“Because I know you.” She hopped down and put the half-empty bottle in the fridge, grabbing a full one. She walked the few steps over to him, skirting her two-seater kitchen table and sitting next to him on the couch. They didn’t touch, but she handed him the unopened bottle. As he cracked the seal, she turned to sit cross-legged, her back against the arm, facing him. “You’re secretive and distrusting and you can be a total ass. But you’re not a guy who pays for sex.”
“I guess that’s something,” he muttered. He took a large swig of water to wash the dust away that coated his throat. “When they cracked down on the circle of women—you might have heard when it happened—they got the ring leader and most of her girls.”
“I heard,” she said quietly. “Big news, at the time.”
“A couple of the ladies were free, mostly because they were too new to rate the PD’s time and attention. A few guys—like Jerry—were in trouble, because they’d been stupid enough to be seen in public with them. I guess they just thought they were invincible.” He lifted one shoulder. I made a stupid mistake, but thank God I didn’t make it that big. Emma wasn’t picked out, either. Though we knew if she stayed around here, someone would say something. So, she left. I thought that was it. I’d escaped, she’d escaped, and it was over.”
“And . . . your son?” Her voice cracked a little as she asked.
He glanced at her from the side, taking a deep breath. It wasn’t fear anymore that held him back, but over six years of habit. Of convincing himself the truth was ugly.
“She came back a few weeks later. She’s pregnant and swears it’s mine.”
“You believed her.”
He raised a brow. “I didn’t not believe her, but I didn’t take her word for it, either. So she headed back up to Las Vegas—that’s where she and Charlie live—and I paid for her doctor’s appointments. Figured it was the least I could do, and if the kid wasn’t mine, I’d write it off as a good deed. He was born, we had him tested—using an attorney to keep my name quiet—and it was official.”
She nodded slowly, then held out her hand for the water. She took a sip herself, staring at the floor as if in a daze. “Why all the way in Vegas? Why not around here?”
“At the time, it was the big news story. We didn’t want people who knew—or guessed—what Emma’s former job was, seeing us, putting two and two together, and figuring out the whole thing. Vegas was a fresh start for Emma, and then she had Charlie. We wanted none of it to touch him. Emma started over there; she’s a real estate agent, and doing pretty good. I visit as much as I can—which isn’t often during season. And we meet up sometimes when I’m on the road, if we can. We just keep it quiet, stay private, and I don’t mention I’ve got a kid.”
“But you haven’t met up with him this season, have you?” She watched him closely. “Is that . . . because of me? Because I’ve been around you so much?”
“Freckles, I . . .” he started, then saw her eyes heat. She sensed bullshit coming on and wanted none of it. “Yeah. I would have seen him in San Francisco, but I asked them not to come.”
She settled back, a stunned look on her face. Raising one fisted hand to her chest, she blinked slowly. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It sort of is.” Her eyes closed. “This was all one big bowl of crazy from the start, wasn’t it?”
He nodded, hands clasped.
“Is this the part where you ask me to not write the story?”
Killian’s grip tightened, until his knuckles turned white. “I’m not going to do that. You’ll do whatever you have to.” Slapping his hands on his knees, he stood. “I need to get back before Charlie eats Mrs. Reynolds out of her apartment.” He breathed heavily. “You know, Emma’s a great mom. That shocked me from the start, but it’s true. She’s always been great with Charlie. It’s me and her who bump heads from time to time.”
“And are you a great dad?”
He looked at her from the door, surprised. “Who’s asking?”
“Freckles,” she said, watching him closely. “Just Freckles.”
“I love him, and I’d do anything for him.” Even if it cost him Aileen, and a potential future he’d begun to crave.
She didn’t stop him from leaving.
Chapter Twenty-two
Aileen sat on the sofa until the condensation from the bottle in her hand soaked her shirt and forced her to get up and toss it out.
