Axel's Therapist: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (Blitz Book 2) Page 11

  Riley ran to the playground, her eyes lighting up as she got a chance to run free. I'd been afraid the reporters would want my picture too, and they did, but only to an extent. They were used to seeing Axel with pretty girls on his arm. It wasn't exactly something special.

  "I'm glad you changed your mind," I told him as we sat on the bench. Axel kept glancing around the playground, a look of terror in his eyes every time a reporter moved one way or another.

  "What do you think is gonna happen?" I asked him. "You think one of the reporters is gonna kidnap Riley in front of you? With all these guards here?"

  "No! Dammit, you just don't get it!" His eyes shot daggers at me, and I recoiled slightly. He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. Look, I know you're only trying to help, but you don't understand what it's like to be a parent. Everything I do affects her. Everything I do wrong affects her even more."

  "Why let her out of the house at all then? Why not keep her locked in her room until she's thirty?" I didn't know why I was arguing with him. He was only worried about his daughter.

  "I'm not trying to keep her from dating the wrong boy," he snapped. "Someone threw a brick through my window last night. Everyone is against me. Can't you fucking understand that?"

  "What the hell am I even doing here right now? You're so hot and cold, Axel. One minute you want me to fly to fucking Fiji with you, the next you're telling me to butt the hell out."

  We had raised our voices enough that Riley looked in our direction, then a little boy ran up and tagged her. "You're it!" he shouted, and off Riley ran. She certainly kept the security guards on their toes.

  I rose from the bench.

  "Where are you going?" Axel asked.

  "I'm leaving. I know when I'm not wanted." It was a childish thing to say, but I was feeling like a child, lost and hurt and scared. I still hadn't told Axel I was pregnant, and the way things were going with him, I wasn't sure I should. He didn't handle stress very well.

  I headed away from the park. Axel chased after me. The reporters chased after him.

  "Wait!" he shouted. The bulk of his security team had stayed with Riley. Two of the guards tried to shoo the reporters away from us now, but there were too many. "Don't go, Kaitlyn. I'm sorry. I'm just upset."

  My nerves calmed themselves, and my temper went with them. The reporters were inching closer to us. I guess seeing Axel argue with a girl wasn't something they'd seen before. It must have made for a dishy story.

  "Look, Kaitlyn," Axel stepped close to me, taking my hand. "I need you to stay. I... I love you."

  Alarms went off in my head as photographers snapped my picture.

  "Did you hear what he said?" one reporter asked another. "Axel Cooper just said, 'I love you.' I never thought I'd see the day!"

  I stepped away from Axel, my skin crawling. "What did you just say?" I demanded.

  "I-I said I love you." He looked nervous. "What's wrong? You don't have to say it back."

  "You love me?" I shouted, getting angry. Now I knew how Axel felt every time he lost his temper. "You barely know me. How the hell can you love me?"

  He looked uncertain now. His eyes kept darting to the reporters to Riley and back to me. "I do, though."

  Suddenly, I realized what was happening. "Oh my God," I said. "I'm a fool. A fucking fool."

  "What are you talking about?" Axel asked, trying to stoop closer to me so the reporters wouldn't hear. But I didn't give a damn about the reporters right now. "You thought you could use me, didn't you? Bring me out here, get your picture taken with me, and show the world that you're not such a bad guy. That women aren't afraid of you. Well, fuck you, Axel!"

  I'd never felt so humiliated in my life. I slapped Axel across the face and took off.

  34

  Axel

  Wow. I'd never heard of someone reacting so negatively to hearing the words, "I love you." What the fuck was the matter with Kaitlyn? Maybe she was crazier than I'd realized. Just as crazy as Taylor, even.

  "Get out of my face!" I screamed at a reporter. One of my security guards knocked him out of the way, and I saw Riley descended upon by reporters and photographers. "Get away from her!" I shouted. I ran to the playground and grabbed Riley, frightening her even more. I felt bad about it, but we had to get out of here.

  One of the guards that I'd hired for the afternoon pulled up a car, and Riley and I jumped in.

