Dirty Baller: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (11 page)

I put my hand on the doorknob to open it quietly. Maybe I can get out of here without Elin noticing and yelling at me. Then I hear my mother’s voice in my head chiding me for my lack of graciousness in the face of Harry and Elin’s hospitality.

“Thank you, whoever did this!”

Elin calls back. “You’re welcome! Now hurry up. Harry’s already been at the pitch for an hour.”

I run out the door. London hates me today. It’s sunny again and the light is unbearable on my hangover.

I’m going to pay big time for last night.

Being on the pitch is making me feel like death warmed over.

I barely make it through the thirty punishment laps the captain gives me to run for being late. I curse myself every step of the way. I could blame Hayley for last night, but that wouldn’t entirely be fair. I am the one, after all, who decided to get wasted on expensive champagne.

Ivan calls me over at the end of practice. I managed to make four goals out of sheer rage. Terence kept taunting me.

“Looks like I’ve got my striker back,” he says. “Even if you were over an hour late.”

“I’m sorry, late night last night,” I reply, wiping my sweaty brow with one of Harry’s towels. It’s embroidered with his initials. I make a note to make fun of him for that later. “It won’t happen again.”

Ivan claps me heartily on the back. Then he narrows his eyes. “Everything alright with you, Mackenzie?”

“Nope,” I reply. I feel my heart has closed back up after what Hayley did to me. I don’t feel like sharing myself with anyone, much less my own coach. “Everything is business as usual.”

Ivan nods but he seems unconvinced. “Well, whatever it is, I like having the aggressive Mackenzie back. We have a chance at the cup if you keep playing like you did today. Even if you
are
a bit knackered from your binge last night.”

Ivan leaves me alone and I wander into the locker room. Terence is there waiting for me, just as I suspected he would be.

“Got your knickers in a twist, eh?” he taunts from across the steamy space.

“I’ve got an idea. Go fuck yourself,” I reply.

“Hayley looked pretty upset last night,” he says. “I showed up just in time to see her storming off. I looked after her though. Like a real man would.”

The hackles stand up on the back of my neck and I slam my locker door shut. “You want to say that again?”

Terence grins. “I said I took care of her.”

“You’re lying,” I say.

“Am I? Your front door is an awfully pretty shade of teal.”

I think this over in my head. I know Hayley wouldn’t let him into the house. He obviously walked her home. Stalked her home, more like. But he’s trying to get to me.

“Fuck off, Jones,” I spit at him.

“I’d rather fuck your girlfriend, actually. She seems like she’d be a pretty good lay,” he says. “She’s quite fit.”

I shove him into the lockers, my anger ripping through my body. “You shut the fuck up.”

Terence laughs and it only makes me angrier.

Harry has to pull me by the neck away from Terence.

“Not today. Not like this,” Harry mutters to me. “You’re on thin ice around here already, Mackenzie. Go shower. Go home. Sleep.”

Harry pushes me into a shower stall and turns the water onto the ice cold setting.

It snaps me out of my anger even if it’s not making me feel any better.

I ride the Tube home, the screeching rails cutting through my brain like a hot laser. I’m in misery. Utter and total misery.

But I’d rather be angry than feel hurt. They say that the wolf you feed is the wolf that wins.

I’m feeding the angry wolf.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

HAYLEY

The streets of New Jersey are muggy and oppressive. I can smell every drop of gasoline, every puff of cigarette smoke. It all hangs in the air like a cloud refusing to dissipate. I feel like I’m choking being back here on United States soil.

I check my voicemails as I walk to long term parking at the airport. Sandra’s left me five messages, all of them telling me that I need to stop into the office before the day is over or I’m fired.

I left London around noon but with the time difference, I end up in Newark in the morning.

As tired as I am from the long flight, it’s not like I have a choice. I drive over to the office, parking my car on the top floor of the parking garage. I press the elevator button a few times before realizing it’s broken.

I have six flights of stairs to walk down. Sweat is pouring from my body by the time I get down to the bottom floor. I step into the street and see Brenda walking ten steps ahead of me.

