Once Upon a Daddy: A Romance Anthology

by Kelli Callahan

  “I doubt it.” I chuckled under my breath. “I’ve been to their office a couple of times. I don’t think the website is actually profitable—the one in the UK is very popular, but they just seem to be going through the motions here. That’s probably why they gave a college student a column. I’m just providing free content.”

  “I guess it’s good experience.” Madeleine shrugged. “Maybe that will be worth something when you graduate.”

  “I hope so—otherwise I’m wasting my weekends for nothing.” I sighed. “Writing sports isn’t exactly my dream job.”

  Mr. Anderson was so impressed with my article that he sent it to NewsNow without a single edit on his part. He said he had never done that with an article written by a student. He even confessed that he had rewritten a few of them entirely because they were so bad. I thought he was just screwing with me when he said NewsNow wanted to give me my own column, but it wasn’t a joke. They had me come to their office, interview like it was a real job, and then I found out they weren’t going to actually pay me. Mr. Anderson convinced me to take the job and just treat it like an internship, so I did. I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but it was a start in the career field I chose—provided that there were opportunities that would eventually keep a roof over my head.

  A few hours later

  “Hey, let’s check out that boutique.” Madeleine pointed to the other side of the street. “I’m sure we can’t afford anything in there, but it will be fun to look around.”

  “You’re right—we can’t.” I nodded.

  That’s the same boutique Walker took me to—it feels like a lifetime ago.

  I followed Madeleine across the street, and we walked into the boutique. I had flashbacks to my time there with Walker. It probably should have pulled at my heart, but it actually brought a smile to my face. The memories I had of Walker were good, even if it ended badly. It was a learning experience—the moment my innocence was taken so that I could become a woman instead of a girl. He would always be my Daddy—and that part of me wouldn’t go away. There was just more to life than the lust that turned into true passion. I wouldn’t have known that if I never met him—or, maybe that lesson would have come at another time in my life. Either way, it was one I needed to learn. We finished up at the boutique, but we didn’t buy anything. It was still fun to see her eyes light up like mine did the first time I was there.

  “Oh no.” Madeleine reached out and grabbed my hand the moment we stepped out of the boutique.

  “What’s wrong?” My eyes followed her gaze—until I saw Walker on the opposite side of the street.

  “It’s—him. That woman with him. Isn’t that Abigail from Dangerous Thorns?” Her eyes followed them as they stepped in front of us.

  “Yeah, her name is Jasmine.” I nodded and immediately felt a flood of emotions that I had managed to bury for two months.

  “Are they a couple now? Does he already have a new girlfriend?” Madeleine’s tone stiffened.

  “No.” I shook my head back and forth. “That’s not the look he gives someone when he—wants them.”

  Walker and Jasmine stopped in front of a store that was directly in front of us. They looked through the large glass pane, and I realized too late that Walker was going to see me in the reflection. He did. His head tilted and then he spun around. Our eyes locked together—two gazes that were never supposed to meet again finding each other. He slowly lifted his arm and gave me a slightly wave. I did the same. I had been fine up until that moment. It was never easy, but I found a way to just put one foot in front of the other. Seeing him made my head spin and my knees got weak. Jasmine took his arm and tried to direct his attention towards something else. She didn’t see me. Maybe she would have let him stare longer if she had—or maybe she would have had choice words for the girl that broke her best friend’s heart. Then again—it was mutual. The light died in both of our eyes at the same time that night—he just had the courage to say the words before it happened.

  “Come on, Lauren. Let’s go.” Madeleine took my arm. “Unless you want to go over there…”

  “No.” I shook my head back and forth. “We’ve said all there is to say. The only thing left for us is memories.”

  At least most of those are good ones.

  I went through the motions for the rest of our shopping excursion. My heart just wasn’t in it anymore, but I did my best impression of the happy version of myself. When Madeleine and I made it back to our apartment, I had a good excuse to lock myself in my room since I still needed to work on my article. My heart wasn’t in that either, but I put my fingers to the keyboard and typed it out. I felt like the quality of my work for NewsNow was getting better, because they were giving me stories that actually mattered. A few of my columns had actually been featured on the front page of the website. My name was getting out there, if nothing else, but I really wanted to be able to write something with a little soul—something I was passionate about. I finished the article and heard a few gentle taps on my bedroom door.

  “Hey Lauren, do you still want to go out tonight?” Madeleine’s tone had a hint of worry. “It’s okay if you don’t.”

  “We can still go.” I put as much cheer in my voice as I could muster. “I’m not really in the mood to sit in my room all night.”

  A few drinks is exactly what I need right now.

  Madeleine’s second attempt to use her fake ID to get into a club was successful, and we were both able to get into the club that we chose. It was a little upscale and the drinks were very expensive. If I hadn’t seen Walker earlier that day, I probably would have been able to enjoy myself a lot more. All of the time I had spent putting him in the past might as well have been wasted once he looked at me. Breaking up was hard—losing someone I cared about was harder. It didn’t feel like a relationship that only lasted a few days. It felt like a part of my soul that found something it had been searching for my entire life. He would always be my first, so there was no way that I was ever going to be able to forget him, but it was time to start putting him in the past again—I didn’t have any other choice.

