“I need a rental car. I don’t care what kind and cost isn’t an issue. I just need it dropped off in Brooklyn within an hour.”
33
April
The sound of fabric rustling was what stirred me out of sleep, but it was a loud bang that made me abruptly sit up and look around my bedroom for intruders.
I was relieved to see it was only Jared—who definitely wasn’t an intruder—but I had no idea why in the world he was rooting around in my closet. Unless…
“Are you planning to fuck me in your jersey?”
Jared turned around, clearly startled, then let out a short burst of laughter before he asked, “Do you really think I’m that vain?”
“Yes,” I answered with no hesitation.
Jared frowned before shrugging. “I guess I am since I think that that is a fabulous idea, but it’s not what I’m doing, no.”
I eased myself out of bed, watching his eyes roam over my body when he remembered that I was still almost entirely naked. I had opted to keep the underwear on, but the look in his eyes told me that they wouldn’t do a damn bit of good once he ripped them off.
“Get dressed,” he growled, tossing the discarded bra from earlier at me. “We need to get going soon.”
“Going? What do—” I froze when I saw my overnight bag on the floor, stuffed to the brim with clothing. “Jared, what the hell is going on?”
He zipped the bag and stood up, squaring his shoulders as he said, “We’re taking a little trip. Come on, sweetness. The rental car will be here any minute.”
He strolled out of the room with my bag in hand, leaving me gaping after him like a fish. I quickly refastened my bra and chased after him, finding him tapping away on his phone in the living room.
“Tell me where we’re going.”
“I’ll tell you only if you get dressed.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “If I don’t get dressed, we won’t be going anywhere.”
“Is that a challenge?”
I stomped my foot on the ground and growled in frustration. “You’re so fucking stubborn. Just tell me.”
“As soon as you’re dressed,” he repeated, looking down at his phone with a frown. “The car’s here. I got to run downstairs real quick. Get. Dressed.”
He fixed me with a stern look before he grabbed his wallet off the coffee table and went rushing out, my bag on his shoulder. I briefly considered locking him out, but as much as it pained me to admit, the curiosity about this mystery trip was too powerful to resist.
So I threw my outfit from earlier back on and spent a few moments in the bathroom fixing my hair and makeup. Jared was just coming back in when I walked out, smiling when he saw me.
“That’s what I like to see,” he said as he reached a hand out for me to take. “Come on, princess.”
“Did you get my—”
“Clothes, phone, charger, prenatal vitamins?” he interrupted, ticking off each item with a finger. “Yes. I didn’t bother with the shower stuff. We’re only going for one night.”
“Fine,” I said with a resigned sigh as he handed me my purse. “Now tell me where we’re going.”
“As soon as we get in the car,” he smoothly replied as he attempted to guide me out of the apartment with a hand on the small of my back.
“No!” I protested, spinning around to glare at him. “You said when I was dressed.”
“I lied.”
“I’m not getting into the car until you tell me.”
“But if we wait until we’re in the car, you won’t have the chance to back out after I tell you.”
“Jared, this is New York. I’ll have plenty of chances to jump out of the car considering we’ll be stopping every other block.”
He blinked a few times before slowly nodding. “Good point. I’ll tell you as soon as we get out of the city.”
I laughed as he pushed me to the door, but held up my arms to block him from opening it.
He let out a huff of frustration before he asked, “Can’t you just let it be a surprise? Please?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Is it a good surprise or a bad surprise?” I lowly asked, watching his face closely for a reaction.
“That depends.”
I cocked an eyebrow, unwilling to contribute to him twisting my words back around on me. He gave me that half-smile that I loved before he finished.
“What do you consider a bad surprise?”
I thought about it for a long moment, but when I couldn’t come up with a clever retort, I simply raised my hands in surrender and moved out of the way.
“You owe me for this,” I said as I breezed by him. “I’m serious.”
“I look forward to making it up to you, baby.”
“I forgot how much I hate driving in New York,” Jared commented with a grunt after we finally made it out of the city and onto a freeway. “I don’t know what’s worse—the traffic or the fucking pedestrians.”
But I wasn’t following along with his rant, too focused on other things.
“Jared. We’re out of the city. Now tell me where we’re going.”
The sideways glance he shot me was dark. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“Oh my god,” I groaned. “Knock it off with the melodramatic bullshit. I can handle it.”
“We’re going to Albany.”
“That’s… random,” I said, my eyebrows drawing together tightly with confusion. “What’s in Albany?”
“My mother.”
Oh Jesus.
“She really wants to meet you.”
Oh fuck.
Jared glanced at me again, one eyebrow raised high.
“Still think you can handle it?”
Hell no.
“But-But why? Why would she want to meet me?”
His amused expression suddenly closed off and he shrugged as he said, “She wants to meet the mother of her future grandchild. It’s not an unreasonable request.”
