Chapter 4 0004
Lexi's POV
My son came into the world screaming.
Nine months after Chase Holloway told me to get rid of him, I was lying in a hospital bed in Oklahoma City, sweating and shaking, when a nurse put my baby on my chest. He was tiny and red-faced and clearly mad about being born. He had a thick swirl of dark hair on his head, and his little fists were punching the air.
"Seven pounds exactly," the nurse said.
I cried and smiled at the same time while I brushed one shaky finger across his cheek. "Hello, baby. I'm your mommy."
I named him Eli.
I had imagined this day so differently. I had pictured Chase standing next to me, holding my hand and kissing my forehead. I had pictured him crying when he heard our baby cry for the first time and arguing with me about names. None of that happened. The chair beside my bed stayed empty.
Then the door flew open.
Zeke Monroe rushed in wearing a Detroit Ironclads tracksuit. His hair was still damp, and a duffel bag was thumping against his hip. He had flown in from Detroit in the middle of the season and skipped practice just to be here. His team had already fined him for it. I never asked him to come, but he came anyway.
"Lex!" He looked me over first, then looked down at the blanket I was holding. "Is he here?"
I lifted the edge of the blanket so he could see. "Meet your godson."
The linebacker who knocked grown men down every Sunday stopped completely beside the bed. "He's so small."
He held out one finger, and my son wrapped his whole fist around it.
Zeke blinked hard and pulled a chair closer. "Can I hold him?"
The nurse handed him the baby. Zeke held him carefully, like the whole world might break if he wasn't careful enough.
"Hey, little man," he said. His voice cracked, so he cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm Uncle Zeke. You're going to hear a lot about football from me, so get ready."
I wiped my tears and grinned at him. "Don't teach him to tackle before he can walk."
"No promises."
He kissed the baby's forehead. He was the first person after me to hold my son, and that felt right.
Zeke left to find food. Eli was asleep in his bassinet when my phone buzzed on the table beside the bed.
The subject line said: Divorce Decree Finalized — Holloway v. Carter, Dallas County.
I went cold all over.
The email said my marriage to Chase Holloway was officially over. The attached document had a court heading and a case number, but it had no feeling in it at all. I had never signed any divorce papers. I had never met a lawyer. Nobody had ever given me any papers to look at.
I looked over at my son. His little chest was rising and falling under the hospital blanket. I had just spent hours in labor, and I had nothing left to fight Chase or his father or their lawyers with.
So I closed the email.
The decree was dated the same day Eli was born. I didn't think about that until much later. By then it meant a lot more than a marriage I had already decided was over.
When Eli was six months old, he said his first word to Zeke.
Zeke was lying on my living room floor next to the play mat, pointing at his own chest. "Say Uncle Zeke. Zee-ke. Two syllables. Super easy."
Eli grabbed a fistful of Zeke's shirt and yelled, "Zee!"
Zeke picked him up right away, smiling so wide his whole face lit up. "He said my name!"
"He said Zee," I told him.
"Same thing."
I pretended to be offended that my son wouldn't say Mama with even half that much excitement.
The years filled up with small, ordinary moments.
I worked weekends as a TV weather girl and smiled under the studio lights even when I was reporting storm warnings on an empty stomach. A local station offered me a sports job, and I took it. I studied stats at midnight and watched game film while Eli slept in his crib. My first live interview almost fell apart when a coach refused to answer my questions, but I asked them anyway. The clip spread all over the state.
Within a few seasons, people all over Oklahoma were calling Lexi Carter the best sideline reporter in the state. I could walk into a locker room full of athletes and make them listen.
Zeke came to every birthday he could. Sometimes he came straight from the airport with a present in his hands. He taught Eli how to throw a football and how to catch one. He also taught him how to stand up for himself on the playground. Every time Zeke tried to pay one of my bills, I crossed my arms and told him, "I can take care of my son."
He would put both hands up and say, "All right, boss. I heard you."
I found out much later that he had been paying for Eli's daycare the whole time through an account I never knew about.
Eli turned four that spring, and football became his whole personality.
He slept in his Detroit Ironclads number 54 jersey every single night. He told me pajamas were for babies.
One Saturday morning I found him at the kitchen table frowning at a cereal box. A quarterback was smiling on the front under a brand logo.
Eli pointed his spoon at the box. "Mommy, who's that?"
Chase Holloway's face was smiling back at my son.
I turned the box around and pretended to check the nutrition label. "Nobody, baby."
"But he's on TV."
"Lots of people are on TV."
"Is he a linebacker?"
"No. He's a quarterback."
Eli thought about that for a second and then went back to his cereal. "I like linebackers better."
I kissed the top of his head. "Good choice."
He had no idea that the quarterback on that box was his father, and I planned to keep it that way.
The call came on a Tuesday afternoon right after an interview. It was an unknown number.
"Lexi Carter?" a woman asked.
"Speaking."
"This is SBN. We would like to talk to you about a national sideline reporting position."
I stopped walking. SBN was the network that everybody in sports watched.
"The job would start immediately," she said. "Your work caught the attention of our incoming president, Madison Sterling."
My hand tightened on the phone.
Madison Sterling was Chase's fiancée. He had kissed her onstage while I stood at the back of the room carrying his child.
"What's the assignment?" I asked.
"The Dallas Stallions' season. Specifically, their quarterback's MVP chase."
My ears started ringing.
Dallas. Chase.
The salary was more money than I had ever made. It could set Eli up for life.
That night I sat beside Eli's bed. He was asleep in his number 54 jersey with one fist tucked under his cheek. I brushed the dark hair off his forehead.
"Mommy's going back to Dallas, baby," I whispered. "It's the biggest job anyone has ever offered me. It means a real house and a real future for you. Your father is going to be on that field. He gave up the right to know you the day he told me to get rid of you."
My son deserved a bigger future than the one I could build by staying hidden.
I went back to the kitchen, opened the contract on my laptop, and signed my name.
"I didn't go back for him," I said out loud to the empty room. "I went back for the paycheck. That's what I told myself."
