Quarterback's Secret Baby(56)

While I waited for Alisha to get back with the band-aid I caught my own reflection in the window over the sink. The image was blurry, but not so blurry that I couldn't see the look of exasperation on my own face. I turned the tap off and sank down to the floor, holding my thumb away from my body so I didn't get blood on my clothes.

"OK, klutz of the year, here's-" Alisha stopped talking halfway through her sentence when she saw me on the floor. "Tash! What's - are you OK? How bad is it bleeding?! Let me look at it..."

She knelt down beside me. "Don't worry," I told her. "It's fine. I just - damn, Alisha. I wish I was a stronger person than I am."

Alisha was looking at me the way you might look at someone who you suspected of being on the verge of cracking up. "Tash," she said, "it's really not that big of a deal. Just let me put a band-aid on it."

"It's not the thumb!" I blurted as she wrapped the band-aid around the small wound. "It's just - ugh, I hate myself for even caring about this, but someone I used to know it back in town and it's freaking me out a little."

"Oh, yeah," Alisha told me, washing her hands and getting started on the onions I hadn't managed to slice yet. "I guess you heard Kaden's back in town? I wasn't going to say anything unless you mentioned it - I wasn't sure you knew."

I laughed. "Yeah, I know. I mean, it seems like everyone knows - all the people at work, you, probably all the old people who hang out at the doughnut shop."

"Well he is Little Falls' big star," Alisha commented, helping me to my feet and pointing me towards a kitchen chair. "Sit, I'll finish these onions. The last thing we need is you chopping off your damn hand, girl."

So I sat down for a few minutes and watched the blood seep slowly through the bandage on my thumb until it seemed to stop. Then I got back to work mixing dumpling dough because Alisha wouldn't let me near any sharp knives.

"He's probably only back for a couple of days," she said, patting me on the back as we worked. "You don't have to see him."

"Oh I know," I replied. "I just wish I wasn't so rattled, you know? Two years later and I'm still getting shook by him, though? When does this end? Because I'm getting pretty damn sick of it, I can tell you that."

Alisha came up behind me and put her head on my shoulder. "It ends," she said quietly. "It definitely ends. Your first always takes a lot longer, too. I know this doesn't help you right now but once you go through this one time it's never so difficult again. It definitely gets easier."

"I have to go through this again?" I asked, shaking my head. "Why can't I just meet a perfect guy and marry him tomorrow? Huh? Why not?"

"Because that's not how it works. Well, not for most of us anyway. You've got nothing to worry about, Tash. You're young, beautiful, smart - you've got your shit together. One day you're gonna look back on this and smile over how sweet and innocent you were."

"I doubt that."

I made a promise to myself that night, as I lay in bed with the window wide open to let in the summer breeze. It wasn't healthy to be so down on myself, so angry at myself for not being able to sequester my emotions away in a metal cabinet. While Kaden was in town - if Kaden was in town - I was going to go about my life as I always did and allow myself to feel whatever it is I felt.

It worked, too. Well, it worked for a day and a half. I was organizing purchase orders for the office when Jennifer came to my desk with an odd look on her face.

"What is it?" I asked. "I'm almost done here if you need-"

"It's not that, Nat. Kaden Barlow is outside. I told him not to come into the office but he said he wants to talk to you."

I stared at the computer screen for a few seconds as the blood drained out my limbs and my stomach lurched.

"Do you want me to ask him to leave? I can do that if you want," Jen said, "I just thought I should let you know, first."

"Yeah," I replied, my mind whirling. "Um, yeah. What did he - did he say what he wanted?"

"No. He looked upset, though."

"Upset? Like, angry?"

Jen pressed her lips together. "Not, not angry. Upset. Like, sad."

Oh God. Angry I could have dealt with. Angry would have given me a good reason to have him told to leave. But sad? It had been two years since I last saw Kaden and it was possible he'd changed during that time, maybe a lot, but he'd never struck me as the kind of person who would use emotions to manipulate someone. The old Kaden would never have pulled a move like faking sadness to get me to do something he wanted.

I crept to the front of the office and pulled back one of the drapes shielding the window from the summer sun. And there he was, as if I'd just dreamed the past two years. As if he'd just come from football practice at Reinhardt and was coming to pick me up so we could have dinner at my house. He was standing beside a black Audi with his shoulders slumped and his head hanging low. And at once, all the work I'd done to get over him just disappeared. The surge of softness in my heart at the sight of him looking so low just took over instantly. Jennifer saw that I was about to go to him.