Scripted Reality: Formerly I Wanna Get Laid by Kade

by Ashton Johns

  “They got us being intimate Jess. Me and the girl I’m pretty sure I love, caught on camera. Everything I did after that was to protect her and I only hope she’s as generous as you and gives me the chance to explain.

  Jess reached across and placed her hand on mine, reminding of a time not a few days ago when we were talking in the mansion bedroom. She’d sensed then something was off, and was trying to get me to open up, and unlike my time with Daisy, I just couldn’t risk it. “I reckon you mention the love thing and she’ll be won over, I’m pretty sure that’s what she wants too.”

  “You think?” That bubble of hope inflated in my chest.

  “Women don’t get like that over people they don’t care for. And for what it’s worth, I appreciate you making things right. Whatever else happened, the thought of losing a friend on top of my winnings was a real sucker punch.”

  “I’ll pay you from my earnings.” Jess went to refuse but I got there first. “I will, and you’ll let me. Anyway, I’m pretty sure your grandma will hunt me down and take a belt to my ass if I don’t.”

  “Slipper,” she grinned.

  “What?”

  “Gran always favored a leather bottomed slipper. So, when you meet her stay out of arm's reach, and if she takes her slippers off, run.” Jess burst out laughing at the terrified look on my face and reached over to squeeze my hand again. She was a tactile person, but I liked it, I knew where I stood with her. “It’ll all work out.”

  I hoped and prayed that she was right, but deep down I wasn’t convinced.

  Forty-Five

  Kade Sutton

  The town car collected me and Brody from Clint’s place the next evening. I’d agreed to go to dinner at the King’s house, and as I sat in the back, I felt just as nervous as I had when I was travelling to the mansion. My only hope was that this was going to be a better, more enjoyable experience that had a more fulfilling outcome than just being palmed off with a check.

  When we arrived at his house, my nerves peaked higher. Whatever was on the other side of that front door could be a life changer for me, and although I told myself not to get my hopes up, the orphan in me pushed through and was secretly praying this was going to work out.

  The driver pulled up, and as soon as Brody and I were out, he left, mumbling that he’d see me later when I was ready to be driven home. As I stood in the driveway, I looked up and was reminded of the big family house in the Home Alone movie. I wanted there to be chaos and normality inside, not pomp and circumstance. There were a lot of windows, a huge garage and a big tree on the lawn at the side with an old swing and treehouse built in it.

  Was this what I’d missed out on?

  I don’t know how long I’d been standing in the same spot, just looking up at the life that I didn’t get. Even Brody was still, like he knew that what lay on the other side of the double wide fronted door could be a big game changer in our lives.

  The security light blinked off, and all of a sudden, we were in complete darkness. The only illumination was coming from table lamps inside the windows and street lamps behind us.

  “I tried to wait it out, but I’m nervous. I wanted you to do this on your own time, but the longer you stand here, the more worried I’m getting that you’re not going to go through with it,” I heard the old man’s voice say, coming from the side of the house.

  I looked in his direction as he nervously walked towards me, his hands in his pockets. My go to position when I was trying to hide the fact they were shaking.

  “I understand if you can’t come in, but please, don’t give up before we’ve given it a chance.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize I looked indecisive. I was just taking it all in.”

  I watched as the man desperate to be my father exhaled in relief. This wasn’t going to work if we both kept thinking about the past, about everything we’d missed out on. We both needed to be present in the here and now as much as possible. “I was just thinking about how the last time I entered a big ass house, my life kinda got bent out of shape. It was more life changing than I could ever have imagined.”

  “I can’t argue with that. I want this to be life changing, too, but for the better. For all of us.”

  Nicholas King tentatively reached out and touched my shoulder, prompting me to get moving. When I went to walk towards the front door, he stopped me.

  “Round the back, son. Family don’t knock on doors; we just walk in through the kitchen and make ourselves at home.”

  When he finished saying the word kitchen, Brody barked and shot off as if he’d been given permission, and I knew what he was hunting for.

