Chapter 3 0003 - The Quarterback Wants the Son He Rejected

Lexi's POV

Zeke looked at my face first and then at Chase. I was standing by the bedroom door with my arms wrapped tight around myself because I was so scared my fingers were starting to hurt. Chase was standing in the doorway with his travel bag over his shoulder, and he looked angry like Zeke had walked in at the worst possible time.

Zeke put the playbook down and stepped inside the room. "Did you just tell her she trapped you with a baby?"

Chase scoffed and pulled the bag higher on his shoulder. "Stay out of it."

Zeke didn't move. "Answer me."

"What part of stay out of it don't you get? This is between my wife and me."

The word wife almost made me laugh because all day long Chase had been acting like we weren't even married, and now he was using that word just to shut Zeke up.

Zeke pointed at me and his voice was shaking with anger. "I heard what you said to her. She's carrying your kid and you're standing here telling her she trapped you."

Chase dropped his bag on the floor. "Watch your mouth, Monroe."

"Or what?"

Chase stepped right up to Zeke until their chests were almost touching. "You think being my friend means you can come in here and lecture me? Get out."

Zeke looked over at me for a second. I wanted to tell him to leave before Chase hurt somebody, but my throat was so tight I couldn't say anything.

Then Chase laughed that mean laugh I knew too well. "She's always been dramatic. That's how she got me to marry her in the first place."

Zeke's fist hit him before I could even blink. It landed right across Chase's nose with a hard cracking sound that filled the whole room. Chase staggered back yelling, and blood started pouring over his lip while his bag spilled clothes all over the floor.

"What the hell!" He held his nose and slammed into the wall. "You broke my damn nose!"

Zeke just flexed his knuckles that were already turning red.

Chase looked up with blood dripping onto his expensive shirt. "You son of a bitch! The cameras are waiting for me tomorrow! I just signed my contract!"

He tried to rush at Zeke, but Zeke grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shoved him down onto the floor. "Stay away from her. And don't you ever threaten that baby again."

Chase scrambled backward with one hand over his nose. "I'm going to ruin you! I'll get you suspended. You'll never play another down in this league!"

Zeke picked up his playbook like nothing had happened. "Then tell them exactly why I hit you."

Chase didn't have anything to say to that.

Zeke turned to me and said, "Pack a bag. Now."

My legs wouldn't move at first.

"Lexi," he said, and his voice got softer. "Grab whatever you need. We're leaving."

"Where?"

"Anywhere that's not here."

Behind him Chase kept yelling about lawyers and the team, but Zeke never turned around. He pulled my suitcase out of the bedroom while I grabbed my ID, my bank card, and a few clothes, and the last thing I picked up was the pregnancy test off the bathroom sink.

I had four hundred dollars in my account and one suitcase, and that was everything I owned.

I didn't look back when we walked out.

Zeke drove a black pickup truck with both hands on the wheel while the city of Dallas got smaller and smaller in the mirror. I sat curled up against the passenger door holding my handbag tight against my chest.

Somewhere past the city limits I finally broke down. The first sob came so fast I had to cover my mouth, and after that I couldn't stop crying. I cried until my throat hurt for the husband who had kissed me under the chapel lights and promised our love would last through anything, and I cried for the baby who was never going to know the kind of father I had imagined.

Zeke just kept driving without saying anything. When I started shivering he reached over and turned the heat up. When I wiped my nose on my sleeve he put a packet of tissues in my lap. When I started crying again he just let me cry.

That was kinder than anything Chase had done for me all day.

We stopped at a gas station somewhere in Oklahoma after midnight. I sat on the tailgate under the bright fluorescent lights while Zeke filled up the tank. He came back with water, crackers, and a sandwich and told me to eat something.

"I'm not hungry," I said.

He rested one arm on the side of the truck and said, "You don't have to eat all of it. Just try a little."

I unwrapped the sandwich because saying no to him felt too hard, and I managed to take a few bites.

Zeke stood there looking out at the empty road and then he turned to me with a softer expression than I had ever seen on his face. "I've got you."

Those three words made fresh tears come so fast I had to press my fingers to my lips and look away. Nobody had said anything that kind to me the entire day.

We got to Oklahoma City before the sun came up. Zeke found a small motel on a quiet street, and the woman at the front desk barely looked at us when she handed over the key. He paid for two months right then and there.

In the room he set my suitcase by the bed and checked the lock twice.

"You don't have to do this," I told him.

"Yes, I do."

"I have four hundred dollars in the bank, Zeke. One suitcase. I'm twenty-two years old, I don't have a home anymore, and I'm carrying a baby that nobody wants except me. I don't know when I could ever pay you back. Why are you doing this?"

He frowned at me. "Did I ask you for money?"

I shook my head.

"Then stop worrying about it." He wrote his number on a piece of paper and left it on the nightstand. "Call me for anything. I mean anything."

"Zeke. Why?"

He looked tired and angry for a second, and he kept his eyes on the door when he answered. "Because somebody should have stood up for you a long time ago."

He walked out into the hallway before I could thank him, and the door clicked shut behind him.

I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the pregnancy test out of my handbag. There were two pink lines. I put my hand on my stomach and said, "We're going to be okay."

I really wanted to believe it.

The television woke me up the next morning. I had fallen asleep in my clothes and my neck was stiff from the headboard. I grabbed the remote and turned the volume up.

Chase's face was on the screen next to a big headline that said CHASE HOLLOWAY BREAKS NOSE IN FREAK GYM ACCIDENT. The team's statement said it was an unfortunate accident during private training.

I had watched Zeke's fist break that nose, and they were already lying for him.

Another headline scrolled across the bottom of the screen: LINEBACKER ZEKE MONROE DEMANDS TRADE FROM DALLAS — NO EXPLANATION.

My breath caught in my throat. Zeke had asked to leave the Stallions only a few hours after the fight. He had given up his teammates, his career in Dallas, and the team where he had played next to Chase, and he had done it all because he stood up for me.

I picked up my phone and looked at the number on the nightstand. I wanted to call him and tell him I wasn't worth what he was giving up, but I couldn't make myself press the button.

I pulled my knees up to my chest and talked to the only family I had left. "It's just us now."