Reading Online Novel

Touching Down(23)



I swallowed as I understood the reason for the wide variety of toys brimming in the back of his truck.

“I don’t know anything about kids, Ryan. I don’t know how to be a dad. Shit, the only experience I have with dads is my old man, and if I know one thing about fatherhood, it’s that I don’t want to be anything like him.”

“God, Grant.” I could taste my heart in the back of my throat as I watched him like this. Lost. Almost broken. “How long have you been sitting here?”

His shoulders fell. “Long enough to realize I’m as big of a fuck-up today as I was before.” He wove his arms behind his neck. “Long enough to realize why you didn’t tell me about her before.”

I thought I’d cried the last of my tears months ago, but I’d been wrong. One rolled down my cheek and spilled onto the ground at my feet. “I didn’t tell you about Charlie for an entirely different reason than me being worried you’d be a bad dad. I never once thought that. Ever.”

“Then why? Why keep her a secret from me for so long?”

Taking a breath, I tucked my dress beneath me and sat beside him on the curb. “When I found out I was pregnant, I was seventeen. Seventeen, Grant.” I paused to let that settle in. “And you were a senior in college about to become a first-round draft pick.”

This time, I had to pause for myself. Talking about it made it feel as if I was reliving it all over again. Seeing the results on the pregnancy stick, feeling elation and sheer dread all at once, grabbing my phone while I was still sitting on the toilet, staring at the stick, so I could call him . . . only to realize what it all meant. Setting that phone down and keeping the knowledge of my pregnancy to myself had been one of the hardest things I’d had to do. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d stayed up at night, scared and alone, my finger hovering over Grant’s number.

“What would that have done to your career? To your whole life?” I whispered, wiping the next tear away with the sleeve of my sweater.

“It wouldn’t have changed a thing. I still would have loved you. I still would have married you. I still would have played football and we could have been a family, instead of me living the last seven years thinking the best thing in my life left me without an explanation. If you had told me, I wouldn’t be here tonight, feeling like I owe you two everything and have absolutely nothing to give you.”

For someone who’d just won a nationally televised football game, scoring two of the team’s five total touchdowns, he was acting the opposite of how I imagined a player would in his position.

“You were twenty-one, and I was seventeen,” I said. “No matter how much we told people we loved each other, no matter what your plans were of marrying me, it still would have been seen as statutory rape.” I paused when he flinched. “You were about to be drafted. It felt like the whole nation was talking about the Invincible Man from A&M about to go on to become a pro football legend.” I scooted closer, nudging him. “Your football career would have ended before it even got started if anyone found out about you getting a seventeen-year-old girl pregnant.”

“You don’t know that—”

“Yes, I do. And so do you.” Raising my eyebrows, I waited for him to acknowledge me.

It took him a minute, but when he did, a breath rushed out of his mouth. “I wouldn’t have given a damn. If I had to choose football or you, I would have chosen you. I would have chosen you every day since.” He rolled his jaw a few times. “That wasn’t your call to make, Ryan. You should have told me. You should have at least given me the choice.”

“But I didn’t. I was young and scared and alone and I made the choice I did with the knowledge I had.” Tipping my head back, I gazed at the sky. No stars out tonight. Not that I was expecting to find any. “I know I didn’t make the right choice. I know that now, years later. But that’s the thing about hindsight—you don’t realize you screwed up until after the fact.”

Beside me, Grant tensed.

“I’m not trying to defend my actions. I’m trying to explain them. Trying to paint the picture of what was going through my head when I made those choices.”

Grant nodded, almost indiscernibly, but enough I at least knew he was listening. “I wasn’t there for you. I wasn’t there for her.” The heel of his shoe tapped the curb a few times. “I should have known. I should have figured out what happened. I should have gone after you. Found you. I should have been there.” A low rumble vibrated from deep in his chest. “I wasn’t there for you two.”