by Lane Hart
“Are you seriously crushing on him?” Hunter asks. “Cause that’s gross, Sam. He’s an old man.”
“He’s not an old man. He’s only twenty-nine,” I say and then catch my slip. “I mean, he’s probably only twenty-eight or twenty-nine.”
“That’s a whole decade older than you, not to mention the fact that you’re still in high school,” Hunter counters.
“Only because my parents moved here too late for me to go to kindergarten. I’m nineteen; I should’ve graduated last year,” I remind him.
“Yeah well, you didn’t, so you’re still a high school student,” he argues. “Just be careful around him, Sam. I don’t want him forcing himself on you or whatever.”
“He wouldn’t force himself on me,” I reply with a snort.
Believe me, I’ve pulled his cock out of his pants every night for the past week; and other than the occasional blowjob, Grant keeps turning me down.
I have a feeling that I won’t have any luck with him tonight either.
Chapter Sixteen
Sam
“What the fuck, Sam!” Grant yells at me as soon as I walk into his house later that night. He’s standing in the middle of his living room, pacing. “You’re in high school? High fucking school? Are you kidding me? How could you lie to me about that?” he asks, coming to a stop a foot away from me.
“I didn’t technically lie,” I respond when nothing else pops up as an explanation.
“You lied by omission!” he yells, his face turning an awful shade of red.
“Sorry?” I offer.
“Sorry? Oh, now you’re sorry? Do you have any idea how much shit I could be in?” he asks.
“What do you mean?” I ask hesitantly.
“I’m the athletic trainer for the high school, all team sports! Which means that I’m a part of school personnel, and you are a student!”
“So? I’m nineteen,” I reply with a shrug.
“You’re a student! Age doesn’t fucking matter! What we’ve done…it’s a fucking felony, Sam. A felony! Not only could I lose my license, but I could go to fucking jail!” he shouts, and understanding finally dawns on me.
“Oh,” I mutter, sitting down abruptly on the edge of the sofa cushion. “But we haven’t…you know, slept together.”
“Indecent liberties isn’t sex. It’s everything we’ve done besides kissing,” he explains.
“Don’t worry, Grant. I’m not gonna tell anyone about us,” I assure him.
“You don’t have to. One person, if just one fucking person finds out about us, I’m fucked! If anyone sees you here, I’ll lose everything I’ve worked for my entire life!”
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“Get out,” he orders softly through gritted teeth.
“What?” I ask, jumping to my feet, not with the intention of leaving but in shock at his words. He can’t mean…
“Get out of my house, Sam. And don’t come back here or to my office again,” he says, rubbing the bridge of his nose, underneath his glasses.
“Grant, wait. You can’t just throw me out of your life. I should’ve told you; I know that, but I graduate in just a few weeks. You…you said you were falling in love with me. You have to forgive me!”
“I don’t have to do anything,” he grumbles. “You lied to me, Sam. Not just a little white one either. This is the motherfucker of all lies you’ve thrown at me, and I can’t forgive you for that. Even if I could, we can’t be together!”
“Grant, please –” I start.
“No. I don’t want to hear any more of your bullshit. We’re done,” he says, turning his back to me. “I have my whole goddamn career in front of me, and you’re nothing…you’re nothing but a high school girl, emphasis on girl, who could single-handedly destroy me. I regret the day I fucking met you.”
My jaw falls open, along with a gasp that sounds vaguely like a sob. Maybe it was because tears have sprung up in my eyes and overflowed down my cheeks. I couldn’t respond to his harsh words even if I wanted to since there doesn’t seem to be any oxygen in my burning lungs.
Doing the only thing I know to do, I turn around and run out of his house and down the steps to my car. Gripping the steering wheel to steady my shaking hands, I somehow manage to make it home before I completely fall apart.
Chapter Seventeen
Grant
THE PRESENT
I didn’t think there would ever come a day where I would hurt Sam more than I did the day I found out she was still in high school.
I was wrong.
So fucking wrong.
We have a daughter.
While I was rotting away in a fucking prison cell, Sam was out there, her belly swollen, pregnant with my child, giving birth to her, raising her all alone. I don’t even know what she looks like, my own flesh and blood.
I drop down onto the cement curb in front of the prison and start ripping open Sam’s letters. My heart breaks a little more with each one I read until I’m certain that there’s nothing left of the painful organ.
The letters start out saying the same thing, that she loves me, that she won’t give up on us, that we didn’t do anything wrong and that she’s sorry I’m having to go through this. Then she tells me she just found out she’s pregnant and not to worry about them; that she already loves our baby as much as she loves me.
A few letters later, she tells me how her stomach is growing bigger each day with the proof of our love. There are even a few photos of her standing sideways to show off her small bump that rapidly swells over the next few letters.
And then I find the letter telling me we have a daughter; her name is Adalyn, and she’s healthy and beautiful. There’s a picture of her being weighed when she was born; seven pounds and eleven ounces. Sam no longer tells me she loves me in these letters, but she does say she misses me and wishes I could’ve been there to welcome our daughter into the world.
