“She’s my daughter.”
“And I love you.”
Silence.
“You’re crazy.” He wrapped his arms around me. Kissed the top of my head. “But I’m grateful for you.”
I looked past his chest and arm at the racks of clothing. “Titus?”
“Hmmm?”
“We should look at houses.”
“Good thing we know a good realtor.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, good thing.”
Another silence.
“Laur?”
“Hmmm?”
“We should probably christen this room. You know. Just for, like, symbolical purposes.”
I cackled. “You would think that.” I rubbed his chest. “You know, when we had sex in my room—our room, I mean—last night? That’s the first time I’ve had sex in this house.”
He went still. “Really?”
I nodded. “I’ve never brought anyone here. It’s my personal, private, safe space. My girlfriends are the only ones who’ve ever even been in here, until you.”
“Then we really should christen the place properly.”
I shoved at him. “We have to make room for Isabela. It’ll take a few weeks even if we found a place tomorrow.”
He laughed. “You forget who I am, and the power of a check for the full asking amount.” A squeeze of his hands around my waist. “She’s going to be going through enough adjustments. I don’t want to have her start to get settled here and then move.”
“You just bought a house for Jeremy and Bex.”
“Laurel. I’m one of the top-earning musicians of all time, babe. And I spend fuckin’ shit all. I don’t think you get it. I do my best to live like not much has changed since I started playing, because some of the guys I came up with got big ol’ heads and started accumulating houses all over the place and garages full of supercars and they trade up wives like they’re fuckin’ interchangeable, and I do not want to be that fuckin’ guy. I’m a simple man, babe, and I like to live a simple life.”
“Oh, that’s rich.”
“What? I play music, and until you, that was it. I didn’t have much else to live for. Now I got you—and Isabela.” A huff. “My point is, I got cash out the ass. I don’t spend. I invest, and I save, and I put it all back into my shows. I could buy a fuckin’ neighborhood in Bel Air, babe. No shit.”
“So you want to just…go buy a house. Bam, just like that.”
“Yeah. Tell Mena we need some time to adjust things, go find a place, and hire a company to fill it with furniture. I mean, the shit you got here, are you attached to it, sentimentally?”
I moaned a laugh. “Not really. I bought it all to match the house.”
“Right. So we rent this place out as fully furnished. Pack our shit, pick a house, fill it up. We can get it done in a fuckin’ weekend.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I am not.”
“It takes weeks, months, to choose a house. Longer, to close and all that.”
“Again, need I remind you of the deal you yourself worked out, for Jeremy and Bex? How long did that take?”
I blew a raspberry. “Shut up.”
“You pick.”
“What? Pick what?”
“The house. The furniture. The decorations.” He touched my chin. “Blank check, babe. Make us a home.”
“You don’t care?”
“Not that I don’t care, more that I trust your judgment over my own. I’ve never had a home. Wherever you are is home. I’ve been a fuckin’ vagabond my whole life. What the shit do I know about houses and which couch to fuckin’ pick, and which fuckin’ knickknack to put on the little fuckin’ shelves and shit? I know shit all. I know music. And I know I love you, and I trust your judgment.”
I laughed. “I think you maybe should have squeezed one more F-bomb in there, babe,” I teased. Something occurred to me, then. “You know, I don’t think you need to try to impress Isabela. That’s not what she needs.”
He held his silence a moment. “I know. Maybe I am trying, a little bit. But, am I wrong? About any of this.”
“No,” I said with a sigh. “No, you’re not. We need more space. And it would be better for Isabela to have stability from the get-go.”
“I’ll call Mena, see if she can buy us a few days.” A sigh. “I don’t like it—I really, really don’t. But if she comes here and then we move again, I’m just worried it’ll mess her up even more. I don’t know.”
“Should we have Isabela help us pick?”
He nodded. “Good point.”
He dialed Mena’s cell number from the card she’d given us, and spent a few minutes on the phone with her, explaining his thinking and working out details.
