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Chapter 4

Scuba

W alking into the hospital room, I couldn’t believe it.

The girl who got away was there in front of me. I could barely recognize her. It wasn’t just the time. It was how battered her body was. One of her eyes was covered by a bandage, but so much of her skin was either swollen or black and blue.

Good God, who would beat Annie?

Who would be dumb enough to do that? She had such a pure heart. Sure, a lot had happened in the last seven years, but I knew my girl. She was so innocent, and nothing warranted abuse like this.

As much as I wanted to know why she was lying in a hospital, there was something so much more important. I sat down next to her. “So why did you lie about our kid?”

With the way she closed her eyes, I knew that was the last thing she wanted to talk about. But I could be a semi-patient man. I’d wait her out.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said quietly, but the lack of conviction in her voice told me so much. Plus, it wasn’t like she could deny it. The kid looked just like me.

I liked sex. Hell, for all I knew, that kid had a half-sibling out there if a condom had broken.

It was not so much that the kid was mine. But why was there a need to lie?

Hell, if anything, wouldn’t it be better and easier to just say, “Yeah, that kid is yours.” She got pregnant right as I got drafted, and since I went in the first round, we both knew I was going to be playing sooner rather than later. Which meant I would be able to support our kid.

I attempted to make contact so many damn times. Why didn’t her dad tell me the truth?

No, he would just say he hadn’t heard from her. But that part I still believed since he would always ask what I heard and always sounded as heartbroken as I was.

“Enough of the lies. You and your parents told me that you lost the kid, so I’m trying to figure out what the hell is going on and why my kid is living with a teammate.”

There, I said it, and it came out a little bit more angry than I ever thought I would be when I reconnected with Annie. Over the last seven years, there were so many different things I was going to say to her. But realizing that we had a son together and she didn’t tell me trumped any proclamations of love.

Annie didn’t even try to look me in the eyes. Nope, she looked away and said in a broken voice, “Because I thought it was easier this way.”

There was a part of me that wanted to point out that if things were easier, then why the hell was she lying in a hospital room? I paced since I needed to calm myself before I said something stupid. This wasn’t a normal thing.

“How can I get to know my son? You already took six years away from me. Does he even know about me? Do I need to get my lawyer involved?”

It was a barrage of questions, but they all seemed fair. For as pissed as I was, I was pretty levelheaded.