SEAL's Baby (Navy SEAL Secret Baby Romance) (70 page)

Somehow, it all
seemed so stupid as we were walking across a darkened football field. So
stupid. And, Dylan was going to get hurt. We had to hurry. I didn’t know how
long it would all take, but I hoped I got there before the deed was done.

I stopped. Bailey
ran into me. “What?”

“I think I hear
something.”

“I know where they
are,” Bailey said.

“Then you lead.”

She got me to the
back of the bleachers. I really needed to find new friends. This was
ridiculous.

The night was
chilly, and I hoped I’d find them soon.

“What the fuck are
you doing here?” Barbie said.

I stopped in my
tracks. Bailey pulled out her phone and turned on the light. She shone it on
Barbie and Dylan still dressed. Dylan looked pissed – he must have realized
that I was there, too.

“Taylor?”

“Dylan, she’s just
using you,” I said. “I can prove it.”

I still had the
text stream on my phone. Why she’d discussed in a series of texts, I’ll never
know, but it was evidence in my favor.

Bailey brushed past
me and grabbed her sister by the hair. “You’re a slut. I’m done with this
contest.”

She dragged her
sister out from under the bleachers. Barbie was screaming. Dylan was trying to
separate the two.

“Stop it,” I said.

Barbie punched
Bailey.

I grabbed Dylan to
get him away from them. “Stop. Let them fight it out.”

He stepped away,
then glared at me. I put a hand on his arm. “Look.”

I showed him the
conversation on my phone. He took it from me to get a better look.

“She’s a bitch,” I
said.

I could only see
his face from the light on my phone, but he didn’t look too happy. “I was
trying to warn you, Dylan. That’s all.”

Barbie had Bailey
on the ground. I actually didn’t care what happened to them. There was so much
drama around them that they tired me. I would still be a cheerleader, but I
didn’t think I’d hang with them anymore.

Helena would be
ecstatic. She didn’t like any of my cheerleader friends. What had I been
thinking? Their father owned the largest house in the town. Maybe I’d been
thinking like my mother.

“Are you doing
this virginity thing?” Dylan said, handing the phone back to me.

“No.”

I wasn’t. I wanted
it to be special. Not with some guy on the football field, under the bleachers
as part of a bet. My father had taught me to have more self-respect than that.

Dylan rubbed a
hand down his face. “I can’t believe this.” He glanced at Bailey and Barbie,
who had finally stopped pounding on each other.

“This sucks,” he
said, then ran into the darkness.

“Dylan?”

I ran in the
direction he went, but couldn’t find him. Shit. This wasn’t good.

“Bailey, Barbie, I
can’t find Dylan. Come help me.”

“Fuck you,” Bailey
said.

I rolled my eyes.
We were going to be picked up in a half an hour. Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Dylan?”

I kept jogging in
the direction he went, but he wasn’t there. I would cover for him. Hopefully,
he’d come home tonight. I wandered over to the front of the school, hoping I
didn’t look a mess. I didn’t want to have to explain to my dad what had
happened.

It was too
complicated. My father drove up and I gave him a big smile.

“How was it,
kitten?”

“It’s was good,
Daddy.”

I sounded too
cheery to myself.

“Where’s Dylan?”

“Some idiot got
drunk and Dylan is making sure he gets home safely. He didn’t want you to wait
for him. He said he’d be a little late and he was sorry.”

My father pulled
out of the lot. “No, that’s a good reason to be late. If he’s doing a good
deed, I can forgive him.”

“The guy was
falling down. It was stupid.”

“I’m glad you feel
that way about drinking to your age, pumpkin. It’s best to wait.”

“Sure, Daddy.”

I stared out the
window, willing Dylan to please come home tonight.

PART 2

Chapter Eleven

Taylor

When Daddy pulled into the garage, I was
hoping with all of my will that Dylan would be home before us. I didn’t want
him wandering around, and I didn’t want him screwing this up. He’d back in that
trailer if he did. I hadn’t even seen the thing, but it made me shudder,
anyway.

He’d once said that the trailer he lived
in would fit in his bedroom in the house. I couldn’t imagine living in that,
but he’d had no choice. Now, he did, and I wanted him to make good ones. I was
rooting for Dylan.

I entered the kitchen to see my mom there.
“Where’s Dylan?” she asked.

My father spoke. “He had to take a friend
home who got drunk.”

My mother eyed both of us. I’m sure that
she didn’t think we were telling the truth. I kept my gaze steady. Any sign of
weakness and she would know that I was lying. I didn’t want to lie, but her
scrutiny of all of Dylan’s actions made it that way.

