaster it seemed to be when I found out I was pregnant? Your mom thought Ray's life was ruined. I thought my life was ruined. And then Rosa was born and not a single one of us can imagine life without her now, can we?"

I looked out the window at the suburbs flashing past, totally unable to absorb Alisha's casual pregnancy chat.

"But it was only once," I said. "I've never even been regular, Alisha. How could I get pregnant from-"

Alisha gave me a scolding look that shut me up before I was finished. "Tash, don't be an idiot. You know where babies come from. You know damn well once is enough."

I slumped forward. "Yeah, I do know. I just - it's hard to believe. It seems so unlikely."

Alisha squeezed my hand. "Listen to me, Tash. Either way, we got you. Look at me."

I looked into Alisha's eyes and she repeated herself: "We got you."

The car ride home seemed to simultaneously be over in seconds and yet take forever. Alisha, businesslike, pressed the paper bag of pregnancy tests into my hand and told me that I might as well get it over with. So I did. And when I was finished I lined them up beside the sink, all three of them, and went down to the kitchen. Alisha was there, sitting at the kitchen table. She handed me a glass of lemonade.

"Just so you know," she said, "whatever happens, if you're pregnant or not, your life is your own, Tash. Your decisions are your own. We'll support you no matter what happens."

I nodded and we sat in silence, sipping our ice-cold drinks, for the next fifteen minutes.

"Do me a favor," I said as we both headed back to the bathroom - because I wasn't brave enough to go alone. "Don't say anything to anyone. Whatever the result it. I need to do that myself."

"Of course," Alisha replied, hanging back, waiting for me to enter the bathroom first. I could see the test beside the sink but they were too far away to actually check the results.

"I can't," I said, when Alisha gave me a nudge.

"Oh yes you can," she told me. "Because if they're positive, girl, you're going to need to face a whole lot more than some lines on a stick. Come on, I'll come with you."

So we walked into the bathroom and peered down at the little test sticks. Three bright, fat pink lines stared back up at me and I felt my heart skip a beat as a feeling of unreality washed over me. I looked up and met Alisha's eyes.

"You're pregnant," she told me, smiling and enveloping me in a big, solid hug. "Congratulations."

I couldn't say anything. Even when I stepped back and Alisha was waiting for me to do so, no words came out. My breath was coming quick and hard and I could feel my eyes welling up but I didn't know what I was feeling. Not happy, but not sad either.

"I don't-" I said, pausing to breathe. "I don't-"

"It's OK," Alisha reassured me. "You're in a little bit of shock, I think. That's normal. And I'm going to keep it to myself until you're ready to let everyone know. Tomorrow, I'll call the doctor and make an appointment for you."

The rest of the day was a blur, an exercise in keeping my exterior on lockdown when everything inside me was turmoil. When I went to bed that night I spent a long time looking down at my flat belly, completely disbelieving that there was something in there - a baby. Kaden Barlow's baby.

I had been in Texas for less than twenty-four hours before my manager had arranged a series of press interviews, so there wasn't a lot of time to settle in. In his favor, he had managed to arrange a house for me. A huge, bland and nearly entirely empty mansion. A set of cookware sat, unopened, on the stainless steel countertop in the kitchen and a brand new king size bed awaited me in the master bedroom, sheet set (also unopened) perched on top.

"Home sweet home," I muttered, tearing the sheets open to make the bed because what the hell else was I going to do? When that was done, I wandered the house. It was, as I said, huge. Much too big for a single person. It was also strangely reminiscent of show-homes or reality TV. All beige walls and over-sized hot tubs. There was a swimming pool in the backyard surrounded by stone decking. I stood looking out over the scene and tried to picture a group of people out there. Even that was difficult, because who would they be? Not my parents - not right away, anyway. There had been some talk of moving them out to Texas and they seemed open to it but things were still way too unsettled for them to be making big decisions like that. Friends? Sure, but not from Brooks, because they were all still at Brooks, halfway through their four-year programs. Only one of my Brooks teammates had been drafted by the NFL at the same time as me, and no one was sure if he was going to see any actual games for awhile. Friends from Little Falls? That was another no. They all had jobs. New friends, then.

And who would my new friends be in Texas? Teammates? Moving to Brooks had been intimidating but college is set up to nurture friendships. So far, Dallas seemed very luxurious and very lonely. I didn't even allow myself to picture Tasha out there, by the pool, despite the fact that no one would look better sipping a crazy drink in a bikini than her.
Maybe she can come visit? For a long weekend?
I shut those thoughts down before they got very far. Tasha wasn't a weekend type of girl. It was all or nothing with her - if there's one thing I knew, it was that. I wanted the 'all' option, too, but it was still, just like it had been after high school ended, impossible.

