Fair Game: A Football Romance (93 page)

Chapter Seven

Liam

A week after my
welcome home, please don’t let my daddy disown me
blowjob, Amira has asked me to meet her for lunch before I go to work at the club tonight. We’ve pretty much stayed out of each other’s way all week, but I contacted my lawyer about the divorce a couple of days ago, so she knows what’s up.

It’s twelve thirty. She told me to meet her at noon. Cue eye roll. I’m sitting at Cecconi’s and considering a drink, even though I never drink. Amira is truly tiresome, and if I weren’t curious about this meeting, I would have left by now. She’s always late, but she said this was
really important, handsome,
so here I sit ordering a gin and tonic, no ice, with my lunch. The restaurant is buzzing with wealthy people dying to be seen having lunch on Melrose Avenue on a Tuesday afternoon, like they don’t have anything better in the world to do. It’s the perfect place for a woman like Amira. She loves attention, flashing her expensive jewelry and electronics around and blowing big wads of cash to impress God knows whom. It’s not my kind of place at all.

I scan the room to see if anyone looks familiar, as I could be eating alone if she doesn’t show, but of course, there is no one. I don’t hang with people like this. I do, however, do a double-take of a gorgeous toffee-colored jewel dressed in an understated summer suit with short, sleek black hair.

The hair on the back of my neck stands up. I feel like I recognize her, but I don’t. I mean, I’ve never seen her before, I’m sure, because I would never forget the kind, gentle aura that surrounds her. But something about her is just so alluring and familiar that I can’t stop staring. Then she smiles, and good Lord, she’s beautiful. My pulse just skyrocketed into the one hundreds, and I’ve got a hard on straining against my jeans so badly that I have to change position in my chair. Then I watch as she walks right into the arms of some stuffy, middle-aged suit, kissing him on the cheek. A crazy pang of jealousy hits me like a mac truck. What the fuck? I’ve never even met this chick, and I’m sitting over here getting hard and possessive.

I lean back in my chair to try and get a look at where they’re going, but I can’t see anymore. They’ve walked away. I’m just about to get up when I feel soft hands slide over my eyes from behind and hear Amira purr in my ear.

“Hey, handsome. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Fuck, she has horrible timing.

I remove her hands, and she teeters around the table in her heels and a skintight black leather dress that hugs every curve so tightly, you could see even the smallest wrinkle of fat on her body if she had one, which she doesn’t.

I don’t get up to pull out her chair like I should. She’s nearly an hour late, and respect is earned by being respectful.

“You’re late,” I say as a waiter rushes to her side to take her drink order. Wait staff always fight over her because she’s so careless with money. If you wait on Amira, you can be assured a five-hundred-dollar tip. She’s ridiculous.

“Vodka tonic—top shelf—and my usual salad,” she says to the waiter without acknowledging him. I’ve never understood why she eats so healthy yet drinks so much alcohol.

“I was busy buying
this.
Look!” She pushes a flat rectangular box across the table until it bumps my fingertips. I don’t take the bait. Ignoring the box, I repeat myself.

“You’re late.”               She infuriates me, but I refuse to let her see it. I repeat my mantra over and over in my mind instead.
Reproduce positive energy, push her negative vibes away
.

She jerks in her seat and huffs.

“I just told you I was buying that,” she says, dragging out every word in slow motion and pretending to sign what she’s saying the way my crew does. She relentlessly bashes anything she doesn’t understand, and sign language is one of her favorites to pick on.

“Stop it, Amira. You look like a fool.”

“So do you and all your people, flapping your hands around during a show.”

I’m not going to waste my breath explaining to her one more time that the reason for sign language is that I don’t like to have the music in my phones disturbed when I’m behind the decks.

I swallow the second half of my drink and nod to the waiter for another. Amira’s in rare form today. I’m going to need it.

“Oh, Liam, just open the box, will you?”

She pushes it against my fingers again, and this time, I raise them so it slides under my hand. I lift the expensive cardboard lid off the box and see tissue inside. I roll my eyes, and when I look at her, she’s got her elbows propped on the table, waving the back of her hands at me to continue. When I unfold the tissue paper, I’m more than a little confused.

“What’s this?” I ask screwing up my face.

“I had it made for you.” Her smile is borderline psycho as I finger the material in the box.

It’s a little small for me, don’t you think?” I drop the lid on the box and side it back to her.

She bounces her round ass on the chair and whines.

“Li-um!”

“What? I don’t get it, Amira. It’s a baby hoodie with my Freedom logo on it. Why the fuck do I want that?”

She bites her plump red lip and spews her news all at once.

