Hooking

by Allen, Kristine

  “No. No way. No fucking way,” I began to argue.

  “She claims that last season when you were still playing for Montreal that you had a hookup on an away game to Pittsburgh. The time frame is accurate that you were indeed in Pittsburgh for an away game in the time she would’ve gotten pregnant. Mid-December. The baby was born early September, which also follows that timeline.” Simon ran a hand across his mouth as he waited for my response.

  It seemed like the world was spinning, and I wasn’t keeping up.

  I hadn’t been a Boy Scout. I’d probably been with an obscene number of women over the years. There was no way to remember all of their names or faces. Looking back on the way I was in the past made me slightly ill and filled me with more than a little self-loathing.

  As I stood there breathing too damn fast and unable to think clearly, I finally looked up at the men in the room with me. All I could do was shake my head in disbelief.

  “I don’t want to be tied to a woman I don’t even know,” I said like an irresponsible idiot. As I said, not my most brilliant moment.

  “Well, son, it would appear that’s possibly irrelevant. Now what I can say is that from what I’ve uncovered, there have been four other men who were already eliminated as the father. Three of those are other NHL players.” Simon sighed.

  “What does that mean for me?” Nothing seemed to be sinking in.

  “It means that she enjoys herself too. With a lot of different men,” Scottie said after he cleared his throat. He was always trying to be political. It was his way of nicely saying that I’d been a man-whore and she wasn’t innocent either. Not that it made me feel any better.

  “Jesus,” I muttered as I ran shaking hands down my face. “What do I need to do?”

  “We told her you weren’t agreeing to anything until paternity was established. We’ve lined up a paternity test with our team physician. Swing by his office on your way out. We’re trying to keep this under the radar, but we have no idea how vocal she might be about it. So far, she hasn’t made a huge stink with the other players that were candidates, but there’s no guarantee,” Scottie informed me. I was still reeling.

  Simon leaned back in his chair as he tapped his fingers on his desk. “You’re going to need to keep your nose clean. Things like what happened on the road trip can’t keep happening. It’s going to damage your reputation if things like that keep getting out. Especially compounded with this. I’ve been told the team publicist cleaned up as much of that mess as he could, but as you know, we try to maintain a pretty wholesome reputation in the franchise. It’s a different era, and the whole playboy athlete thing isn’t what people want to see anymore. Do you understand?”

  Clenching my teeth, I nodded. The whole situation with that chick on the road trip was biting me in the ass, and what really sucked was that time, I hadn’t done anything. Well, not as bad as it looked anyway.

  “I’m really sorry to have to do this to you when we have a game tonight, but we couldn’t drag it out any longer because of how much time had already passed while we were on the road.” Coach looked like he felt bad for me, but it wasn’t very comforting.

  “Is that all you needed?” I asked, suddenly numb.

  “Yeah. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I had to bring this news to you.” My eyes found Scottie, and I nodded. To say I was dumbfounded was a severe understatement.

  Silently, I left the office.

  It was difficult to fight going straight to Sydney’s office. Except I told myself I wouldn’t know what to say to her, and she had a job to do. I thought about reaching out to her via text to at least tell her I was thinking about her, but I didn’t have my phone. It was down in my practice bag.

  Maybe it was a good thing she was working, because this wasn’t what a guy wanted to tell the woman he’d started something with the night before. Hell, she’d rolled out of my bed this morning well satisfied after a marathon of sex to consummate the formation of our official relationship.

  How was I going to tell her?

  I didn’t think there was any way she’d want to stay with me after this. I’d gotten lucky that she was so understanding about the whole titty-shot debacle. The pregnancy had obviously happened before I moved here to Texas, before I knew she existed. Still, the thought of losing the first woman I’d had any desire to have something serious with in almost ten years was devastating.

  There had to be a way to fix this.

  Hell, it might not be my kid. Then again, they’d ruled out four other guys already. How many dudes could this chick have been with over a weeklong period? The thought made my skin crawl that I’d been so careless.

