Page 110 of Roughing the Player
Ravaged by emotion, Ellie swipes the tears from her face. “Kaylee, pack your bags. We’re leaving.”
“No, I’m not.” Our daughter backs away from her mom and anchors herself to me. “I’m staying. I want to go to Mitch’s school, learn advanced programming and intern at Advanced Tech.”
When did she decide all this? Is that the real reason Ellie flew down? Not because of the welcome wagons or because Kaylee mentioned Mitch, but because Kaylee wants to stay? Seems Kaylee is not the only devious one.
“No. You’re not, young lady.”
Still latched on to me, Kaylee glances up. “You guys have joint custody. I can stay with either parent, can’t I?”
Rather than wait for me to answer, Ellie jumps in. “No, you can’t. The agreement specifically calls for you to live with me during the school year.”
She’d made sure to include that in the joint custody papers we drew up before our wedding. At the time, I’d wondered why. Now I know. She wanted to make sure Kaylee stayed with her.
Kaylee turns toward her mother. “So move down here, and we can live together, Mom.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“My job’s in Chicago.”
“Can’t you be an agent anywhere? There are a lot of college football teams down here. You can find players to represent.”
I hate to hear the hope in her voice. Her mother’s already made up her mind and nothing is going to change it.
“It’s not that easy, Kaylee.”
“If you establish an office here, word will get around. You’re good, Mom. You know how to negotiate a deal.”
Ellie pleads with me. “Brock, say something.”
“Dad?” Kaylee’s eyes are swimming with tears. She’s miserable. But then so are Ellie and me.
Regardless, I have to be an adult about this. I have to do what’s best for Kaylee. And that’s not staying with me. “I don’t want you to go,” I say, my voice crushed.
A tiny smile trembles on her lips as she turns to her mother. “See?”
Ellie doesn’t say a thing, leaving it up to me to crush my daughter’s spirit. “I appreciate your wanting to live with me, but you have to do as your Mom says.” It hurts to say that, more than Kaylee will ever know.
“You don’t want me?”
How could she believe that? “Of course, I do. I’d love to have you here, year-round.” I jam my hands in my pockets to stop them from trembling and toughen my voice. “But you have to live with your mom.”
“Why?” She lets go of my arm. Her heart’s breaking too.
“Because she’s your mom. Right now it seems all fun and games because it’s summertime, but once school starts, you’ll miss her. You know you will.”
Her gaze swivels from Ellie to me and back again. “But I don’t understand. We could be a family. You, her, Butch and me. And the baby.”
“You’re right, we could, except it’s not going to work.” Please don’t ask me to explain. I don’t understand it myself.
“But you love her and she loves you.”
Something in me shatters. I do love Ellie. More than she’ll ever know. But she doesn’t love me. But I can’t let my pain affect Kaylee. I have to do what’s best for her. And that means giving her something to anticipate. “You can come and visit during Christmas.” As a consolation prize, it pretty much sucks. But I don’t have anything else. I’m hurting too much.
“How are you going to work things out? I might be all grown up, but what about the baby? Is he going to come down for Christmas too?”
I rub my hand across my brow. God knows I don’t have an answer for that. I’m all tapped out. “Ellie. You want to take that one?”
But before she can do so, her cell rings. Glancing at it, she says, “It’s Grandma.”
I nod.
She takes a deep breath, swipes the phone. “Hi, Mama.” As she listens, her face turns white as a sheet.
What the fuck happened? “What’s wrong?” I ask.
Trembling, she holds the cell to her chest. “It’s Butch. He was hit by a car.”
