Rooster: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (36 page)

And, more importantly, while she was looking at my dick, she could have done the decent thing, taken it out and given me a suck job. I’ll make her pay for that later, that’s the only good thing about this, and she knows I will too. Ok, not the only good thing. That fuck was intense. It was like a whole night of incredible sex compacted into ten minutes, like a world of carbon atoms coming together to make a diamond.

It’s a hell of a good sign too. If we can fuck fast and fuck slow, fuck hard and fuck quiet, fuck steamy and fuck sexy and enjoy it every single way, that means we clearly have chemistry.

There is no denying we have chemistry anyway, I mean, that was clear from day one, but sexual chemistry that goes off the scale, back round again for another go and right out through into the stratosphere? That’s worth holding on to.

The afternoon is dull without her, and even though she’s only been gone for a while her absence is noticeable. I go for a run but it doesn’t help. I don’t want to disturb her in case she’s sleeping, and I don’t want to go hunting for her anyway and admit in doing so that I need her, so I just rattle around, thinking how best to move this forward for when she finally decides to come back out and play.

Outside the sky looks clean, but out here, that’s never a sign that it’s going to stay that way. As we saw yesterday, and were lucky wasn’t worse, weather changes in minutes round here, and if you’re not prepared, you’re likely to pay for it.

I remember the first summer season I was out here, I didn’t pay close enough attention to hurricane warnings, and got a bullshit fine for not turning up to pre-season training. Apparently,
trapped as a result of adverse weather conditions
isn’t a good enough excuse to be let off.

The press had a good time with that one as well, suggesting I’d someone done it on purpose, and I know I’m good, but controlling weather, that’s just a little bit of a stretch even for me.

At just after nine, when I’ve exhausted pretty much everything I feel like there is to do, when I’ve gone so far past boredom I’ve come out the other side, Lucy finally emerges, cell phone that she shouldn’t have in the first place in her hand, her face as stormy as the very same one we are expecting.

Boredom used to be way easier to control out here, but recently it’s just been killing me. It looks like it’s been killing Lucy too. I mean, I know it’s totally against the rules she agreed to before coming here, but she looks far too cut up for me to even mention the fact she shouldn’t have her cell phone with her.

“What’s up?” I ask.

Seriously, she looks like she’s about to cry. I mean, come on, I can’t have been that badly behaved. We fucked hard, but that was definitely what she wanted. Don’t tell me she’s regretting it already.

“Dad.”

Fuck, this does not sound like it’s going to be good.

“Lucy?”

“He’s-. Hospital. An accident. His bike.”

My heart sinks. I get up and go to her.

“Fuck, Alex. I need to get out of here”, she says.

“How serious is it?”

Lucy can’t even respond to that. Instead a shaking hand goes up to cover her mouth, and she begins to cry.

“Jesus, Lucy, I don’t know whether it’s safe.”

At the moment it’s clear but this could change any minute. Fuck, I don’t want her to leave, I’ve just got her here and things are going well. This is so fucking typical of my luck.

“Please, Alex.”

“You know there’s a storm coming, ten times worse than we had last night. If you go, you might not be able to get back for a while.”, I warn her.

“If I don’t, I may not get a chance to see him again.”

“Fuck, Lucy. What the fuck happened?”

“Just, please. I can’t think straight. Just-.”

She can barely get the words out before she breaks down again. As much as I want her to stay, there’s nothing else for me left to do but have the pilot get the chopper in the air and run her back to the mainland.

My week of flirtatious conversation and filthy fucking has just gone up in flames, and there is nothing I can do about it. Fuck. Nine years it’s taken for us to get together and in one phone call we are driven apart again. Alright, accidents happen, I know that better than most but why the fuck do they have to happen now?

Lucy is clearly in shock and if there was any reason for me to doubt her intentions, this would make me absolutely sure she wasn’t dicking me around. She’s practically mumbling when I get her in the plane, crying so hard I can barely understand her. She leaves without packing her bag, the pilot not at all happy I’m obliging him to take off with a storm on it’s way towards us. With any luck he’ll get there before it crosses his path, because if not, Lucy’s Dad might not be the only one who is the last to see her.

Her bedroom is as she left it, bed unmade, clothes strewn around the place, make up bag open in front of the mirror. This is one of the beds I expected to be fucking her in tonight, and even though it’s still a high priority on my to do list, it’s probably the very last thing that Lucy is thinking about doing right now.

I curse my luck and head into the living room, wondering how it’s possible for everything to change from a perfect dream to a complete nightmare all in a matter of seconds.

If there is one thing I hate, it’s not being in control, and if there is one thing I hate even more than that, it’s not being able to finish a job.

You know what? I didn’t even come this afternoon.

Lucy

My head is spinning. I’m not supposed to have it, but I’m so glad I did. Trust the only phone call that I get through to be bad news. Thank fuck the storm isn’t here already, and thank fuck Alex has a pilot that’s willing to take me back. I guess everyone has a price if you pay them enough.

I can’t even begin to comprehend what’s going on. One minute I’ve got butterflies in my belly thinking about the next time Alex and I go at it, the next I’m wondering if I’ll ever get to see him again. I haven’t got a choice about returning because based on what Mom managed to cry through to me, Dad, that stupid fucking idiot with that stupid fucking bike we’ve all told him is going to get him killed, has almost gone and done it.

Broken leg, broken pelvis, broken back, broken neck, broken fucking head when I get hold of him and if he’s still alive when I do. Fuck. I don’t even want to think about it. I feel cold, and I know it’s not just the air whizzing through the open doors.