  The paternity test was ridiculously painless physically, but emotionally catastrophic.

  Once I was done, I stopped by the locker room, grabbed my bag, and pulled out my phone.

  Debating whether I should see if she had time for lunch, I calculated how much time I had before I needed to be back for the game. Except I wasn’t remotely hungry.

  My high from earlier had quickly faded, leaving nausea in its place.

  I’d set Sydney up with a pair of season tickets. She’d be at the game tonight, and we were supposed to go to her place after. Making a decision, I planned to talk to her when we got there. Until then, there really wasn’t a lot I could do, so I did my best to compartmentalize the issue until I could unpack it after the game.

  As I pulled into the parking lot of Syd’s apartment complex after the game, I was a volatile mixture of elation from the win and trepidation regarding what I needed to discuss with her. Finding a spot near her car, I parked and turned off the car. Laying my head back on the headrest, I sighed heavily.

  “Here goes nothing,” I muttered as I grabbed my bag and exited the vehicle.

  Following the numbers, I found her apartment and knocked on the door. It was mere seconds before the door flew open and she jumped in my arms. My bag dropped to the floor as I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face in her neck.

  I lost track of time of how long I held her tightly against me until she gently extricated herself.

  “Congratulations! What an amazing game. I think I made a hockey fan out of Natalie,” she said with laughter and a wide smile. Her pretty blue eyes sparkled with happiness.

  “What about you? Are you still a big hockey fan?” I asked with a half smile. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she beamed. She was fucking beautiful. So beautiful it made my chest ache looking at her.

  Or maybe it was the thought that kept hounding me. The one that said it could possibly be my last night with her.

  “You know I am,” she saucily replied. “But only if my favorite player is playing.”

  “Really. Who’s your favorite player?” I played along, trying not to let my somberness show.

  She gave me a coy look and bit the side of her bottom lip. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard of him, but he’s a pretty big deal.”

  “Oh, is he? Should I be jealous?”

  “He totally is, and yeah, you probably should be jealous, ’cause I kinda have a thing for him,” she teased with a smirk that made me want to do dirty things to her.

  “I think I’ll have to kick his ass then. No one steals my woman, especially not some dumb puck-chasing fucker.” She pealed with laughter at that and stretched up to kiss me.

  It was worthless to attempt to keep it chaste, because as soon as our lips touched, it was instant combustion. Before I got too lost in her, I ended the kiss with a few pecks and a nip to her full upper lip.

  “I thought you said you were going to feed me,” I said, trying to refocus. The last thing I wanted was for her to think the only thing I wanted from her was sex. That might have been the me of the past, but with her, I wasn’t that person anymore.

  “I am. I hope you don’t mind lasagna. I wanted something I could make up ahead and then put in when I got home. Are you sure it’s not too late for you to eat?” Worry creased her brow.

  “Babe, I’d eat ten times
a day if I could. It takes a lot of calories to keep me fueled.” I chuckled.

  She dropped her gaze and innocently ran a hand along my abs, which caused me to suck in a sharp breath. “Well, you obviously burn it all off,” she said appreciatively.

  “Mmm, you wanna help me with that after I eat?” I was both teasing and dead serious.

  “I think that sounds like an amazing idea.” Her lips curled into a sexy smile, and I nearly told her to screw dinner. If I wasn’t sure she’d worked hard on it, I would’ve.

  We’d barely cleaned up after dinner before I had her laid out on her table and I was having dessert.

  Unfortunately, one thing led to another, and we never talked much that night. Not about meaningful things anyway.

  The next morning, I kissed her goodbye as we went our separate ways. She headed to the main offices at the stadium, and me to the practice rink. I promised myself that I’d talk to her after she got off work.

  Since we didn’t have a game that night, I hit the gym with Mac and Beck. Once we hit the ice, I was able to shove my worries to the back of my head, and hockey was first and foremost. We wrapped practice up a little early, and I went home to take care of Victor. He was likely pissed that I hadn’t come home last night. He could be a moody asshole.

