Hail Mary Baby: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (11 page)

T
he next day
was spent in the hospital with Jacob. Liam vowed to make everything right. He
needed
to set things straight. Or so he said. Here were the facts: the father of my child had punched my producer and my show was hanging by a thread. I was a wreck. Not that I wasn't before.

I begged and I begged until finally Jacob conceded. He would let the show continue, as long as I never brought Liam onto the show ever again. The episode, however, would have to wait. Production would be halted. I would have to go back to Los Angeles until his nose and jaw had healed.
God dammit…

So I flew back to LA, despite it all. Liam, being the man he is, decided to come with. We flew in a jet that belonged to the team. Of course, I was bit too angry to enjoy the ride. I sat staring out the window, at the never-ending shapes of the world below.

“I'm really fucking sorry. I know I’ve got a pretty bad temper.” He said when we got back to my place. I simply looked away from him. It wasn't even that I was mad at him for punching Jacob. The truth was Jacob was a creep and he deserved much more than that. It was that he lived a life where he felt entitled to do whatever it is he wanted to do. All celebrities were like this.

“I just don't know if I can trust you anymore.” It was as if the words were just floating out of my mouth. It was the truth and I couldn't help how I felt.

“What can I do to make you trust me again? Please Laura. I'll do anything. I want to be with you. I want to raise Alex with you. At least let me try.” He pleaded. But they were just words. Things people say. They didn't mean anything. Only actions held real weight.

“Nothing. Just be a normal person, okay? For once in your life, be what you say you'll be.” I said, pushing him close to the door.

“So you're just going to kick me out then? Fine. I'll leave.” He said, arrogantly shaking his head at me.

“Good!” I screamed back, slamming the door. I fell onto the hard wood floor, back against the shut door. Alex simply stared at me.

“I'm sorry kiddo.” I said. “Mommy’s just tired.”

He crawled his cute butt toward me as I held my arms out for him. He was so damn precious, his smile could turn a shit day into something really special. But when he finally got to me, he grabbed at the bottom of the front door and actually spoke his first words: “Dadda?” He pointed toward the front yard. “Dadda go?” He asked me.

His first words. I felt the night sky envelop me. What could a lady do if there was no one to trust?

I
slammed
the door behind me, shaking with confusion and anger. I had fucked up again. Only this time it was different. This time I had made the only woman I cared for hate me. Correction: she didn’t
hate
me. She just didn’t trust me anymore. There was a huge difference when it came to those words. And losing trust was much, much worse.

I walked along the main boulevard, hands in my pocket, head arched toward the night sky. The sharp moonlight shined down on me, bathing me in its mysterious glory. “What can I do?” I asked the night sky. “How can I fix this?” Images of my child flashed through my mind. His smile, his face, the way he crawled toward me. He was so damn peaceful when he was next to me. It’s like he knew.

Even if he didn’t, I had to figure things out. I wasn’t a guy that just gave up when the going got tough. I kept walking, thinking to myself. I walked past a television store. I stopped to see the headlines. On the stack of TV’s was my face. “Rage of Fury” flashed on the screen. Then the words “Crazy Patriot.”

The screen panned to ESPN’s correspondent Chelsea Haywahl. “
Hello and welcome everybody. Tonight we have an odd story for you. You may know Liam Conway as the star quarterback of both the Patriots and the Cowboys. Well, now it seems he’s gotten into a little bit of trouble. Chris Hughes is in New York City with the story.
” The camera then panned to Chris Hughes in front of the Chrysler Building. It looked like a fake backdrop but I wasn’t too sure.

“Trouble in Paradise is the headline for today. I’ll tell you why. Liam Conway, super-quarterback for the Patriots has assaulted someone yesterday and it turns out it’s none other than the producer for our own network.”

I stopped watching. It wasn’t worth my time. In my pocket my phone vibrated. My PR agents were going crazy. One of the texts read “Call me back ASAP. The Press is having a field day with you. We need to issue a calculated response.” I sighed and shook my head. I could never catch a damn break.

I wasn’t a psychopath. I wasn’t a murderer or sadist, nor was I some power-hungry asshole. I was just a ball player. That’s it. A ball player with a mild problem with his temper and agitation. Was that really all that unusual?

