It rings four times before flipping over to his generic voice mail. At the end of the beep, I do my best to control myself as I leave him a quick message. “Lucas, Carmen here, I need to talk to you about this current baby situation. I’m fielding calls from TMZ. I need to know if you have your own PR firm on this or if we need to coordinate things. If no one else has advised you of this, yet, I’d highly recommend you request a paternity test ASAP. Many women will lie about a baby on the way or whose it is, when a professional athlete is in the equation. Just be careful, and please call me back ASAP.”
I hang up the call before I start ranting, especially since it is just a voice mail box and not actually Lucas.
“What do you want to do?” Carly asks, her voice soft and reserved.
“Until we know if his PR firm is already on this, we can work on drafting up a statement, but need to hold off on actually submitting it to anyone. I don’t want to overstep.”
Nine
Lucas
I’m sitting at a table with some of my teammates in the back of the hotel’s bar. We’ve just finished our lunch and are shooting the shit, when my phone starts buzzing constantly on the table. I turn it over to see the screen blowing up with notifications. When that happens, it is never a good sign, so I quickly grab it, swiping up to check out what is going on today.
“Shit, son,” JJ says from across the table. “Looks like someone got himself a little bit of drama going on.” He smirks.
“Asshole,” I call him, glaring at him over the top of my phone. My glare must not be all that intimidating to him, as he just smiles back like he knows something I don’t.
I skim the posts, one on Twitter, specifically, catches my eye and has now been shared over a thousand times in the few minutes it has been posted. Some chick, one I don’t even recognize, has tagged me and is claiming I’m the father of her unborn child.
“Just take a deep breath and get Carmen on the phone,” Derek says, slapping a hand on my shoulder as I do my best to pull oxygen into my lungs and not pass out because I’m freaking out inside. I know down in my soul that this girl is lying. All she sees with me is a big fat paycheck if she claims I’m her baby daddy.
“I’ll call my own, first,” I grunt out as I pull up my contacts list. Before I can hit the button, my phone starts ringing, and it is Brent, my agent calling.
“Lucas.” Brent’s deep voice comes through the line. “Talk to me, kid.”
“She’s lying,” I blurt out.
“Okay, and what makes you so confident about that?” he questions.
“First off, I don’t recognize her at all from the little I was able to see on her profile. Plus, I always use protection.”
“Protection isn’t one-hundred percent, you should know that,” he shoots back.
“I know, but I just have a feeling about this one,” I tell him.
“I’ve already shot a message off to PR, asking them to get on this ASAP. For now, no comments to any media. You got that?” he asks.
“Loud and clear.”
“We’ll make a announcement in the next hour, basically stating that a paternity test will be requested to determine if you are, in fact, the father, and if that proves you are then you will step up and provide for the baby and reasonable support for his or her mother. We’ll also request that the media leave you alone on this matter, as you are still processing the news, seeing as how the young woman took to Twitter to inform you of this potential child.”
“I can live with all of that,” I tell him. My phone starts buzzing in my ear, thanks to an incoming call. I pull it away, just to check to see who is calling. Carmen’s contact pops up, but I let her go to voice mail, knowing that she’s probably calling to rip me a new one due to this newest drama. I swear, I can’t win when it comes to keeping my name out of the spotlight. She’s never going to think better of me if shit like this keeps popping up.
I step out of the shower, wrapping a towel around my waist. After the bombshell dropped this afternoon, I played like shit tonight. Dropped a ball I should have never dropped, which allowed Tampa to score a run, then struck out every time I was up to bat.
I get dressed as quickly as I can, not really socializing with any of the guys. I’m in a shitty mood, between today’s drama, the shitty way I played, the loss of the game. It all is just weighing down on me tonight. I just need a night to escape everything, and plan to do just that when I get back to the hotel.
Just as I’m entering my hotel room, my phone starts buzzing in my pocket. I pull it out, seeing my sister’s smiling face lighting up the screen. Seeing how late it is, I worry something might be wrong with my nephew, so I answer the call as quickly as I can.
“Everything okay with Milo?” I ask as her face fills the screen.
“Oh, yeah, he’s fine. I was worried about you. How are you holding up?” she asks.
“It’s been one hell of a day, but I’ll survive,” I tell her, dropping to sit on the edge of the bed.
“I saw the press release, how are you really handling the news?” she presses. My sister is one of my very best friends. We are only thirteen months apart, and while that contributed to us fighting like cats and dogs growing up,
