The soft click of the door closing has my eyes fluttering open and I’m instantly struck with memories of last night.
Of the irresistible charge of desire that darkened Tobias’s eyes.
Of the rough texture of his hands as they ran over every inch of my body.
Of how, even after our second round, it wasn’t enough.
He needed more.
Wanted more.
My fingers lift, running along my neck, the spot he refused to neglect for more than five seconds. Be it his hands, his chin, his tongue … he kept coming back for more, lighting the sensitive spot on fire with any and every move he made.
Not once was his focus on himself. It was all me, all night, and when he fell asleep beside me, all I could think was how perfectly he fit there.
Rolling onto my back, my arm falls to the now empty space and my lips curl. The heat of his body is still there, as is the indent in the pillow.
An unexpected sense of comfort washes over me, but it’s short-lived, because in the next second, I push up onto my elbow, and the first thing I spot … my wallet.
No.
My chest caves and I can’t breathe. It’s as if metal is seeping into my lungs and hardening by the second.
No, no no …
I scramble off the bed, falling onto my knees as the blankets tether around me and lift my wallet toward my face.
My driver’s license.
It’s gone.
Dashing around the room, I search for my phone, tearing it from the charger and quickly dialing his number.
It rings once and goes to voice mail.
“Shit!” I hiss, trying again, but this time, there is no ring.
In a panic, I try the man I know he went to see, but the line just keeps ringing.
I call Bianca to see if she can come sit with Bailey, so I can find him before he finds him.
“Hi, I’m busy!” Her voice mail picks up. “Leave a message and if you’re lucky, I’ll call you back.”
Damn it.
My heart cries and I fall onto my butt again, gripping my legs as I look to the ceiling, praying I didn’t put myself into a situation I’ll regret for the rest of my life.
It’s with that thought in mind that I open the long since ignored acceptance letter from UOF and click on the link provided.
Tobias
Pushing through the doors, I head straight for Coach’s office, and to say he’s surprised to see me is an understatement.
His head snaps up from his notebook and he slowly sets his pen down. “Tobias.”
“I, uh” —I lick my lips, rubbing at the back of my head— “I went by your house. Your car wasn’t out front, so I came here.”
Creases form along his face. “Couldn’t sleep with the big game coming so soon.”
I nod, jerking around so I’m facing away from him, and let my eyes roam across the photos on the wall, not one featuring a beautiful brown-headed girl. They’re all coaches and athletes and MLB stars. His life’s work; his life’s focus.
“What’d you give me?”
“What are we talking about exactly?”
“That night after the Cal Poly game.” I don’t turn, but my eyes cut to his. “What’d you give me, Coach?”
Slowly, he eases back in his leather chair. “Son—”
“Neo told me what those pills were, the ones you gave him. The ones you put in my hand that next morning when I couldn’t remember shit, not even drinking a second bottle of beer.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay.” I nod, tossing Meyer’s ID on the desktop. “What do you know about that?”
The man visibly stiffens, and I know his mind’s whirling, trying to figure out the best thing to say, but he delays by licking his lips.
Finally, he meets my eye, the truth written within them. “Tobias—”
“I don’t get it.” I shake my head. “You’ve spent the last three fucking years building me up at every turn. Bailing me out around every fucking corner. You lit the fucking path and drug me through it. I thought that meant you trusted me. Respected me. That I was worth something in your eyes.”
He cocks his head. “And you thought right. I’ve done nothing to make you assume otherwise.”
I grip the edge of his desk, leaning forward so my face is aligned with his.
“If that’s true, look me in my eye and tell me you’re not the reason Meyer’s been doing everything she can to push me away.”
The vein in his jaw flexes. “My relationship with her has nothing to do with my relationship with you.”
“So long as her and I don’t have one, right? Because I’m good enough to lead your team, but I’m not good enough to love your daughter?”
“Watch yourself,” he says slowly.
“Why? Because it’s the truth?”
Coach Reid licks his lips again.
“Tobias,” he speaks with caution. “You’ve been my priority for years, you know this. She’s—”
“Don’t.” I shake my head and push off the desk, now staring down at him. “Whatever you’re going to say, just don’t. I don’t want to hear how I’m more important than your flesh and fucking blood, because that’s bullshit.”
“It wasn’t bullshit when you benefited from it, now was it?”
“I didn’t know!” I shout. “If I had, I would have turned around and given everything I’ve ever gotten from you to her. No question. It’s no wonder she didn’t tell me about you, nobody wants to claim what they’re ashamed of.”
“Don’t stand here and act like you’re an honorable man, Tobias.”
“It’s not about being honorable, Coach. It’s about human decency, something we give to strangers on the street, but what decency have you shown her?”
“More than you realize, it seems.”
“Just like with me and her, right?”
