Linebacker's Second Chance (Bad Boy Ballers)

by Imani King

  Three cycles of in-vitro and all my savings are gone.

  “Maybe it’s better that it didn’t work,” I say out loud into the screaming New York wind. “Eli is gone. Who ever heard of a single woman spending her last dime on a worthless man’s frozen embryos?” I wrap my scarf tight around my neck and wipe the cold tears away with my gloves. It would have been nice to go home to New Jersey at Christmas and tell my mom and dad that I’d finally be giving them a grandbaby. But here it is the day after Thanksgiving, and my last hope for a successful pregnancy is gone. Along with all of my damn money, and all of the creative energy I have for painting.

  Just a tiny collection of cells from me and Eli. Supposed to be a life, but instead it was just destruction.

  Eli had waved his hands like he didn’t care if I tried to transfer the last embryo or not. As long as he was free of parental responsibility, he said, I could do any damn depressing thing I wanted. The tears are streaming down my face now, and the New York City wind is whipping around me, making its way through my peacoat and freezing me to the bone. There’s something about this wind. It starts in November and doesn’t let go until we’re in April. Maybe it’s the chill coming off of the Hudson River, or the channels created through the tall buildings.

  The key won’t turn in the door. It’s stuck like usual. I bang on it halfheartedly even though I know Anna’s probably working in the back with her earphones in. I rattle the door, kick it helplessly with my steel-toed boots until my nearly-frozen toes start to hurt.

  “Fuck,” I mumble. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” My voice is growing louder now, and an old man on the street gives me a sideways look as he passes by our rickety little studio on the Lower East Side. It’s not much bigger than a coffin, and the heat is spotty, but we’re still paying a mint for it. After this last embryo transfer, we might have to move out to Queens like we’ve been talking about. I give the door another hard kick and lean against it, sobbing hard now. There’s a shuffling inside, and I know it’s probably Anna coming to my rescue. But I can’t open my eyes now that I’m crying so hard.

  “The bill for the damn in-vitro is coming soon, and we can’t even afford this stupid rent. I’m so fucking stupid. So stupid.” I bang my head once against the cold glass. After I lean there for a second, the door gives way, and my heart leaps as I stumble forward into Anna’s arms. The heat of the studio hits me all at once, and I’m standing face to face with Anna, her cheeks flushed and her smile bright.

  “Oh God! I’m so sorry, Cadence!” I see the flash of her bright red dyed hair, and she pulls me into a monster hug, and I let myself melt into her. It feels good to be touched in a way that won’t hurt me, in a way that won’t break my heart. “I didn’t want to let my pregnant best friend fall right down on the floor.” Clutching her hard, I start to sob, my body heaving, racked with the guilt and anguish of yet another loss.

  “It’ll all clear out over the weekend,” the doctor had said, patting my hand.

  He hadn’t known what to say after that, since it’s hard to know what to say to a woman with no chances left. Thirty-two years old, but with no more embryos, no more money, and no more man. Eli had left on the Sunday before I had the final embryo transfer. Between the two of us, we only had three healthy embryos, and no one could tell us why.

  Anna’s body stiffens against mine for a second and then she hugs me harder.

  “Oh shit, Caddy, shit, shit, shit, I’m so sorry. I should have been there with you—”

  “It’s fine,” I half-say, half-sob. “I told you to sleep in. I thought it would be okay this time.”

  “Let’s get you some cocoa.” I smile for a second, and Anna loosens her grip on me and drags me to one of the leather chairs we keep by the desk up front.

  She sits me down, and I watch her as she smoothes out her hot pink skirt and pours water into her electric tea kettle. Anna and her cocoa. She busts it out around the first of October and doesn’t relent until May. I usually prefer a stiff cup of coffee, or a shot of Bailey’s in a moment like this, but I wont refuse Anna’s Swiss Miss. It might not be the snooty ten-dollar hot chocolate you’d get in Soho, but it’s Anna’s, and she’s the only one who’s talked to me each time my body has betrayed me.

  “Here you go,” she says and puts a hot mug in my hand. She squeezes into the seat next to me and puts her arm around me. I lean into her and tuck my legs up under me. I need to work, need to see if I can get a project that’ll see me through the holidays and maybe pay my rent. But I can’t move right now, and my best friend is sitting next to me, blowing on her cocoa. The cold city spins on around us, and even if we’re still right now, everything will be okay. Anna brushes a lock of black hair away from my forehead and takes small sips from her mug. “Your hair looks cute. You got it cut right before Thanksgiving?”

  “Yeah, I thought it was a good haircut for a future mom to have. I got it pressed out and everything.” I smile, but Anna looks at me with huge, sad eyes. “It’s okay, Anna. Really.” I wipe my eyes again and sip at some of the cocoa. “I’ll get over it, like always. And I could meet someone else—”

  “Yes. You’re beautiful and funny, and you’re an amazing artist. You deserved better than Eli.”

