Quarterback's Secret Baby (Bad Boy Ballers)

by Imani King

  My dad had a sandwich with him. He set the plate down on my bedside table and then sat down in the chair in front of my desk, looking at me.

  "Son, we've left you alone for two days. You've missed school and football. I think it might be time to talk, don't you?"

  I didn't want to talk. Not because I thought my parents didn't care - I knew for a fact they did - but because I knew they wouldn't be able to help. Would they be able to somehow get Natasha to hear me out? Would they be able to get her back for me? No. And nothing else mattered. I also knew they would try and do that thing where older people romanticize the suffering of young people, try to write it off as puppy love or a learning experience or something like that. And I was pretty sure I was going to lose my shit if someone tried that on me when I was in that state of mind.

  Still, my dad deserved an answer. He hadn't done anything wrong.

  I looked over at the sandwich. "Is that soppressata?"

  "Yes, it is. Your mother drove to the city to get it - she knows it's your favorite."

  I almost started fucking crying again at that damned sandwich. I mean, I didn't, but it almost happened. My emotions were all over the place and that in itself made me feel even more like a freak, like someone who wasn't me.

  "Well, thanks for that," I said, picking up the sandwich and taking a bite. I should have been starving but the flavors were just dull in my mouth. I didn't take a second bite. I looked up at my dad.

  "I fucked up."

  "Yeah, we assumed as much. Now, don't get angry, but we called the school. We called your coach. No one has any idea what's going on with you. The police haven't called, either, so I assume you haven't done anything illegal. What is it, Kaden? Your mother is worried sick."

  My head felt heavy on my shoulders. My body felt weak. I was going to sound like the world's biggest pussy if I told my dad what was really going on. But what choice did I have?

  "I fucked up with Tasha. I got drunk at prom and some girl kissed me and Tasha saw it. Now she won't speak to me."

  To his credit, my father took what I told him seriously. He ran his hand over his chin and nodded.

  "Yeah, I figured it might be something like that. At least after we talked to the people at school. You got drunk at your prom? Hm. I suppose I'll leave the question about where you guys got alcohol for some other time. And Tasha caught you kissing another girl? Is that it?"

  "I wasn't kissing her!" I burst out. "Jesus! No one will believe this! Dad, can you just listen for a minute? Without interrupting? Just one minute?"

  "Sure, son. Not a problem."

  "OK. I was drunk. Not just a little drunk - I was really, really drunk. I was supposed to meet Tasha in the gym but time got away from me because - yeah, because of the drinking. Anyway, this girl Kelsey Richards has been into me for a long time. She came up behind me and started grabbing me. I thought it was Tasha - I thought she'd come to find me when I didn't meet her in the gym. So, yeah, I turned around and started kissing Kelsey, but only because I thought she was Tasha! And as soon as I realized it wasn't her - which was, like, five seconds or something like that - I stopped. And dad, I wasn't even tempted, I was grossed out. I was really pissed at Kelsey, too, but then Steve Carlson started going all white knight and I was so wasted anyway that I just wandered off to who knows where. Aaron Sokolsky took me home and I spent the night there and then, well, Tasha just stopped talking to me. She's totally ignored all my messages, e-mails, calls - all of it. She's avoiding me at school. So I can't even explain myself! And it's driving me fucking crazy!"

  I sat back a little on my bed, breathing quickly because telling my dad the story had just brought it all up again, all of the unfairness and anger and hurt.

  "So this all happened at prom?" My dad asked. "What happened two days ago? Why have you been in your room for forty-eight hours now when prom was days ago?"

  Shit. I was going to have to explain the rest of it, too. I looked down at the comforter on the bed and sighed.

  "Because I went to her house to try and talk to her - what else was I supposed to do?"

  "You went to her house, OK. And what happened at her house?"

  My dad wasn't stupid. He knew there was more to it.

  "I went to her house and got into a fight with her brother," I said, so quietly my father had to lean forward to hear me. "She came home and saw it and she just, she started screaming at me to leave her alone. So I left. Drove back here and that's why I've been in my room for two days."