No one knew me. No one. Not even Laura. I wanted her to figure me out, but I was like a locked box wrapped a million times over. I was hard to grasp.

When my father left us, it ruined me. I was just six years old. A child. He left my mom, sure. Men and women do that all the time to each other and it’s heart breaking. But there was one thing I couldn’t ever get over. I caught him sneaking out one night. He had a backpack and a suitcase, a few loose items, and a look on his face that said “I’m out of here.”

I said, “Dad? Where you going?”

He leaned over to me and whispered, “Go back to bed. I’m going on a little trip. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Something seemed fishy, however. I asked him, “Can you take me with you? I want to go on a trip too.” Anything to be around pops. Anything.

“No.” He whispered. “Mommy wouldn’t like that. You have to be a good boy because good boys get what they want. Are you going to be good for me?” He whispered. But I knew what that meant. Being a good boy meant keeping your mouth shut. Being a good boy meant acquiescing to bad people making bad decisions. But I was too young to fight back. I was too young to know how to scream for my mom to keep him there. Besides, it wasn’t up to her anyway. He would have beat both of us if I spoke up. I had to let him go. I had to…

I
turned away
from the TV’s and I grabbed my phone and threw it into the busy road. It smashed into a million pieces underneath a truck’s tire. I wasn’t crazy, dammit. I just loved someone.

I stopped dead in my tracks. That’s right. I
loved
her. And I wasn’t about to stop loving her anytime soon. I kept walking, aimless and confused, until I walked by an odd flower store. I stopped. It was 9 PM but the store was open for a few more minutes. I walked inside.

“Good evening.” A kind woman said to me.

“I need flowers. Lots of flowers.” I found myself saying.

“Well you came to the right place. How many do you need?” The woman asked me, cutting off the stems from a pair of roses.

“Enough to fill a yard.” I said. “Enough to say I’m sorry and I love you more than anything in this bullshit world. Enough to say…” My words fell short as the woman smiled a familiar smile.

“I think I can help you.” She said. “Come.”

She opened a back door and inside was a room full of fresh cut floral arrangements. “I’ll take them all.” I said. “In fact, I’ll take the whole damn store.”

I
t was supposed
to be an easy life. That’s what was always promised to me. Instead, it was all heartache and pain. The thing was, I couldn’t even talk to Katherine about it anymore. Every time I brought it up, she would respond in a callous way. It was as if my troubles meant nothing to her.

I had no one to rely on anymore, besides my family. Not my friends, definitely not my producers or agents, and not the father of my child. My parents were basically clueless when it came to the kind of life I led. It would have been easy to give up right then and there. But I didn’t.

When I woke up the next morning it was still dark outside. The sound of violins rang out against the morning air. Wait,
violins
?
Must be a part of my dream
, I thought to myself. But the sound continued. I slowly climbed out of bed, aching and still barely awake, and opened the door. I squinted against the full moonlight.

The most bizarre thing happened to me. Outside my home was a full orchestra, all dressed up as if they were going to the play a big concerto. “What the hell?” I whispered. I walked out onto the front steps of my lawn and sat down.

It was beautiful. All around the players were large wreaths, roses, tulips, and just about any other flower you could imagine. In the center were giant letters. I tried to read them but they were too big from below. I ran into the backyard and climbed on my roof. It would be a nicer view from up there anyway.

I struggled to push my feet onto the rooftop. When I finally secured a foothold, I slipped and fell backward. “No!” I screamed, sure as hell I was falling to my death. That’s when I felt a warm pair of hands grab mine. I looked up, hanging off the roof. It was Liam.

“Let me help you.” He said, pulling me up onto the roof with him. When I was finally safe, I looked at him angrily. “Just let me explain.” He said, walking to the front edge of the house. “Look.”

We both sat down, our feet dangling over the edge. The orchestra was playing the delicate strings as the city lights twinkled in the distance. It was a picturesque sight to see.

“You know, I’ve never been up here.” I admitted. “The whole city is visible up here. It’s incredible.”

“Sometimes they best things in life are right in front of your eyes. You just have to look at it in a different way to see them.” Liam said.

