Bigger and Badder (A Caldwell Hope Billionaire Romance)

by Jackson Kane

  “Nope,” I replied, saying what we were all thinking. I pushed open the stairwell door and we all shared the same resigned, “do we have to” look.

  What else could we do?

  Despite the unheated stairwell in the heart of winter, we were all sweaty messes when we finally made it to the top. If it wasn’t for Aaron calling a timeout at the beginning of the last minute, we’d never have made it.

  The door was of course locked, because of the millions of dollars’ worth of equipment inside so I had to reach for my key card. Only… my card wasn’t there!

  I frantically searched my pockets and they all turned up empty. It had to have fallen out of my pocket. I looked around the floor then opened the door to the stairwell, but nothing. It was nowhere to be found. My heart crashed into my stomach and I slid down a nearby wall, feeling nauseous. All the work for nothing.

  “Oh for— To hell with this!” Gloria apologized to Alisha, then kissed her on the forehead. She then pounded on the control room door as loud as she could and screamed for them to open up.

  It was no use. The room was notoriously loud and with so many people controlling so many things most of them wore headphones. No one would hear—

  The door swung open.

  “Hello?” Allen, the manager, asked. He was confused and a little annoyed at the racket, especially at such a crucial moment in the game. Gloria must have caught him the brief moment when he didn’t have his headphones on. “Can I help you?”

  I rocketed to my feet and explained the situation as quickly as I could. I snatched Molly’s phone and waved it at him. “So yeah. We need you to plug this in or whatever.”

  “That’s… not how any of this works. It’s a one-hundred-thirty-foot long screen. I—I can’t just plug someone’s phone into it,” Allen tried to explain.

  We walked into the control room. There were five rows of workstations, each with their own instrument panel, sound board, and LCD screen. Beyond that, above the glass windows that looked down on the field itself, was a wall of screens that stretched up to the twenty-foot ceiling. Each screen on that wall had a grid of at least four live feeds from different angles.

  Between all of the humming electronics and the thirty or so people talking, and buzzing from station to station, the room literally vibrated with activity. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

  “Listen, Allen.” I refocused on what I was doing there. “This is extremely important, even more so than the actual game that’s being played.” I hated to have to go down this road, but…. “My father is your boss. This is footage of him being punched in the mouth by one of our financial backer’s goons.”

  “If you don’t play this right now…” Gloria took several menacing steps toward the tall IT manager. She was far too intimidating when she wanted to be, especially for being such a short woman. “…bad things are going to happen.”

  “Fuck, all right.” Allen retreated a step, and bumped into the back of someone’s chair. They were so zoned into what they were doing, they hardly even noticed.

  “Language!” Gloria interrupted harshly, covering her daughter’s ears.

  I could’ve laughed at how much Gloria changed since having Alisha. The Gloria I knew could cuss like a biker. I was willing to bet she still did when her daughter wasn’t around.

  Frustrated and thoroughly outnumbered, Allen shook his head and went to work on his computer. He mumbled to himself the whole time, but did what we asked. He didn’t need the phone, the video was already all over social media. All we could do now was wait.

  I walked over to the windows and watched the last of the game. There were ten seconds on the clock and we were still up by three points. We had the ball, so all Garrett’s team needed to do was run down the clock and we were golden.

  Jesus, we might just win this.

  There was a defensive blitz, and our linebackers were overwhelmed. The quarterback had to throw the ball away, but he didn’t throw it far enough.

  Oh crap….

  The ball’s flight played out in slow motion. Out of nowhere, fifty-three leapt up and intercepted it. The gasp by the crowd was almost loud enough to rattle the windows. When he landed, everyone paused for a split second as they tried to figure out what had happened. That was all the time fifty-three needed to make a break for it.

  “No!” I pounded on the glass, which made the woman working next to me incredibly nervous. Her monitor had the close up of fifty-three’s run. I quickly sidled up next to her, and watched the play that was going to ruin us.

