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“Well?” I asked.
I had to know what he was thinking, what he was feeling. The only question left was what Darren wanted to do, and I needed the answer. The curiosity and anxiety swelled in my chest, aching against my ribs like it was going to make them explode. But he didn’t give me the answer I wanted. He didn’t give me any answer at all. Darren just shook his head and left without saying another word. I didn’t fully believe he had just walked out and wasn’t going to come back until I heard his motorcycle tear out of the driveway and the sound disappeared into the distance.
25
Darren
I didn’t even fully process that I left Kelly’s house and got back on my motorcycle and until I was several blocks away and the wind was stinging at my face. I hadn’t even bothered to pull down my face shield. That was something I never did. I was never the type of person to be reckless or not follow safety precautions I knew like the back of my hand. Those rules were put in place for a reason, and that was only underscored by Greg’s accident. My father started training us on bikes as soon as we were old enough to handle them, but the one thing he always ground into our minds was that safety was never to be compromised. He wouldn’t even let us out onto the track until we memorized every precaution and followed through with them without fail each time he asked us to get on a bike.
But that night, I had barely even thought about putting my helmet on much less done anything else. I was pretty sure Dad would give me a pass this one time. I would venture to say discovering I had a child I was never aware of would count as extenuating circumstances.
When I realized my reaction to her had been to say nothing and just storm out of her house, part of me said I needed to go back. I at least owed it to her or to talk it through, to respond to her in some way. But a much larger part of me said no, I didn’t owe her anything. She lost the right to demand anything of me at the minute she kept my child from me. Now it was about me, and I needed to do what was right for me. And in that moment, it was getting to my parents’ house as fast as I possibly could.
The truth was, I wanted to not believe what Kelly told me. I really wanted to just believe it was a trick, some sort of elaborate and really messed-up version of manipulation because she wanted to get her hands on some money. It wasn’t a secret she could use a boost of income. Whether she realized it or not, she frequently mentioned in conversations getting used to the expenses of living in Charlotte and sometimes struggling with her budget. Not that she was destitute or anything, but few people would turn their noses up at extra money, even if they were comfortable. And some would eagerly and purposely go after more if they thought they had a way to get it that wouldn’t require them to do much.
Like convince a wealthy man she had given birth to his daughter after a one-night stand and now needed child support. Or to be paid off so she didn’t cause trouble for him in his public life. She’d acted like she didn’t know I raced bikes or was related to the Freemans of Freeman Racing when she first started working there, and I believed her. But what if it was just a ruse? It didn’t take much digging through the world of the internet to find out about me and what I did. She could have easily stumbled on the information and come up with the plan to trick me into believing we had a child so she could exploit me. Most public figures were eager not to let things like unclaimed children or the mothers of their children struggling to make a living leak out into their fan base.
It would have been a good plan if she’d tried it on someone who wasn’t going to be thorough, but that wasn’t me. Besides, a trick didn’t explain why she’d waited so long to tell me or why she was so open about offering a DNA test. She could think I was too nice a guy to question her or to say I didn’t believe her and demand the test. In all honesty, that was the type of guy I was. Or at least, the type of guy I would have thought I was before the situation was dropped at my feet. It was an unfortunate truth that if someone presented this type of thing as a hypothetical situation and asked if they should get a paternity test, my first thought would have been no.
