Chapter 31
Chapter
Thirty-One
West
Serena came home later than I thought she would, and she’s been quiet since she walked in.
Joey and Lindy immediately start to play, and all the guys are here, along with Jayne, so there’s a lot of chaos as we make dinner.
We decided on baked ziti, salad, and my famous garlic knots with homemade garlic butter.
It’s a favorite at the house and she seems excited about it too.
But I can tell her mind is a million miles away.
“Everything okay?” I ask her once the massive pan of ziti is in the oven.
She’s rinsing some bowls to put in the dishwasher as she says, “Tony showed up at my apartment today.”
I freeze. “What?”
“He wants to see Joey.”
“You’re not going to let him, are you?”
“If I don’t, he’ll just get a court order or hire a fancy lawyer or some other thing I can’t afford.”
“Let him! We can fight it! Don’t let him scare you. Not this time. I can call my own lawyer and he can recommend—”
“West. Stop. Please.” She turns to me with a serious expression on her pretty face. “He’s Joey’s father. If he demands a paternity test, it will show that he has rights. I’d rather deal with him this way for now, maybe show him what a handful a toddler can be, and make him go away.”
“He’s not going to just go away!” I say in frustration. “If for no other reason than to piss me off.”
“Why would he do that?” she asks. “This is about Joey, not you or me.”
“It’s not just about Joey. I’m telling you, Serena. I’ve known him since we were sixteen. His reasons for doing anything are never altruistic.”
“Why does he hate you so much?”
“I don’t know. He hates almost everybody, equally.”
“Tell me how you know him.”
I lean against the counter. “We were at the same high school and on the same team in Major Juniors. We ran in the same circles and my girlfriend junior year was hot. My first everything. He wanted what I had, so he went after her. Hard. Did everything he could to get her attention. Eventually, it worked. They slept together.” I shake my head.
“But the thing is—all he really wanted was for us to break up. In the end, he screwed us both over. He told the whole school that she was a slut who’d fuck anything that moved—and of course, that she cheated on me.
Broke my heart and ruined her reputation.
For no reason. He didn’t even want to be with her. ”
“Seriously? That’s over the top for a group of sixteen-year-olds.”
“It was but that’s who he is. Misogynistic.
Racist. Narcissistic. It’s always something.
Anything I did, he tried to do better. If I wanted X, he would get Y.
I tried to ignore him but he also took any opportunity to get me in trouble.
Then, the draft happened when we were eighteen.
He got picked third overall, I was picked ninth. He’s never let me forget it.”
“Is there a huge difference between third and ninth?”
“I mean, anything in the first round is great. Top ten is spectacular. And to be clear, I have a better record than him and my contract with the Thunder is for twice his current contract, so I’ve done better than him professionally.
Which pisses him off. So, I’m a thousand percent sure all he wants is to come between us. ”
“Well, that’s not going to happen.” She shakes her head. “You know that, right?” She walks over and wraps her arms around my neck. “I have zero interest in him. I never would have called him after our weekend together if I wasn’t pregnant. I knew he wasn’t the guy for me. It was just sex.”
“But you have a kid together—there’s no doubt in my mind he’s going to start trouble if you let him.”
“I have to weigh the pros and cons,” she says softly. “He is his father, so if he wants to take me to court, I could lose him completely. Maybe if I’m reasonable, let him spend a little supervised time with him, he’ll get bored and go away before we get to that point.”
“There’s nothing reasonable about Anthony DeMarco.”
“What do you want me to do?” she asks, frustration lacing her words.
“Refusing to let him see Joey means he could get a lawyer and make this into a whole big thing. Let me handle it, okay? I don’t know him like you do, but I know guys like him.
If we’re lucky, he’s going to see how much work a kid is and lose interest. If not, he owes me more than three years of back child support—with interest. He can take me to court but it’ll come at a big cost.”
“Forty or fifty grand isn’t a lot to him,” I say quietly.
I hate everything about this but she’s right that there’s nothing we can do to stop it since he’s Joey’s father.
“Regardless, I have to be careful. Like you said, he’s not a good man. You have to let me sort this out on my own because you two have enough bad blood.” She pauses. “You trust me, don’t you?”
“Of course.” The words tumble out because they’re expected but the churning in my gut tells another story.
And I’m not sure what to do about it.
When we were in St. Louis, I gifted Serena and Joey my jersey.
They seemed excited to wear them, and tonight is the first time.
It’s also the first time Serena has come to see me play, so I’m excited but nervous.
I think it’s great that she’s here, but I worry that it’s going to be too much for Joey.
And I’ll really hate it if they have to leave early.
Jayne and Lindy are here too, so that will help Serena get the lay of the land.
The moment I skate out onto the ice for the warm-up, I see them against the glass. Serena is holding Joey and he’s waving frantically. I chuckle as I skate over to them, making faces at him through the glass.
“Hi, West!”
For some reason, I suddenly hate that he calls me by my first name.
I should be Uncle West.
Or…Daddy?
What the hell is happening to me?
I don’t know where that thought comes from and it takes me a minute to shake off the weird feelings it causes.
The slight tightness in my chest. The flash of nausea.
And most of all, the realization that I’m falling hard for not just Serena, but Joey too.
I think I’m finally ready to go all in. The feelings have been growing steadily—I just wasn’t completely ready to embrace them.
Despite my trust issues, I can’t imagine my life without both of them in it.
That understanding is equal parts terrifying and eye-opening.
Terrifying to open myself up again emotionally and eye-opening to think I’m ready to let in a woman I’m head over heels about.
“Nice having them here, huh?” Bodi asks me once I’ve started shooting a few pucks, my thoughts still a million miles away.
“It is,” I agree.
“You’re falling hard.”
“I guess I am,” I say amiably.
“It’s okay to be happy, my man,” he says with a grin. “Stop acting like you’re not.”
“Oh, no, I definitely am. I’m just trying to figure out what’s next.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s stubborn when it comes to money, and I don’t know how to make her trust me.”
“You can’t.”
“What?”
“You can’t make her do anything. Just let it happen. Show her who you are, like you’ve been doing, and one day it’s going to click. But like you’ve said a bunch of times, it hasn’t been very long—it takes time to build complete trust.”
“I guess that’s true.”
“According to what she’s told Jayne, she’s crazy about you. And I know you feel the same about her. Why are you so worried?”
I tell him about the discovery that DeMarco is Joey’s biological father and how he could cause trouble for her. “It feels like there’s a lot going on.”
“Which gives you the perfect opportunity to show her the man you are—and who you can be to both her and her son.”
“Haven’t I already been doing that?”
“That was the honeymoon stage. This is your first…crisis, for lack of a better word? The first real test. You don’t want to fail it.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I respond dryly.
“Just be who you are,” he says quietly. “Show her the man underneath that armor you’ve been wearing since you left L.A. That’s the guy she’s falling in love with.”
I glance back to where she and Joey are still standing, talking and laughing with Jayne and a few other ladies. It feels good to have her here. The right woman in the right place at the right time.
And it’s been a long time coming.