  My rib cage weighed a thousand pounds as I watched that smug bastard twist around one player and leap clear over another who went for his legs. No one could get hands on him. Soon there was nothing but open field between the fastest player in the NFL and the end zone that would win the game.

  The buzzer rang indicating that the game was effectively over after this play was finished. I began to hang my head as fifty-three left everyone else in the dust. He devoured ten-yard markers like they were nothing at all. When he hit the thirty-yard line, the camera pulled back enough to see that one man was actually on his heels.

  It was Garrett, our own number fifty-three!

  “Go, go!” I yelled as loud as I could. I knew he couldn’t hear me, but maybe somehow he could feel me pulling for him. Garrett looked ridiculous running that fast with one arm pinned to his chest, but he somehow made it work.

  The twenty-yard marker blurred by, then the ten. For as fast as Garrett was, that young kid was just a little faster. Garrett wasn’t going to catch him.

  Dammit!

  Garrett must’ve known that, too, because he dug deep and threw himself at the player with all his strength. It didn’t matter that he had one arm and was beat to all-hell. Garrett had more heart than Aaron’s whole team put together.

  He caught fifty-three’s ankle and held on for dear life. Both men hit the turf, like a car crash, and the ball slipped from fifty-three’s hands and rolled into the end zone. Both men lay there exhausted for a second, while everyone that had previously given up the chase made a frenzied dash for the football.

  “What does that mean?” I asked in a panic. “Did we lose? What’s going on?”

  “The ball is in the end zone. If the home team gets the ball, they score another touchdown. If the away team gets it, the game is over,” the women next to me quickly explained, while masterfully working buttons and sliders on her console. “Basically, the first man to pick up the ball wins the game.”

  Garrett and fifty-three scrambled to their feet and lunged for the ball at the same time. Dad blew the whistle ending play and ran over to the two-man pile players. When the men rolled over it was Garrett, and not fifty-three, who had the ball.

  Dad let one of the field judges make the final call. The man was put up on the big screen. “Number fifty-three, Garrett Walker, has the ball. Garrett’s team wins.”

  The audience exploded. Most were happy, some were angry, but everyone was screaming.

  You did it, Garrett. I was all smiles when I glanced back at Molly and Gloria. They were hugging and laughing. Then I saw Garrett’s exhausted face on one of the screens. He was looking for me in the VIP boxes. You kept your crazy promise.

  Allen looked up from his monitor, caught my eyes and nodded. The Jumbo Tron switched from players celebrating to a much more intimate shot of the closed player’s entrance tunnel. It took a few seconds for the audio to connect, but when it did, it was as loud as the rock song that it interrupted.

  Aaron Miller was finally exposed. His threats were loud and clear. Boos and shouts from the crowd almost drowned out the video’s audio. Immediately, the audience turned on him. One of the feeds in the control room showed Aaron retreating in a panic.

  Go ahead and run, I thought. The people of Caldwell Hope would never trust him after watching that.

  The thirty-second video played on loop half a dozen times before Allen killed the feed.

  “You did it.” Gloria hugged me.
“I’m so proud of you!”

  “It wasn’t just me.” I could feel the blushing coming on something fierce. All I wanted was to run down to Garrett and wrap my arms around him. We’d finally won.

  “Hey, hey, hey….” Molly wore a huge grin as she groped for me without actually looking my way. “I think you’d better see this.”

  Garrett was on the big screen; he tore off his helmet and called for a microphone.

  “Just over five years ago, I met a woman who was perfect for me.” Garrett’s voice echoed out over thousands of fans. “Unfortunately, neither of us was in the right place at the time.

  “Years came and went, and this emptiness grew inside of me. I tried to fill it in the worst possible ways. It was like trying to ram a square peg into a round hole. I just got beat up, and in the end was left with nothing but bruises. If it wasn’t for my daughter….” Garrett trailed off, letting the words linger on the freezing winter breeze.

