Chapter 19 #2
Sharks and Minnows is a mess. None of the girls know how to properly kick a ball.
When I decide to join the sharks and try to steal from the minnows, the girls swarm me, asking me to steal their balls.
Regardless, the game is full of giggles.
I even end up falling on the ground in an attempt to not pummel a little girl I didn’t see under my feet.
When I’m down on the ground laughing and trying to figure out how to regain control of this horrid game, my eyes fall over to the sideline. My smile dies when a familiar figure comes into view.
Sloan is over there, thrusting an angry finger into the face of a suited man who’s standing amongst the other potential sponsors. At first, I think she’s interested in contributing. Then I recall the fact that she told me she was travelling this week. What the fuck is going on?
The man is clearly uninterested in what she has to say, barely looking away from his phone as Sloan continues screaming at him. She pauses for a second and the man finally looks up from his mobile and points out toward me.
Sloan’s eyes scan the pitch and go wide when they land on me. Taking a deep breath, she diverts her gaze to the right and marches out onto the pitch, her purse clutched tightly on her shoulder. She’s on a mission.
I assume she’s coming out to talk to me, but she veers right and heads toward the brown-eyed stunner who’s been charming me for the past thirty minutes.
“Sophia, we have to go.” Sloan’s voice is shaky as she reaches out and grabs her hand.
The little girl yanks her hand away and states firmly, “I’m finally a minnow. I just got a ball! I don’t want to stop playing. I like football.”
“Sophia!” Sloan shrieks, turning her back on me. “Do not argue with me. We are leaving.”
I stand up from the ground and make my way over to them, ready to help with whatever is going on. How does Sloan know this child?
“We’re just playing. It’s not a real game. I won’t get hurt!” the little girl whines, then adds at the end, “Please, Mummy!”
I swear my heart leaps into my throat. “Mummy?” I don’t realise I voice the word out loud, my tone sounding like it’s a hundred miles away.
Sloan twirls on her heel to eye me standing behind her. Her face a hard, emotionless mask, like I’m nothing more than a stranger to her. I’m close enough to smell her familiar scent, but she still won’t make eye contact with me.
“Don’t say a word,” she barks, lifting a finger my way to silence me. “I mean it. Nothing.”
“Mummy, please let me stay. I like football—I mean, soccer.” the girl quickly corrects herself. “It’s soccer, Mummy. I’ll call it soccer if you want. Please!”
“It’s the same thing, Sophia!” Sloan’s voice is shrill and panic-stricken. “And you can’t play it.”
“Sloan,” I state, my jaw tight with anxiety as a couple of photographers begin walking toward us. I move in closer to her, desperate to hide her. Hide the scene. Desperate to figure out what the fuck is going on.
This is the woman I’ve been sleeping with.
The woman whom I’ve opened up to and have been intimate with on more levels than I’ve ever been intimate with a person in my entire life.
But everything about her is so night and day different right now.
The way she stands, her tone of voice. She’s not my Treacle. She’s someone I’ve never met before.
I reach out to touch her shoulder. “Just tell me what the problem is?”
She jerks away from me, her eyes swerving to the kids and people all gawking at us.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see my brothers push back a couple of photographers to give us some space.
Sloan’s chin trembles as she finally looks me in the eyes, dropping her shield.
Her golden, watery eyes are mirror images of the little girl’s eyes staring up at her.
I can’t believe I didn’t see the resemblance.
She is Sloan’s clone through and through.
“I’m so sorry, Gareth,” she croaks, wiping her nose and cheek in one swoop. “I don’t know what else there is to say.”
I move in closer, desperate to touch her. Desperate to take the pain from her. The sensation she’s putting out is like a phantom pain in my soul that I’ve worked my entire life to avoid, roaring back to life with a vengeance.
She inhales sharply and steps out of my reach. Jaw tight, she grabs the girl’s hand and hurriedly hauls her off the pitch. She passes the man she was talking to before, and he follows in their wake, looking agitated and pompous beyond belief.
