Chapter 15

Liza

 

 

“Mom, how come we didn’t go to the game?” Ainsley asked. “We always go to Papa’s games.”

The girl had been a football junkie since the day she was born. She understood football better than most grown adults. Despite her protests at times, I knew she loved going to the games. We were treated like royalty most of the time, too, which always made her very happy.

“It was too far away. We both have school in the morning.”

She stomped her little foot. “I want to see Papa!”

“You’ll see him tomorrow. We’ll go over to his house right after school. For now, we can watch him on the TV. I know it’s not the same, but it will still be fun. I’ll make some fun snacks, and we can have our own little football party,” I promised her.

She eyed me for a few minutes but finally softened. “Fine. I’m going to get all my friends ready to watch the game with us.”

“Good. You do that and let me see what I can find in the kitchen. I’ll order a pizza, too.”

“Yeah!” she hooted.

I was feeling horribly guilty about my dad still being in the dark. I had tried to talk to him yesterday before he left, but the man was in no mood for that kind of news. His mind was focused on the game. I knew how important this game was to him and to Milo. The few times I had talked to my dad over the past few days, it had always been about how much Milo had improved.

He was excited, and I didn’t want to risk taking that away. He and Milo both deserved the chance to enjoy this moment.

I scoured the kitchen for snacks and managed to put together a cheese and cracker tray, some mozzarella cheese sticks and some fresh veggies. Thankfully, Ainsley loved raw veggies. It helped balance out the many pizza nights we tended to have.

The pizza and breadsticks were on the way as well as some soda. I flipped on the TV, turned on the surround sound and got ready to watch Milo and Dad kick some ass. The pregame show wasn’t kind at all, and I knew my dad would be raging when he heard the dire predictions from the commentators. They were already declaring the season a bust.

“Ainsley, the game’s going to start in about ten minutes,” I hollered, muting the man who was going over the stats.

A knock on the door drew my attention. I was expecting pizza, but it was Vanessa.

“Yeah! You came!” I said, hugging her briefly.

“I did, and I brought libations,” she winked.

She handed me the bottle of wine and a six-pack of beer, which I took gratefully, and put in the kitchen. “Pizza should be here any minute.”

The game turned out to be a nail-biter. I found myself standing, pacing the sidelines right along with my dad from the comfort of my living room. I cheered, I booed and most of all, I smiled.

A picture of Milo popped onto the screen, with all of his stats listed along the side.

“Hey, that’s the man!” Ainsley said, clearly very excited to see her redheaded counterpart.

“Yes, it is,” I said, wondering what she would think when she learned he was her father.

“They won!” Ainsley shouted, dancing around the living room. “Papa won!”

Giddy was the best way to describe how I felt. Absolutely giddy. The first half was a little shaky, but I could literally see the team pulling together and working as a cohesive unit. Milo had shone as a leader. He was on fire, and I was extremely proud to know him. Though I couldn’t quite come out and brag that he was the father of my child, it did give me some bragging rights as far as I was concerned.

Vanessa helped me clean up while Ainsley played in her room. “Hmm, baby daddy is a bit of a stud, isn’t he?” she grinned.

I laughed. “I have to say; it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him play like that. He and my dad have always clicked. I wasn’t thrilled to have him come back into town and play for my dad, but I know it was the right choice. My dad has a real knack for knowing what a team needs.”

“He’s very handsome,” Vanessa said, with a knowing smile.

“My dad?”

She rolled her eyes. “Your baby daddy. You have to admit he’s a very good-looking guy.”

I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. I didn’t want to admit he had a funny way of making my heart speed up when he looked at me with those stunning blue eyes. It felt like he was looking into my soul or picturing me naked. He was an intense man.

“You can play coy, but there is a reason that little girl is in the other room and it wasn’t because you weren’t attracted to him.”

“I was. It was a crush. It was me, the nerdy, quiet girl, crushing on the popular quarterback. The very fact that Ainsley is here is a bit of a miracle. I never actually thought he would, you know,” I said, gesturing my hands wildly.

Vanessa was giggling, incredulous.

“Liza, you’re a gorgeous woman. And I saw the way he looked at you. It wasn’t a miracle. The real miracle is that he didn’t go after you sooner.”

“I went after him. I practically jumped him that night,” I said, my face turning red. “Trust me; he’d never noticed me before that night. I always dressed like a nun and rarely wore makeup. I had a boyfriend in college for a year or so, but it was a weird thing. We had sex like once a month. I don’t think either of us was all that into each other, but we just kind of stuck together and then one day I realized he hadn’t called me for a week and I hadn’t called him.”

