Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

David checked his apartment mailbox every day, even though it was mostly junk more often than not. On one surprising day, he found an honest-to-god paper letter half covered in stamps stuffed haphazardly into his mailslot. David pulled it out, not realizing the letter was caught on the latch until he heard the telltale rip of paper. Mercifully, the damage was minor.

When David saw the return address, he wished the letter tore down the middle. He wished it got lost in the mail. He wished he never got out of bed that morning.

David didn’t know what else Kayleigh Day would want to say to him.

Their relationship was pointedly open from the beginning of their brief, intense entanglement. It is easy to mistake passion for affection, especially when Kayleigh stared at him with a heat that rivaled her fire on the court. Their conversations were always deep and meaningful but never personal or intrusive.

She was as unapologetic with her happiness as with her irritation. Every memory David spent with Kayleigh radiated with intimacy in his mind’s eye. Throbbed as an ache in his chest. In his life, he was happiest when he was with her.

David loved her. He respected her before they met, both for Exy and her skill on the court. It was her first hip check that sent him bouncing off the court walls, the devilish smirk she sent him over her shoulder as stole the ball, that seduced him. David loved her from a distance, even when she was right beside him.

It was an old and distant longing. The idea that he might be compelling enough to turn her gaze away from Exy for more than three minutes. In the end, it wasn’t about him, and it wasn’t about the other men. It was about Kayleigh and the sport that she was building from nothing into a perfect beast of competition.

She was her most beautiful when she was explaining Exy to anyone that would listen, especially assholes with loud mouths and too many opinions about a woman’s role in institutionalized athletics. Wymack loved Exy and built his life around it. And just his luck that what he loved most about Kayleigh was the same reason he could not have her in his life for longer than a blink. He tried not to think about what she did with other men when he was alone in his apartment, spooning a bottle of whiskey and feeling sorry for himself. He had no right to any more of her time than she wanted to give him.

For all that he suffered, he couldn’t claim that she betrayed him.

Only that she left him behind.

She made her decision about their relationship clear when she left for Japan a day after telling him that she was considering the transfer. Tetsuji Moriyama at her side, damn dripping with smug satisfaction and waiting on her every word as they waved to the gathered exchange group on the last day of the program. The two of them slid into a shiny black town car and rolled off to the airport.

Half a year later and an Exy podcast started speculating about Kayleigh Day’s conspicuous absence from the court in the weeks leading up to the first Olympic season featuring Exy. Rumors abounded, full of theories of what would keep Kayleigh Day from the biggest sporting event in Exy history. A month later, someone got a picture of Kayleigh walking out of a grocery store. She was unmistakably pregnant.

David choked on his tongue when he first saw the picture. It took him days to work up the courage to call Kayleigh and ask her a question, even though he wasn’t sure he really wanted the answer. David added an international prefix to her number and called. Kayleigh answered on the second ring and started to speak before he could get a word out, explaining dates and locations and times. She hung up before he even got a word out.

She was crystal clear about the baby. Kayleigh Day was not a woman to mince words.

He was not the father.

That was three months ago. David never expected to hear from Kayleigh again.

He fidgeted with the letter, unopened.

It sat on his table for a little over a week before he sat down an opened it. David gave himself the choice between the letter and a glass of bourbon, his eyes on the clock and four hours until practice. His training docket sat on the table by the door, with his whistle and keys.

The letter was thin, a single page, sent from London. As he read, David fought a rising panic attack.

Kayleigh Kay wrote in slanted script. The first paragraph was all about her upbringing and how she learned what lying was when she was ten and how it changed her view of the world. That she lied to him because she built up this marvelous championship future for him and derailing that was not an option and a kid would derail that.

David’s brain was derailing.

She was a month away from her due date - with his child. She was moving apartments when she fell down the stairs and re-broke her left tibia, causing blood clots. She needed surgery, but with the birth so close, and the risk of embolism, the surgeons wanted to do a simultaneous C-section. She refused, so they demanded she have a medical proxy present to witness her go against medical advice during labor, and they would take her into surgery immediately after. They needed someone to stay with the baby while she recovered, particularly because she seemed to have gotten the flu, which meant she couldn’t touch the baby.

She apologized for lying and then insisted that it was for his own good. She told him not to read too much into the letter, or expect anything from her, and then she asked for his help. That she needed reliability and she needed to keep it out of the Exy media stream, and the hands of her Exy contacts, including Tetsuji. The Moriyama thought she was tending to sick family.

The emphasis was on temporary. Emphasis on, David you are not the father, except you are the father, and you don’t get to be the father, but I need you to be the father for a second.

David had never seen this side of Kayleigh. She never felt one moment of uncertainty or shame in all her life. She certainly never admitted she was wrong, or that she was capable of lying. Yet, David held the proof in his hands.

Suffice to say, he was on the next plane to London. David had a bitch of a time navigating the cobblestone streets and oddly-colored street signs. He almost got hit by two different red mini coopers.

David Wymack arrived at Kayleigh Day’s door with his gym bag and a day’s worth of five o’clock shadow. The placard next to the apartment number was blank. He pressed on the call button and held down for a three beat.

The door buzzed to unlock.

David stared at it, certain it was for someone else.

The buzzing stopped.

David pulled on the door. It was locked.

He pressed the call button down for another three count.

The intercom buzzed in response, and a hoarse voice spoke

“You took your time! So help me, David, get up here right now before I start regretting this more than I already do.”

The door buzzed again and David went through, up a few flights of stairs, and to her door. It was unlocked. David frowned at Kayleigh’s carelessness and locked the dead bold and the chain behind him.

The apartment was relatively clean. A few dirty dishes in the sink, some mail left out on the table, a sweater draped over the back of the couch. It was a pig-stye if you knew Kayleigh Day. The woman in question lay sprawled across the couch, in front of a dark flat screen. Her long, dark hair hung over the arm. David noticed a chunky, white cast poking out over the opposite arm as he rounded the kitchen island.

Kayleigh doesn't acknowledge him, staring at the blank television like it was a show she really liked. As if she watched television at all, which she didn't, unless it was a game. From the couch, a series of wet coughs. David came around the side to kneel by Kayleigh’s head, in front of the TV. Her smooth, fine skin was blotched red and puffy, her eyes bloodshot and her lips chapped with dehydration. She shivered minutely. Where the cast ended, her toes were faintly blue.

Damn, David never saw her like this.

Glancing around, he spotted a warm-looking throw bunched up on a chair across the room. He retrieved it and draped it carefully over her, tucking it under her feet, and pointedly looking away from her person. Kayleigh stared doggedly through him like he wasn’t there. She sniffed loudly against mucus that threatened to fall. Too proud to ask for the tissues that sat behind his shoulder. David handed them to her and got a mumbled “thank you” in return, but no eye contact. He was not bothered. Kayleigh was forcing herself to be vulnerable in front of him and the least he could do was make it easy for her. He sat the newly vacated armchair and surveyed the room.

