Perfect Catch(40)

Matt paused, and in his silence she was briefly reminded of her call with Alex the previous night. How strange that the distance of each conversation had been the same, but with Alex she wanted to fill the silences whereas she hoped the quiet was making Matt’s skin crawl.

“What do you need from me?”

What did she need from him? God, the list was endless. She needed more of his time, patience, consideration and, sadly, his money. She needed him to be there for Olivia more than once or twice a year.

And mostly she needed him to be there when Liv woke up.

“I need you to come.”

“Alice…I don’t know if I—”

“Don’t give me any of your bullshit excuses, Matt,” she seethed. “Did I say anything when you blew her off during training? No. You were in the same goddamn state, and you couldn’t make time for her. Fine. I didn’t call you, didn’t bitch at you about it. This isn’t the same deal, not by a fucking long shot. Your daughter is in the hospital, and I need you here. Do you get that? She needs you.”

He didn’t immediately say no again, making her believe he was at least taking her words to heart.

“Okay, look. I can’t leave now, it’s too close to game time. And it’s not easy, I mean management doesn’t know I have a kid.”

“Well, whose fault is that?” She refused to empathize with him because he’d lied to his bosses—and almost everyone else in his life—about having a child. “I don’t care what you have to do. You asked what I needed, and I need you to be here.”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Fine.” She hung up before he said anything else to make her angry, which was inevitable with Matt.

She stared at the phone, looking at Alex’s number in the call log. For a solid minute she debated making the call, but one glance at Olivia convinced her not to.

This wasn’t his mess.





Chapter Eighteen

Sometime in the middle of the night Matt woke Alice up with a soft hand on her back. She jerked awake at his touch. He looked exhausted and cranky, which was a fine match for Alice’s own demeanor. She’d fallen asleep next to Olivia’s bed, her neck at an awkward angle from leaning.

“Hey,” he whispered, his voice low and familiar.

Alice rubbed the dregs of sleep from her eyes and stared at him like he was a figure from a dream. He wore a wrinkled white polo and a pair of khakis, the pale colors making his dark caramel skin stand out in contrast.

“What time is it?”

“Late. Close to three, I think. I came on the first flight I could get after the game.”

She broke down then because she hadn’t realized until that moment she hadn’t believed he would show up. He knelt beside her, and instead of trading nasty barbs or being cruel to each other, he wrapped her in his arms, offering her a tight, comforting hug, something she’d needed desperately but hadn’t known how to ask for.

“How’s she doing?” he whispered into her ear.

“She’s okay. But she hasn’t woken up yet.”

Matt pulled up a chair and sat beside her, leaning over the bed to take Olivia’s hand. Seeing the two of them side by side made her wonder how it was possible no one knew Olivia was his. The girl was practically his clone.

He was just as handsome now as the day she’d met him ten years earlier. His jaw was angular and his nose perfectly aquiline. He looked like the kind of man ancient Greek sculptors would want to base their masterpieces on.

“What happened?”

Alice relayed—in brief, and excluding Kevin’s addled state—the details of the accident. Matt had no real place in her family affairs, and it didn’t make sense to give him any ammunition to use against her. He might not want Olivia now, but if a time came he did, there was no way she’d personally load the gun he would use to shoot her in the foot.

“But the doctors think she’ll be okay?”

“Yeah, it’s all superficial stuff. They say we only have to worry if she doesn’t…if she doesn’t wake…” Alice’s voice faltered, and a renewed spring of tears surged forth. Stupid tears. Was there no end to them?

Again, Matt pulled her close, hugging her awkwardly from the chair. This man, the one in the room with her, was the closest she’d had to the old Matt Hernandez in a very long time, and having him there was like rediscovering an old friend.

It wouldn’t last. These flashes of kindness from him were always short-lived, but for the time being it was exactly what she needed.

“It’s going to be okay,” he assured her, giving her the comfort she hadn’t known she needed so badly. “She’s a tough girl. She’ll be fine.”