Tackled by Lisa Suzanne
CHAPTER 3
“Take the day off,” Jack says.
Not to me, obviously. I’m not really allowed days off, and Jack isn’t the one who could grant them to me even if I was.
He says those words to Brooke.
It’s a Sunday, and I guess he wants to spend the day with his kid, and somehow I’m seeing the human side of him again. Brooke takes off for her boyfriend’s place, and Jack glances at me.
“I’m taking JJ to the aquarium. You can come if you want.”
I wrinkle my nose. An aquarium? Really? I’d prefer a zoo, but I don’t really get a choice here. I just had no idea there would be such risks involved with this job when I took it. “If I want? I sort of have to, Jack.”
“I’m not going to get into trouble hanging with my kid,” he says.
I chuckle. “Because I’ll be there to keep an eye on things. I can’t just leave you to your own devices after we just got in trouble with Calvin.”
He rolls his eyes. “Question for you.”
My brows rise. “Yes?”
“Why’d you make that face when I said the aquarium?”
“Did I make a face?” I ask innocently.
He laughs. “Yeah. There was definitely a face.”
“It’s just that, um, well...” I debate how much to tell him because this is letting him in on me when I don’t really want that. “I’m just a tiny bit afraid of sharks.” I make a little pinch motion with my fingers to indicate a small amount, but it’s actually not small at all.
“I think that’s a pretty normal fear,” he says.
I nod. “Yeah, it is. But it’s not just sharks.”
His brows dip.
“I hate fish.” I duck my head a little in embarrassment that I’m really admitting this to him. “And there’s no particular reason why. Just their gaping mouths and weird eyes and what is up with not having any limbs? They just, like, move by whipping their tails around?”
He laughs. “For one thing, those aren’t tails. They’re fins. Are you scared of fish? Or you just don’t like them?”
I lift a shoulder. “I’m not scared of them. I just don’t want to look at them, or touch them, or eat them, or be anywhere near them.”
“Oh we’re going to have some fun today, then.” He smirks, and dammit, I shouldn’t have said anything.
What have I gotten myself into?
He straps JJ carefully into an Acura SUV parked beside a white Mercedes in the garage. This must be his baby on board vehicle, and he sure drives it differently than the truck. I don’t even need to white knuckle my purse or use my invisible passenger side brake.
We sail through town and end up at the aquarium. Jack pulls on a baseball cap, and he straps JJ into his stroller. We head inside, and from first glance, we probably look like a happy little family out for a Sunday at the aquarium.
Despite the outrageously original costume of a baseball cap, Jack is nearly immediately recognized. I’m not quite sure why he thought going to the aquarium on a weekend was a good idea, yet here we are. I guess because it’s his only free time to take his kid somewhere.
But I’m on it. I grab JJ’s stroller and bypass the line waiting for entry while Jack poses for selfies with fans. I walk right up to the desk. “Excuse me,” I say to attendant who’s helping a woman pay for her family. She’s got a bucketload of little boys, and the youngest is running around like a little maniac while the oldest looks like he’s bored and wants to be anywhere but here.
The attendant looks at me like I’m crazy. “There’s a line.” He nods toward it.
“I know, but, well,” I glance back at Jack, and the attendant’s eyes follow mine. I lower my voice. “I’m here with Jack Dalton, and fans are already swarming him.”
“You’re here with Jack Dalton?” the lady I interrupted screeches. So much for lowering my voice. “My son is a huge fan! He would just die to meet him! Where is he?” The kid who looked like he wanted to be elsewhere seems to perk up.
I offer her a quick smile before turning back to the attendant. “Would it be at all possible to have a private tour of the aquarium today so he doesn’t get mobbed when he’s here with his son?” I glance at the lady whose glare has turned into pleading eyes. “Maybe this nice lady and her family could accompany us?”
She turns to the attendant with wide eyes.
“I’ll, uh, have to get my manager,” the attendant mumbles, and he holds up a finger that I read as just a sec.
The manager returns a few minutes later and agrees to our unusual request. The line is held for a few minutes and we’re taken into the manager’s office while we wait for the first section of the aquarium to clear out so we can have our own private tour.
“I’m Trudy,” the woman with all the kids says. “And these are my boys—Austin, Anthony, Andrew, Atlas, and Alex.” She names them in order from smallest to biggest like we’ll remember any of that, and I’d guess they range in age from three up to twelve-ish. This lady has her hands full. She looks up at Jack. “Alex is your number one fan.”
The boy’s eyes are filled with total and complete awe that his idol is standing in the same room as him.
“My biggest fan, huh?” Jack says. “I’ve always wondered who that was.”
I giggle, and Alex just stares up at him. “You’re awesome!”
“I think you’re pretty awesome, too, little dude.”
How adorable is that?
“You wanna go look at some fish?” Jack asks.
The kid makes some noise of total excitement and we head into the first room. We’re allowed to take as much time as we want, and naturally, the first room is filled with sharks. My stomach twists and fear pumps through my veins as I spot my first shark.
Jack walks right up to the glass and taps on it. “Check out these awesome sharks!” When he glances back at me, he must see the look of pure terror on my face as I keep my gaze pointed down toward the ground.
He walks over to me while Trudy and her five boys run to the glass. He bumps my shoulder with his. “You okay?” he asks.
“Fine,” I grit out.
He tosses an arm around my shoulder and squeezes, and it’s too close. He’s trying to comfort me, and all I can do is breathe in his scent. An ache pulses between my thighs.
Great.
Now I’m horny and terrified in a room full of sharks.
“Hey, Kia,” he murmurs. “They’re behind glass.”