It was a two-bedroom with a kitchen and living room. Large, especially for the city, with big windows and a nice cross-breeze. It was decorated with chachkis Kayleigh would never buy. On the table, a picture of a blonde family. The cabinets and fridge were probably full but David doubted that Kayleigh’s name was on the lease. Kayleigh Day had a habit of collecting powerful friends wherever she went. David never socialized with her circle publicly or privately, and he was grateful for the mercy. David counted the number of tiles on the kitchen floor and half the titles on the bookshelf before he let himself look at her.

She wasn’t shaking anymore. He darted a glance to her face, and her eyes were closed, but so was her mouth, so she wasn’t asleep. Kayleigh’s mouth always opened in her sleep. She was a drooler. A few times, he even heard her speak.

Her stomach -

Kayleigh was tall and willowy, her arms and legs defined with lean muscle backed by the weight of her frame and training. He had never imagined her like this, so his mind was having trouble taking his eyes seriously.

David realized just then that he had never spoken to a pregnant woman before - yet - nevertheless a woman he impregnated.

“I can hear you thinking,” Kayleigh rasped into the tense silence, “more like spiraling. If you need to puke, do it outside, I can’t stand the smell.”

David pondered possible responses for a full minute before settling on the one that brought him here - Kayleigh’s unexpected and uncharacteristic cry for help.

“How did you get up the stairs?” David went into the attached kitchen, intent on doing the dishes because he was here to do things and he needed to do something. He put the box of tissues by her elbow on his way.

“The taxi driver helped me,” Kayleigh said.

“The taxi driver helped you.” David was unimpressed.

“Watch your tone. I tipped him two hundred and fifty pounds.”

David was about to ask why she didn’t call family, and then remembered that out of everyone she knew, she called him. David Wymack, assistant coach to the USC Trojans and her former casual lover. The not-father of her child until yesterday afternoon around 3:00. He thinks about what would have happened if Kayleigh wasn’t hurt and sick and she didn’t need his help. He really wasn’t surprised she lied. She was probably lying about lying for his benefit. Either that or she was deluding herself. Kayleigh Day was a micromanager on every level to an extreme degree. She probably didn’t want his “lack of anything resembling proper organizational skills,” to poison the kid’s mind. He was definitely spiraling.

“It’s fine,” Kayleigh justified, “just like this place, it’s one trolly stop from the hospital. I paid the couple that lives here 10,000 pounds to disappear for a few months and they didn’t think twice. Packed a bag in less than five minutes, and here we are.”

David had nothing to say to that, even if he had the energy to try.

The dishes were caked with wasabi and pasta sauce, so he left them to soak and went back to the chair in the corner - his new home for the remainder of his stay in this strange place. Fucking surreal.

Taking a deep breath, David let himself look at her like any sane man would look at the woman he loved when she was about to give birth to his first child.

The feeling in his chest is too painful to be happiness and too light to be sorrow. It took his breath away, and he choked on a gasp, coughing into his fist and blushing all over. An anxiety burst of heat suffused his body as the implications overtook him, the future tracing itself out in his head. His eyes followed the new curves of her body. He was definitely going to start hyperventilating. She blew her nose loudly, and again.

She had to know what she was doing by sending him that letter. The door she was opening, no matter the demands she tagged onto her request for his help. Kayleigh knew about his drinking, his weekly AA meetings, and his parents. A history she pulled out of him with her caring stare and soft, furrowed brows. Her gentle hands as she cleaned him up, without comment, every time she found him vomiting from a night of nightmares or binging.

He didn’t want kids because he didn’t trust his shitty genes - he didn’t trust himself not to disappoint them horribly in some essential way. He didn’t believe he wouldn’t fuck up. Still, no matter his fear, he couldn’t walk away from his kid, she had to know that. She sent the letter. It was the most emotionally vulnerable she'd ever been with him. To prepare him for what she was going to force him to endure. He was more than a little intimidated by the idea of Kayleigh Day’s daughter. In the back of his mind, even David didn’t think the world was cruel enough to give him a son. The only person he hated more than himself was his father. They were both the epitome of a bad role model in different ways.

“How is your pain?” He wanted to ask about her health without mentioning the elephant on the couch. David needed to handle Kayleigh delicately, like a live grenade.

“Manageable,” she sighed derisively. She shuffled more upright, flinching slightly as her weight settled differently against the cushions. She moved like an elderly person, slow and careful.

“Do you have anything to take?” David took great care in choosing his words.

“In the trash,” Kayleigh muttered, “I don’t need pain meds.”

David sighed and wasted no time fishing the pills, pharmacy bag and all, out of the garbage. He took a pill and a glass of water, hunting a banana from a bowl by the fridge. He brought her the assortment, and she took the pill with little fuss, staring at the banana. “Bananas induce labor.”

David jerked back in surprise. He didn’t know that. Was that bad? Before he could ask, Kayleigh had taken the banana and swallowed half of it. At that point, it seemed rude to question her methods. Kayleigh ate three bananas, an apple, and a pear but took barely a sip of water.

David was starting to get stressed out.

Dehydration was his top concern with players on and off the court. He didn’t see any glasses of water or bottles of sports drinks. He didn’t know anything about pregnant women but hydration was of primary importance to athletes, and he couldn’t think of a more strenuous physical exercise than creating a human being from scratch. Take away all of the rules and the context entirely and they are both exercises of a kind, with a sort of reward at the end?

He was overthinking it.

He just wanted her to drink something.

Kayleigh burped, loud and long. And, for the first time since his arrival, rested a soft hand on her roundness. She breathed deeply for a few moments.

“Okay,” she said with finality, “take me to the hospital.”

David thought he asked “what,” but judging by the look on her face, he just stared at her in dumb silence.

“My contractions have been five minutes apart since before you got here. Take me to the hospital, David. Now.”

He’d be damned if he didn’t know how to follow a simple direction.

David Wymack bent down and eased his hands behind her back and under her knees, swinging her legs around slowly and lifting her only her feet even more slowly. She huffed with impatience, irritated by the pain and the vulnerability. David had never been so careful in his life.

“Check the couch for blood.”

Following directions didn’t require higher reasoning. A large circle in the middle of one of the cushions was stained dark. The color was consistent, with no dark tinge of blood. Could have been a glass of - right. He made a mental note to steam clean the couch before the real owners came back.

“Where’s the train?” He asked because he had no idea.

“Its called a trolley and I want to walk. Gravity is the most fundamental force of nature.” The hospital was kind enough to strap a boot around her cast, so she hobbled determinedly to the door at a pace that would infuriate a couch surfer, nevertheless an athlete on Kayleigh Day’s caliber. David paced around her in anxious circles like a traffic cop as she made her arduous way out of the apartment building and into the street. Passersby starred with a spectrum of reactions more at home to a homeless person on the red carpet that a wounded pregnant invalid making defiant eye contact with every person that crossed her path or let their eyes linger for a second too long. The trip to the hospital only took an hour, because she gave in and let him carry her halfway there.

When they arrived at the maternity ward, the nurse tried to send her home. Before Kayleigh could step in, David was speaking to the woman, up close and really soft.