When all was settled, he handed me my phone back. “Let’s go buy a house.”
14
I expected Lizzy at the house we’d picked, and possibly Teddy. What I didn’t expect was everyone.
And by everyone, I mean Braun and Seven as well as the girls.
With a good half dozen box trucks—all the girls had called in favors from every staging company and home goods store they knew, as well as all the little boutiques we collected from across the LA metroplex area.
The home we’d chosen would have shocked me, if the me from six months ago could see me now. I’d assumed I’d never own a place as expensive as the one I grew up in. I’d assumed I’d always be alone, so why would I ever want to spend stupid amounts of money on square footage I’d just be alone in? I’d assumed so many things about myself, about my future, and every single one of them was wrong, it was turning out.
Four bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms. Five thousand square feet on two and a half acres, in Malibu, overlooking the ocean—but well back from any danger of erosion, in our lifetime at least.
Twenty million dollars.
He’d paid cash.
It had required some speedy creative asset juggling on Jeremy’s part, apparently, but it had gotten done in what surely was record time—but then, at that financial level, things just worked differently. You got what you wanted, when you wanted it, how you wanted it. The house was vacant, having been a spare West Coast pad for some richer-than-god celeb, so we got keys within forty-eight hours of seeing it. The staging had been moved out this morning, a cleaning crew had spent a whirlwind few hours scrubbing the shit out of it, and now my crew and I were ready to descend like reverse piranhas.
Funny how things came together when you knew the right people and had an unlimited amount of money to throw at a problem.
In the intervening two days since we’d been blindsided with this whole situation, Titus and I had made sure to spend a couple hours each afternoon with Isabela. The first afternoon, we took her to get ice cream and to play at a park; the poor girl had just sat beside us, eating her cone and looking morose. The second afternoon, we’d just brought her to our now-packed up house and sat with her, let her watch TV. That had gone better; she was still largely unresponsive, however.
Mena assured us that was completely normal, and to just be there, to let her have space.
Dr. Hines had made several recommendations, including that I continue to meet with her regularly—the other recommendations had been for a therapist for Isabela, as well as a family specialist to help the three of us learn how to build a healthy foundation.
I considered all this as we slid up to the new house in Titus’s truck.
It was a lot. But I was lucky—I had all the support I could possibly want or need, and then some.
Titus, driving, glanced at me over Isabela’s head—his truck only had the bench, and we’d talked about needing a more family-oriented car but hadn’t gotten around to that just yet. We’d been kinda busy, after all, and it did have a lap belt for her.
“You good?” he murmured.
I laughed. “Yeah, I’m good.”
To Isabela, then. “Yo, Is. You good?”
She gave him a funny look. “Is?”
�
�Too soon for nicknames?”
She nodded seriously. “Yes.”
A laugh. “Okay, then. Just Isabela.” A pause. “So, you ready to see our new house?”
“Why did you get a new house?”
“The other one was too small.”
She looked at me. “Is it because you had too much stuff?”
Titus choked on a laugh, and I shot him a glare. “You know what, sweetie? That’s exactly the reason. I just had too much stuff, so we figured, we might as well get a new one so we have plenty of room.”
A thoughtful pause; we were sitting in the driveway in front of the garage while everyone else waited for us.
“Do I have to go back to my old kindergarten?”
Titus eyed her. “Um, well?”
“Do you want to?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Nuh-uh. Mrs. Waller was mean, and Jenny Alitz was a poop.” She glanced at Titus as if to gauge his reaction to her potty mouth language.
“Jenny Alitz was a poop, huh?” he asked, stifling a smirk.
“Yeah. She stole my crayons, and then when I asked for ’em back, she pulled my hair. And then when I got mad and pulled hers back, I got in trouble.”
“That is pretty poopy,” he agreed. “Well, this is pretty far from where I gather you lived with, um…where you last lived, so it would probably be best if you started at a new school. But you kinda just started the year, didn’t you?”
She shrugged. “I guess. I dunno”
“So you’d be okay with a new school?” Titus asked.
