Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Jason
I doubted anything I could have said would have shocked Franky St. James more.
I probably should have been pretty surprised myself, but coming to this conclusion was a whole lot easier than it should have been.
This might be my last chance at having a kid, and hey, lookie here—a woman who wanted one.
So it wasn’t a regular situation, but I wasn’t likely to ever be in a regular situation.
I knew this much: relationships were not my bag. Maybe I just hadn’t met the right person, but in the meantime, I was missing out on fatherhood. I loved my nieces and nephews, but it wasn’t the same. I wanted a kid of my own.
I’d seen how Franky was around Tilly and the other kids in the Rebels verse.
She was good at meeting them on their level and giving them the attention they deserved.
With the hand she’d been dealt, she had clearly decided a man wasn’t a hurdle to her goal.
As I was talking with her earlier, I realized: I could take a page out of her book.
She didn’t need a man, I didn’t need a woman, at least not for a romantic relationship.
We just needed each other, for this very specific task.
She still hadn’t said anything.
“Did you hear me?”
“I’m not sure what I heard.”
Not only had I shocked her, I had left her speechless. Now most guys would worry about that. Me? I saw it as a good sign. It took a lot to shut the professor up. This woman was never short of an opinion.
I went on. “So I think maybe we got off on the wrong foot—”
“Over twenty years ago.”
“Uh huh. But even if we don’t get along—”
“Which we don’t.”
My cock stirred. Was this hot? It might be. But that wasn’t why I was here.
“Then it wouldn’t make a difference. That asshole business isn’t genetic.”
“Sure about that?”
Oh-so-fucking-droll. “You tell me. You’re the scientist.”
“Well, there are personality traits that follow from one generation to another. But research by Piaget indicates that education and nurture can be just as powerful, if not more so.”
“There you go. If Pierrot says so—”
“Piaget.”
“Then maybe we should pay attention to the science. I was on your list for a reason.”
She took a seat on the sofa, or more like sank to it in a daze. My charm was a weapon, that was for sure.
“Because I was determined to take an unbiased view,” she mumbled.
“And look at how quickly you introduced bias, bringing a confounding factor into it that had nothing to do with genetics or science or biology, but a bad memory you had from your childhood.”
She peered up at me with suspicion. “Sometimes it’s hard to take the emotion out of it.”
I sat beside her. “But that’s exactly what you have to do. At least for the baby-making part of it. Keep all the emotion for your kid.”
Her brows drew together. “Why do you want to do this?”
“I’ll be honest, I’m not looking to pump and dump. I want to be in the kid’s life.”
She gasped. “You do?”
This was where I expected to run into problems. It was one thing to make the donation, but what we were talking about was a lifelong commitment. To a kid, but also to each other.
“Sure. Maybe you don’t think I have much to offer, but I’m gainfully employed, have a good support network, and am interested in being a father.”
She stood, placed her hands on her hips, and paced a few steps. “But the reason I’m doing this is because the usual options are closed to me. I can’t imagine it’s the same for you.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“You’re a professional hockey player, which is usually enough to attract any number of women looking to be wifed and knocked up. You’re also conventionally attractive.”
Conventionally attractive. Had this woman just called me sexy?
“All true, but there’s a snag. I don’t want to marry anyone. And if I went into a relationship with a woman and got her pregnant, the marriage aspect would be an expectation. One I don’t want to fulfill.”
She twitched her nose. Damn, that was cute.
No, Isner. There is no cuteness here. This is a business transaction. Nothing more.
“Why don’t you want to get married?”
“Doesn’t interest me.”
“Is it because of your father?”
I wagged a finger. “Don’t bother psychoanalyzing me, Doc. Some guys aren’t cut out for relationships.”
“But you would be available for a relationship with your child?”
“Of course I would! Why the hell do you think I’m offering?”
With my burst of temper, I could feel the tide turning. She was back on top, using her intellect and sharp-eyed insight to cut through my puny arguments like a scythe through dense jungle growth.
