Coming Clean Read Online Free PDF Page A

already out of sight.
    There was nothing I could do to quell this episode, so I decided to ride it out. My baby boy was perfectly within his right to be upset, after all. “I’m going to kill Daddy,” I mumbled under my breath through clenched teeth as I closed his door. Getting into the driver’s seat, I shut mine as well. As I clicked my own seatbelt into place, Abe continued his tantrum, and a very nasty headache started to develop at the front lobe of my brain. My nerves were absolutely shot.
    After starting the motor, I took a moment to gather myself, flipping down the visor and finding the reflection of a woman I didn’t know staring back at me in the mirror. God, I looked exactly like I felt. Exhausted. Where Shaw had gotten better-looking over the time we’d been together, I’d become haggard. Not wanting to dwell on all the ways my outward appearance had changed over the last four years, I flipped the thing shut and put the vehicle into gear.
    “Let’s go have a playdate with Uncle Quinn, Abey Baby. Huh? Doesn’t that sound like fun?” I looked up at him through the rearview mirror as I pulled away from the curb.
    Abe’s crying quieted, though he still sniffled. “And Uncle Denver?”
    “Maybe,” I answered him, not wanting to make promises I might not be able to keep.
    He loved his uncle Denver, and Uncle Denver was a master at getting Abe to take a nap. Judging by the heavy droop of his eyelids, I’d say he was due for one. And I was due for some adult time. I loved every second of every day that I got to have with Abe, but that didn’t mean I didn’t need a break from time to time. Lord knows Shaw wasn’t going to be the one to give it to me, so I had to get it where I could for my own sanity.
    Yet another valid reason for Shaw to make sure he showed up for our appointment this afternoon. If he didn’t, I wasn’t sure there’d be much hope for our future.
    Shaw
    “Is he here yet?” I asked Ben the second I stepped into my office suite. He’d know whom I was talking about.
    Ben was already on his feet, taking my jacket and handing me the most important messages that had come in while I’d been at the park with my family. “Yep! He’s waiting for you in your office. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
    I might have, if I hadn’t already been running late myself, thanks to the hour drive from Lake Dixon. My next meeting deserved the respect of punctuality, but I didn’t want to come off as being too eager, nor did I want him to turn diva on me before he’d actually made the big time, so it worked out just as well. I’d seen plenty of good kids turned into spoiled brats with an obnoxious sense of entitlement to last a lifetime, and I didn’t want that for my latest conquest. I wasn’t sure what it was about him, but I had a feeling he would be my greatest contribution to the industry yet.
    Marcel Ingram was a Kentucky native who’d made big plays for Alabama as a running back, rushing for a school record of 291 yards as a redshirt freshman. And he just kept racking up the records after that, holding fifteen by the end of his senior year, as well as the Heisman Trophy. He could’ve gone pro much earlier, but he’d kept his cool and hadn’t let the fame and endless ego boosting go to his head. He’d stayed in school to earn his degree…and the respect of every lover of the game—coaches, players, and fans alike. Clever kid. As such, it was a gimme that he’d be drafted in the number one slot on Draft Day. That number one slot would earn him a payout of somewhere around twenty-two million dollars, including a hefty signing bonus and a guaranteed four-year contract with a team option for a fifth season.
    Three percent of twenty-two million dollars was great money and all for an agent, but not the thing that drew me to him the most. Although it was against the rules for agents to even speak to a player before the end of his last college game, they were notorious for doing so, to not