Dirty Baller: A Secret Baby Sports Romance

by Vesper Vaughn

  I make my flight right before they close the doors. “Sorry,” I say apologetically to the gate agent.

  She raises an eyebrow and adjusts her Pilgrim hat. “I’m only giving you a pass because it’s Thanksgiving.”

  “Thank you again,” I say. I rush down the jet way and onto the plane. My stomach does a little somersault in displeasure at the smell of jet fuel. I’m not a huge fan of planes and flying.

  I shove my overnight bag into an overhead bin, the last one that’s still open. It barely fits.

  It’s just my luck that I’m shoved between two overweight, middle-aged businessmen in cheap suits. They don’t look too pleased that I’ll be taking up the middle seat; they already assumed that the seat was going to remain empty and placed their laptops there.

  I pull my light-blocking eye mask out of my purse and pull it on, shoving my headphones into my ears and listening to an audiobook by my favorite romance author. In this one, my favorite, the heroine meets a handsome European prince. I’ve listened to it a thousand and one times. It’s my good luck charm.

  The plane rumbles beneath me and I pinch my legs to keep myself from shaking.

  This is it.

  I’m headed to London.

  I’m getting my man back.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  HAYLEY

  The train from Heathrow takes forever but I finally make it to Ryan’s neighborhood. I pull my light jacket closer around my body. I can’t zip it up because my stomach is just too large for the jacket to accommodate it.

  I make a mental note to pull it off and hold it balled up over my stomach when I ring Ryan’s door. The last thing he needs is for me to show up looking pregnant. I want him to find out when I tell him, not when I show him.

  I pass a group of moms taking their kids to the park. The leaves are orange and flutter in the stiff, chilly breeze. London smells like it always does, of petrol and cigarettes and food carts mixed with the scent of damp earth. The sky above me is a light, stainless-steel grey and I feel lighter on my feet here than I ever do in New York.

  I see Ryan’s teal front door and have a flash of when Terence walked me back here that terrible, awful night of the gala. I’d practically had to shove him away from me so I could get into the house without him. He wanted sex. I wanted nothing from him but a safe escort.

  I’m so nervous I’m shaking. My weekend bag still on my shoulder and my purse in my hand, I take a deep breath and rap the heavy brass knocker three times. I wait.

  A woman answers the door. A pretty woman. With blonde hair and green eyes and a smart business suit on. Her wool skirt comes to just above her knees and her thin legs end in high heels.

  My stomach sinks.

  Ryan has another woman here.

  Already.

  It has been five months, Hayley, Alison’s voice says in my ear. If you’d only come sooner he might still be yours.

  I gape at the woman.

  “May I help you?” she asks, a quizzical look on her face.

  “Um, yes. I’m looking for Ryan,” I say weakly. “But I’ll just go, actually.”

  She looks down at my stomach and I realize with a lurch of dread that I forgot to take off my coat to hide it. She calls back into the house before I can stop her. “Ryan!”

  But Ryan’s already at the door. His face turns from elation to dread as his eyes wander down to my midsection. “Oh my God. Hayley.”

  “I’m pregnant,” I whisper. The words fall out of me without being summoned. He already knows, anyway.

  I turn and I run.

  That’s the only thing I can think of to do.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  RYAN

  My mind can’t do the math fast enough. How many months does it take until a woman’s showing? I don’t know. But why would she be on my doorstep if she weren’t pregnant with my baby?

  There’s no time to think.

  Hayley’s gone and running before I even have a chance to register shock.

  “What in the bloody hell is going on?” Megan asks me, a look of thorough confusion on her face.

  “I’ll tell you later,” I say, leaping the three steps to the sidewalk and running after Hayley. She’s faster than I thought she would be, but she’s no match for a professional footballer. “Hayley! Stop running!”

  But she doesn’t. So I grab her by the elbow and pull her backwards, catching her in my arms. She’s panting and tears are flowing down her face.

