Twenty

ONCE AGAIN, SCOTT dropped Dylan’s bag off at Abby’s house on Thursday morning.

She could have brought it over the night before, after dinner, but Scott had been adamant he wanted to come by before he left.

Arriving with his son’s duffel, two cups of coffee, and a small paper bag with several different kinds of doughnuts, he settled on the couch while Abby grabbed plates from the kitchen.

Gen, who had greeted Scott at the door, pranced around the living room holding a tug toy in her mouth. After trying several times to grab the other end of it, Scott turned to Abby with a perplexed expression.

Abby laughed. “She wants to play, but she doesn’t want to risk losing. Ignore her; she’ll get tired of playing keep-away and come closer.”

Sure enough, within a few minutes, Gen laid her head on Scott’s knee, toy still clenched firmly between her teeth.

“You ready to play now, pup?”

Gen lifted her head, ears twitching forward at his playful tone, and Scott caught hold of the toy.

“Watcha gonna do now, huh? I’ve got it and I’m not letting go.”

Toenails scrabbling on the slick floor, Gen backed away, jerking the rope.

Taking pity on her, Scott slipped off the couch and onto the floor where he, too, slid with the strength of her tugs.

With one more massive effort, Gen yanked, overbalancing Scott until he sprawled, face down on the floor, losing his grip on the rope.

Gen tumbled over backwards.

Abby, sipping her coffee, coughed as she held back her laughter.

“Well, that’ll teach me.” Scott stood and pretended to dust himself off before settling again on the couch, twining his fingers in Abby’s.

“Can you imagine trying to explain it to the team if you’d gotten hurt? ‘Yeah, I dislocated my shoulder playing tug-of-war with my girlfriend’s dog’.”

“Coach would kill me. But at least you’d be able to reset it, right?”

“Ah, maybe no more tug.” Technically, she could, but she had no desire to ever deal with a dislocated joint again. Not as bad as an open fracture, but still... yuck!

Abby set her coffee on the table and reached for a doughnut. Before she could, though, Scott gave a quick tug at their twined hands, toppling Abby against him.

“Well, maybe no more tug with the dog, anyway.” His lips ruffled the strands of hair framing her face, his breath catching the shell of her ear and sending shivers down her spine.

Testing the weight on her other hand, she pulled it from where she’d braced it on the cushion beside Scott and planted it in the middle of his chest. As his eyes widened, she overbalanced both of them, landing with a huff against the solid wall of his torso.

“Gotcha.” She laughed.

“Cheater,” Scott scolded through his own laughter. “That’s like letting go of the rope.”

Abby, still giggling, lowered her lips to his, humming as the kiss deepened and Scott’s arms came around her, holding her to him.

“Bummer.” She deadpanned. “Looks like I lost. Oh, woe is me...”

“Shut up, you,” Scott reached up to tangle a hand into her long hair and pull her lips back down to his.

“Make me.”

And he did.

They had to fight harder than Scott liked for the win, and he wasn’t above being grateful the Panthers were still missing two of their key receivers and one of their tackles.

Slogging through the game, it hadn’t seemed to matter whether the numbers were on the Raptor’s side, whether they had the healthier team or the better record, but, in the end, the final score showed another W under their belt.

Jogging down the tunnel toward the visitor’s locker room, he bumped knuckles with several other players, celebrating the victory.

The film tomorrow wouldn’t lie, and there would be some choice comments from the coaching staff for a lot of players, himself included.

He still couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen the safety cut across the field and pick the ball right out of the air, yards in front of the intended receiver.

Filing into the locker room, though, the relief of a second win permeated the space.

“Hey, Finn, help me peel out of this jersey, would you? It was hotter than a Carolina Reaper out there.”

After hours of play, with all the sweat and layers of sunscreen, bug spray, or spilled Gatorade, it often seemed to take more effort to strip off the jersey than to play the game.

Once they’d both discarded their jerseys into the bin for cleaning, Scott unstrapped his pads.

He liked to be one of the first into the showers.

He had his choice of stalls and could stretch his time out a little longer before having to meet the press, and also because sometimes the guys needed to have a good jaw about the game, and he’d found they tended not to be as free with their words when the quarterback lingered.

Before padding to the shower, he slid his cell phone off the locker shelf, hoping for a message from Abby and Dylan.

“Shit, I have to go.” He threw the phone back into his locker and started pulling his clothes on over his sweaty, grimy body with panicky, jerking motions inconsistent with his usual lithe grace and athleticism.

“What’s up, man?” Finn, naked beside him, grabbed his clothes, too.

“Lindsay showed up at Abby’s place and took Dylan.” Scott, dressed now, shirt sticking to his sweaty skin and twisting awkwardly across his shoulders, shook his head, forcing his brain to process the next step.

A car. He needed a car. The team bus wouldn’t leave for hours, and he needed to be home now . He needed to put his own two eyes on Dylan, to hold him in his own arms.

What the hell had Lindsay been thinking?

“Here, man, I texted Kelly. She’s coming down to meet us.”

“You don’t...”

“Shut up. Yes, I do. I’ll go let them know and meet you outside.”

Scott nodded, grabbed his phone, and left the locker room, barely hearing the subdued voices around him wondering what had happened.

Dialing, he prayed Abby would answer.