A high-priced escort. A secret kid. Lies and half truths from the start. No, this hadn’t been what she’d been hunting around for when she’d started his story. But it absolutely did explain why he was so aloof from everyone, including his own teammates. He was protecting his son’s right to anonymity by removing all temptation and opportunity to spill the news.
Charlie. An adorable name for—what she’d seen of him—an adorable young boy. Killian’s spitting image.
Wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, she sat at her desk chair and opened her laptop. She typed out a few sentences in a Word document, hoping to put things together in an outline. Maybe, if she saw it on paper, she could make her mind process it easier. Black and white had always been her go-to for centering before. But her eyes kept drifting to the left, to the photo of her parents.
“Mom . . .” The word caught in her throat. “What . . . I mean, how . . .” She let her head drop to the desk, arms dangling down. “There’s no way. I can’t do this.”
Reaching for her phone, she dialed the one person she least wanted to speak to at that exact moment. She hit the record button just as he answered.
“You’ve got Bobby Mundane, what’s the story?”
Ug. The greeting made her skin crawl. “Bobby, it’s Aileen.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you answer like that?”
“It’s my thing,” he said simply, and she fought a gag.
“I’m recording this call for my own records. I’m not doing the Killian Reeves story. Just thought I would let you know.”
“Got a Cassie Wainwright story?” he asked immediately.
She refused to even let him know she’d spoken to the coach’s daughter. “I do not.”
“Then this is the end of the line, babe.”
Babe. Another gag.
“If you can’t pull out the big guns when we need you most, there’s nothing I can do to save ya. You don’t have the killer instinct for this gig.”
He might have been right about that. But . . . “It’s fine. I was actually calling to quit, anyway. As of this moment, I’m no longer employed by Off Season, which means all unsubmitted footage is my own.”
“Sounds like that’s a whole lot of bupkis anyway,” he said easily. “But sure, whatever. Anything not already in our system is yours to keep. Though I’ll tell you right now, you’re not going to find another website or vlog that’s gonna want it.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” That was her concern now. “Either way, I’m not your problem anymore. Guess you’ll have to find another chick to take the softballs you lob at her. Hey,” she said in a falsely cheerful voice. “Maybe the next one will like bikinis!”
“I can only wish,” he said in a reverent voice, then hung up on her.
“Pig.” She closed the screen, then leaned back so far in her chair it creaked and made her think twice about the position. As she couldn’t afford a new chair—couldn’t even before she quit/got fired, and certainly couldn’t now—she got up gingerly from the seat and paced the tiny room.
“What would Mom do,” she muttered, glancing around the room for inspiration. “What would Mom do?”
Then her eyes landed on the bag in the corner behind her front door, and stayed there. “Seriously?” She glanced toward the photo, as if that were going to answer her. “Fine. Who am I to judge?”
She was going bowling.
* * *
Killian sat back on the kitchen chair he’d pulled to the living room, suddenly wishing he’d had more seating. But oth
er than Aileen, he’d never had guests over. His living room was currently packed to capacity, thanks to the large bodies hovering in his apartment.
Well, four large bodies and one pint-sized one.
“So this is the little man, huh?” Trey held out a hand and Charlie slapped it, looking a little awed. “Nice to meet ya, Charlie.”
Charlie nodded solemnly, looking much more mature than his five and a half years. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Owens. When we picked numbers for T-ball last summer, my best friend picked sixteen, for you.”
Trey’s face lit up. “Hey, nice taste your friend’s got there.”
Josiah and Michael both grumbled about taste. Then Josiah knelt down. “So if you know who he is, who am I?”
Charlie’s face screwed up in thought, analyzing Josiah from where he stood next to Killian’s leg. “You’re . . . a Bobcat.”
Michael laughed and nudged Josiah hard enough that he fell over from his crouch. “Face it, we don’t compare to the mighty Owens.”
