7. Jack
Chapter seven
Jack
F our hours into the drive, I was scrolling through the radio.
Maggie had dozed off beside me, curled in her blanket, so I kept the volume low.
Various country and rock stations had gone in and out through the speakers, but nothing stayed on for long without crackling.
We were somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Northern Ohio.
It was the dull part of the highway where everything looked the same, and few cars littered the road.
Plains with the odd hill here and there blurred in the distance.
It made me hope that Golden Meadow had beautiful views.
Pennsylvania was fine, but I was looking for something more.
My eyes glazed over, trying to focus on the road, but there wasn’t much to look at.
My gaze drifted to the passenger seat, stealing a glance at the sleeping beauty next to me.
She looked exhausted. I assumed she hadn’t gotten much sleep the last few nights either, stressed about everything and planning the shit out of the rest of her life.
I respected that about her. She left no detail behind and drove herself to make things the best they could be.
I wondered if that was how our kid would turn out.
I wondered if he or she would have Maggie’s shiny brown hair or my blonde, and if they would enjoy polo and horses as much as we did.
Suddenly, the music on the radio stopped as my ringtone blared over Bluetooth. Maggie jumped awake at the noise before seeing Michael Luna’s name appear on the screen.
“It’s Mike,” she groaned as she rubbed her eyes.
“Yeah, I’ll get it.” I tapped the button on the screen that answered the call and tried to act like I wasn’t half-asleep. “Hey, Mike.”
“Jack! Good to hear your voice. You on the road yet?” Mike yelled through the speaker. Sure, he was in his sixties and probably didn’t know how sensitive the microphone was, but it didn’t stop me from turning the volume way down. I didn’t want to startle Maggie more than I already had.
“Yeah. About four hours in.”
“Good to hear, man. Can’t wait to see you all grown up out here.”
I grimaced. Grown up were the last words I would use to describe myself. My proof of recklessness and irresponsibility sat right beside me in the passenger seat.
It made me think…how was this going to look?
I was headed to an entirely new place with people who might have vaguely known about my history.
The polo industry was small. You could never go anywhere without knowing someone.
Maggie and my secret wouldn’t stay a secret for long once she began showing.
This was my opportunity to jumpstart my career, and bringing a woman pregnant with my baby wasn’t great for business.
My career depended on how this job went.
And if my career tanked, I couldn’t support my child.
I quickly tapped the screen to mute my microphone. The two small ding noises screamed a silent good luck! for what I was about to say to the woman next to me.
“Pretend to be my wife.”
Maggie whipped her head in my direction, her expression incredulous. “ What? ”
“Jack? You there?” Mike’s still strident voice carried over the speaker.
I unmuted the call for the split second it took me to say, “One second, Mike.”
When I turned back to Maggie, I expected her to ream me out for asking her to pretend to be my spouse. But when my eyes met hers—quickly, because my main focus needed to be keeping us on the road—I could see the gears turning in her head.
“You want me…to pretend to be your wife?” The slow, emphatic cadence of her voice advised me to tread carefully with my next words.
I didn’t want to force her into anything, but this could taint our careers in a way that could take years to come back from.
Patrons were everything in this game, and two up-and-coming, young players showing up on our own for the first time with a baby—while patriarchal and begrudgingly traditional—wasn’t the best move.
“Maggie, let me—”
“Wait.” She cut me off. “Are you embarrassed that you knocked up one of your hookups? Is marriage a joke to you?”
“No,” I said flatly. “To both. But you and I are both the new kids here. As outmoded as it might seem, sponsors look at this stuff with a giant magnifying glass.”
“Especially women,” she scoffed sarcastically.
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Sure.” When I didn’t voice my reply right away, she continued.
“You do realize it’s hard enough to make it as a professional female player in co-ed polo, right?
I don’t need you lecturing me on how bad it might look if I ended up pregnant, too.
You’re not the only one losing out on shit because of this pregnancy, so don’t beg me to cater to your ego. ”
She was right—about females having it harder than men in polo; the world was misogynistic as fuck—but not about my ego.
As fucked up as it was, we played polo for sponsors, which meant we had to cater to what they deemed fit.
As a professional polo player, you told your sponsor what to do on the field and advised them on their horses.
Anything other than that, your opinion was useless.
