by Liz Matis
“God bless you,” said Angel as she plopped onto her bed for a front row seat.
Gabriela directed him to sit on the floor as she collected a brush and a plastic bin filled with hair accessories. He flinched several times as she yanked the brush through his hair, but he was more focused on her chatter. Angel wasn’t kidding when she said Gabby loved to talk. About anything and everything. Flitting from one subject to another so fast that his mind struggled to keep up with her favorite Disney princess, flavor of ice cream, cartoon, and on and on. Hopefully there wasn’t a test at the end, if there was an end.
Without taking a breath, she asked. “Do you want one braid or two?”
“One will do,” he said. Angel’s laughter filled the room. He loved the sound but he had a feeling he was the reason for it. “What’s so funny?”
“You look shell-shocked.”
“Then I look exactly how I feel.” He sneezed again.
A stamp of a tiny foot muffled against the carpet. “Mommy, I need help.”
Angel got up and stood behind him. Arousal fired in his blood and he fisted his hands as Angel braided his hair. As a teen he would’ve pulled her onto to his lap and tickled her until she kissed him. With the familiar feel of her fingers running through his hair, damn if he wasn’t tempted to do it now, but his daughter stood by watching her mother’s every move.
“See? Now try it again.”
Once Gabriela took over, his breathing returned to normal. After several failed attempts, the would-be hairstylist held out two rubber bands in her chubby hand and asked, “Purple or pink?”
Couldn’t there be a black one so he could salvage some of his dignity? Judging from the décor of the room it wasn’t hard to guess her favorite color. “Purple, of course.”
Done she stood in front of him to access her work. “You look silly,” she teased. Leaning forward she pressed her nose up against his. “Mommy said my daddy had special eyes just like me.”
Billy’s shade of cobalt blue needed no touch ups in magazine ads; in fact one would think they used photo manipulation to create the way his gaze leapt off the page. In one of the creepier emails, a fan said she wanted to pluck out his eyeballs and wear them around her neck.
“Mommy said that?” He wanted to ask what else Angel had revealed about him but Angel cleared her throat.
Nodding, Gabriela backed away and tilted her head in deep thought. “Do I call you Daddy?”
Daddy. Such as simple word, but the tug at his heart hurt more than the physical pain of her pulling at his hair. He didn’t want to presume or push realizing how delicate this moment was. “Whatever you want.”
A mischievous grin grew on her face. “Okay, Poopy-head.”
“Gabriela!” Despite the sternness in Angel’s voice he caught a hint of a suppressed giggle as mother came around to confront daughter.
Already feeling protective of his little girl he laughed so she wouldn’t get in trouble and they both joined in. If anyone had been watching, they’d think they were a real family. He risked saying, “I think I prefer Daddy.”
“Good.” Gabriela’s face grew serious and asked. “Are you going to live with us?”
“I—” Billy’s heart leapt but he looked up to Angel for permission. She nodded and Billy continued, “No, I invited you and your Mom to come stay with me.”
Gabriela looked up to her mother with wide eyes. “Are you getting married?”
“No!” Angel dropped to her knees. “No, honey.” Her tone softened when she took Gabriela’s hands in hers. “It’s only for a little while and then we’ll find a place close to Daddy so you can see him whenever you want.”
The way Angel immediately said no like being married to him would be a fate worse than making a living on the pole irked him. On the other hand she generously cleared the way for Gabriela to call him Daddy. Not that he deserved it, but he’d spend the rest of his life earning that honor.
After a long silence Gabriela asked, “Can Lucy come too?”
Lucy? His gut twisted in pain. Could the second bed belong to a child that Angel had with another man? But where were the photos? Gabriela must have noticed his distress mistaking it for an automatic no.
“Pleazzzzzzz… She’s so pretty but sometimes Mommy says she needs a time out.” Gabriela started to giggle like it was the funniest thing ever.
Now he was really confused. He looked to Angel for answers. “Lucy?”