  “Hey, those two guys over there are looking at us.” Madeleine leaned over and nudged me. “Maybe they’ll buy us a drink or say hello.”

  “I just want to hang out with you tonight.” I looked down at my drink.

  “Too late. They’re coming over.” She smiled and turned to greet them when they got closer.

  The two guys invited us back to their table and Madeleine agreed before I had a chance to object. They were our age—well, they were the age we pretended to be when we walked into the bar with our fake IDs. One was a sandy haired, blue-eyed guy named Chad. He seemed to be very interested in Madeleine and it was mutual. The other was a dark haired, brown-eyed guy named Randall. He didn’t seem very interested, but he was polite—it was probably because I couldn’t hide my disinterest when he offered to buy me a drink. We just became the third and fourth wheel for Madeleine and Chad. Two hours later, it was clear that Madeleine had every intention of going home with him, while I just wanted to get out of the club. Chad rode with Randall, so Madeleine offered to drive him home—which meant I was going to need to find my own ride.

  Thank goodness for Uber.

  “Don’t wait up…” Madeleine squeezed my hand and grinned before Chad started trying to pull her away from the table.

  “Have fun.” I forced a smile.

  “I think they’re going to have a lot of fun.” Randall chuckled once they walked away from the table.

  “Yeah…” I nodded. “It was nice to meet you, Randall. I think I’m going to call an Uber.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” He scoffed. “I can drive you home.”

  “I appreciate it, but I’ll be okay.” I pushed my chair back and started to stand.

  Randall didn’t pursue me once I started walking towards the door. I stepped outside, called an Uber, and it pulled up to the curb five minutes later. I was happy for Madeleine
. I couldn’t really judge her for going home with a guy she met at a bar—I might not have done that the night I met Walker, but I called him the next day with the same thing on my mind that was on hers. Once I got back to my apartment, I changed into my pajamas and went to bed alone—just like I had every night since things ended with Walker. There were nights when I didn’t think about him once I was in bed, tossing and turning while I tried to go to sleep. Unfortunately, after seeing him again, he was the only thing I thought about. I would probably have several of those nights. Two months of healing had been wiped away in an instant when I saw him on the street.

  Maybe it won’t take as long to get him out of my head this time…

  One week later

  “Hey, I hope you don’t mind that I canceled our plans tonight.” Madeleine walked into the living room and sat down next to me. “ I didn’t expect Chad to actually ask me out on a date—I thought we were just going to meet at the club and have a few drinks.”

  “Nah, I’ll be fine.” I waved off her concern. “I’m not really in the mood to go out tonight anyway. Plus, I haven’t done much work on my article this week—I’ll probably be working on it all night.”

  That part was true. My fingers were going to be burning up the keyboard once she left. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to work on the article during the week, I had just been busy with other things—like the assignments I had to work on for my classes—and pausing randomly to think about Walker. I wondered if he ever did the same thing when he was alone. I doubted it. I was just another heart to add to the list of the ones he had broken because he couldn’t figure out who he really wanted to be. I was a fool to give him mine. I should have stuck with the original plan—one night to get him out of my system. Maybe that part was foolish too—and I should have just ignored him entirely.

  Too bad I can’t turn back the clock.

  The next morning

  Madeleine spent the night with Chad again. That wasn’t a surprise. She seemed hellbent on having every college experience possible before the end of freshman year. I already had my broken heart and she was working on her first. I doubted she would find eternal bliss with a guy who picked her up in a bar—I certainly didn’t. Waking up alone on Sunday wasn’t the worst part of my weekend—I still had to call my mother. I used to look forward to those calls, and I still did love to hear her voice, but there was the inevitable moment—the one that always came before our conversation was over—when she decided it was time fill me on everything that I missed on Dangerous Thorns.

  I would never be able to tell her why I didn’t care what Jamison Thorn was doing that week, so all I could do was try and employ enough selective hearing to make it seem like I was paying attention. I had gotten pretty good at that, but I knew it would be hard after seeing Walker again. There would always be something between us—a rope that tied us to each other—and I didn’t have a knife that was sharp enough to sever it. I stared at my phone for nearly twenty minutes before I finally dialed my mother’s number. She was happy and chipper. I pretended that my life was just overflowing with excitement. I talked about my article—my classes—anything to delay the inevitable shift in conversation, but eventually I ran out of things to say.

  “You’ll never believe what happened on Dangerous Thorns!” My mother’s voice got quiet, like she was about to tell me some kind of dark secret that only I was allowed to hear.

  “Oh?” I feigned interest, while mentally preparing to tune out.