I looked down at the letters built by petals and stems. “I love you.” It said. A simple, yet special message. My stomach sank and my heart began to flutter. “Oh, Liam…” I whispered.

“To the ends of the earth and back.” He said, wrapping his arms around me. The cold breeze of the morning-night circled around our bodies. “I was born to win. But it wasn’t the game that I was supposed to win. I was born so I could win your love. Now, I may have fucked it all up. I know I’ve got some problems. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t love me. I’ll prove to you that I’m the one. I
love
you.” He stopped speaking and looked at me, waiting for a response.

I laid my head against his shoulder and gave a sigh of odd relief. “This is the most special thing anyone has ever done for me.” I said.

“There’s more where that came from. Every day of our life together will be a gift.” He whispered, his lips against the top of my head. I felt so close to him, despite what had happened. And yet, it was like there was a small wall built in between us.

“But how can I trust you?” I asked him. “How will I know you won’t do something stupid like that again?”

“This is a new era for me. I’m not going to be the same man I was.” He said. And then he admitted something to me. Something I never knew about before. “When I was a young boy, probably around four or five. Maybe even six. My father was a strict man. He didn’t like it when things weren’t going smooth as ice around the house. If, say, a cup was left on the counter for more than a day, he’d flip on you. He’d push the cup off the counter, smash it into a million pieces and slap your face. ‘You gonn’ know what being bad is all about.’ He would say. Well, me and my mom tried to do better, but it was like walking on eggshells around him. One small thing would set him off. Then, right before he left us, he started to act crazy. Like, really crazy. The slaps turned into full on punches. I’d find my mom bleeding on the bathroom floor, unable to scream for help. The whole house was full of fear and paranoia. Anger and utter sadness.” He took a deep breath, even though I knew those tears were about to start coming. He tried to hold them back, his lip trembling as he spoke.

“Liam. My God… That’s horrible.” I said to him. I didn’t know what else to say. He kept speaking.

“And it got to the point where my mom had to go to the hospital one time. He broke her nose. Shattered her septum. Bruised her ribs. He would…” He choked up during this part and shook his head, as if he was trying to shake the memory for good. “He would do worse to her. Things I don’t even want to talk about, you know? I was just a child and she was just a mother trying to provide for her child. But him? He was the devil. I’m sure of it. I know you can’t trust me, Laura. And I know I need to defeat those memories inside of me. I need to get rid of that anger and pain to fix my reactions to certain people. But know that I would be the best God damn father to Alex. I would give him more than I would give myself. And I would
never,
ever leave you two. Not in a million years.” He stopped talking and breathed calmly, wiping away the tears from his eyes.

“I misjudged you.” I said. “From the very start, I thought of you as someone you aren’t. I thought you were an asshole, a jock that couldn’t control himself. Now I’m thinking, maybe I should see where you’ve grown and where you’re struggling. Maybe…” I turned to him. “Maybe, I should be there for you like you’d be there for me.”

He smiled and ran his hands through my hair, caressing the back of my head. He kissed my soft cheek. “I don’t deserve anything.” He said. “But I
need
you. It’s crazy how much I love you.”

“Everyone deserves a second chance, right? I’ll try my best to forgive you.” I said. “Just promise me you’ll be trustworthy from now on. I can’t be with someone who’s going to destroy my career
or spit in my cameraman’s face.” I laughed slightly, not because it was all that funny. However, up against the moonlight, small sliver of sunlight, and music playing from the violins and cellos, it didn’t seem all that big. I don’t know. It was like the feeling of forgiveness had rushed inside my heart.

He nodded and massaged the knots from my neck. “I know I wouldn’t want that kind of thing from you either. Cindy would do rash things all of the time. She would yell in cameras, pull up her shirt in front of people, and get far too fucked up. I hated that about her, so why should I do that to you? I’m just sorry. For everything.” He whispered.

“I forgive you.” I whispered, running my hands across his warm chest. I kissed his stomach and closed my eyes. Things would be better from here on out. They had to be.

“Liam?” I whispered.

“Yes, my brown eyed girl?”

“I love you too.”

It wasn’t too long before we fell asleep together, our backs against the tiles of the roof. The morning sunlight eventually found its way over the valleys and mountains at the edges of the world. All was good in my world. No. All was perfect.