  “I hope there isn’t an unattended pot roast back there.”

  I didn’t get the chance to take in much of the surroundings. It was dark but there were a few garden lights and a pool house by the side of a big manicured lawn. As we walked closer to the back of the house, I could hear laughter and smell home cooked food. My dad twisted and turned the handle on a replica stable door that led into a large family kitchen.

  “I see someone has made himself at home.” He laughed, ushering me in before him.

  I was greeted by Brody, perched upright, looking like a show dog about to do tricks, being fed by a pretty young girl.

  “Claudia,” my father said, exasperated.

  “What? He likes pot roast. He stole one like every other day in the mansion. This way, we’re sharing.”

  I smiled at her. “It wasn’t every other day… was it?” I asked. I hadn’t seen any of the footage that had been screened to the public.

  “Near enough… There was this one day when he stole Mellings’ lunch. This clever pup took that instead of the BBQ’s meat that had just been pulled from the grill.” She laughed, scruffing the fur under his jaw.

  “Brodes… no wonder that guy hated me,” I told him, squatting down to talk to my best pal. “Hey, I’m Kade,” I looked up at the girl who must have been my sister.

  “Claudia. Great to meet you. Dad was right. You do look like Noah. Poor you!”

  When I stood up, my father was leaning on his elbows on the kitchen counter next to us, watching our interaction with a wistful look on his face.

  “Clau-” a female voice started to shout from outside. “Oh, hello. I didn’t know you were here. I’m running late.” The gorgeous middle-aged woman who came crashing through a door into the kitchen was flustered. She was holding a shoe in one hand and a button-down sweater in the other.

  “Kade.” My father stepped forward, his nerves right on the edge for all to see. “This is my wife, Elizabeth.”

  I stood up and walked over to her with my hand extended. Her nerves appeared then, too, as she first tried to shake my hand using the one with the sweater and then swapped it for the other, forgetting she was still holding a shoe and balancing on one heeled foot. “Damn it, this is what happens when Noah gets home late from the rink. I’m the one who ends up not ready.”

  “Rink?”

  “Yeah, I play in defense for a local hockey team,” came another voice.

  My mirror image stood peering round his mom. Our similarities were unbelievable and only made more prominent by the fact that we were so close in age; we even had the same damn hipster hairstyle, now mine had been cut. The fact that he was interested in hockey was just too bizarre for words. I thought for one quick moment that we could have played against each other or together, but if I’d been faced with my doppelganger, I would have remembered.

  After Elizabeth finally found a hand to shake mine with, I extended it over to Noah straight away. I was keen to get the formal introductions out of the way.

  “I played center in college. The center was cool and always got the girls.”

  He returned my handshake, laughing. “From what Claudia has been banging on about these last few weeks, it seems you’re still an attraction for girls. So much you figured you’d move into a mansion with a whole boatload of them. Just how many pucks to the head did you take?”

  �
��A lot.” I chuckled, agreeing with him.

  By this time, Brody had had enough of what was probably only a starter dish in his eyes, and he padded over to sit in front of me, twisting and turning his head with confusion between my half brother and me. The dog’s mannerisms were comical. “I guess one of us needs to get a haircut, otherwise you’ll find yourself with a new sidekick,” I joked.

  The ice was well and truly broken. My father seemed more at ease, Claudia was happy to immerse herself into all the crap that went on in the mansion, and even though I’d hated it and what I’d become while I was Kade the Millionaire, it was endearing to hear how she and her friends were addicted to the show. Noah was more like me than I thought possible, or was I more like him? It was hard to tell, and given time, I believed we could become great friends. My dad attempted to fill me in on extended family members, but he’d quickly pull himself back, worrying that he was going too fast. None of us stood on ceremony and I can honestly say I felt welcomed.

  The dinner we ate was lovely and Brody was made to feel just as welcome as me, but no one really asked or spoke about anything that was too deep. Everyone was on their best behavior without being guarded, and even though I made a few jokes about things, I got the impression that everyone wanted this to work out.

