Rooster: A Secret Baby Sports Romance Read online

  “You’re good at that”, Izzy says while she watches me manage.

  “I’m a natural, obviously”, I say.

  Why I’m doing it? I have no idea. I thought I was being invited here to eat and fuck, not to babysit a rugrat, but none of those things have happened yet.

  Weirdly, whatever I’m doing seems to be working and when Izzy finally has the bottle prepared, Oscar is half asleep again.

  “How did you do that?” she asks suspiciously.

  I shrug my shoulders, careful not to wake him up.

  “You can put him down now if you want”, she says.

  “You don’t want to feed him?” I ask.

  “If he’s asleep, I don’t want anything else but for him to stay that way. Whatever you did was obviously what he needed.”

  “A shoulder to cry on”, I offer.

  Izzy comes over to take Oscar away from me. “A shoulder to dribble on”, she says, passing me a towel and lifting a wet-mouthed baby back towards the bedroom. Her bedroom, it seems, unless I’m totally mistaken.

  She comes over, leans in to kiss me and gives me her sexy, nothing weird has just happened here eyes.

  “Hungry?” she asks.

  “Wait, so what was that?” I say, totally fucking confused.

  Izzy sighs “Sit down and I’ll tell you. And do it quietly in case he wakes up again.”

  Izzy

  I can’t believe I’m about to do this.

  I serve the stew, I pour the wine and I take a very deep breath.

  “Oscar”, I begin.

  Rory is all eyes. Two beautiful Irish gemstones as wide as the dinner plates I’m serving the food on.

  “I should have told you before tonight”, I start.

  “Go on.”

  “I didn’t want to ruin things between us”, I say.

  “Izzy, just tell me what you need to tell me”, Rory says, clearly worried.

  “It’s just-.”

  Fuck, this is so difficult. When Oscar was crying Rory looked like a rabbit in the headlights. A big strong man with the anything but that look. I should have locked the door, just in case. He’d never survive the drop out of the window, even though he looks like he’d probably risk it.

  “I couldn’t say no”, I say.

  Rory’s expecting the worst, I can tell. He’s not even touched his stew, and I know how hungry he is because I can hear his stomach rumbling. It’s a sign he’s worried about what I’m going to tell him, a sign he’s hoping it isn’t what he thinks it is.

  “Izzy, why is there a tiny baby next door?” he asks.

  Here we go. Last minute of extra time, one goal down. “It was all so last minute, she knew I was busy but it’s a special day for her, and, maybe I should have rescheduled us”, I say, eyes down to hide the lie, “but I wanted to see you.”

  I take an emergency gulp of my wine. Bury the lie with wine and everything will be ok.

  “Wait, what?” Rory says.

  “April”, I say.

  “Who’s April?”

  “I didn’t tell you about April?”

  “Izzy, we’ve had an hour of conversation together, I know nothing about you. I don’t know what you do, I didn’t know where you lived until tonight. I don’t mind, I like you, it doesn’t matter as long as we are honest with each other, I just, no, I don’t know who April is”, he says.

  I point to the picture of April and me, which is hanging up on the fridge behind us.

  “My roommate”, I say.

  “Ok. And Oscar?”

  “April’s”, I say, lying through my teeth. “I’m sorry. He’s usually really good, I didn’t think I’d need to tell you at all. I thought he’d sleep through the night in there.”

  Rory is smiling and shaking his head. “Oh man”, he says. “You know what I thought?”

  “What did you think?” I say, waiting for it.

  I knew it. I knew what would have happened if I’d told him the truth.

  “I thought you were going to say he was yours”, Rory says.

  “No”, I say, pretending to laugh. “Not mine, no.”

  “It’s just, I don’t know, you seem so comfortable with him.”

  “April’s a good friend, and we live together, so-. I guess I’ve had time to get used to it”, I say.

  “You should have said.”

  “I know, I thought you might freak about a baby in the house.”

  “Now I get why we’re here. I mean, you can’t exactly bring him along”, Rory says.

