Rock On

by Cheryl Douglas

  “Yeah, sure, that’d be great! Thanks, Spencer.”

  My heart twisted at the affection I was already developing for this kid. He was grateful for everything little thing someone did for him and never took anything for granted. I loved that about him.

  As he handed over a fine-tipped black marker, I thought about what I could say that would accurately convey what I was feeling. In the end, I opted for, “I see something special in you, Chris. Don’t ever lose that spark. Spencer MacKay.” I added my old number, twelve, the number they’d retired when I did.

  He smiled at the message, cocking his head to one side. “You really see something special in me… as a soccer player?”

  I’d meant what I told him before, it was a little too soon to tell whether he would go the distance in soccer, but I wanted him to know there were more important achievements in life than excelling in sports.

  I sat down on the edge of his bed, facing him. This was important, and I wanted to get it right. “I see something special in you as a person, Chris.” I smiled. “The fact that you’re a good soccer player is just a bonus.”

  I could tell he was embarrassed and humbled by my praise. I had to keep reminding myself this kid felt he’d known me long before I knew him. I saw books that had been written about me lining his shelves, a model of me sitting on his nightstand. I wasn’t the only player he idolized, which was obvious from his collection, but I sure as hell was honored to be counted among his favorites.

  “My old man gave me a piece of advice when I was just about your age,” I said, watching him to make sure he was grasping my message. “It came after I didn’t make this team that I’d tried out for—”

  “You didn’t make a team?” he asked, jaw dropping. “Seriously? How is that even possible?”

  I laughed. “There were a few teams I didn’t make, buddy. But I never let it get me down. It meant I had to work harder, to get better, for tryouts the next year.” He nodded like he got it. “My dad told me whether or not I made it big someday, people would eventually forget the kind of player I’d been, but they’d never forget the kind of man I’d been.”

  He smiled, shaking his head slowly. “Is that why you do all that charity stuff, to make your dad proud?”

  I chuckled. “No, I do it because it makes me feel good. Same reason I decided to start the academy. I’d had a lot of good coaches along the way who’d made a big impact on me. I wanted to be someone who made an impact on the kids in my academy.”

  “How come you never coached a pro team?”

  I’d been asked that question plenty of times over the years. “I figured I could have a bigger impact working with kids.” I loved to win as much as the next guy, but I’d finally reached a point in my life when I knew there were more important things than winning. Like your legacy. That’s what I was trying to build now, a legacy. I was trying to touch as many lives as I could so the kids I worked with wouldn’t just become better soccer players because of their association with me but better people.

  “I know how lucky I am that kids like you look up to me, Chris. And I don’t want to waste that gift. If I’ve gained your respect because you recognize that I’m a good player because I worked my ass off—” I smiled when he laughed at my choice of words. “Don’t tell your mom I said that, okay?”

  He slid his fingers across his lips and pretended he was tossing a key away.

  “I want my players to see that it takes hard work. If you want to be a great player, you have to be willing to work harder than the players who are content to be good. But it’s more than that. When you’re working hard to be great, you’re developing the kind of character and work ethic you’d never have if you settled for good enough.” I didn’t know if this conversation was too deep for a boy his age, but I hoped he’d take something away from it because I knew it was an important life lesson. “Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah, it does.” He grinned, making him look much younger than his pensive expression had. “Thanks, Spencer.”

  “For what?”

  “Taking the time to talk to me like this.” He shrugged. “Ever since my grandpa died, I haven’t really had a guy to talk to like this, so it’s cool. You know, to have you.”

  Those words pierced my heart, but I couldn’t let it show. I had to try and keep it light. Even though I wanted to promise him I’d always be there to give him advice, I couldn’t until his mom filled me in on what had happened with Chris’s dad tonight.

  “Well, you do have me. No matter what happens with me and your mom, I’d like us to be friends.”

  His smile slipped. “Does that mean you don’t think things will work out with you and my mom?”

  “I’d like them to, but no one can predict the future, Chris. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “Do you love her?”

  Jesus, this kid went straight for the jugular. “She’s very important to me.” Telling him I loved her would only give him false hope, and I couldn’t do that to him. He’d already suffered enough loss in his life, and I wouldn’t add to it.

  “That’s not answering my question.”

  I laughed as I stood up. “But that’s all you’re gonna get outta me tonight, man.”

  “Thanks for dinner,” Chris said as I made my way to his bedroom door.

  “My pleasure.” I hesitated with my hand on the doorknob. “I hope there’ll be a lot more of that… all of us just hanging out like that.”

  “Like a real family.”

  Shit. I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Yeah, like a real family.” I looked over my shoulder. “You gonna come out and hang with us?”

  “Nah, Mom lets me play video games for an hour after dinner,” he said, pointing at a small flat-screen TV in the corner of the room. “My nan got me FIFA 17. You wanna play?”

  “Maybe later,” I said, grinning. “I’m not a gamer, so you’d probably kick my as—” I laughed when his eyes sparkled with amusement. “You’d probably kick my butt.”

