Page 30 of False Start

Kyle

The next day, I sat in my car with a bag full of rocks in my lap, but they might as well have been in my stomach.

I was about to meet Sebastian for the first time.

When Madelyn and I had made this plan, I’d peppered her with questions about her son. I wanted to know everything — what he liked, what hedidn’tlike, anything I could find out to get to know him a little before we actually met.

For reasons I couldn’t articulate, it mattered to me that his first impression of me was a good one.

It mattered to me that Madelyn was trusting me to meet him. Period.

It’d been surreal, to listen to her talk about her son, to know she was a mom at all. I’d watched her so closely as she detailed everything about him, the way she lit up with pride, how her smile seemed genuine for the first time since the day I’d shown up at that house and ran straight into my blast from the past.

Today was a big deal. It meant a lot to her, tome.

And as if all that wasn’t already enough to make my gut heavy with a mixture of emotions, I’d pulled into the park and immediately received a phone call from my agent.

About me being seen with Madelyn.

“There are no pictures, though?” I confirmed again, my heart thundering in my ears at the thought of having to tell Madelyn about this.

“No pictures,” Giana echoed. I could hear her typing away in the background. “I mean, there was one, but it was blurry and far away, and the only part of the woman they could see was one leg. Not really the kind of gold the press will pay for.”

I let my head fall back against the headrest. “Thank fuck.”

I’d been lucky with the media so far, most of it dying down soon after the draft. There was team press, of course, but that was on our terms. For now, I was just a rookie tight end. I wasn’t hot enough to be in any kind of spotlight.

But apparently, I wasn’t free of the claws of the press on a slow news day.

There was a pause on the other end. “Okay... clearly, this girl isn’t a one-night stand. If she were, you wouldn’t be so concerned.”

“She’s not,” I said with a swallow, lifting my head again to search the park for her. We’d decided to meet in a neutral place for my first time being around Sebastian. She’d be here any minute now.

The week had passed in the strangest blur.

From the moment she crashed back into my life, I couldn’t escape my thoughts of Madelyn. Add in the fact that I’d seen her almost every morning to look at houses, and that I’d had to endure the sweet torture of watching her try on evening gowns, and you could say I was going a bit mad.

Part of me wanted to hold onto the anger I had for her for so many years.

The bigger part of me couldn’t even remember why I’d been so mad.

I’d blacked out that chapter of my life long ago, but I never forgot how Madelyn had been acting weird toward me even before my parents’ party, before the incident... and I’d been upset with her for not talking to me, for not coming to that party when I really needed her to.

Then, my father had crossed a line in his drunken, asshole state of being, and Madelyn had sided with her parents, writing me off before I even had a chance to talk to her.

I’d been so pissed back then.

But now that I was older, I could understand.

Madelyn was a family girl. She always had been.

“Okay...” Giana prompted. “Is that all I get?”

“For now? Yes.”

She huffed. “If it’s someone you want help in protecting, I can’t do that if you leave me in the dark.”

“You’ll meet her at the wedding.”