Falling For Dad’s College Rival by Flora Ferrari

Chapter Sixteen

Trent

For all my wanting things to be just so. Having our first time someplace amazing, claiming her in some exotic location, I can tell Brook feels most at home at home.

But it begs the question: Can she make a new home someplace else, with me. Just the two of us?

It’s the first thing I want to ask her as we lay quietly once her nosey neighbor disappears. But we’ve only known each other for less than twenty-four hours.

Here I am picking out paint colors to redecorate and she’s only just stopped shaking from her full body climax courtesy of yours truly.

I have to admit though, I’ve never come so hard in my life. Never fallen so hard for anyone either. And I’ve never, ever wanted somebody so bad as much as I want Brooke, even minutes after pleasing her, I know I could do it all over again.

It’s just the effect she has on me.

My mind is racing with so many things I want to tell her, do with her, and to her. She on the other hand is suddenly sleepy, calm, and more relaxed then I’ve ever seen her.

I decide to talk living arrangements over with her later, but I know it won’t be long before both of us have to have some serious discussions.

She’s mine now, and I’m hers. I won’t tread softly when it comes to where I want her, which is by my side from now on.

And I’m way past caring what her dad thinks, or her neighbors.

No. I’ve made my mind up. I just hope we’re on the same page because I don’t want her spending another night in this house without me to hold her.

“Mine,” I murmur absently, pulling her a little closer. Feeling and listening to her sleep lightly for a time before she’s ready to get up again.

While she rests, I gently take up the old yearbook with my free hand and thumb through it. Finding not only the pages I’m featured in but a lot more about others I haven’t even thought about for over twenty years.

Some of it is interesting, most of it’s not.

I’ve never been big on nostalgia, but the pages keep flipping back to the same one Brooke has marked.

The half-page photo of me, her dad, and… Naomi Fletcher. That’s her name. I’d almost forgotten.

Geez, we were thick as thieves the three of us, until I got my big break. Until football took over classes, studying, and things like friends.

I had a thing for Naomi, a teenage crush I guess. But I never followed through with it.

A part of me still thinks it was her who started most of the rumors about me.

She only ever put up with me for Mike’s sake, and I could tell it was him she was interested in, not me.

I dunno, it must’ve been about a year after that photo she came to me, really upset.

She told me she was pregnant, but she wouldn’t say who the father was.

I know it wasn’t me, that’s for sure.

She only wanted one of two things, advice or money. Just enough to leave town, or the wisdom of some college jock to convince her to stay and have her kid.

I gave her both. Money and my advice to her was to do what she thought was right. At her age, did she want to be tied down being a single mom, or worse? Did she want to be stuck in a relationship she didn’t want with… whoever the kid’s father was.

Weird. I’ve never even thought about that day until just now.

I gave her all I could spare and wished her luck. I was off at a football training camp, and after that, I fell out of touch with not just her but Mike too. Everyone from college really.

The next time I did try to contact Mike, about a year later, he only took enough time to tell me how much he hated my guts before he hung up on me.

I guess people change.

Situations change.

“You still ogling that picture of yourself,” Brooke yaws sleepily, letting her hand press over mine, tracing the outline of a much younger man with her finger.

“I never knew you were friends with my mom, either,” she says casually, making my heart freeze.

I swallow hard, a dozen things falling quietly into place.

“Your mom,” I echo back to her quietly, expecting her to maybe mention someone from the reunion. Anyone but Naomi Fletcher.

I feel Brooke tense up and she props herself up on one elbow, looking at me intently.

She’s not mad or upset, just surprised.

“My mom,” she says again, pointing to the picture. “You, my dad, and my mom all together, ya know? Like best friends,” she explains, looking at me askew like I might be kidding around.

“I know you don’t wanna talk about it,” she says, letting her hand move up to my chest, twirling my small tuft of chest hair.

“But… I dunno. Dad never mentions her either. And all I know is she left dad as soon as I was born. I just thought you might—” she starts, but we know each other well enough by now.

