“Are you serious right now?” She’d just thrown my own words back at me. This was…I didn’t have words. I couldn’t find them. Feelings? Oh, I had plenty of those, all which started with absolute disbelief.
She slumped, taking a seat on the end of the bed. “No. Sorry. Are you sure I never told you that the internship was in Brazil?”
“Positive. You think I’d forget something like that?” What the hell did this mean?
“I told you I wanted to work with my mom.”
“Yeah, but never in the same sentence that had anything to do with your internship.” I moved one foot at a time until I was close enough to the dresser to sit at the edge of it.
“I told you she was disappointed that I didn’t get it!” She gripped the comforter in both hands.
“Lib, I told you my mom was disappointed that we didn’t make it to Super Bowl fifty-four, but the woman doesn’t live in Florida.” How the fuck had I been so spectacularly blind?
“Okay, okay, okay,” she chanted, rocking slightly as her gaze darted back and forth. She was in her thinking phase. “Well, I’ve got nothing.”
“Me, either.” The dresser bit into the back of my thighs, but I welcomed the slight sting. It kept me grounded in reality. Let me know this was really happening and not just one of my more fucked up dreams. “So, let’s talk about this like the rational adults we are.”
See? Look at me not flying off the handle and going broody when shit wasn’t going my way.
“Okay. Let’s try this all over.” She swallowed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The rest was piled on her head in one of those knots I loved to watch her twist. Then she met my gaze. The excitement was still there, but it was banked behind something that looked a hell of a lot like wariness. “Nixon, I got accepted for my dream internship.” A wide smile spread across her face. “It’s with Breaking Boundaries, which is a medical organization dedicated to bringing world-class health care to areas decimated by war or stricken with poverty. Spending my internship in this remote part of Brazil will give me priceless research for my dissertation as well as allow me to bring mental health care where it’s desperately needed.”
“So, you’re taking the internship.” I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth. Where the hell was my prized control? My stone-hard heart? That belongs to her, you dumbass. You handed it over on a silver platter.
She glanced back at the backpack before raising her brows. “Well. Yes. My plane leaves first thing in the morning.”
My jaw locked. How the hell was I supposed to stand here and even remotely think this was okay?
Her eyes widened, and she stood. “Nixon, it’s not as bad as what you’re thinking. The location is accessible by boat. It only takes two days to get there, and it’s not like it’s in a war zone or anything. It’s just a remote site—”
“Not in a war zone? Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I snapped.
“Yes.” She nodded once. “Look, I know you worry, but I’ll be fine.”
“Liberty, it’s not just you!” I gestured to her belly, where our daughter was currently safe and warm and growing perfectly, according to the doctors. “You’re what? Three weeks away from entering the third trimester?”
“Four. And so what? I can still fly.” She cradled her belly protectively. “Didn’t you hear the first part of what I said? Breaking Boundaries brings world-class healthcare. You don’t think they can handle delivering a baby?”
My heart hit the fucking floor. A second passed, then two, before I could manage to draw a breath. “Are you telling me that you want our daughter to be born in Brazil?”
She drew back slightly. “Why not? I think she might even have dual citizenship when she’s born,” she mused, her forehead crinkling.
Whatever little string that had been holding my temper at bay snapped like a twig. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“I’m sorry?” Her chin rose a good couple inches.
“Why the hell would you put her in danger like that?” I didn’t care how state-of-the-art their healthcare was. I’d seen the pictures her mother had sent via email. The hospital was made up of tents. Fucking tents.
“Put her in danger?” Liberty scoffed in disgust. “I was born in the middle of an African village, and I turned out just fine! God, Nixon, are you really so hung up on your first-world extravagance that you can’t fathom wanting to help others who don’t make thirty million a year?”
I made more than that, but I wasn’t getting into semantics. “If you want to go help people, then knock yourself out. It’s an awesome program, and I respect the hell out of your mother for doing it, but you having our baby down there is a completely different story.” I gripped the edge of the dresser, my knuckles turning white.
“Okay, so you respect my mother for doing it, but not for her choice to have me while she did it?” Liberty threw her hands in the air and spun around, heading back to her pile of clothing.
I wasn’t touching that argument with a ten-foot pole.
She was really doing this. She folded the shorts, then two more shirts as the silence grew so tense between us that I knew it was bound to shatter. “I’ll have my mom with me,” she said softly, tucking away another shirt into the bottom of the pack. “When our baby comes, I’ll have my mom with me, Nixon. Isn’t that worth something in your eyes?”
My mouth tasted like sawdust. “And just where the hell am I supposed to be? Or am I not a part of this plan?”
She froze momentarily, then folded another set of shorts, reaching the bottom of the pile. “Of course I want you there,” she said softly, looking up at me with heartbroken eyes.
“For fuck’s sake! Don’t you get it? If something happens, I can’t make it there in time. You said yourself, this place is two days away!” My chest tightened. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
“So come down in April.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper, and she rubbed at the center of her chest like her heart hurt just as badly as mine.
But I wasn’t the one running away.