  “I know.” I shift in the chair and take a long swig from my mug. I’d rather be painting, the mug reads. Well, not right now. I’d rather be doing anything but painting. I’d rather sit in a chair and stare at a wall than do something productive. “It just feels like I’m out of chances after all this.” I sip the rest of the cocoa while Anna watches and remains silent. The sobs threaten to rise again. But I remind myself that this was just a failed implantation, that it’s not the end of the world. “What I need to concentrate on is finding a project that will help me keep my apartment.”

  Anna’s face brightens. “About that... have you ever been to New Mexico?” I raise an eyebrow. I might have been through the airport in Santa Fe one time, but it might have been Austin. And I’m fairly certain that Texas and New Mexico aren’t the same state, so I shake my head.

  “Why, what’s this about? You know I don’t leave the state for projects. I’m a New York artist. That’s my appeal.”

  “But it could help you to get away for a bit—don’t deny it.” She puts her cool hand on my arm and holds it there. I won’t deny it, not right out the gate. It could be good. “I wasn’t going to tell you about it... but the more I think about it... this could be good, very good.” Anna’s eyes are starting to light up the way they do when she gets an idea for a new installment or a way to reach out to new clients.

  “What? Tell me what’s good.” I shift in the chair, and nervous excitement starts to rise in my belly, replacing a little bit of that empty, cramping feeling that I’m all too familiar with after a failed egg transfer. The prospect of a project, even if it’s outside of the state—well, especially if it’s outside of the state—seems tempting at this very moment. And hell, isn’t New Mexico warmer than New York? I purse my lips and try to think. I have no damn clue.

  Maybe if I can get the hell out, I can get the hell better. No Eli, no doctors, just me and a few buckets of paint. A new client, a new place. For a little while.

  “It’s this guy who’s been calling about a mural artist—”

  “I do paint murals.”

  “And you’re good. This guy wants a good artist, and he’s willing to pay big. $50,000 up front and $50,000 after completion.” Anna smiles and nods like she can’t quite believe the words she’s saying. Her tiny diamond nose ring glints in the warm glow of the studio light.

  “What the—”

  “And he’ll put you up the whole time. He owns a giant ranch and a few different oil fields—”

  “So I’d be staying at his house?”

  “Guest house, I think. He’s got one on his ranch. Or something like that. I think he said it’s being repaired? But he’s a billionaire, so I bet he has a pretty nice house.”

  “Hotel is preferable,” I say. I guess I’m sne
ering a little at the thought of staying with some man I don’t know because Anna starts to laugh and covers her mouth with her hand. Even if I do like the idea of being away from town for a month or so, I don’t like the idea of being alone in a house with a strange man, especially at Christmas. After Eli and the failed pregnancy, I’ll need my grieving to happen in quiet. And often, even when a man isn’t speaking, he’s anything but quiet. Just being around another person feels like it might be too loud right now. Maybe staying out on one of his ranch houses or whatever he has will be exactly what I need. And if he’s got all that much money, maybe he could get it fixed up quick.

  “I think he’s out in the middle of nowhere, Caddy. Not many hotels. Maybe none. Now, let me tell you more about this project—”

  “I don’t care,” I say. The words feel strange when they come out of my mouth, especially when I find that they are in fact true. “I’ll go.” Anna draws me into a tight hug and pulls me close again, nearly knocking the empty hot chocolate mug out of my hand.

  Right now, I need to earn rent. This guy’s got it. And maybe I can sell him on the idea of a hotel in town, wherever the hell the town is, anyway.

  Right now, I need to get used to the idea of a life with out children, a life without the love I always imagined. Maybe there’s something better than holding a child in my arms for the first time.

  I just don’t know what it is yet.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sometimes this house feels like it’s the loneliest place on earth. And I reckon it might be, set out here so far away from everything else, from civilization.

  It’s even far from the town of Ruidoso, the only town around here. I guess that’s what I wanted when I built this place, but I had thought that there’d be a woman with me. And for a long time, it did seem like there would be. They know me in town, but it’s a good twenty minute drive, and my brothers and friends are spread across the country. I’d wanted horses, a working farm, a field for cattle and sheep, like I’d grown up with. And maybe she hadn’t wanted that. Or me.

  Just the fucking money, like every woman before her.

  That’s some bullshit that I don’t need to think about right now. But it’s hard when I’m sitting in my office alone, swirling a glass of fine whiskey and watching the night sky as the cool, crisp night starts to bring the stars out from their hiding places. A memory hits me from a long way away—my brothers and I sitting at home with Mama and Daddy on Christmas Eve, listening for Santa Claus while Mama sang “Silent Night” in the kitchen and Daddy brought us all hot chocolate and got drunk off eggnog. I smile and swill more of the whiskey, trying to dull the roar of my thoughts, to numb the bittersweet taste of that memory.

  Whiskey works, but it’s is a poor fucking substitute for happiness if you ask me.