“Lucifer, is our cat,” explained Angel. “Gabby is convinced he is a she.”
A cat? Well, that explained the sneezing.
Chapter 6
After an hour of bonding over hair, Billy left the room so she could speak privately to their daughter. Pushing back a curl from Gabby’s face, Angel asked one more time, “Are you sure you’re okay with moving so far away?”
Gabby nodded. “We have to move anyway. Can I bring my Barbie dolls?”
Angel blinked at her daughter’s logic. They had until the end of the month to get out of the apartment and turn over the bar. Tony, who held her father’s marker, had the nerve to say he was a good guy by giving her two months to pay up or get out. Even said he’d let her stay if she’d slept with him. Yep, a real saint of a pig’s ass.
“Of course you can bring them. But, honey, you probably won’t see any of your friends again.” Angel worried her daughter didn’t understand the full implications of moving to New Jersey.
“I can make new friends. I can’t make a daddy. Will he let me eat ice cream?”
“How old are you?” Angel hugged her tightly. Sometimes she swore an old woman lived inside her daughter and at other times she thought Gabby was digressing back into the terrible twos.
Satisfied with her daughter’s answers she left Gabby to play in the bedroom and reluctantly joined Billy, who was waiting in the kitchen. He was pouring himself a mug of coffee from a dusty coffee maker that hadn’t been used since O’Malley’s death two months ago.
“I made you some tea,” he said, plopping his big body into a rickety chair, Billy motioned to a chipped mug across from him.
Angel frowned at him as she sat down.
“So you lost me?” He eyed her steadily as he rubbed his thumb back and forth along the handle of his coffee mug.
Ignoring the tea and the fact that he remembered her preference she answered, “I didn’t say lost. That’s just how Gabby interpreted it. And what was I supposed to say? That you were dead? I wasn’t about to tell her that her father preferred to pretend she didn’t exist.”
“I didn’t know she existed.”
“So you say now.”
Early on she swore she would never tell Gabby the truth. Never. There was a time when she had asked about her father but it stopped eventually. Not unlike how Angel stopped asking about her own mother. O’Malley never talked about it and she learned not to question him for it only brought sadness to his eyes. Is that why Gabby had stopped asking too? Did she see the same haunted look in her mother’s eyes when she asked about her daddy? And all this time Angel thought Gabby had forgotten when in reality she’d been hoping for her father to show up.
Truthfully, she’d been betting on a negative reaction from her daughter as an excuse to decline. As they exchanged phone numbers she made one last ditch effort. “The cat is not going to be a problem, is it?” Better he escape now before Gabby became attached.
“No, I’ll look into allergy shots.” After taking a large gulp of coffee, he asked, “Who names their cat Lucifer?”
“He’s a bit of a hellion.” Maybe that would get him to rethink his impulsive proposal.
“Ah, a true O’Malley.”
“Hey!” Angel instinctively punched him in the arm, like they’d seen each other just yesterday instead of six years ago. They both laughed and for a moment she felt like that teen girl who once fell in love, perhaps because she still was.
No, you’re in love with the boy you once knew, the one who won you a pink elephant at a fair. But Billy was no
longer that boy. And Angel was definitely no longer that girl. At only twenty-three he had a sexual past that an eighty-year-old man would be proud to remember on his deathbed. Remember that before you’re the one who becomes attached.
An awkward silence followed the laughter. Then he reached for his wallet and all of the muscles in her body tensed. “No thanks,” she said as he tried to hand over a wad of cash.
He opened her clenched fist. “It’s just to hold you over until we can settle the legal details and make a permanent arrangement.” Placing the money in her palm, he closed her fingers around it. Keeping his hand around hers, he said, “You really don’t know the meaning of child support, do you?”
She didn’t want his money. Well, she did want a check in the mail every month to help support Gabby. A check didn’t send tingles of excitement running from the tips of her fingers, up her arm to surround her heart, or wet her lips down below. His touch, however, did all those things. “I’m not in this to bleed you dry, you know. Once I pass the licensing exam and find a nursing job we’ll be fine.”
