Page 11 of Tight End

Ryan is right behind me, his gaze volleying betweenOliver and me. He runs a hand through his hair and down the side of his neck. “Can I talk to him?”

“Of course.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” I nod, giving him a soft smile. “You’re taking this rather well.”

Oddly well. Maybe this is where Oliver gets his quiet reflection.

Ryan is taking everything in stride. Not once has he raised his voice or accused me of trapping him for the next fifteen years. After working in my mom’s law office, I’ve heard it all—everything from complete denial to raging disappointment that a woman can’t control the eggs moving down her fallopian tubes. That one’s my favorite.

I’m still impressed he showed up for us. I don’t imagine most guys would. But he’s here and that’s all that matters.

“Football. You can’t wear your emotions on the field.” He hesitates before sitting down on the floor next to him and points to the page. “What are you coloring?”

Oliver drops his crayon, his eyes widening slightly as he peers up at Ryan, who’s struggling to cross his legs and fit under the table. “Stegosaurus.”

“Do you like dinosaurs?”

“Are you for serious? They’re only my faborite.”

“Mine too. Especially the Tyrannosaurus rex.” Ryan glances toward me briefly before turning back to Oliver. “Did you know scientists think velociraptors had feathers? And were estimated to be about the size of chickens?”

Oliver takes a deep breath, and for a moment he looks at Ryan like he invented dinosaurs. “Yep, chickens with three-inch-long claws.”

“Did you know most meat-eating dinosaurs walked on two legs?”

“Do you know the T. rex has the longest teeth?”

“The longest dinosaur was the length of four fire trucks.”

“The heabiest as much as sebenteen elephants.”

I sit in the recliner and take out my phone so I can at least pretend I’m not watching the two of them like a stalker. They go back and forth with a few more facts, each trying to top the other, before Oliver rips a page from the coloring book and asks Ryan if he wants to color. He doesn’t miss a beat, grabbing an orange crayon from the pile and getting to work.

Emotion swells in my chest, clogging my throat as I watch them. They’re both biting their bottom lip, heads tilted to the right as they concentrate on their different dinosaurs. Occasionally their eyes flit to mine, and the matching blue hues absolutely level me.

Had my mom not demanded I deliver those divorce papers to the football field, I’d have never run into Ryan.

I really did search for him for a long time, so long I didn’t think I’d ever find him. After I found out I was pregnant, I came back to Nashville for winter break. I went to that dang dive bar every chance I got. I asked the bartenders if they knew someone matching his description. Nothing. He never showed up, and none of the employees had a clue who I was talking about. Not sure I believed them, but I had no choice.

And then when I graduated from college, my mom moved me back from North Carolina to have the baby in a hospital she approved of, with a doctor she handpicked, in an apartment she rented for me. I haven’t had much free time, especially when Oliver was a baby, but I still managed to stop by the bar every so often. Poppy made sure one of our parents was on babysitting duty so we could go oncea month.

Last year I’d given up hope.

I couldn’t sit there month after month, sipping on water and frantically looking at everyone who walked in. It wasn’t healthy, but I was grasping at straws trying to find Oliver’s dad.

Not that I couldn’t be a parent myself, I just couldn’t imagine Oliver having no idea who his dad was his entire life because I thought it would be fun not to exchange names before I let a stranger fuck me. And then the heartbreak if they did manage to find each other later in life? That would be brutal.

For both their sakes, I had to try as best as I could to find him, and for three years I did.

And now, due to some twist of fate delivered by the hands of my own domineering mother, I’ve found him—Ryan Devlin, who’s apparently a professional football player.

I may have been the one to suggest no names, but he had been happy to comply. No wonder. Girls probably threw themselves at him all the time, and I’m sure he’d thought I’d follow him home like a lost puppy.

Honestly, it really didn’t matter to me what his job was. Despite our amazing night together, I was in literal hell. I’d just found out my fiancé was cheating on me with his best friend and that our entire relationship had been a sham. I was nothing more than a cover so his parents wouldn’t find out his true sexual preference. My parents were pissed. The wedding guests were all disappointed they were robbed of their opportunity for free food and alcohol, and I spent the next week making sure all their gifts were returned with handwritten apology notes.

It took me a while to piece the fragments of my life back together.

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