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“Kia, that’s not you talking. You hate it when people take one look at your tattoos and judge you. Don’t do the same to him.”
“What? I don’t know the first thing about this guy.”
“Come on, you obviously know something. You slept with the guy.”
“Yeah, six years ago, after a shitty day. I had a couple of drinks with a cute guy that I thought worked for a moving company.” She stared at the back door where her son had gone outside. “Today I found out he’s actually a professional athlete. God, Vika, I wouldn’t have slept with him if I’d known we were so different.”
“Oh, come on, Saskia, don’t give me that crap,” she scoffed. “I remember how sexy you thought he was. You talked about that one-night stand for weeks afterwards. About how hot the guy was. How you wished you’d exchanged numbers or at least gotten his last name. You would have slept with him no matter who he was.”
“Well, maybe, but…” She exhaled loudly. “What am I supposed to do? Look at me, Vik. I don’t exactly run in the same social circles with some fancy athlete.”
“Maybe this is a good thing. As Max’s dad, he’ll have to pay you some kind of child support. You guys can move someplace nicer.”
“Jeez, Vik. No. I’m not taking money from him.”
“Why not? He’s Max’s dad. You’ve been doing everything for five years on your own, busting your ass to make a name for yourself as an artist. Why shouldn’t he help out?”
“We’re not having this discussion.” She picked up her glass of wine.
“Okay, we can table the money discussion. How are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know. I need to figure out what kind of person he is now before I decide if he gets to be in Max’s life. I barely knew anything about him when we slept together six years ago. Now that I know he’s a professional athlete, I know even less than I thought I did. Just because he donated some sperm to the cause doesn’t mean he deserves to be Max’s dad. If he’s not a good person, he doesn’t get to know my son.”
“I don’t think they’d let him work with kids if he wasn’t a good person. Besides, you’re normally pretty good at reading people and you liked him enough to sleep with him.”
Kia fought the urge to roll her eyes at her sister. She couldn’t be that naïve. “Yeah, six years ago, after a night of drinking. Hell, he was still sleeping when I tiptoed out early and went to work the next morning. Who knows what he’s like now that he’s a big shot athlete with women throwing themselves at him?”
“You threw yourself at him before he was a big shot.”
She scowled at her sister. “Shut up. We threw ourselves at each other I’ll have you know. It was very mutual. But again, six years ago. A lot can happen.”
Vika pulled out her phone. “Okay then, only one thing to do. Let’s deep dive his socials.”
Kia slid closer to her sister so they could both see the screen as Vika pulled up his social media.
“Holy shit, Kia, he’s hot.” Vika zoomed in on a photo of Jeff that a photographer had caught of him after a game. In his uniform, with sweat dripping down his face and a smug grin curling up his mouth, he looked really freaking sexy. Had he been that hot when she’d slept with him? She remembered him as being good-looking but not as smokin’ as he looked in that picture.
“I told you he was attractive.”
“Yeah, but there’s attractive and then there’s ‘here sir, let me give you my panties’.” Vika waggled her eyebrows. “Know what I mean?”
Kia looked at the picture again and giggled. “Unfortunately, yeah I do.” She grabbed the phone and scrolled through more pictures. How he looked was beside the point. What kind of man was he? That was a whole other issue.
“Max looks like him.”
“What? No, he doesn’t.” She looked down at the picture on the screen. Did he? Maybe a little around the eyes.
“Yeah, that dimple, the hair.” Vika tapped the screen. “My god they even have the same little cowlick.”
Kia looked at what appeared to be a post-game shot. Jeff’s jersey was soaking wet, like he’d had the Gatorade jug dumped all over him. His hair stood up in every direction, and there was the cowlick. The same as Max had when he got out of the tub. She was still staring at the photo when Vika flipped to the next picture.
“Damn, are those his teammates?” Vika fanned herself. “Maybe I could get into baseball. Usually when Ty puts the game on, I just pick up my book, but…” She zoomed in on one of the players. “I think that’s about to change.”
“Focus,” Kia told her sister. She stared at photos of Jeff with his teammates, at press conferences, at various PR events. Everything on his social media was curated for a public image. This didn’t show the real Jeff. “This is just what he wants people to see. Check where he’s been tagged.”
Kia’s phone buzzed in her back pocket. She pulled it out and winced when she saw Austin’s name on the screen. She flicked the screen to answer the call. “Hey Austin, how’s it going?”
“Good, how was your day?” he asked.