  "What's going on, Daddy?" Riley sobbed.

  "Nothing, sweetie. Daddy's just a little upset right now is all. We're gonna go home, and I'll make you some pancakes."

  "I don't want more pamcakes."

  She turned away from me and buried her face in her hands. I took a deep breath, wishing that I could just turn back the clock. If I'd never met Taylor, none of this would be happening. I paused on that thought, another one occurring to me at the same moment. If I'd never met Taylor, I'd never have had Riley. Shit. As bad as Taylor was, she wasn't worth giving up Riley.

  Riley's tears subsided as the guard drove us home. "Hey! Careful up there, huh? We don't want to crash." Wouldn't that just be the icing on the cake?

  "Why'd Kaitlyn leave?" Riley asked, rubbing her eyes. They were red and her face was blotchy.

  "Because Kaitlyn's stu—" I'd started to call her stupid, but realized how childish that sounded. Not only that, it wasn't true. I wasn't really mad at Kaitlyn; I was hurt. For the first time in my life, I'd told a woman I loved her. Not just because I wanted to get her into bed, but because I meant it. I guess Kaitlyn just didn't feel the same.

  "Kaitlyn had to go home," I told Riley.

  "Will she come back later?"

  "I don't know. I hope so."

  We got back to the house and, for once, it was empty of reporters. They were still at the park, or maybe chasing after Kaitlyn. I hoped not. That would only make things worse between us.

  "Want me to come in and check the place out?" the guard who'd driven us home asked. He was a big, beefy man with sunglasses. He fit the stereotype.

  "No," I said. "Your security sucks."

  He scowled. "Hey, man, it's not my team."

  "Whatever," I said, sliding out of the car. Riley and I walked three steps together when Taylor popped out from behind a tree. Had she been hiding?

  "My baby!" she said, opening her arms wide and running to us. She scooped Riley into her arms and hugged her. Riley screamed.

  "Taylor!" Jeez, this day just kept getting better and better. "Put her down before I break your neck."

  Taylor gave me a hard stare but set Riley down just the same. She ran back to me and gripped my hand so tightly it actually hurt. The thought flittered through my mind that Riley might want to play girls' softball one day. With a grip like that, she'd probably make an excellent pitcher. I filed the thought away for later and got back to the present situation.

  "Riles, why don't you go inside and watch TV? I'll make us some pancakes when I get in."

  She gave me a funny look. "I meant pizza. I'll order pizza for dinner."

  Riley walked in a wide, circular path around Taylor. She clearly didn't want to get anywhere near her.

  "Riley, honey," Taylor said. Her clothes looked better than the last time I'd seen her, but her teeth looked just as bad. Her make-up belonged on a two-dollar whore. "Don't you want to say hi to me? Do you remember me? I'm your mommy."

  Taylor took a step toward Riley, and I readied myself for a fight. I'd never hit a woman on purpose before, but I would if I had to.

  Taylor knelt down on one knee. Her skirt lifted up, revealing chunky thighs with blue veins. "You probably don't remember," she said, "but we used to have lots of fun together."

  Riley stared at Taylor, who knelt like a statue, waiting for Riley to leap into her arms.

  "I member you," Riley said suddenly. Her lips were drawn, and suddenly she looked much older than her four years. "I member you hurt me. I don't wanna see you. I hate you." Then she turned and made her way into the house.

  Taylor spun around, ready to
snap. "You turned her against me," she said. Her lips curled back. Her eyes glowed with hatred behind her tears. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

  "I didn't need to turn her against you, Taylor. You did that all by yourself. What do you want?"

  She rounded her shoulders back and fixed me with a steely stare. It didn't fool me, though. I could see that deep down, she'd been badly hurt by Riley's rejection of her.

  "Didn't your girlfriend deliver my message? I want my money."

  "I know," I sighed. This was getting old. "I have forty-eight hours or else. That's sort of lame, don't you think, Taylor?"

  "You have twenty-four hours now. Either my money or my daughter better be in my arms by then, or you'll be sorry you ever met me."