“I hope that we includes me, Angel.”
He squeezed her hand, but it was her heart that felt the force of the gesture. She didn’t know how to respond because she didn’t know exactly what he meant by it. Angel couldn’t let the whispered words seduce her into thinking she could be anything more than his baby mama. She winced at the term but in his world that’s how she’d be referenced.
Billy released her hand. “My flight leaves in two hours so I better get going.”
“One more thing, Billy.”
“What’s that?”
“To be clear. I will be sleeping in that third bedroom. There’ll be no messing around.”
“No messing around. Got it.”
Angel doubted his rushed agreement, in fact she felt a bit annoyed over it, but she’d hold him to it just the same. Angel walked Billy to the door then called out, “Gabby, come say goodbye.”
“No!” Gabby flew down the hall and threw her arms around his leg, which was the size of a small tree trunk. “Don’t leave.”
Angel’s heart clenched at her daughter’s desperate plea. Now instead of wishing he’d back out, she decided she would kill him if he did.
Billy picked Gabby up easily as if she were one of his weights at the gym. “It’s okay. I’ll see you in less than a week.”
“You’re not gonna get lost again?”
“Never,” he promised, kissing her nose. He looked back to Angel and continued, “I’ll have my agent send someone to help with the move and make the arrangements.”
“Carlos?”
“How do you know my agent?”
You wouldn’t know by the expression on his face but whoa, he sounded jealous. Angel was horrified when a secret thrill shot through her. “I called the Cougar team office first and they directed me to your agent. After getting the third degree he refused to put me in touch with you, hence the paternity suit.”
Gone was the cool façade and Billy’s face hardened into a mask. “That won’t happen again.”
Angel doubted that but nodded. It would be a new town but the same old story of people trying to keep them apart. “The first priority is getting Gabby registered for school.”
“School? Already?”
Gabby held up her fingers. “I’m five. I’m in kindergarten,” she said proudly.
“Oh, so you’re a big girl,” said Billy.
“Only when she wants to be,” Angel teased.
He kissed Gabby goodbye and placed her down gently. Angel’s heart skipped when his gaze moved from their daughter and seemed to zero in on her lips, but then his eyes met hers and he said, “Don’t change your mind.”
The door closed and in relief her heartbeat steadied. But as she heard his footfalls on the steps, disappointment replaced relief. The back door opened and closed. It felt like she hadn’t had air since he strode into the bar last night. She took a cleansing breath before gazing down at her daughter who swung her body back and forth looking up at her mother expectantly. “So what do you think of your Daddy?”
On her tippy toes, with her hand reaching up into the air, Gabby said, “He’s a giant.” Spinning on one foot, she turned. With arms now stretched wide, she stomped down the hallway to her room, taking such big steps that she was almost leaping. “Fee, fie, fo, fum.”
Billy had earned major brownie points for letting Gabby tug on his hair until Angel thought he’d end up bald. But a morning of playtime did not a father make.
How would he deal with the messes? The constant questions? When Gabby woke with a stomachache? Then again who would’ve thought she herself had an ounce of maternal instinct? Certainly not Angel. Yet as soon as Gabriela was placed in her arms, a mother bear mentality rooted itself deep within her.
An hour later a knock sounded. She guessed it was Hoss and even though she didn’t want a confrontation she wanted to get it over with and opened the door.
“You let him sleep over.”
“Shhh,” she said as she pointed down the hall to where Gabby was napping unusually early. Between the sleepover and the excitement of meeting her father she had volunteered to take a nap. A first. Angel took a seat on the couch as Hoss softly closed the door. “It’s not what you think.” Angel explained what O’Malley’ had done and about Billy’s offer to move to New Jersey. “Why would O’Malley lie to me?”
“I don’t know.” Hoss plopped down onto O’Malley’s chair.