  “Oh but the whiskey is fine. Yes it is. Tastes damn good sometimes.” I lean back in my chair and put my legs up on the antique wooden desk that I got from the charity auction for the Coming Home foundation last year. Like everything in this damn house, I paid a pretty penny for the thing, and I barely use it. Instead, I usually take my laptop to bed or to one of the leather recliners in my theater. That damn computer is practically glued to my hip at all times. It’s the only thing that’s kept me sane since she left, but I hate sitting in the damn office with it. It makes me feel like a depressing work drone, and I hate that feeling. Even though that’s exactly what I am, what I’ve turned into.

  Insulted by the prenup, she’d said. And she was insulted by how much I was working, how little attention I paid to her. Goddamn that woman. The thought hits me like a knife to the gut, twisting hard.

  For a second, I think about Joanna, but I quickly push her from my mind. Some things aren’t worth dwelling on, especially not the week after the most depressing Thanksgiving I’ve ever had in my life.

  “Lay off us, Mom,” Nick had said when our mother started asking about Joanna and Nick’s ex-wife. Mom isn’t so subtle anymore about dropping hints, and since we were the only two who came home for the holiday, we got the brunt of her heckling. “Grandchildren aren’t coming any time soon, not to us. Isn’t that right, Rowan?” Nick had meant to be funny, but the joke fell flat with Mom. Right about now, I bet she wished she had some daughters. If she did, they might not have fucked up their previous relationships as bad as we had. Either way, I bet she wishes she had some nice daughters to love on. Girls aren’t quite as dense as us men, anyway.

  “I’m probably not even cut out for a regular relationship,” I say aloud, to no one at all. For the millionth time, I curse the money that’s taken me so far. If I were normal—a plumber or a high school history teacher—maybe I could find a woman who didn’t care only about my money. And I wouldn’t have gone through the regrettable womanizing phase I went through in my twenties. And maybe I wouldn’t be staring down into a glass of whiskey by my damn self on the first of December.

  I finish the whiskey and close my laptop. This month is slow for oil, and the nonprofit is just getting off the ground. I can go to bed before ten, just this once. There’s no one to stop me, no one to tell me that I’m going to bed and ignoring her. It’s just me, and maybe this Christmas, that won’t be half bad. I push the laptop to the back edge of the desk and head down the hall, the reclaimed wood floors creaking under my slippers. There’s a certain satisfaction in walking through a beautiful house, leather and wood all around, beautiful art hanging on the walls.

  But the house is abominably big, and it’s empty. The only creatures who stay around here are the horses and the dog, sleeping the night away upstairs and not even tending to me like she should. We never got to the cattle and sheep part of things, and in retrospect, Joanna didn’t give a shit about any of those things I wanted. Or maybe I didn’t give a shit about what she wanted. In the end, all the things we were fighting about got all mixed up, and it became clear that she was only staying because I was an avenue for the things she wanted. Maybe it hadn’t started that way, but it had ended that way. I gave her the Aston, and she kept the ring and the house in St. Thomas she’d bought with my oil earnings. I could buy ten more if I wanted, a thought that is still a little bit disconcerting to me, but it all made a difference to her. And that worked, as long as she didn’t come knocking on my door again.

  “But there’s no one here to tell me not to wear my lambswool slippers, is there?” My voice echoes through the empty hallway, and I start up the stairs. Just before I walk up, I hear a car pulling up in the driveway outside. The headlights pour in through the glass windows on either side of the front door. Panic strikes me for a moment.

  It’s her. It’s that woman again. She’s supposed to be hiding out in the beach house and it’s been a whole month since—

  But it’s the limo, not Joanna’s Aston.

  Who in the hell? Who’s out in the mountains north of Ruidoso the Monday after Thanksgiving? Dammit, who in the hell?

  Oh fuck. That’s right.

  There was that artist girl I was going to have shipped out here for the mural. The one from New York City. Candy? Callie? Something like that. I’d told her personal assistant that she was my favorite artist on the phone, but I only saw one piece she’d done, and it was damn good, so I’d fudged the truth a little bit—all for the sake of the nonprofit. I turn to see my driver and one of the porters standing at the door. The man looks like he’s about to freeze, and his gaze reflects all of the confusion that I feel.

  Such a goddamned idiot, Rowan. The guest house with its plumbing all fucked to hell. What on earth are you going to do with some artist girl?

  “Christ on a goddamned bike, not now. How did I forget about this?” I walk over to the door and hold it open.

  “Sir,” the driver chirps. “Cadence Albright is here to stay for the evening. She said you hadn’t set her up in a hotel—”

  “Oh goddammit,” I say, grabbing one of the girls’ bags from the driver’s arms. With all of the Joanna shit in that past month, I never thought about getting a hote
l for the girl—and hell, I didn’t even ask my assistant to do anything for her except get the flight booked. The porter lugs a gigantic bag out of the trunk and the poor girl steps out of the limo, shivering in a gauzy purple tunic and skinny jeans. She probably thought that New Mexico wasn’t cold in December. She turns to the porter and grabs the suitcase from him with a look of pure exasperation, pulling it out of his hands as he looks on in complete confusion. I can see her rolling her eyes even ten feet away, and she pulls the whole rickety rolling contraption up the stairs.