  "I'm already sorry," I told her.

  Her eyes wavered for a second, on the verge of tears. "Sometimes," she said, "I'm sorry I ever met me, too."

  35

  Kaitlyn

  Maybe I'd overreacted. I didn't want to admit it, but the more I thought about it, the stupider I felt. "Shit," I murmured.

  I was driving in my car, wondering what the hell had happened to set me off like that. Axel had told me he loved me, and I'd told him to fuck off? I wasn't sure that made much sense. Was this the hormones talking? If hormones were making me this crazy now, I was scared to find out how I'd be acting three months from now.

  Even if I'd been right and Axel really had been using me, so what? That didn't give me the right to make Riley's life worse. The reporters had swarmed on her during our argument, and I'd just taken off. I had to do something to make this right.

  I checked my blind spot and swerved into the next lane, getting off at Magnolia. I wasn't super familiar with this town yet, but that's what GPS was for. I asked Siri to direct me to the police station that Ethan worked at. The last time I'd seen him, he'd walked off in a huff, but I didn't think he could blame me for the way I'd been treating him. Seeing your old high school boyfriend, especially one who'd broken your heart, after so many years was bound to make anyone a little nutty.

  I pulled into a parking space and stepped out of my car, quickly trying to think of the exact, perfect thing to say to make Ethan help me. I wondered if something like, "You cheated on me in high school, so now you owe me," would work.

  I approached the front desk. There was a heavy wooden door on one side of it that you had to be buzzed through to get anywhere important. A woman in a uniform looked up at me as I got closer. She was in her forties and had her dark hair pulled back into a bun. "Can I help you?" she asked.

  I nodded. Suddenly, my throat ran dry. What the hell was I doing here? Why would Ethan help me stop Taylor from ruining Axel's life? What if he told me to get lost? What even made me think that Ethan was here right now? He was a fucking cop. He was probably out in his police cruiser driving around the city and eating donuts.

  "Is Ethan Parker here?" I asked, suddenly nervous.

  The policewoman narrowed her eyes at me. "Who wants to know?"

  "Kaitlyn Wright," I told her, trying to sound confident. "I'm an old friend of his from Appledale, and I—"

  The woman's eyes widened. "You're Kaitlyn?" she asked.

  "Um, yeah."

  She looked me up and down, scrutinizing me with her cop eyes.

  "Alright," she finally said. "Normally, we don't let people back here, but he hasn't shut his goddamn mouth about you since he found out you were living here." She snapped her head to the left. "He's filling out some paperwork in his office. Room 231. Down the hall to your left."

  I thanked her, and she buzzed me through. It was weird walking down the hallway of a police station. I don't know what I'd pictured, but it hadn't been this. This looked like any typical hallway in any typical office building. Where were the guns? Where were the bad guys? Hell, where were the cops?

  Room 231 loomed straight ahead. I could see the numbers shining on the door. My heart thumped in my chest, and I held my breath. I should have knocked, but there wasn't time. If I didn't get in there right now, I was gonna chicken out. I turned the knob, praying Ethan would be happy to see me.

  I opened the door and instantly regretted it. Ethan and his partner were going at it like two teenagers on prom night. Ethan's arms were wrapped around the chiseled abs of his molasses-skinned partner, the one I'd met on the side of the road just the other day. His partner's thick, pink tongue slid out, licking Ethan's lips, as Ethan's right hand plunged deep into his partner's pants.

  They must have sensed my presence and turned to me as I stepped into the room. Ethan withdrew his hand from his partner's pants and jumped away from him as the two of them quickly tried to straighten their clothes.

  "Ethan!" I said, too shocked for words.

  "Kaitlyn. Shit, you should have knocked."

  I couldn’t keep the smirk from my face. I threw my hands high into the air, laughing uncontrollably.

  "What's so funny?" Ethan asked, irritated.

  "You're gay! This explains so much!"

  36

  Axel

  "I'm such an idiot," I murmured to myself from behind the steering wheel.

  "What, Daddy?" Riley asked.

