“Come with us.” Her hand splayed over the curve of our daughter.
My jaw hit the floor. “Come with you? I’m on contract. I can’t just pick up and leave for Brazil. That’s not how any of this works. I can’t even go rock climbing with my contract, so I’m pretty sure hiking through the Amazon definitely isn’t allowed. I only have a decade left on the field, if I’m lucky. A decade, Liberty. And you of all people know why I can’t just take off my jersey and go use my considerable football skills in a medical camp in Brazil,” I finished with a note of sarcasm that she didn’t appreciate. “I don’t just play for me!”
“So what? I have to give up my dream so you can keep yours?” She looked at me like I was a complete and utter stranger. “That’s not love, Nixon. Love is when you put someone else’s needs ahead of yours. Love isn’t throwing a tantrum because you’re not getting your way.”
“Throwing a tantrum?” I stood and then sat my ass back down on the dresser. Nothing good would come of me walking away or getting closer to her. We’d either end in anger or end up in bed, which was exactly what got us here—not talking our shit out. “I’ve had exactly,” I looked at my watch, “thirty-two minutes to adjust to the thought that you’re leaving me and taking my kid! I didn’t do anything wrong! I didn’t fuck this up. I let you in. I put my whole heart out there, and somehow we still can’t win!”
“It’s not about winning!” She stood suddenly. “You can’t control everything. I know you want to, but you can’t. You just have to accept the fact that not everything can go according to your plan. You can’t stick me in this cage—no matter how beautiful it is and tell me to be happy. There is no outcome in life that’s guaranteed. We make the best of whatever life gives us, and life has handed me this,” she gestured between us. “It’s given me this baby to raise and nurture, and it’s given me a love so deep I know I will feel you from an entire continent away. And it’s given me this opportunity to make a difference in the world—not just the scoreboard.”
“I love you.” It wasn’t a confession—it was an outright plea.
“Then don’t make me choose.”
I glanced at her pack and felt the empty void in my chest begin to grow, consuming me bit by bit with blessed numbness. “I never realized that I was your consolation prize, but I get it now. Loud and clear. Hell, you said it to begin with, right? You didn’t want me. You didn’t need me. You were going to raise our baby all on your own. This was just a pit stop in your life. I’ve been the one holding on to something that never existed because you never really wanted me, you were just settling. Jesus, Lila wasn’t even this cruel. She faked a baby. You faked a future.”
She startled, then stared at me before slowly shaking her head. “They warn people to never meet their crushes. They told me you were an asshole, but I never imagined you could be this selfish.” She barked. “You’ve had your dream for the past eight years! I haven’t even had mine for an hour, and you can’t let me have it? You can’t be happy for me? Proud of me? You can’t think about a compromise? One where we fit our lives together instead of me fitting mine into yours? Is this really who you are? Are you that scared of who you’ll be when everyone stops chanting your name that it’s your way or nothing at all?” She batted away a furious tear, and the sight of it shredded me all over again.
“Where the hell is there any room to compromise with you in Brazil?” Forget your heart and start thinking logically. I’d already lost her—if I’d ever even had her—but I wasn’t about to lose my little girl. “Okay, so what are we going to do about our daughter?”
“What do you mean?” She flinched.
“I mean that I can’t stop you from getting on that plane tomorrow. Even my lawyers aren’t good enough to make that happen.” I laughed at the irony of being one of the richest guys in the NFL with a problem that money couldn’t solve. “But I’m not letting you raise her alone. I don’t care if it takes me years and millions in lawyer fees. She’s mine, too. I’m not a luxury you can leave behind—I’m her father.” Even if you don’t want my love anymore.
Liberty’s eyes narrowed. “At least she’ll get to spend some of her time out of this paparazzi-filled fishbowl you call a life. Lawyers? Damn, Nixon. I guess it’s good that we don’t have to be together to raise a kid together.”
“That’s what you wanted in the first place, remember?” I pushed off the dresser and headed for the door, pausing at the frame to look back at her, trying to memorize every detail of her beautiful face. “When you were growing up, did you ever ask your mom about your dad?”
“Of course,” she spat, wrapping her arms around her middle like I was the one who was ripping us apart. “You know he walked out when she was pregnant.”
“That was his loss. You are an incredible woman, Liberty Jones, and neither you nor your mother deserved that, and his actions proved he sure as hell didn’t deserve to get to raise you.”
She swallowed and swiped away another tear, but they started falling faster.
Fuck my life, I loved her. Even standing there, telling me she was going to take my kid and run—I loved her. What the hell was wrong with me? “I’m not asking you to choose between Brazil and me. We both know you already have. But not every man in your life is expendable, Liberty. Remember that when our daughter asks you about me.”
She sucked in an audible breath.
“This is getting us nowhere. I’m going for a drive to clear my head.” Maybe the solution would present itself if I just stopped thinking about it so hard.
I climbed into my car and drove it way too fast for entirely too long and pulled back into my driveway over three hours later. I didn’t have an answer yet, and I wasn’t sure there was one, but at least I’d driven off my anger. Her shiny, new, highly safety-rated car sat parked in its spot, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
We still had time.
I called her name as I walked in, but she didn’t answer, and in that second, I knew. Her books weren’t scattered on the dining room table. Her backpack was gone, and so was every piece of clothing she’d brought with her. She’d left the luxuries—the cocktail dresses and high heels—behind. Her passport was no longer in the fire safe. Her toiletries were cleared out of the bathroom.
Even seeing all of it, I held on to a sliver of hope until I made my way into the nursery.
She’d taken the tiny Raptors jersey.
She was gone.
18
Liberty
I sank onto the colorful rug on the floor, sighing as I leaned against the low-sitting table with my laptop perched atop it.
“Are you crazy?” my mom chided from behind me, and I jolted at her outburst.
“Gah, Mom! Wear a bell. I thought you were at the market getting produce.” I shook my head, opening my laptop, that same heavy weight settling on my chest as it had every time I’d opened my computer the past month.