What a metaphor. She’s always on top of things, always ahead of me.

I slow down my pace and hide in the doorway of the bodega on the corner so she doesn’t see me. The last thing I need right now is a confrontation with my arch enemy. This day has already been terrible enough.

I wait a few minutes and head back to the office, riding the thankfully working elevator to the top floor. The newsroom is relatively quiet; people are only just starting to trickle in. I glance at my desk and see my in tray is piled up with messages.

Ugh. I’m not looking forward to trawling through those. At least I’ve been checking my email. I think about how many paper memos I would have to attend to if this were thirty years ago, before the advent of email.

“Childs! In here!” Sandra barks.

I keep my purse on my shoulder and walk into her messy office. She slams the door behind me.

“You didn’t get the draft into me. I need it. Publication isn’t for another five months but we need an idea of the shape of the piece.”

I sigh. “Sorry,” I say. “I’m just still not comfortable with publishing this.”

Sandra turns red from anger. There’s a vein throbbing at her temple. “This company just spent a fortune putting you up at the nicest hotel in London so you could get a good story. I expected you to be a goddamned journalist and actually go where the fucking story was, Childs. You didn’t do that.”

I wince at all the cursing she’s doing. Confrontation isn’t my strongest suit, but I seem to keep finding myself at the heart of conflict over the last few days, much to my chagrin.

I exhale. “I just don’t feel right-“

“Listen, sweetheart,
you
were the one who decided to fuck this guy, not me. That’s your guilt to carry around. All I care about is the story. You know that by now. And the last draft you sent to me is so fucking boring I fell asleep reading it.”

“I know it needs some tweaking but-“

“Hand your notes to Brenda. She’ll write it for you. She’ll get the byline. You can go stand in the breadline if you’re not willing to meet this deadline. Is that what you want?”

I gulp. If I do that, it’ll all be for nothing. Brenda will be writing the story about Ryan from my detailed, intimate notes; the article will still be published. I won’t even get a byline on a featured piece. And Ryan will still hate me. What a waste of all of this.

I put my hand on my lower abdomen, thinking about the baby growing there. I can’t afford to lose this job at all. This is all I have. “I’ll write the story,” I say with false confidence. My stomach fills with dread and turns over as I say the words out loud.

Sandra claps her hand on her desk. “Good. I need that draft before day’s end, you got that? Otherwise, Brenda gets the story and you lose your job. This thing goes into print in five months. November issue. Get the damn story written. You’re a damn good writer. You’ve got this handled. Push your feelings aside and write the piece I know you can write.”

I nod and stand up. I already have the draft done and dusted. It’s the one that Ryan saw on my computer that I forgot to close out of. It’s the draft that made the father of my child not ever want to see me ever again.

Brenda is sitting out of her desk slightly out of breath and looking far too much like she doesn’t care. She’s pretending to be interested in a file on her desk. I have a feeling she overheard all of that conversation.

“Listening at keyholes again, Brenda?” The words are in the air before I can stop them.

She looks startled. “Like I give a shit about a conversation about your career, Childs.”

I’m filled with a sudden urge to slap her across the face. I get close to her, leaning in so she’s sure to see my face.

“I know you’re circling this story like a vulture, but you’re not getting it. Give up and move on already. Maybe you can actually work on making a name for yourself that doesn’t involve working off the back of better writers than you.”

I stand up, satisfied at the look of shock and rage on Brenda’s face. I turn around and walk to my desk. Jim walks by me and whispers under his breath. “That’s the way to be a journalist, Hayley. Your dad would be proud of you.”

I’m startled that he was listening and I’m left speechless as he walks the other direction.

I hoist my purse up higher on my shoulder and march to my desk.

I’m ready to write this story. Ryan and I are over. There’s no hope there anymore.

This needs to turn into something good.

Otherwise, I just lost a good man over absolutely nothing at all.

The thought just makes me write faster.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

RYAN

I wake up to another mercifully cloudy day. My hangover is pulsing in my head. My mouth tastes like copper.

