It’s as much of a mental game as it is a physical game. And there are many components to the mental aspect of it.
I’m tough though, I know that. Tough physically, but tougher mentally.
Today we’re supposed to be just resting and bonding with the team, hanging out together, but not drinking, at least not too much. Myself, I stay sober at least a week before the game, and that means not a drop of alcohol, as well as clean diet. The all natural food, including plenty of protein, makes me function better.
Chloe’s supposed to be bringing her daughter into the city today, and they’re going to be straying with me at my somewhat empty suburban house, despite how boring it is.
“Dan!” shouts Coach, during our meeting to go over the plays. “You going to keep checking your phone all day or are you going to listen to me for once?”
“Sorry Coach,” I say, putting my phone away.
Chloe didn’t call yet. Only a couple more hours to go until she gets here. She did send a text message saying she’s on her way.
“Get your damn head in the game,” shouts Coach at me.
But it doesn’t matter. He’s always shouting at everyone.
My mind isn’t on the game though, even though it should be. Instead, it’s on Chloe. I just can’t get her body out of my head. I can’t get the way she looked on the computer screen out of my head as I stroked my cock to her. She made me come so hard, and so fast, even though I was trying to go slowly.
Of course, in person, I can last longer.
Finally, the lecture is over, and Coach shuts down the projector that’s been displaying plays on the wall. I already have them memorized by heart anyway.
My cock’s partially hard from thinking about Chloe and all the things I’m going to do to her, so I stay seated for a minute.
“What’s the word, Dan?” says Jim, one of my teammates, and probably the guy I’m closest to on the team. Although I’m not one for having close male friends. That’s just how I am. Sort of a lone wolf, I guess, by nature. It wasn’t always like that. Back in college, I had a ton of friends, and we’d party and all that. But something changed, especially after college, and I’ve been going the solo route… with just woman after woman, that is until I reconnected with Chloe, of course. “You there, Dan, man?”
“Yeah,” I grunt. “Same as always, I guess,” I say. “You ready for the game?”
“Don’t try to front with me,” says Jim. “Front” is a big Philly expression that we all use from time to time, meaning “don’t put on an act.” “You seem different, like you’re distracted or something.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say.
“Well, it does matter,” says Jim. “If it’s going to be messing with your playing. Shit, man, this is one of the most important games of the season.”
“I know, I know,” I say.
“What is it, Dan?”
“A woman,” I say.
To my surprise, Jim starts laughing, a deep laugh that echoes all around us. The rest of the room is cleared out now. Even Coach has packed up his presentation gear and left to brood over plays in his office.
“You’re getting all hung up on some woman?” says Jim, barely able to speak from his laughter. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
“It’s not like that,” I say. “She’s someone special…”
“I bet she is, Dan,” says Jim, getting up and continuing to laugh as he walks out of the room. He’s actually holding his stomach because he’s laughing so hard. “Get this, guy,” he calls at some of the other players. “Dan’s all hung up about some chick…”
I hear their laughter and I frown to myself as I get up and head into the hallway, keeping my distance from them so that I don’t have to confront them.
I head home, and on the way I give Chloe a call.
“You close yet?” I say.
“We’re already here,” she says, her voice sounding nervous.
“You sound nervous,” I say.
“I’m OK,” she says. “I guess we just beat the traffic and I wasn’t expecting to get here so soon.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I should have left a key out or something for you. I just didn’t realize you’d be here so soon.”
“It’s OK,” says Chloe. “I’ll see you soon, OK? Scout’s really looking forward to meet you.”
It sounds like she swallows hard as she says this and I wonder why. Maybe she’s just nervous about her daughter meeting a new boyfriend.
Then again, am I her new boyfriend? We haven’t’ talked about anything like that really, but in the back of my mind that’s now what I’ve been hoping for. Hell, I haven’t had a girlfriend, since… Who knows when. I don’t know if I’ve ever really had one. I’ve had women that were friend with benefits for as long as a month, but usually things just didn’t work out that way.
“Tell her I’m looking forward to meeting her,” I say. “I’ll see you both soon.”
I don’t want to keep them waiting for long, and I figure that Chloe’s daughter is probably hungry, so I put my foot to the gas and merge into traffic on the highway.
My phone rings and I pick it up without looking at it, thinking that it might be Chloe.
“You resting tonight?” says Coach’s gruff voice.
“Sure thing, Coach,” I say, not really paying much attention. After all, I’ve got to pay attention to the road.
“I heard some talk about you and some woman.”
“That’s my private business, Coach,” I say, a little bit of anger rising into my tone. After all, what’s it his business if I’m going out with Chloe.
“Just don’t want anything to distract you from the game tomorrow,” says Coach, a bit of a threat in his voice.
“Don’t worry yourself too much about it,” I say, knowing this is going to sound pretty insubordinate and not caring in the least bit. “I want you getting plenty of sleep before the big game.”