My manager Barry showed up the next day, waking me up at eight in the morning with a strange, melodious doorbell that bing-bonged throughout that house and was meant to be classy but ended up just seeming kind of lame.

Barry looked me up and down and cocked an eyebrow at me when I answered the door in my boxers, rubbing my eyes and trying to smooth my hair.

"You should be ready to go, Kaden," he said, sounding a little bit like a disappointed father. "Your first interview is at ten. This isn't high school anymore. It's not Brooks anymore, either. Everything you do matters now. The suits already have their eyes on you."

"The suits?" I asked. "I already got drafted, I'm done with trying to impress suits."

"You see," Barry said, and I couldn't tell if he was more amused or annoyed, "that's where you're wrong. Your time with suits has only just begun."

I rolled my eyes. "You want to come in? I'll just take a quick shower and get dressed."

Barry stepped inside. "Shower yes, dressed no. I have a suit in the car for you Kaden."

"You do?"

"Yes, I do. I didn't send that tailor around to your dorm to feel up your balls for nothing - I had three suits made for you based on those measurements and you can wear one of those today."

Barry me followed me back up the stairs, talking the whole way.

"Yeah, as I was saying, you better get used to suits, Mr. Barlow. Wearing them and dealing with other people who wear them. You're in the big leagues now, kid. Literally."

"Yeah," I called over my shoulder from the bathroom, "but I can play football. As long as I can play football I'm good, right?"

Football players weren't angels. Sure, the NFL cracked down on those who crossed the line, but I was aware of the fact that most of them lived a lifestyle other men our age could only fantasize about.

"You're good as long as that's all you want to do," Barry called back. "But no one just wants to play football. You know that contract you signed? You can easily double that - triple or quadruple it, even - with the right endorsements."

As soon as I was finished showering, the conversation continued. I asked Barry for more details about endorsements. I knew they were a thing - I'd been watching my favorite sports personalities in commercials since I was a little kid - but somehow it hadn't clicked yet that
I
might be a candidate. A lot of stuff that should have crossed my mind hadn't appeared to - it was probably the situation with my mom - and with Tasha - the distraction and worry of it all, that kept me a little removed from what was happening to me until I actually set foot in Texas.

"I've had inquiries from the sports drink guys, the car guys, you name it. Kaden, you're a good-looking kid. The panties are going to go flying wherever you go, my man. But you also happen to one of the best quarterbacks anyone has seen for a long time. They'll just build a money pipeline straight from their accounts to your backyard and crank that shit all the way to capacity, is what I'm saying."

I put on the suit Barry had brought into the house and looked at myself in the mirror. It fit like a goddamned glove and it made me feel different, too. Like an actual adult rather than an oversized kid. Like I was ready to go out there and take what I needed from the world.

"These endorsements, though," I said to Barry as he drove me to my first interview at the local sports radio station - a warm-up, he called it, before the big national broadcast that night. "I mean, my contract is enough money for fifty lifetimes. Why do I need the endorsements on top of that?"

"You don't
need
anything on top of it, Kaden. And you're right, it's more money than most of us would even know what to do with but does that mean you just stop there? Why? You're probably going to have a family one day, aren't you? Pretty little wife, a whole mess of kids, all that. This is about the long-term, it's about legacy-building. The more money you make when you're young - and you already know a pro football career isn't exactly long-lasting, and that's if you're lucky enough not to get injured - the more you can do for your future, your family. From where I'm sitting you'd be insane not to talk to these guys. They're all itching to throw money at you. Why not take it?"

I sat back and looked out the window at the unfamiliar scenery passing by in a blur. What Barry was saying made sense. Didn't it?

"I thought you had to agree to all sorts of bullshit with these contracts, though?" I said. "You know, good conduct, that stuff. I just want to live my life. I want to play football and live my life - that's it."

Barry made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "Please. Kaden, these guys know damn well how pro football players live. It's all about keeping it private. Just keep your shit private - and that's something you're going to have to do anyway - there's already paparazzi sniffing around the training ground. They wouldn't care if you fucked their own mothers as long as it never got out."

I had to give it to Barry, he had a way with words.

"Huh," I said. "OK."

"So what should I do? Because some of these guys are calling me ten goddamned times a day. Can I set up some meetings?"

"Yeah," I told him. "Sure."

I got home to the empty mansion that still didn't feel in any way like a home at just past midnight that night, thoroughly exhausted. Doing interviews turned out to be strangely tiring. Not like football, not the kind of tiredness that comes from physical exertion but the kind that comes from mental effort, from having to be 'on.' I'd even heard people talk about being 'on' before and had never really understood what it meant. That was the day I learned. It meant a certain level of affable charm, a smiling enthusiasm in the face of the same questions over and over and over. At least Barry thought I did well. He slapped me on the back after the big national TV interview as soon as the cameras were off and leaned in to whisper in my ear:

"They're going to be fighting to the death over who gets your face on their bullshit sugar water, Kaden. Everyone loves you! Just keep doing what you're doing, young man."