  “Hayley. Please,” I say.

  She stands up and looks away from me. “I didn’t mean for you to see my stomach,” she says. “I wanted to have a conversation with you, honestly.”

  “Come on,” I say. “Let’s go back to the house.”

  She follows me. Megan is still standing at the door watching us. I brush past her and take Hayley’s bags.

  “I’ll make some tea,” Megan says, clearly at a loss.

  Hayley looks at her with venom in her eyes that I don’t understand.

  “Let’s sit up here,” I say, taking Hayley into the front sitting room. Once Hayley is perched awkwardly on the formal sofa and I’m back in the armchair, I realize this was a mistake. This feels like a business meeting between strangers.

  And we’re certainly not strangers.

  “I was hoping – “ I start to say. But Hayley interrupts me.

  “Who is that woman? Your girlfriend, I presume?” Hayley asks.

  I look at her, totally confused. “Who? What woman?”

  Hayley laughs. “Don’t play the fool with me, Ryan. The woman in your kitchen. How long have you been together?”

  I guffaw loudly. “You mean Megan?” I laugh even harder, which does not go over well with Hayley. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my sister. My half-sister. My dad’s daughter with another woman who wasn’t my mum.”

  A look of recognition dawns over Hayley’s face. “Your sister. She’s your sister.”

  “That’s right,” Megan says, walking into the room with a tray of tea and biscuits. She sets the tray down with a small thud. “I’ll leave you two to catch up. You clearly have a lot going on that you need to work out.” She walks over and pats my shoulder. “I’m off to work. We still on for dinner tonight?”

  “Yeah, of course,” I say to her. She walks out of the house and shuts the front door. Hayley and I are left in silence together.

  “How have things been going-“

  “What have you been up-“

  We speak at the same time. We both laugh awkwardly. “You go first,” I say to her. “Since you certainly seem to have the um, bigger news.”

  Hayley fidgets with her jacket sleeves. “I’m about five months along. The baby is healthy.”

  “Do you…know the sex?” I ask her tentatively.

  She looks at me. “No. I’m waiting to find out.”

  “And the baby…it’s mine. Right?”

  She nods once. “Of course it is. I think one of the condoms broke. I missed a day of birth control, too, right when I got to London.”

  And there it is. I feel a surge of anger. Seeing her made me forget, but that forgetting doesn’t last long. “Right. When you came here to get your story out of me.”

  “Ryan, I wanted to talk to you about – “

  “What do you want from me, Hayley?” I’m forgetting everything that I learned in rehab. The breathing. The way to take control of my emotions.

  Everything.

  Everything.

  Everything.

  It’s all flying out the window and down onto the high street.

  Tears come into her eyes. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry about the story. I wanted you to know that you’re going to be a father. And I wanted to tell you – I love you. I love you, Ryan. I wanted you to know. You have a right to know.”

  The word father pings my ears and I’m back in full anger again. I don’t want to hear this. I can’t be somebody’s father. I can’t. “I think you should leave. Your little story is being
published soon, right? So I can read all about my own life along with the rest of the world, all the way from the time I was born to the time I was in foster care and beyond.” The words are pouring out of me now. All the hurt I was feeling before, all of it – it’s taking control of me. “I’m guessing you can put a nice little cherry on top of the story, too. Fatherless boy has daddy issues. What an original tale of woe.”

  “Ryan, please, let me explain.” Hayley stands up along with me.

  “You should leave,” I say to her. “You should get out now.”

  Hayley pushes past me and grabs her bags. She reaches into her purse and fishes out a rolled-up magazine. “Here’s the story if you want to read it.”

  And with that, she leaves the house and runs down the street out into the cold, late November day.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  RYAN

  “I would have ordered half this amount of take away if I had known you weren’t actually going to eat on our dinner date,” Megan says to me, pulling my untouched box of curry towards her.

  “I need a drink,” I say, rubbing my face.