With that, I hang up the phone.
I laugh to myself. That’ll show him to mess with me.
My phone rings again and I check it and it’s Coach. I can picture him red in the face over me hanging up.
I swipe right, answering the phone, but I don’t bother holding it up to my ear.
I can hear him screaming at me from where the phone is on the passenger’s seat.
Whatever. I hang up the phone. It rings again but I hit “ignore.”
That’ll show him. What’s he going to do, anyway? He knows he can’t run the team without me. Yeah, I know it sounds cocky, but I really am indispensable.
I pull into the driveway and see Chloe and her daughter sitting on the front stop.
My heart feels like it’s rising in my chest.
I jump out of the car in my workout clothes, probably smelly as hell, because I did run a few laps today even though we’re not supposed to be doing anything physical.
My phone beeps at me, and I look down. A text from Coach that reads, “At the very least, no sex tonight.”
I laugh that one off. He can’t run my life, no matter how much he tells us “no sex before a game,” I’m sure almost no one follows that rule. After all, football players in general get as much ass as they want.
“Hey there!” I yell out, waving at them.
Chloe gets to her feet, a smile on her face. Her daughter is about five years old, looking like she’s in in kindergarten. She looks up at me briefly, then looks down at the ground. She looks nervous and holds her mother’s hand.
“Hey there,” I say to her. I give Chloe a kiss on the cheek and bend down on one knee to say hi to her daughter. “You must be Scout. Your mom’s told me a lot about you. I’m Dan. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” says Scout, finally looking up at me a little.
She’s a cute kid, especially when she smiles. She’s got her mother’s eyes and mother’s hair. There’s something very, very familiar about her. It’s almost like that feeling you get when you meet someone again that y
ou haven’t seen for a long, long time and you don’t recognize them at first.
“It’s so nice of you to host us,” says Chloe, giving me a hug as I stand up. “Scout’s never been to Philadelphia before.”
“That so?” I say, winking at Scout, who looks down shyly at the ground again. “Well, we’re technically inside the city limits right now, although most people would call this the suburbs. But we can be sure to take you two girls into the city tonight to a nice restaurant, and maybe we can even see the Liberty Bell. Have you heard of that, Scout?”
Scout nods her head. “In school,” she says, her voice quiet and shy.
“Well I’m being a bad host already,” I say, trying to play the part of the good host. “I haven’t even let you in the house yet. Where are your bags?”
Chloe shows me where the bags are in the car and I haul them all in, unlocking the door and letting Chloe and Scout enter first.
Chloe
Dan gives us a tour of his house. It’s a nice place, but it’s not very lived in, and I get the sense that he really hasn’t spent much time her at all.
“Yeah,” says Dan. “I don’t spend a ton of time here, actually.”
“Why not?” says Scout. She seemed shy at first, but as we walk through Dan’s house, she gets more and more comfortable with him.
“Well,” says Dan. “I’m on the road a lot for work. They have us traveling all over the place.”
“Why’s that?” says Scout.
“Here she goes with the questions,” I say. In reality, of course, I try to encourage Scout’s many questions, but with people she’s just met, I try to tell her to tone it down just a little, since like all inquisitive kids, she can be a little overwhelming for some people. But Dan seems like he’s really good with kids, although I do get the sense that he hasn’t spent a ton of time around them.
“We have to play different teams from all over the country,” says Dan.
“Cool,” says Scout. “Who are you playing tomorrow?”
“I told you,” I say.
“One of the new California teams,” says Dan. “Here you go Scout, this is your room while you stay here.”
“Wow,” says Scout, entering the room.
Dan’s done his best to make the bed, although I can tell he doesn’t really know what he’s doing.
“It’s a huge bed!” says Scout, who’s used to her twin bed. This one, though, is a king sized bed.
“That looks like a lot of fun for you, Scout,” I say. “I think you’ll sleep really well.”
“And here’s a room for you, Chloe,” says Dan, giving me a wink that Scout can’t see.
He shows me to another room.
“It’s nice,” I say, smiling at him. I know as well as he does that I won’t be sleeping there, but I do appreciate the extra touch of him pretending that I have my own room, for Scout’s sake of course. Of course, Scout wouldn’t care either way, but I understand that Dan wouldn’t know that.
The two of them look so similar in some ways that it’s almost uncanny. Sure, I’ve noticed the resemblance before, but I’ve never seen them standing together in the same room before, where their features really seem almost identical in some ways.
I feel a pang in my heart. I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do about this, about telling them. Dan’s the one I worry about, of course. I’m sure Scout would be delighted to have a father, provided I tell him, that is.
But I feel like a horrible person, a complete fraud, staying in Dan’s house like this without telling him the truth.
How can I go through with this?
I resolve right here and now that I’m going to tell Dan before we leave. I have to. I simply have to. There’s no other way, and it’s the right thing to do. But just because it’s the right thing doesn’t mean it’s any easier for me to get my head around, for me to stomach.