His eyes narrow.
“Come on, Coach, you know what I mean. How, after you convinced her to walk away from me, you realized she meant more to me than it seemed?”
“There was no convincing, Tobias. You were taking all her time.” He watches me closely. “Which meant she had less for others. She needed to drop you to make back her normal income.”
“You told me to take all her time!” I shout. “You said she made more when she was with me!”
His eyes narrow and he yanks his head back as he realizes, “You started failing on purpose …”
“No fucking duh!” I whip around, running my hands down my face.
I stole her time, which stole part of her livelihood, which took from Bailey.
Fuck, man.
I took from Bailey.
“Son …”
A scoffing laugh leaves me, and my chin falls to my chest. “I’m not your son.”
Slowly, I face the man I’ve looked up to for the last three years, the man I hoped to one day become, someone who gives you hope when you have none, who holds your fucking head up when the weight of the world is dragging it down, and suddenly, I don’t even recognize him.
He has no photos on his wall of Meyer.
Has never spoken of her.
Never even hinted about having a family.
All he cares about is his job, his career.
Baseball isn’t just all he has, it’s all he is.
I wanted to be him.
I will never be a damn thing like him.
“I’m not your son,” I repeat. “And I don’t want to be treated like one by a coward of a man who looks after his team more than he does his own family.” Shame settles over me. “She’s struggling, has little to nothing, and she doesn’t even complain. You could do so much more for her and instead you waste it on me? Give me a house and truck and leave her to fend for herself and her daughter?”
“Who do you think covers that girl’s tuition, huh?”
“She has a perfect GPA. She can do that without you.”
“Shows how much you know.”
“So fucking tell me!”
“It’s not your concern. Focus on that nine-million-dollar contract coming your way, thanks to what I’ve offered you.” He pushes to his feet. “Everything I’ve done, I did to make sure you’d get to where you are now. All those times I covered for your ass and got you out of trouble. The times I carried your ass out of bars or got rid of your company for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to do all that.”
“Yeah, you did, Tobias. Own that.”
“This isn’t the same thing.”
“It’s exactly the same.” He glares, and then something flashes in his eyes. “But I take it she never got around to telling you about the night I picked her up off your doorstep, did she?”
My face falls, the weight of a dozen boulders falling onto my chest.
He shakes his head. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. I’m not the only one hiding parts of my life. The girl is trouble, Tobias, she’s a natural born liar, and I’m trying to keep you away from that. The last thing you need is a leech.”
“What do you mean?” I swallow, and when he doesn’t say anything, I dart forward, grip him by the shirt and throw him into the shelves beside us. “I said what does that mean?! Are you saying I was with her before?! That I don’t remember her?!”
I could never forget her. I wouldn’t.
“Why do you think she didn’t want to tutor you, Playboy?” Coach Reid shoves my hands off of him, standing tall. “Memories can be a bitch.”
I stagger backward, searching my mind and coming up empty.
“Bailey …” My gaze falls to the floor and I run my hand over my head. “She … is she …”
Blue eyes.
I look up, struck by the gobsmacked expression on my coach’s face.
He eyes me, his head tipping more and more to the side, the creases framing his brows deepening, and then the man laughs.
A full, unexpected, incredulous laugh that has my pulse picking up even more.
“Well, I’ll be fucking damned. You really are a clueless son of a bitch.” He shakes his head. “Get out of here and get your ass in check.”
“Fuck you,” I spit. “Fuck. You.”
I walk out, my body tingling. Full fucking rage brewing in my chest, and a million other emotions whirling with it.
“If you think you’re going to play house with my daughter and I’m going to allow it, you’re wrong. I own you for six more weeks, kid.”
“School’s out in three.”
“And our season will continue to the end of June. Don’t act like you don’t understand what I’m saying. You made me a deal!”
I whip around, my fist coming down on the wall an inch from his face like a hammer. “I got you to the top. We’re in the world series and on track for the championship game,” I seethe.
“Now you’ll get me my protégé,” he says coldly. “You’ll go back to your house that I pay for, take a fucking shower, and pack your fucking bag. You’ll be at the gate in time to get on the bus. You will dominate these next few games and we’ll be on our way to the big game. I’ll get my banner, my program-grown god, and you’ll get your contract.” He creeps closer. “And after that, you’ll be gone, nothing but a memory to me and Meyer.”
It fucking stings, his quick disregard, but not more than it disgusts me.
“The fact that you believe me to be such a man is proof you don’t know me at all.” I shake my head, taking backward steps away from him. “I might have had a falling out with my parents, but my dad was a good man, and he taught me better than to leave the people I love. And I love her. I love them both.”
With that, I push out the double doors and into the tunnel, but the bastard’s footsteps follow.
