“I love him, and I’d do anything for him.” Even if it cost him Aileen, and a potential future he’d begun to crave.
She didn’t stop him from leaving.
Chapter Twenty-two
Aileen sat on the sofa until the condensation from the bottle in her hand soaked her shirt and forced her to get up and toss it out.
A high-priced escort. A secret kid. Lies and half truths from the start. No, this hadn’t been what she’d been hunting around for when she’d started his story. But it absolutely did explain why he was so aloof from everyone, including his own teammates. He was protecting his son’s right to anonymity by removing all temptation and opportunity to spill the news.
Charlie. An adorable name for—what she’d seen of him—an adorable young boy. Killian’s spitting image.
Wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, she sat at her desk chair and opened her laptop. She typed out a few sentences in a Word document, hoping to put things together in an outline. Maybe, if she saw it on paper, she could make her mind process it easier. Black and white had always been her go-to for centering before. But her eyes kept drifting to the left, to the photo of her parents.
“Mom . . .” The word caught in her throat. “What . . . I mean, how . . .” She let her head drop to the desk, arms dangling down. “There’s no way. I can’t do this.”
Reaching for her phone, she dialed the one person she least wanted to speak to at that exact moment. She hit the record button just as he answered.
“You’ve got Bobby Mundane, what’s the story?”
Ug. The greeting made her skin crawl. “Bobby, it’s Aileen.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you answer like that?”
“It’s my thing,” he said simply, and she fought a gag.
“I’m recording this call for my own records. I’m not doing the Killian Reeves story. Just thought I would let you know.”
“Got a Cassie Wainwright story?” he asked immediately.
She refused to even let him know she’d spoken to the coach’s daughter. “I do not.”
“Then this is the end of the line, babe.”
Babe. Another gag.
“If you can’t pull out the big guns when we need you most, there’s nothing I can do to save ya. You don’t have the killer instinct for this gig.”
He might have been right about that. But . . . “It’s fine. I was actually calling to quit, anyway. As of this moment, I’m no longer employed by Off Season, which means all unsubmitted footage is my own.”
“Sounds like that’s a whole lot of bupkis anyway,” he said easily. “But sure, whatever. Anything not already in our system is yours to keep. Though I’ll tell you right now, you’re not going to find another website or vlog that’s gonna want it.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” That was her concern now. “Either way, I’m not your problem anymore. Guess you’ll have to find another chick to take the softballs you lob at her. Hey,” she said in a falsely cheerful voice. “Maybe the next one will like bikinis!”
“I can only wish,” he said in a reverent voice, then hung up on her.
“Pig.” She closed the screen, then leaned back so far in her chair it creaked and made her think twice about the position. As she couldn’t afford a new chair—couldn’t even before she quit/got fired, and certainly couldn’t now—she got up gingerly from the seat and paced the tiny room.
“What would Mom do,” she muttered, glancing around the room for inspiration. “What would Mom do?”
Then her eyes landed on the bag in the corner behind her front door, and stayed there. “Seriously?” She glanced toward the photo, as if that were going to answer her. “Fine. Who am I to judge?”
She was going bowling.
* * *
Killian sat back on the kitchen chair he’d pulled to the living room, suddenly wishing he’d had more seating. But other than Aileen, he’d never had guests over. His living room was currently packed to capacity, thanks to the large bodies hovering in his apartment.
Well, four large bodies and one pint-sized one.
“So this is the little man, huh?” Trey held out a hand and Charlie slapped it, looking a little awed. “Nice to meet ya, Charlie.”
Charlie nodded solemnly, looking much more mature than his five and a half years. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Owens. When we picked numbers for T-ball last summer, my best friend picked sixteen, for you.”
Trey’s face lit up. “Hey, nice taste your friend’s got there.”
Josiah and Michael both grumbled about taste. Then Josiah knelt down. “So if you know who he is, who am I?”