One Perfect Night: A Sports Romance (5 page)

And Julie? She’d allowed herself to get swept away with Logan, her heart and soul involved.

And now...now what? She couldn’t afford to raise a baby on her own, but there was no way she could involve him. He had his football career and didn't need her in the way of it. And he had his other women.

But despite that, how could she not tell him about the baby? This wasn’t just her decision. Or anything she did wasn’t just her choice. It was Logan’s baby, too.

A baby.
Julie burst into tears, clenching her bathroom sink.

What in heaven’s name was she going to do now?

***

Several hours and a crying jag later, Julie called her mother. There was no way she could do this alone. Mom had sounded alarmed at Julie’s shuddery request for her to come over. Julie wouldn’t tell the news over the phone. She needed her mom here to try to help her put it all into perspective.

When Julie answered the door, Mom walked in, pulling her into an embrace. Julie sank into it, much as she’d done with Logan.

Logan. The baby’s father.

Mom made tea while Julie stood silent, awkward, in her small apartment. After the tea was made, they settled on the couch together.

“Okay, what is going on, hon?” Mom asked. Julie snuggled in, the little girl and grown woman warring for attention. She wanted her mommy, but then she realized with a start that she was going to be the mom soon enough. If she kept the baby.

If…she wasn’t sure if she was cut out to be a single mom.

“Mom, I’m pregnant.”

Outside of Mom’s gasp, she didn’t react and Julie pressed closer, seeking...something. She felt as if she was being a bit immature, but there was a time where every girl needed her mom and this was most definitely one of those times.

“I didn’t know you were seeing anyone,” Mom said, her voice falsely casual.

“I...wasn’t?” God, she sounded as if she was twelve again, getting caught with cigarettes. Julie wiped a few tears that had fallen, and got up, sitting in her overstuffed serviceable chair. She couldn’t do that, couldn’t press against Mom seeking comfort, not when she was going to be responsible for someone else.

A child. She was going to have a child. Logan’s child.

Just like that, she knew that she needed to keep this baby, knew that she had to contact Logan and tell him at least. She couldn’t leave him completely out of the loop. That would be not only unfair, but cruel.

“Who is he?” Mom asked very quietly. She reached out and held Julie’s hand, then wrapped her arms around Julie, rocking her for a few moments. That embrace helped to soothe Julie, and she started to breathe better the constriction in her chest easing, her panic abating for the moment.

“Nobody I was dating. I wasn’t dating at all, Mom.” If she was going to do this, she had to be completely honest with her mother. “I met a man at a party, and we clicked in a way I never have before. I think I fell a little in love with him. He took me back to his place, and we had a romantic night together, but it didn’t look...right in the morning. So I left without even telling him goodbye or leaving him a note. I haven’t talked with him since.”

Mom stayed silent for a minute or two. “There’s something you’re not telling me,” she said, her eyes wise, her gaze shrewd.

“He’s not the kind of guy for me, Mom. he’s very…popular with the ladies.” And the men, she added silently. Men wanted to be him, while girls wanted to be with him. Why was it so hard to tell Mom who it was?

“Is he...known?”

It wasn’t a strange question to ask; Los Angeles had so many famous people around, that chance encounters sometimes happened.

“Yes. He’s a football player. Logan Morris.”

“Oh.” Mom sighed again and shook her head slowly. “Not who I would have imagined. A professional football player, Julie? Really? I wouldn’t have expected you to be with someone of that ilk.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for anything, honey.” Mom sipped her tea. “Logan Morris. He’s gone to another team, hasn’t he?”

“Des Moines.”

“Well, then, you better contact him there. See if he can come home and help you out. You can’t do this alone, whatever your decision is.”

“I know.” Mom was right, of course. Mom was always right.

Julie waited until Mom had gone to start her research. Mom was going to break the news to Dad—a major Condors fan—gently. And Julie had a lot to figure out. She hadn’t even considered all her options, couldn’t even let the words form in her head.
 

The Des Moines Harriers front office promised to get her information to Logan, but Julie didn’t believe they’d actually do so. How many people must call every day hoping to talk to a team member.

