Best Friends Forever

“Besides his big dick, as you’ve reminded me a million times?” Desiree asked.

“Yes, besides that. There was a connection. It just, everything happened so fast. Besides, there’s no way he could look at Preston and want anything but to be his dad.”

“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, Ay,” Desiree said, offering a hand, which Ayla accepted. “Guys can be dicks. They don’t look at kids like we do. For a guy with his career and probably lifestyle, what would a six-year-old be? Right or wrong, he’d look at Preston as a burden, I bet. I just don’t want to see you get hurt. If you go into it with low expectations, some money would be nice, right?”

Ayla nodded.

“So, yeah, get some money to help with clothes and stuff for Preston. Set up a college fund. I just don’t want you to be crushed if he doesn’t want a role in his life. Or yours. Even if you can somehow prove he’s the father.”

Ayla pushed the popcorn around in the bowl, looking for the half-popped kernels in the bottom. “Yeah, that all makes sense. It does. But I just know that if I can get face to face with him, he’ll remember me. And he’ll love Preston. Preston deserves a dad.”

Ayla broke down. Desiree moved the popcorn to the ottoman and hugged her friend.

“I know, baby, I know,” Desiree repeated. “Life owes both of you a break.”

Chapter 9

Mick called his mother Bev, the next morning. She still had never gotten the hang of the time difference between England and Pacific time, no matter how many times Mick explained it to her.

“Mickey! Is everything alright? It must be the middle of the night there!” Bev replied upon hearing her son’s voice over the phone.

“Mum. It’s morning here. Just after nine in the morning.”

“Friday or Saturday?”

Mick sighed. “Friday. Friday morning. I’m still eight hours behind you.”

“Well, that just doesn’t make any sense at all,” she argued.

“Take it up with the Queen,” Mick replied. “The next time you two have tea.”

One of the first things anybody who met Beverly Merryweather would learn about her was that she’d once received a letter from the Queen. Signed correspondence from Queen Elizabeth II herself.

The letter was kept under Bev’s bed, in a wooden box handmade by Mick’s great-great-grandfather.

The subject matter was unpleasant, but it made all the difference to a grieving mother to know that the nation stood with her in her time of need.

Frank, Mick’s younger brother, had been a football star. Football, as in soccer.

Whereas Mick had gravitated toward the rough and tumble aspects of rugby, Frank’s speed and grace with the ball made him a prototype winger.

At just seventeen, he’d been promoted to local club Sheffield United’s senior team, playing with and against grown men, earning more money in his first full professional season than his father ever had in an entire year.

United had a trio of young stars; Frank Merryweather, Graham Nevin, and Marcus Gentry, all three local lads who’d grown up playing together since the age of six— who all had genuine aspirations of one day representing the nation of England in a World Cup.

By eighteen, two of them were starting for Sheffield United and drawing interest from scouts at the biggest, and richest, clubs in the English Premier League and throughout Europe.

Frank turned nineteen and was considered among the brightest young stars in England. After a season in which he scored fourteen goals and assisted on nine others, he turned down a massive contract with Liverpool, one of the powerhouse clubs in European soccer. He looked set to become a megastar, but he wanted to do it on his own terms, in his hometown. He was a legend in Sheffield.

With the training starting for the new season, expectations and excitement in Sheffield were high. Mick was away, on assignment for MI6, but he followed along as well as he could from where he’d been stationed in West Africa.

Bev and Harry—Frank and Mick’s dad— were over the moon.

A drunk driver brought the Merryweather family, and all of Sheffield, crashing back to Earth.

The “Three Musketeers,” Frank, Graham, and Marcus, were driving together to practice one morning when they had a flat.

They pulled to the side of the road, as far as they were able, and all three got out to survey the damage and decide on a course of action.