Brad's Road Trip Ch. 13

"Okay," I said. I was still trying to assimilate everything.

"Just okay?" she asked. "That's all I get?"

"I need time to think, Kelly," I said. "I'm sorry. It's a lot to take in."

"So, where does this leave us?" she asked.

"Kelly, do you not understand what I'm saying?" I asked. I could feel my diarrhea-of-the-mouth affliction coming on, but couldn't stop it. "I have not the first clue how to answer that question. I turn 23 next month. I don't know if I'm ready to raise a child. I don't even know if I'm ready to date a girl who has a child, Kelly. I know I like you. I like you a lot. But I've learned a lot about you; things I didn't know before. You have to give me some time to sort things out in my mind."

"Uh," her voice cracked. "Okay."

"What?" I asked. My words had hurt her, so I tried to soften my tone some. "How did you think this was going to turn out, Kelly?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I-"

"Did you think I was just going to jump for joy and be excited about it?"

"I guess," she said.

"You withheld some pretty important information from me," I said. "Now that I know, you can't possibly expect me just to take it in stride and act like nothing changes."

"When would have been a good time to tell you, Brad?" she asked. "Should I have answered the phone at your mom's office that morning, 'Taco Bell offices, this is Kelly, I have a son, can I help you?'"

"Of course not."

"Okay, so our second call, then?" she asked. "My fingers were buried in my pussy about 10 minutes into it. Would that have been a turn-on for you? 'Oooh, baby, fuck me with that hard cock - and oh, by the way, you wouldn't be the first; my two-year-old son can prove it?' That would have gone over really well, right?"

That actually made me laugh.

"Kelly, I get what you're saying," I said. "But our first conversation was almost two weeks ago."

"I know," she said. "And like I said, I should have found a way to tell you before now. I just really like you. I like you so much, and... I didn't want to lose you."

"I don't want to lose you, either."

"There's only one way you will," she said. "I might as well get this out there now. From the moment I realized I had feelings for you that didn't start between my legs, I knew I was going to tell you. I knew I had to, because he is the one thing in my life that is not negotiable."

She took an audible breath before continuing.

"Tyler is the most important thing in my life, Brad. I'd step in front of a speeding train for him. I've already put off college and taken a job working in fast food for him. And yes, I'd give up talking to you and being with you in the future for him."

She let that settle for a minute. It was heavy.

"None of those are fun thoughts, but I'm not one of those trailer park moms," she said. "I'm not giving my son up for a man, even one who gets to me the way you do."

Her passion blew me away, just as it always did. I didn't know how I felt about getting involved with a single mother, but I knew how I felt about mothers in general.

"I couldn't be with anyone who could," I said. "I'm glad you feel that way."

She exhaled. "So, are we okay?" Kelly asked.

"Kelly, you're looking for an easy answer, and I don't have one for you," I said. "I'll always be honest and truthful and answer any question you have to the best of my ability. But if I don't know the answer, I can't give it to you."

"I get that," she said. "You need to figure out how you feel about everything I told you. But you can't even tell me if you still feel the same way about me?"

"Kelly, you just made it abundantly clear that Tyler is you," I said. "Every decision you make, you've got his best interests in mind. To be with you is to be with your son. Like I said, I couldn't be with you if you felt any differently. But to figure out how I feel about you, I need to figure out my feelings about you having a son. It'd be like saying you love the beach, but you're not sure if you like sand."

There was silence on the other end of the line.

"I was patient with you and gave you the time to tell me," I said. "I need you to give me time to think. As soon as I have something to tell you, trust me. I will."

"Okay," she said. "I guess I have to live with that."

"For a little while, yes," I said. "If it's any consolation, I'm not going to be thinking about much else today. So you should have an answer soon."

"Yeah, right," she said. "You're going to watch baseball."

"True," I said. "But it's the Cubs and the Padres. Two epically bad teams. I'll be bored by the second inning."

She giggled, and even with all of this new information, I still couldn't help but love that sound.

"So, can we have story time now?" she asked. My stomach almost turned.

"Um, not right now, Kelly," I said.

"Why not?" she asked. "You've still got a couple hours to go, and I don't work until noon."

"I just don't want to talk about it right now," I said. "Very much not in the mood."