  When my father, Claudia and Noah got up to help clear the plates from the table, I stood up and joined in, only to be told to sit back down. I knew that none of us could rush this but being made to feel like a guest wasn’t how I wanted this to end. The little orphan in me expected the fairytale of open arms and getting stuck in. With Brody and I left in the family dining room, surrounded by pictures of my siblings growing up, I felt a stab of pain in my chest over what I’d missed out on.

  I was taking a closer look at those pictures when Elizabeth came back into the room carrying a tray of coffees.

  “The rest of them are loading the dishwasher. I have my team well trained. You either cook or clean up in this platoon.”

  “Is…?” I began “No, forget it.” I was feeling unsure now that I was finally alone with the woman my mother and father betrayed.

  “Please talk to me, Kade. I have a feeling this is as weird for you as it is for me.”

  Elizabeth wasn’t posh or formal, even though they were well off and clearly not hurting for money. Her genuine approach was great, and she’d appeared in the room at the time when I was beginning to wonder whether I’d ever fit after such a long time. Together, they had learned the art of family support and surviving as a strong unit. Right now, the only person I had like that was Brody and he didn’t speak the same language as me.

  “How can you welcome me in your home, knowing I come from a time when your marriage was suffering?” I asked honestly, deciding to just throw it out there. If we weren’t straight with each other, this wouldn’t work.

  Elizabeth placed the tray down, grabbing a mug of coffee, and came to stand by me. We were both looking at a picture of Noah and Claudia hanging upside down from a supporting plank on treehouse that was still outside. Claudia’s hair was long, nearly brushing the grass, and Noah was wide armed, showing off how brave he was.

  “My marriage wasn’t just suffering. It was dying and all but over. Saying I was unbearable to be around is an understatement. I think that was what hurt Nicholas the most, especially after we’d been together so long. I fell pregnant with Noah and it knocked me sideways. I look back at that period of time with regret over so much, but I choose to focus on the good. Noah. I truly believe he saved me, and he definitely saved my marriage. I now learn that my savior came at the expense of your loss. Yin and Yang—for every action there’s a consequence.”

  I leaned over to the table and reached for a coffee.

  “Nicholas was upfront about his time with your mom, and I have to take some responsibility for making him feel so unhappy that he sought out friendship and clearly more with another woman. I reached out to him when I learned I was expecting, and we decided to give things another go. We had a lot of counseling and it was all put on the table, but it was important to leave that behind us so we could move forward together. I hate it when a child suffers for the sins of their parents. Besides, had the tables been turned, I’d want a good woman looking out for my two, no matter how long it took for them to find each other.”

  Should I have hated this woman? She could have been the thing that stood between my mom and dad being together and me having a happy and stable life. Had I been found by my dad when I was younger, I probably wouldn’t have been able to deal with this situation maturely. I would have always seen myself as the outsider. I had to be realistic. The only thing that made sense was what I knew—my mom would still have died from that horrible disease and I would have missed her every day. It was time to move forward with my life and start believing I wasn’t alone.

  “I hope we can be friends,” I told her.

  “Friends,” she said dismissively. “I’m not settling for friends. I want more than that and anyway, you’re years behind the other two in the parental embarrassment stakes.”

  Elizabeth hadn’t said she wanted to take the vacant slot left in my life by my mom, but it was heartwarming to know that someone wanted to care for me in that way. It didn’t matter how old you were; everyone loved knowing that someone had their back.

  “I reckon after what I’ve just done on TV in front of millions, I’m the one embarrassing you.”

  “Nonsense, it looked like spring break fun. Although, don’t tell Noah I said that. I gave him no peace during his first spring break. Your father and I did our level best to time our phone calls for the most inconvenient time. I think we had just as much fun as he did.” She winked.

  My father joined us then, rolling down his shirtsleeves. “My chores are done, oh slave driver,” he called, coming up behind us. “Oh, that picture… I used to tell those two all the time about acrobatics on the tree house. I think Claudia fractured her arm about a week after we took it. Then Noah told us his dream of playing pro ice hockey. I went straight into the office and invested in the city’s ER department. I figured we were about to get some good use out of it.”

