Never Have A Baller's Baby

“I haven’t been feeling very well, so I went to the doctor today,” she began quietly.

Eva’s mouth opened slightly as she waited. “Cancer?” she asked in the barest whisper.

“No,” Naomi replied, realizing in that moment that what she was going through could be much, much worse. “I’m pregnant.”

Air gushed out of Eva’s lungs and she blinked in surprise. “You’re pregnant?”

Naomi nodded and pursed her lips shut, waiting to see what Eva would say.

“Wow…” Eva leaned back a little and looked at Naomi, and said nothing for what felt to Naomi like an eternity. “Who is the father? Is it the guy you were just seeing? Or… not seeing?” she asked with a darkening look.

Naomi nodded. “Yeah, that’s him. He’s the father.”

“Are you going to tell him?” Eva asked, leaning back toward Naomi again.

With a shrug, Naomi looked down. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell him, or if I’m going to tell him. I don’t even know what I’m going to do. I have to figure it out. I’m so confused!”

Eva narrowed her eyelids and gave Naomi a serious look. “Well, you have to figure it out, and I’m here to help you do that, but I’m going to tell you right now, you’d better let that wall of yours down a little bit and tell me who this guy is.

I don’t care about his celebrity status, and I don’t care if he wants you to keep your affair with him a big secret. You’re pregnant with his baby, and that changes everything. You tell me who he is. If you wind up keeping his kid, he’s going to have to be involved. He can’t be a father behind closed doors.”

A man in a jacket and jeans sitting at the next table over, looked up at them, and eyed them both curiously. With one careful movement, he turned his cell phone to them and turned the video on, resting the phone against his coffee mug. Picking up his pen, he flipped open a small notebook and began to write.

Naomi bit at her lower lip and wrestled with telling Eva the truth. After a long moment’s deliberation, she decided that Eva was probably right. If she did keep the baby, which she felt she would probably do, she would have to tell him, and he would probably have to become involved in raising the child and supporting it.

With a heavy sigh, she rubbed her temples and then set her hands back down on the table, looking intently at Eva. “It’s Scott Thompson.”

Eva’s mouth fell open. “Scott Thompson? The quarterback for the Los Angeles Waves? That Scott Thompson?” The shock that registered on her face was tremendous.

“Yeah, that Scott Thompson. Please don’t say anything to anyone though, he wants to keep everything private. It’s why we wound up having a fight because he didn’t want to date me in public, he only wanted to have sex with me in the privacy of his home. It almost felt like I was a hooker or something like that.

I haven’t felt like that since college.” Naomi rolled her eyes and frowned, reaching for the glass of juice in front of her. “Whatever his screwed up reasoning was for not wanting to date me publicly is going to have to change, because he’s got a new responsibility; if I keep this baby, he’s going to be a father, and that’s going to have to come first.”

“Well, you might have done what you needed to in college, but you’re a first class business owner now, and you’re as respectable as they come. Now that I know who he is, I can tell you exactly why he doesn’t want anything to do with you in the public eye.” Eva looked furious.

Naomi stared at her and blinked. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t he want to see me?”

Eva rose up and walked over to the door where a small table stood, holding several copies of previously read newspapers. She picked one up and made her way back to the table where Naomi sat, watching her with puzzled eyes.

“This,” she said, laying the paper down firmly on the table before Naomi. “This is why he can’t be seen with you publicly, and this

is why he only wants to screw you behind closed doors.”

Naomi looked down at the newspaper and her stomach immediately twisted into a knot. Eva had opened it to the celebrity section, and there in the center of the page was a photograph of Scott with a gorgeous blonde woman who Naomi knew on sight.

“That’s… that’s Jennifer Jones!” She stared at the pop star singer who was known the world over. Her hand was locked together with Scott’s as they walked into an awards event; him in a black tuxedo, looking more handsome than ever, and her in a shimmering gown that clung to every enviable curve of her body. “What is he doing with her?” Naomi asked barely above a whisper.

“He’s dating her. He’s been dating her. I know you don’t follow sports at all, but their relationship has been right in the center of the public eye for more than a few months now. Actually, it was going before you started working on his house. They hit all the big events together. You’re nothing more than a dirty little secret he was keeping on the side.” Eva looked like she could have destroyed Scott right then.

Naomi’s hand flew to her mouth, stifling the wave of nausea and the scream that she wanted to let loose. Tears stung at her eyes as she read through the brief news article on the hot popular couple who were ‘hot during the day, and sizzling at night.’

“This can’t be… this can’t… he never said a word about it! He never said one word about her! He told me so many times that he was just interested in me! How could he do this? How could he lie right to my face and take me to his bed when all the while he was seeing her? How could he use me like that? What a jerk!” she snapped as her pain evolved into anger.

Eva shook her head. “I don’t care if he’s seeing her, he’s going to own up to his responsibility and take care of this baby. That’s what he’s going to do. He’s not getting out of this one. He might have kept you behind closed doors, and kept you a secret, but he’s not going to keep this baby a secret, because we’re not going to let him. He is going to have to face the responsibility. He’s not going to get away with letting you handle this all on your own. No way.”

Naomi swallowed hard and covered her face with her hands. “I can’t believe this. I can’t… all this time. I thought it was just the two of us. All this time, he was seeing her… he even called me at the office and begged me to take him back because he said he missed me! What a liar! I’m so furious about this!” She clenched her hands into fists and took a deep breath, closing her eyes as she tried to stem the rage that burned through her.

Taking another deep breath, she opened her eyes and looked at Eva. “You know what? You’re right. I am going to keep this baby, and he’s going to help me with it, and that’s just all that there is to it. He’s not getting out of this. I can’t get out of it, really, so neither can he. He’s going to have to own up to it and take responsibility for it, just like me. Maybe she’ll dump him when she finds out what a bastard he is.”