"Brad, that's not part of our deal," she replied. "I said I'd be okay with you doing whatever you want, but you have to tell me. If you weren't going to be in the mood to tell me, you shouldn't have done anything."

"I'll tell you," I said. "I will. I promise. I just don't want to think about that right now. This is probably the first time a man my age has uttered these words, but, there are more important things than sex. I want to tell you, and God help me, I want you to make yourself cum half a dozen times while I tell you. But right now, there are other things on my mind."

"Well, that sucks for me," she said. "Did you do something I wouldn't approve of?"

"No," I said. "I think you'd very much approve. Please, Kelly. Time."

"Fine," she said, huffing as she accepted it. "I'm going to hang up and give you your time."

"Thank you," I said.

"But Brad," she cautioned. "If you're even half the man I think you are, you won't need much."

By the time I'd set the phone down on the passenger seat, I missed her already.

*************************

Due to the stadium's tight confines on the city's northern side, there was no traditional tailgating at Wrigley Field. So I met up with Josh and two other guys at the Cubby Bear, a legendary joint just across the street from home plate. First pitch was at an unusual time of 5 p.m., so we met at 2, leaving plenty of time to pour a significant amount of reasonably priced beer down our throats before heading to the stadium and paying $9 a glass.

One of the guys was Derrick, a high school baseball coach from Milwaukee who had been in Josh's and my fantasy baseball league since we started it four seasons ago. This was the first time I'd met him. He was a short, stocky guy built like a Mack truck.

The other was Isaac, an Army sergeant who'd been stationed with me in San Antonio. Besides my roommates Chad and Russ, Isaac was probably my best friend in the military. He was black, taller than Derrick but built just as solidly. He was from nearby Rockford and was back home on leave. Both of them were diehard Cubs fans, so of course, Josh wore a Pirates jersey just to fuck with them. I'd chosen to remain neutral.

Josh and Derrick had never met Isaac, so I introduced everyone and we took some time to catch up on everyone's lives. We drank for almost two hours straight, along with a hundred or so other Cubs fans.

When it was time to go, Josh handed the waitress his debit card to cover his tab. Before she could leave, I grabbed it off her tray and handed it back to him.

"I got this," I said. "We had a deal."

"Doesn't start till we get into the stadium," he said. I handed the waitress my card and told her to handle both his and my tabs with it. She smiled and nodded before leaving.

"Wait," Derrick said. "What deal, and how do we get in on this?"

I looked at Josh to see what he would say. I was planning to have a little chat with him before I left town in the morning, but I didn't want to air out the details of my night in Pittsburgh with everyone unless he was okay with it.

"Let him fuck your girlfriend," Josh finally said, sighing.

Derrick just looked back and forth between the two of us, but Isaac grinned.

"Been there, done that," he said.

"Say what?" Josh asked.

"Be fair, Josh," I said, deftly avoiding Isaac's little tribute to my past indiscretions. "It wasn't like I was actively campaigning to get with her."

"Y'all were hitting on each other all day," he retorted.

"I can't speak for her, but I was just being friendly," I said. "Ya know, since you were being a dick to her all day."

"You both wanted it," he said, ignoring my defense. "I just made it happen. Got free beer out of it."

"He made me a bet," I said, trying to explain it to the other two. "He bet me a beer tab at Wrigley that he could get me laid when I visited him in Pittsburgh last week to catch the Pirates game against the Cubs."

"You made him watch a Pirates game?" Derrick asked. "Say no more. That should earn him a night with your girlfriend right there."

Isaac and I laughed; Josh just sat there stoically. "Anyway," I continued. "We had no plans other than dinner after the game, and I was leaving the next morning for Indiana, so I figured there was no way I could lose. I'm crashing at Josh's house, and about an hour after I nod off, this girl comes in room and starts polishing my knob."

I know - it's a grotesque description. Not one I'd ever use with Kelly or any other woman I didn't want to think I was a caveman. But it was boys, beer and baseball. It happens.

"I think I'm dreaming at first, but then I realize it's real. I wake up, and it's Josh's girl. She thought I was him."

"What?" Isaac asked, turning to Josh. "Why the fuck would you do that?"

I'd been asking myself that question, too, but only Josh knew the answer.

"Not getting into that," Josh said, waving us off.