But when her home phone rang just before five, Julie lunged for it. She didn’t even check caller ID to see who it was; she instinctively knew that Logan was on the other line, her heart leaping when the phone rang a second time. Julie tried to remember to breathe.

“Hello?”

“Long time no talk,” Logan said a bit coolly. “I can’t believe you walked out without so much as a note. And now you want to talk to me.”

“I…” What could she say? “I was wrong and I’m sorry.”

His sigh resonated over the phone and she just listened to the sound of his breathing for a while. “You’re forgiven. Will you let me take you to dinner tonight?”

“Dinner?” But he was in Des Moines. How far away was Iowa anyway? “Des Moines is a long commute.”

“I’m back in LA for a couple of days. My injury looks like it might need surgical intervention, and my orthopedist wants to run some tests on me here. I trust him with my bones, so I’m here for a bit.”

“Oh. I’m sorry…”

“Me too.”
 

It was clear they weren’t talking about his shoulder.

“You need to eat, and so do I. Let me take you to dinner.”
 

Julie sighed, looking around her apartment. It was a little untidy, but not too messy. It certainly wasn’t like Logan’s grand place, but she loved her seven hundred square feet of space, and it would offer her comfortable surroundings when she rocked his world. And she would, that was a given.

“I’ll agree to dinner, but you have to come here first. We have to talk.”

“Yeah, we do. Address?” When Julie gave it, he let out a little laugh. “Now that I’ve got you, I’m not letting you go. I’ll be there in an hour.”

An hour?! She was a wreck. She was in her oversized T shirt and leggings with her hair pulled back. No makeup and red eyes, and the pregnancy test sitting in a nest of Kleenex.

“Be ready,” he said when she didn’t answer.

“You too.”

He had no idea what news she was going to break to him. Julie felt sorry for Logan.

Logan broke records showering and shaving, even though he had to do most of it one handed. It felt good to get the airplane air off him. He always found the reconstituted airflow gave unpleasant coating to his skin and clothes.

Showering also helped him to not think of how sad Julie had sounded. He was mad at her, sure, for leaving that night and then not answering the messages he'd left with Belle, but he was also a bit concerned. She hadn’t sounded well at all, a rasp in her voice that he didn’t like coming through her hesitant answers.

Once Logan was clean, shaved, and dressed, he stretched his shoulder for a bit, working muscles and tendons slowly, trying to break up some of the anguish that tore from his throwing hand right up into the base of his skull.

He got into his car and started it up, glad that his sister and parents had been looking out for the place, including his car. He’d only been gone six weeks, but it felt like a lifetime. The Des Moines Harriers had a different philosophy than the Condors, and Logan wasn’t a great fit.

And the culture had been a shock to the system for Logan. Des Moines was a fantastic city, but it was very small for an LA boy, and nowhere near the coasts, despite the rivers that ran through the city, which was a bit uncomfortable, too. He wanted to return to LA, but he had to wait out his contract. Or get bounced out due to performance and medical issues. He had no intention of causing an injury to himself; the shoulder as it was caused him enough anguish and restricted movement.

Logan knew his time as a pro football player was reaching an end more quickly than he’d ever imagined, though he couldn’t say that he’d miss it. Getting back on track after a game was a study in pain and anguish, of dizziness and muscle spasms that had made anti-inflammatory medications, heat applications, and X-rays a big part of his life. He just had to hope he wouldn’t get more badly injured in Des Moines.

He tried to shove all that worry down in a deep box, and plugged Julie’s address into his GPS. While he waited for it to calculate the distance, Logan opened the gates and began the journey, heading into LA traffic and something that he couldn’t determine might be a confrontation or a rekindling of what they had.

When Logan pulled into a small parking lot of a garden apartment complex, he tried not to wince. While it was nice enough, it wasn’t his place with its thousands of square feet and landscaped lawn. It was what it was—utilitarian.

He walked up the steps to her apartment, feeling a little guilty that he locked his car. It was a nice enough average neighborhood; nothing to see here.

Julie answered on the first knock, and he drank her in for a moment. “You are so beautiful,” he said, and she flushed, looking away.

“Logan,” she began, and he could tell there was something very grave on her mind. She stepped back and he entered, taking a seat on her couch. It’d seen better days, but it conformed to his body and he wiggled a little, settling in. He hoped Julie would sit next to him and had to quash a little disappointment when she settled into an overstuffed chair.