Later, he wouldn’t remember what he said to her, but they end up in a delivery room, so he didn’t really care. The walls and furniture were different for other hospital rooms, and the bed had metal pieces of all shapes and sizes protruding from it. It looked like a torture chamber. David stood next to the bed with his hands behind his back. Kayleigh gripped the rails to brace. She was pushing before the doctor arrived to check on her. She didn’t make a sound, but the strain on her face was obvious. She watched the monitor attached to the sensor strapped across her bare stomach and counted to herself between measured breaths.

She started to tremble, cold again in the sterile hospital ward. He slid his coat off his shoulders - he never took it off after he arrived - and flipped it around, laying it over her and tucking the zippered edges around her back.

Kayleigh looked at him, her huge, green eyes swimming stress tears before the door opened and she blinked. A doctor entered, trailed by a sizeable entourage.

Kayleigh! Good to see you!”

The doctor was reading her chart. Before they could look up, or speak, Kayleigh set in. It was her style.

“I’m about to crown.”

The doctor looked at her and frowned. He looked at his watch, frowned, and looked back at her, face poised in indecision as to how to tell her she was mistaken.

“Just check,” David’s voice cracked. For a moment, every pair of eyes turned to him.

Apparently, confrontation was unpopular. The doctor handed off the clipboard and fumbled with the sheets. He got a quick look a Kayleigh down there and straightened up immediately, his face smoothing out while he barked out quick, measured instructions.

“Ok, Kayleigh, you’re about to have a baby!”

Kayleigh groaned with the next contraction, but it sounded more like a growl when paired with her bared teeth and hateful stare. Four nurses hefted Kayleigh to the edge of the bed and hiked up the backrest until she was jackknifed in half. The armrests folded down to accommodate the changing bedframe and Kayleigh’s hand groped the air. David grabbed her hand, threading his fingers in hers and wrapping his other hand around her back. Kayleigh was not silent after that, and the doctor kept exchanging stained red rags for fresh white ones.

Time became nebulous for David Wymack long before this pivotal point in a random hospital room in London at the end of February. His vision seemed to have a subtle warp at the edges from before that - from that day he opened the letter. From the day he found the inconspicuous slip of paper in his vacant mailbox.

No - from before the letter. From the podcast, he heard on talk radio months ago, when some 22-year-old college dropout asked an audience of over a million people to call in and explain who they thought Kayleigh Day was spreading her legs for.

The warp became ripple that sounded like Kayleigh’s laugh when she was drunk. He only saw her drunk twice. Once the night they were first introduced at an obscure sports mixer, and the other the night after she told tell him she was leaving. She stumbled into his apartment with her spare key in the early hours, drunk off Cosmos some other man bought her to smooth the way for a quickie in the backseat of his four-door sports sedan. Her skirt was still unzipped, and her lipstick was smeared. David woke up when she knocked his coat rack into the foyer with an impressive crash. He doesn’t remember much of what happened after he wandered into the front hall, smashed and nearly passed out. He tended to drink, heavily, when she goes out with other men. She was leaning against the wall, hiccuping between every few words. He was upset, but he couldn’t tell her because he understood what she wanted and he wanted what she wanted for her. His mouth didn’t agree, because he said… something - and suddenly she was laughing at him, low and slow like she was realizing the joke over time.

She yawned and said lightly, “Don’t whine so hard, the other guys have to wear condoms.”

They had sex after that, he was certain. There, on the chilly faux-wood floor of his one-bedroom apartment. Kayleigh rode him with uncanny energy, and it was the last time they would be in the same room alone together, nevertheless be intimate.

Until today.

A piercing squall of a cry.

“It’s a boy!”

David Wymack’s vision cleared because now he understood what his anxiety whispered when he sat alone, wallowing in his loneliness. Today, February 22, was the new major holiday in his calendar. The day that all non-work related occasions would have to fall behind when David planned his time off.

Today was his son’s birthday.

“Are you the Papa?” A close-talking nurse asks. David, beyond words, nods. “Want to cut the cord?” She puts a pair of silver scissors in his hand and guides him to the end of the table. David was a shade away from the panic attack, but he got it done. The ladies in blue whisked the baby away.

Kayleigh grabbed David’s a handful of David’s shirt and pulled him close. Her fingers tightened around the cloth as she spoke. She was exhausted, but clear-eyed.

“I can’t touch him,” she whispered, as they prepped to move her to the surgical floor. Her eyes were on the baby as a group of nurses worked over him with blankets and medical devices. “Newborns have only experienced 98.6 degrees. In comparison, room temperature is, so cold. Skin to skin contact is important between mother and baby,” she said the words, and she didn’t look pained, but he knew better, “but I can’t touch him. You have to do it, or Kevin will be cold. Okay?”

“Yeah,” David said, “yes, I’ll do it. He won’t be cold.”

They gave him back his jacket and wheeled her away.

And then they brought the baby to him.

Kevin - Kayleigh called him Kevin.

They brought Kevin to him.

David realized he never held a baby before. The nurses didn’t seem to notice his reticence. Looking down at his clothes in question, he realized he never changed between USC and the airport. Holy shit, he never packed a bag either. Hopefully, the guy that lived in Kayleigh’s place was around his size.

The women were clearly experienced in the practice. One pulled his jacket up of his hand and stripped off his t-shirt, leaving him in his track pants. Another placed a naked, mercifully diapered, baby against David’s bare chest. She rested Kevin’s tiny head in the valley of David’s sternum, right under his chin. She arranged his hands, showing David how to hold him right, describing different ways to hold him for different reasons. They pushed David gently into an upright recliner and laid a blue hospital blanket over Kevin’s back.

“Kayleigh will be in surgery for a good bit. We will take great care of her. Someone else will come by to take you to the nursery in an hour or so when we have to break down this room for the next delivery. You enjoy this precious, irreplaceable bonding time, okay?”

And suddenly, after a day of the crush of travel and the flurry of a huge hospital, the silence was paradoxically loud, ringing in his years line the court after a shot on goal.

Suddenly, he is alone.

The silence is broken by a noise. The stillness shattered by a movement.

David’s chest was warm.

Suddenly, it sinks in that he is not alone, because Kevin is with him. He is heavier than his neighbor’s toy poodle and more sturdy than David expected. He isn’t worried about breaking him with the slightest touch. Kevin has substance. An undeniable physical presence that weighs on David mind and heart and body. Kevin squirmed and stilled like he was trying to get comfortable. Tiny breaths huffed against David’s bare skin, raising goosebumps. He made mewling sounds but didn’t cry. Kevin sounded upset. Maybe he was tired. David was tired. David leaned the recliner back slowly. He could use a few seconds of shut-eye. He adjusted his hold on Kevin, tucking him flat against his chest so he didn’t roll off or get smothered.

David woke when someone tried to take Kevin out of his arms. His grip tightened reflexively, pressing Kevin closer to him and further from the outstretched arms trying to sneak in between their bodies. David sat up quickly. Surprise rocked the nurse back a few steps. David looked at Kevin - if they disturbed him. Kevin was sleeping soundly, his little body rising and falling with David’s own breaths. David noticed a round birthmark behind his left ear and committed it to memory. All babies looked the same to him. He needed a way to tell Kevin apart.