"C'mon, man," Derrick said. "Spill it. What could possibly make you decide to let your woman sleep with another dude? The beer at Wrigley is expensive, but there ain't a price that high."

"Not happening," Josh said. He motioned toward Isaac. "I'm more interested in what you meant by 'been there, done that,' when I talked about letting him fuck your girlfriend."

I glanced at Isaac, and he shrugged. I wanted to get to the bottom of Josh's issues with Maria, and if this was the price of admission, then so be it.

"He didn't really let me," I said.

"I just didn't put his ass in the hospital when I found out," Isaac said.

"You gotta understand first, this chick had been trying to get with me for months," I said, and Josh rolled his eyes.

"Nah, it's true," Isaac said. "I don't know why she'd want this piece of shit when she already had me, but she did. She'd been trying to get me to bring him in for a threesome for as long as we'd been dating."

"And she was hot, ya know?" I added.

"I don't waste my time if a girl isn't at least a nine," Isaac confirmed. "And that's on a bad night."

"I'd never even flirted with her because Isaac is one of my best friends, but I knew she wanted me. So when she came up to me at a New Year's Eve party and told me Isaac had just dropped her like a bad habit, I was intrigued. If I hadn't been so sloshed at the time, the idea of calling him to make sure it was okay might have crossed my mind."

"But it didn't, you mother fucker," Isaac said. "And they made so much fucking noise at the party, somebody recognized her voice and called me. They'd just finished up when I got there."

"You knock his ass out?" Derrick asked.

"Fuck yes, I knocked his ass out," Isaac said, half-glaring at me. We were well past it now, but he'd probably always be a little ticked at me about it. "Right there in the hallway when they came out of the room. Only because we were friends, I didn't beat his ass half to death."

He chugged the rest of his beer before finishing.

"Didn't talk to his ass for a couple weeks," he said. "But after that, I started checking around, and it turned out the girl was a first-class slut. Brad wasn't even the first dude she'd fucked at that party. She wasn't worth it."

"I made it up to him, though," I said. "A couple months later, a few of the Marines got sent downtown to work volunteer security for a big Victoria's Secret fashion show in San Antonio. I invited a couple of the models out for drinks afterward, and told Isaac where we were going. Dude married one of 'em a few months later."

Isaac just nodded in response.

"Where's the ring?" Josh asked.

"Getting resized, back in San Antonio," he explained. "And you're stalling. You gonna tell us or not?" he asked Josh. Josh thought about it for a minute, then after taking a deep swig of his last beer, he shrugged.

"I fucked one of her roommates," Josh blurted out. Derrick's jaw hit the table and Isaac's eyes widened. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I really wasn't.

"When?" I asked.

"Two months ago," he answered.

"Why?" I asked.

"Does it matter?" he asked. I guess it really didn't. "What mattered is that I tried to feel terrible about it, but I couldn't. I felt guilty, but only because I'd lied to her about it, not because I did it. I saw how into you she was the other day, and I figured maybe I could square things up letting her have you for a night."

"That makes no sense, bro," Isaac said. "She knows you set that one up. She didn't lie to you, but you've still lied to her. Only way to make up for that shit is to tell her the truth."

"You still love her?" I asked Josh.

"We don't say that," Josh replied. "I like her a lot, but I'm not sure we're gonna work out long-term. She gets on my nerves way more than a girlfriend should, ya know?"

I had no idea what he meant by that - Kelly had aggravated me pretty good by keeping things from me, and we'd only been a couple for a weekend. I didn't have a ton of experience with relationships, but I knew that things were never going to be perfect, and just simply getting on your nerves wasn't a good enough reason to have doubts about the whole thing.

"This is not a cool conversation to have before a baseball game," Josh said.

"It's not," I agreed. "All I'm gonna say is y'all need to have a fucking talk."

Isaac and Derrick agreed with me, and we all headed across the street.

*******************

Wrigley Field was majestic.

The ivy-covered walls held history that no professional sports venue west of New York could hold a candle to. The structure was old and the seats were designed for 12-year-old girls, but the stadium had an excess of quaint charm, something that was missing in today's cookie-cutter skyscraper wanna-be parks. I had a lot of friends who were Cubs fans, and I gave them a metric asston of crap over their chosen allegiance. But as we sat in our seats down the left-field line, just a couple rows back of where Steve Bartman had infamously doomed the Cubs in the playoffs a few seasons back, I could understand the attraction.