“I talked to Daddy again, and he said under no circumstances can we get a divorce without him cutting me off. He thought maybe starting a family would help, so
I
was thinking how about we hire one of those poor women who have other people’s babies to have a baby for us! It’s perfect, Liam! Daddy will be off my back about the divorce, I get to keep my flawless body, and you get to have a kid!” She finishes proudly and brushes her hands together in a ‘that’s that’ kind of clap.

I slouch back in my chair and scrub my hands over my face. I am so fucking confused.

“How the hell does that get me out of this marriage, Amira? How the fuck does having a kid fix this God awful disaster between us?”

“You love kids, Liam. I saw you with those little brats last week. You got all starry-eyed and excited when you talked to them.”

“I’ll still be married to you, Amira, and a baby isn’t an accessory. They last
forever
.” Goddamn, this woman is delusional!

“I know, stupid, but you would have a
baby
. . .”

“And?”

She rolls her eyes and stomps her foot, drawing the attention of everyone around us. I look at the people at the table next to us and mouth the words
I’m sorry
, shaking my head. I want to raise my finger to my temple and make the universal sign for crazy, but I refrain.

“You get a baby. Didn’t you tell me once you always wanted kids? Well, now you can have one. It’ll look like we are trying hard to keep the marriage together. You can be home more because we will have a kid, and maybe we could try being married for real. Sheesh, connect the dots, Liam. You went to college, didn’t you?”

Yes. As a matter of fact, I did go to college, you fucking brat. Ok, wow. I can’t believe she’s really subscribing to the notion that babies fix things. Doesn’t she know? Hasn’t she figured out the reason I tour so much is because I can’t stand to be around her?

I sit up and cross my arms on the table and lower my voice.

“Amira, I’m going to spell this out for you, honey, so listen up. I don’t love you. I don’t even like you, and I would never have married you if you hadn’t drugged me.”

She starts to interrupt, but I hold up my hand and look down at the table, where my second drink in five years is waiting to be consumed.

“We both know it’s true. Don’t interrupt me. Having a baby is not going to fix our scam of a marriage, and I schedule my own tour dates, so if you’re not
connecting the dots
,
I’ll be clear: I’m gone because I can’t stand to be at home with you.”

Silence.

She slowly blinks twice before she snaps out of her trance.

“Ok, then I promise to completely leave you alone if you just give me this baby and make it look like we tried really hard, Liam.”

Unbelievable. She doesn’t even see what her dad’s doing to her. That man would love nothing more than to watch her suffer through a divorce and fall flat on her face with a kid to support. He’s evil. He uses his reputation as an excuse for Amira and me not to divorce, but the world knows his daughter is a party diva. They know she’s out of control, and divorcing her white American DJ boyfriend would hardly cause a ripple in the tabloids. But she continues to subscribe to that
maybe he will love me someday
notion.

“That’s not a divorce.”

“We can get one after the baby’s born if Daddy thinks I tried. Please, Liam. I can’t be poor.” She tilts her head down to look up at me through her lashes and pushes her lip out. She’s actually pouting like a baby while trying to get me to have a baby!

I need to get away from this woman. I love kids, and I want one, but having one with her does the opposite of what I’m trying to accomplish. A baby ties people together permanently, as in forever. And forever with Amira is a special kind of hell I don’t want to live in.

“No.”

Her eyes go wide, and I brace myself for the cataclysm that’s sure to follow, but it doesn’t come.

Instead of a meltdown, she takes a deep breath and hits me with an icy glare.

“I’ll tell him you’re abusing me, that you beat me and I’m afraid of you. And if he doesn’t ruin you, the tabloids will, because I’ll tell them too. Even your little
raver fans
will hate you. Nobody loves an abusive asshole. They’ll call you a hypocrite, since you’re always preaching about peace and unity and
Freedom
.”

She spits my DJ name across the table like bitter bile, and I remember just how diabolical she is.

The waiter serves our food while we sit and glare at each other. The chattering of the people around us, the clinking of the glasses at the bar, and the rattling of the dishes on trays all mix in this miserable moment of defeat, and I start to hear a beat forming in my head, and then a melody and a hook.

“I gotta go,” I say, shoving away from the table. The sound of the chair legs scraping against the stone floor tears through the restaurant, attracting everyone’s attention again, but this time, I don’t give a shit.

“Liam!” Her scream is the most abrasive sound to ever flow through the atmosphere. If I weren’t such a peaceful guy, I’d choke it right out of her throat.

I need to go to the club and get this music out of my head and start wrapping my mind around the fact that I’m going to be a father and I’m going to be stuck with Amira for a while.

Amira is pure evil, just like her father. I have no doubt she will spin a nasty web of lies about me abusing her if I don’t give her a baby. Bitch Amira—one, Sucker Liam—zero.

Chapter Eight

Lourdes

Babies in the grocery store, babies in my apartment building, babies at the park and babies in my dreams! Ever since Blake mentioned being a surrogate for college tuition money, they’re all I think about!