“It’s okay, Mr. Day,” the nurse assumed, hands up in surrender. “I just have to bring the baby for his hearing tests and a couple of other little exams. You can come with me. I’ll show you where they’ll bring him when he’s done.”

“Kevin,” David said.

The nurse looked confused.

“His name is Kevin.”

The nurse smiled wide, his eyes glimmering with amusement.

“I will bring Kevin right back to you, I promise.”

David stares at the nurse for a few moments, checking his badge and name-tag and pager to make sure he was who he said he was.

Reluctantly, he let the nurse ease Kevin from his arms. David shrugged back into his USC jacket.

“There we go!” The nurse said, lifting Kevin with experienced arms, and talking to him like he could understand, “we're gonna run some really quick tests, and I’ll bring you right back to your daddy, okay?”

Predictably, Kevin didn’t reply.

The nurse noticed David’s skeptical glance, speaking as they walked down the hall. “It’s important to talk to babies like they can understand you. Language acculturation starts early, and you should get a head start!

“You don’t want Kevin to think you’re ignoring him.”

Those words turned over his mind after the nurse left him in front of a large bay window that looked into a room full of plastic bassinets. Each held a newborn of every color, shape, and size. A singular picture of the future of humanity. More girls than boys, more brown kids than white. Nurses moved between makeshift aisles, looking into the clear plastic, making notes on their clipboards. One nurse paused by an empty bassinet and slid a card into the holder at the headboard. David caught a glimpse of the card when the nurse walked off.

DAY, KEVIN

Kevin Day. It was a good name. Three syllables, rolls right off the tongue. Short and sweet on the back of a jersey.

They bring him back in twenty minutes, but it felt more like an hour. Kevin is swaddled in a blue blanket, with a little knit blue hat on his head. Kevin’s face was contorted unpleasantly, his little mouth warped like he was crying but David couldn’t hear anything through the glass.

David didn’t go in. He just stood there watching. He felt like he was having an out of body experience. He had dreaded being in this position too many times - in his father’s position, making his father’s choices - trying to wrap his mind around the man’s thought process. Trying to figure out some cause or motive or justification for his father’s behavior toward David. Trying to understand how someone could hit anything that couldn’t fight back, nevertheless a kid. It was a zero-sum game. He was angry, he was furious. When he looked at Kevin, it was different. It wasn’t like the anger fell away but - it was behind him, and Kevin was in front of him. The past couldn’t find him if he didn’t look back. He always hated his parents but he didn’t fully understand what kind of monster Vincent truly was until he looked at Kevin. His father’s actions made him swear to never raise a hand to any person in violence. His father’s actions made him swear off being a father himself. He broke one of those promises. He would never, ever break the other. It wasn’t going to happen.

Kevin is so new. David could make sure that no one ever hurt him. That nothing shitty and traumatizing ever happened to him. The whiskey stayed where it always did, sitting at the back of his mind like a bottle on a table. David didn’t give a flying fuck. He needed to bury that shit in the backyard and step the fuck up.

“Which one’s yours?”

David looked behind him. A woman, way too young to have a newborn, was smiling widely at the plexiglass.

“She’s mine,” she said, pointing at the glass, “in the little green hat. My boyfriend’s mom knitted it for her. Didn’t want her to get cold.”

“On her left,” David nodded to Kevin’s bassinet, which happened to be right next to another holding a tiny pink blanket with a lime green hat. “That’s Kevin.”

“Oh my god, he’s so cute! Better keep his hands to himself, though!” She laughed at her tasteless and sexist joke. David didn’t respond. He never got the whole romance between young children concept that some parents tried to push because it was “cute.” This teen mom was sexualizing a newborn and he definitely did not like it.

“I’m gonna,” David gestured to the room, and took his leave. He found the sliding door. They made him decontaminate and led him to a room off to the side of the nursery. It was full of plush recliners and a few people holding babies that glanced up in unison when David came through the door. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and perched on the closest open seat. They wouldn’t let him get Kevin himself. No unofficial personnel in the nursery, because people kidnap babies. It’s a fucked up world.

They brought Kevin to him. David glanced at Kevin’s scrunched face when he had a secure hold of him, a little too relieved to spot the birthmark behind his ear. Kevin was awake and squirming. His hand flailed out of the blanket, and he smacked himself across the face. Kevin started to cry but kept flailing. David caught Kevin’s hand before he could hit himself again. Little fingers wrapped around David’s thumb and squeezed. His heart lurched. He sat there and watched Kevin fall asleep. The kid didn’t let go of David’s finger. He wrapped his fingers around the baby’s hand - and encircled most of his arm. His skin was so soft. David’s hand could span the entirety of his little belly. Kevin was so tiny.

“First baby?” The guy in the chair next to him smiles, swapping his own blue bundle from one shoulder to the other in a practiced motion.

“That obvious?”

“Well, you’ve been here for two hours and I don’t think I've seen you blink yet,” David didn’t respond but blinked rapidly. His eyes were a little dry. He attributed it to lack of sleep.

“It’ll get easier, the looking away thing. You’ll still feel like he’ll disappear as soon as you take your eyes off him, but you get used to it. Walking away is the hard part.” David’s breath caught in his chest, stuttering out raggedly, reminded of his imminent future. “The first time I had to leave for work after my daughter was born, I cried the whole way there. No seriously, it happened. No shame,” the man laughed good-naturedly, and David smirked but didn’t laugh along. He didn’t want to wake Kevin up.

“Getting home though - that’s something special. I can never understand why my coworkers linger after work when they have families at home. I fly out the door these days. In the winter, they like to tackle me off the porch and into the snow. I act all annoyed and tell them off but I love it and they know it and it’s actually awesome.”

“How many kids do you have?” David asked, partly out of a dreadful curiosity and partly to make it seem like he wanted to participate in the conversation.

“This little man makes five! My best girl Celeste, then there’s Cameron, Cole, Carter, and this is Charlie. I’m Christopher, but you can call me Chris.”

David declined to comment on the trend.

“I’m David, and this is Kevin,”

“Kevin, good name. He’s gorgeous, man, really, congratulations," David wasn’t sure how to reply. Everyone commented on Kevin’s beauty but David was pretty sure he looked like a play-doh snowman. Apparently being a parent was like any other thankless job - people say shit just to say it and you have to roll with it.

“Thank you,” And that’s about all he’s got.

Chris’s wife, Carmen, came to get him not long after. Soon enough, David and Kevin were the only people left in the nursery, without a hospital room to go back to, because Kayleigh was still in surgery. He looked down at Kevin, awake but not crying. He was lying peacefully in David’s crossed arms. His little socked foot hung over the side of David’s arm lackadaisical like he was a mattress in Kevin’s college dorm. David was only thinking about it because of his students. He never missed first practice. He didn’t pay their tuition, but he did see the bills. College was very expensive. Athletes get their tuitions paid by the university. Still, very expensive.

Kevin get heavier in his arms and worries as the day went on.

Then again, Kevin Day would probably be an athlete. No pressure, but his genes tended in that direction. If David’s mom invented a sport, David would probably play it too.