  "Alright," my dad said. His voice was calm. "Alright, son. I see. I mean, I assume I don't need to tell you that you messed up, right? You messed up getting drunk at prom but that was fixable. Going to her house and getting into a fight with her brother - that wasn't the best idea you've ever had."

  "I know that, dad." I sighed, lying back on the bed. We talked for a little longer and my dad basically told me to get over myself - that two days moping was enough and that I had to get back to classes and football practice. He was right, that was clear enough, so that's what I did. But it was hard. Harder than I thought it would be. Doing drills with my teammates felt different, like I had weights tied to my back. I dragged, physically and mentally. During our next game I threw a few balls that totally missed the receiver - one of them even landing in the crowd. It was the first time in my life I felt the truth of the saying 'off his game.'

  Chapter 16: Natasha

  I'm not sure things got easier as the days passed, and then a week, then two weeks. It just seemed that I got used to the dark cloud that seemed to be hovering over me constantly. Things needed to be done, though, I had responsibilities - to myself, to my family and to my wonderful friends, none of whom wavered in their support, never once threw up their hands in frustration and told me to just get over it. And I didn't really have a choice but to believe everyone when they said that the sadness would pass. It had to be true.

  I got a new job after graduation, a full-time administrative assistant position at the family law office in Little Falls. It was more than I'd hoped for as a brand new high school grad with no college and no current plans for college, and it paid a lot better than the other part-time service industry jobs I'd worked. It also allowed me to increase my contribution to the family. The hours were regular nine-to-five which meant I could get home in time to fix dinner. Alisha and I shared that responsibility, depending on Rosa's daycare schedule. I started to teach CeeCee a few basic dishes and she took on a few more chores when she wasn't swamped with homework. When Ray was home he helped out, too, but he wasn't usually home until after ten p.m.

  One night, after everyone else was in bed, Ray came home from work and found me sitting in the darkened kitchen. At first, he thought something was wrong.

  "Hey, Tash. Why are you sitting here in the dark? Bad day?"

  "No, not at all," I replied. "Actually, I was just thinking that things are getting better for us, aren't they? I mean, we're taking care of things, we're on top of things, right? As a family? I really lucked out getting a job at the law office."

  "I don't know about luck," Ray said, taking his dinner out of the fridge and putting it in the microwave. "You're smart as hell, Tash. Smarter than all your classmates going off to college. I think that law firm probably lucked out in getting you."

  I smiled as Ray sat down across from me and tucked into his dinner.

  "Actually," he said, in between mouthfuls, "I wanted to talk to you about that. You've really taken the weight off my shoulders with that job, you know? It's been so goddamned stressful this past year or two. You and CeeCee were in school, Alisha has to look after Rosa and then mom getting so sick - sometimes it felt like the financial survival of this family was almost entirely on my shoulders. And I know everyone contributes, I'm not trying to make it sound like I was the only one doing anything. I just - yeah, I wanted to say thank-you. You could have left us here, you know. Sometimes I think you should have. But then-"

  "What?" I asked, cutting in. "What do you mean some
times you think I should have?"

  "Oh," Ray waved his hand, "I just mean sometimes I think it would have been better for you to just leave us behind, go to college, build yourself a life. But I don't really think that, and I don't think you do, either. Do you?"

  I thought about it for a few minutes. "No, I don't. I thought about it, though. A lot of people told me I was crazy to stay. But any one of us would have stayed, wouldn't we? We're family. That's the highest priority for me. And as everyone keeps saying, there's nothing stopping me from going to college later, is there?"

  Ray shook his head. "Nope."

  I went to bed that night with a strange feeling in my heart. Pride at playing my own part in supporting my family combined with the nagging worry that maybe those people who had told me to leave had, in some ways anyway, been right. My alarm clock was set for six-thirty the next morning. I wondered what my friends' alarm clocks were set for, in their college dorms. Would they go to classes the next day? Hang out with each other in grassy quads, surrounded by ivy-covered stone buildings and talking about philosophy and poetry instead of bills and grocery lists? Would they come home in the evening only to get dressed up again, to go to one of the endless parties that TV and movies had told me college was about? Were they meeting new people, new and interesting men from different places, with different ideas? I rolled over and faced the wall. Envy wasn't going to get me anywhere. The grass is always greener. I had a family - a loving, functional, super-tight family. A lot of those college kids couldn't say the same.