“Julie.”

She sighed and looked away, then met Logan’s eyes again. She’d been crying, it seemed, and he wanted to pull her close, to soothe whatever was wrong.

“Remember that night,” she said, and he saw a bit of a smile in her face before she closed down.

“Couldn’t forget it,” he told her seriously, and he meant it, though he suspected she didn’t believe him.

“We messed up,” she said softly, and it took him a few moments to connect the dots. He followed her eyes to a little nest of tissue and.

Oh fuck!
 

Oh god!

“You’re…” He couldn’t say the word, couldn’t form the letter P, even.

She nodded unhappily. “Yeah. Safe didn’t mean protected, did it? Big, big mistake and now…” She shrugged and fell silent.

Logan closed his eyes, his heart racing, the panic tearing through him. He was going to be a father—a father! He couldn’t believe it, the swell of emotions overtaking everything else.

“‘Scuse me,” she said, rushing deeper into the apartment, leaving Logan with that little stick, and his thoughts.

A baby. A wife maybe even. God, the changes. A boy that looked like him. A little girl with her mother’s blonde curls.

What if...What if she wanted to… No, not his baby. Not his.

“You okay?” she asked, wrenching him out of his thoughts.

Logan bit his lip, knowing that he had to ask the question, but hating it. “Are you sure?”

Her eyes flashed angrily. “Positive. Unless it is an immaculate conception, there’s been nobody else.” She stiffened and then sat down across from him. “Sorry to lay this on you, Logan, but you are the father. I haven’t had sex with anyone in over a year. Beside you.”

He felt like an ass for even asking about it, but he had to.

‘What do you want to do?” he finally asked, knowing he was probably screwing all of this up.

“What do I want to do?” she asked slowly, and he nodded. “I’m keeping my baby.”

“Okay.”
That was good, right?
“What do you think is...reasonable?”

“What do you mean?”

“Child support.”

She reared back. “No. No, Logan, I’m not telling you this for a handout. I’m telling you because you deserve to know.” She looked at him, her breathing rapid. “I don’t want handouts.”

“It wasn’t a handout,” he said finally. “I just want to help.” Somehow he was screwing this up, and nothing was coming out the way he meant or intended.

She shook her head, lips pressed together in a thin, severe line. “I can’t accept that. Not right now, not yet. Maybe later but…” She allowed that thought to end.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I want to help. Can I at least pay for some things for you?”

“Maybe later.”

“I want to be involved.”

She sighed and nodded. “I won’t stand in your way there, but I want to—I need to—take care of this on my own. Let me work through it all and we’ll talk. I promise.” She gave him a little smile. “I guess I messed up dinner plans, huh?”

Logan shook his head, setting his jaw. This was a miracle, a gift, and he would look at it as such. “You did nothing of the sort. We’re having a baby….we’re having a baby.”

“I’m having our baby.” She emphasized the “I” and “our”.

He wasn’t sure he liked the implication there. It was breaking his heart that she didn't want him involved. Did she really feel nothing for him?

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“We’ll work it out,” she assured, but he wasn’t sure he believed her and that idea terrified him.

Chapter 8

Fourteen Months Later…

Julie rubbed her back and blew her hair out of her face, sweaty little tendrils still clinging to her cheeks. It was unseasonably warm in Los Angeles, and her air conditioning was off for the season. It would come back on in May, but who had expected the city to hit ninety degrees in winter?

Julie wasn’t the only one struggling, wasn’t the only one cranky and miserable. Little Gregory Logan had been crying for hours. The doctor suspected colic, but Julie thought maybe he missed his father, as strange as that seemed. Greg was so little that Julie didn’t figure that he knew Daddy from Grandpa and Pop, but she couldn’t deny that he seemed to have a connection with Logan that he didn’t have with the other men in his young life.

Logan would be on TV later, not that Greg had any idea what his father did or where he was. Maybe there would be a package video on Logan, possibly an interview, but did that really matter? Why did Julie hang on for any little glimpse she could get of him in his public life? Why did every glimpse of him still make her heart flutter and body respond with need? Why weren’t his visits and time with Greg enough?