Kevin’s face looked sunburn red. David walked up to the nearest nurse and just starting talking.

“Hi, yeah, is his face supposed to be this red? I feel like he’s hot? Should it be cooler in here? What temperature is baby temperature?”

The more David asked the more he realized he didn’t know. He had literally no idea how to keep Kevin alive.

“Your son was full term and this room is a toasty 70 degrees. With you and the blankets, he’s snug as a bug in a rug! Any redness is probably residual from the birth and will fade in a day or two. Do you want me to take him back to the nursery for a little while? Your arms must be getting tired.”

David barely resists the urge to roll his eyes. When did yes or no go out of style?

“Nah, we’re good.”

David took off one of Kevin’s layers anyway but left the little hat on his head.

Kevin was communicating, even if David didn’t understand him. And constantly wiggling. The nurse said it was to help babies build the muscle to grow into toddlers. David ended the conversation there. He could barely wrap his head around today. Tomorrow was out of the question.

Kayleigh’s surgery was over by sunset, but they wouldn’t let David see her.

What they did do was insist on taking Kevin back to the nursery. Something about hospital protocol. David got the feeling that they didn’t want to make the walk to check on one kid. It was easier to have them all in the same room.

Someone stuck a clipboard under his face, “if you just sign this, we can get his first immunizations done.” David signed the paper.

A few hours later, Kayleigh was out of surgery, but still in intensive care. David could see her, but Kevin could not. David wanted to wait until Kayleigh was in a regular room. He could imagine the look she would give him if he walked in without Kevin. When he finally got the all-clear, Kayleigh was awake and alert. She all but snatched Kevin from David’s arms. With the two of them staring at each other, David felt like a wall hanging and he didn’t hate it.

Kevin was discharged before Kayleigh, but they let him stay until Kayleigh was safe to leave. They set up a cot for David in her room

David ended up staying in London for three weeks. He spent most of that time ferrying Kevin between the bassinet and Kayleigh’s arms. He had no idea babies ate so often. David was impressed by how quickly he figured out dirty diapers, even if he had to take the garbage out three times a day to avoid gagging. Contrary to his internet research, bedtime was David’s favorite part of the day. Kevin wasn’t a huge crier, preferring to stare at David with huge, solemn eyes that seemed to penetrate his soul. David would lean over the edge of the crib at night, making sure Kevin was asleep before he left. It became a sort of ritual of theirs, to the point where Kevin would cry if David didn’t put him to bed, even for his naps. David staunchly ignored his lingering dread and uncertainty. Criticizing his mistakes and prejudging his future was not constructive.

The day he left, handing Kevin over to Kayleigh, he realized how much he didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to acknowledge the way Kevin somehow became the asterisk after every idea, plan, and contingency that popped into David’s head. He was used to factoring everything around Exy. Now, it was Kevin.

“Thanksgiving, Easter, and every summer.” David considered every other summer, but Kayleigh was already getting Kevin all year round. He let her keep Christmas and February 22nd to sweeten the deal. Kayleigh considered it for a while and eventually agreed. David went home alone, with a picture of Kevin and Kayleigh’s promise to bring him to California in June. Holiday weekends were benched until the kid could hold his head up by himself.

Lyle was waiting when David finally pulled up to the court. The head coach was more than a little put-out. David did disappear for nearly a month with no more than a hastily written note and a see-you-later.

“I’ll forgive you, but only if you to tell me everything.”

“I don’t think you’ll believe it.”

“Try me.”

“You know Kayleigh Day?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“I was with Kayleigh Day,” David couldn’t say any more. He couldn’t put a voice to the way his life flipped on its head in the span of a moment. There must have been something in his face, Lyle had three kids of his own. The head coach undoubtedly saw the news and the speculation surrounding Kayleigh's whereabouts.

“Jesus, David.”

That pretty much summed it up.

Chapter Text

Kayleigh did not come to California in June. She went to Dublin to speak at the grand opening of the first Exy stadium built in her home country of Ireland.

David had to go get Kevin himself.

They agreed to hold off on Thanksgiving and Easter until Kevin was a little older. All the travel, all the newness was a little too much to put the kid through for a week-long visit. Summertime, David refused to budge on. He had two months off with the kids and he was going to devote it entirely to Kevin. The athletes come back a month before the end of Summer. David was confident in his ability to juggle infant care and Exy. He took care of Kevin for weeks when he was a baby. He could handle a few months with a one-year-old. Other than the fact that he had no idea how to take care of a one-year-old. David wasn’t worried. That’s why they invented the Internet.

David only remembered telling Lyle and his landlord about the kid, but somehow he was getting advice from the team psychologist, and the team nurse, and the team nutritionist within days of returning from London. The nutritionist told him to make all of Kevin's food by hand and the nurse told him about a terrible childhood disease called SIDS. David had been minding his own business, cleaning up the court after a particularly rowdy game, when the psychologist ambushed him. She wasted no time getting down to business.

“So, I know a great single dad's support group. Very encouraging… and supportive.”

David was really not interested. He didn’t want to bare his soul to a bunch of widowers and divorcees. He got enough of other people’s problems at his weekly AA meeting.

Somehow, David still ended up stuffed in a creaky folding chair in the basement of a church, surrounded by teenagers in beanies and sixty-year-old men decked out in suits. David and his wife beater cutoff jeans were wildly out of place, but David made a point to never feel subconscious about his fashion choices. You could take the boy out of the trailer park, but you couldn’t take the trailer park out of the boy.

It was his second week attending Single Dads Together when he was singled out.

“David,” the proctor read off his name-tag, “you’ve been here for a few weeks now, do you feel ready to share?”

“No.”

That was the end of that, until the next week. Two months in, David finally cracked.

He told them an abridged version of his story, carefully leaving out anything remotely related to the Day name, his collegiate career, or Exy in general. The proctor of the meeting was sympathetic.

“You would not be the first man deprived of the opportunity to raise his firstborn son by a selfish, unfaithful woman.”

Wow, someone hurt him bad.

David was about to tell them that Kevin was still a baby, except another man cut in to fume about his poisonous ex-wife and the negative impact her whoring ways had on their once-perfect children. David realized that he spent most of the meetings thinking about the perils of having Kevin in his apartment rather than actually listening to the single dads’ stories. The rest of the meeting was an illuminating experience of toxic masculinity the two girls on the team were always talking about.

Suffice to say, David didn’t go back to the group next week.

June arrived with a heatwave and an email.

David was absurdly glad not to receive another letter, but the contents of the email were more ill-received. Kayleigh had to leave the country so David was going to have to pick Kevin up.

From Evermore, on the other side of the country.

She already left Kevin with Tetsuji Moriyama and his “capable hands,” until David could show up. This time, David waited until the weekend to go jet setting on Kayleigh’s word.

Castle Evermore was a fucking eyesore of a stadium.

Someone should tell them black was a bad color for a sports team, nevertheless a building, regardless of its modern, sleek design. The towering entrance was covered in black tinted windows and David could see his reflection in the shiny facade. Walking inside felt like being sucked into a black hole.