“Yeah. As long as Jenny Alitz isn’t there. She used to be my best friend. But then we got into a fight about if Elsa was better than Rapunzel, and I said Elsa was better and she said Rapunzel was better just because Jenny had blond hair that was almost as long as Rapunzel’s, but Rapunzel doesn’t even have any powers no more cause her hair got cut off.”
Titus was blinking at me over her head, having not a clue what she was even talking about. I just laughed.
“How about we go in and look around?” I suggested. “We can figure out schools later.”
“Okay.”
“But for the record?” I nudged her with my elbow. “Elsa is totally my favorite.”
She smiled at me, and while I could wish earning her acceptance would be that simple, I knew better. It was a start, though.
We all exited the truck, Isabela opting to slide my way; she hesitated at the edge of the seat, since the truck was lifted and on oversized tires with no step. Her eyes met mine, and I knew she was debating whether she felt comfortable enough with me to ask me to lift her down.
I held out my hands to her. “It’s a pretty long drop, huh? You think Titus should put a step on here for us short folks?”
Isabela just nodded and extended her arms to me, allowing me to lift her down. I was met with a barrage of hugs from the girls, with awkward glances at Titus, and adoring, sympathetic looks at Isabela.
Kat was the first to approach Isabela. She knelt down in front of the child and gazed at her seriously. “My name is Kat. I know exactly what you’re going through,” she said, her voice low and serious, as if she was speaking to an adult rather than a child. “I want you to know that there’s no wrong way to feel. It’s okay to be angry, even at your mom. I know people don’t always know how to talk about this stuff, especially with kids. Just know this, honey—you’re going to be okay. You won’t forget her. No one can replace her, and no one is trying to. Everything is a lot right now, and it’s confusing, and it’s hard, and you’re feeling so much that you don’t know what to feel. And that’s okay.”
Isabela regarded Kat with serious, understanding dark eyes. “Your mommy died, too?”
Kat swallowed hard. “Yeah, she did. I was about your age. There was a car accident and—and I was okay, but my mom wasn’t. I didn’t have a dad, or anyone.”
Isabela glanced up at Titus, beside her, then at me on the other side. “So where did you go?”
“Foster homes.”
“What’s that?”
A slow breath. “It’s like…temporary adoption. Do you know what adoption is?”
A nod of her head. “When a kid doesn’t got any mommy or daddy and so a new mommy and daddy take them home and they make a new family.”
“Right. Foster parents are like that, but it’s not forever, just for a little while.”
“I don’t think I’d like that very much.”
“No, I don’t think you would. I didn’t, I know that much. Looking back, I’m grateful I had somewhere to go, but—” She stopped herself, pain in her eyes speaking of things a six-year-old didn’t need to know about. “Um. Yeah, I’m thankful I had somewhere to live. But you, honey—you’re super lucky because you have Titus and Laurel. And they are forever, and Titus is your real dad. So that’s pretty awesome. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, though.”
Isabela looked past Kat to the house, and then the group of adults gathered in a cluster behind Kat—Lizzy with Sabrina, who was just past a year old, now, Braun beside her; Autumn with Seven, Teddy, and Zoe. Then, back up to Titus. “Who is everyone? Are they all your sisters or something?”
Titus laughed. “No, they’re…well, I guess sort of? They’re all Laurel’s friends.”
“Sisters works,” I said, looking around at everyone. “Sisters from different misters, and they’re your friends too, buster.” I looked down at Isabella. “Look at them as aunts and uncles.”
Isabela frowned thoughtfully. “I never had none of those.”
Kat booped her on the nose. “Well, honey, we’re gonna have a lot of fun.” She slung her purse around to rest it on her knee and rummaged in it, coming up with a full-size candy bar. “Let’s start by spoiling your dinner.”
Isabela looked at Titus and then me, then back to Kat. “I can have the whole thing?”
Titus just shrugged. “Go for it, kiddo. Chocolate solves a vast majority of problems, at least temporarily.”