  After I’d fed Victor, I threw in a load of laundry. I’d barely hit start on the washer when the doorbell rang. A quick glance at the clock told me it was too early to be Sydney. I snagged a mostly clean shirt from the pile, slipped it over my head, and was pulling it down over my abs as I opened the door.

  “God, I forgot how delicious you were” was the first thing I heard, but my gaze was locked on the baby in the blonde’s arms. When I looked up at her, she had a hungry look in her eyes that made me step back.

  “Excuse me?” I asked blinking owlishly.

  “Figures you don’t remember me.” Her snarky comment sailed over my head as I looked past her to the car still running in the driveway. There was a guy waiting in there who looked like he was on his phone.

  “Can I help you?”

  She rolled her eyes and thrust the kid into my arms. The woman stepped back so fast, I literally scrambled not to drop the baby.

  “Misty? Remember me? You should’ve heard from my attorney by now. Look, this kid was supposed to be a meal ticket, but he’s been a pain in my ass from the day I found out I was pregnant. So he’s your problem now. I’m out. I’m not mom material and I never will be. Steve’s waiting for me, and he isn’t keen on a baby taking up our time.” She motioned over toward the car.

  “How the hell did you get my address?” I demanded.

  “Please,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “Steve has the money to find shit out. And it was convenient that you were sort of on the way to Mexico.”

  “The results aren’t back yet, Misty. What if he’s not mine?” Flabbergasted, I couldn’t believe the chick was dropping her kid off with a virtual stranger that might not even be the father.

  “He looks more like you than the other guy, so it’s pretty much a given that he’s yours.”

  “What?” I asked, incredulous. The chick had to be fucking nuts. Exactly how drunk had I been that night?

  “We’re heading to Mexico, and you were on the way, so he said to drop him off with you. With Steve, I don’t really need the kid anyway. Sorry.” She shrugged as my mouth hung open and the baby wiggled in my arms. With those simple words, she turned around and left, climbing in the Porsche without a backward glance. The fucking douche driving had to peel out after he backed out of my driveway.

  Looking down at the dark blue eyes staring up at me, I drew in a stunned breath and about shit myself. “I have no idea what to do with you,” I said helplessly.

  This was definitely not how things were supposed to go.

  Pulling out my phone, I dialed Simon.

  Holy shitballs.

  “Fall Apart”—Deadset Society

  By the end of the day, I was dragging ass. Everything that could’ve gone wrong, did. Katie and I had spent the entire afternoon chasing down new vendors for a campaign we were working on when the current one called and told us they were declaring bankruptcy and wouldn’t be able to complete our job.

  Though I loved my new apartment, I was looking forward to soaking in Alex’s huge tub. Maybe the hot tub. Either way, I needed to work the knots out of my muscles.

  I’d meant to text him or call him to tell him I was on my way, but as soon as I’d gotten in the car, Jake had called me and talked until I pulled into Alex’s driveway.

  “I’m home, so I need to let you go,” I said as I sat with my car idling.

  “Where are you?” He sounded confused. “I’m here and I didn’t see you pull in.”

  My eyes bugged, and I swallowed hard. “Uh,” I stuttered.

  “Syd?” He sounded suspicious, and rightly so. “Why are you lying to me?”

  Damn the twin factor. He could read me like a book.

  “I’m not really home,” I admitted with a huff.

  “No shit,” he deadpanned. “So where are you?”

  “I’m at my boyfriend’s place,” I mumbled, knowing that wasn’t going to go over well. And I was right.

  “Excuse me? Boyfriend? Since when? If you had a boyfriend, why didn’t he help you move in? No. Wait. Please don’t tell me you’re dating one of those bikers.” He sounded pissed, and it irritated me that he could be so judgmental.

  “And what if I was? They’re nice guys. One of them is even a nurse. They’re business owners and paramedics, for crying out loud,” I argued.

  “Sydney. I don’t care who you date if he treats you well, but a biker? Mom and Dad will flip the fuck out.” He ended with some incoherent muttering.