“I get that, Maggie, I do. You’re a kickass polo player, and there’s no way anyone should judge you for having a baby, but sponsors do . And they’re the reason we have jobs.”
“So you want me to go along with this so you can keep your job?”
A car in the lane beside us switched to my lane, just a little too close to my front end, so I didn’t look at her.
She took my silence as a yes. A deep exhale left her mouth.
“Jack?” Mike asked. Shit , I forgot he was there.
I turned to Maggie, pleading with her. I needed this. We needed this. We could work out the logistics once Mike was off the phone, but right now I needed an answer.
“Fuck,” she shook her head in disbelief. “I…yes. I’ll pretend to be your wife.”
A sigh of relief left my chest. One thing down, one million to go.
I unmuted myself. “Hey, sorry about that. I was just talking to my wife.”
Wife. The word sounded unfamiliar and unreal coming out of my mouth. I was only twenty-three. I didn’t imagine myself getting married until I was at least thirty.
“Well, geez, kid. I didn’t even know you were married!” Mike exclaimed, still louder than he needed to be.
“Yeah, we eloped.” I cringed at my reply.
“Well, congratulations, Jack. Who’s the lucky gal?”
I sucked in a breath before answering his question. “Maggie Rynne. Well, now Maggie Hennicke.”
Maggie’s hand latched onto my forearm in a death grip.
This sounded convenient enough ten seconds ago, but hearing it aloud before I had even processed what I proposed made me choke on my breath.
I whipped my head to apologize to her, only to find her reluctant and…
regretful? I wanted to pull the truck over again and hold her face and tell her everything was going to be okay.
It took everything I had to pull my eyes back to the road and return to my conversation with Mike.
“Well, I’ll be…” I wasn’t sure if he knew Maggie or Richard, but he sounded pleased about our marriage all the same. “I’ll make sure to congratulate your father as well.”
More tension pressed onto my arm as my thoughts raced to fix whatever hole I had just dug for myself. “Ah, no, not yet. We’re waiting to surprise our families, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything yet.”
“Oh, I see.” Mike let out a laugh. “Well, I’m happy for ya.”
“Thanks, Mike. But that is the other issue I wanted to tell you about. I’ll need accommodations for both of us.
Preferably not a shared apartment with someone else.
” I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t be upset about me dropping the bomb about my “wife” coming with me at the last minute.
Quarters could be difficult to find on such short notice, especially at a club in the middle of nowhere.
Maggie’s grip on my arm softened, and my quick glance at her told me she wasn’t as rattled as she was a moment ago.
“Ooh…” Mike paused for a minute. “I’ll need to get that figured out. You might have to give me a couple of days, though. You okay with staying in your original place for a couple of nights while I find you two a more permanent place for the season?”
Permanent.
The word shook me a little more than it should have. It reminded me that this thing with Maggie would be exactly that. Permanent. Forever. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that. Hell, I had finished college less than a year ago. Nothing could have prepared me to be a dad this quickly.
Maggie must have noticed my space-out because she released her grip on my arm and moved her hand to my shoulder. Brought me back to real life.
“Yeah,” I cleared my throat. “That’s fine. Thank you.”
“Alright, kid. I’ll see you in a couple of days. Drive safe,” Mike said before ending the call.
My first instinct was to turn to Maggie and apologize until I fell out of my seat, but when I looked at her, a pair of tears streaked down her face. She squinted her eyes and sniffled.
“Hey, hey, what’s wrong, Mags?” I reached my arm over to hold hers.
“God.” She wiped her tears with the heel of her hand and shook her head. Taking a deep breath, she tipped her head back to look at the roof of the truck. “It’s just a lot, you know? I’m pregnant and now we’re going to be living together and…fake married?”
“I know, Maggie, and I’m really sorry about that.
I would have warned you before, but it slipped my mind to even talk to Mike about this.
I didn’t think it would sound so great saying the girl that worked for me that I knocked up was coming along.
” I squeezed her arm again to make up for not being able to move my eyes from the road.
“I know. It scared the shit out of me—a lot. But you’re right. This will look better for both of us if we want to keep up with sponsors’ expectations. So, thank you for that.”
“Don’t thank me for anything, yet. I still have time to screw this up.” I replied, and Maggie let out a small laugh.
“I’m sure we both will at some point.”