“You never knew,” she tells me rather than asks and I won’t lie to her, I shake my head slowly.

“I never knew she was your mom, no,” I admit.

There’s a long silence. The kind of silence you get when the past makes itself known, opening up some old wounds or dropping a bomb that nobody saw coming.

If it wasn’t for Brooke and me, how I feel about her, I wouldn’t give any of it a second thought.

I guess I still am a little selfish when it comes to other people’s problems.

But Brooke isn’t just anyone now. She’s mine. And I’m starting to see why maybe Mike, her dad grew to hate me so suddenly and so violently.

I advised the mother of his child to leave if that’s what she wanted, and knowing Naomi, she would have taken some pleasure in explaining her decision to Mike.

I don’t know the details, how could I? And now I’m loathed to ask Brooke to join the dots for me, but she does anyway.

I get the strong feeling she has more questions for her dad and her mom than she does for me.

What surprises me most is Brooke wants to know about me and her dad. She doesn’t seem to have anything for me regarding her mom.

“What was it like between you and dad? Before all that fell apart, I mean,” she asks, genuinely interested, and like I said, not angry or emotional.

Nothing like her dad, I come to think of it.

“You really wanna know?” I ask her, not having to think hard about better times when we were all so much younger than that college photo.

“I dunno how much you’re dads told you, Brooke,” I begin. “But your dad and I grew up together in the city.”

“A boy’s home,” she murmurs, nuzzling into me again, listening like I’m reading her a story she’s only read parts of herself.

“Yeah. We never had family ourselves, just each other. And it was an unspoken thing until we were about nine I think. When we both pledged to stick together through life, no matter what.”

I stop for a moment, a shiver running through me as I hear our little voices in my mind. So serious about something as unknown as the rest of our lives.

“Lots of kids make promises,” Brooke remarks, urging me to go on.

“They do,” I agree, “And… Well. I guess your dad held me to that promise more than I even remembered as we got older.

“I got a scholarship through the high school football team. Your dad was gutted but determined to follow me to college and he got in by the skin of his teeth, working two or three jobs to make ends meet.” I recall.

“I think he’s still paying it off,” Brooke says, laughing softly, but not to poke fun. It’s just the irony of it all I guess.

“I didn’t know that either,” I confess. Suddenly feeling a weight I never knew existed, but hearing it from Brooke as I tell her my version of events, it feels better than trying to talk to her dad about it.

And her mom, Naomi? I have no idea where she is, never saw or heard from her again after that day I gave her my advice.

“Well, now I think I understand things a little better,” I explain to Brooke. “About why your dad has it in for me.”

“How so?” she asks.

“Well, when your mom came to me before I left to start my pro football career, she asked me for advice. She was pregnant and wanted to know if she should see it through or not. She also wanted some money.”

Brooke’s silence makes me hesitate, wondering if this is the right time or place to even be discussing any of this.

“Go on,” she says calmly. “What happened?”

I shrug and sigh a long breath.

“She never told me my best friend Mike Wheatley was the father, and I never saw or spoke to her again after that day. All I know is that I heard Mike had a kid years later and that the mom never stuck around.”

I prop myself up, needing to tell her to her face. To look Brooke in the eye.

“I never knew it was you, Brooke. And I never knew it was Naomi who left your dad all those years ago, I just didn’t know.”

“I know,” she whispers putting her hand up to my cheek which I hold with my own, kissing it before I kiss her.

“It probably explains why dad’s so full-on about family,” Brooke says after another long silence.

“Like you, he never had a real one, and it would’ve killed him when mom left. But like you say, she must’ve had her doubts anyway. Asking you for advice like that.”

“Thanks, I think,” I tell her, frowning.

“I mean, I don’t mind she left, Trent. That’s what I’m trying to say. I love my dad and the family we are together but I’m grown up now. I love you. I want my own family,” she says, her voice finally breaking with some emotion.

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” I tell her. “Because I love you too, Brooke. More than you’ll ever know and if you want a family, you’ve come to the right place.”