Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Jason Isner in Baby Daddy Shocker!
While everyone was celebrating Theo Kershaw’s retirement at the Empty Net in downtown Riverbrook, the legendary defenseman’s sendoff was upstaged by a surprising announcement: Theo’s brother, Chicago Rebels D-man Jason Isner, will be a father soon.
And the lucky lady? Only Francesca “Franky” St. James, daughter of veteran Rebels center Bren St. James!
A source, who preferred to remain anonymous, told us that Franky—a professor of biology at Lakeshore University and a world-renowned expert in snails and slugs—chose Jason as her sperm donor after a rigorous selection process.
But never fear, ladies! Jason, also known as the Green-Eyed Monster, is still on the market.
The couple are not in a romantic relationship and have agreed to co-parent their child.
“People expected she would keep the donor anonymous,” the source said, “but Jason wants to be a part of the child’s life, so she had to agree to his terms or no dice.
” Here in the Hot Goss bullpen, we’re surprised that Jason would go this route, given his many fans and the numerous options available to him.
One insider commented that Jason’s generosity is well known, so that might explain his actions.
Of course, he’s going to help when a damsel in baby fever distress needs a prime genetic sample, and as we’ve witnessed with other recent relationships in the Rebels universe, they are notorious for “keeping it in the family.”
From all of us here at Hot Goss, congrats to the parents-to-be!
- @HotGoss
Jason
On the journey home, she was quiet, and I suspected that none of the congratulations and well wishes from her friends and family could overcome the long shadow cast by her mother.
I followed her inside her apartment, though she didn’t ask.
I wanted to make sure she was okay. The kitties wanted to know, too.
Bunsen came rushing out the moment his mama stepped inside and around her suitcase, left in the hallway before she headed to the party. No sign of Beaker but I expected he’d make an appearance sooner than later.
After a few vigorous pets, she headed into the kitchen where she picked up the kettle and filled it with water.
“Would you like tea?”
“Sure.” I could have offered to make it, but she needed something to occupy her hands.
She grabbed a couple of mugs off the tree and placed teabags in them. “I have to drink herbal because I’ll be up all night. You didn’t have to see me home. That was kind, but I could have taken an Uber.”
Rosie was spending the night with her dads, so we were alone. Franky was always alone, or at least that was how she saw it. The way her brain worked set her apart from other people, and she took that difference to heart. Nowhere was this more obvious than when she spoke to her mom.
“I wasn’t going to put you in some stranger’s car.” A flash of orange streaked by, heading for the pantry. “There’s my guy. Hey, Beakster.”
The kettle boiled behind her, its increasing noise volume likely the reason for Beaker’s blur through the kitchen.
“Your mom doesn’t know you, Francesca.”
She shrugged. “She’s my mother.”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t know you. Like my dad doesn’t know me. Some people are too narcissistic to take the time to get deep with people. Your mom? She’s one of them. All she sees is surface.”
With her back still turned to me, she poured the hot water into the cups. “But surface can be very revealing. What my mother sees—it might be a surface snapshot, but it’s not wrong.”
“What does she see?”
Another hurt shrug. “That weird little girl with her ugly glasses and strange habits. I’ve grown up and turned my strangeness into a profession, into a successful career. But it doesn’t really change me at the core. I’m still the odd girl out.”
My younger self, that little asshole, hadn’t helped.
When I met her, I thought of her as “Slug Girl,” the weird daughter of one of my sporting heroes.
As fascinating as I found that contrast, her friendship with Sean had bugged the shit out of me.
My jealousy of their closeness, as well as her clear disinterest in a dumb kid like me, prompted my childish taunts.
Now I couldn’t imagine wishing her to be any different.
I moved behind her, circled her waist, and lay my chin on her shoulder.
“Why would you want to be like everyone else?”
“Because it … hurts less.” She heaved in my arms, releasing a sob that cut me to the quick.
“Turn around.”
“No.”
“Francesca, look at me.”
She whipped around, her eyes red, tears streaming. She stared up at me, that stubborn chin set defiantly.
“I’m glad you’re different from everyone else.