“Perhaps you think this is a way to assert your virility. Or get your revenge for all the times I’ve poked fun at a jock’s intelligence.”
“You think I’m that petty? That I’m willing to bring a kid into the world for some childish payback ploy? You must really think the worst—”
She was smiling.
“I deserved that, I suppose.”
“You’re easily riled.”
“Gullible, too.”
“I doubt that. It’s just I’ve upended your expectation. The last thing you saw coming was a humorous response from, shudder, Slug Girl.”
What was happening here? It was like our wavelengths had suddenly aligned. My heart lifted with the potential of it all.
“Of course,” she continued, “just because I can see the humor in the situation does not mean I think this is a good idea.”
Splat! Flat as a discarded balloon after the county fair.
“How about I state my case?”
“It would help if I could see your side of it.”
She took a seat, placed her hands in her lap, and waited expectantly.
I think I was supposed to stand, and frankly I needed to move here. I pulled myself upright, backed up a few steps, and faced her like she was the league’s Commissioner, and the future of my career was on the line.
“There’s no doubt I can provide financially. I have a big family with a lot of people on board who love kids. You’ve seen the Kershaws—they’re as mad about kids as they are about hockey.”
She merely stared, unblinking, not a jot of encouragement. Sweat prickled my brow. My neck felt hot. I was a student in her class, one with a C-average, who hadn’t submitted his assignment on time.
“I see my brother with his kids, my teammates with theirs, and I want that. I want to feel that pride and love for someone.” The pride and love I didn’t receive from my own father.
I wouldn’t lean into that because the doc would probably pull a Freud, but I would use it to fuel my argument behind the scenes.
“I have a lot to give a kid, and to be honest, a child should have both parents around, if possible. I’m not saying you’re not resourceful enough to do this, but wouldn’t you like to have that extra support? ”
Kind of fizzled out at the end there, but I wasn’t going to beg her to pick me.
“You make some good points.”
“I do?” I took a seat beside her. “I mean, yeah, I do.”
“I have thought about whether a child should have his father around—my own father has been a strong and encouraging influence in my life—but I’ve also been worried about ceding control. I like the idea of making all the decisions.”
So the doc was a control freak. I got it. I had a little of that in me as well.
Maybe I could hit it from another angle. “Who else is on your list?”
“Why?”
“Just show me.”
She reached for her laptop, and the movement tightened her blouse, outlining the curve of her breast. Not that I was especially interested, but I was a man and when presented with curves, I took my shot and used my eyeballs as the good Lord intended. Francesca St. James had a more than decent rack.
She turned back, completely oblivious to my horn dog ways, and opened the laptop. After a few clicks, she had a spreadsheet up. Several lines of text had been crossed out, but I still recognized a couple of names.
“Boden?” The Rebels goalkeeper was in the running?
“I’ve met Noah a few times. He seems very placid.”
You mean dull? I failed to see what that had to do with a sperm donation.
“Kind of a man whore. There’s a distinct possibility he’ll be creating little brothers and sisters for your kid all over the country.”
She frowned. “I hadn’t heard that. I have a Google alert on him and there’s been very little said.”
“He’s pretty discreet but y’know, the guys talk.” I moved on to another player. “MacFarlane? Guy’s a dick. More than me.”
“Is that even possible?”
I knew her game now. “Oh, it’s possible. Nyquist hit him at a nightclub because he hurt my niece’s feelings.” The gruff D-man also happened to have Mabel in tow at the time, which made headlines and inspired Halloween costumes across the land.
“Well, I wouldn’t rely completely on tabloid gossip to eliminate anyone. However, I had already discussed him with Adeline, and she confirms your story.” She struck him through.
Boden remained. I was also on there, but with that damning line through my name and a note, temperamentally unsuitable, which I guessed was a scientific way of saying “asshole.”
But it might have also meant more. Not suited to relationships, to fatherhood, to a normal life with a normal woman. That’s what Everly had implied. Damn all these women who thought they had a bead on me.
I moved down the list, passing over the crossed-out names—Bilson, Jackson, Nyquist—to another name I didn’t recognize, but was still in the running.