It sounded so crazy a week ago, but the more I think about it, the more I think it could work.

I even met up with Blake for lunch at some swanky restaurant yesterday to talk about the legal ins and outs of surrogacy. He’s not that kind of lawyer, but he knows one in his firm who’s willing to help him so that he can do it pro bono for me.

I’ve even made a mental list of pros and cons. Being able to pay for college this year is my number one pro. Not far behind is the fact that I’ll never have to pay that money back like a loan. I would have more time to spend with Toby and to study instead of working, and I’m a fairly healthy individual, so I don’t anticipate any obvious problems spending my sophomore year pregnant.

Weighing heavy on the con side is giving away a baby that I carried in my body for ten months. That’s a big fat giant
con
. I’m not sure I can do it. I have a very soft heart, and I tend to love innocent, helpless things and people. Another big con is explaining it all to my friends and family—and especially Toby. He’s two and a half. He would know something was happening. How would I tell him Mommy’s going to have a baby, but it won’t be your brother or sister and it can’t come with us after it’s born? I also know virtually nothing about surrogacy. I looked up a few things over this past week, but if I’m even going to entertain the thought, I need more education. A lot more.

So here I sit in the waiting room of Joyful Connections Surrogacy Agency, waiting for my appointment with a counselor to discuss the process. If my tummy would stop flip-flopping, I might be able to concentrate on the list of questions I have to ask. I purposely never write things down to help sharpen my memory. I read once that it’s a good technique for lawyers.

I might have to readdress that practice when dealing with emotional situations. I’ll be lucky to remember my name when I get back there.

“Ms. Kennedy?” The receptionist calls my name, and my insides do one last big flop before I follow her down a hall to a small cubicle, where a lovely red-headed woman is working on her laptop.

“Brittney, this is your next appointment, Lourdes Kennedy.” She smiles and gestures for me to sit in the only other chair available.

“So nice to meet you, Lourdes. Such a beautiful name.” Brittney stands to shake my hand and returns to her seat, closing her laptop and giving me all of her attention.

“Thank you. It’s nice to meet you too.”

“So you’re interested in some information. May I ask what made you consider being a surrogate?”

This is where I hesitate. I read online that it’s not a good idea to go into this for the money, but that’s what I’m ultimately doing it for, so should I make myself look good and lie, or tell the truth and risk being turned away? I’m not a liar.

“I’m going to be very honest here. I’m a single mother of a two-year-old son, and I need money to pay for my second year at Berkeley. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I need to be straightforward with you.”

“I admire your honesty, Lourdes. Really, I do. Generally, we do shy away from women who are just out to get paid, but in your case, I’d like to know more about your goals and your education. What is it that you’re going to school for?”

Thank God she’s willing to hear me out.

“I’m going to be a lawyer. It’s always been my dream, but it was reinforced when a drunk driver killed my son’s father in a hit and run before he was born, and he wasn’t convicted.”

Her eyes widen and she gasps.

“I’m so sorry. Wow, that’s quite a motivating factor in pursuing your education, isn’t it?”

Before I can answer, her eyes narrow and she points a finger at her laptop.

“Wait. I remember hearing about that case a few years ago. It happened on graduation day, right?”

“Yes, that was him.” There aren’t many who haven’t heard Terrell’s story. It was international news.

“Unbelievable,” she mutters, looking down at her desk. When she’s recovered from the shock of my past, she returns her attention to me.

“You’ve been thorough a lot. Do you think surrogacy is the best option for your situation? It’s an emotional process. It’s not as easy as some people might think.”

“Losing Terrell made me stronger, not weaker, and being a surrogate is my only option right now other than taking a year or two off to earn the money to pay for school. I want to be a lawyer so I can change people’s lives and make sure no one ever goes through what I went through. I see surrogacy the same way. I want to change someone’s life for the better. If I can give someone the same joy and fulfillment that I get from being a parent and make a better future for my son at the same time, I don’t see a problem.” I’m surprised by my own words. I came into this meeting with reservations, but when confronted with the reality of it all, I know in my heart it’s the right thing to do.

Brittney is quiet while she absorbs my explanation, and then she slides a folder across the desk toward me.

“I think you’re a good fit. This is everything you will need to know to get started. You’ll find an application and forms for both a psychiatric evaluation and a complete physical with bloodwork. If you don’t have a lawyer, you’ll need one. There is a list in the folder, as well as the escrow service we recommend. You will have a million questions, but just try to take it one step at a time, beginning with the application. The agency will be looking at any drug history, family medical conditions, psychiatric history, criminal records, and even your BMI. It’s very thorough.”

I lay my hand on the folder and hesitate for a moment. This is it. No more walking the fence. I’m either all in or all out. I slide the folder across the desk. All in.