If there’s a storm, we don’t see it. I don’t even think about it until we’re back on the mainland anyway, no room in my brain for anything but Dad’s destiny and what will happen in the meantime with Alex.

If there’s anything good about this, I left him waiting, I left him wanting more. I just hope that that’s enough.

They put me on the first plane to Boston, for which I wait an agonizing two hours to get on. In the meantime, I think about messaging Alex, but every time I get something composed, I read it again only for it to sound so ridiculous I end up deciding it would be better to send nothing at all.

It takes an hour to get to the hospital from the airport, a quarter of an hour more to find my way through the labyrinthine network of corridors and on to the room they have my father in.

Six hours after I leave Alex’s island, and at almost two o’clock in the morning, I make it to his room, only for my heart to sink. While a pack of doctors surround him, the heart monitor flatlining, defibrillator pads raised for another go, I feel my whole body go cold before the floor racing up to me at a thousand miles an hour.

I’m conscious for long enough to see the lights flickering above me, but after that, it’s black for a very long time indeed.

Part Two

Nine.

Alex

I’d forgotten how theatrical these things were. I’d forgotten how small the rooms were too. I mean, for a multi-million dollar operation they could make the seats a bit more comfortable, the rooms a bit more diaphanous, the sandwiches a bit less fucking stale.

Pre-season press talks. Pre-season photo shoots. Pre-season fucking pantomimes. I bite my tongue, suck it up and give my very best shit-eating paparazzi grin because this is my brand new modus operandi and the all new and revised Alex Vann Haden, billionaire bad boy at heart, just got a shiny new makeover.

Nobody can believe it, least of all my coach. They still think I’m going to retire. Either that or do something even worse. The level of trust in these people is embarrassing. Here I am, trying to do something good for once, and it just gets thrown back in my face.

“So, The Rhino’s back in captivity.”

“Tell us, Alex, is this for show?”

“Where have you been all my life?”

“You’re disappointing us, Alex. Football needs a bad boy like you.”

It’s all bullshit, which is why I left this behind so long ago, but right now I don’t have a choice. I’ve made my decision and I’m going to stick to it, because there is no way I’m going to spend another moment in the wilderness.

Guess what? Lucy never came back.

I can hardly believe it myself, right? She took what she wanted, disappeared and never once looked back. Fuck it. You win some, you lose some I suppose. I guess I can’t be too upset. We got to fuck a couple of times, and those times we did, it was absolutely magical.

I don’t know anything about what happened. All I know is that the pilot dropped her off, waited a week for the storm to pass - you see, we would have had ten days together if we didn’t get unlucky - and then came back to me, empty handed. I don’t know whether she made it up to see her dad, whether he was alright in the end, or not, nor where she eventually ended up.

I don’t even know if she finished the article, but that didn’t matter, I pressed ahead with someone else anyway, got a PR team to check it out, made sure it told as sad and heartstring-tugging a story as possible and got it out in enough time to give the world a whole new impression of me.

That was over a month ago now, and even though I’ve not exactly been Mr. Limelight Seeker I get the feeling it’s having an effect. Whatever, I’m kind of in two minds about the benefit of it anyway. I’m still under scrutiny like I was better, still as fucking lonely.

Oh, and by the way, I haven’t even gone there with anyone else. I’m not interested in it at all. I’d much rather play football, smile like a fucking moron for the pap, take that cheesy grin all over the city and escape when I’ve done enough to satisfy them. I guess that’s enough for now. Concentrate on the coming season, try and forget about Lucy, try not to be a bad boy and wait for the press to get bored enough to look the other way. Nah. My girl chasing days are over. I didn’t even bother chasing Lucy. I got that message loud and clear, PA system, fucking Heartbreakers FM.

We do publicity shots in the new uniforms, and what feels like a million and one different angles on the new helmets. This season we’ve paid a fuck ton for the logo to be redesigned and it looks like it’s been drawn by a four-year old girl. Last season I’d have said something about that, this season I just don’t have the energy. My goal from now on is to keep a low profile, albeit a profile nonetheless.
Low
is definitely much easier to slip under the radar than
not there at all
, and I think I’m beginning to finally learn it.

I’m going to be a Chandler Jones, a Kyle Long, even a Drew Bledsoe if I have to. Go out there, get the job done, and go back home without a single complaint. Nothing like the old Alex Vann Haden at all. Nothing for the press or the fans to throw their toys out of the pram for, nothing for Lucy Parker to hate.

The island is shut up now I’m back in New York and the season is about to start. There’s nothing to say I won’t go there if I can get away for a few days, but to be honest, after what happened, it’s kind of left a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth. I still have Lucy’s things. When I left to come back here, I stuck them in a box, and they’ve been in my cupboard ever since.

It’s kind of sad really, pining over someone I hardly even know. I’m like a college kid with a crush on a girl he knows he’ll never have. I haven’t given up hope, but then again, the phone isn’t ringing.

After the official pre-season press conference is over, I escape, only to get mobbed by waiting paparazzi. I have no idea how these people even manage to find their way in here, but I guess it’s kind of the same as ants looking for food. I try and push past but there is no way through. All I want to do is get in my car, get home and have a drink, but right now I’m totally swarmed.

I’d think this was unusual, but then again, I guess not many people have seen a rhino up close.

“So, who’s the lucky lady?” someone says to me.

“Excuse me?”

“Come on, Alex, a man like you doesn’t stay single for long.”

“I’m unattached.”

“Anyone you’ve got your eyes on?”

I want to tell them to mind their business but I bite my tongue.
Give them what they want and they’ll leave you alone
isn’t that what everyone says?

“I’m just concentrating on football at the moment.”