He was the father of my child, and he wanted to actually be the father. He cared about our baby, even if he showed it in his own strange way. The mafia money was bad, but he had taken it for good reasons.
And I was ignoring him and avoiding him. I needed to cut the toxic people from my life, but Gibson wasn’t toxic.
I needed to talk to him. I sighed and began to walk back home. I wasn’t going to take his money, but at the very least I needed to hear what he had to say. I couldn’t keep ignoring him and pushing him away. He was a good person, and he wanted to try to do right.
I had to try to do the right thing, too.
23
Gibson
Another morning without Avery.
I wasn’t going to blow up her phone. I just wasn’t that kind of man. But I did have plans to stop by her place after practice. Maybe if I kept showing up, day after day, eventually I’d catch her. Eventually I’d get a chance to explain.
Once she heard my side of the story, I’d be satisfied. She could choose to do whatever she wanted after that. Once she understood that I did it for her and that I had no other choice, I could accept whatever she chose.
But I wasn’t some fucking coward who just gave up.
Practice went better than the day before. I focused better, kept my head in what was happening around me, and didn’t take any massive hits. I had some small bruising around my ribs from that last tackle, but that was okay. I had played with much worse in the past.
Once we were finished, I showered off and headed out before everyone else. I didn’t feel like explaining to Hynes or Drinkwater what was going on. They’d probably call me a stalker or some shit, which probably wasn’t too far off.
But as I made my way across campus, my phone started buzzing. I pulled it from my pocket and answered it.
“Hello,” I grunted.
“Hi, Gibson.”
I slowed down. It was Avery.
“Hey there,” I said. “I was wondering when you’d finally call me back.”
“I’m sorry I just disappeared like that.”
“It’s fine.”
“I want to meet up, though. Maybe we can talk.”
“I’d like that.”
“Tonight? After your tutoring?”
“Same spot as always,” I said.
“Okay.” She paused. “I’ll see you later, Gibson.”
“Yeah, you will.”
I hung up the phone, smiling to myself.
It turned out that I didn’t have to stalk her after all. That was a relief, since I wasn’t too fond of getting rejected over and over again. Still, I would have done it, if at least to stay in my child’s life.
I turned away from Avery’s place and headed back home. Now I’d have time to get my shit together before going to tutoring. Today was looking up already.
Mindless mathematics, mindless conversation. That was how my tutoring went every single night. I didn’t exactly need the extra help, and everyone knew it, but the coaching and athletics staff all wanted to make sure their star player didn’t fall behind, no matter what.
Everyone figured being the big star of the football team would be all fun. Truth was, it was a lot of work. It took a ton of work to reach my position, and it took even more work to keep it. I barely had time to have fun, especially when it was football season. Not to mention I had to deal with the media and all the people in the world who wanted to try to talk shit.
But none of that mattered as I left tutoring and headed down the campus’s clean-swept sidewalks. There was a large field crisscrossed with walkways stuck in the middle of a ring of buildings. People were sitting in the grass, enjoying the comfortable evening. I nodded to a few people who waved as I crossed between some buildings and moved over a road. I got close to the stadium and hung a left, skirting along its large concrete exterior until I saw the statue up ahead.
Avery was sitting at the base. I couldn’t help but smile. She was wearing shorts that showed off her gorgeous legs and a cardigan that was probably meant to be conservative but made her tits all the more fantastic.
I remembered the way her body felt in the bushes just behind the statue, not even a foot from where she was sitting. I remembered the way she sucked my cock, greedy and soaking wet, and the way I slipped myself deep inside her. I loved hearing her moan, but it got me so fucking hard to cover her mouth as I fucked her.
She was insatiable. She was incredible. I stopped a few feet away from her.
“Glad you came,” I said.
“Yeah,” she answered. “Me too.”
I walked closer to her. “Look, Avery—”
“Hold on a second,” she said, cutting me off. “Let me say something.”
I smiled and nodded at her. “Yeah, okay. Go ahead.”