“Scott? Oh my God, Scott, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what to do. She showed up here and started saying all these horrible things. I called you, but the game had started...”

He interrupted her, panic closing his throat. “Abby, did she say where she was taking him? Did she say why?”

Abby’s shaky breathing echoed through the phone.

“I don’t... I don’t know. She showed up a couple minutes after kickoff and told me she didn’t want to hear any more about Dylan staying with random women because you couldn’t be responsible enough to make sure he had adequate supervision.

I tried to explain, but she walked in, grabbed Dylan, and started pulling him toward the door.

She didn’t even let him get his things. I thought about calling the police, but she’s his mother. What could I do?”

“Okay, okay,” Scott processed the information as she threw it at him. “I don’t know where she’d take him, except maybe back to New York, but that doesn’t make any sense.”

His brain spun, slipped, skidded out. She didn’t want Dylan, never had, so she must have found out he’d been staying with Abby and wanted to cause trouble. But why? To be difficult? To hurt him? To scare Abby?

“Abby, I have to go now. I’m going to call her and get this figured out, okay? I’ll talk to you later.”

“Let’s go.” Finn grabbed his arm as he came out of the locker room and towed him along behind him until they met Kelly, coming down the long corridor toward them.

“This way.” She gestured, keys dangling from her fingers, and the two men followed her as she set a brisk pace, winding between stragglers but keeping their heads down and walking with purpose.

Scott didn’t think he’d be able to keep it together if someone recognized him and asked for an autograph or, heaven forbid, a selfie.

The torturous drive home from Charlotte seemed to last forever. He tried calling Lindsay, but she’d turned her cell phone off, sending him to voicemail. A spiteful, mean move, meant to keep him scared to death. He called the house, then Dylan’s cell phone, then Lauren, but no one answered.

Finally, after scrolling through the increasingly panicked texts from Abby she’d sent while he’d been playing, then listening to the four messages she’d left, he dropped his head into his hands and found himself hoping his son would be there when he got home.

If he wasn’t, he’d be flying to New York tonight.

“Is that Lauren’s car?”

As they pulled into Scott’s driveway, Finn’s voice broke through the miasma his mind had sunk into during the three-hour drive.

His breath caught in his chest, then rushed out verging on the edge of a sob. “No. No, it must be Lindsay’s.”

He had the door open before the car stopped moving, feet hitting the cobbled, granite blocks.

“Dylan?” He burst through the front door, shouting his son’s name.

“Oh, be quiet, you’ll wake him up.” Lindsay perched on the edge of his couch, a half-filled glass of wine on the coffee table in front of her. She snapped closed her book, the sound echoing in the silence between them.

Ignoring her, he crossed the room in four long strides, taking the stairs two at a time. Not until he laid eyes on the sleeping form of his son, tucked into his own bed, in his own house, did Scott’s heartbeat slow for the first time since reading Abby’s text message in the locker room.

Gritting his teeth, the cold knot of fear that had been lodged in his belly for the last three hours unwound, then, in an instant, turned red-hot. Closing the door, he retraced his steps to the living room.

Seeing his ex-wife in his home, his refuge—his and Dylan’s—words failed him. The rage simmered so close to the surface, it would take only the slightest spark to explode.

He forced himself to breathe.

Yelling at Lindsay would solve nothing, he reminded himself.

Lindsay rolled her eyes. “I’m his mother; it’s not like I’d let anything happen to him. Unlike that girlfriend of yours. Did you know her stupid mutt growled at me? I can’t believe you let Dylan spend time with it. I’m half-tempted to call Animal Control and report her.”

Scott ignored her jabs, ignored the way her lip curled when she called Abby his girlfriend, ignored her snide tone when she talked about Gen.

None of it mattered.

“Why are you here, Lindsay?”

His ex-wife took another sip of wine, rose, and sauntered across the living room, gathering her coat and bag from where they’d been resting on a chair near the front door.

“I’m here to take care of my son, since you can’t find someone to do it for you.

I understand you have a home game next week, so I’ll see you in two weeks.

.. Or, do you need me to come down next weekend, as well? ”

The heat coiled deep in his belly, a familiar friend, the same kind as each time he took the field. No, the same kind as in those games that were so much more than simply a game: a redemption game, a come from behind game, a rivalry game. Anger, yes, but anger he could use.

He kept his voice quiet, level, remarkably so given how well Lindsay could rile him. “You kidnapped my son.”

She stalked toward him with the lithe grace of a tiger. “I’m his mother...”

“Maybe you birthed him,” Scott interrupted her, “but it takes a hell of a lot more than that to be a mother .” He spat the last word at her. “And I have a custody agreement saying you only get to be his mother every other holiday and one week in the summer.”

Lindsay’s eyes widened, but, for the first time, Scott ignored the small voice in his mind warning him not to cross her.

He’d spent so many years tiptoeing around her, believing her when she assured him no judge in the world would uphold his parental rights if she ever wanted Dylan back, heeding her because she was a lawyer.

But this? She’d pushed too far, overplayed her hand, and in that moment, the bulwark of threats she’d fashioned meant nothing.

“A custody agreement saying you. Kidnapped. My. Son.”

Her face went white, the color draining at his accusation, then rising back up, beginning at her collar, until her entire face suffused with red.

“For now,” she hissed back at him, flouncing out the front door and slamming it behind her.