“Let’s go pick out your room, huh?” I said, smiling my thanks at Kat.
We’d all known Kat had had a difficult childhood, but like most of us regarding our pasts, she’d been pretty sparse with the particulars. I’d known she’d grown up in the foster system, and that some of the places hadn’t been great, but I hadn’t ever gotten the story of how she’d been orphaned. Judging by the look in the eyes of everyone else, it didn’t seem like anyone else had known, either.
We all trooped in, Isabela happily devouring the candy bar and not really paying attention to much except the feet of the person in front of her.
The front door was a massive, arched piece of dark wood with black straps at the hinges, and a black wrought iron handle and lion’s head knocker—the exterior of the house was white stucco, the architecture firmly Spanish Mission style. Within, the floors were Spanish mosaic tile, blues and greens and yellows in swirling arabesque patterns. White walls and high white ceilings held up by thick dark beams. There was a study off the entrance and a full library on the opposite side, a wide staircase with dark steps and wrought iron spindles, and a handrail to match the steps; beyond the staircase, a short hallway with a powder room led to the open plan kitchen and living room. The entire back wall was glass, doors that accordioned open, to each corner creating an indoor-outdoor living space, with the outdoor being a secondary kitchen and dining room under a dark wood pergola wreathed in climbing flowers and ivy, providing shade. Beyond the outdoor living area, a rectangular infinity pool overlooking a magnificent view of the ocean, with the pool surrounded by carpet-like grass woven through with a path of round paver stones leading to a spreading oak tree with a park bench underneath it.
Isabela looked around, taking everything in with wide eyes, now holding on to the empty wrapper. “This is where I’m going to live?”
“We all will,” Titus said. “You, Laurel, and me.” He knelt in front of her. Held her gaze. “How does that sound?”
“It’s so big. And so fancy.”
Titus smiled, gentle and caring. “Does it seem like somewhere you could be at home?”
A little shrug. “I guess.”
“It’s pretty different from where you lived before, huh?”
A slow, shallow, slight nod. “That house where Ms. Mena brought me over, it was like that.”
Titus frowned. “You’d think for ten grand a month, she’d have been able to afford something nicer.” This was more to himself than to Isabela.
“Mommy told me you sent us a bunch of money every month, but she didn’t want to spend it, so she put it all in a account to save it for when I got older.” A pause, filled with sadness. “Sometimes, she would tell me she had too much month left at the end of the money, and she’d tell me she needed to borrow from me. She said it was my money, not hers.”
Titus sighed, standing up. “I’ll have to look into that. But I didn’t—”
I squeezed his hand. “Maybe we should talk to Mena about some of this. For right now, let’s go up and look at the bedrooms.”
Lizzy caught my attention. “So, we have enough stuff for, like, three houses, and I mean that very literally. So you’ll have enough to choose from so you can make this place look and feel amazing.” She looked around. “Quite a place.”
I was feeling very overwhelmed by everything, and thus emotional. “Thank you, Lizzy.”
She frowned at me playfully. “Hey now, Ice Queen. Don’t go getting all misty-eyed on me.”
I shoved at her. “I think the Ice Queen has thawed out. Or started to.” I breathed out slowly, shakily. “I’m just so thankful for you guys. I don’t know that I could do this without you.”
She pulled me into a hug—a rarity for us, since neither of us was typically affectionate with each other. “You don’t have to find out. We’re here. That little girl is going to get a lot of love.”
She gestured at Titus, who had taken Isabela by the hand and was leading her toward the staircase, asking her how she felt about rock music, and had she ever considered playing the drums. It was such an odd, touching sight—the tall, lean, tattooed, pierced rock star dressed in ripped blue jeans, and the slight little girl wearing a pink sundress and blue jelly sandals. Holding hands, her little face tilted way, way up to look at him, her little voice chattering, his deeper one growling answers.
Laurel's Bright Idea (Billionaire Baby Club Book 3) Page 23