“But my dad’s a Bobcat, so you must be okay,” Charlie finished, hugging Killian’s leg. Killian’s throat contracted, and he stroked a hand over his son’s soft hair.
“Smart kid,” Michael said softly, holding out a fist for Charlie. His son gave it a bump, then backed up to hug his leg again. “So all this time you’ve been a family man, huh?”
“Most of it.” He knelt down to Charlie’s level. “Hey, I’ve got a new video in your room. You wanna watch?”
Charlie gazed at the three other men in the room, as if weighing whether he wanted to give up being the center of attention for three men he looked up to. In the end, the movie won out. After Killian set him up and closed the door quietly, he walked to the kitchen. The other three followed and sat at the kitchen table, Josiah dragging the abandoned chair with him.
“Grab me a water, would ya?” Michael called out as Killian headed for the fridge. Josiah punched him in the shoulder. “What? I’m thirsty.”
Grabbing four bottles, he brought them back to the table. “Sorry I called you guys out here this late. We’ve got a meeting tomorrow morning and—”
“Don’t.” Josiah held out a hand for a bottle. “You asked us to come, and we did. Don’t start regressing now.”
“Yeah.” Twirling the bottle between his palms, Trey agreed. “You’ve gotta let the whole ‘standoffish’ crap die. So you’ve got a kid? Two-thirds of the guys on the team do, and less than half of them are married.”
He took a swallow of water, then sighed and replayed the story for them he’d told Aileen only two hours earlier, skipping the bits they would understand, like Jerry’s reputation.
“Seriously? You got caught up with Jerry’s BS? Damn, and you would have been just a baby back then.”
Killian flipped Michael the bird. “I’m only a year younger than you.”
“You’re one to talk, Lambert,” Trey added. “You’ve got the thirty-year-old baby face.”
Michael smoothed a hand over his chin, grinning. “It’s a winner, what can I say?”
“Back on topic,” Josiah said quietly. “So you’re sharing all this now, I assume, because you know we’re not going to be douchebags and spread this around.”
“Partly.” He nodded and tried to take another sip, then decided against it. “And partly because I’m just tired. This whole thing with Freckles . . . Aileen,” he clarified when they gave him odd looks. “Aileen Rogers.”
“Oh, Aileen. Right.” Michael nodded, smiling slowly. “She’s cute.”
Killian couldn’t hold back the growl, which only made Michael’s smile widen.
“Aileen’s not the type to want this kind of story.” Josiah shook his head in denial of something nobody had said out loud . . . but they’d all been thinking. “It’s not her style. She doesn’t take pleasure out of hurting people.”
“Look at how she handled Cassie,” Trey pointed out. “She was upfront about being a journalist instead of trying to trick her into getting little bits of privileged info. I think if you told her not to use it, she won’t. She’s honest like that. Cassie thought she was great, and trusts her. I would, too.”
“I didn’t tell her not to use it.” Killian shrugged when all three men stared at him. “It felt insulting to say it. Either she’s going to use it, or she isn’t. Me asking her not to wouldn’t stop her if she was the type of person to do that. If she wasn’t going to anyway—and I don’t think she was—asking her not to would have insulted her.” He trusted now she wouldn’t use the story. He just didn’t know if she would want anything more to do with him, now.
Michael blinked a few times, slowly. “The female thought process is some of the most fucked-up stuff I’ve ever heard of.”
“You really put yourself out there with this one.” Trey winced. “Laid your head on the chopping block and handed her the ax. That takes balls. She’ll respect that.”
He didn’t want her respect. Okay, yes, he did. But he wanted more than that. He wanted her love, too. He just had no clue how the hell he was going to show her that now.
“Since my neighbor goes to bed around six at night . . . who knows a good babysitter for game day?”
* * *
Balls rolled and thumped down alleys. Pins crashed together and clattered to the boards. People cheered and jeered, ate and drank, celebrated and mourned their successes and failures.
And none of it seemed to pull Aileen out of her funk.