  My mother recapped the entire week in a matter of minutes. Dean and Bianca were planning to get married—she decided that any man who would try to kill his father for her was the one she should be with. Jamison was planning to crash the wedding. Abigail was doing everything in her power to make sure he wasn’t successful. There were a few more minor storylines going on with characters I didn’t know—the new generation that they were hoping to build the show around at some point.

  All I could do was put enough inflection in my voice to convince my mother that I cared. There was no reason for my personal issues with Walker to ruin her love for her favorite soap opera. I was kind of relieved when the conversation shifted away from Dangerous Thorns, but there wasn’t much else to discuss, so we exchanged our normal I-love-you’s and I-miss-you’s before finally saying goodbye.

  One more week before I have to do this all over again. Hopefully, the shock from seeing Walker will have worn off some by then.

  Fifteen

  Walker

  Yesterday

  “Where did you go, Walker?” Jasmine looked over at me with concern on her face.

  “What are you talking about? I’ve been right here the whole time.” I gave her a confused glance.

  “Yeah, we were having fun looking in all of these shops—then you just spaced out and never came back.” She stopped in front of the Louis Vuitton store and peered into the window, but she was looking at my reflection instead of the merchandise.

  “It’s nothing.” I shook my head back and forth.

  Except it is—it’s everything.

  Jasmine didn’t see Lauren on the other side of the street, but I did. I wasn’t sure if it was really her at first, or just an illusion from my mind, showing me what I desperately needed to see. It had been two months since she walked out of my house after we spent one last night together—two months since she realized she was clinging to someone that didn’t deserve her—two months since I watched the light fade from her eyes. I felt like a coward. I should have chased her down before she ever left my house. I should have promised her the world in exchange for one more kiss. I should have never closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep when she leaned in to say goodbye. I replayed that morning in my head almost every single day, wishing that I would have made a different choice—but the rear-view mirror of life only showed me what I wanted to see. My reality was always a lot more complicated.

  “I don’t know if I’m in the mood for shopping today.” Jasmine shrugged her shoulders and sighed. “Obviously, whatever made you want to come downtown is no longer holding your interest.”

  “I’m sorry, Jasmine.” I closed my eyes for a moment. “I’m just not good company these days.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Let’s get a drink.” Jasmine motioned to a bar across the street.

  “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” I nodded and looked for a break in traffic so we could cross the road.

  Jasmine had been the best friend I could have ever asked for since things ended with Lauren. She gave me space to work through things on my own, but she always grabbed my hand before I fell into the darkness. Coming to terms with my mistakes had been hard. I was finally able to admit to myself, the person who actually needed to hear it, that my entire philosophy was bullshit. I wasn’t an actor who got absorbed with a part and let it take over my life. I was the man underneath it all the entire time. I just used Jamison Thorn as a mask that I wore to the masquerade of life. I could have taken that mask off anytime that I wanted, but I chose not to do it. It was easier to pretend someone else was doing all of the awful shit that put me where I was instead of accepting that I was the fool all along.

  They say knowledge is power, but in my case—knowledge is nothing more than a bitter pill to swallow.

  Two days later

  “Okay, gather round people.” Jacob motioned for the cast and crew to join him before we started filming on Monday.

  “Hopefully this isn’t another script rewrite. I actually spent time going over my lines yesterday.” Jasmine sighed when she walked up beside me. “I know you did the same—overachiever.”

  “I glanced at them.” I shrugged. “Jamison Thorn had crashed so many weddings that I have the speech memorized by now.”

  After Jacob decided not to kill of Jamison Thorn, we were back to the same repeated storylines that had been driving the ratings down for years. There was no originality left in Dangerous Thorns. Twenty years was a very long time and the family trees were so complicated that I coul
dn’t even keep track of them anymore. Truthfully, I had just lost my desire to keep going. My scenes lacked emotion. My character work was nonexistent. I simply didn’t care anymore. I never thought I would become that kind of actor. I thought I had too much respect for the character I played and the show that made me famous to give it anything less than my best. I hated feeling like a failure, but it wasn’t my failure as an actor that bothered me—it was the fact that I failed at life entirely.

  I’m sure I’ll shake this feeling eventually, but today isn’t the day—not after seeing Lauren again.

  Two days later

  “Walker, do you have a minute?” Jacob tapped on my dressing room door and pushed it open.

  “Sure, come on it.” I nodded and motioned to him. “I’m just sitting here trying to figure out why you rewrote the script for today’s episode.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He sat down across from me. “We might be going a different direction with the Bianca storyline.”

  “You’ve pretty much went in every direction possible already.” I raised an eyebrow. “First she’s with Dean, then she cheats on him with me, then she returns to Dean—now she doesn’t know what the fuck she wants.”

  “We’ve run into a slight complication. I know Sally wants to tell everyone herself—so pretend to be surprised when she announces it—but she’s pregnant.” A slight smile formed on the edge of his lips. “Which means we’re going to have to carry that over to her character.”

  “Christ…” I exhaled sharply, but it wasn’t because I was shocked she was pregnant—I just remembered what she offered to do in order to get a part in Spark 7.