Because if you weren’t, you wouldn’t have figured out the baby plan with that amazing brain of yours.
You wouldn’t have carved out this path to motherhood or even considered adding someone like me to your list. And I know you wouldn’t have disguised yourself as some chick out of Ocean’s Eight to fool a bunch of hockey players.
Most of all, I’m glad you’re different because I love watching you think, how you weigh it all up before pronouncing, how your nose twitches and you get this little crimp between your brows while you’re working stuff out.
” I touched that little crimp now, smoothing it with my thumb.
“You’re one in a million, Francesca. And fuck anyone who doesn’t appreciate that. ”
Her chest heaved. “I-I know you’re trying to help—”
I kissed her. Not sure it would help her but it sure as hell would help me. All night, I’d watched her in the crowd, trying her best not to be blinded by the spotlight in which her pregnancy had placed her. A spotlight not made easier by the fact a famous pro-athlete was the father.
The appearance of her mother should have been a boon. But a woman like Kendra hated that her daughter—her strange, beautiful blessing of a daughter—was the center of attention.
“Jason,” she murmured against my lips. “You don’t have to—”
“But I do. I’ve wanted to do that all night. I’ve wanted to touch you and hold you and kiss you and do absolutely filthy things to you.”
Her eyes went dark and smoky. “What things?”
“Not sure your delicate ears could handle them.”
She moved a hand between my legs and cupped my straining cock. “Tell me.”
I could have viewed that as a threat—the words, her hand, that fiery look in her eyes—but instead I considered it as an opportunity. A chance to get deep and dirty with this woman after months without her touch.
“Want me to show, not tell?”
“I want you to show and tell.”
Franky got off on the verbal, so I had no problem there. I lifted her skirt to her hips and found the border of her tights, nestled below that rounded belly. “Gonna need these off.”
“D-do it.”
I pulled at the elastic, then hunkered down to finish the job, or at least as far as the tops of her boots. A problem for later.
“Hold up your skirt, baby.”
She did, revealing a pair of white panties. Not skimpy, not particularly sexy. But the package? Damn, my mouth watered at the prospect.
I ran my hand up the insides of her milky-white thighs. Skin so soft against my calloused hands, and I was the rough, brute invader of the virginal maiden.
“Wonder how you taste.”
“You’ve tasted me before.”
I looked up to find her watching me avidly, her teeth clamped in that plump lower lip.
“Yeah, but that was before. Your body was different. Now it’s growing a new life, and I bet everything is different about you. How you feel, how you taste, how tight that pussy will grip my cock.” I rubbed a knuckle over the front of her panties.
She shuddered and swayed a little.
“You okay?”
“F-fine. Continue.” Said a little imperiously, like she was trying desperately to assume power over a situation she’d lost control of hours ago. The moment she walked into that bar and told the world with her body that she was carrying my child, the game had changed.
I kissed her inner thigh, then the other, and worked my way up. Slowly. She started to shake, parted her legs as best she could, given how the tights were knee-cuffing her.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Please what?”
“Make it better.”
I peeled down her panties and moved my fingers to where she was wet and wanting. She gasped, a desperate, needy sound, and I let my digits wander, soaking in her desire, driving her a little crazy.
Driving myself even crazier.
Her thighs were parted but not nearly enough for what I needed.
More access. More Franky. More everything.
I stood and placed a finger over her ready-to-object lips. “Trust me.” Leading her to the kitchen table, I sat her down in a chair, then knelt before her. I removed one boot. Then the other. Her tights. Her panties.
“Comfortable?” I asked.
She scooted forward a few inches and parted her thighs, pulling up the skirt of her dress as she settled.
“Yes.”
I moved my hands up her thighs, placed my thumbs over soft, sensitive, wet flesh, and stroked. Her bottom lip quivered.
“Put your hands on my shoulders, Francesca. Squeeze if you need to. Use me for support. I’m here for whatever you want.”
And then I bent and took what I wanted. That sweet tang, the delicious nectar of her pussy, while she gripped my shoulders and rolled her hips, searching and seeking the release I insisted on denying her.
Not yet.
But soon.