The lobby looked more like a fancy hotel than an athletic facility. The young blonde receptionist pointed him towards the daycare, because in a 5,000 square foot building with five levels, no one thought to put up any directional signs. The halls were painted black and the doors were a dark red lacquer.

David heard Kevin crying before he saw him. David recognized that scream from his time in London. The kid had a serious set of lungs and no problem using them if David didn’t listen the first time. Kevin didn’t sound hungry or tired.

Kevin sounded scared.

David followed the noise at a pace that could be generously called a jog.

Thank god the door was open or David never would have found Kevin in that goddamn dungeon of a maze. In a similarly black-walled room, a trio of identically dressed women watched two eighteen-month-old children. One of the kids, a young Japanese boy David understood to be Tetsuji’s nephew, was shouting in fury as two of the women tried to console him. Kevin, who cried with hiccuping sobs, was twisting his face away from the woman who held him when she tried to wipe his tears away.

Kevin cried slowly like the fight had gone out of him and he only kept going for lack of any other options.

“David Wymack.”

David managed not to jump as a dark shadow came up behind him in the threshold, leering over his shoulder. Tetsuji Moriyama had a way of making a statement sound like a question. He imagined it was intimidating to the players. David was unimpressed.

“I’m sure Kayleigh called you. I’m here to pick up Kevin.”

“Quite the trip from California. I would be more than happy to arrange a hotel for you.”

“Thanks,” David forced, “but I already got our tickets.”

“We have no problem keeping Kevin for the duration of Kayleigh’s tour. It’s no inconvenience. My nephew appreciates the company and I’m sure you are not adequately prepared to care for a child full-time.”

David doubted one-year-olds appreciated anything and David had already declined his invitation. Apparently Tetsuji’s grasp of the english language could use some work. That, and Tetsuji wasn’t taking care of the kids at all - he had people for that.

“It’s a nice offer,” David groused, “but we’ll manage.”

“Are you certain? Taking a child cross-country at such a young age,” the asshole let his insidious words hang, “to think of the effect on Kevin’s health, his development. It’s irresponsible.”

David wasn’t so easily intimidated. He missed Kevin and he wanted to make up for his year-long absence. He would not allow Kayleigh’s schedule to make him an absentee parent any more than absolutely necessary. Even if David had been dreading the summer, which he wasn’t, he would rather leave his kid at the dog pound than with Tetsuji Moriyama.

“And yet, here we are,” David said, uncowed, “and here we go.”

Tetsuji spoke some quick Japanese to the women. Two of them quickly ushered Tetsuji’s nephew out of the room, while the other brought Kevin forward. He put him down on his two small feet and he was impossibly small. David could wear Kevin little sweater as a glove. He would need to get the kid some clothes suited for California’s summer. He should check the phonebook for where to buy kids' clothing.

David stared down the impossibly far distance between him and Kevin and knelt down in front of the boy. It was as close to eye level as he could get. Were kids supposed to be standing at such a young age?

Kevin cried on, rubbing his eyes with two pudgy fists. The green shone impossibly bright through his tears, a lighter shade of green shot through with streaks of vivid emerald.

David’s new favorite color.

Kayleigh always valued straightforwardness. He didn't know how much Kevin understood, but let no man say that he took the kid no questions asked.

David made eye contact with Kevin and held his hand out to shake. He spoke slow and quiet, the same way he read Kevin bedtime stories for his ears alone.

“Hey Kevin, my name is David and I'm your dad. Do you want to come home with me? I know you miss your mom, but she’ll be back really soon and I promise I will take good care of you until she gets back. What do you say?”

David had a feeling that he was kidding himself. Kevin didn't understand a word he was saying. He was one, for christ's sake. His offer would make him look like an idiot if Kevin didn’t want to go with him. David had a habit of making an ass of himself.

Kevin’s heavy gasping, huge tears and full-body shaking began to ease. David froze, ready to jerk away from the boy in case something about his presence set Kevin back off. He stared at Wymack with an ageless stare, as if seeing into him. The kid’s eyes took up half his face. Kevin took two steps forward into David’s arms and grabbed hold of his shirt. Kevin’s face came close to his, pinning him in the air with eye contact. David got a faceful of Kevin’s head of curly brown hair and his plump baby cheeks before the kid dropped his head onto David’s shoulder and stopped crying. He put a gentle hand on the back of his son’s head like it's something he was used too after those brief few weeks in London.

“He hasn't stopped crying since his mom left,” The woman said, “we were starting to worry.”

David didn't wait for any further invitation. He scooped Kevin up off the ground and into his arms and made to turn down the hall. “Wait,” the woman said, “let me get some of his things -”

We don't want anything from you, is what David wanted to say. David could get Kevin news clothes and new toys. Not as expensive or nice as the ones here, but good enough for any kid, good enough for his kid. Except the bag was probably something Kayleigh put together for him and David had no idea what to get from the store. The bag was blue and patterned with ducks. David masculinity remained intact as he left Evermore.

Tetsuji shadowed him to the door.

Tetsuji held the door open for Wymack with a quipped, “you're making a mistake.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” David said, leaving no doubt as to which side he’d fall.

After a short staring match, the receptionist let David use the phone to call a cab company that took him right up to the terminal. He brought only a backpack with him, so navigating security with a sleeping kid wasn't the hassle he assumed it usually was. David was eternally grateful that Kevin fell asleep in the cab and was terrified of the hustle of the airport.

Airport security was understanding. They all wore warm, overly emotional smiles when the looked at the kid slumped on David’s shoulder. The mother of four in the line behind him helped David get his backpack off without jostling Kevin. TSA let him carry Kevin through the security checkpoint.

At the terminal, David waited for their group to be called. He sat down carefully and slouched in the seat so Kevin’s weight was against his chest instead of his aching arms. Kevin was heavy for such a small human. Kevin woke up while they walked to the terminal but he didn’t start crying. He seemed content to lay quietly warm in David’s arms, sleepy green eyes half-lidded.

“Sir?” A flight attendant leaned over him, talking with exaggerated softness, “families with small children board first.”

David looked around for a second before he realized she was talking to him.

“Oh, okay.” David got up and walked to the front of the line for the first time in his life. He would have enjoyed it more if he had a rolling bag to shove in the as of yet empty overhead compartments.

He got two seats side by side for him and Kevin when he bought the tickets. An aisle and a middle seat. David sat in the middle seat and went to put Kevin in the aisle seat. The middle sucked, but David wasn't about to put Kevin in a seat next to a stranger.

Kevin whined when David tried to put him in his seat. His pudgy fist kept a solid grip on David’s shirt. David didn’t want to risk hurting him trying to pull his hands away to put him in his seat.

Wymack tried again and Kevin whined louder, closer to actual crying. David looked around as the plane started to fill. He was the kind of guy that got annoyed at crying children on planes. He always attributed crying children to bad parenting. David always knew better than to cry in public as a kid. Then he reminded himself that his parents were toxic people and their parenting style probably reflected that.

Still, David Wymack did not want to be That Guy. He let Kevin stay in his lap.

A middle-aged woman edged past David to sit in the window seat beside him and he braced himself for the onslaught of negative attention, his arms tightening around Kevin.

