Playing For Keeps (Book 2 & 3)

2. Chapter 8.

"Your problems always catch up. It's better to face them instead of running away from them."

Alex gripped the steering wheel of his black Montero, giving it another punch. Then his gaze drifted to his right hand that was bleeding. The crimson liquid was glistening as it continued to ooze down from his open skin. He felt the stabbing pain of his swollen right hand, reminding him how he threw in several blows on the wall that surrounded the house right across the Legaspis'. Pain was good, he thought. He could get through with this kind of pain that was purely physical. But what had happened to him back inside at the Legaspis' was something hard to forget.

He was going to be a father. A lovechild had sprouted with the three-month affair he had with Drei. The shock was still there even if that earth-shattering moment was over almost two hours ago. He wasn't over it yet, he will never be.  Alex knew for sure he couldn't handle this kind of responsibility. How could he be a parent to another human being when he's so messed up?  He was a man for himself for as long as he could remember. He's supposed to be happy and excited, that's what his reaction should be but here he is in dread over the fact that this news is going to change his life no matter how much he denies it.  What does he know about raising a kid? Nothing. Not even a bit. How could he start a family when he never got the chance to experience his parents being a parent to him?

As the old saying goes: expect the unexpected. He never knew that this kind of unexpected could ever happen to him, like a bad joke on Christmas day when everything seemed happy. But it wasn't a joke at all. It was real and with his very own eyes he saw that bump. There was the denial at first but as he looked into Drei's eyes while they were confined within the four walls of that entertainment room, he knew she was telling the truth. He felt that kind of gravity pulling him as he stared at her – the connection was there and it was undeniable. It was his.

When he stood there in front of Drei, his friends and with half of Jeannie and Johan's relatives, Alex had no choice but to take everything in.  And at that very moment, he felt so small, like a deer trapped in the headlights, with nowhere else to go. How could this happen to him? And how could his friends, the only people he trusted with his own life, keep something like this from him? It was like his world took it out against him, pinning him as evil when he didn't even had a single idea what the hell was going on. He felt the anger, the humiliation, the confusion, and the betrayal – all these creeping through his veins. It was difficult for Alex to explain how he found himself being pulled into different directions at once that he found himself suffocating and needing to get out. He needed to breathe. He needed to getaway.

If only he could take his mind off of what had just happened earlier back in Johan's house, then things would be okay on his end. If only he could go back and undo it. If only.... But no, he couldn't. He wasn't a time traveler nor does he own a time machine. Always have an escape plan, he thought and now, here he is burning up Marcos Highway at 160 km/hr like a daredevil on a mission. He needed space and Antipolo has lots of it. It was just the right place for him to temporarily shrug this reality aside for now, to shut down himself in the next couple of days. And at that moment his eyes swiveled at two boxes of wine and five bottle of Jack Daniels that sat at the passenger seat beside him. He let out a ghost of a smile. Fifteen days. He has fifteen days to get wasted. Then his phone rang and he glanced down to see Johan calling again. Earlier it was Pao, then Mickey, then Johan. He's been rejecting all their calls since he left San Juan.