“I know. That’s the thing about fear, isn’t it? It’s irrational.”
“There’s a little bench leading toward the next hallway if you want to wait there,” he says softly, and I glance up at him. Our eyes connect, and his are as stormy and dark as ever, but I spot a little bit of concern there. A little bit of care.
And I suddenly feel a lot less scared with him this close to me.
I draw in a deep breath and glance away. “I’m okay. Thank you.”
“You sure?” he asks.
I nod, and he heads back toward the glass. He taps near a sawfish—one of those ugly sharks with long noses that look like saws with all their teeth just hanging out. He pulls Alex over. “Have you seen this sawfish?”
The manager tells us a little about the different sharks in the tank, and I stand with my fists clutching the stroller handle, my knuckles turning whiter than when Jack’s driving his truck.
We move into the next room. These tanks have different fish. The kids and Jack ooh and ahh over all the different creatures, and Trudy hangs back with me.
“So how do you know Jack?” she asks, and for a second I wonder if she’s in the market for a father for her five kids. It’s not my business what she does and whether she does it with Jack, but my hackles still seem to rise a bit.
“I’m his personal assistant,” I say. I leave it at that, though I do think about mentioning his fiancée.
“And is this your little one?” Trudy asks, her glance falling onto JJ.
I wish, I think to myself. He’s just such a perfect little boy. “No, he’s Jack’s.”
“And the mother...?” she trails off without really asking a question.
“The mother is...” I pause. In all honesty, I have no idea where the mother is. At a bar? Out with friends? Or any one of a hundred other places that don’t matter when she should be with her son and nurturing her relationship with her fiancé. “His fiancée, and she’s at work.”
“Oh, too bad,” Trudy says, and I’m pretty sure she means too bad that he has a fiancée, not too bad that she had to work today.
I couldn’t agree more.
My plan is to keep my eyes on JJ so I don’t have to look at these stupid fish, but that plan goes to hell when JJ wakes up and Jack takes him out of the stroller. He carries him around, showing him the different fish, and I push the baby-less stroller around just for something to do that doesn’t include looking at these dumb fish.
I glance up just once and make eye contact with one of them. His mouth opens and closes as his one weird-ass eyeball meets mine.
I’m not scared of him. But I still think he’s a strange animal. I’m just thankful we started in the shark room so I don’t have to deal with those fuckers again.
The tour comes to an end, and the manager tells us, “The diner is open if anyone would like a bite to eat. It’s filled with people now, so if you’d like me to grab you something, I can bring you to one of our private party rooms.”
“That would be wonderful,” Jack says. “I’d love to treat everyone here to lunch. Whatever they want from the menu.”
“Of course, sir.” The manager leads us to one of the private rooms. Tables and chairs are set up, and he brings us menus. We place our orders with him and we sit as Jack tells stories of his victories on the field. Alex asks about a million questions, and Jack is all too happy to answer.
But this isn’t the Jack I saw that day in the locker room who stared at the jersey with his name on it. This is the Jack who puts on the performance for people, the one who is what people want him to be—what people expect him to be—instead of the somewhat more introspective man I’m getting to know beneath the jersey.
My heart squeezes for him that this is his life. He lives it for everybody else in a way that he thinks he’s expected to rather than doing the things he wants to do. He came here today to spend time with his son, and instead he was attacked by a mob of people who all wanted some piece of him. Whether it was a selfie or a signature or just some time, he gave that tiny part of himself away each and every time just to make someone else happy.
He’s sought after by women everywhere. He’s always wanted for something by someone.
But what does he want? When does he just get to be himself? When does he get to live his life the way he wants?
There are certain expectations that come with his chosen profession. I’m sure he knew that going into it. But he never knew he’d explode into being one of the best quarterbacks the league has ever seen, and now he’s stuck with that for the rest of his life.
It’s as I watch him smile at little Alex as he tells the story of yet another perfect pass that I realize none of these victories are really for him. I’m sure they feel great, but now he’s just expected to win.
What’s a real win to him? What’s a loss like for him?
When he loses on the field, what goes through his mind, and what’s a true loss to him when he’s so used to getting everything he wants? Does he? It seems like he does from the outside.
The last time he lost something personal to himself—his father—he started lashing out to the point that someone hired me to help him make better decisions.
It’s hard to tell if any of that is truly what he wants out of life. I see the way his eyes crinkle at the corners when he looks at his son.
That’s true happiness.
When he smiles at Alex, the charisma is there. The charm is there. But the crinkles aren’t.
Somehow I feel like I’ve gotten a little insight into Jack Dalton today.
And I also got to face some of my own fears with him by my side.
Jack feeds JJ while we wait for our lunches to arrive, and he takes him to the men’s room to change his diaper. There’s just something about watching him care for his child’s most basic needs that shows me that human side of his again. It’s endearing and sweet.
After we eat, he signs a few things for Trudy and her kids before we take off. He buckles JJ into his seat in the back and slides into the driver’s seat.
“Thank you,” he says, glancing over at me.
My brows dip. “For what?”
“For the private tour. For giving that kid a day he’ll never forget.”
I lift a modest shoulder. “You would’ve done the same if you had the chance.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know if I would’ve. But the minute someone recognized me, shit hit the fan, and the rest of the day would’ve gone to hell if you hadn’t stepped in. Instead, it ended up being a great day for me, for JJ, and for that family. So thank you.”
My heart swells and I feel a little like we’ve had a breakthrough.
One thing’s for damn sure. If Michelle would’ve been with him today and not me, the day would’ve turned out very differently.
