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“This is what I’m talking about,” she says, but her voice is soft and quiet, not an ounce of irritation. “Something is there. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. It’s not like a blow job warrants me an all access pass to your life.” I thought she would be pissed, but instead, she seems to understand.
“Trust me, babe, that blow job was worth a lot more than an interview, but I’m just not…”
“Ready,” she finishes.
“Yes, I guess you could say that.” I squeeze her hand, turning to face her so I can look into her eyes. “But I’d like to see you again. I can’t give you what you want, but maybe I can help you in other ways.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“How about a tour of the Wells Fargo Center? I could arrange a meeting for you to meet with Mike Turner.”
“Yeah, that would be great.” She’s radiant, glowing as she speaks. “I’d love to talk to your GM about some of the trades last year and how he thinks it will impact your next season. I have so many questions I’d love for him to answer.” Kennedy leans over Roxie to hug me, but with my dog in the way, it’s more like a pat on the shoulder. “Thank you, Tyler.”
“I’m sorry I can’t give you more.” And I mean it. I wish I had the guts to tell someone other than Donovan about my past. But I’m afraid no one will understand the way he does. I don’t want to be judged by a woman I am beginning to like.
“It’s a start, a compromise, right?”
Roxie hops off the couch and does her pee pee dance in front of the coffee table, spinning around in circles and chasing her tail.
“I need to take her for a walk. Do you want to come with us?”
She shrugs against the couch, a tiny smile on her lips. “Sure.”
Roxie runs across the room and jumps up in front of the fireplace, not yet tall enough to reach the leash dangling from the corner of the mantle.
“Calm down girl,” I say, reaching for the dog collar.
Excited, she clamps down on the black fabric, knocking a picture frame from the mantle that crashes to the floor, the glass shattering into tiny pieces.
“Damn it, Roxie. Look what you did.”
She steps forward, her head lowered in apology, but I have to move her out of the way before she steps in the glass.
“Here, let me help,” Kennedy says, sinking to the ground to pick up the frame along with the bigger shards.
She flips over the picture and studies it for a few seconds. Something flickers in her eyes as she glances up at me, her gaze flipping back and forth between the picture and me. Smart women are always a problem. And Kennedy is not just smart, she’s a reporter who I assume has put two and two together with one look at Blake’s picture.
She comes to a standing and notices the rest of the frames of Blake. “Who is this boy? You have a lot of pictures of him.”
“That’s Blake.” I have no idea what to say because no one ever asks me about him and because no one knows he exists except for Donovan.
“He’s adorable.” She holds the picture up next to my face, inspecting it. Her mouth widens when she makes the connection, but she’s not sure if her assumption is correct, so she keeps digging for information. “Why do you have so many pictures of him?”
“I just do. Can we leave it at that?” I walk away from her, calling out for Roxie to follow behind, not giving a shit about the mess on the floor. I need to get out of this room, away from her questions.
Before I reach the end of the huge living room, her words cut through me like a blade slicing into my chest. “The boy is your son.”
I turn on my heel, angry, frustrated, and no longer wanting to be around her. “I think it’s time for you to leave, Kennedy.”
“I’m…” She’s at a loss for words, and I feel horrible, but I need to be alone. Just the mention of Blake already has my stomach in knots and my entire body on high alert. I want to sink to the ground, curl up into a ball, and try to forget about my life, the secret life I live that Kennedy does not need to know about. All of this is too personal for me.
“Tyler, I didn’t mean anything by what I said.” She sets the broken frame on the coffee table, closing the distance between us. “It’s just he looks so much like you. If he’s not your son, then he must be related to you somehow.”
“I thought we had a deal.”
She reaches out for me, but I take a step back. “We did. We do. Look, I’m sorry. Can we pretend like this never happened?”
“Easier said than done, babe. Consider this forgotten.” I am such a fucking jerk. But I want her to go home, and the only way to get rid of her is to be a dickhead.
