Player: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (21 page)

“
H
oney
, I found the
sweetest
little veil you ever did see when you come out of there!”

Bernadette’s voice is muffled through the bathroom door, and I nod, if only for myself.

“Okay, thanks!”

“You sure you don’t need any help with that dress in there honey?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” My voice is distant, but I can’t help that.

Two weeks after the first visit, Austin’s mom and I are back at the dress shop, putting the finishing touches on the dress ensemble - what she’s been calling the “icing on the pie.”

The location is hardly the place where I should be doing this, but I’ve had to pee all day, even if I’ve been too scared to. I’ve been too nervous to make myself do it, but it
cannot
wait anymore

This is just nerves, or stress.

It’s the fortieth time I’ve said those words to myself, like some sort of TV drama cliché.

But honestly, what else do you tell yourself when you’re a week late on your period?

Yeah
…that.

My hands are literally shaking as I pull open the package and take the little stick out. My pulse hammers against my chest as I pull up the elaborate white dress and crouch.

Holding the stick.

Shaking.

Nerves, that’s it.

I count breaths with my eyes closed while I let the timer on my phone count down the two longest minutes of my life. In my head, if I don’t look, it won’t be real. As long as I’ve got them tightly shut, I don’t have to see what happens next.

I won’t have to see it when my world turns upside down.

The timer dings quietly, and I slowly peel my eyes open and stare at the stick on the edge of the sink.

I can pee again.

I can
definitely
pee again.

I can feel the color draining from my face as I shakily unwrap a second test.

“You okay in there, honey?” Bernadette’s voice through the door scare the living daylights out of me in my focused state, almost making me drop the test.

“Yep!” I suck in a lungful of air. “Just, uh…cramps.”

God do I wish it was cramps.

A minute later, I’ve got my eyes closed all over again, the second test sitting on the sink. And I’m not a praying person, but I’m whispering to whoever the hell will listen as I wait for that timer to go off.

This can’t happen. This can’t happen, this can’t-

The timer chimes.

And, there sitting on the periwinkle blue porcelain sink, is another plus sign.

I sit, and I stare.

I’m wondering what the odds are of two false tests when the knock comes again.

“Sure I can’t get you anything sweetheart? Got some Tylenol in my bag in case you need it.”

Bernadette’s voice pulls me out of my trance. I’m suddenly moving on autopilot as I quickly flush the toilet, and wrap ten layers of toilet paper around the tests before I stuff them into the trashcan.

I look at my white-dressed reflection in the bathroom mirror.

This doesn’t mean anything.

Nothing.

I’ll go to a real doctor, and get a
real
test. These take-home ones are bullshit anyways.

I say it twice more before I open the door.

* * *

W
ow
.

Back in the dress shop, and back on top of that little pedestal by the mirror, I look like something out of a Disney movie.

White dress, glittering heels, gossamer white veil shrouding my face, just like something out of the end of Cinderella or The Little Mermaid.

Except, you know, pregnant.

I frown behind my veil at the thought. I don’t think they go there in the cartoon kid’s movies.

Bernadette is fawning all around me right alongside the shop owner. She’s bustling around clutching her hands and beaming at me, like she may actually be more excited about this than I am.

Of course,
I
know it’s false.

It makes me cringe, because she’s so damn sweet, and
so
happy
that I’m married to her son.

Maybe we can stay friends after this all goes to hell.

Just think of the money. Think of why you’re doing this.

The thought makes me cringe, because it suddenly makes me think of Virginity’s whole stupid thing about “locking my man down.”

The dressing room suddenly goes a little quiet. I look up in the mirror to see the shop owner and her two assistants - who up until now haven’t been able to tell me enough how luck I am to me married to Austin - suddenly murmuring amongst themselves in hushed tones as they shoot me furtive looks.

What?

“Oh, Nancy?” Bernadette hasn’t noticed the silence as she fusses with the trim of my gown. She turns at the lack of response and frowns. “What’s that?”

Nancy’s assistant quickly shoves the magazine behind her back. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

Nancy herself turns to me, her face white as she plasters a fake smile across it. “It’s nothing, honey, just garbage.”

I frown. “Wait, what is it?”

“Just…tabloid stuff.” Nancy turns and shoots a look at the other assistant who mumbles it out.

It’s about me
.

I know from the looks on their faces that it is. It’s the same look I got from people who knew me when my dad was being hauled out of his Wall Street office and into custody.

“Oh, now this is silly! Give it here.” Bernadette deftly snatches the magazine out from the girl’s hand lets her eyes move across the cover.

Her face goes pale.

“Oh
Lord
Jesus.”

I can feel the chill creeping up my spine as I start to step down from the pedestal.

“Bernadette, what is it?”