Besides, I couldn’t tell her what really
happened. I couldn’t even tell my father. That was new. I could tell him a lot
of things, but I didn’t think Dylan would want me to. I had to respect his
privacy, even if I hadn’t felt I should earlier.

“Okay, I guess that’s a valid reason for
being late.” She was in her pajamas. She waved at us. “Going to bed.”

“Good night, Mom.”

I looked in the refrigerator for something
to drink. My father sat himself at the island as I grabbed the orange juice.
“Pour me some of that, kitten.”

“Sure, Daddy.”

I set a glass in front of him and then sat
next to him, drinking my own. He turned to me. “Are you going to tell me what’s
really going on with Dylan?”

I almost choked on my juice as I coughed a
little. “What do you mean?”

“Is it a teenage thing? Or is it a Dylan
thing?”

“Still not sure what you are talking
about,” I said.

I tried to play it cool, but it was hard
to lie to my father. He knew when I was. My mother was easy to lie to because
sometimes she didn’t want to know the truth. My father always did. He faced
life head on.

“Is Dylan coming back tonight?”

“Of course he is, Daddy.”

“Are you sure?”

I crossed my fingers where he couldn’t see
them. “Yes. He likes it here.”

“Good because I can only make excuses for
so much behavior. He’s been great, but if he slips up, your mother will want to
throw him out. I want to see him succeed.”

“I do, too.”

“You two have become friends. It’s nice to
see.”

“We have. He’s really helped me with my
math.”

“I’m glad to hear it. We have so much.
It’s good to help someone who needs it. We can’t just give a hand out. We need
to show them how to be successful.”

“Right, Daddy.

I wanted him to go to bed. I wanted to see
Dylan when he got in, just to know he was safe. He was pretty pissed when he
ran away from me. I finished my juice and decided I need a snack.

“You want some potato chips, Daddy?”

“Sure.”

I went downstairs and grabbed a small bag.
Barbecue was my father’s favorite, and he smiled when he saw it. They were just
okay to me, but there was no reason not to soften him up. I wanted him to be
okay with what Dylan had done. Or what we’d told him Dylan had done.

Well, I had started the lie. It was me
lying. Hopefully, Dylan didn’t have an attack of conscience and want to tell
the truth. I’d be screwed. The car wouldn’t come back to me any time soon.

“You ended up not going to the dance with
anyone?”

I shook my head. “Sometimes there is too
much drama when you have a date. It was more fun being just me.”

“That’s very mature. How do you think you
did on the SATs?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I tried.”

“You really should have applied to
colleges by now.”

“I know.”

That was hanging over my head. We had
visited many of them, but I still couldn’t decide. Well, I could, I just knew
the answer wasn’t going to be one that anyone else liked. I wanted to go to
community college to study nursing.

Not that I really wanted to stay home, but
I didn’t need to go away to college. My mother insisted that I should, though.

My dad patted my shoulder when I yawned.
“Go off to bed, kitten. I’ll wait up for Dylan.”

Shit. That would mean that I couldn’t warn
him. A text it was, then. I kissed my father on the cheek and climbed the
stairs. Before I did anything when I reached my room, I sent a text to Dylan.

“I told them you were helping a drunk
friend get home. Please come home, Dylan.”

I got no reply. I didn’t expect one. He’d
been pretty mad about the situation and maybe it was even a little
embarrassing. As I got ready for bed, I jumped every time a car went by.

Not that he would be in a car. He’d
probably be walking, unless someone gave him a ride.

Please come home, Dylan, I thought. I knew
I’d done the right thing, even if he was mad at me. I hoped he wouldn’t stay
mad at me forever.

I was beginning to like Dylan a lot. Not
in a romantic way, I didn’t think, but he was a friend. Maybe a brother I never
had. To think that I’d been afraid of him in the beginning. He was a good guy
and I just wanted to make things right for him, kind of how my dad was doing
it.

But in my own way.

I snuggled under the covers in the dark.

Please come home, Dylan.

Chapter Twelve

Dylan

I’d been impulsive. And stupid. And now, I
was a little lost. I could use the GPS on my phone, but I was afraid the
battery wouldn’t last.

Home. What a concept. When had I started
to think about the Dean house as home?

Then a text came in. I looked down at it
to see it was from Taylor. She clued me in on what she’d told her father about
my absence. She had lied to her father for me. I knew how close they were, it
must have killed her to do that.

