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It was nearly all of them.
The only one I noticed missing was Gentry.
“I didn’t even know that she was real.”
I turned to find Manny standing there, staring at me in awe.
“What do you mean?”
“I thought when you said that you’d met someone, that you were kidding because you didn’t want to be set up with Melanie. I had no idea that you actually had a girl. Then your accident happened, and nobody would ever let us come see you. They said that your girl was in there with you, though, so we were all feeling better. But we were still stunned that you had a ‘girl’ in the first place. Especially since we’d never seen her at any of the games.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
I had made the girl up because I didn’t want to go out with Melanie. Melanie was sweet, but she was also too sweet. She knew exactly who I was, and I didn’t want that anywhere near me.
Having a porn star as a mother, and a famous mob boss father, really only allowed you so much anonymity. Then I’d gone and gotten myself a career that had put me even more in the spotlight.
So yeah, I didn’t want to date anyone I knew.
Which had prompted the made-up girl.
The made-up girl that was now a real girl and was becoming incredibly convenient to have around.
Then a thought occurred to me.
One that, if I went with it, might change everything.
I thought back to Henley’s ass, and the way it looked in those white cotton panties. Then I wondered whether I could stare at that same ass for the next fifty years I was alive—hopefully—and decided that I definitely could.
***
Hours later, my phone rang again.
I sighed and walked to it, picking it up once I’d taken a glance at the screen.
“Yo?”
There was a slight pause on the other end of the line, then a grunted laugh.
“I didn’t know what to expect.”
I rolled my eyes at my friend, Sterling. We’d met a few years back when he’d first entered the league.
He hadn’t been a snot-nosed kid like most of the little leaguers, aka rookies, were. No, he was fucking smart, and I liked him on sight. Even when he tagged me out three times at first base the first time we played together.
“You thought I’d sound like a woman?” I joked.
I knew what he was saying, but I was fucking tired of talking about how everyone thought I was dead. I wasn’t dead. Far from it. At least for now.
“No.” He paused. “I was actually expecting a bunch of grunting like zombies do.”
I sighed. “Fuck you.”
He chuckled at my familiar, hate-filled words. “So, I hear you have a woman.”
I stared at said ‘woman’ who was currently sleeping on my couch.
The boys had just left, and they’d kept Henley thoroughly entertained with stories of me.
My ‘notorious’ bad boy image, and how she would have to clean me up if she ever wanted to make an honest man out of me.
Henley had played the part well, and the more that the idea in my head took root, the better it was starting to sound.
The only problem with the arrangement—at least on my end—was that she wouldn’t ever be able to marry someone else that she actually loved.
Sure, there was lust on both of our parts, but that would never turn into love.
At least not for me.
Love didn’t work in my world, and I had first-hand knowledge of why that was. My mother and father were the not-so-shining examples of how fucked up the life could be.
My mom had hated living in the world my father had made for her. And, knowing that he would have to either do something about her newly-acquired skills—i.e., being a goddamn porn star—or look like a fool, he chose the one option that he could live with. Looking the fool.
And the mob sure didn’t like the fact that a man in the position that my father was in caused him to be blinded by love for my mother, instead of taking her in hand.
From that day forward, my father suffered.
He suffered at the hands of my uncle Pablo. He suffered at the hands of my mother. And he suffered at the hands of cancer.
All of those things, he felt, were his burdens to bear.
And, in doing so, I’d seen what love could do to a man.
But that wasn’t my only example.
My aunt Lillian, my uncle Pablo’s wife, had also suffered.
She loved my uncle Pablo more than life itself. More than she loved her kids. More than she loved anything in this world.
And she died, so blinded by the love she had for him, that she didn’t see the world for what it truly was.
Even on my aunt’s deathbed, she was loyal to Pablo. Pablo was her light. Her darkness. Her everything.
