Page 73 of The Sweet Spot

“Imagine my surprise when I went to thank Jan, asked the receptionist how she could do this all pro bono, and the unwitting receptionist handed me this. And don’t you get her into trouble. She made a mistake, and I don’t want her to be reprimanded.”

He massaged his temples and groaned. “Am I in trouble?” he asked.

“Maybe. I’d like an explanation,” I said, presenting him with his breakfast sandwich and a side of hot quinoa cereal.

“I meant to tell Jan to charge you something, and I forgot to do that.”

My gaze narrowed, and I wanted to punch him. “Not that kind of explanation, smarty-pants!”

He scratched his head, no doubt wondering how he was going to get out of this. “I thought what had happened to you was shitty, so I told Jan I would pay all her fees because I knewyou wouldn’t be able to. At least not right away, and this asshole needed to be dealt with, pronto.”

“So right from the start, you were meddling in my affairs?” Oh god. Literally my affairs. “My issues, I mean.”

“Yup. I arranged it with my aunt and Jan. I knew you were down on your luck, and if you couldn’t pay a lawyer, Daniel was going to ruin your life, and I didn’t want that. I should have told you the truth, but once it was settled, I kind of forgot about it. I also thought you’d get mad at me. I guess I was right about that.”

He was giving me puppy dog eyes, and dammit, it was working. “I feel a little stupid. You and Jan had me believing it was all pro bono. Meanwhile, you were footing the enormous bill.”

“It was the right thing to do.”

I nodded. “True enough. And now, the right thing for me to do is pay you back.”

He groaned again. “Come on! You don’t have to. I wanted to pay the bill.”

“And I don’t want you to.”

“I won’t accept the money.”

“You will.”

He looked at me with those blue eyes again, the ones I could get myself lost in. “I made the choice to pay those lawyer fees. My aunt put you in touch with Jan. You aren’t paying them, and if you do, I’ll give you a bonus for the same amount.”

I channeled Jill and Tangi. I could hear both their voices telling me to back off. “Fine. But you can’t do that again. No more crappy secrets like that, okay?”

“Promise,” he said with a meek smile.

“In the future, I have to clean up my own messes.”

“Got it,” he said, giving me a salute.

He dug into breakfast, and I started prepping lunch and thepregame meal. Without Delia, I had more to handle, but I could get it done with plenty of time since she’d be in that afternoon. But this extra time alone with Brandon gave me time to talk to him.

“It was nice meeting Brooke. She is amazing.”

“She is. I’m glad we got to spend some time together. We talked about my parents and some other things. Since we’re all about honesty, I told my parents that I’m not speaking to them until they apologize to you. Of course, my parents are sociopaths and think they did nothing wrong, so it looks like I won’t be talking to them for a while.”

He ate his breakfast sandwich like he’d just told me he’d canceled the newspaper and not his parents. Granted, they were probably two of the worst people I’d ever met, including the likes of Daniel, but cutting his parents out of his life? That seemed so extreme … and then it hit me. I was cutting out my birth mother. But this wasn’t the same thing.

“Are you sure? Because they are your parents.”

“I’m sure, and while I’m at it, I’m going to take advantage of the counseling I can get through our players’ union. I think it would be good to talk to someone about this. You know, I need to find my inner peace.”

He was starting to sound like me.

“That’s a great idea. And about my birth mother, I’ve been thinking about that too. Like my brother, I want kids. I should probably know what I’m dealing with medically. A little part of me is also curious about her, but I worry that even though my parents say it doesn’t upset them, what if it does?”

“Don’t you think you can take what your parents say at face value?”

He was making a lot of good points. When I set out to have this conversation with him, I didn’t expect us both to have all these epiphanies.

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