I don’t know what day this is of drinking in a row, but I’ve barely had time to stop and get a hangover, so this is a good sign. Groaning, I toss myself out of bed and run a hot shower for myself. I stand under the water so long my fingertips turn to prunes.

As I’m toweling off, the doorbell rings.

“Just a minute!” I yell downstairs. I wrap the towel around my waist, my hair still dripping. I pad down the stairs and pull open the door without looking.

A woman stands there. She’s moderately attractive and really familiar-looking. She has sandy blonde hair and green eyes, and is tall like me.

“Hello,” she says in an English accent. “Are you Ryan Mackenzie?”

“Who’s asking?” I say to her, looking over her shoulder to make sure there’s not a cameraman hiding in the bushes.

“May I come in?”

“Would help if I knew why you wanted to,” I retort. “I don’t normally ask strangers to come sit inside my home with me.”

The woman lets out a small smile and nods lightly. She wrings her hands. I can tell she’s uncomfortable. “I just feel like it would be better if I could come inside.”

“Listen, lady, I don’t need religion or a set of encyclopedias, so if you could just cut to the chase-“

“I’m your half-sister. My name is Megan.”

My heart stops and it takes me a few moments to compose myself. When I finally do, I have words to speak. “You better come inside, then.”

I step aside and she nods her head in thanks as she crosses the threshold.

I have a sister.

And she’s here. Right now.

This day just got a lot more interesting.

“You want some tea?” I ask her as she wanders into the front, formal sitting room. I’ve never actually used this space before. I feel like a guest in my own home.

“No, thank you,” she replies, sitting on the edge of the white sofa. She looks like she doesn’t want to get too comfortable or ruin anything.

I take a seat in the navy armchair. “So…how did you find me?”

Megan opens her mouth several times before speaking. She fidgets with the edges of her grey sweater. “My dad – our dad. He died recently. He told me about you before he went.”

The words smack me like a piano falling on my head. “Scott Mackenzie told you I’m his son?”

She nods. “That’s right.” She clears her throat, obviously uneasy with my reaction so far. “I mean, he was sort of out of it in the end, so I wasn’t sure if he’d just seen your name in the paper and said you were his son. But seeing you in person…we do sort of look alike.”

I know she’s right. We have the same hair, eyes, and nose. “Did Scott Mackenzie also tell you that he abandoned me and my mother? Did he tell you that he’s as good of a father as a dumpster fire is?”

Megan flinches at my words. “I know that Dad wasn’t perfect but-“

I laugh at her. “This is a joke, isn’t it? ‘Wasn’t perfect.’ So, how did he treat you and your mom?”

Megan sighs. “He was always there for me. He told me right before he died that he’d made a lot of mistakes. Mistakes that he regretted. I’m guessing some of those probably apply to you and your mother, if I had to guess.”

I stand up. “Get out of my house. I don’t want anyone who is an apologist for Scott Mackenzie to walk through these doors. Leave.”

Megan looks shocked. Tears are forming in her green eyes. “Are you…are you serious?”

I nod. “Out!” I’m shaking with anger and annoyance.

“Alright, then.” Megan stands up. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a business card. “Call me if you ever want to talk again. I know it isn’t likely, but I wanted to offer.” She sets the card on the end table when she realizes that I’m not going to be touching it.

She leaves and I lock the door behind her, sliding down onto the ground, my head buried in my hands.

There’s nothing left to do now but drink.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

RYAN

I board the train headed north, my duffel bag slung over my shoulder. A woman bumps into me and gives me a sly smile.

I scowl back at her.

All I can think about is Hayley. I’m not interested in anyone else.

I don my headphones and settle down into the window seat. I like taking the seats that face the front of the train. I like to see where we’ve been, not where we’re going.

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but I’m too tired to linger on the thought.

I fall asleep within minutes, the train rocking me into bliss like a lullaby.

I dream about Hayley. About her curves. About me tracing my tongue down her cleavage. In the dream, I’m just about to enter her hot wetness when she laughs and pushes me away. Then I’m standing in the middle of a grocery store. I see Megan in the cheese section.