“This guy, Charles Compton. What’s his deal?”
“Charles is someone I went to grad school with. He currently teaches in London, so that makes the process a little more complicated. But he’s not dating anyone right now and he is a prime specimen.”
Sounded like a tool. “I assume he’s a professor of something.”
“He lectures in Zoology at the University of London and is in high demand for conferences. His last paper on bivalve mollusks as an invasive species was shortlisted for the best article of the year in Nature magazine.”
“Which makes him good donor material, I suppose.”
She eyed me. “I suspect you think the opposite.”
Leaning back, I crossed my ankle over my knee. Her gaze skittered over my bare legs, then she sharply looked away. Interesting.
“You need to be considering a better balance here.”
“Of?”
“Genes. Do you want your kid to be so smart they get bullied? Wouldn’t it be better to give the kid the best start in life, the best opportunity to be well-adjusted with a good mix of genetics? You’re a smart cookie, but how are you on a football field, baseball pitch, or ice rink?”
Her brows angled together. “You’re asking if I’m sporty?”
“You need to mix in a sprinkle of physical prowess. Good hand-eye coordination. Stamina. That way, your kid has choices. Whether to become a rocket scientist or a—”
“Hockey player.”
“Someone who likes sports, which, right or wrong, guarantees a higher likelihood of acceptance amongst her peers.”
She twitched her nose again. “Genetics doesn’t work that way. It’s not a percentages thing or a recipe to guarantee a certain IQ or physical talent. Still, your point is well-taken.”
I couldn’t help my grin. The professor agreed with something I said.
“No need to look so smug. I’m still not sure this is a good idea. You have a very mobile life and could be traded to another city at any moment.”
“Not likely. Chicago is probably my last team. As much as I hate the idea, I’ve got maybe five or six more good years in me. I’m not Theo.” My brother had played well into his forties, which was practically unheard of. I didn’t see that in my future.
“Okay, but my life is potentially mobile as well. I’m actively looking for professional advancement, which might take me to another university. Maybe even another state or country.”
I hadn’t thought of that, which probably made me a sexist ass. Of course, the professor was ambitious. Her drive had left her in this predicament in the first place, so focused on her career that she was deaf to the biological clock ticking down on her dream.
She held my gaze. “Are you willing to co-parent a child that might not be in the same city as you?”
“By the time there are any major changes in your life, I’ll likely have retired, which means my time is my own. I could move to where you are, or the kid could live with me for part of the year here in Chicago. Where your family and mine are here as support.”
I needed to lay it out there. Geography wouldn’t matter, not where my kid was concerned.
“You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
I narrowed my gaze. “You gonna get squirrely now because of your control freak tendencies?”
“I’m not a squirrely kind of person, but you’re not the only option, Jason. I need to weigh this against the potential to have full parental rights with another candidate who doesn’t want to be involved. I also worry that we might not be compatible co-parents.”
For all her concerns, I felt like this was progress. No way did I think she’d go for this right off the bat. The doc was a thinker, so she needed time to square this away. I, on the other hand, was more instinctive. Witness my showing up half-cocked offering my valuable baby batter and more.
“Okay, I’ll leave you to think on it.” I took out my phone. “When are you ovulating next?”
“Excuse me?”
Now wasn’t the time to get prudish about the details. “I’m guessing time is an issue. My schedule is fairly tight with preseason games then the regular season going full blast. Lots of travel, so we’ll want to line up our calendars.”
She was staring at my phone. With a slender finger, she tipped it up, so the back faced her. “Why are there butterfly stickers on your phone case?”
“Tilly got a hold of it one day and went to town.” They made me smile every time I used my phone.
She frowned as if this was unwanted information.
“Francesca?”
She snapped to attention. “You’re right about syncing our calendars. However, first let me decide whether to move forward before we discuss how the sausage is made.”
Sausage. I couldn’t help my grin.
“You’re such a child,” she muttered, while her cheeks pinked adorably.
“Maybe so. But those are the playful instincts you want to pass onto your kid.”