  “Right.”

  “And an anniversary is a big deal, I get it. That’s cool with me.”

  “You don’t mind?” I ask.

  “No, not at all.”

  “Would you have minded if he really was mine?”

  Rory laughs at that question, and I animate myself, even more, to make it clear that seeing pigs fly across Manhattan would be less ridiculous.

  “I’ll tell you that if we ever find ourselves at that same bridge”, he says, diplomatically. “I can cope with dribble on my shoulder, the diaper changing, I don’t know. Depends how good the stew is.”

  “You might not have a choice. If he’s that relaxed with you here, April might never let you leave”, I joke.

  “We’ll see.”

  “Okay, now you know you have nothing to worry about, you can eat.”

  “I wasn’t worried”, Rory says, not needing to be told twice to get stuck into his food. “Curious, not worried.”

  A little lie never hurt anyone. I’ll tell him after round three and there is no way he will be able to resist me, baby, or not. So what about the money. Eventually, I’m going to need some help, but right now I’ve got more interviews lined up and I don’t want to go through anything without having something positive to hold on to. Maybe Rory wouldn’t have freaked out if I’d told him straight off, but I just don’t want to risk it. Having him here with me feels like just the kind of thing I’ve been missing, especially now April and Cory have hooked up for real and the chances of me doing the same now that I have Oscar are looking less and less likely.

  I see what Cory and April have together and I want that for me. With Rory, I think that’s possible too. It’s not too much to ask, is it? I know I’ve got Oscar so I’m never on my own, but it’s not the same and it doesn’t stop me from feeling lonely, especially now April and I spend less time together.

  “This was fucking ace”, Rory declares, what was once beef stew now nothing but a stain on his plate. I’ve barely touched mine and he’s already torn through his like it was an entré before the main meal.

  I slop out some more for him.

  “You’d make a good wife”, he says.

  “Don’t tell me you’re one of these traditional Irish men that wants their women in the kitchen and the bedroom”, I say.

  “Me? Fuck that. Although from time to time, yes. Food always tastes better when someone else cooks it, that’s just fact. If me and you were together, like properly together, I’d want it to be equal. You know, you on top in the morning, me at night.”

  Rory smiles a big toothy grin. He looks comfortable here now Oscar’s been put back away for the night, although, I suppose, if I’m being honest Rory looks comfortable anywhere.

  “I’d cook for you if I had a kitchen”, he goes on. “But I wouldn’t be able to make anything anywhere near as good as this.”

  I feel like it’s time for a confession. It might buy me brownie points in the bedroom later on.

  “I slaved over that for three hours”, I say.

  “Now I am impressed”, Rory says. “Especially with a baby to look after too.”

  “You’re not the only one with a range of talents.”

  “I can see. What else, apart from the skills I’m already familiar with, do you excel at?” he asks.

  “You mean, what else can I do but cook, babysit and suck cock?” I say.

  “Now you’re on my wavelength.”

  “You don’t need a rest first before we go
straight into it?”

  “Two weeks is a long time”, he says.

  “You didn’t find anyone in Philadelphia?” I ask.

  “They don’t have dark alleyways outside of the capital.”

  “I told you, I’m an Egyptian cotton sheets kind of girl now”, I joke.

  “You can take the girl out of the alleyway but you can’t take the alleyway out of the girl.”

  I take a sip of my drink, the smile on Rory’s face about to crack his head in half.

  “I wasn’t the one who suggested it”, I say.

  “I didn’t hear you saying no”, he says.

  “Maybe I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

  “Are you glad you did?”

  I shrug, giving nothing away. “I suppose it has its ups and downs.”

  “In and outs.”

  “Now that’s just vulgar.”

  Rory takes a sip of his wine. “Where do you see yourself in five years time?” he says.

  “Do you mean alleyways or Egyptian cotton sheets?” I ask.

  “Maybe I mean a mix of them both.”

  “Ask me that again in five years time.”

