Until that day.
As it turned out, I’d conceived myself a life-altering little gift for my 21st birthday. The girl’s name was Ashley. She had calmly sipped some water as she spun the tale that had my whole life come crashing down around me.
She told me she’d always been opposed to abortion on principle, so when she discovered her pregnancy, it was never an option for her. She said she wanted to raise the baby by herself and couldn’t bring herself to give her up for adoption.
Having had Harper though, she realized that babies didn’t come cheap, took up a lot of your time, and didn’t stick to your schedule. And also, that she didn’t have a maternal bone in her whole damn body.
After saying her piece, she had smoothed her skirt, pushed a thick brown envelope across my coffee table, and told me she’d taken the liberty of having some papers drawn up by a lawyer friend. Harper was all mine.
With that little golden nugget, she’d swept from my apartment, never to be seen or heard from again.
The next couple of days were next-level chaos. I was an only child who’d never even held a baby. I mean, fuck, I didn’t even know how to get her out of the ratty old car seat when her mother slammed the door behind her and Harper started crying.
I briefly considered giving her up for adoption, fully believing that it would be best for her, but paging through portfolios of prospective parents and trying to imagine my Harper living with those strangers was impossible.
A couple of blackout drunken nights and more than a few tantrums and rants later, I realized that I had to step up. So, I did. With a lot of help from Ryder and the guys.
I’ve come a long way since then, I realized as I sat eating my lunch next to my baby. My heart swelled with pride as I listened to her babble about her morning.
Chapter Four
Gabrielle
I hated going to my father’s office. Everything about it annoyed me. Nothing more so than his receptionist peering at me over rimless fashion glasses and asking me to take a seat.
“I’ll let him know that you’re here, Gabrielle,” she said.
I sighed and flopped onto one of the ridiculously uncomfortable couches in his waiting room and did what was required. I waited for my appointment with my own damn father.
The halls around me bustled with people laughing and talking while others barked into their Bluetooth headsets. No one took any notice of me, so I took my time studying my father’s little worker ants. I couldn’t imagine working for him, but they looked happy enough. They probably all shared his borderline obsessive love for watching a bunch of grown men chasing a ball around for a couple of hours every Friday.
Don’t get me wrong; I grew up around football. I knew there was a lot more to it than that. I’m not stupid. Or blind. I just had a deep-seated resentment for the game and everything about it.
I twiddled my fingers, growing increasingly impatient. The receptionist must have noticed because she came over and offered me coffee.
A steaming mug appeared on the small table next to my couch seconds later. I heaped my sugar into it and breathed the heavenly smell deep into my lungs, already feeling calmer.
Coffee did that to me. I loved the stuff. I consumed an unnatural amount of it. Although, given the hours I’d been keeping as a student, it probably wasn’t that unnatural. I let the warm liquid roll down my throat and immediately felt invigorated by it. Even if I was still feeling impatient.
“Is he going to be long?” I asked the receptionist, who had taken to filing her long red nails into points. It was downright scary. I had noticed the trend, but I couldn’t say that I understood why anyone would follow it. Why would you want your fingers to look like claws?
“Your appointment is at 8 a.m.,” she informed me briskly and sighed, as if it was obvious how long he would be. Then she snapped up a ringing phone.
I glanced at my rose gold watch, a graduation present from myself to myself. 7:55 a.m.
Seriously? He was going to make me wait until 8 on the dot? I rolled my eyes. I should’ve expected it. Anger and irritation rolled around in my stomach.
The intercom on the reception desk buzzed precisely as the clock struck 8 a.m. “You can send her in, Olivia.”
As if I hadn’t been able to hear him, Olivia dutifully fixed me with a smile and simpered, “You may see him now.”
Oh gee, thanks. May I really see my own father now? I stomped past Olivia without a backward glance and threw open the door to my father’s office, trying my very best to push down the anger that bubbled inside me.
“Gabrielle,” my father said as he rose from his desk. He pulled me in for a quick, cool hug. “How are you?”
Richard Ralls was an imposing man. In his heyday, he had played for the NFL himself. He retired at the top of his game to take over the family business from my ailing grandfather. As I was sure he would remind me somewhere in the conversation we were about to have.
His blond hair grayed at the temples, and the crow’s feet around his bright blue eyes had gotten deeper since I’d last seen him. He wasn’t a man who laughed often, but his wide grin had to come out and play whenever he was schmoozing. And that was something that he did very often.