I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me—something important—but the panic of meeting Jared’s mother was way too prominent to ignore long enough to badger him about that.
“So you just… said yes. Without asking how I felt about it.”
“How you’re reacting is pretty much exactly what I expected if I had asked. But look, I didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t want to break my mom’s heart.”
For a moment, I wondered what Jared’s mother was like. But I shoved the thought away, knowing that I’d find out first-hand soon enough.
“I can’t imagine that meeting me means that much to her. Maybe if I was further along or—”
“Believe me,” Jared cut in with a humorless laugh. “You have no idea how much she wants to meet you. It’s—well, it’s not something she’s ever really gotten to do.”
I snorted. “You’re telling me you don’t take all the women you knock up home to meet your mother?”
“No. I’m telling you I’ve never taken any woman home to meet my mother.”
He looked away from the road just long enough to lock eyes with me, and my jaw snapped shut, an audible click filling the silence.
When he turned back to look out the windshield, I did the same. After all, there really wasn’t anything I could say to that.
But the increase of my heart rate stuck with me for miles.
34
Jared
After I told April that she was the first woman I was ever taking home to meet my mom, she thankfully fell silent for the rest of the trip. She even fell asleep for a brief period of time, but woke back up once she felt the car slowing down as we entered the outskirts of Albany.
“Are we there?” she groggily asked before rubbing her eyes.
“Almost.”
It was only a ten minute drive through the outskirts of town and into the suburb-like neighborhood my mom lived in. April looked around curiously and asked, “Is this where you grew up?”
“No. We moved
here when I was a teenager to be closer to my mom’s parents after my dad passed. I grew up in a small town outside of Boston.”
“So you went to high school here?”
“I did,” I confirmed with a nod, turning on the signal light and slowing down to nearly a stop as I pulled into the driveway. “This is it.”
I’d been nervous pretty much the entire drive here, but it was manageable. Now—watching as April undid her seat belt and moved to open the door—the nerves kicked in full force.
“It’s a nice house,” she said before she stepped out, leaving me sitting in the driver’s seat and trying to will my heart to slow the fuck down.
Maybe I should have brought one of the girls from high school home once or twice. Maybe it would have prepared me for the nerve-wracking emotions when I looked up and saw my mom opening the front door and rushing onto the porch.
Fuck. Should have thought this through a little better, I thought as I stepped out of the car and hastily rushed to catch up.
It was a hell of a thing to realize that whatever nerves April had when I broke the news about where we were going had left her and shifted to me. She was looking around curiously and walked straight up to my mother without giving it a second thought.
Meanwhile, I was lingering in the background having a mild heart attack. When my mom pulled her in for a hug, I was certain that it was going to kill me. It was just so… surreal.
I happened to step forward just in time to hear my mother as she said, “I’m so happy you agreed to come! It means so much to me.”
When they pulled away from each other, April’s smile was slightly tight, but my mom turned her attention on me before she even had the chance to see it. I grinned and gave her a hug, chuckling when I saw April’s smile become more genuine at the sight.
“What’s with the look?” I asked, letting go of my mom and glancing over at her confused eyes. “What? A badass football star can’t hug his mom?”
“You seem to think you’re a lot more badass than you actually are,” April easily responded, the corners of her lips turning up. “I think you’re just a big softie who has a good game face.”
“I’ll show you a softie.”
“Jared—knock it off. You’re being incredibly inappropriate. Not to mention rude.”
She gave me a pointed look and I realized that she wanted a proper introduction.
“April, this is my mom, Nina. Mom, this is the soon-to-be mother of my child, April.”
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Mom gushed as she reached out for a handshake. “Sorry for the hug earlier—I’m a hugger.”
“That’s all right, my mom’s the same way,” April said with a light laugh.
“Well come on in! I cleaned up the house and I was just about to start making dinner. Jared will show you where you can put your bag.”
Mom looked at me expectantly, spurring me into walking back to the car to get our bags. As I was slamming the trunk shut, I noticed that my mom had moved closer to April and the two were lowly whispering. When they both looked at me and giggled, I immediately regretted my decision to bring her here.
“Get the lead out!” Mom shouted as I lingered at the back of the car in fear of what they were saying. “That chicken won’t cook itself and April needs the restroom!”
Well. This’ll be fun.
“I like your mom,” April said as soon as we hit the landing of the second floor.
“She seems to like you as well,” I said before pointing to the door at the end of the hall. “Bathroom.”
“Be right back.”
As April rushed into the restroom, I opened the door of my old bedroom and stepped inside. It’d been a little while since I came back for a visit, but I was pleased to see that mom hadn’t changed anything. I dropped our bags on the bed and moved to the doorway to wait.
April came to me as soon as she saw me, smiling when she entered the room and began to look around.
“So this is teenage-you, huh?” she asked, smiling at the various posters on the walls until her eyes hit the bed. “Are we seriously sleeping on that?”
