“I know that now,” I whisper, tears pricking my eyes. “I just…didn’t back then.”
The truth stings more coming out than it ever did sitting unspoken in my chest.
He lifts his head slowly and I can already see that he’s shattered. His voice cracks. “You could’ve told me, Harper. I would’ve shown up. For you. For him. For everything.” His hand hovers over his heart, as if trying to hold it together. “I would’ve?—”
The words splinter inside me. I shake my head, voice trembling. “I didn’t want your life decided by a committee,” I say. “Agents. Team execs. The whole damn league telling you what to do with a baby. With me.” My voice cracks again. “I didn’t want Connor to be a PR problem before he was even born. I wasn’t strong enough back then to handle the repercussions of that.”
He turns fully toward me, eyes blazing with hurt, shoulders trembling. The pain in his eyes almost unbearable. “You think I would’ve seen him like that? A PR problem?”
“No,” I choke. “But everyone around you would have. They already controlled your schedule, your workouts, what you ate, where you went. How much time we could spend together. I couldn’t let them control this too.”
He exhales sharply, scrubbing an unsteady hand across his jaw like he needs a second to steady himself. “When did you know?”
“I took a pregnancy test a couple weeks before we…” I don’t need to finish my sentence. The knowledge hangs between us, thick and suffocating.
He groans, half sobbing. “Fuck,” he rasps, his eyes squeezed shut. When he opens them, they’re flooded with grief and pierce my soul. “Ten years, Harper. Ten years I’ve missed.” His palm slams against his chest—once, twice, three times—each strike echoing like a pistol shot. He trembles violently. “I have a son, and I wasn’t there for his first ten years. Do you understand what that does to me? Do you know how it feels to lose every laugh, every scraped knee, every step he took without me?”
“I know.”
He buries his face in his hands and then pushes them through his hair. “Fuck, Harper, you’ve made me no better than my own father,” he cries, his voice raw and ragged and filled with more emotion than I’ve ever heard from him. “You made me into a deadbeat dad as if I had any choice in the matter. Hell, I don’t even know if I have the right to be angry about that, but it hurts. This fucking hurts.”
My eyes sting bearing witness to his pain. “I know. I know, and…and, I am so, so sorry.”
“Goddammit! Fuck!” he shouts, shaking his head, the pain in his eyes gutting me. “And you know what the worst part is? I’m not even angry at you,” he tells me. “Wait…yes I am. Jesus Christ, I don’t even know what I’m feeling right now. I’m just…fucking angry! I’m angry at the timing. I’m angry at every stupid thing that kept us apart! I’m angry that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me you were pregnant. God, Harper. I did that to you!” He pounds on his chest again. “Me. That was my fucking fault. I caused you to have to go through life for the last ten years alone and that doesn’t make me feel good at all. I feel like a piece of shit, Harp!”
“You couldn’t have known, H.” Tears spill before I have time to stop them. “You didn’t know.”
“Why now? Do you need money? Is that it? Did you bring him here so I would give you?—”
“No.” I shake my head, tears streaming down my face. “No, H. I don’t need your money.”
“Then why? Why are you doing this now?”
“Because I…”
The truth.
Just tell him the whole truth.
“Because the agency I work for expanded from coast to coast so when I was given the opportunity to move to Anaheim I?—”
“Agency? What agency? What is it you even do here?”
I swallow back my nerves and continue. “I’m an agent, H. I’m the lead sports agent out of the Anaheim office for The Next Play Agency.”
“An agent?” he repeats, dumbfounded and completely caught off guard. “When did you?—”
“You knew I was a sports management major. After you left I was hired by Next Play as an intern. They paid for me to go to grad school and get my business degree. I worked full time and took classes at night. Mom moved with me to New York and helped with Connor so I could build a life for us.”
His head practically spins. “Your mother knew?”
“Of course she did. I couldn’t do everything alone. I knew I was going to need…”
“Help?” he answers when my voice trails off. “You were going to need fucking help, Harper! And I could have been that for you!”
Tears roll down my cheeks. “I…I’m sorry, Harrison. I thought I was doing what was best for you. I was giving you an out. I didn’t want to trap you. And I…I thought it might be good for Connor. Good for me.” I shrug. “I admit, I didn’t think things through, but I promise you this wasn’t some premeditated tactic to…to…to take your money or win you back or anything like that. I promise I make plenty of money. I’m doing just fine. But I saw an opportunity and took it assuming I would work out the particulars later. That’s all. I wanted to figure out the best way to tell you about Connor.”
He chuckles but I sense the sarcasm. “Well, you did a bang-up job there, babe.”