I rubbed a hand down my face. She’d been
trying to protect me. She cared about me. And now, she’d covered for me.

Taylor Dean had my back. I stopped walking
for a moment. No one had ever had my back. In my entire life, no one had had my
back.

Taylor did – at a great personal risk to
herself. I couldn’t let her down. I couldn’t be the old Dylan that just ran
away from things. I had to go back. I had to apologize to Taylor, too.

She’d been right about Barbie. The text
conversation had said it all. Barbie hadn’t sent a text to cover my butt. She
hadn’t even sent me a text to see how I was. Bitch.

I turned on the GPS and realized how far
away I was. I’d never make it home in the next half hour.

Should I call Mr. Dean? Or should I call
Cole?

“Hey, Cole,” I said when he answered. “I
need a favor.”

“Sure, bro.”

“I need a ride.”

I told him where I was. I sat on a bench,
hoping no cops came by. I thought about what Taylor had done. She might have
risked her standing in her social group. She might have risked her father’s
trust.

All for me. No one had done that. My
mother had never done that for me. I’m sure the woman loved me, but she loved
her addiction more. As much as Taylor’s mother could be a pain, at least she
was the same every day. I never worried if I was going to meet her drunk or
stoned.

Her dislike of me had been consistent.

A cop car rounded the corner. I wanted to
run. I might have in any other circumstance, but I knew I hadn’t done anything
wrong. There was no curfew. I had a ride on the way.

So I sat, looking at my phone, praying the
battery would last.

I stared at the text from Taylor. She
cared and it warmed me.

The cop parked his car then climbed out.

“Good evening, officer.”

He put his hat on while he looked at me. I
couldn’t see his face, but I’m sure he was taking in my appearance. I should
look respectable. My tattoos, which seemed to mark me as bad news in this
neighborhood, were covered.

“Evening. What are you doing?”

“Sitting here waiting for a ride. I went
out for a walk and got lost.”

“Oh?”

He leaned in, probably to smell my breath.
I didn’t drink. I’d seen what my mother did when she was drunk. That’s how I
came along, after all.

“Yes, sir. I called a friend and he’s
picking me up.”

“Can I see some identification?”

I pulled out my wallet and gave him my
license. I was eighteen, so there wasn’t much he could do if I hadn’t committed
a crime. Loitering was the worst thing I was doing tonight.

He handed it back. “Okay, Dylan. How about
I wait with you until your ride gets here?”

“Sure, officer. It should only be a few
minutes.”

He sat down next to me. “Did you go to the
dance at the high school tonight?”

“I did.”

“Was it fun?”

“Not as fun as I thought it would be,” I
said.

He chuckled. “Yeah, teen girls are tough.
I have a daughter who is twelve and she’s already starting.”

“I just know them from school, and I don’t
understand them.”

“You never will, son. Sorry. Been married
fifteen years. Still don’t understand my wife,” he said. He thrust out his
hand. “I’m Officer Kenney.”

I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Cole pulled up at that moment. “Is this your
friend?”

“Yes, sir.”

I stood. Officer Kenney spoke to Cole,
then let me slide into the car. “Have a good night, son.”

I waved at the officer then Cole drove
away.

“Was he hassling you?” Cole said.

“No, just chatting. I didn’t run since I
wasn’t doing anything wrong. And, I am eighteen.”

Cole dropped me at the front door to the
Dean’s house. I thanked him before he drove off. I took a deep breath before I
walked into the house. The only lights on were in the kitchen. I needed food
anyway.

Mr. Dean was perched on a stool. He turned
to me with a smile.

“Sorry, I’m late.”

“Taylor told me. You were helping a friend
home? He or she?”

Shit. Taylor hadn’t specified. “She. It
was a little sad. Her boyfriend left her there,” I said as I headed to the
refrigerator. My stomach was empty.

I found some leftovers and reheated them
in the microwave. Mr. Dean sat with me while I ate, making small talk. I was
glad he didn’t press me for further details on my story.

He seemed to believe what I had to say,
probably because of Taylor.

“How was the dance?”

“Too much drama. I’m sort of ready to be
done with high school.”

“Yeah, I remember fourth quarter was
tough. I didn’t want to concentrate. I was accepted to where I wanted to go to
college. There wasn’t any reason to go to class. “

“Did you?”

“I did even if I didn’t want to. What are
your plans?”

“After high school? I don’t really know. I
guess I’ll have to get a job. Maybe go to college online.”

He nodded. “Well, let’s see what I can do
for you.”

Once again, someone had my back.