I blink rapidly and fully process what’s just transpired.
Sloan has a kid.
What. The. Fuck.
My PR rep for Kid Kickers soothes the media’s curiosity about an upset mother, but my brothers aren’t as easily deterred.
Back in the changing room, I’m stuffing my clothes into my bag when I hear Tanner’s voice behind me. “That was your stylist,” he states, his tone more serious than it’s been all day. “Sloan, isn’t it?”
I look over my shoulder and see the three of them leaning against the lockers on the opposite wall. They all have their arms crossed over their chests like they are here for a fucking Harris Shakedown or something.
My voice is curt when I reply, “Yes.”
“Was that her daughter?” Camden asks.
I turn on my heel to see his grave eyes. “How should I know?” I snap. I hate that my two worlds are colliding. I hate it even more that I have no fucking clue what’s going on with Sloan.
Booker’s voice is timid when he speaks up next. “Why was she looking at you like that? It’s clear there was something significant happening between the two of you, even if you weren’t saying it out loud.”
“It’s none of your business,” I growl and instantly feel bad when Booker’s face falls. “I’m not discussing it with all of you.”
Camden’s face furrows with confusion. “You’re in our business all the time!”
“Because you put me in your business!” I exclaim.
Booker steps forward with determination. “We’re Harrises, Gareth. We’re all in each other’s business. Always. That’s just how it works in our family.”
“Oh sod off, Book. That may be true for you guys down in London, but the lot of you don’t have a clue what I do here in Manchester. None of you do.”
“That’s not our bloody fault!” Tanner roars, stepping forward and shoving his hand against my chest. I shove him back, but he’s undeterred as he continues, “You’re the moody sod who doesn’t say a word about your life here.
We just assumed your life was still in London with us. Tell us what’s going on!”
“I don’t fucking know!” I roar, my hands thrusting through my hair in frustration. I squeeze the back of my neck and attempt to calm the fuck down. “I didn’t know she had a child.”
Silence envelopes the space as the unspoken words are processed. They know. They are my brothers and they’ve never seen me upset over a woman.
But me not knowing she has a kid makes it clear that our involvement isn’t cut and dry.
Here I thought I had gained some ground with her when she told me I can take a kiss from her whenever I want.
I thought it meant we were evolving. Changing.
Maybe even for the better. But what happened out on the pitch just goes to show how dead fucking wrong I was about everything.
“Well, how do we fix this?” Camden asks, crossing his arms over his chest.
“We won’t,” I nearly growl. “There’s no we here. It’s just me. I don’t need you guys getting involved.”
“You solve all of our problems!” Camden retorts, his jaw ticking angrily. “Let us help you, Gareth.”
“I’ll be fine.” I slam my locker closed and turn on my heel to stare at my brothers.
The three of them stand shoulder-to-shoulder.
Legs wide. Chests out. Chins lifted. Like they’re ready for battle.
My brothers—thick as thieves and willing to bend over backwards without knowing a shred of the full story.
How do I tell them what I’ve been doing with Sloan all this time?
How do I tell them that I was so exhausted from my family, my responsibilities, football, everything that I wanted a woman to overpower me in the bedroom just to give my mind a fucking break?
How could they possibly not take that personally?
I’ve shouldered their burdens for years, yet I wasn’t willing to share mine with them.
This isn’t a battle my brothers can fight with me.
They can’t see me like this. I can’t let them find out about my arrangement with Sloan.
I also can’t show them how much it fucking guts me that Sloan chose to hide something—someone—so monumentally important from me.
She kept a child’s entire existence from me. What the fuck does that mean?
I’ve spent my entire life using my head to handle things and look where that’s gotten me. Perhaps now it’s time to say “fuck it” and use my heart for once. My heart is not submissive, though. It will not surrender.
It will fight back.