Keep doing what I was doing? After that day, I wasn't sure how long that was going to be. Training camp sounded like a holiday after hours of fake-smiling so hard my face ached.

At some point during that summer, I managed to fall into something resembling a routine. Once training started it gave me something to do besides interviews and attempting, very badly, to furnish the enormous house - or at least the parts I lived in. In late August my parents came out for a very short visit, because short was all my mother could handle at the time. I met them at the airport with a baseball cap pulled down low over my eyes and an expression that I hoped concealed the worry at seeing my mother walking stiffly towards me clutching a cane in one hand.

As soon as she saw the house, though, my worry decreased.

"What have you done here?" She demanded, looking at me with the wide-eyes of a woman who can't believe her son's bad taste. "Half the rooms are entirely empty. And, Kaden, the rest of it looks like a Bed Bath and Beyond exploded in here!"

I grinned. "Isn't that a good thing, mom? I mean, at least the place has...stuff, right? Dishes, towels, all that?"

She was shaking her head and chuckling. "You're lucky I'm not back to full-strength yet, son. Because if ever a house needed a woman's touch, it's this one."

It was great having my parents around, even if it was only for a few days. They were a connection to Little Falls, to home, to a place and time that, ensconced in the bland luxury of my mansion and my life in Dallas, I was almost starting to think of as a dream I once had rather than a real place. My mother was getting better, too. Maybe she wouldn't ever be back to her old self, but her stubborn insistence on not using the wheelchair they'd brought along and the fact that her loving, joshing personality was as present and bold as ever gave me a kind of reassurance that I couldn't get from Skype sessions and e-mails. On their last night, we went out for dinner and talked about the possibility of them, at some point, moving out to Dallas so we could all be closer together.

"I'm not sure we can handle the heat," my dad joked at one point. "Or, when indoors, the icy wind."

"Yeah, they do like their full-force air-conditioning around here," I replied. "But I think it would be good for you. The healthcare in the city is better than anything mom's going to get in Little Falls and-"

"Dr. Williams is an excellent doctor!" My mother cut in. "Are you already turning into a city-boy, Kaden? Not everything is better in the city, you know."

I nodded. "Yeah, but the healthcare is, mom. You guys can't deny that."

It went on like that as we ate our meal. At one point my dad mentioned that he'd seen Tasha at the grocery store. I looked up, speaking with a tone of casual interest.

"Oh yeah?" I asked, wanting instead to grill him on how she was, who she was with, how she seemed to be doing. "Did you talk to her?"

"Briefly, yes. She's a nice girl, isn't she? Very formal, but a nice girl. She's gained a little weight but it looks good on her."

I nodded, looking at my dad, waiting for more. But he was already changing the subject. Dammit.

My first NFL game took place in mid-September. It was somewhat unusual to go straight from college to playing in the NFL, there was usually a longer bedding-in time, a process of learning the ropes, but by the time the season got underway it was clear to everyone that it would just be a waste of time to pretend I wasn't ready. And if I'd thought the pre-season media attention had been tedious, I didn't have a single clue how crazy it was going to get. Everyone, from the checkout staff at Whole Foods to the high school girls who dissolved into giggling fits and failed attempts to take photos of me on their phone whenever I was out in public, knew who I was. It was strange but almost enjoyable at first. Everybody seemed to like me. They all wanted me to take a photo with them, sign their t-shirts, chat about whether or not I was going to take the Cowboys to the Superbowl that year. I tried to accommodate everyone, but less than two months after the season started I could feel myself retreating, doing that thing of keeping my eyes straight ahead, pretending I didn't hear the greetings and requests and slightly creepy attempts to touch me. High-fives, handshakes and, from women, the kind of handsiness that would make a masseuse blush. It was too much. I started spending more and more time in an SUV with a driver and blacked out windows, ferried from one place to another without having to interact with any regular people. It wasn't snobbery or elitism, it was just that the constant attention was surprisingly draining. Playing football, actually being out on the field during a game, became a respite, the only time and the only place I felt free to be myself. The team's fortunes - and my stats - reflected it, too. Talk of the playoffs had already started back in the summer. By late fall, people were throwing around the word 'Superbowl' with ease.

December saw a series of parties. Not parties, that word was no longer accurate. Galas. Events. A lot of them were for charities supported by the Cowboys - and as their breakout star it was my job to make a smiling, enthusiastic appearance at each and every one. Barry messaged me a couple of days before the biggest gala, and event to which all the movers and shakers had been invited, to raise money for the local children's hospital.