  “I’ll bet you do. Anyone would after the day you’ve had,” she says. “Of course, I could give you better advice if you would just tell me what it is that happened after I left today. You don’t seem too eager to talk about it.” She pauses and wipes her mouth with a napkin. “I’m not leaving you here to fall into a bottle of vodka, Ryan. You need to let it out. Let it all out.”

  I start at the beginning. “I met this girl, Hayley, in a bar the night before I joined the team here. We had sex. It turned out that she was a reporter sent to research my team and make a story about us. And we tried to stay away from each other, but we couldn’t. We just kept falling back into bed together, over and over and over again. I was in love with her.” I pause, letting the words sit there for a moment.

  Megan’s expression is unchanged. She’s listening as attentively as anyone as has ever listened to me. It’s a little unnerving. “Did you tell her that? Did you tell her that you were in love with her?”

  It’s amazing how little time I’ve known my half-sister and how well she understands me at the same time. She’s gotten to the heart of my intimacy issues with one question.

  “Yes. I did tell her.”

  “Wow. Must have taken a lot for you to do that. To actually open up to her and let her know that.”

  “What are you, Dr. fucking Phil?” I joke.

  She stirs the curry with her fork. “I know that because Dad was the same way. Sorry, Scott.” I don’t let her call Scott ‘dad’ in front of me. “Sorry. But you’re really a chip off the old block in some ways.”

  I ignore this. Those words are not the ones that I’m interested in hearing. At all. “I told her that I loved her and then she went behind my back and wrote a story about me. With all of my secrets. With everything that I told her about my childhood. About Scott. About my mum.” I put my head in my hands. “She betrayed me. I opened up and she betrayed me.”

  Megan nods. “That must have been terrible. I’m so sorry that happened.”

  “And now she shows up here today, after five, nearly six months with absolutely zero contact, and she’s pregnant with my baby.” I take a big drink of water, slamming the glass onto the granite countertops. I stare at the artfully painted white cabinets with purposely worn edges. “I can’t be a father.”

  “And why is that?” Megan asks.

  “You already said it. I’m a chip off the old block.”

  Megan makes a noncommittal noise. “So what’s your plan, then?”

  “My plan?”

  “Yeah. The plan. Your former girlfriend is pregnant with your baby and you’re going to do what, now?”

  “Nothing. I’m going to do nothing.”

  Megan surprises me by laughing.

  “What in the bloody hell is so funny?” I ask her, feeling angry.

  She’s laughing so hard now that tears of mirth dance in her eyes. She dabs at them with a clean napkin. “It’s just that we’re sitting in a house that was clearly built for a family. You rented it what? Seven months ago? And you’re telling me that you don’t want to be somebody’s father.”

  “I don’t understand –“

  “Ryan, look around you,” Megan interrupts. “This place has three bedrooms and a little patch of green grass in the back. You have granite countertops and two living rooms. This place isn’t for a bachelor. I know you went flat hunting when Hayley was with you, you implied as much last week when I asked you why you picked this place. You didn’t say who, exactly, was with you. But I know it was a woman and I can connect the dots. You rented this place because you were planning for a future. Even if you didn’t realize it.”

  I open my mouth to protest but I know it’s no use. Because she’s right. She’s utterly, completely, and entirely correct. “I still can’t be a father. I’m too much like Scott. I’m too much like Dad.”

  Megan nods slowly. “I’ll tell you about Dad and what he was like. He was a better father to me than he was to you. I think he was trying to make up for what he did to you and your mum. He never hit my mother. He never laid a hand on me. He drank a lot. But mostly he drank out of sadness. Regret. I’m not excusing what he did. He never reached out to you and that’s unforgiveable.” Megan takes a deep breath and puts on a serious face. “You think you’ll turn out like Dad if you decide to be a father. But you’re wrong.”