In the last letter, there are a few more pictures of Adalyn. Her first bath, the first time Sam held her and fed her. Sam no longer says she misses me, only that she and Adalyn are doing fine, the without you part going unsaid.
Imagining my two beautiful girls that I’ve missed all this time with, I can’t help it, it’s too much to take, and I cry like a baby, right there outside of the prison, the occasional visitor passing me by.
“Grant? What the fuck, man? Sorry I’m late, but traffic was shit,” the voice I instantly recognize says. I look up to find my friend, Ben, standing in front of me. He’s the only person other than my attorney and parents that I’ve kept in touch with while I was inside and is my ride home today. We met freshman year of college and have been friends ever since, even after I went on to pursue my physical therapist degree, and he went on to law school. Unfortunately for me when all this went down, Ben only handles personal injury cases, not criminal ones.
“I have a daughter,” I tell my friend, the unexpected words sounding like a foreign language to my ears. “A daughter!” How many times will I say it before I actually believe the beautiful dark-haired baby girl in the photos is mine?
Ben’s jaw goes slack. “You mean…Samantha has a kid? You knocked her up before…?” he asks in confusion.
“Yeah, before, obviously. And I’m such a fucking idiot for ignoring her. If I had known…”
“If you had known, you would’ve, what? Busted out of the slammer to be with her? You were stuck there, Grant.”
“I shouldn’t have cut her off. She needed me…”
“And she still does. It’s not too late, especially now that you’re a free man again.”
“What if it is too late?” I ask him. “She said it was too late. She’ll never forgive me.”
“Okay, this is just day one of the rest of your life. You’ve got plenty of time to fix things. And I believe I told you ten months ago that you shouldn’t have taken that damn plea agreement.”
“I told you I didn’t have a choice!” I exclaim, gathering up all the letters and envelopes before getting
to my feet, my legs still weak from trying to carry the weight of the news just dropped on me. “The DA would’ve ruined Sam too, and she didn’t deserve to get dragged through a trial, not when it was my fault.”
“Then you probably need to explain that to her,” Ben says simply.
“Yeah,” I agree. “I need to talk to her…to find her and my daughter. Adalyn.” I start flipping through the envelopes in my hand, looking for the most recent return address.
“We can probably hire a PI to track her down. Shouldn’t take long,” Ben suggests.
“No need. There’s an address on the letters she just gave me, here in Raleigh where she must be in school at State. God, she’s going to school and is a single mother, all because of me!”
“Then you better have one helluva game plan ready for making it up to her,” he says, leading the way to his car.
When I stepped out of those doors as a free man for the first time in nearly a year, of course Sam was on my mind; but I didn’t expect to see her again. I assumed she had moved on, just as I'd intended by avoiding contact with her. I had no idea she would be out here in the parking lot today waiting for me with the news that I was a father.
Now I know I was an idiot for not staying away from her, and this is all my fault for giving in. All we had to do was wait a few more weeks until she graduated, but I just couldn’t fucking resist.
…
“Is this it?” Ben asks as we pull up to the cul-de-sac of a nice, new-looking apartment complex near the university’s campus.
“Should be,” I tell him as I stare out the window of the passing three-story buildings. “Building eight,” I say, relying on the address from Sam’s letter.
“That’s it,” he replies, pointing to the right one. “Are you sure you should even be here? Do you have any release restrictions?”
“No,” I tell him. “Even if I did, do you think that would keep me from seeing my daughter for the first time?”
“It should,” Ben scoffs. “Unless you want to end up behind bars again.”
“I’m not doing anything wrong,” I assure him. “My attorney told me I wasn’t allowed to contact her while the case was going on. It was my choice to refuse her letters and have no visitation with her,” I tell him. “I didn’t want her to wait for me because I thought she deserved better than a jobless, convicted felon who has to register as a sex offender within three days of my release.”
“That’s so fucked up,” Ben says as he pulls into a parking spot in front of the right building. “You were both consenting adults!”
“Preaching to the choir, man,” I tell him. “But the law is the law. There was no way around it.”
“I think you just had a shitty attorney who didn’t want to piss off the wrong people in a small town,” he remarks.
“Well, it’s too late now. And even though I hated every fucking day I wasted away in prison, I still think I did the right thing. I just hope Sam will believe that too.”
“Good luck!” Ben calls out as I climb out of the car.
“Thanks, I’m gonna need it,” I turn around to tell him. “And if I’m not out in ten minutes, you can leave, and I’ll get a cab or something to your place later.”
“What are you gonna pay him with? You’re broke, remember?” he reminds me with a grin. “I’ll wait.”
“Thanks, Ben. I appreciate you being here for me today,” I say to him.
Walking up to the apartment door, I’m not sure if I’ve ever been so nervous. What if Sam is still angry and turns me away? Or worse, she calls the police and claims I’m harassing her. Maybe she’s no longer the woman I thought she was after all this time. Things have changed; both of our lives have drastically changed.
Unable to walk away despite the possible consequences, I rap my knuckles against the door and wait. And wait.
“Sam?” I call out, trying to listen to see if I hear her inside. “Sam if you’re there, please answer the door!”