“You come back in April. Do you know how long it will take us to get her a passport once your internship is over if she’s born down there?” Shit, was I even thinking this was possible? What the hell was the infant mortality rate in a camp setup like that? How was I going to protect them?
Liberty tilted her head. “She won’t need it for a while. Breaking Boundaries is set to stay in Brazil for at least another eighteen months, and then I think we’re headed to the DRC, so that gives us—”
I shut down completely and simply stared at the woman I loved lose her ever-loving mind as she walked back into the closet and came back out with another load of clothes that she immediately began packing.
“—at least a year.”
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
She packed, packed, packed.
“You aren’t coming back, are you?” I finally managed to ask.
She shoved the last of her maternity clothes into her pack. “Breaking Boundaries mostly hires from within, so there’s an overwhelming chance that I’ll get a job there once the internship is over.” She brought her gaze slowly to mine, then flinched at what she saw. “Oh, God, Nixon—” She walked toward me.
I put my hand out to ward her off. “You were never going to stay.” The realization hit me like a three-hundred-pound linebacker.
She halted two feet and three billion miles away from me. “You knew that. I told you that I don’t know how to stay…anywhere. My mission is out there, helping people.”
“There are people to help right here.” Even as I said the words, I knew they wouldn’t change her mind. She’d never wanted to stay. “You let me build that nursery?” She let me make plans for our future…or maybe I’d done that all on my own, refusing to listen to what she’d really been saying.
She sucked in a quick breath. “I never asked you to do that.”
I rolled my head back on my shoulders and prayed to
wake up. This feeling right here was all too familiar. This was the moment you were sacked from the blindside and found yourself staring at the sky, wondering what the hell had just happened.
“I love the nursery.” She moved closer. “It is so perfect. This life is perfect. You…Nixon, you’re—”
“Don’t.” I shook my head. “God, just don’t.”
“Tell me how to make this better.”
“Easy, don’t go!” I gestured to the backpack. “Don’t finish packing. Don’t get your passport. Don’t get on a fucking plane, and don’t take my daughter away from me!”
The color drained from her face as she staggered backward and sat on the bed. “She’s my daughter, too.”
“And I guess possession really is nine-tenths of the law in this case, right? Because it’s not like I can stop you.” My chest ached with every breath I dragged into my lungs. “I thought you loved me?” The words came out just as broken as I felt.
“I do,” she answered softly. “Don’t you see how hard this is? I’ve never put down roots before. I’ve never given my entire soul over to someone because I knew I was leaving or they were. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you, Nixon.”
“It looked pretty damned easy a few minutes ago.”
She rubbed circles on her belly absentmindedly as she looked back at her pack, her face stricken. “I’ve been so focused on achieving the dream that I guess I didn’t realize what it would cost me if I got it.”
“You’re not the only one paying the price. I will. She will.”
“Come with us.” Her hand splayed over the curve of our daughter.
My jaw hit the floor. “Come with you? I’m on contract. I can’t just pick up and leave for Brazil. That’s not how any of this works. I can’t even go rock climbing with my contract, so I’m pretty sure hiking through the Amazon definitely isn’t allowed. I only have a decade left on the field, if I’m lucky. A decade, Liberty. And you of all people know why I can’t just take off my jersey and go use my considerable football skills in a medical camp in Brazil,” I finished with a note of sarcasm that she didn’t appreciate. “I don’t just play for me!”
“So what? I have to give up my dream so you can keep yours?” She looked at me like I was a complete and utter stranger. “That’s not love, Nixon. Love is when you put someone else’s needs ahead of yours. Love isn’t throwing a tantrum because you’re not getting your way.”
“Throwing a tantrum?” I stood and then sat my ass back down on the dresser. Nothing good would come of me walking away or getting closer to her. We’d either end in anger or end up in bed, which was exactly what got us here—not talking our shit out. “I’ve had exactly,” I looked at my watch, “thirty-two minutes to adjust to the thought that you’re leaving me and taking my kid! I didn’t do anything wrong! I didn’t fuck this up. I let you in. I put my whole heart out there, and somehow we still can’t win!”
“It’s not about winning!” She stood suddenly. “You can’t control everything. I know you want to, but you can’t. You just have to accept the fact that not everything can go according to your plan. You can’t stick me in this cage—no matter how beautiful it is and tell me to be happy. There is no outcome in life that’s guaranteed. We make the best of whatever life gives us, and life has handed me this,” she gestured between us. “It’s given me this baby to raise and nurture, and it’s given me a love so deep I know I will feel you from an entire continent away. And it’s given me this opportunity to make a difference in the world—not just the scoreboard.”
“I love you.” It wasn’t a confession—it was an outright plea.
“Then don’t make me choose.”
I glanced at her pack and felt the empty void in my chest begin to grow, consuming me bit by bit with blessed numbness. “I never realized that I was your consolation prize, but I get it now. Loud and clear. Hell, you said it to begin with, right? You didn’t want me. You didn’t need me. You were going to raise our baby all on your own. This was just a pit stop in your life. I’ve been the one holding on to something that never existed because you never really wanted me, you were just settling. Jesus, Lila wasn’t even this cruel. She faked a baby. You faked a future.”