  Megan leans forward to emphasize her next words. “You’ll be like Dad if you abandon your child. Don’t do that. We aren’t fated to some destiny, Ryan. You’ll only be like Scott if you choose to be like Scott. And I know you won’t make that choice. I know you won’t. You think I don’t know you, but I do. You can choose to be different. You can choose to be better. You can choose to be a father.”

  I wait before I speak again, letting her words hit me with their full force. “What if I can’t forgive her for what she wrote about me?”

  Megan reaches into her purse and pulls out a copy of a glossy magazine. My face glares up at me from the front cover. “I think you should read this and then decide if you can forgive her or not.”

  Megan puts the lid on the leftover curry and places it into the fridge, grabbing her keys and walking around the counter. She kisses me on top of my head. “I love you, big brother. I know you’ll do the right thing.”

  Her words echo in my head as I go to bed that night. I know that she’s right. She’s completely right.

  I can choose to be different.

  I can choose to be better.

  I can choose to be somebody’s father.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  RYAN

  I don’t open the magazine until the next morning. I flip through the glossy advertisements for cologne, expensive watches, and running shoes. I stop in the middle of the magazine when a photo of my team catches my eye.

  BRAVE NEW TEAM: HOW ONE FOOTBALL CLUB LEARNED TO EMBRACE THE UNKNOWN

  I read the first paragraphs and realize I’ve made a huge mistake. An enormous mistake. A life-changing mistake.

  Hayley didn’t write about me. She wrote about the team and how I fit into the group dynamic. She didn’t betray me.

  I scramble for my phone and dial Hayley’s number. I spent months with a bottle of liquor next to me, my finger hovering over the dial button on her number. And now I’m finally doing the right thing.

  I’m finally calling her.

  It rings seven times before she answers. “Hello?”

  “Hayley?” I say. I haven’t talked to her on the phone much but her voice sounds different on the line. “I need to meet with you. I’m so sorry, I-“

  “Hayley can’t come to the phone right now,” the woman who is clearly not Hayley says.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m nurse Jackson at Royal Hospital of London. Hayley’s been admitted.”

  My heart pounds, threatening to burst out of my chest. “What happened?” I ask in alarm.
<
br />   “I’m sorry, I can’t divulge that unless you are next of kin.” I hear voices and beeping behind her. It sounds like a lot of people just rushed into the room at once. “I wasn’t supposed to answer the phone, but I did out of reflex. I suggest you come down here if you can.” She sounds worried. As if I needed another reason to make it to the hospital.

  I hang up my phone and throw on a t-shirt and running shoes. That hospital is just around the corner from here.

  I don’t even know how I get there, but I do. I remember none of it, but my feet lead me to the front desk.

  “Hayley Childs. Where is her room?”

  The desk clerk clicks the keys. She’s taking too long.

  I tap my fingers impatiently. “Could you maybe bloody hurry that fucking computer along?”

  She rolls her eyes at me. “I can’t make a computer run any faster than it’s already running, alright? Just calm down.”

  I take a deep breath. I can’t let my anger get the best of me. Hayley needs me right now, and I need to honor and respect that. I can’t fly off the handle.

  “She’s on the third floor. Room seven on your right.”

  I’m running before she even finishes talking. I run through the corridors, through automatic doors just trying desperately to get to Hayley.

  I find the room and peer in the window. There are doctors and nurses everywhere. I open the door. “Hayley!” I yell out.

  “Ryan,” she says. She sounds like she’s been crying. Her voice is hoarse. I move around the doctors and see her. There are wires going in and out of her body. “The baby’s coming already.”

  I feel my stomach drop through my feet. “No, there’s no way. That can’t happen. It’s too soon. It’s entirely too soon.”

  “Sir,” says a nurse. “I’m going to need you to move. We’re taking her in for surgery.”

  “Surgery?” I ask. “Can’t you slow down the baby?”

  The doctor speaks up from his clipboard. “We tried that all night. This baby wants to come out now. The odds of survival at close to seven months are good. We just need to make this happen sooner rather than later for the safety of both the baby and your wife.”