  “That was until I came back to Caldwell Hope as a potential investor for the stadium. I never gave your town a fair chance, and because of that, you had to reach out to monsters like Aaron Miller. For that, I’m sorry.

  “It was only recently that someone opened my eyes to the hidden beauty, and the true potential, of what Caldwell Hope had to offer. She made me fall in love with this town, with all of you, and with her.

  “I want to be your partner and help the stadium, and all of Caldwell Hope thrive. I also have another request.” Garrett painfully lowered himself down on one knee.

  Was he really doing this?

  My stomach became a tornado of butterflies. I had to clamp both hands over my mouth to keep myself from squealing. The crowd had no such reservations—they lost their fucking minds.

  “Judy Sullivan.” Garrett had to wait until the screams quieted down again. “Will you be the round peg to my heart’s round hole? Will you marry me?”

  Tears flowed down my face as I nodded and mouthed a word that he couldn’t possibly see.

  “Judy!” Gloria whisper yelled from over my shoulder. I brushed my tears away and looked at her. Gloria pointed at a camera that Allen was pointing at me. I glanced past the tall IT guy and looked out the window. I was on the Jumbo Tron now.

  And I was a crybaby mess.

  I wiped my face again, but it didn’t help. I nodded and said yes, but there was no audio. There didn’t need to be. The crowd started chanting. “SHE. SAID. YES. SHE. SAID. YES.”

  “You’d better get down there, Judy.” Molly said, smiling with her soft eyes. “Your future husband is waiting.”

  It took me about ten minutes to get back down to the field. It turned out there was another elevator further down the hall, which made the return trip way easier. I saw Garrett thanking Nate and the rest of the players for everything when I stepped onto the field.

  Lucas and Garrett even shook hands. I couldn’t make out the words they said, because of the whipping wind and the residual post-game noise. The tone wasn’t hostile, however. If anything, it was borderline respectful. They weren’t fast friends by any means, but perhaps playing together on the same team for once helped heal some of the scars between them.

  “You’re crazy, you know that?” I laughed, burying myself in Garrett’s great, warm embrace. The crowd had mostly disappeared, but the few hundred people that remained gave us big “AWWWs” when I ran up and kissed my fiancé.

  “I’m a lot of things.” Garrett kissed me again. “But what I want to be now, and for the rest of my life, is a husband and a father. Let’s go home.”

  Epilogue

  Judy

  Three Weeks Later

  “What do you think?” Garrett asked.

  “What do you mean what do I think?” I was blown away. Truly. “How did you…?” I lost my train of thought as I walked around the hall and marveled at all the details. The paintings, the small abstract sculptures, everything was just as I remembered.

  “I recreated as much as I could from the pictures I found. A few things were a little trickier than others, but all in all, I think it’s pretty spot on.” Garrett walked over to me with two glasses of wine.

  “It’s perfect!” I took a glass. “We don’t have masks though.”

  He’d rented out the golf course clubhouse where we’d first met and recreated the masquerade ball, except that there were no other people. It was just us, the band, and the waitstaff. We had the whole building to ourselves.

  “That’s what screwed everything up in the first place.” Garrett took a sip of his wine and winked. “Besides, we don’t have anyone left to hide from.”

  It reminded me of that dream I had where we danced naked in the hall.

  “May I?” He put down his glass and stretched out his gloved hand.

  I smiled, nodded, and took his hand. Our heels clicked along the orange and black floor as he led me into the center of the hall. Garrett nodded to the band, and they started to play. It was slow and nice, and had a lot of violin, which I liked.

  Garrett slid a hand around my back and led the dance. His arm had healed enough in these past few weeks that he could wear a thinner cast. He had to get shirts and suits custom made to fit the cast; most of the time you couldn’t even tell he’d fractured it in two places.

  The midnight-blue evening gown with a star pattern printed all over it he’d gotten me still fit perfectly despite the faint baby bump. So much had happened since he’d mailed it to me that I never actually thought I’d wear it.