  It was lovely to hear the normality in his voice. His nervousness about inviting me was getting less and less.

  “What’s your plan, Kade?” he asked me suddenly. The question came out of the blue. For years, I’d lived my life according to how I was going to survive the next mealtime without food or the next night without a bed, knowing the rain was coming.

  “I have to make amends with someone I didn’t treat very well, if I can find her. Then I need to find a place to live and consider some employment.”

  “Let me help?” my father urged.

  His offer felt awkward and I didn’t know how to refuse, but I knew I needed to. My second chance at life was mine and I wanted to do it on my own. I would rather have his emotional support than his financial backing and that wasn’t how I wanted this relationship to begin. “Thank you, but I need to do this alone.”

  “I understand you won’t take money, but there must be something I can do for you?”

  “Find the love of my life so I can apologize?” I replied.

  “Of course, I can,” my father replied, already reaching for his phone. “Who is it?”

  Forty-Six

  Kade Sutton

  Spending time with my dad and my new family for the last couple of weeks had been pretty awesome. Claudia and Noah gave me general sibling shit, joking around and punking me at any opportunity, while Elizabeth mothered me without the suffocation or sickly sweetness of someone trying to get me onside. Dad—whoa, it was strange calling him that for the first time I can tell you—well Dad was great. He didn’t pressure me into making any decisions about my future but listened when I told him what I’d like to do with the money I’d earned from the show. He advised me but didn’t preach and was generally a great dad.

  He did insist that I move into the house with them, just until I got myself a place but I decli
ned. While I wanted to get to know my family, it felt like too much too soon. He was disappointed but agreed and that’s when he offered me a small, furnished apartment that he used for visiting business clients. I offered to pay rent, but he wouldn’t hear of it. It was a pretty cool crib that he’d apologized for as he thought I should have something bigger. Like I told him, anything was better than cardboard and a blanket-or a mansion full of women.

  Dad also suggested that I get an agent/advisor just to help me with the press furor that was still going on. Lots of people wanted a piece of me, with interviews in magazines and on TV and radio being offered. Plus, a couple of men’s designers had approached me to be their next ‘face of’. I didn’t want to do any of it, but Rick, the guy I had temporarily hired to help me, suggested I do a couple of interviews to put my point of view across, and then retire gracefully from public life. Dad and Elizabeth wanted me to put a positive spin on the show: I’d found my family. After everything that they’d brought into my life, I was happy to oblige and said that in every interview. Dad had drawn the line at a family photoshoot, though, muttering something about us not being ‘the Partridge Family’, whoever the hell they were. Claudia sulked a little about that decision as she was desperate to be in a magazine, but I abided by Dad and Elizabeth’s wishes and declined on their behalf.

  Clint told me, on the day that I moved out of his apartment he’d got a new job working as a voiceover artist for a kid’s station. He was going to become the voice behind Mr. Dizzy Pants, a guy who travelled to different places just by shaking the legs of his pants. He insisted it was going to be the next big thing in kid’s shows. He also told me that there was still no sign of Daisy at the station offices. Her desk still had a box of her stuff on it, getting dustier by the day, and Meredith had threatened to throw it into the dumpster on more than one occasion. What I didn’t tell Clint, for fear of jinxing it, was that I knew where she was. My dad had employed a PI, John Carrington, who found out within two days where she lived and exactly where she had gone missing to. She was currently in London on the last leg of a European holiday with her parents. It had been real easy for him. He barely had to work for the money my dad had insisted on paying for him. When doing Daisy’s background check, he realized that he knew her brother, Heath, from his time as a State Trooper. John gave Heath a call and told him that he was working on behalf of the station. He said that Daisy hadn’t picked up her belongings and they were concerned about her whereabouts. Heath apparently gave him a real roasting, calling Meredith words that John wouldn’t repeat, and adding in a threat to my balls for good measure. However, during his rant, he thankfully gave up the vital information.