  “Will you make it easier this time?”

  “That depends on how well you behave”, I say.

  “That’s exactly what my coach says.”

  “Then maybe it’ll sink in.”

  Two weeks, one year, five years or ten, if Rory wants to be in Oscar’s life, he has to be in mine too.

  “I think it already is”, he says.

  Rory finishes the stew while I finish the wine. When we take to the coach, I feel tired enough to fall asleep in his arms, happy enough that he’s here to allow me to do it, drunk enough I can put off my guilt about Oscar until the morning.

  We kiss again, and his kisses feel like warm melted butter on my skin, at once delicate and purposeful. I fold into him and he gathers me up and I have the same sense of heat rising within me I’ve had on both of the previous occasion we’ve found each other impossible to resist.

  “Are you going to stay over this time?” he asks, my dress exposed enough to allow him access to the skin across my chest, the fragility of my collar bones.

  “I live here”, I say, holding his gaze.

  There is something about his eyes that makes me melt, an intensity so powerful I can’t look at him for too long in case I fall.

  “Then are you going to let me stay over”, he says, reforming the question.

  “I wouldn’t want you to get too comfortable”, I say.

  “No, of course not, that would be awful.”

  Another button on my dress pops open so he can slide his hand inside, his dick rock hard underneath me as he finds his way to my breast and squeezes.

  I gasp, my nipple hard instantly between his fingers, a shiver rushing down my spine.

  “I want you”, I say, although I don’t say it so much as moan it into his ear.

  I could unzip him and take him inside me, wriggle us both to orgasm. Alleyways, Egyptian cotton sheets, and an old wool throw April got for Christmas just to round out the hat-trick. Our son asleep next door, the perfect, happy, nuclear, American-Irish fucked up secret baby family.

  “You’ve got me”, he moans back at me.

  I don’t want to lose him. The words are on my lips and I kiss him quickly so I don’t give all my secrets away. I thought I was stronger than this but I’ve obviously underestimated him. The power of a Daddy too hard to resist for too long.

  It’s Rory that unzips himself so I’m able to absolve myself of the responsibility.

  If this is the wrong thing to do so be it. This way they might be able to accuse me of being complicit, they certainly can’t tell me I’m the full-on instigator.

  I don’t resist when he pulls it out, I don’t complain when I find his fingers on me confirming that I’m ready for him, and I don’t say a single word when he slides his thickness inside me so perfectly the whole world expands and contracts along with us, in poetic synchronization.

  I gasp and I moan, and I fold myself into him and beg for more. Those are the things that I do. I push down as deep as I can, and hungrily gather his full length inside me, the feeling so intense I think I’m going to cry.

  Three strikes down and this just gets better and better. How can I ever give up on this now?

  Rory beams that incredible smile up at me, lets those smoldering eyes melt into my skin. He dots kisses down the thickness of the muscles in my neck, cups my breasts and pulls them towards his mouth, and swallows my nipples in bites and licks and tickles that speak of long nights wrapped together, he promises we’ll have.

  He is thick and deep inside me as we ride together, our urgency pushing us forward, complicit in each other’s pleasure, desperate and needy and with one single goal in mind.

  Whether we fuck outside in a ball numbing breeze, inside in a five hundred dollar hotel room, or here, on a twenty-year-old coach that’s seen more action that the entire Penguins roster, I know he’s going to give me his all. Fuck it, we both are. We just can’t help it.

  I come hard, thrust deep onto his lap, my back tense and my neck jerked up towards the ceiling as though cramp has taken over my whole body, and Rory’s right there alongside me, his orgasm just as powerful, his biceps bulging, his neck thick and his balls so tight they feel like walnuts.

  Fuck, that was so good, I wonder why I’ve bothered to wait so long at all to invite him over. It was so good I know I’ll want him to stay.

  I let myself flop down into him and Rory gathers me against his chest, my heart beating so wildly I can feel it through his back.

