Oh, Baby

 

“Eliza? Eliza?” A light knock on my bedroom door roused me from the nap I was sneaking in. “Are you up?”

Ah, I was now. But I had to smile. My mother, bless her soul, she’d been a godsend.

“Yes, Mom,” I replied. “I’m wide awake in here.” Small lie.

“Oh, good, honey.” I heard her sigh. “’Cause we need to leave real soon. Our flight leaves at two. And you know for a fact, since you’re wide awake and all”—she cleared her throat, onto me—“that it’s already half past eleven.”

Uh-oh, busted. And was it really after eleven?

I checked my phone, and it sure was.

Time to get my ass in gear.

Rolling onto my back, I yelled, “I’ll be out in a minute.” Or two.

More like three…

Or four…

Or more…

See, getting out of bed required energy, something I’d been sorely lacking lately. To be honest, I’d never felt more mentally or physically exhausted than I had these past several weeks.

Not ever in my life.

But my life had changed.

That’s why it’d been a good thing my mom had stayed on at my apartment to help me out. The before was easy, it was the now that was hard.

How do women do this by themselves? I thought.

“Damned if I know,” I murmured as I stared up at a mural someone had painted on the ceiling long before I’d ever lived here.

Sunshine, an arid desert, a cactus in full bloom. All rendered in bright, vivid colors.

These were things I’d see real soon, as in real life, not simply as images painted in watercolor on a ceiling.

Damn, I couldn’t believe I was heading back to Las Vegas after all this time out on my own. That’s what this upcoming flight was about. A few hours from now, I’d start a new chapter in my life.

“Yet another new chapter,” I breathed out.

So much had changed in such a short period of time. Some days it felt like my head might spin right the hell off my neck.

Wow, what an image. Exhaustion can do that to you, though.

Hell with that. It was high time I woke the hell up, put on my big girl panties, and let go of the past. I vowed right then and there to face the future with a smile.

But I needed motivation, something to get me on track.

Glancing around the mostly-empty room, I searched for inspiration. And then, amid the barrenness, I saw it. The motivation I sought was right there in a framed photo I’d left on the wall. Ironically, or maybe fortuitously, it was the only thing I’d not packed up and shipped off earlier in the week.

The photo was something my dad had sent me. It was of him and the team he coached, the Las Vegas Wolves, celebrating their recent Stanley Cup win.

I liked that picture. I liked it a lot. That’s why I’d hung it on the wall right across from my bed. It was proof of how believing in yourself, whether individually or as part of a team, could lead to winning it all.

But there was another reason why I’d held onto the picture. It had to do with the guy front and center. He, like the rest of the team, was still in his gear, sans helmet.

Having just won the Stanley Cup, half the team, including him, was lying on the ice. But he stood out. His wild dark blond hair and his big hands grasping hockey’s Holy Grail, he just struck me as a guy who really enjoyed life. His smile seemed so genuine, his happiness, palpable.

Not to mention, he was hot.

I had a weakness for hockey players, so in three seconds flat, I was grabbing up my phone, forgetting about Mom outside my door, and looking him up.

Why hadn’t I done this sooner? I guess because I was “asleep.” No more.

“Number twenty-nine,” I read aloud as I skimmed his bio on the Wolves’s website. “Benjamin Perry, but he goes by Benny. A forward, plays left wing.”

I lowered my phone and smiled. Oh, I had a plan. And Benny Perry had better watch out.

I had a new crush, just like that. Impulsivity, I lived by it.

Pursuing this Perry dude wouldn’t be easy, though. I’d have to be sly about it, especially around my hockey coach dad. After all that had recently transpired in my life, he’d taken to implementing preemptive measures designed to keep me far, far away from his players. He’d made sure I knew about it, too.

Just last week, when we were on the phone, he oh-so-cheerily informed me he’d warned each and every one of the Wolves to stay the hell away from me.

“Why would you do something crazy like that?” I demanded to know.

“Eliza,”—I imagined him shaking his head—“do you really need to ask that question?”

Okay, he had me there.

“Still, isn’t a warning to the players a bit extreme?” I threw out.

“I don’t think so, honey. Not after what all has happened.” His voice ticked up an octave when, after a pause, he added, “And especially not when you continue to refuse to tell me or your mother who the hell—”

I knew where that was headed, and I nipped it in the bud quickly. “That’s enough, Dad.”

On this, I was set.

“I see you’re still avoiding the whole subject,” he groused.

“Yes, yes I am.”

He huffed then, and in a softer tone, I tried to reason with him. “Dad, look, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just haven’t been myself lately.”

“S’okay, Eliza.”

“Does that mean we can please let this go?” He didn’t know I had to avoid this topic.

He agreed, at last, but slipped into Strict Dad mode, his go-to for handling stress.

“You just better behave yourself while you’re living under my roof, young lady. If you do, I’ll never push for a name.”

Good, because he wasn’t getting one.

Shit, it was clear now that dating was going to be tricky. And Wolves players were out.

My new life was put in perspective after that call. I would be stuck living with my dad’s rules. At least most of my Georgetown credits had transferred to UNLV, where I’d soon be matriculating. I couldn’t wait to start classes in the fall. If I could still graduate by spring, I’d have my own place by next summer.

Even so, I’d never have back the life I once knew.

“I mean it, Eliza.” Mom went crazy on the door then, her patience worn thin. “I’ve been standing out here for ten minutes. You need to get your butt up now.”

“I told you I am up,” I yelled, throwing off the covers.

“Look, I realize you’re exhausted”—ha, understatement of the year—“but I need you dressed and ready. The taxi’s on its way, and if we’re not ready to roll the driver will leave. This is DC, after all.”

