On more nights in a week than not, I fall asleep thinking about Sinclair. My heart aches in the darkest parts of the night, wondering if I’ll ever feel the same way about another man again. And then there is the matter of the baby.
His baby. The one we made together, growing inside of me. I know it’s wrong of me not to have called him yet, not to even have sent him a text about what’s going on. I would never ask anything of him, if he doesn’t want to be involved, it will gut me emotionally, but this baby boy and I will be just fine. If he does want to know his son, though, I won’t keep him from him.
Except I have kept this from Sinclair. I know I need to call him, but my wounded heart and pride haven’t allowed me to yet.
That’s a problem for another day, though. Because I’m almost at my office. I’ve almost reached the place I’ve spent so many years dreaming of occupying. The major league is here, and I’m so ready to get started.
I’m cradling my bump, trying to transmit my excitement to my baby through the touch of my hands, when a figure is making its way down the hall toward me.
It’s only when it comes into focus, when the man is just feet from me, that I make out who it is.
Tall. Lean. Wiry.
Bronzed skin, even in this dead of winter. Well, as cold as it can get for a Florida girl in September.
Flashing aquamarine eyes, which look just as shocked and surprised as I feel internally.
“Sinclair?” His name feels funny rolling off my tongue, and an unexplainable shudder rolls through me.
How is he here? Did he get hired on by the main team, too? I mean, he hadn’t seemed all that interested in coming up here when we talked about it. God, he looks delicious. Jesus, I didn’t realize I missed him so much. Never in a million years did I think I’d see him when I walked in here. But why not? It wasn’t an impossibility, and now I feel like an idiot for assuming our paths would never cross.
“Frankie?” He guffaws as if it was even more of an impossibility that I was here.
He takes one look at my bump, those blue eyes flit up to mine, and then he’s spitting his coffee all over the concrete wall of the bowel of the stadium.
My stomach drops to my feet, because for just one second, I was so excited to see him that I forgot I was pregnant. With his child. Which I haven’t told him about.
“Sin, wait up.” Walker Callahan jogs down the hall and comes to stand next to Sinclair.
My head swivels back and forth between them as Sinclair wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, gaping at me as he does so. It feels like time is moving in slow motion as the cogs in my brain work overtime.
Then it all clicks into place.
The way he never had me over to his place. How he avoided questions about his family. Why he never kept in touch. Why he looks so goddamn much like the Pistons star player.
The only player to ever play for an organization owned by his own family.
Sinclair is a Callahan.
Then I’m the one bending over and spitting up the contents of my stomach all over the wall.
19
Sinclair
I usher Frankie into a chair, her hand clammy as it clutches mine while I help her sit.
“You’re a Callahan?” she hisses, all of that redheaded rage doing something funky to my heart.
Seeing her after so long, especially with what she’s carrying, is totally fucking with my head. I can’t decide between going utterly speechless, kissing her, and asking her every question under the sun.
“You’re pregnant.” It’s not a question, but my voice takes on a tone of disbelief.
As if I can’t see the very prominent swell of her abdomen, the way she cradles it after she just got sick in the hallway.
We’re in one of the hitting coach’s empty offices, and I can’t stop staring at her.
“You lied to me. Jesus Christ, how many lies did you tell me?” Her eyes flit back and forth between the hands in her lap, as if she’s trying to count all my lies.
She’s talking to herself rather than to me, and I kind of understand why. There are about a million thoughts going through my head at once.
I feel betrayed. She’s clearly pregnant, and a fit, petite girl like Frankie wouldn’t be showing enough if she wasn’t far along. Then there is the fact that it’s been five months since I’ve seen her. That’s, what? More than halfway through the period it takes to cook a baby? There are always a lot of little Callahans running around with such a large family, so I know a little bit. Though I guess I should have been paying closer attention when my cousins were pregnant.
Is the baby someone else’s? What is she doing here? Has she thought about me? If it’s mine, was she ever going to tell me?
Suddenly, I’m on guard. If that is someone else’s baby, then clearly, she never gave two shits about me. Or maybe she’s been hiding it, keeping this secret until striking the iron when it was hot. The Pistons are headed for the playoffs; maybe she’s here for a payday.
Every emotion flits through me, and poison comes flowing right out. Aimed directly at her.
“Is that why you came to find me? You found out I was a Callahan? What, do you need money or something?” My words are ice.
I don’t even see it; she moves so fast. One second she’s sitting, trying to take deep breaths after throwing up, and the next, she’s standing in front of me.
Slapping me across the face.
Then her slim finger is right up against my nose, all but poking it. “Don’t you dare say that to me. I had no idea who the hell you were, because you fucking lied to me the entire time we knew each other. A fact I only just now discovered, that you’re a goddamn Callahan. I didn’t come to find you, you asshole. I got promoted. I’ll take my large paycheck to the bank and my baby and I will be just fine without you, thank you very much.”
With that, she marches past me, a goddamn force, as she exits the office.
My mind screams to go after her, but my feet stay rooted to the floor. I feel like I was just hit by a tractor trailer. My mouth is dry but has that bile feeling of nausea at the same time. Shock, hurt, and something fiercely protective move through my gut, while my heart beats like it’s just been woken up after five months.
Frankie is here. Frankie is staying here.
There has barely been a moment in the five months since I left Florida that I haven’t thought about her. That I haven’t wanted to pick up the phone and call. But I haven’t. I’ve been a coward. More than that, I’ve been waiting to get in touch until I had something to show for myself.
For the past five months, I’ve been hard at work in the Pistons corporate marketing offices. After hearing how well I did in Florida, Dad wanted to put me in charge of my own team here at home. I declined. I hadn’t earned a thing, working for basically nothing as a video production runt. Plus, I would have no idea how to run a team, and no one would respect me. I wanted to put in the work for the first time in my life. So I’ve been working in an entry-level position, learning the ins and outs of the department, and working especially on the player and management interview packages we shoot and put on the website, on the Jumbotron, and for sports news networks.
And when I finally make something of myself, I am going to try to get Frankie back. At least that’s what I kept telling my heart.