AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh.”
“Now…tell me about Matt.”
Alice gnawed on her lip, unfurling her fisted fingers and set
ting her hands in her lap. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Matt sooner. The thing is, that’s not really…well, it’s not public knowledge. He’s never openly admitted to having a daughter.”
“But Olivia knows him, so they’ve met? I mean, he came to see her in the hospital, right?” Alex couldn’t imagine the kind of man who would ignore his own child in her hour of need. If Matt had skipped out on Liv after the accident, there would be no redeeming him in Alex’s mind.
“Yeah, he came. He does stuff for her once in a while, but it’s so few and far between we can never count on it. He was supposed to come see her during training but didn’t bother. She still thinks he hangs the moon because she’s too young to know better. Whenever he disappoints her, it breaks her heart, but the second he shows up it’s like he’s a superhero or something. Her dad the ballplayer.” Alice gave a halfhearted shrug, her shoulders barely lifting. “But he helps us out a bit. Financially I mean. He knows she’s his.”
“You’d have to be blind not to know she’s his.”
“Right?” Alice smiled weakly, like her daughter’s physical appearance wasn’t a constant reminder of Matt. How could it not be, though? “And when he does come around, he’s great with her. But the problem is he thinks money and toys are all she needs. She needs a father, and I can’t get through to him that once-a-year visits aren’t enough. He won’t acknowledge her to the media. Can you imagine the scandal?”
“And you’ve never thought about outing him?”
“What, running down to Star or Us Weekly with the paternity test and being like, Hey, look what a scummy dink Matt Hernandez is?”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Did you sign some sort of a nondisclosure agreement?”
“I did, but that’s not why. I’m not going to subject Liv to some kind of circus. She has a normal life right now. Lots of little girls don’t get to see their daddies, right? At least she’s met hers.” Alice let out a quivery sigh. “He does right by her when he really needs to. When it comes to the money end of things, she’s taken care of. Sure, I need to hound his lawyers to make sure we have enough for school and the mortgage and all that good stuff. I talk to them more than I talk to him in any given year. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even know her birthday.”
“Maybe you’re wrong about him.” But Alex wasn’t convinced by his own words. If he’d knocked someone up on the road, he would have the decency to tell the world the kid was his. He wouldn’t hide the baby like some shameful secret. When Liv got older, how would she deal with her father’s absence? How would it impact her to know her dad didn’t want to admit he had a kid?
When Olivia visited Matt’s Wikipedia page and it said no children, what would that do to her adolescent ego?
Plenty of major league players had illegitimate kids. It wasn’t a career ruiner. People might think slightly less of Matt on a moral level, but having children out of wedlock wasn’t as taboo as it had once been.
The more Alex thought about it, the more he thought how scummy it was for Matt to keep Olivia as a dirty little secret. If Alex had a kid as great as Liv, he’d be proud to show her off. Frankly, from a PR standpoint, Matt was missing out on a goldmine. Doting dads looked a lot better in the public eye than douchebag millionaire man-whores.
Alex remembered reading an article somewhere that said Matt was known to send gift baskets to his conquests, filled with signed Hernandez memorabilia. Congrats, you slept with me, have an autographed ball.
The guy’s reputation could only get better.
Sadly Matt mustn’t have seen it that way.
“So, it goes without saying you can’t tell anyone about this. I mean no one.” Alice stared at him, her face pale and serious.
“Who would I tell?”
“I don’t know, but whoever you could tell, you can’t tell.”
“Okay.”
“Now what’s your thing?” She nodded at his lap. For a moment he thought she was talking about his penis, until he glanced down and the iPhone blinked up at him.
Decidedly not the thing he thought she meant.
“I got a call from the Skip. Sounds like things are looking up.”
She stared at him for a long while then simply said, “Ah.”
“We knew this was inevitable. I mean…I wasn’t coming to stay, it was always meant to be a temporary thing.”