  "Nothing, honey. Just talking to myself."

  "You do that a lot."

  I laughed in spite of myself. Leave it to kids to be so darned honest.

  My parents were waiting for us in the backyard. My dad was watering the lawn, and my mom was doing some gardening. She stood up in her vegetable garden when we came through the gate.

  "Nana!" Riley screamed, running to my mom. This was getting to be a routine. Every time something went wrong in my life, I dropped Riley off at my parents. At least I knew she'd be okay here, but that didn't make me feel like a better father. The only thing that would do that was fixing it so that Taylor never bothered Riley again.

  At least the reporters hadn't followed us. The security team I'd hired had come through after all. They’d tricked the reporters into following them in the opposite direction of my parents' house, using a car that looked just like mine. I'd told them to go home after they'd lured the reporters to the next town over, but I’d programmed their number into my phone for next time.

  "Everything okay?" my father asked, turning off the hose and wiping his hands on his pants.

  "Yeah, sure."

  "Can't fool me," he said. "I'm your father."

  "You know it's all over the news," my mother said, coming up to us. Riley had taken her gardening shovel and was playing in the dirt by some carrots.

  "What is?" I asked.

  "You telling Kaitlyn that you love her."

  I tried to maintain a calm demeanor but felt my eyes widen. My cheeks grew red. "They're playing that on the news?" I asked. "When the hell did the news turn into a showcase for love lives?"

  "Well, it was on the sports part of the news," my mom said.

  "Great. That's way better."

  My father chuckled. My mom's eyes twinkled. "So?" she asked.

  I looked at them both, bewildered. "So what?" I asked.

  "So what about the girl?" my dad said, shaking his head.

  "Kaitlyn?" I asked.

  My mother and father exchanged a look clearly meant to indicate that their one and only son was a total knucklehead.

  "Of course Kaitlyn!" my mother said. "The reporter who got the video was trampled by the other reporters before he got her reaction. What happened?"

  "Kaitlyn hates me," I said, expelling a breath. I set my crutches aside and took a seat on a large boulder. My parents' yard was scattered with them. They thought they looked cool.

  "It didn't look to me like she hated you," my mom said.

  "I'd have to agree with your mother there, son."

  I wanted to believe them, but Kaitlyn had seemed so pissed when she'd run off like that. "What kind of psycho tells you to fuck off when you say you love them?"

  My mom grinned. "One who loves you back but is even more scared than you to admit it."

  I looke
d at my mother's eyes, so filled with wisdom and a lifetime of experience. Maybe she was onto something.

  "So what do I do?" I asked.

  "Go say hi!" Riley called out from the garden patch. I turned my head, shocked that not only had she been listening, but apparently had understood everything we'd said.

  "Well," I said, standing back up. "I guess that answers that. I'll call you when I know what time I'll be back."

  "No hurry," my dad said.

  I jumped back in my car and headed to Kaitlyn's. She was probably still pissed, but whatever. I hadn't just been using her when I'd said that I loved her. It had surprised the hell out of me too. It was the last thing I'd expected to find, at a time in my life when nothing else was going right.

  I found her apartment building easily enough. Coach had given her address to me along with her number, hoping, I think, that I'd stop by to work on my knee. The apartments were old and cheap, with a red brick façade that had faded to a dull orange.

  I hobbled around the outside of the building on my crutches, searching for her apartment number. The building wasn't a monster, but it was big enough to confuse you if you didn't know your way around.

  "Lost?" a girl called out.

  I turned around and saw a pretty girl in a flowery dress walking her dog. "Yeah," I said. "Do you know where apartment 208 is?"

  She turned her head, searching. That window there, I think," she said, pointing to a second-floor balcony with a glass door. My heart raced as I saw Kaitlyn on the couch... with another man.

  "Get it under control, get it under control," I muttered to myself. The girl in the dress was staring at me.

  "Say," she said. "Aren't you famous?" She blew a bubble that popped like a firecracker, making my head ache.

  I watched as Kaitlyn turned to the man beside her, smiling and laughing, and put her hand on his arm.