After several minutes pass, I assume she’s either refusing to come to the door or is just not home. Walking back to Ben’s car, I search the parking lot for Sam’s Hyundai and don’t see it anywhere.
“No luck?” Ben rolls down his window to ask.
“No. I don’t see her car either.”
“Well, we can wait a little while if you want?” he thankfully offers since I’m not ready to give up.
“I would really appreciate that,” I tell him as I go around and sit back down in the passenger seat.
The two of us talk and catch up over the next fifteen minutes until a dark-colored Mustang pulls up a few spots away from us. One that I immediately recognize.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I yell when I see that asshole climb out and start toward the apartment. “They’re going to school together?”
“Who?” Ben asks while grabbing my suit jacket to keep me from jumping out of the car when I open the passenger door.
“Him! The motherfucker who ruined my life!” I shout, my pulse racing as uncontrollable rage seethes from every pore. “I’ll fucking kill him!”
“Grant, we’re leaving. Now! I’m not letting you go back to prison to rot the same day you got out!” he says before he throws the car in reverse. When he peels out, there’s no choice but to jump out or shut my door.
“I can’t believe he’s here!” I grumble, knowing I need to leave even if it’s not what I want to do. “How…why?”
“I don’t know, but you need to calm the hell down! You can’t lay a finger on him, or you’ll be fucked,” Ben warns. “Let’s just get you home, feed you something decent and calm you down for now.”
I seethe all the way back to Ben and his wife Donna’s house. And then it hits me.
After all this time, Sam probably doesn’t have a fucking clue that her best friend is the one who fucked me over.
I should’ve realized that the little bastard was gonna be trouble, especially after what his teammate told me, and after he caught Sam coming out of my hotel room. But hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
Chapter Eighteen
Sam
THE PAST
It’s been four, long, painful weeks since Grant kicked me out of his house.
I thought that each day would be easier, but the opposite is true. The ache in my chest keeps growing stronger, more intense. The man haunts my nights and occupies all of my thoughts during the day.
The only thing that’s helped is track. I’ve put everything into pushing myself to be faster, better. My time in the four-hundred is still off several seconds from last season’s best, but my eight hundred is improving. And the girls who run the four by one-hundred relay with me have been placing first in almost every meet.
This stupid sport is the only reason I get out of bed in the mornings. I need a scholarship now more than ever to get the hell out of this town, as far away from Grant as possible. Or Dr. Matthews, rather. The team’s physical therapist is currently sitting at the top of the bleachers at our home meet, right between a group of ravenous single mothers pawing all over him. It would be funny if I weren’t so freaking broken up over the idea of him actually dating one of them or anyone else.
“Sam, enough is enough! What’s with all the moping lately?” Hunter asks when he comes up to where I’m wandering aimlessly in the grassy center of the track. “When you’re not tearing up, you’ve got this lost, spaced out look on your face. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Right. Of course. I should’ve known. That’s your go-to response the last few weeks,” he says. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were dumped.”
“How could I be dumped when I don’t date?” I remark.
“I dunno,” Hunter huffs. “You used to tell me everything, and now it’s like I don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on in your head. It feels like you’re shutting me out, and I fucking hate it.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’m just worried I won’t get a scholars
hip and that I’ll be stuck in this awful town. I’ll try and do better, okay?” I promise him since I can’t remember the last time we hung out or even had a meal at school together.
“Good. I miss my BFF,” Hunter says, wrapping me in his arms. “Now go run like your ass is on fire.”
“Thanks,” I say since that makes me laugh. “I’ll try my best. You go throw like…well, I can’t think of a simile for that. Just throw that shit far.”
“I will,” he says with a smile as he starts walking away backward. “Wanna grab a pizza afterward?”
“Sure,” I agree since I don’t have any other plans, and won’t for the foreseeable future.
There’s no one I want but Grant, and I don’t think that’s something I’ll be able to get over anytime soon.
…
Grant
While I may have been invited to the home track meet in an official capacity, the real reason I decided to spend my afternoon on the uncomfortable metal bleachers is because I just couldn’t go another day without seeing Sam.
Given the fact that we only dated for a few weeks, it shouldn’t be this damn hard to get over her. So many times since the day of our argument I’ve wondered if I overacted. And then I think of being out of a job, losing my license and my livelihood because of some gossiping hen seeing us together and reporting it, and I convince myself that I did the right thing. Not that it’s been easy in the slightest.
Fuck, it’s been painful.
Like cruel and unusual torture, painful.
Like I can’t sleep or eat because I’m too damn depressed without her presence brightening my days.
Don’t even get me started on the nights, remembering the incredibly hot times we fooled around and will never have again…
“Dr. Matthews?”
Hearing my name, I’m glad for the short reprieve from my thoughts. The source is a tall, gawky teenager with dark hair standing at the bottom of the bleachers, his freckled face scrunched in pain.
“What’s going on?” I ask as I get up and climb down to check on him, also thankful to get away from the persistent cougars. If I get asked over to “dinner” by another Stepford wife followed by a wink-wink, nudge-nudge, obvious hint at sex, I’ll pull my fucking hair out.