She looks up at me quickly and shakes her head. “No, honey, it ain’t nothing for you to worry about. This is just garbage, it’s just lies and slander and-”

I snatch the tabloid magazine out of her hands and drop my eyes to the front.

My first thought is that of confusion as to how
Tina
- the catty girl from Austin’s driveway - ended up on the cover of a national tabloid magazine.

And then my eyes drop to the headline, and the bottom drops out.

I read it a second, and then a third time, the knife twisting a little deeper with every pass. Because the girl who’s been “lying” about Austin getting her pregnant hasn’t been lying at all.

He has.

Austin’s having a baby with another woman.

And right then, it doesn’t matter that this is fake. It doesn’t matter that we’re only “pretend” married.

What matters is the sick dread, and the pain inside.

The hurt.

The humiliation.

The betrayal.

Bernadette quickly steps forward. “Now, honey, I’m sure this is all just-”

The room starts to spin, and I stumble.

“Oh its just the media being nosey and making stuff up is all, sweetheart!” She pulls me into her, stroking my back as she leads me to a chair against the dressing room wall and sits me down.

I stare at the magazine in my hands, flipping the pages to the article in the pin-drop silence of the room. Tina is apparently telling the press that Austin is “leaving his wife” to be a family with her.

I’m going to be sick
.

And a part of me knows I have no real “right” to be upset, even if it is true. After all, we entered into this with knowing exactly what it was - an agreement, an arrangement.

Just business, just a transaction, and nothing personal - no emotions.

So why does this hurt so much.

I stare through the magazine in my hands, feeling numb, and cold.

Because you’re ALSO carrying his child.

And that truth might hurt worse than the screaming headlines in my hands. It’s the knowledge that despite
every
warning sign, despite
every
single hesitation my heart gave me and as cringing as it is to even admit to myself, I thought it was real.

For a moment there, I thought
we
were real, like a complete idiot.

“I have to go.”

Bernadette is saying something, but I don’t really hear her as I half stumble, half tear myself out of my dress. I’m aware of the coldness - the blank, empty feeling inside as I slip back into my clothes and run out the door.

* * *

I
’m back
at Austin’s house - somehow, though I don’t remember even driving myself here. I’m numb, moving on some sort of autopilot as I stumble into the house. Buckley’s there, wagging his tail as he pokes his head around the corner to say hello.

Aside from him, the house is empty.

I’m standing like a ghost in the middle of the living room, blinking, turning, and searching for something though I don’t know what that may even be.

This was home
.

For a brief, fleeting moment, it was. This house, and the man who lives here felt like home.

Except now I
have
no home, because apparently I belong nowhere.

The phone ringing in my hand snaps me out of my daze. I glance down, cringing at Vince’s name across the screen.

He knows.

Of course he knows, and here he is ready to bait me - ready to gloat as he tells me he told me so.

Hell, my own heart wants to say the same thing to me.

I ignore the call, slumping down onto the couch and dropping my face into my hands.

The worst part is, I’ve only got myself to blame. Austin lied? Really? Is it really
any
sort of surprise to me that a man like
that
was less than truthful about his involvement with women?

Blaming Austin is easy, except I know deep down, this is on me. This is
me
, letting my guard down, letting my heart lead me places I had no business going, and wanting to find something in places it was never going to be.

This was me
actually believing
somehow that money would buy happiness, and I’ve never felt like more of a perfectly silly
idiot
in my life.

My mother was right. It’s a thought I didn’t think I’d ever actually have, but there it is, burning it’s way to the front of my mind. All the years I spent rolling my eyes at her “marry up and marry rich” mentality,
I
was the one in the wrong.

Because love is a damn fairytale, and the
real
world is hard, and cruel, and you make it work by looking after
you
.

The phone rings again - Vince, again.

This time, I answer.

“Yes or no, Natalie.” His voice is cold.

“Come back to me, take me up on my offer, and this little debt with Austin goes away.”

I’m too numb to even answer, or say anything at all as Vince chuckles.

“I suppose now he can use the money for that kid he’s going to be having with that woman from the tabloids, hmm?”

I’m opening and closing my mouth, trying to finds words but only feeling pain lancing through my heart.

“
Natalie,
” Vince’s voice sends a chill through me.

“Come with me, and Austin’s debt to the family disappears.
Now
, do we
have
an arrangement.”

An arrangement
.

Because that’s my life. In the world I live in,
that’s
my future. I
am
in fact, my mother, and my sister, and Marnie Summers from Choate, and every other woman standing on a pedestal and ready to be an accessory or a trophy to some rich guy in exchange for a life of comforts and privilege. It’s a truth, an inevitability.

And I’m tired of running from that.

I’m done with pretending somehow I’m different, or that things will
be
different.

They’re not, and neither am I.