The Swap(49)

So happy to have this one in my life. Her support means everything.

#bestfriends #backtogether #grateful

My face burned with betrayal. Freya had never posted a photo with me. She’d never thanked me or mentioned me beyond a photo credit. She said we were partners, but she was using me. My mom was right. My friendship with Freya wasn’t real or healthy. None of it was.

Thompson returned with a red plastic tray laden with food. I put my phone away and pulled myself together. I wasn’t about to share my hurt with this short outcast from my high school. He handed me my pizza and drink, but I’d lost what little appetite I had had.

My so-called date tried to make small talk, but I wouldn’t engage. I picked bits of sausage from my pizza, my thoughts entrenched on the selfie of Freya and Jamie, Freya’s words of love and devotion for her best friend: Jamie, not me.

Then Thompson said something that grabbed my attention. “I couldn’t help but overhear your mom’s concerns. About Freya Light.”

“My mom only met her once,” I muttered. “She doesn’t know anything about her.” I was still defending Freya. Why?

“Still . . . ,” Thompson continued. “I can sort of see why she’d be concerned. Freya and her husband have quite a scandalous past.”

I didn’t like his salacious tone. “And they’ve suffered for it,” I snapped. “Max pled guilty to assault. And they paid that dead hockey player’s family millions.”

Thompson was suitably chastened. “Of—of course,” he stammered. “It must have been a lot to go through. Plus, Max’s paternity suit.”

A tidbit of sausage dropped from my fingers. “What?”

“You didn’t know about that?”

I hated to admit that Thompson knew more about Max and Freya than I did, but he had caught me off guard. “When was this?”

“Early in his hockey career. He and Freya were newlyweds. A woman sued Max for child support. She said her baby was his after a one-night stand at a hotel in Calgary.”

“Max has a child?”

“No.” Thompson looked triumphant. “He said it wasn’t his, because he’s sterile. His lawyer submitted test results.”

“But he can’t be sterile. Freya is pregnant.”

“I guess he lied.” Thompson took a bite of pizza and then continued through the mouthful. “Or else Freya’s baby is a miracle.”

But it wasn’t a miracle.

And it clearly wasn’t Max’s.

“How did you find this out?

“It’s all online,” Thompson said, slurping some Coke. “It’s buried under all the stuff about the Ryan Klassen incident. But if you go back far enough, it’s there.”

“Thank you, Thompson,” I said sincerely. “I needed this.”

He beamed at me. “I’ll buy you pizza any time, Low.”

But Thompson had given me more than pizza. He’d given me power.





44


I couldn’t take Thompson’s word for it. Even though he was the most earnest person I’d ever encountered, I needed proof. The library was open until six, so I left the pizza place and drove directly there. The librarian shot me a look of annoyance as I hurried toward the computer section. She’d probably hoped to close early, but too bad. I was on a mission.

The Ryan Klassen incident would dominate the results if I didn’t tailor my search, so I typed:

Maxime Beausoleil, paternity suit, Calgary

Up popped an article from the Calgary Herald. Leaning in, I devoured the content. A young woman named Paula Elphin claimed she’d had sex with Max while his team, the LA Kings, was in town to play the Flames. There was a photo of her leaving court: attractive in a busty, bottle-blond kind of way. But she was no Freya. Would Max have cheated on his wife with a random puck bunny? Would Freya have cared if he had? This Paula woman had found herself pregnant shortly after their encounter and had contacted Max for child support. When he refused, she sued.

It wasn’t a big news story; Max was barely famous then. But Calgary was a hockey-loving town, and local interest was piqued. To add to the drama, Max had refused to provide a blood sample, which could have cleared up the paternity in utero. Instead, his lawyer had submitted a doctor’s letter attesting that Max had contracted a severe case of mumps at seventeen, which had rendered him infertile.

Opening a new window, I read up on mumps orchitis, the complication Max had suffered. Complete infertility was quite rare, but subfertility (seriously reduced fertility) was a common complication. I knew he’d grown up in a remote community, may not have had access to the health care a larger center could have provided. The disease had progressed to his testicles and cost him the ability to have children.

The judge must have been skeptical because he’d ordered a paternity test once the baby was born. A follow-up article—short and sweet—published the results. Paula Elphin’s baby was not Maxime Beausoleil’s child. Max hadn’t lied. He was sterile.

Logging off the computer, I tipped back in the chair. I was smiling . . . beaming, actually. This information changed everything. It gave me power . . . awesome fucking power. Because now I knew, without a doubt, that Freya’s baby was Brian Vincent’s child. It had been conceived the night of the couples’ swap. And Jamie and her husband had no idea.