She looked over, smiled at Kevin, and pulled out a book.

David sighed. The plane filled, and a flight attendant came down the aisle, trailed by a polite stranger.

“Sir, I have a request,” she said apologetically. “I understand you purchased this seat for your child,” the flight attendant looked as a sniffling Kevin with a nervous expression while she gestured to the aisle seat. “Unfortunately, this flight was overbooked and we need that seat. Your child is young enough to travel for free as a lap child, as long as you hold him in your arms for the duration of the flight.”

David digested the new information being presented to him. David had no idea that babies were allowed to fly for free. David bought his and Kevin’s tickets at the front desk when he landed in Maryland - from someone with the knowledge to correct his mistake before he made it, but who chose not to. Holding Kevin in his lap for the duration of the flight wasn’t the most pleasant thought, but David definitely couldn’t afford a place ticket he didn’t need. David lost faith in people more and more every day.

“Are you going to refund me for the ticket I shouldn't've paid for?”

“In full, sir.”

David was going to do it but it was probably going to be a problem for him. Kevin was an active baby when he could hold his head up and now he was walking. Without ample room to move, Kevin would get overwhelmed and upset. David knew there was no way he could get through this flight without a tantrum.

“Why not. I’ll do it, but I get aisle.”

The flight attendant nodded and gestured the passenger forward, a short, plump woman with a kind smile and sharp eyes. David moved into the aisle with Kevin so she could get to the middle seat. David sat in the aisle and hoped Kevin’s inevitable antics in the aisle didn’t inconvenience too many people.

All the moving around disturbed Kevin and he started crying again. Not the piercing, desperate wails from Evermore, but the louder, full-throated cry of hunger. David looked at his backpack and realized that he hadn’t eaten since he landed in Maryland. He was too focused on getting Kevin out of Evermore and back to California to remember to feed himself - or his baby.

He brought his kid on an evening-long plane ride without any food. Kevin was going to starve to death and it was going to be his fault because he was that fucking stupid.

David looked at her a little helplessly.

“Sometimes babies have to cry,” the newcomer said, her face the shape of storied wisdom. Her clear, trustworthy gaze.

Kevin wailed loud enough to pierce an eardrum. The sound was slightly muffled by the way Kevin pressed his face flat on David’s chest. Kevin’s little chubby arms were wrapped around David’s neck and he squeezed with all his might. The kid was strong enough to choke the life out of him.

David deliberately avoided the attendant’s judgemental stare.

“Give him your hands,” the woman said a little loudly. David compiled without thinking.

Kevin grabbed Wymack’s hands and quieted down. Kevin stared, his sullen little face transfixed with awe.

The woman laughed, “it's a Dad thing, I can't explain it.”

The woman rifled through her purse and pulled out an orange. She handed David the orange, “in case he’s hungry,” she said.

“I can’t take your food.”

“This is your first time flying with a baby. Take the orange and save us all from the torture,” she said with a good-humored smile.

Cowed, David took the orange and peeled it quickly. Kevin devoured the orange.

“How’d you know,” David asked, “that I never brought him on a plane before?”

“You bought another seat for him but you didn’t bring a car seat. Babies can’t just sit in a regular seat.”

Well, shit. David learned something new every day. He wondered if there was a baby store or a Target within walking distance of the airport. Did cabs have the same rule as planes? Holding Kevin in his lap would be more convenient than trying to figure out a baby seat with a running meter charging him for every mistake

“I’m David,” he held out a hand around Kevin’s back. “He’s Kevin.”

“Good to meet you both, I’m Betsy.”

The trip took a grand total of 20 hours, including flight time.

Longest trip ever, and David Wymack’s last time in Evermore if he had the choice.

Kevin was asleep when they landed.

Good thing, as some disturbance in the airport, left them sitting on the runway. The aisle was filled with people standing up even after thirty minutes of taxing.

Kevin woke up when Wymack lifted him, but he didn’t cry. David was suitably thankful and rubbed Kevin’s back in a way that he hoped was comforting and reinforced the lack of crying.

David quickly realized that a baby drew public attention that was not compatible with his personality type. Kevin’s either, judging by the way the kid hid his face in David’s shoulder until they were in the cab.

He considered buckling Kevin in, but Betsy said a kid Kevin’s age was supposed to have a booster seat. Holding the toddler in his lap was better than improper buckling?

That sounded reasonable to David.

The cab squealed to a stop outside of David’s apartment on the shittier side of midnight. The painfully new father struggled to get out of the vehicle without shaking Kevin from the fitful sleep he had fallen into during the ride from the airport.

David had to juggle the unexpectedly heavy child between his arms as he dug his wallet out of his back pocket. He must have traded Kevin’s solid little body between his arms nearly a dozen times by the time he managed to wiggle the leather square from his back pocket, only to find himself without a spare hand to actually get money out of the bifold.

Clearly, there was a reason the parents outnumbered the children in nature’s parent-child dynamic.

The assistant coach stood unmoving on the sidewalk, staring at his wallet as though the wrinkled twenties would fly from the fold at his command and flap their faded green wings right into the cab driver’s waiting till.

No matter how hard he stared, the money did not move, and David did not grow an extra hand.

His blood pressure began to rise, pulse pounding in his ears like a drum on the inside of his head. The level of helplessness he felt reminded him painfully of evenings spent curled up on the floor of his closet, covering his ears against his parents screaming matches and pressing his back against the folding door as hard as he could when one of them would start pounding on the door. His mother usually blacked out before his father’s impotent rage burned off, so he would come to David’s room looking for another opponent, drunk and stumbling but furiously strong.

For a moment, David almost smelled the sour burn of alcohol over rancid breath.

The memory seeps under the edges of David’s awareness, threatening to awaken the pain, fear, and self-loathing that followed the reminder of hard-caked carpet and darkness. It is an internal battle every time David has the stamp the trauma down in order to keep a hold of himself and his demons, to tame the emotional maelstrom that threatened to tear down the internal structure of his mind and heart.

A fight that reminds him why he swore off kids in a real and serious way. Every negative emotion and sensation self-worth pulled at David like a siren dragging a sailor out to shore with a promise that all the pain would be gone. The call that sometimes left him sitting on his side-of-the-road-salvage sofa, staring silently at a full bottle of weeping Grey Goose and thinking one about keeping the cap sealed up tight. The tidal wave of emotion buffeted David from every direction as he stood still, encouraging him to let all effort and ambition fall into the churning black void his psyche seemed always on the edge of tipping into.

After years and years of practice and hours of rigorous therapy, David was better at letting the emotions go - to survive the initial onslaught without fighting the current. If he fought, he would get swept away. By waiting for the storm to pass over him and move on, he is left soaking wet on the sidewalk instead of drowning in the bay - metaphorically speaking.

Tonight, David was barely treading water despite the warm weight of Kayleigh’s son in his arms.
He shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t propping up Kevin and held his wallet out to the cabbie.

Glancing helplessly at the driver, he asks, “Would you mind?”