  “I’d like that,” he said, sitting at the end of his bed as he reached for the remote. “Anytime you wanna have your ass handed to you,” he said, whispering the forbidden word. “Come back and see me.”

  I tried to keep a straight face as I pointed at him. “Okay, we’re even now. I won’t tell your mom you swore if you won’t tell her I did. But we gotta keep it clean from now on, deal?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Sure, Spence, whatever you say.”

  ***

  Hallie

  I was so nervous as I watched Spencer walk out of my son’s room. I knew he’d want answers, but I didn’t know what to say about my interaction with my ex. I was still in shock. After so many years of not seeing the man, for our paths to cross like that… it was unnerving.

  “Hey,” he said, watching me warily. “Chris is playing video games. I thought we could talk for a bit.”

  I nodded, still feeling numb as I took a seat on the cranberry-colored sofa in the small French country living room I’d painstakingly decorated when we moved in. It was our first real home, and I’d scrimped and saved for years so we could afford it, poring over decorating magazines every night after Chris went to bed, imagining what it would look like. But I’d never once imagined Spencer sharing this space with me. That would have been too much to hope for.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened back in that restaurant with your ex?” He was standing still, staring at me, making it tough to breathe.

  “He’s not with her anymore. The woman he left me for.” Shit. Why did I lead with that? The way his jaw ticked as he glared at me, waiting for me to continue, indicated he was asking himself the same question.

  “He said he knows he made a mistake, leaving us the way he did, not having a relationship with our son.” I couldn’t recall his words verbatim when my mind was so scrambled, but I was doing my best. “He, um, wants a chance to make things right, I guess.”

  His eyes narrowed as though he couldn’t believe what he was heari
ng. “He wants a chance to make things right,” he echoed. “I hope you told him to go fuck himself.”

  “I was in shock,” I said, hating that I felt so defensive. I knew Spencer was trying to look out for us, but this was my son, and it had to be my decision. “Of course I let him have it, Spence. I’m not going to let anyone walk all over me.” Message received?

  “So you’re going to see him again?” His tone belied his disbelief, and I had to clench my teeth to keep my thoughts locked up tight while I let him have his say. “You’re actually going to let your son have a relationship with this loser after he abandoned the kid?”

  “I know you care about me—”

  “I more than care about you, Hallie!”

  My heart softened, making me smile. “I don’t want this to cause problems for us. But I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I have to talk to Chris, find out how he feels about having a relationship with his dad.”

  “That guy is not his dad,” he said, curling his hands into fists at his sides. “He’s a fucking sperm donor. A dad is someone who’s there day in and out. That boy has never had a dad. But he could if things work out with us. I could be that influence in his life.”

  I felt like he was giving me an ultimatum, forcing me to choose between having him in my life or my ex. It was a no-brainer. I would have been happy to never see Rob again, but Chris might feel differently, and I had to take his feelings into consideration.

  “If Chris wants a relationship with him, and Rob really has changed—”

  “How the hell do you know he’s changed?” he asked, throwing his hands up in the air. “Because he told you he has? Don’t be so naïve, Hallie. People will say whatever they have to to get what they want. And I saw the way that son of a bitch looked at you. He wants you back.”

  “No, he doesn’t. He just wants a relationship with our son.”

  No, he’s using him to get to you.”

  We stared at each other, in the midst of a stand-off where no one was willing to concede. “How can you know that? You didn’t even exchange two words with the man. I did.”

  “Yeah, well, you were also taken in by him before, so maybe you’re not the best judge of character.”

  He did not just say that, did he? I opened my mouth, prepared to unleash on him. But I quickly snapped it shut, not wanting this to escalate any more than it already had. I needed time alone. To think. And weigh my options.

  “I think you’d better go.” I walked to the door, but he remained standing in the middle of the room, staring at me. “Thank you for dinner. I guess we’ll see you at practice—”

  “That’s it?” he demanded, closing in on me. “You’re really gonna shut me out like that just ‘cause your ex is back in the picture?”

  “Oh my God, that’s not what I’m doing!”

  I cursed the tears filling my eyes. I didn’t want to cry, but he was making it impossible not to. This whole situation was so damn frustrating. I’d thought of this man so many times over the years and never once wished for my ex back, but he was making it sound like I intended to pick up right where I’d left off with Rob, like that would ever happen.

  “Then what are you doing? You tell me!”

  “I don’t want Chris to hear us fighting.” The one good thing about being a single parent was your child never having to witness you going toe to toe with your partner. “Please, let’s just have this conversation another time.”

  “When?”

  “When I’ve had time to process everything.”

  “You mean when you’ve had time to decide whether you’ll take him back?”

  “No.” I sighed, suddenly feeling emotionally and physically exhausted. “He doesn’t want me back. I told you, he just wants a relationship with Chris.”

  “I know what you heard him say. But I know men. And I saw the look in that bastard’s eyes when he looked at you.” He pointed at me. “Not at his son. At you. He wants to do it again.”

  “Do what?” I rubbed my temple, trying to ward off the looming headache. My life had been quiet and simple before, boring even. When had it started to spiral out of control?

