Page 87 of Player Misconduct
Penelope’s warning echoes in my head—Don’t pour gasoline on this.
But if Tarron really knows who leaked that clinic photo, maybe this is how I stop the fire before it burns everything else down.
Chapter Sixteen
Kendall
By the time I’m halfway down 4th toward the waterfront, the air smells like wet brick and basil. A gull screeches overhead, banking low as if it plans to steal someone’s crust. The neon sign for Luigi’s blinks PIZZA in fat red letters —a glow that promises the pizza is worth the stop… and it is.
It’s late enough for the lunch rush to have thinned, early enough that no one should be paying attention to who I’m meeting.
I double-check the street, then the reflection in the window. Dark sweater. Black maternity jeans that Vivi swore made my“little bump” look like a “fashion statement.” Hair twisted up. Nothing flashy. Nothing that says: former NFL wife meets scandal-friendly ex for a little damage control.
Inside, the heat hits first. A delicious aroma of garlic and parmesan cheese, mixed with the low mumble of a sports channel on a hanging up in the corner TV. My stomach answers with a hopeful gurgle. I forgot to eat lunch again today… shocking.
He’s already there.
Tarron sits at the far banquette, half-angle to the door like the room belongs to him. Expensive shirt with the collar open. A face people used to describe as “the future of the league,” and then later—most recently—“the cautionary tale.” When he spots me, his smile stretches across his gorgeous face. Easy, like he’s never had to work for anything.
“Hey, K.” He stands to kiss my cheek, palm skimming the small of my back the way it used to, a choreography my body remembers all too well even when my brain wants to delete it. “You look…” His gaze drops to my belly and softens in a way I hate that I recognize. “Beautiful.”
“Don’t.” I step past him, taking a seat across from him. “We’re not doing that.”
Something flickers in his eyes as if my rejection of his charms injured him but he quickly smothers it. Even if I did hit a nerve, he won’t show it. He’d consider that a weakness, I’m sure of it. He slides in opposite me, hands laying on the table, one on top of the other as if we’re about to sign a treaty.
“No public theatrics,” I say, glancing around. There are two old men at the counter arguing about the Mariners. A couple sharing a slice and a secret. A young family bribing a toddler with breadsticks. Safe enough. “We talk, we align, we leave.”
“Align,” he repeats, amused. “You always did love a plan.”
He’s not wrong. Which is why an accidental pregnancy with no plan has had my head spinning for the last several months since finding out.
“I love not being ambushed by headlines that make my job harder.”
The waitress appears with two waters and a smile that I return, even though I barely have the bandwidth to return, but I do because she doesn’t deserve to be caught up in the crosshairs of my annoyance with my ex-husband. “Menus?”
“Just the usual,” he says, like we’re still married and share a standing order. “Large sausage and mushroom, extra sauce.
“Half cheese,” I cut in. The baby has opinions about mushrooms right now and I’d like to keep this lunch down. “And a chopped salad. No onions… please.” I say with a smile to her, trying to cover up the fact that I just interrupted the man across from me quite abruptly.
Her job is hard enough without having to manage a squabbling ex and their feud.
“You got it,” she says, pencil moving, and then she’s gone as quickly as she came.
I turn back to him but because I can rip into him, he speaks first.
“I’m sorry about what I said this morning. I didn’t mean to make you upset.”
“We’re past upset Tarron. I told you no more remarks. We could have coasted on what you stupidly said at the charity gala. You didn’t have to say anything else. People were already quietly speculating without any more of a push. But instead you offered up a narrative that we could have done without.”
“I didn’t offer a narrative,” he says mildly. “I offered hope.”
“For who?” I say. “Your new GM? The crowd that wants a redemption story? Or the medical board that loves to poke around my life like it’s a lab project?”
His jaw tightens for a breath. “You think I don’t remember what they did to you in Florida? You think I don’t care?”
“You cared so much you set a fuse under me,” I say, soft. “Again. The baby isn’t yours and you know it.”
He looks aside, then back. “They asked. I answered the gentlest version of the truth I could. We are talking, and I never said that the baby is mine, but I’m not against it either. You know my offer.”