  “Well, then I guess it’s a good thing I’m not dating a biker.”

  “So you’re over at some guy’s that you just started dating,” he started to bitch, but I cut him off.

  “Stop. I’m not a teenager, you know. I’m the same age as you.”

  “Younger.”

  “By minutes! Oh my God, Jake. Stop. Alex is a nice guy.”

  “What’s he do for a living? Where does he live?”

  “I’m not discussing this with you. It’s none of your business now. I’m a grown woman. You don’t have a say. Now, I’m sorry I’m not home, but I’ll see you Saturday at brunch with the ’rents.”

  “Syd!” he argued.

  “Bye! Love you!” I ended the call and laid my head on the steering wheel.

  Gathering my crap, I trudged up to the door. I raised my hand to ring the doorbell, but noticed the door was partially open. “That’s weird.” I would’ve thought his security system would tell him a door was ajar.

  What sounded like a cry was coming from inside.

  Confusion marred my brow as I peeked my head inside. “Alex?” I called, but he didn’t answer.

  Cautiously, I stepped in. Following the crying, I made my way through the house to the bedroom. Alex had his back to me, talking on the phone. When he turned, his eyes locked with mine and he stopped talking.

  “I gotta go,” he said and tossed the phone to the bed.

  My jaw fell as I stared at my boyfriend trying to comfort a baby. A very small baby.

  “Sydney,” he whispered. The baby continued to cry. He looked like hell.

  “Is that baby puke on you?” I asked with my nose wrinkled.

  He looked down, appearing dazed. “Probably.”

  “Whose baby?” I asked, motioning to it. I also wondered who was foolish enough to trust their little one to a hockey player who obviously had no clue.

  He looked like he was going to cry. Having pity on him, I went to take the baby from him. Until his next words.

  “Mine,” he damn near whimpered.

  My heart stopped, and I stumbled back. My breath caught in my throat, and I couldn’t function. Then my world further crumbled when a woman came running in carrying a bag with baby diapers and formula in it.
r />   “Got them! Had to go to two different stores to get the right formula,” she said to him before taking the baby from him and turning to me questioningly. “Hey.”

  She looked younger than me, but not by much. Her strawberry-blonde hair was sleek down her back, and a slight dusting of freckles sprinkled across her nose.

  “Um, hi,” I stuttered out. Moving backwards, it took everything I had not to let my tears fall. I didn’t know what alternate dimension I had fallen into, but I was not processing it well. I needed out. Immediately.

  Blinking rapidly through the blur that obscured my vision, I rushed out of the house. My feet didn’t want to work properly, and I almost fell going down the front steps.

  No amount of blinking could hold them after I plowed into a broad chest and hands gripped my arms.

  “Sydney?” My head rose, and I stared at my uncle in confusion.

  “Uncle Simon?” I questioned.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked as he looked from me to the house. I followed his gaze. Alex was racing down the stairs toward me. Shaking my head, I broke free from my uncle and ran to my car.

  I threw my shit in the passenger seat and started the engine.

  As I backed out of the driveway, angry tears fell, and I caught a glimpse of my uncle holding Alex back as he yelled for me. Tears streaming down my face, I drove off.

  Maybe I was being a coward, but I wasn’t prepared for that. He could’ve warned me. Mentioned it. Why the fuck would he keep that from me? You would think that would be something you’d tell the person you’re entering into a relationship with.

  “Oh, by the way, I have a kid. I should’ve mentioned that, huh?”

  It didn’t take me long to get home. I barely remembered the drive, and I knew that wasn’t good. Leaving my bag in the car, I blindly found my way inside.

  In my entire life, I didn’t remember feeling so stunned.

  There has to be a reasonable explanation.

  Shaken, I tried to reason with myself. Unable to function, I leaned against the door and slid to the floor. Feeling like an emotional wreck, I allowed the tears to run unchecked. Finding it impossible to sit up, I rolled to my side and curled into a fetal position where I lay for some time.