Hooking - Kristine Allen Page 0,65

she wasn’t innocent either. Not that it made me feel any better.

“Jesus,” I muttered as I ran shaking hands down my face. “What do I need to do?”

“We told her you weren’t agreeing to anything until paternity was established. We’ve lined up a paternity test with our team physician. Swing by his office on your way out. We’re trying to keep this under the radar, but we have no idea how vocal she might be about it. So far, she hasn’t made a huge stink with the other players that were candidates, but there’s no guarantee,” Scottie informed me. I was still reeling.

Simon leaned back in his chair as he tapped his fingers on his desk. “You’re going to need to keep your nose clean. Things like what happened on the road trip can’t keep happening. It’s going to damage your reputation if things like that keep getting out. Especially compounded with this. I’ve been told the team publicist cleaned up as much of that mess as he could, but as you know, we try to maintain a pretty wholesome reputation in the franchise. It’s a different era, and the whole playboy athlete thing isn’t what people want to see anymore. Do you understand?”

Clenching my teeth, I nodded. The whole situation with that chick on the road trip was biting me in the ass, and what really sucked was that time, I hadn’t done anything. Well, not as bad as it looked anyway.

“I’m really sorry to have to do this to you when we have a game tonight, but we couldn’t drag it out any longer because of how much time had already passed while we were on the road.” Coach looked like he felt bad for me, but it wasn’t very comforting.

“Is that all you needed?” I asked, suddenly numb.

“Yeah. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I had to bring this news to you.” My eyes found Scottie, and I nodded. To say I was dumbfounded was a severe understatement.

Silently, I left the office.

It was difficult to fight going straight to Sydney’s office. Except I told myself I wouldn’t know what to say to her, and she had a job to do. I thought about reaching out to her via text to at least tell her I was thinking about her, but I didn’t have my phone. It was down in my practice bag.

Maybe it was a good thing she was working, because this wasn’t what a guy wanted to tell the woman he’d started something with the night before. Hell, she’d rolled out of my bed this morning well satisfied after a marathon of sex to consummate the formation of our official relationship.

How was I going to tell her?

I didn’t think there was any way she’d want to stay with me after this. I’d gotten lucky that she was so understanding about the whole titty-shot debacle. The pregnancy had obviously happened before I moved here to Texas, before I knew she existed. Still, the thought of losing the first woman I’d had any desire to have something serious with in almost ten years was devastating.

There had to be a way to fix this.

Hell, it might not be my kid. Then again, they’d ruled out four other guys already. How many dudes could this chick have been with over a weeklong period? The thought made my skin crawl that I’d been so careless.

The paternity test was ridiculously painless physically, but emotionally catastrophic.

Once I was done, I stopped by the locker room, grabbed my bag, and pulled out my phone.

Debating whether I should see if she had time for lunch, I calculated how much time I had before I needed to be back for the game. Except I wasn’t remotely hungry.

My high from earlier had quickly faded, leaving nausea in its place.

I’d set Sydney up with a pair of season tickets. She’d be at the game tonight, and we were supposed to go to her place after. Making a decision, I planned to talk to her when we got there. Until then, there really wasn’t a lot I could do, so I did my best to compartmentalize the issue until I could unpack it after the game.

As I pulled into the parking lot of Syd’s apartment complex after the game, I was a volatile mixture of elation from the win and trepidation regarding what I needed to discuss with her. Finding a spot near her car, I parked and turned off the car. Laying my head back on the headrest,