She laughed. “That has to be the world’s easiest breakup.”

I laughed along with her. “You’re right, it was. My dad never even asked about him. The guy was completely forgettable.”

“So, what about you and the QB? Any chance you guys may get back together?”

“We were never together to begin with. Seriously, it was one night. I went back a couple weeks later to tell him about the pregnancy and found him with a woman in his bed. We are two very different people moving in two very different worlds. We share a daughter, and we’ll have to figure all that out, but as for a relationship between us, that’s never going to happen,” I stated firmly.

Her expression told me exactly what her opinion was. “I think doth protest too much.”

“I think I protest just enough.”

We both laughed and thankfully, moved on to other topics. I texted my dad a quick message, telling him congratulations and promising to see him at dinner tomorrow. It was our thing. Every Monday, we had dinner together, if he didn’t have a game that night.

Vanessa and I chatted a bit more before she headed out. Thankfully, she only lived a couple blocks away and was able to walk home after we had shared the bottle of wine she brought over. It was late by the time I got to bed. I was elated for my dad and couldn’t wait to celebrate the first win of the season with him. I was truly happy for him and his quarterback.

I drifted off to sleep thinking about my conversation with Vanessa, the game, and my little girl. Those thoughts led me into a dream—with Milo as the star. My mind went back to the first time I kissed him. I had been tipsy, but I still remembered every detail of that night. His body had been hard and chiseled. That shy, nervous part of me that feared he would reject me evaporated the moment we got into his room. He wanted me. That feeling alone had made me braver than I’d ever felt in my life.

His desire for me was evident in the way he looked at me, and of course, his raging erection. We had sex three times that night. I wasn’t a virgin, but I knew that wasn’t the norm. I remembered drifting off to sleep, only to be awoken in the middle of the night by his sweet kisses trailing down my neck and his hands moving between my thighs, his fingers gently caressing my naked sex, creating a firestorm of sensation in my body.

“Oh shit,” I murmured, after being jolted awake on the brink of an orgasm.

My body was tingling at the mere thought of Milo touching me. It had been a very real dream, and I blamed it all on Vanessa. She had stirred up thoughts and memories I had blocked for a long time. Seeing him was bringing all those things to the surface. The idea we could ever be together was ludicrous. Despite what Vanessa thought she saw, I knew the man was extremely pissed at me. She thought she saw lust, but I knew it was actually rage.

I closed my eyes, telling myself to get some sleep, but it wasn’t long before goosebumps broke out as I imagined his hard, calloused hands running over my skin.

“Dammit, Vanessa. I hate you,” I whispered into the dark room.

I was never going to get a good night’s sleep if I kept having wet dreams about a man I had no business lusting after. She had planted a seed in my head, and it was now lodged there, trying to sprout. It couldn’t. It would never work out.

“Argh!” I groaned, throwing the blankets off and sitting up.

I wasn’t going to get any sleep at this rate. I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a glass of water, and headed for the balcony. Miami was a busy city, but my apartment was off the beaten path. I couldn’t exactly see the ocean, but I could hear it sometimes if there weren’t any sirens or the sound of loud music polluting the air.

Sitting down in my patio chair, I leaned back and focused. In the distance, I could hear the waves rolling in and out. It was soothing and helped quiet all those dirty thoughts that had sprung to mind earlier. I hadn’t thought about Milo in a long time. I had refused to let myself imagine a life with him in it.

But he was back now. He knew Ainsley was his and he was going to be in my life one way or another. I would be seeing him frequently, like it or not. My dad was obviously fond of him. He always had been. I hoped the revelation that Milo fathered Ainsley wouldn’t ruin their relationship.

I could always move away. I knew Milo wasn’t going anywhere for the foreseeable future, especially now that he and my dad seemed to have found their stride and things were looking up where the team was concerned. I didn’t think I could handle seeing Milo splashed all over TV with different women or showing up to team functions with a bimbo on his arm. That would slowly kill me. My life in Miami had been great. This was where I had grown up, but now it all felt tainted. Tainted by my secrets and lies, and by Milo.

I shook my head and had to laugh a little at my predicament. One bad decision in a whole lifetime had led me to where I was today. It didn’t seem fair, but it was what it was. I had to find a way to make the best of it. That included telling my dad about that one fateful night. I hoped to gloss over the details. I knew my dad would be outraged and then hurt and then outraged again.

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave,” I whispered into the dark.