“Why did he make me break up with him in the first place? Why wasn’t I good enough?” It was a question she had on the tip of her tongue for years and now finally she was able to ask it out loud.
“Jesus, Angel, is that what you thought?”
“O’Malley told me so right to my face.” It only confirmed what the whole town thought of her. Even Carlos, a man she’d never met, thought she was a gold digger. In his agent’s defense, allegations were probably made against his clients everyday. How many claims did Billy himself receive—hell did he actually have other kids?
“He didn’t mean it. He knew Billy would break your heart. Your father wanted you to walk away with your pride.”
“Billy wouldn’t break—”
“He would have eventually. College women throwing themselves at him versus a pool hustler five hundred miles away? Not even a contest. It’s a given.”
“I’ll never truly know, will I?” Angel folded her arms.
Hoss flipped back the recliner and sighed. “Don’t start believing in those fairy tales you read to Gabby. Nothing has changed. Replay that video of him in the strip club. That’s the real Billy Burner not the boy who whispered promises to you in the dark. Remember that when he tries to get you into bed. Don’t think he won’t. He’s a man.”
“And the father of my child.”
“A sperm donor.”
But Billy claimed to want more and by the way he melted when he looked at Gabby, she already had him wrapped around her finger.
“When are you leaving?” Hoss got up and walked to the door.
“Next week.”
Hoss hesitated, and Angel thought he was about to offer up some more unwanted fatherly advice but instead asked, “Can I have the chair?”
Angel blinked. What was she going to do with all this stuff? She doubted any of it was worth the cost of moving to New Jersey or the cost to store it once it got there. Besides she deserved a clean slate without reminders of the past. Like how much O’Malley loved that chair, joking that he’d be buried in it. Now as far as she was concerned, he could roll in his grave knowing Hoss sat on the O’Malley throne. “Consider it severance.”
“Ha, good one. I’ll come by with a truck later.”
Angel shut the door. Leaning against it in exhaustion, she decided to allow herself the rest of the day to brood about the past. Then tomorrow she’d start anew. Begin to pack up her life and get the hell out of town before she changed her mind. Or Billy changed his.
Chapter 7
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br /> After practice Billy stood on the sidelines of the empty field, visualizing the plays for tomorrow’s game. In his head he ran every route, pictured catching each pass with ease before making his move to score a touchdown or dig for that extra yard. He’d repeat the process tonight as he fell asleep, when he woke, and one more time before he took the field. The ritual began in college when the step up from high school football had overwhelmed him. Skill wasn’t enough at that level. He realized to be a successful player he had to be prepared physically and mentally. He welcomed the challenge.
Concentrating on football was the only thing that had kept him sane in those first few months after Angel dumped him. Billy poured his pain into practices, played like an animal in games, earning him the college scholarship his father always dreamed of.
He breathed in the calming smell of grass and closed his eyes enjoying the peace of the moment before heading to the madness of the locker room. There was so much to do before Angel and Gabriela arrived on Wednesday. There was no room for a game ending fumble.
Ryan Terell, the veteran tight end, slapped Billy’s shoulder pad. “Daydreaming about breaking my records, kid?”
Billy shrugged it off. “I’m not a kid.”
Jake Miller, the running back, slapped the other side. “So we’ve heard.”
Billy should have known. Where there was one, the other was sure to follow. The two hated him and seemed to live to ride his ass for every misstep. He knew he’d stepped out of bounds when he asked out both of their women, but in his defense if his teammates couldn’t close the deal then it should have been every man for himself. Football is a team sport, but sex was a one-on-one game. “Coach has a big mouth.”
Terell shook his head. “We share agents.”
Billy had warned Carlos not to interfere again. He’d fire the prick, but he was the rare combination of genius and shark. His clients received the best contracts and the most lucrative endorsements. The man even plotted out the future, for life after football, which no player could conceive of while playing. Call it a superstition, call it ego, or maybe a little of both.