I didn’t reply, and she continued, “The next flight out to Las Vegas isn’t till almost midnight, Eliza. And you know as well as I do that we can’t sit around in an airport for hours on end with a b—”

“All right, okay.” I threw my legs over the side of the bed. “I’m up, I’m really up this time.”

I stood to back up my words, but, whoa, my legs protested. It felt like someone had poured cement down them. I was that damn tired.

Mom, meanwhile, was finally done.

“That’s it.” I heard her mumble. “I’m going in.”

The door swung open, but I didn’t put up a fuss. Her coming in was for the best. She’d make sure my cement legs didn’t win out and send me crawling back to bed.

“Hey, Mom.” I waved.

Running her hand through her strawberry-blonde hair, same color as mine, she sighed. “Good, you really are up.”

Rolling my eyes, and again, due to exhaustion creeping back in, I snapped, “I’m not as irresponsible as you and Dad think I am.”

All that ruminating on my dad’s ban on hockey players had made me an irritated bitch.

Mom blew out a breath and said softly, “Sweetheart, I don’t think that about you.”

She was trying to make me feel better, but it wasn’t her I needed reassurance from.

“Dad thinks I am,” I mumbled.

“Oh, sweetie, he’ll come around. This is all just hard for him. You’ve been his little girl forever, you know?”

I had to remind her, “I’m not a child, Mom. I’m twenty-one. Not to mention…” I gave her a do-we-need-to-review-recent-events glare. “…my new life says for sure I’m an adult.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed, and I joined her. “Honey, come here.”

She pulled me in for a hug, and I felt a million times better.

“Thanks for always being here for me,” I murmured into her sweet-smelling hair. “You came through when no one else had the time.”

“Always, Eliza,” she said. “I’ll always have time for you.”

“You’re the best,” I whispered. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too, honey.” Leaning back, she shook her head. “It’s also my duty to make sure you don’t go out in public dressed like that.”

“Huh?”

She nodded to my attire, or lack thereof.

“Oh, crap, you’re right.” I was wearing nothing but panties and an old, faded gray tee, making me surmise, “I guess pants might be a good idea.”

“You think?”

“Ha-ha, Mom.”

I retrieved the yoga pants I’d peeled off earlier and slipped them on, smiling like ta-da.

Mom still looked worried.

“What’s wrong now?” I asked, scanning down to my feet. That must be it. “I’ll put on shoes before we leave,” I promised.

“Shoes aren’t the problem, Eliza.”

“They aren’t?”

“Um, no.”

She wasn’t giving my shoeless feet a second thought; she was staring at my chest.

“What are you looking at—?”

Softly, she said, “I think you need to change your shirt. Or at least put on some kind of cover-up.”

I took a better look—damn exhaustion!—and finally saw the problem. “Oh, shit, I’m leaking!”

Just then, like someone knew the shake shack—me—was open for business, a baby began to cry.

My baby.

“Ava,” I murmured.

The powerful emotions I felt for my barely eight-week-old daughter sometimes overwhelmed me.

“She must be hungry,” I added dreamily.

Yes, I was a little bit in awe of the gorgeous little girl in the next room. I just couldn’t freaking believe she was really mine.

“She’s been sleeping for a while,” Mom said, pulling me from my wandering thoughts. “Like someone else I know.”

“Cute, Mom.”

I left the room then to feed my daughter before the taxi arrived. As I fed baby Ava, I thought about how this was really the end of my old life. Off to Las Vegas we were going. That was okay. It was time to move forward. No more sheltering up in the apartment with my mom and my baby. It was time to get back to the real world for all of us. Only problem was there’d be questions—lots of questions. Ones I couldn’t answer, for a multitude of reasons.

But then I had an idea—if I kept Ava a secret, no one would have anything to ask. There was no need to broadcast why I was returning to Las Vegas, right? I didn’t have to explain everything right away.

I looked down at my daughter. “We should settle in first. Right, Ava? Then we can worry about everything else later.”

Ava didn’t care one way or the other, so I got back to thinking it through on my own. There was a lot more to think about, too. Because when I did get around to telling the world about my daughter, there was a huge secret I’d still have to keep.

I’d stupidly made an agreement with Ava’s father.

Part one was I could live anywhere I wanted and he’d continue to pay the child support we’d agreed upon, but Ava was to retain my last name—the one I’d had to put on the birth certificate, Townsend. Not his.

That really burned me.

Even after the paternity test he’d demanded, the very one that proved he was definitely her dad, the jerk still wanted to keep his name off any and all public records. I was pretty much ordered by him to keep him a secret. All because he didn’t want the world to know he, a professional hockey player, had fathered a child. He claimed it could legit damage his up-and-coming career and endorsement deals.

That was bullshit.

He wasn’t some clean-cut sweetheart of a guy. He was simply trying to maintain his carefree, playboy lifestyle.

He was a major asshole like that.

Too bad I hadn’t realized it before I slept with him.

But I was blind. And sleep with him I did, more than once.

My parents didn’t know who I’d messed around with, but I’d let it slip once that Ava’s dad was a hockey player. Bad move on my part. That was what kicked off my dad’s obsession with keeping me away from all hockey players.

Too bad I also had to keep my dad away from something—the truth. I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t. But crap, it wasn’t going to be an easy task. Not when Ava’s father played for a team that played the Wolves several times a season.

And that new season started real soon. Training camp was only six weeks away, for heaven’s sake.

So, yeah, no, keeping all these secrets was going to be a challenge.

“It probably won’t end well,” I murmured.

Truer words could not have been spoken.