Offering his wallet to the cab driver was undoubtedly a bad idea, but the wallet was ancient and David barely had enough in the fold to cover the wildly expensive fare of an airport taxi cab. The cab driving off with his wallet might even be a blessing. A least he would have an extra hand to open the door to his place.

The guy gave him a grudgingly sympathetic look, “I’m really not supposed to.” He trailed off like he forgot what he was going to say or lost the will to reinforce it. The diver couldn’t be out of his twenties - a kid to someone like David - and the coach in him wanted to snap at the kid to buck up and take his hard-earned money and go the fuck home.

David was about the lay some serious life lessons (aka unleash a crock of shit) on the cabbie, as he usually did on the court when capable kids want to drag their feet and complain instead of actually making an effort. His usual tirade of fuck, retard, and asshole was definitely not appropriate to unleash on an uncooperative taxi driver, but David felt it building none-the-less.

Literally, all the kid had to do was take out his charge and give the wallet back. Was the kid retarded? Did he seriously not know how to operate a motherfucking wallet? Or was he just so much of a coward that he was afraid the cabbie-cop brigade was going to jump from the trees and fire him for accommodating a customer.

David does not notice his chest expand with the huge breath required to take the kid to task. Kevin’s large, warm pillow moved beneath him, easing the shocked toddler half-awake.

Out of nowhere right in the middle of the awkward transaction, Kevin tried to take a header right out of David’s hold, presumably to plummet six feet down and hit the pavement and die.

The boy yawned with his whole body, head tipping back while his limbs went stiff with stretch. Kevin was oblivious to the mumbled curses and fumbling hands that barely kept him upright. He was too young to recognize the inexperienced hold that turned him around a few times before letting his heavy head rest against a firm shoulder. The baby did not mind the firm pressure holding him down.

For once, David was unconcerned over how tight he was holding the baby.

He almost killed Kayleigh Day’s only child.

He almost got his son killed - over cab fare

Overcome by some force that was half breakdown and half epiphany, David stuck the wallet right in his mouth, using his teeth to hold the leather in place while he tugged out all the bills. He handed them to the driver without looking at the amount.

The driver sat unmoving while Wymack contorted his wallet into his front pocket, where it would now live, indefinitely.

The cab company’s freshest hire stared at the flustered man, his grumpy baby, and. Clearly first-time dad, if the constant look of confusion and fear weren’t enough. Probably the dude’s first night alone with his kid post-divorce. Honestly, he felt bad for the guy. No way a married guy forgets the baby-seat.

When David finally righted himself, the driver was still looking at him, holding up the bills like he hadn’t touched them since David slapped the pile into his hand.

“Sir, this is too much.” The driver looked reluctant to say it, but didn’t continue.

“Keep the change!” David says exasperated, “You deserve it!” The sarcasm was undeserved, but at this point, David is just trying to get away as quickly as possible. He was less concerned to be overpaying the cab driver than he was over everything that was going to have to happen as soon as the guy drove away. David was already turning toward the scraggly bushes that lined the front his sixth floor walk-up.

“Thanks man!” The driver instantly perk up, gaining at least a few inches in height and smile wide. Coming from his background and with the future, he is working towards, David is still surprised by how seemingly inconsequential kindnesses can completely change a person’s outlook. The kid looked up at him with shining eyes, and David wondered if that was what his face looked like the first time an Exy Coach bailed him out of the drunk tank.

The mixture of warm nostalgia and invigorated purpose keep David from making his hasty retreat. He lingers on the curb just long enough to invite an unsolicited compliment.

“By the way dude,” he said Wymack, “your baby’s eyes are awesome. Will they stay that color?”

David immediately bristles. A stranger asking him personal questions about his kid. David didn’t know whether he was irritated at the cab driver’s presumption or embarrassed that he didn’t know the answer.

Instinctively, he wants to check on Kevin. He knows from legal documents and pictures that Kevin has Kayleigh’s green eyes. Even so, David feels compelled to make sure that Kevin’s eyes are actually green. A parent knowns what color their kid’s eyes are. Right? Yes.

A new wave of inadequacy and panic ----

But his feelings and steps fall away as he realizes the kid is awake, and for once, mercifully quiet.

David glanced down at Kevin’s dark head. The toddler was a slow-breathing and mostly limp form in David’s arms. Kevin rubbed at his eyes with pudgy little firsts. The gesture was clumsy, looking absurdly like a midget punching themselves in the face. like The toddler reclined against David’s chest, his head resting against David’s shoulder instead of buried in his neck.

Wary dark brown eyes met bright, blearily green, a shade so pale yet pigmented, found only in the eyes of a Day. For all Kevin had his mother’s eyes, David had never seen such a defeated emotion cross Kayleigh’s countenance. The kid looked so miserable it made David’s chest ache. Those huge, sad eyes cut David to the core. As Kevin stared at David, the gaze seemed both disappointed and condemning. Father and son stared at each other, and even though the father knew that the child was too young to conceptualize those feelings nevertheless pin them on David, the father felt judged and found wanting.

Not even a year into fatherhood and Wymack’s kid already hated him.

Something like comprehension sparkled in the golden flecks around Kevin’s pupil. David braced himself, prepared for his face to spark a new crying fit.

Kevin didn’t cry or struggle in David’s arms.

Wymack was ashamed of the rush of relief that left him in a silent sigh.

Kevin wriggles to get more comfortable, stretching his legs a little so the back of his head can thud gently against David’s collarbone. Kevin gazed up at David with tired, slow blinks. The slow blinks became an unblinking stare when David caught his eye. Kevin stared at him, or rather, stared into space over David’s shoulder. David’s landlord came out of the building and did a double-take when she saw David holding a baby. She was immediately sidetracked and literally plucked Kevin right out of David’s arms.

“Look at this baby boy -- You’re gonna have to beat the girls off with a stick!”

David cringed as he extricated his son from her grip. He finally managed to make it to the door and got through to the elevator. A middle-aged man beating teenage girls with a bat - Exy stick - was not an appealing visual for David or for the rabid news media that would do anything to discredit his image. Sports fans loved a scandal and the rumors of David’s controversial recruiting plans were prime bait for a teardown. David was years away from launching his pilot program - he didn’t even have a school lined up. Hell, he hadn’t even probed any schools for interest. Still, the Exy establishment was watching him closely. The sport was still so new and so under fire from the athletic establishment. The burgeoning Exy community is afraid of David’s “particular kind of program” will do more harm than good to the national image of Exy as a sport. They would use any opportunity to discredit David and destroy his efforts.

David understood their concerns, but he didn’t care. He was concerned for the good kids and talented athletes that deserve an opportunity to pursue their potential in a safe and nonthreatening environment.

The big money in Exy could stand to lose a few million off the top of their bloated profits. The kids David wants to help possess nothing at all, yet still have infinitely more to lose than some corporate bottom line.

And, in the course of one day, David had way more on the line than his career and reputation.

Namely, the one-year-old baby sitting on the floor of David’s apartment. Kevin analyzed a stuffed giraffe David found at the bottom of his bag. The rest was a few sets of clothes, a dozen pairs of socks, a few diapers, and some milk bottles.

David had the sickening sensation that babies required more.

He was in way over his head.