“Ernie . . .” She sighed and rested her head on the older man’s shoulder. “What the hell am I gonna do?”
“You’re not going to do the story, that much I know.” He draped one slender arm around her shoulders and rubbed briskly at her arm. “You’ve got too much of your mother and father in you to go and do that.”
“Mom wouldn’t have, would she?” She sniffled a little, thinking of her mom. “She always did love big stories.”
“She never took pleasure in using her work to hurt people,” he reminded her gently. “A trait you share.”
“He’s so small.” She pictured Charlie, Killian’s son, peeking out around his mother’s legs. “So innocent. Killian is . . . less innocent. But it would hurt me more than him if I even considered it.”
“And that’s why you’re your mother’s daughter. She’d be proud of you.”
They’d given up bowling an hour ago, when Aileen had missed a simple spare and broke down in tears. Maybe bowling hadn’t been the answer after all, since she’d embarrassed herself in front of fellow bowlers and the alley employees. Now she and Ernie sat in a corner, ignored and alone, watching everyone else take their turns.
“Ernie, why did you ask me to be on your bowling team?” She sat up now, facing him.
“I promised your parents I’d look after you. At least, in my mind.” He smiled, his soft blue eyes a little watery. “Your parents and I bowled for years before you even came along, and many after. If they were in the country, they were at the alley. Your father was probably good enough to turn pro before he passed. More than once, I thought of them as my surrogate children, since mine are all grown and gone. And you, like a granddaughter.”
She sniffed again, her eyes stinging. “I didn’t know that.”
“Oh.” He waved that off, still watching the lane in front of them. She knew neither of them were actually seeing the game, though. “Just the ramblings of an old coot. I didn’t want to mention it, since you were grieving, then working your way out of it, then working your way into a career.”
“And right back out of that same career,” she added sarcastically. “How stupid can I be? No, never mind.” She held up a hand. “I can’t handle the answer right now.”
“I think you’re a beautiful, loving woman who gave her heart to a man who wasn’t sure how to take care of it.” He smoothed one hand over her hair, like a parent would a child. “I only met him a few times, but I always thought he was a good man. He kept secrets, that much is true. Even when you felt like you were past that stage. But me
n . . . I’ll tell you something. We tend to be a bit slower in most things.”
“No joke,” she muttered.
“He wasn’t ready to bare his heart when you were. That’s not wrong, that’s just timing. You can’t let timing ruin everything for you. That’s giving too much power to an unknown. You got ambushed with information he might have given you later, willingly.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe not,” he finished. “I don’t know the boy well enough to guess one way or the other. But he’s got balls, just like every other man, which means he’s gonna screw things up from time to time.”
“Ernie,” she said, trying to sound outraged and failing. The laughter bubbled out before she could stop it. She hadn’t been ready to laugh yet. Sighing, she rested against him again. His shoulder was boney, but still the most comforting thing she could imagine in that moment. “I really love you, even if you do have balls and screw up.”
“I love you too, kid. So, what are you gonna do about it?”
“I’m gonna . . .” She huffed out a laugh. “I’m gonna bowl. And I’ll think about it tomorrow.”
“That’ll work.”
* * *
Aileen wished and willed her car up the final turn of the parking garage, then gave a loud, “Woo-hoo!” when she managed to peak at the top of the structure without relying on her emergency brake. The car was a piece of crap, but it was a piece of crap she had to keep using until she was on more solid ground. Spotting the small SUV at the east corner of the lot—just like Cassie had said—she plugged on over and parked. Getting out, she walked up to the passenger-side door and knocked on the tinted window. When it rolled down, she was surprised to see a young girl’s face pop out.
“Hi!” She grinned. “I’m Mellie.”
“Uh, hi.” She blinked, then realized she was looking at one of Coach Jordan’s daughters, though she wasn’t sure which one. She carried more of her father’s darker features, and was cute as a button.
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