CHAPTER 14 DANNY
My chest feels like someone set a crushing weight on top of it.
I haven’t spoken to him in four years. I haven’t seen him in four years, and he looks…different. Older. Thinner, as if he’s lost some weight. But also a bit like he’s aged an entire decade in the last four years.
The last time I saw him was in Los Angeles. I was in the off-season after my third year in the MLB, and he showed up at the same bar I was at. I still don’t know how he tracked me there, but he cornered me, gave me some sob story, and asked me for money.
I told him no. I told him I didn’t want anything to do with him ever again.
I was hoping that would be the end of it. Clearly I was wrong.
Why the hell would he show up right now?
What the hell does he want from me?
Oh, right…money. That’s all he ever wanted. The woman he cheated on my mother with had more money than my angel of a mother did, and so he chose the other woman. It wasn’t for love.
He had no idea I’d become a professional baseball player with a bigger paycheck than he could ever dream of. But considering all he ever was to me was the sperm donor my mom unfortunately married, I don’t feel like I owe him a goddamn thing.
Until his next words tell me I’m definitely going to owe him something in order to hold onto his silence.
Fuck. Fuck!
“Wow, Alexis Bodega,” he says. “I had no idea you were a friend of my son’s.”
All the color drains from her face, and a Yukon pulls into the driveaway a moment later.
Thank God Gregory is here to get her out of here, but I have no idea how I’m going to keep my father quiet.
“She’s in town filming a movie I scored a small role in,” I say, scrambling for an explanation. “She came by for breakfast before she heads home to her fiancé.”
“Right,” he says, drawing out the word with a heavy dose of sarcasm as if he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying.
“I need to get back to the shoot. Nice to see you again, Danny,” she says to me, offering me a tight smile before she pulls her hood up and runs out to the Yukon.
Gregory peels out of the driveway, and my father watches until he pulls around the corner.
“Aren’t you going to invite your old man in?” he asks.
I press my lips together as I shake my head. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
“Well now that I have a little information at my disposal, I’m assuming you’ll change your mind.” It’s a threat, and I wouldn’t put it past him to act on it. He doesn’t make empty threats.
He slips inside before I can close the door, and I sigh. Dealing with this asshole really wasn’t on my agenda for the day.
“What are you doing here?” I repeat.
“I came to visit my son,” he says, his tone definitely indicating that I’m a dummy for even asking that.
“You’ve never once in your life come to visit me just for the hell of it. Now get on with it. What the fuck do you want from me?”
“Olivia is graduating from college this spring, and Rebecca and I don’t have enough to give her the sort of graduation present we always dreamed of giving her. So I came to you to ask for help,” he admits.
“I’m not sure how that has anything to do with me,” I say. I haven’t moved from the front hall, but he’s starting to wander around the entry. He makes his way through toward my kitchen.
He looks all around as he walks. “Nice place you got here.”
“How’d you even figure out where I live?” I demand. I’m pretty good at keeping a tight lid on that sort of thing.
“Don’t you worry about that.” He pauses in front of my kitchen counter—the very same one where I fucked Alexis last night—and he leans forward on it, and I can’t help but wish Alexis hadn’t admitted she cleaned up this morning.
I also wish he would get the fuck out of my house.
“So are you going to help your half-sister or not?”
“Don’t you dare call her that to me,” I hiss. “You know what you did, and I will never forgive you for betraying Mom. For betraying all of us. You’re dead to me. I don’t have a father.”
“Oh, come on, Danny-boy. It’s been decades at this point. You’re still hung up on all that shit?” His tone is flippant, and I could fucking slug the guy for his attitude.
“Have you ever walked in on someone having sex?” I ask, trying to paint a picture for him.
He shrugs. “Sure. Hasn’t everybody?”
“Okay, well did you ever walk in on your dad, the man you were supposed to be able to trust above any other man in the world when he was sticking his dick in another woman when you were seven years old, and you didn’t even know what sex was?
” I demand. “Do you know how much that fucked me up? That is why I want nothing to do with you. You chose them, and when you chose them, you chose to write me out of your life. So stop fucking coming around here begging for handouts.”
He folds his arms across his chest, and the confidence of this guy is appalling. “Let’s not call it a handout, then, shall we?”
I fold my arms across my chest, too. I’m bigger than him, and I’m a professional athlete. I could take this guy with my eyes closed, and the longer he stands in my kitchen, the more I want to. “What would you prefer to call it?”
“A payment. For my silence.”
“Your silence? For what?”
He twists his lips as he pretends to think about it. “Oh, you know. If you don’t want anyone to know Alexis Bodega spent the night at your house last night.”
“You don’t know that.” I roll my eyes.
He lifts a shoulder. “Does it matter? It’s my word against yours, and you have a hell of a lot more to lose than I do.”
I stare off at him for a beat as I try to figure out how to handle this.
There’s just one problem.
When he got here this morning, he had no idea he’d run into Alexis. He didn’t know he’d have something to hold over me.
So why did he show up here in the first place? What’s really going on here? He wants money for Olivia’s graduation gift, so he says.
But I know him and know there must be more to it.
“Why are you here?” I ask, shifting the topic.
“I told you. Olivia’s graduation gift.” Right. So he’s sticking to that story.
“Exactly what are you buying her?” I ask. I walk around him to my fridge and grab an energy drink.
“A car.”
“What kind of car?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Not sure, but I think it just got a little nicer given what I walked in on this morning.”
I roll my eyes. “You can’t really think blackmail is the answer here.”
“It’s not blackmail,” he protests. “I told you, it’s payment in exchange for something you want. Can I use your bathroom?”
“Fuck off out of here,” I say. My phone starts to ring, and since I’d rather talk to just about anyone on Earth than this piece of scum, I pick it up. “Hey, Brad,” I answer.
“Am I interrupting anything?” he asks.
“Nope. Fire away.” I head outside to take this call, and he fills me in on how impressed the director was with my scenes yesterday, a new sponsorship opportunity, and three podcast spots coming up in the next few weeks.
By the time we’re done, I’m hopeful my father has left.
He’s not in the kitchen when I head back inside. I walk around the first floor and don’t see him anywhere, and a minute later, he comes walking down the stairs.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I ask.
“Checking out the place. Nice digs. I left my number on your counter. I’ll be around,” he says, letting himself out the front door.
I stare after the door for a beat, not really sure what happens next but glad he’s gone.
I have a feeling he’ll be back around soon enough, though.
And that scares the hell out of me.