Page 128 of Scores Of The Heart

Oh fuck. The place I literally defiled his daughter… awesome.

“I wanted to look out for Cindy, yes. And Taylor was going through a tough time, so I wanted to be there for him, but as you know, he didn’t end up going.”

Coach scoffs.

“Why don’t we sit down?” Angelique suggests. As we’re all standing there awkwardly while we try to explain ourselves. I can’t tell yet which way it’s going to go.

Cindy smiles at Angelique gratefully and we take a seat on their two-seater couch. I reach for Cindy’s hand, and she glances at me as we link our hands together.

I don’t even wanna think about how I’m going to explain the other shit going down with my ex. But that will all have to come out too.

“Look out for her?” Coach balks, his pitch getting louder. “Seems pretty convenient to me, Tyler. You’re my right-hand man, the captain of the team, and you couldn’t come to me sooner before Miami to tell me you wanted to date my daughter?”

The disappointment in his face is actually worse than him yelling. I swallow hard. I know family values mean a lot to him, but they do to me too. And I don’t believe we’ve violated anything to any extreme degree.

I should have done exactly what he said, but at the time, I was hardly thinking about that. I just wanted to pursue Cindy, get to know her, and deal with the consequences later.

“I should have come to you, I agree,” I answer. “And we always said that you should be the first to know about this. We were going to come clean this weekend…” I stop short, trying not to shudder as I picture the caption the newspaper article that has probably hit the stands. If he’s not going to kill me for hooking up and falling in love with his daughter now, he is well and truly going to when I drop my next bombshell.

“It’s true, Dad. Everything Tyler is saying is true. We didn’t know how to broach it, and we were conscious of getting into trouble with the clause in our contracts, so we were never going to keep it a long-term secret.”

He grunts.

“The kids seem very genuine, Clive,” Angelique speaks softly.

“I don’t care if they seem genuine!” He grunts. At least he’s not yelling… yet. “You should have come to me.” He points his finger at me and I let out a breath.

“I’m sorry,” I say in all sincerity.

“I’m sorry too, Dad. It’s not all on Tyler, it’s me as well.”

She fails to mention I more than pursued her, thank god. I’m not sure he’d want to hear that right now on top of everything else.

“Do you kids want to make it official?” Angelique asks.

A small smile traces my lips the way she keeps calling us kids. Realistically, I’m only about ten years younger than her. But she’s on our side, I can see that in her eyes. The way she’s sympathetic towards us and trying to keep her husband calm.

“Yes, I love him,” Cindy blurts out.

I glance at her, squeezing her hand.

“I love your daughter too,” I say. “She’s the most wonderful woman I’ve ever met, but I’m sure you already know that.”

“You can’t possibly know you’re in love in just a few weeks. It’s absurd.” He waves his hands in the air to emphasize his point.

“It happens, Dad. It happened to us. Tyler is wonderful and treats me so well and we’re really happy. We want a chance to build on that, that’s why we’re here.”

That and the fact I knocked up my ex nine months ago and it’s about to be published in The Seattle Times for all to see. But we’ll get to that…

I’m not even sure things could get any worse.

“There is something else,” I add, giving Cindy’s hand a quick squeeze again. It has to be said, there’s no avoiding it, given what we know from Caitlin this morning. “Cindy spoke to Caitlin this morning. There were photos captured of us both in Miami and the other day in the park when we were walking Henry. They were innocent enough, but the press are going to have a field day given who I am and who Cindy is in relation to the team…” I sigh, running a hand over my head. I glance up at Angelique, who’s listening intently to every word, then to coach, who isn’t looking one bit happy about any of this. Even if he was getting his head around the idea about Cindy and I dating, he’s not exactly going to swoon over the other sordid details about my ex.

Again, we have no choice. It’s about to be printed and there’s no hiding the fact Stacey is heavily pregnant. The press will put two and two together and come up with whatever they want.

“For fuck’s sake!” Coach shakes his head. Cindy gasps at his words.

“Clive!” Angelique chastises. It isn’t like I haven’t heard worse at training. Coach may have been a religious man at some point in his life, and may even still be now, but he’s not backwards in going forwards with cussing.

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