  After work the next day I had to stop off at the pharmacy to pick up some cough medicine for Rosa, who had picked up a bit of a cold. It was summer and the pharmacy - the only one in Little Falls - never had got around to installing air conditioning, so it was very warm inside. I could feel sweat starting to trickle down my back underneath my white work blouse. I needed a shower. Work mostly consisted of sitting in front of a computer and answering phone calls but somehow, at the end of every day, I always felt unpleasantly sticky.

  I was rooting through my purse for my phone so I could call Alisha and tell her I was going to be a few minutes late when I heard a male voice speak, right in front of me.

  "Tasha."

  I knew it was him before I even looked up - that surprisingly deep voice was hard to miss. I didn't run away, either. The heat in the pharmacy and the monotony of answering phone calls all afternoon had combined to put me in a kind of torpor.

  "Kaden."

  He was wearing a Reinhardt High t-shirt and the gray sweatpants they always wore for training sessions. And he still looked so, so damn good. I turned my eyes away, angry at my own body for reacting the way it was.

  "I didn't kiss Kelsey Richards," he blurted, obviously aware that I wasn't going to give him the time to do anything else. "I didn't know it was her. She grabbed me from behind and I thought it was you. When I realized it wasn't - and that was within seconds - I stopped. I was pissed at her. Steve Carlson almost got into a fight with me because he thought I was being an asshole about it. I shouldn't have gotten so drunk, I know that. That was my fault. But-"

  "Hold on," I said slowly, holding my hand up as my brain tried to absorb what Kaden had just said. "Hold on, Kaden."

  He stopped talking abruptly and just looked at me. I took a step away from him and pressed my fingertips against my forehead, confused. Was he bullshitting? None of my anger had dissipated - seeing Kaden so suddenly had just brought it all back up to the surface, where it bubbled away as hot as ever. But...what if he was telling the truth? He couldn't be, could he?

  "What?" I said, mainly as a stalling tactic. "What, Kaden? I saw you. I saw you. Lena saw you. And why would you think Kelsey was me when I was in the gym with-"

  "What did you see?" Kaden broke in before I could finish.

  "You!" I told him, my voice rising slightly. "I saw you grabbing her ass! I saw you kissing her!"

  "I know, Tasha. But, I mean, what else did you see? Where was she when I grabbed her?"

  I closed my eyes. What he was saying, if he was telling the truth (and as far as I was concerned that was a pretty big 'if'), did make sense.

  "She came up behind you and started hugging on you," I said, speaking slowly because there was a maelstrom going on in my mind. "Then you reached down and grabbed her ass and-"

  "I reached down behind me, right?"

  "Yes, you reached down behind you. Then you turned around and started to kiss her."

  "Right," Kaden said, matter-of-factly. "I turned around and kissed her. And do you know what happened then? I had my eyes closed. I was fucking wasted. But I tasted cigarettes and then I realized it wasn't you and I stopped. I didn't want to go on, either, Tasha. It wasn't like I was so turned on that I had to force myself to stop. I was completely grossed out. I got pissed at Kelsey and that's when Steve started acting like a dick and I left."

  I didn't know what to say. Was he telling the truth? He could have been. How was I supposed to know? He also could have been lying.

  "What the hell, Tasha?" Kaden demanded, reading my mind. "You think I'm lying? You think what happened that afternoon meant nothing to me? Did I ever do anything to make you think I wasn't totally into you? Did I ever say anything to make you think it was just a casual thing for me?"

  He was angry. Just as someone would be if they'd been caught in a situation that on first glance looked awful and then on closer reflection turned out to be completely innocent. But by that point, I'd had weeks to stew in my own sense of betrayal and resentment. There was also Kaden's reputation to think about and let's put it this way - when it came to women, his rep was about as far away from 'faithful boyfriend' as it was possible to get.

