Page 75 of The Golden Goalie

“Will you be okay on help for the time being?” he asks. They have an entire conversation without me.

“Rico,” I try again.

He turns to me. “I’m going to pick you up. I’ll be very gentle, but we have to get you to relax and that’s not going to happen here.” He steps close. I’m still in this awkward position, bent over. His arms come around me, and he lifts me. I cry out when the pain intensifies. “Sorry, Baby,” he whispers. “I’m going to help you.” I bury my head in his shoulder as the weight of the world comes crashing down on me. “Breathe, Baby. Breathe with me. In and out. Steady and slow. Again.”

Before I know it, we’re in his car. The trip to his house seems to take forever. When we finally get there, he picks me up and carries me inside. Without breaking stride, he heads back to hisroom and to the shower. With one hand, he turns on the shower. I expect him to put me down, but he steps right into the shower, with both of us fully clothed. “What are you doing?” I get out as warm water sprays over both of us.

“Trying to get you to relax, so you’ll stop contracting,” he says. It takes a while, but slowly the combination of his strong arms around me and the warm water makes the vice around my stomach begin to ease. After a little while, he leans forward. “Your face is beginning to relax. Is it beginning to lessen?” I nod, too depleted to say anything more. “Good.” He turns the water off after a few more minutes and climbs out with me still in his arms. He finally sets me down on my feet after wrapping a towel around my hair. “I’m going to go get some dry clothes for you. Can you take off your wet clothes?”

I nod, and he leaves me. It’s difficult to get the wet clothes off, but I finally manage. He hands clothes through the door. Minutes later, I’m dressed in another pair of his sweats and a t-shirt this time. When I step out of the bathroom, he sweeps me up into his arms. I don’t argue; I'm beyond empty. He carries me into the spare room and lays me carefully on the bed. He pulls the towel off my head carefully and surprises me by brushing my hair and then braiding it.

“How do you know how to do that?” I ask wearily.

“My older sister used to force me to braid her hair.”

I tuck that information away to think about at another point. Finally, he pulls the covers back and helps me inside. “Try to rest now, so your contractions will ease all the way.”

Too tired to argue with him, I comply. As soon as my head hits the pillow, I fall into an exhausted sleep. When I open my eyes sometime later, I lay there for a few minutes as everything from today comes back to me. I finally get up and out of bed, even though I don’t want to. When I open the door, I immediately hear voices. I pause because I’m not sure I’m inthe mood to deal with people. But when I recognize Bri’s voice, I head out to the living room. The conversation comes to a screeching halt when I make an appearance. I take in Aiden and Brielle and Sebastian and Stephanie. Even Gunner is here. “Amber.” My sister comes over to me and wraps her arms around me and pulls me into a warm hug. I hug her in return. She pulls back and pulls her big sister expression on me. “Are you okay?”

I pull back. “I’m fine.”

I look around the room until my eyes fall on Rico. His eyes soften when they meet mine, and I find myself walking towards him. He reaches out and snags my hand, pulling me down onto his lap as if this is a normal, everyday occurrence. As soon as his arms wrap around me, though, and I'm enveloped in his strength, I realize this is exactly where I want to be. “So I take it you told them about Adam,” I say to him.

His eyes meet mine. “I did. It was either that or I get in my car and go track him down. I didn’t think that was probably a good idea, and I figured your sister would want to know.”

“Yes! I do want to know!” Bri agrees. “I can’t believe he came to your work to harass you.”

“It’s not like he’s not allowed to come near me,” I mutter. I’m not sure how I feel about everybody here, in my business.

“Rico said he threatened to try to take your baby away.”

And just like that, the calm I’ve had evaporates. But before I can say anything, Aiden jumps in. “That’s not going to happen.”

I turn my gaze to him at the same time Brielle does. “I mean he could,” I say because it’s the truth. He’s my baby’s father.

“Amber,” Rico says, drawing my attention to him. “If you think for one minute that I’m going to let him waltz back into your life, threaten you, threaten the baby, intimidate you into thinking he’s going to take away your baby, he has another thing coming to him. He forfeited any relationship with you when hechose to do what he did. He chose to forfeit his relationship with his daughter when he told you to get rid of her and said he wanted nothing to do with either of you. He’s done; he has no place in your life.”

“I don’t think he knows that.”

“He will,” Rico says confidently.

“Yeah, he will,” Sebastian echoes.

I look around the room. “Um, what are you planning? Why are you all here anyway?”

“We’re just doing some team planning,” Sebastian offers up.

“Team planning,” I repeat, not buying it for a minute. And then it dawns on me. “Oh no. You guys play him soon, don’t you?”

Chapter 30

Amber

A slow grin forms on Sebastian’s face. “Yep.”

I try to stand to my feet, but Rico doesn’t release his hold on my waist. “Okay, whatever you guys are planning is a bad idea. A very bad idea.”

I look at Aiden, but he just stares right back at me. Sebastian and Gunner are no help either, so I turn to Rico. “Don’t do whatever it is you’re going to do.”

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