Dan puts my bags in “my” room, and then shows us the rest of his house, including his room, which, like the rest of his house, has almost nothing in it.
I catch myself wondering how I would spruce up the house if I were to live here with Dan and Scout.
But that could never work, right? After all, I have my own business hours away. How could it really work out between us?
But as I look at Dan and his body, the warm feeling comes back into my chest, and I push the thoughts to the back of my mind.
“Well,” says Dan. “I can make you two gals something here in the house for dinner, or we could go out to eat.”
“Out!” says Scout, almost jumping up and down in excitement.
“You’d think she wasn’t well fed or something,” I say.
“Sounds like out is going to work well,” says Dan, smiling. “What do you want to eat, Scout?”
“Pizza!” says Scout.
“I think your friends in school told you that the Philly pizza is really good, right?”
Scout nods.
“Let’s head into the city then,” says Dan. “Anyway, I’m not much of a cook.”
“We’ll have to work on that,” I say, not quite sure myself what I mean by that.
Dan gives me a quizzical look but doesn’t say anything.
I guess it sounds like I’m implying I’m going to try to turn him into a husband or something.
“Honestly,” I say, as we all pile into Dan’s car, a nice SUV. “I figured that all you football players were living in mansions or something. I mean your place is nice, don’t get me wrong, but…”
“You were expecting something fancier?” says Dan, chuckling, as he puts the car in reverse and drives backwards out of the suburban driveway.
“What’s a mansion?” says Scout.
“A really, really big fancy house, honey,” I say. “A lot of wealthy people and famous people have them.”
“Only the famous people who aren’t good with their money,” says Dan. “Frankly, I never saw the need, and I don’t spend much time here, as you can see. I have another apartment in the city, one that I just never wanted to get rid of. I mean, people are always telling me real estate is a good investment, but that’s really only if you buy something sensible. Mansions depreciate just like cars.”
“I never would have pegged you for being good with money,” I say.
Dan acts surprised and offended and I laugh.
He drives us through the city. We head along the Schuylkill River, and he points out the art museum that looms on the shore.
“What a cool old building, right, Scout?” I say, and she’s pretty impressed. We don’t have buildings like that, huge stone edifices, in our home town.
“That’s where Rocky ran up the steps,” says Dan.
“I can’t believe I’ve never seen it,” I say.
“You didn’t have a chance to get into the city much?”
“Not with Dad, and then Scout,” I say. “And now that I’ve got my own business, well, let’s just say I’m lucky to be able to steal away today to come here.”
Dan drives us through Center City, which is really crowded, meanwhile pointing out all the different sights. I’m feeling sleepy and the sky is already dark, but Scout is completed fixated on the sites.
We continue on over to South Street, a hip kind of street, with all sorts of funky little stores and all sorts of characters walking around that are enough to keep Scout amused for hours, provided I can stay awake that long, of course. I had a client this morning who wanted a double session, so it was an unusually busy and tough day for me, especially considering the drive took us an extra hour with the traffic. (Yeah, I left really early, since I was anxious about meeting Dan on time.)
“There’s a really good pizza place on the corner up here,” says Dan, pulling up alongside a car and then backing up, executing a perfect parallel park.
“I could never do that,” I say.
“It’s easy,” says Dan. “You’re just not used to it.”
Scout wants to order five slices just for herself, with all sorts of different
toppings, which is a little ambitious for a child of her size and stature, so Dan and I agree to just order a large pizza that we can all share.
“This is really good,” I say, taking my first bite.
Scout’s already got her mouth full of a slice of peperoni, sausage, and peppers, a look of complete contentment on her face.
“This is good,” says Dan. “I’ve got to carbo load for the big game.”
“They tell you to eat pizza?” I say, laughing. “I thought they’d want you to choose something healthier.”
Dan shrugs. “They can tell us what they want,” says Dan. “But we know what works, and that’s basically just calories.”
I laugh.
The rest of the cold crisp evening we spend walking around South Street. Scout hasn’t been anywhere like this before, and I figure it’s a good part of her education to see different things. She hasn’t ever seen the types of characters that hand around South Street, the artists, the punks, and the street musicians who completely captivate her. I give her a couple quarters to drop into the cup of a guy who sings and plays piano at the same time, with, for some reason, a blindfold carefully wrapped around his eyes.
“Well,” says Dan. “There’s just one more thing I wanted to show you girls, and then we can get going back home. I’ve got to wake up early tomorrow. And, don’t worry, the seats are all set for you. The tickets are at home.”
He takes us down a little alley and the strangest sort of building that I’ve ever seen is at the end of it. It’s a building that’s not a building at all, but more like a living piece of art, a structure made completely out of old glass bottles, tires, and all sorts of things that we would normally consider trash.
Running Back's Baby: A Secret Baby Romance Page 13