  I’m there, in that position for less than ten seconds, the rhythm of his breathing beginning to lull me to sleep, when I realize we’re not alone.

  It’s a sense I have, even though neither one of us have seen them yet, neither one of us alert enough to have heard the door go in the first place. I don’t need to look over to know it, April and Cory have come back, no doubt to check up on me, and are currently standing less than six feet away, watching this go down.

  Rory has his eyes closed, his head rested against the back of the couch when April finally makes her presence known with a ridiculous little cough.

  This was not in the plan, which is clearly now going to backfire like a faulty fucking firecracker.

  “Hello”, April says, and I wonder which particular eyes she’ll be wearing now. The I caught you and it’s pretty fucking hot eyes or the eeew, I hope you’re going to clean my throw eyes.

  Rory casually lifts his head off the couch while I bury mine as deeply as I can into his neck.

  “Oh, hey, how’s it going?” he says. “I’m Rory.”

  “Hello Rory”, April says, and I want the whole world to swallow me up.

  “Cory”, Cory says, by way of introduction which I know he’ll have coupled with that stupid Jedi mind trick wave he always does.

  I slip Rory out as gracefully as I can, give him time to tuck himself away under the cover of my dress, do the buttons up on my dress and eventually slide my way off him to turn to my roomie and face the music.

  “Good night?” April asks.

  Rory and I look at each other. There is a burning sensation all the way down my face and neck which I know means I’ll be beetroot red. Please don’t say it, please don’t say it, please don’t say it.

  “The stew was fucking fantastic”, Rory says. “And your boy hasn’t made a noise all night.”

  Fuck.

  April drops her bag. Any lower and her bottom lip would be on the floor with it. “What did you say?” she says, relatively calmly for what I know is about to follow.

  “Your boy”, Rory repeats, this time looking at me. “I mean, he was up a bit before dinner but we soon settled him down. I thought you’d be out all night celebrating.”

  This can’t get any worse.

  “It is your anniversary after all”, I add, but my words lack conviction and I know it’s already too late to sav
e this. At least I got round three, I suppose I can comfort myself with that.

  “I can’t believe this, you’ve not told him have you”, April says.

  “April”, I warn her.

  “What’s going on?” Rory asks.

  “Either you tell him or I’m going to.”

  Rory looks at me, I look at April, Cory looks in the pot to see if any stew remains.

  “Tell me what?” Rory asks.

  There is a moment of silence between us, my secret all set to break the surface of the world like a bubble to the top of a lake when, as if with impeccable timing, Oscar stirs, lets out a weak initial cry almost as if he’s doing so to test the air, before he descends into full-on, top speed, no-holds-barred, screaming baby mode.

  April looks at me, Cory looks at me and then Rory looks from April to me and back again.

  “The baby’s crying”, Rory says, which is pretty fucking obvious to anyone in a twenty-mile radius.

  Stabbed in the back by my own blood. Sold up the river by my next of kin.

  “He obviously needs his mother”, April says.

  I mouth the word don’t to her, but the damage is done.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Rory says.

  I’m still not moving. April has her hands folded across her chest in defiance. Cory’s still looking for that stew and Rory can’t quite decide what to do. Eventually, while April and I act out the world’s longest staring contest, Rory gets up from the couch, goes into my room, takes Oscar out of his crib and jiggles him about on his shoulder.

  “So”, he says, coming back into the room, Oscar already quietening down. “Whose baby is he really?”

  Tick tock goes the timer on the bomb, and then April presses the detonator.

  “Yours”, she says, before I can stop her.

  Her words hang in the air like the echo after a bomb explodes, while the rest of us wait for the inevitable aftermath. The casualties stumbling around confused, the adjustment to the new world order.

  Rory is clearly shell-shocked, although he’s trying his best not to show it. I’ve got my head in my hands wondering how I can get myself out of this, and April has her I didn’t want to, but you left me no fucking choice eyes on.

  Rory looks at me, holds Oscar out to look at him, and then looks over to April.