  “Take you away from me.”

  “What are you talking about? He never took me away from you. We hadn’t been together for…” Probably not a good idea to let him know Rob and I had started dating six months after he left town. “Awhile when I started seeing Rob. We went to college together and—”

  “You went to college with him?” He eyed me like he was trying to fill in the blanks. “So you knew him when we were together?”

  “We had a couple of classes together. Why? What difference does it make when we met?”

  “Did he know about us? I mean, right after we broke up, did you tell him?”

  I had still been going through a rough time when I’d returned to school that fall, so when Rob had asked me out for coffee a week in, I told him I was still reeling from a bad breakup. He said he was cool with that, we could just be friends. And we were. For six months. Then one night our friendship evolved… into a kiss… then a few dates… and sex late one night in his dorm room.

  But I didn’t want to share any of that with Spencer. And I didn’t want him to tell me about the women he’d been with the year we broke up. Some things were better left unsaid.

  “I don’t know why you’re questioning me like this.” I closed my eyes, praying for patience. I was getting fed up with his interrogation. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and I didn’t appreciate him treating me as though I had.

  “I’m trying to figure out how he managed to get you to forget me like that,” he said, snapping his fingers in front of my face. “And how he plans to do it again.”

  The damn tears fell freely now. There was nothing I could do to stop them even if I wanted to. “I didn’t forget you,” I whispered. “I never forgot you. But I had to get on with my life, didn’t I? I couldn’t spend the rest of my life loving a man I could never have.”

  “Your feelings for him,” he said, spitting the words out. “How did they compare to your feelings for me?”

  “You can’t ask me to answer that.” I’d never loved another man the way I loved Spencer, but Rob was the father of my child. There was a time when I’d loved him too. “And I would never ask you if you’ve loved another woman more—”

  “I’ve never loved anyone else.”

  I saw the flash of pain in his eyes, and I hated knowing I was the cause, but I couldn’t change the past. I couldn’t reroute my life to avoid the twists and turns I’d taken, or even the pitfalls. They had made me who I was. A woman Spencer still claimed to care about.

  “Am I supposed to feel guilty?” I asked, laying my hand against my chest. “Am I supposed to feel bad that I got married and had a child when you didn’t? You wished me well when you left me. You told me to be happy. Now you’re trying to begrudge me that?”

  “No!” He sighed as he closed his eyes and tipped his head back. “It’s just…” He shook his head, looking hurt and bitter as his eyes landed on a photo of my son as an infant. “He got to have what I wanted. He got to marry you, to get you pregnant.”

  “But he wasn’t there for me,” I reminded him, curling my hand around his forearm. He tensed under my touch, but I didn’t pull away. “He lied to me and cheated on me. Don’t think I’ll ever forget that. I won’t.”

  “Then if he bothers you again, you’ll tell him you don’t want to see him?”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Because that has to be Chris’s decision.”

  I’d promised myself if Rob ever reached out to his son, I would allow Chris to decide for himself whether he wanted to develop a relationship with him. It seemed like the right thing to do, especially if I didn’t want my kid to resent me because I’d taken something from him I had no right to take.

  “You’re his mother. The person who’s raised him, been there for him every goddamn day of his life. Thi
s is your decision. That motherfucking sperm donor has no rights. Why can’t you see that?”

  Spencer had always been a bit of a hothead, passionate in his beliefs, but I was equally as passionate, and I wasn’t going to let him make this decision for me. Not with so much at stake.

  “I told you I need time to think.” I opened the door, gesturing for him to walk through. “Please, give me that.”

  “The last time I gave you time, you decided you were done with me. Is that what’s going to happen again?”

  Ouch. He clearly hadn’t forgiven me for not going to England with him. Maybe he never would. Maybe we were destined to live in the past, to reopen old wounds every time we fought.

  “Good-bye, Spencer.”

  He shook his head, the disgust written all over his handsome face. “You still don’t get it, do you? How much you mean to me?”

  He was the one who didn’t get it if he thought I would ever give up a chance with him for my ex. “We both have a lot to think about, I guess.” I closed the door as soon as he stepped through it, laying my head against the wood.

  “You okay, Mom?”

  I turned to see Chris standing in the hallway, his face twisted in sadness and confusion.

  I went to him, opening my arms for a hug. “I’m fine, sweetie.”

  “You and Spencer were arguing. I heard you. It wasn’t about me, was it?”

  “Come here,” I said, guiding him to the sofa. “You know how I went outside to talk to an old friend at the restaurant tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, he wasn’t a friend exactly. It was your dad.”

  The color drained from his face as he shook his bangs out of his eyes. “What was he doing there? Did you know he’d be there?”

  “No, of course not.” Now Spencer wasn’t the only one accusing me. My own son was too. “I was shocked to see him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he wanted a chance to get to know you.”

  He looked down, breaking my heart when I saw tears flood his eyes. “A little too late for that, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said gently, covering my hand with his. “You tell me. Is it too late for you to get to know your dad? Is that something you might want to do?”