  "I need some time to think about this," I told him, slinging my bag over my shoulder. "I can't just - I don't know what you want me to say right now."

  "I want you to fucking say sorry!" Kaden yelled, loud enough to attract a glance from a woman who was perusing the dental health section a few feet away from us.

  "You want me to say sorry?" I asked, baffled. "For what? What did I do? What would you have thought, if you were me? Do you think this has been fun for me or something, Kaden? Because it hasn't. It's been really awful. And I'm just not sure I owe you an apology at all. You said you'd come back to the gym to meet up with me. And instead, you went off and got wasted with your football bros. Is that my fault?"

  "No! No, Tasha, that is not your fault! And I'm sorry for that, believe me. I think I'm sorrier for that than I've ever been for anything in my life! But goddamn. You really treated me like a piece of shit. Your friends couldn't even walk by me without glaring at me like I was the worst person in the world. Your brother - probably your whole family - hates my guts. That didn't feel too wonderful, either, you know."

  I took a deep breath and looked up into Kaden's blue eyes. It was difficult to do that. Difficult to shove away the memories of how those eyes had looked when he was inside me. But I did it. "Listen," I said. "I've got to get home. Rosa is sick and I have her medicine. Dinner needs to be prepared. If you want I'll meet you tomorrow - or, actually, it's probably going to have to be in a couple of days. I'm really busy."

  "OK," he replied, visibly trying to calm himself down. "Fine. Yeah, I think we should talk. I didn't - Tasha, I didn't mean to yell. I just - I've missed you so much. And I couldn't talk to you. You ignored all my texts and all my calls. And it fucking hurt, OK? It hurt. So if I seem worked up it's because I am. But that doesn't mean I don't understand why you reacted the way you did. So yeah. Let's talk in a couple of days. Will you answer if I call you?"

  "Yes," I said, steeling myself to walk away because despite all my anger and all my pain I didn't actually want to walk away from him. What I wanted was to throw myself into his arms, bury my face in his broad, warm chest and cry my eyes out while he held me. But that wasn't something I could let myself do. I needed to think about what he'd said. I needed to try and get a handle on what I felt before I did something impulsive and st
upid. "Yes, I'll reply."

  "OK, then. Good."

  Kaden wanted to hug me. I saw him take an almost imperceptible step towards me and then stop himself.

  "Do you want a ride home?" He asked.

  "Nope, it's only a short walk. I'm fine."

  So we parted and I started on my way home, stopping a few times to shake my head and try to get a handle on the emotions swirling around inside me. What if he was telling the truth? What if it had just been an innocent mistake on his part? Had I just spent the past few weeks treating the only man I'd ever had feelings for like shit for nothing? The thought alone was enough to make my eyes sting and a lump rise up in my throat. What if he didn't deserve any of it? Then I remembered the fight with Ray, the way Kaden's face had looked, so defeated and hurt. Jesus.

  I kept going back and forth. Flooded with remorse one minute but hardened and cynical the next. Because of course he was going to say it was all a mistake, right? When I walked into the house Alisha was downstairs in the living room, playing with Rosa. She knew something was up as soon as she saw me and sure enough, it all came tumbling out as we fixed dinner together.

  "What do you think?" I asked her, finally, after I'd told her everything Kaden had said to me in the pharmacy. I think part of me wanted her to tell me it was all obviously lies, just another spoiled, promiscuous jock who couldn't keep it in his pants, that I was better off without him etc. etc. That would have made it easy, in a way. It also would have lessened my own guilt, if it was true that Kaden hadn't cheated on me.

  "I don't know, Tasha," Alisha replied, choosing her words carefully. "I mean, he could be telling the truth, right? You saw that other girl come up behind him - it doesn't seem too far-fetched that he would assume it was you - that you'd come to find him - does it?"

  I shrugged and shook my head. "I don't know. That's the whole problem - I just don't know."

  "Did he seem like the type?" Alisha asked. "I mean, a lot of the time you just get a feeling from a guy, you know? You can just tell they're dogs sometimes."