She startled, then stared at me before slowly shaking her head. “They warn people to never meet their crushes. They told me you were an asshole, but I never imagined you could be this selfish.” She barked. “You’ve had your dream for the past eight years! I haven’t even had mine for an hour, and you can’t let me have it? You can’t be happy for me? Proud of me? You can’t think about a compromise? One where we fit our lives together instead of me fitting mine into yours? Is this really who you are? Are you that scared of who you’ll be when everyone stops chanting your name that it’s your way or nothing at all?” She batted away a furious tear, and the sight of it shredded me all over again.
“Where the hell is there any room to compromise with you in Brazil?” Forget your heart and start thinking logically. I’d already lost her—if I’d ever even had her—but I wasn’t about to lose my little girl. “Okay, so what are we going to do about our daughter?”
“What do you mean?” She flinched.
“I mean that I can’t stop you from getting on that plane tomorrow. Even my lawyers aren’t good enough to make that happen.” I laughed at the irony of being one of the richest guys in the NFL with a problem that money couldn’t solve. “But I’m not letting you raise her alone. I don’t care if it takes me years and millions in lawyer fees. She’s mine, too. I’m not a luxury you can leave behind—I’m her father.” Even if you don’t want my love anymore.
Liberty’s eyes narrowed. “At least she’ll get to spend some of her time out of this paparazzi-filled fishbowl you call a life. Lawyers? Damn, Nixon. I guess it’s good that we don’t have to be together to raise a kid together.”
“That’s what you wanted in the first place, remember?” I pushed off the dresser and headed for the door, pausing at the frame to look back at her, trying to memorize every detail of her beautiful face. “When you were growing up, did you ever ask your mom about your dad?”
“Of course,” she spat, wrapping her arms around her middle like I was the one who was ripping us apart. “You know he walked out when she was pregnant.”
“That was his loss. You are an incredible woman, Liberty Jones, and neither you nor your mother deserved that, and his actions proved he sure as hell didn’t deserve to get to raise you.”
She swallowed and swiped away another tear, but they started falling faster.
Fuck my life, I loved her. Even standing there, telling me she was going to take my kid and run—I loved her. What the hell was wrong with me? “I’m not asking you to choose between Brazil and me. We both know you already have. But not every man in your life is expendable, Liberty. Remember that when our daughter asks you about me.”
She sucked in an audible breath.
“This is getting us nowhere. I’m going for a drive to clear my head.” Maybe the solution would present itself if I just stopped thinking about it so hard.
I climbed into my car and drove it way too fast for entirely too long and pulled back into my driveway over three hours later. I didn’t have an answer yet, and I wasn’t sure there was one, but at least I’d driven off my anger. Her shiny, new, highly safety-rated car sat parked in its spot, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
We still had time.
I called her name as I walked in, but she didn’t answer, and in that second, I knew. Her books weren’t scattered on the dining room table. Her backpack was gone, and so was every piece of clothing she’d brought with her. She’d left the luxuries—the cocktail dresses and high heels—behind. Her passport was no longer in the fire safe. Her toiletries were cleared out of the bathroom.
Even seeing all of it, I held on to a sliver of hope until I made my way into the nursery.
She’d taken the tiny Raptors jersey.
She was gone.
18
&
nbsp; Liberty
I sank onto the colorful rug on the floor, sighing as I leaned against the low-sitting table with my laptop perched atop it.
“Are you crazy?” my mom chided from behind me, and I jolted at her outburst.
“Gah, Mom! Wear a bell. I thought you were at the market getting produce.” I shook my head, opening my laptop, that same heavy weight settling on my chest as it had every time I’d opened my computer the past month.
My heart twisted every time his words echoed through my memory—Lila wasn’t this cruel. Lawyers. Danger.
I’d never put our daughter in danger, and I sure as hell never meant to hurt him.
One month.
One month since I’d left for the Breaking Boundaries internship.
One month since Nixon and I had a fallout we didn’t know how to come back from.
One month of Skype calls that reopened the wound every time I saw his face.
“You’re six months pregnant, Liberty,” she said, carrying a bag of groceries into our tiny kitchen. “You really think you need to sit on the floor? What if you can’t get back up?” she teased, and I laughed softly but it did nothing to chase away that hole in my chest.
“This is where my laptop is,” I said. “And the exact location the internet has the strongest signal.”
“Oh, honey,” she said as she put away the few items she’d bought at today’s market. It had been a long day—long month—truly, of research and offering mental health treatments to the small village here. I’d had several individuals seek personal meetings. My absolute dream…but something was missing. “How long are you going to do this to yourself?”
I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean?”
I knew exactly what she meant.
“You’re miserable.”
“I’m six months pregnant.” An excuse, and a flimsy one at that. Sure, my body ached as my stomach had doubled in size in the last month. And yes, I was hungry and tired all the time and could barely get comfortable enough to sleep at night more than a few hours, but it was nothing compared to the sickness of that first trimester.
Nixon: A Raleigh Raptors Novel Page 19