Page 2 of A Surprise for the Holidays
“How’d you get this number?” he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. Scanning the sides of the pitch for even a hint of shade in the ridiculous Queensland summer heat, he followed the question with, “And why are you calling?”
Betty gave an awkward sounding chuckle. “Always straight to the point with you, isn’t it?” When he failed to respond, she heaved another sigh (he was going to lose count of them at this rate) and answered, “Your brother gave me your number.”
AJ nodded at Parker as the man booted the ball three-quarters of the way down the pitch, saving a goal. How Betty had managed to find Freddy —who he didn’t think he’d ever introduced her to— was yet another mystery. “And why the bloody hell would he do—”
“Because I begged him.”
Rolling his eyes heavenward, he bit back the urge to try and reach through the phone to strangle her for dragging the conversation out. “Because…?”
It sounded as though she’d reached the end of her tether, too. “Because you’ve got a kid, AJ,” she snapped, stunning him into silence. “And I need you to take custody of her.”
“What?!” he croaked, suddenly feeling very low on oxygen. There was a ringing in his ears and a pounding in his chest, which had become awfully tight all of a sudden. The continued heat wasn’t helping any, either.
A kid?!
Fuck, he couldn’t breathe.
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Sorry?” He echoed, incredulous as his temper flared with his impending panic attack, “Fuckingsorry?We dated…fuck, no, we werefucking, what, six years ago? So, this kid, if it even is mine—”
“She is,” Betty’s tone had gone hard to match his. “And, yes, she’s five.”
“Five.” He repeated, still feeling woozy. “Five, and you never tried to tell me—”
“You dumped my arse after two fucking weeks, Jacobs,” she reminded him, sounding caustic and hurt, “and you were spiralling as badly as your career. You weren’t exactly daddy material.”
“Fuck you. That wasn’t your call to make.”
“Actually, it was. My body, my choice.”
August wanted to keep arguing with her, but there were bigger issues to concern himself with. Such as: “She? You said ‘she’, yeah?” If it really was his kid —and he didn’t think Betty had any reason to put herself through this if she wasn’t certain— he had a daughter.
Fucking hell.
The world was spinning again. He needed to sit down. In the shade. No, in air-conditioning. With a beer. No, with a whiskey. Or three. Five even.
Five.
He was going to be sick.
“Yeah,” Betty’s tone softened as she added, “Ava. That’s her name.”
Ava. He rolled it around in his mind. “It’s pretty.”
“Yeah,” she agreed again. “And she is. Looks just like you, too.”
“Poor kid,” he joked. It landed flatly between them.
He was reeling from the revelation. Unhappy that he apparently had a five-year-old daughter who he’d never met, had never even known about, bile rose in the back of his throat.
What did the kid —Ava— think of all this? Had Betty even bothered to tell her about him?
The other part of Betty’s bomb finally went off in his head.
“Hang on, did you say you want me to take custody?”
There was another moment’s silence before she exhaled over the line. “Yes.”
