Secret Maneuvers (18 page)

“Somebody say something before I fall asleep back here.”

“You’re an ass. There, something’s been said,” Bobby muttered.

I laughed as Declan attempted to smack the back of Bobby’s head in retaliation. As I maneuvered my massive truck in and out of traffic, Declan leaned forward until he was practically sitting in the middle of Bobby and me in the front seat.

“Come on, Annabelle. Entertain me here. Better yet, tell me another story for my blackmail book.”

Declan quickly ducked backwards in his seat when Bobby tried to hit him.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Come on, woman! I’m bored as shit back here.”

Bobby was studiously ignoring both of us by looking out of his passenger side window. What could it hurt? It wasn’t as if Bobby could hate me anymore than he already did. Maybe hearing some of the good times would remind him that it hadn’t always been bad between us. I could also use all the help I could get when it came to hopefully having a working relationship with the father of my only child.

“Ok, Declan, you’ll appreciate this one. See when Bobby joined our high school football team he had to go through an initiation, a hazing of sorts. What small town would be complete if they didn’t continue crazy rituals that would give all the gossipy, old, married ladies something to talk about all year long? So, anyways, all the seniors wrote embarrassing tasks to be completed, then threw them in a hat to be drawn out by the freshman.

“Bobby here was lucky enough to have to go through our local grocery store in nothing except a hot pink thong. They made him go through the checkout counter, buy a box of condoms and he couldn’t leave until he sang the school song at the register. All the while, the poor check out girl, who was sixteen, stood there staring at him with a river of drool coming out of the side of her mouth because, even at fifteen, Bobby looked and was built like a Chippendale stripper.”

Declan was roaring with laughter in the back seat. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bobby’s cheeks turn pink as he blushed.

“But don’t feel too bad for Bobby. My best friend Teagan had it much worse. You see she was the team’s punter and the only girl in the whole state of Georgia on a high school football team. Her initiation task was to streak through the school grounds while school was being dismissed. None of the guys thought she would do it and that it would be the quickest way to get a girl off of their championship winning team, but they underestimated Teagan; like most people did. The entire school got to see her naked itty bits and I drove the getaway car she dove in when she was done streaking around the school. Lord, she couldn’t get any of the guys at school to stop hitting on her after that, no matter how many times she kicked them in the nuts.”

Declan was laughing so hard that tears rolled down his cheeks and he struggled to breathe. He promised through the entire tirade to spread that story to everyone they knew between his choking gasps for breath.

I glanced over to see Bobby watching me. “What?”

Shaking his head he mumbled, “For a minute there, I got a glimpse of the girl I used to know. Too bad that girl grew up into a deceitful woman without a heart.”

Chapter Eleven

Bobby

Pulling up to the small, yet friendly, looking ranch home, I wasn’t sure who was more nervous, me or Belle. She hadn’t spoken another word to me since I’d told her, when we pulled up at the hotel, that she was taking me to Seth and Declan had exited the truck when she said okay. She called Sheriff Jenkins and asked him to bring Seth home in twenty minutes. After disconnecting the call, she promptly turned her radio on so loud that we couldn’t have said a word to each other over the music if we’d wanted to.

Perhaps my comment on the way back to Poteet about the kind of cold, deceitful woman I’d felt she’d become had been harsh, but it was also exactly how I felt. Being the straight shooter that I was, even back when I was a teenager, she should know that I wasn’t one to pull my punches; physical or verbal. There’d just never been a reason to be that way with her before. Now there was.

The outside of the house was painted a bright, sunny yellow with white shutters on the windows. It was the same colors as the fantasy dream house we’d built together in our minds a hundred times during the two years we’d been together. We walked up the stained porch steps and stood in front of the red door she’d always wanted, using her key to unlock the deadbolt.

“Yellow house, huh?”

“Just because you gave up on our dreams didn’t mean I had to, Bobby. I wanted a yellow house, so when I could afford one, I bought me and my son a yellow house.”

Guess I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t pulling their verbal punches anymore.

Pushing the door open, she stepped aside and waved a hand, inviting me in. Walking through the doorway and past her, I stopped in a small entryway that connected to the living room. It was filled with the family essentials of a couch and a loveseat covered in chocolate brown leather and an oversized entertainment center, sporting a large screen television. It was an open floor plan, so the living room flowed into the kitchen and dining area, which were only separated by a long breakfast bar, equipped with four barstools. The walls were painted almost the exact same color of yellow as the outside of the house and a dark beige carpet ran from the living room down the hall to where the bedrooms probably were. The small entry way, kitchen and dining area floors were covered in a dark beige ceramic tile that matched the carpet’s color.

I didn’t miss the little touches that made the house more of a home for its two occupants. Candid photographs of Belle, Seth and even Teagan hung on the walls in ornate picture frames. There was a blanket draped over the back of the couch and matching throw pillows on the furniture, all in burnt orange and white colors with the Texas Longhorns symbol on them. It was then that I noticed that the dining room chair cushions were also burnt orange and there was a ceramic pitcher and cookie jar decorated in Longhorn symbols. So it appeared she was still a big football fan, but her choice of team was surprising to me. After all, we’d grown up in Georgia where, like Texas, football was a religion, but we had worshiped at the stadium stands of the Bulldogs. Everyone we knew still back home would consider this blasphemy.

Looking over my shoulder to see Belle watching me with an unreadable mask in place, I said, “The Longhorns? Seriously?”

The front door opened behind her and Seth walked in, answering me without missing a beat as he closed the door behind himself. “Why wouldn’t Mom root for the Longhorns? It’s our team.” Coming to a stop beside his mother, I watched as my son braced his feet shoulder width apart, crossed his arms over his chest, and then gave me the once over. Christ, he was just like me.