“Stay away from her, Tobias!” he shouts. “You’ll only hurt her in the end, and you know it. All those girls on the road, the fame you’ve been chasing. How many times have you said all you needed was the freedom to do whatever you wanted in the world? You could never let all that go!”
I cut him a quick look over my shoulder, and while I’m not sure what mine conveys, his face falls as I say, “Watch me.”
Meyer
For the last hour, I’ve been wearing a hole into my rug, pacing the short stretch of my living room without pause, when suddenly, there’s a soft tap at my front door.
My hands fly to my chest, and I freeze where I stand.
The minutes have passed abysmally slow as I wait on pins and needles for Tobias to get back, because I knew he would be, but now that he’s on the other side of the door, I don’t know if I can open it.
I’m scared.
I don’t know what to say to him and I have no idea what he’s about to say to me.
But to make things worse, the tiny hint of hope I’ve held on to that maybe he didn’t go off the wall, that maybe he simply went for a run to gather his thoughts, suddenly seems like an utterly naïve thought.
This is Tobias I’m talking about, and he’s anything, if not direct.
God, he deserves the same respect.
So, I drag in as much air as my starving lungs will allow and pull the door open.
His eyes are on his feet, and when he does look, his focus moves over my shoulder.
He can’t even look at me.
Stepping back, he follows, quietly closing the door behind him and then we’re in the living room.
I bite at my lip as he pulls his bottom one between his teeth, squinting out at the back patio.
“Is it true …” His voice is hesitant.
“Tobias—”
“Is it true, Meyer?”
“Please tell me you didn’t go to him.”
That gets his attention, and he snaps his head my way, his brows nearly touching in the center. “Of course, I did.”
“Oh my god.” My hands cup my mouth, tears springing in my eyes as I lower myself onto the bed.
Tobias darts toward me. “I told him I don’t fucking care. About any of it. I just want you. Both of you.”
“You don’t understand.” The tears fall.
“What, that you lied to me?”
My head jerks up, the pain in his gaze mirroring my own. “I didn’t.”
“A lie by omission is the same thing, Tutor Girl,” he rasps, dropping to his knees before me. He grabs my hand in his.
I close my eyes, a soft smile covering my lips. God, how selfish can I be?
I’m sitting here so focused on my own life that’s about to tumble all around me when he had a bomb dropped on him this morning.
This is a lot for him, too.
My eyes open to find him waiting, with a look of tenderness that makes me want to cry for an entirely different reason.
“Tobias.” I cup his cheek and my heart wrenches when he leans into my palm, his lips grazing my wrist. “This is why I refused to tutor you in the beginning, or … tried to refuse.”
“Why, baby?” His lips graze my wrist, his tired eyes locked on mine.
“Because as much as I pretended otherwise, I knew where it would lead. I knew what being around you meant for me … which is why I was kind of hoping, but also not, that you’d be a jerk.”
His chuckle is low, kind of sad, and I feel the ache deep in my bones.
“I didn’t want to cause problems for you or get us into a spotlight we couldn’t get out of, that he’d see, and have it hurt us both in the end.”
“I deserved to know,” he says simply.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “You did, but you love him, and I didn’t want to be the reason you looked at him differently.”
“But this wasn’t about him, Meyer.” He frowns, his tone soft but firm. “This is my life and I never should have missed any part of hers. I love her, like I imagine a father loves a daughter and I didn’t even know she was mine.”
My vocal cords shrivel, my throat running dry. “What?”
He pushes to his feet, lowering onto the edge of the mattress beside me. “I mean it. I do.”
I shoot to my feet, shaking my head. “What are you trying to say to me right now?”
He flies to his feet, anger making its way into his eyes. “I’m saying I love my daughter and I want to be here for her. That I will be here for her.”
“Holy shit,” I croak, on the verge of hyperventilating.
“I told your dad he can’t stop this. He can’t stand in our way.”
My hand comes up to my mouth, tears spring and threaten to drown me. “Oh, my god … Tobias.”
He comes to me, gripping my face with a rough tenderness, desperation drowning out the blue of his eyes.
“Tobias—”
“I know what he held over your head. He told me about the tuition, about us. I’m pissed, yeah, maybe more than pissed, but … but it’s okay. I’m willing to forget everything if it means having you.”
Defeat engulfs me, the ache in my chest doubling as I stare at the man in front of me.
I lift my hands, laying them over his, and gently remove his palms from my face. “You have it all wrong.”
I back away, and he reaches for me, but I shake my head, turning to pull a file from the drawer.
Handing it over to him, I watch as his eyes are drawn to the header of the very first page, a muddled expression casting a shadow over his handsome face.
“Custody … I don’t …” He shakes his head.
“Tobias, Thomas Reid isn’t my father.” I swallow. “He’s my husband.”