The Cubs' World Series drought stood at 98 seasons and counting, but the vibe in the stadium was electric anyway, as if this was Game 7 and the Cubs were up six in the ninth inning. In reality, they were tied 2-2 with the lowly San Diego Padres in the fifth inning of a game in late June. Chicago was still in first place in its division, though, so the fans were still optimistic. Deep down, though, they all instinctively knew the train would jump the tracks by season's end.

I'd been paying attention as best I could, but my mind understandably drifted back to Kelly two or three times an inning. I was no closer to figuring anything out when a foil-wrapped hot dog hit me square in the side of the head.

"Hey, dumbass," Isaac said from the seat next to me. "Where the fuck are you?"

"Sorry, man," I said. "I'm here."

"The fuck you are," he replied. "Some girl got your mind jumbled up?"

I wasn't surprised.

"Yeah, man," I said. "But I don't want to ruin the game."

"C'mon, bro," he said. "Talk to Uncle Isaac." He was 10 years older than me, having gotten a late start in the military. Early on, I'd joked that we couldn't hang out together because he was old enough to be my uncle. The nickname had stuck.

I told him everything. He listened patiently, only stopping to stand up and reach for a foul ball hit in our direction. Josh caught it, and after some razzing from the rest of us, he gave the ball to a little boy sitting one row behind us.

It took most of the sixth inning to tell him all of it. He was only the second person I'd talked to about every single detail of my relationship with Kelly. The other was Scott, but that was a week ago, and there was a lot more to it now. It was cleansing in a way.

"You're overthinking shit," Isaac concluded when I was done.

"How so?"

He leaned back and pointed to a group of girls sitting in the next section over and a few rows behind us. "See that hot blonde over there across the aisle, wearing basically a black bikini? The one that's been checking me out all game?"

I rolled my eyes but nodded.

"Say there was no Kelly, and that girl walked over to you and started flirting. You'd be interested, right?"

"Probably," I agreed.

"Ok, let's say when she walked over, she had a kid with her. He called her 'momma,' so you knew he was her son. Does that change your mind?"

"Where's the father?" I asked.

"No idea, but she's single," Isaac replied, knowing what I meant.

"Then no. No hesitation," I said immediately. "I've never dated a woman with kids before. I have no idea how I'd do with kids, but if I'm interested in her, I'd be willing to find out."

"There's your answer," he said, a big grin on his face.

"This is different," I said.

"How?" he asked. "Because you didn't find out till later? Doesn't matter, bro. We learn new shit about the people we care for all the time. Unless it's something nasty, it doesn't change how we feel about them. For some guys, kids are a deal breaker, but not for you."

"I don't know if they are or not," I said.

"You just said kids wouldn't stop you from being interested in the girl. That means you're open to it," he said. "Look, Brad. There's a ton of shit that could not click once you meet. Maybe you don't like the way she looks. Maybe you look way better in pictures. Maybe the chemistry you have on the phone vanishes in person."

I'd thought about all of those things a lot, but I wasn't concerned about them.

"I'm not saying any of that's likely," he said, reading my mind. "I've never heard you talk about a girl this way, so I'm guessing you'll be fine, but they're all possibilities. So, maybe you find out that you can't stand being around kids. Maybe a kid just gets in the way of your relationship in a way you aren't willing to accept right now. But maybe not. Maybe you love kids. Maybe he just makes everything you already knew about her even better."

Just then, Alfonso Soriano came to the plate and drilled a fastball over the wall in right-center field with a runner on first. The Cubs led 4-2, and the stadium went nuts. As we stood to cheer, Isaac leaned in close.

"Either way, you have to find out."

By the time the pandemonium died down, I was on the concourse, in one of the quietest places I could find. I knew she was at work, so I dialed directory assistance to get the number for her Taco Bell. After about 27 rings, some guy answered the phone and told me Kelly was insanely busy with the dinner rush. I left a very simple message for her, one he promised me he'd deliver:

"Tell me all about Tyler."

********

Kelly called me back an hour later, just as the top of the ninth inning was starting. The Cubs had added four more runs and now led 8-2, and needed just three more outs to win.

She was on the verge of tears when I answered. "Does this mean... I got your message but... you're okay? We're okay?"