Turning around to face them both, I told him, “There was a time when your mom was a die-hard Georgia Bulldogs fan, that’s why.”

Seth shrugged his shoulders. “Mom hasn’t lived in Georgia since before I was born. I’m sure, after she moved here, she realized that the Longhorns were a superior team compared to the Bulldogs, but you’re not here to talk football, are you?”

Was the kid fourteen or forty? Because, at the moment, he sure wasn’t acting like a damn teenager. No, he was acting like a grown man, trying to protect the little woman of the house. Only there wasn’t a little woman that needed to be protected. Belle could damn well take care of herself. She’d already proven that with all of her actions so far. If I weren’t so pissed at her right now, I’d be amused by this whole big man act my son was trying to put on for me. Problem was, I was angry, so it was not really amusing at the moment.

Belle put a visibly trembling hand on Seth’s shoulder and then looked to me, nodding towards the living room. Her voice wavered for a second when she said, “How about the three of us go sit down so we can talk?”

Mother and son settled down on the loveseat, leaving me to sit by myself on the larger couch. How fitting that even where I sat on the living room furniture brought home how much I felt like an outsider to the two people I should never feel that way with. Looking to Belle for guidance on how they should proceed, I was greeted with that mask of hers again, instead of help. It was such a blank look that I would have thought she was impersonating a robot if it weren’t for the way she was fisting her hands in her lap. She was clenching them so hard that the fingertips were a bloodless white. So she wasn’t as unaffected as she was trying to pretend to be.

Clearing my throat, I looked to Seth and started. “We should start with introductions.” Rubbing my nervous hands over the tops of my thighs, I wondered just how one went about telling another human being that they were their father without sounding like some bad Darth Vader impersonation.

“Seth, my name i-“

“I know who you are.”

Did he just say what I think he said? Maybe I had a wax build up going on in my ear. Sticking a finger in both ears, wiggling them around to make sure there were no blockages, I took my fingers out and sputtered, “I’m sorry, did you just say you know who I am?”

The boy’s face was just as blank as his mother’s; however, I couldn’t find any outward signs of emotion from him like I had with Belle and her hands, which wasn’t helping me figure out if this conversation was going well, or if it was the beginnings of an emotional clusterfuck.

“Yes, sir.”

Well, slap me silly and call me a monkey shit target. Just what exactly did my son think he knew about me? Had his mother filled his head with lies? I didn’t want to think Belle would do that to me, but as of right now, I didn’t know what to think of the former love of my life. Why did the idea of labeling her former bother me so badly, too? Ignoring the urge to shoot Belle an icy glare, I kept my eyes on Seth.

“What exactly do you think you know about me?”

“I know that your name is Bobby Baker. You’re from a small town in Georgia, named Sylvania, where you grew up with my mom. She told me that you made good grades in school, played on a championship football team, and then left for the Army after you graduated top of your class.”

Seth stopped talking to stare at me for a few moments. I tried to sit there and stay calm under his scrutiny, but the sweat slicking my palms was a big, fat indicator that I was anything but calm. Was that it? Had his mother told him anything else? Like the fact that I was her first boyfriend? Had she told him how we’d spent every spare minute together for two years? That I was the one she’d run to after her father would come home drunk and mean? That it had taken me over six months to convince her that she was safe with me? Had the mother of my son told him that I was a bastard for leaving her? That I couldn’t be trusted to keep my promises or be counted on?

Had she told our son that I’d broken her heart and left her unknowingly pregnant and alone?

I couldn’t take the wait anymore. I needed to know if my son knew who I really was. Did he know that I was his father? Opening my mouth to broach the subject again, he stopped me by standing up abruptly.

“Stay here, please. I’ll be right back. I need to get something out of my room.”

Just like that, Seth strolled out of the living room and down the hall as if he hadn’t left a billion pound elephant sitting in the room with his absence. At least he’d used the word please, though. It meant that Belle had done a good job instilling some manners into our child. Still floating in a state of confusion, I moved my gaze from the spot where my son’s back had disappeared down the hall to his mother. She looked cool as a cucumber, which frankly pissed me off a little bit more than I already had been. Where was all that remorse she’d had at the football field? Did she think that now that I’d met our son in the flesh that the slate was wiped clean and she no longer owed me my pound of flesh in retribution?

If that’s what she thought, she was superbly, fucking mistaken.

Or at least, she’d looked totally unaffected until I looked back down to her hands to see that they were still tightly clasped together. So much so that a small drop of blood was leaking out from under one of her nails where it had broken the skin of the palm of her hand. I heard her give a small sniffle as I stared at that drop of blood and it reminded me that she’d learned growing up to at least give the appearance of locking her emotions down. That piece of shit father of hers had taught her the hard way that he wouldn’t listen to a little girl’s cry, so she’d become the master at hiding how she felt, no matter what. Perhaps habits like those were hard to break.

Seth came back into the room holding what looked like a small photo album and a picture frame in his hands. Sitting back down on the couch, next to his mother, close enough that his leg brushed against her own, he dropped the album in his lap, but extended the frame out to me. I didn’t know where this was all headed, but the hair on my arms stood up and I had the sense of foreboding wash over me. Whatever this was, it was going to be huge; possibly life changing.

That thought should have seemed ridiculous since I was already in the middle of a life changing moment—that first point in time where I met my son—Which should have been when he was born. Instead, it was in this moment when he was already fourteen, sitting in a living room that was not in my family home, and handing me an unfamiliar picture frame that I somehow knew was about to flip my world on its axis.