  I chuckled, remembering I had thought it was a bomb from my student loan providers.

  “How does Jackie like her new school?” I asked. Garrett bought us a house within an easy drive of Matt Baker Elementary School. Jackie was doing much better. There were a lot fewer temper tantrums and outbursts. I thought it had something to do with both of us being around for her all the time now. I didn’t think she felt like we were going anywhere on her, and because of that, she was able to relax a little more.

  I could never replace her real mother, but we bonded pretty tightly and that’s not something I would ever give up. I loved Jackie and thought of her as my daughter, just as much as the baby I was carrying.

  “She loves it.” There was a look of relief on Garrett’s face. That was his biggest worry about moving to Caldwell Hope. “Molly says she’s still a handful. Then again Molly says all kids that age are, so I’m not too worried. I’m just glad that Jackie is at least making a few friends.”

  “Hey, before I forget.” I tapped Garrett’s chest excitedly. “Dad wants to have us over this weekend. He says he has a present for you.”

  Ever since Garrett proposed to me, Dad has taken a real liking to him. That was almost more surprising than Garrett and Lucas burying the hatchet. They talked about football, and bounced public works ideas off each other. I think Garrett was Dad’s new William King.

  Garrett decided early on to change the theme of the stadium, from a twisted homage to him, to something that represented the town better. It was now the home of the Caldwell Hope Kings football teams.

  The Grim Reaper was finally dead, and Garrett was much happier for it.

  “Sure,” he said. “If it’s my college ball, I promise not to turn him down again.”

  “You’d better not!”

  Garrett smirked and dipped me. When he brought me back up, he planted a kiss on my lips, then my nose, chin, and the side of my neck. I silently gasped in air. I loved that he could still make me feel those butterflies.

  “You hear about the limo driver?” Garrett asked.

  “Did he come out of his coma?”

  “Yes. He even somehow remembered the license plate of the car that hit us. It’ll take some time for the police to backtrack, but at least they have a starting point.”

  We both knew that it would eventually end with Aaron Miller, but Garrett didn’t want to think about that little man anymore so I didn’t bring it up. Instead, I decided to change the subject.

  “What do you hope the baby is?”<
br />
  “I want a boy,” Garrett replied instantly.

  “So you can teach him football or business?”

  “He can do whatever the hell he wants.” Garrett laughed. “But I hope he becomes an artist like his mother.”

  I laughed and kissed him on the cheek.

  “I hope you don’t mind, but I got you something.”

  I regarded him carefully. Something from Garrett Walker could be a card or a private cruise ship. “It’s your birthday. I’m the one who should be getting you things.”

  “There’s a modest space downtown next to Black Rocket Records that’s been empty for a few years, I’m told. I’d like to turn it into an art gallery.” Garrett fished in his pocket and produced a small brass key. It looked a lot like the one I used to have for the Rocket.

  “Is that so?” I flashed him a toothy grin. I quickly saw where this was going. It was a very sweet gesture, but thoughts of managing the Rocket began to plague me. “I appreciate the thought. I really do! I don’t know if I want to own another small business. I’m really not cut out for all the paperwork, and long nights of tedious accounting. I just don’t think I have it in me.”

  “Own?” He scoffed. “I’m going to run it. I just need you to fill it for me.”

  “So you just want me to paint?”

  “I want you to do whatever you want. If it’s an art gallery, great. If not, we’ll come up with something else. I’m taking a big step back from work. I’ve worked enough for several lifetimes. Now I just want to take care of my kids. And my wife-to-be.”

  “A stay-at-home dad, huh? I like the sound of that.”

  Garrett didn’t reply, but I thought he liked the sound of that, too. We spent the rest of the night dancing and talking. The more I got to know him, the luckier I felt. We were different in so many ways, but I was certain that was one of the things that made us being together so special.

  Finally the clock struck midnight. It was officially his birthday.