“We are,” I confirmed, coming up behind her to rest my hands on her hips. “Hey, at least it’s not a twin.”
April scoffed. “No, it’s a full which looks like it’ll barely be big enough for you to fit on.”
“Guess you’ll just have to lie real close to me,” I whispered into her ear, grinning when she shivered.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she breathlessly asked.
“Mm-hm. Especially since we’ll both be naked. I might have accidentally forgotten to pack any pajamas for you.”
“Accidentally, huh? Why don’t I believe you?”
“Because I’m fucking lying,” I growled before I leaned down and bit her neck. Her startled moan shot right to my dick.
“Stop, stop. Not here.”
I groaned as she slipped out of my grasp and darted toward the door.
“Later?”
She gave me an incredulous look. “Jared, I’m not having sex with you in your mother’s house.”
“Why the hell not? It’s not like she doesn’t know we’re fucking. You didn’t get magically knocked up.”
“Oh my god,” she groaned as she buried her face in her hands. “Just no. You were the one who coerced me into coming out here. You should have known that—”
“But what about my promise?” I asked, interrupting her as I helplessly grasped at any straw I could. I put on my most charming grin as I stepped closer to her. “I said I’d make it up to you, baby. Remember? Don’t you want me to eat that pretty pussy of yours in my tiny-ass bed?”
“That sounds just fantastic, Jared, really. But your mom is downstairs cooking for us and considering she is the reason we’re here, I’m going to offer my help.”
“You can’t cook.”
She slapped my arm and I pouted.
“I can peel or chop or just keep her company. If you want to stay up here and play with yourself like old times—feel free.”
“You’ll pay for that later,” I growled, even though I was internally commending her hilarious joke. When April came to play, the girl came out swinging.
I just wished I occasionally got the chance to watch her swing at someone other than me.
“Promises, promises,” she breezily replied before turning around and moving back to the stairwell.
I grit my teeth together and headed to the can to take a leak. As I was washing my hands, I gave myself a mini pep talk before going downstairs to face the music.
So it was true what I saw on television. When you brought home a significant other—or whatever April was to me—one of the first things your parents did was share as many embarrassing stories as they could think of.
I’m in hell, I thought as April laughed her ass off over the story about the untimely end to my acting career in sixth grade when I pissed my pants on stage from being so nervous.
Christ, what have I done?
“Oh my—he was just so torn up about that. All the kids started picking on him and he swore he’d never act again.”
“They stopped talking shit when I clocked Danny,” I mumbled under my breath.
Mom’s eyes lit up at the memory and she nodded. “Oh yes. I remember him. Such an unpleasant little boy. Your father was so proud when he went to pick you up that day.”
I didn’t say it, but I the reason I remembered that day so well was for that exact reason. I didn’t recall much of the fight itself or what words led me to punch the kid, but I could still feel the pat on my shoulder as my dad told me that biggest part of becoming a man was learning to stand up for myself.
That day was also the first time he let me taste one of his beers—another ‘man’ moment to add to our day. After the first sip, I was pretty adamant about that being the last time I ever drank the horrid stuff. He had simply laughed and told me that I’d change my tune when I was older. He had definitely been right.
April
and my mom had moved on to another topic by the time I had tuned back into the conversation and when I noticed April barely holding back a yawn, I subtly slid my phone out of my pocket to check the time.
Mom must have noticed because a moment later, she was standing up to look at the hall clock and gasping.
“My goodness, I had no idea it had gotten so late! I’m sorry to keep you up dear. I was just having such a nice time talking to you.”
“It’s totally fine,” April said in a rush, shaking her head back and forth to ease my mom’s worry. “I didn’t realize what time it was either. This has been a lot of fun.”
Mom smiled and gave me a funny look—one I interpreted as, ‘We need to talk.’
“Well you go up and get to bed, dear. Jared will be up in a minute.”
April looked a little surprised either from the dismissal or from the fact that my mother was obviously aware, and expecting, that we were sharing a room. She gave my mom a quick hug before heading up the stairs. We both watched her go and as soon as she was out of sight, Mom gestured for me to follow her into the kitchen.
“She’s lovely, Jared.”
“So you approve?”
Mom hummed and stared off into the distance as she said, “I’m thinking a fall wedding. Maybe not this fall though—unless you think April wouldn’t mind being this big around in all those pictures.”
“Oh Jesus,” I mumbled, watching as Mom held her hands out in front of her stomach to illustrate how big April would likely be by then. “How about we take this one step at a time, mom? She isn’t even my girlfriend.”
“But she wants to be,” she replied, making me frown at the simplicity of her answer.
“It’s complicated, mom.”
“Oh I know. I asked April why I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone and she told me everything.”
My eyebrows raised in surprise. “When the hell did that happen?”
“When you went upstairs to the restroom after dinner.”
Infamous: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Novel Page 16