Later, I lay beside her, sated but not entirely satisfied. Tomorrow, she would return to Boston, and now that everyone knew the score, I felt as though we had moved into a different phase of the pregnancy.
Of us.
She ran a finger over my collarbones. “What’s on your mind?”
“Ethical porn.”
She leaned up on her elbow. “Excuse me?”
I gave a low chuckle. “That’s what you offered me the first time I came to your boudoir.”
“I was trying to be a good host.”
That just made me laugh harder. “Tea, coffee, porn?”
“You got there in the end, didn’t you?”
“Only because I imagined you on the other side of that door. Eavesdropping.”
“I was in the kitchen, letting my imagination run riot. Now look at us.” She let out a little sigh. “Thanks for being here. For listening about my mom.”
“You’ve got so many amazing people in your life, Franky. Don’t let one person be a blot on it.” I pulled her close and kissed her temple. “That’s what you told me on Halloween when I was pissed about my dad.”
“And then I pissed you off more by not letting you plunder my school uniform. Or navigate inside my tights.”
“I beat those tights in the end.” I watched her blue eyes sparkle in the low lamplight. “So, I have a question that’s going to sound weird.”
“Okay.”
“Did you ever sleep with Sean?”
Her eyes went as wide as pucks. “Sean? God, no.”
“He said there was one time you and he … but I never heard the rest. Was he messing with me?”
She giggled. “Oh, that. When we were sixteen, I think? We kissed. More a ‘let’s try this and see if there’s anything there’ kind of thing. And there wasn’t. No chemistry whatsoever.”
Thank Christ. “Good. It’s already weird enough that he was your first choice.”
“Is the Green-Eyed Monster … jealous?”
“I’ve every right to be.”
She nodded. “Sure, sure, Mason Listener.”
I laughed. “Lauren told me about that tonight. Kind of wild.”
“Yes, so wild that there are all these fan fiction lovers reading about your sexy adventures with team owner Tabitha Mace in the locker room showers. Am I allowed to be jealous?”
Yes, you are, baby. “It’s not about me. It’s about someone who looks like me, living in an alternative world. Like the Multiverse.” I loved that it bothered her, though. Turnabout was fair play. “What’s with the Ferris Bueller stuff?”
She cast a glance at the shelving unit where the movie-themed diorama and Cameron Funko Pop figure were displayed.
“Just souvenirs of a great day from my childhood.”
“Tell me.”
She settled her head against my chest. “I was nine and Cat was eleven. We had just come to live with Dad during the playoffs, and we—me, Cat, and Violet—kidnapped him from the Rebels practice rink and spent the day in Chicago doing fun things like we were in the movie. We couldn’t replicate it exactly, but Violet came up with all these amazing activities.
Afternoon tea at the Drake, a visit to Sears Tower, even though Dad was terrified of heights, dinner at Harry Caray’s, all in a borrowed Bentley that belonged to Dante.
“I brought a snail with me in a jar, a Cornu Aspersum, and I tried to feed it under the table with a sliver of lettuce from one of the tiny sandwiches they give you for the fancy tea. The waiter spotted me, and we almost got thrown out.” She laughed, then turned serious.
“Violet was the first adult I met who didn’t judge me.
Well, Dad didn’t, but he was so self-absorbed at the time with drinking and hockey and atonement, I suppose.
Going to live with him was the best thing that could have happened because I met Vi. ”
I understood all too well. That was the place Theo held for me.
She ran her hand over my chest. “I think people show up in our lives when we need them, kind of like angels.”
“You believe in angels?”
“Not the Biblical kind. But I do believe that something in us—what some people might term a soul, perhaps—will cry out for help, for a friend. For a sperm donor.” She lifted her head and cupped my jaw while she stared into the soul that cried out for her.
“You showed up when I needed you, Jason Isner. Not just with this genetic contribution but with your generous heart and protective nature. I don’t think you get how special you are.
But I do. And our child is going to be so blessed because of it. ”
She snuggled into me, claiming the last word, as usual. And as her soft snores vibrated against my chest, I considered that I was the one who was truly blessed.
And more than a little fucked.