Page 56 of Love In The Spotlight

“God no,” he said. “Mercedes was in her mid-twenties. I think.”

“You think?” she asked. “I don’t want to judge you. I’m not doing that. Or trying not to. Let me take a deep breath.” She inhaled and let it out, then shook her arms. “Use me as practice. Just say it all. Giving me time to ask questions is making it worse. I know it is. And if I interrupt you can tell me to zip it.”

They’d been sitting on the floor with the plate of food, but he got up and grabbed a few big pillows from the couch and tossed them at her.

She dodged them and then picked them up to set them around the two of them.

He leaned back so that he was propped up and had his feet out in front of him, his ankles crossed, the fire on his bare toes.

Laken moved under his arm exactly as he wanted without even having to ask.

By not seeing her face and expressions, he was sure he could get it out more.

Though he was positive she had a boardroom face that would never flinch regardless of what she was told if she wanted to put one on.

“You know back in the day I was partying out a lot. Drinking more than I should.”

“I’ve read that,” she said when he had a longer pause.

“It was the off season. We were letting steam out after just missing the Super Bowl. I was still riding high and thinking about how to get us there the next season. I only really allowed myself to let loose a few times a month. Otherwise, I was trying to be on this strict diet.”

Once training camp started he was all in. But outside of training camp and the season, yeah, he let himself slide with alcohol more than he should have. Drugs never came into play in his life. Ever.

“I think it’s normal to let loose a bit now and again. It’s hard to be rigid so much in life.”

He wondered if she’d been accused of that. If it had to do with her not having a lot of friends also.

“It is,” he said. “But I’d go overboard. There was this strip club I’d gone to a few times.”

More than a few, but it didn’t matter. Three times or thirty times didn’t change the facts of that night and how he didn’t remember much of it.

“Oh,” she said.

“It’s not like I went there to get laid,” he said. “I didn’t. I have a bit higher standards than that.”

She laughed, but he was sure it was forced. The fact her hand was rubbing his arm for comfort helped.

“We all have things in our past we wish we didn’t,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “It was a bachelor party. I don’t even remember whose it was. A friend of a player's, but it was an excuse to go and drink and hang out. I went home that night like I normally did. Someone brought me and life went on.”

“You don’t remember having sex with someone?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Which means I was wasted. But even when I was drunk, I covered myself. I didn’t want someone to come back to me saying their kid was mine. But it happened.”

“When did you find out?” she asked.

“That’s the funny part. I didn’t find out until Mercedes was too far gone to do anything about it. Maybe she didn’t know she was pregnant. I have no idea. Could be that she wasn’t sure of the father.”

“Did you doubt it?” she asked.

“Of course. So I’m returning home from my second surgery. Randy, my agent, is telling me my options as I’m freaking out that reporters were waiting outside the hospital. I thought no one was going to know I needed another surgery. Which was my stupidity for not following orders and training harder than I should have to get back on the field that season.”

He’d always wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t re-injured himself. Things happened the way they did and there was no changing it.

“You were anxious to get back,” she said. “I don’t know that I’d be that great of a patient.”

“I wanted the world to know it couldn’t hold me down. I was in the last year of my contract. I knew I wasn’t going to be resigned with the Jets because of the salary cap. My age was putting me in a slot to maybe get a two- to three-year contract, if that. Now I’m hurt and can’t even finish the season to prove anything to anyone. My chances were gone at that point. But it’s neither here nor there either. Randy and I are talking about Fox Sports, who had already been calling, and he tells me I’ve got something more important to worry about.”

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