Sticks (Black Addiction #2)

by T Gephart

  “Kenzie isn’t like that.” Lord knows she could have fucked me over a million times by now and hadn’t, there wasn’t a chance she was chasing dollar signs. “And we took a paternity test already. The baby is mine.” Not that I needed to justify myself to this asshole, but I was hoping if I answered his questions we could run this shit along and be done. I already didn’t like the guy, now we were moving into another territory of distrust.

  “Well that’s good. And what are your intentions regarding the child?” He asked like we were discussing what my plans were for the weekend.

  “Not really sure how any of this is your business, buddy.” No seriously, was he intentionally being a dick or was this usual demeanor because I still had no idea why the fuck I needed to be talking to this asshole and not doing something more productive, like talking to the fucking woman that I loved.

  Yeah. That.

  And wasn’t it just the fucking kicker that I had come to this realization when she was fucking miles away from me so I couldn’t tell her. Just another level of blow to add to my already shitty mood.

  “I’m the band’s lawyer, Joey, you’re paying me to make it my business.” He snapped like I was inconveniencing him. “Are you marrying her? Moving in together? Has child support been discussed? Visitation?” He fired questions at me like I was some kind of a suspect on a murder trial.

  “Dude, hold on, the kid isn’t even born yet.” And I still didn’t know why the hell we were even having this discussion. “We’re not married or living together at the moment, but that’s all going to change once I get off the road.”

  Or at least I hoped it would, Kenzie and I hadn’t had the talk yet but you could bet your ass it would be happening. Of course I wasn’t about to suggest either of those things when I was about to leave, was I? No, it had to wait and when I asked her to marry me again, this time it would be for the right reasons. The one that she had asked me about the first time I’d gotten down on one knee. Did I love her? Hells yes I did, and I didn’t want to be without her.

  Rich waited for me to continue, drumming his fingers on the desk, I guess needing a more detailed answer.

  “But we don’t need all that shit. We had agreed from the get-go that we were raising the baby together, it’s always been the plan and it’s not changing now.” Especially not once I got back and told her how I felt.

  “So shared physical custody?” He looked at me like those words should mean something to me.

  “Of course we’re sharing custody. I just told you we’re raising this baby together.” I shook my head wondering why this idiot hadn’t heard me the first time.

  “Okay, well good. I needed to know your intentions so I knew how best to proceed, and as you already have the paternity test it will make this a whole lot easier. If you can forward me the paperwork, I can make sure everything is in order on our end.” He started writing notes on his notepad while I tried to make sense of everything he had said. Nope, still just as clueless from when we started the conversation only now I had wasted a good twenty minutes of my day I wasn’t getting back in a hurry.

  “You just need the results?” I repeated like an idiot, barely catching the mention wading through all the shit that had come out of his mouth.

  “Well yes, that would be very helpful.” He nodded, making more notes. “I’ll take care of the rest of the paperwork so it’s all neat and tidy and you don’t have to worry.” He looked up from his notepad and gave me a smile. Now I really didn’t trust him.

  “Alrighty then, if we’re done, I’d like to get going.” I rubbed the back of my neck; glad I could end this fucking conversation and hopefully never have to deal with him again.

  “Yep, all done Joey. Enjoy the tour. If there are any foreseeable issues I’ll contact you but I think it’s all standard from here on out.” Another smile accompanied by a wave.

  “Great, goodbye.” I killed the Skype call and leaned back against my chair.

  Kenzie had told me our lawyers would want the paperwork from the paternity but I’d never bothered to file them. As far as I was concerned the only reason we’d taken the damn test was because she’d been so insistent. But if them having that piece of paper made them feel warm and fuzzy, and reassure them that Kenzie wasn’t a gold digger then what was the harm? And honestly, I didn’t give a shit what the asshole wanted as long as he left me the hell alone and did what we paid him for i.e. for us not to get screwed.

  “Hey, brother.” Max wandered in from his connecting hotel room. “What’s shaking, you look like shit.” He took a seat next to me on the couch without the invitation.

  “Nothing. Just wished Kenzie was here.” Did I sound as pathetic as I thought I did? Pity at this point I didn’t care.

  “So what did Rich want? Why the sudden urge to talk to you?”

  The request for the meeting hadn’t been private, in fact Angie and Rusty would probably be giving me the exact same what-the-hell the minute they saw me too. It wasn’t every day legal representation wanted a private meeting with a band’s drummer. Even more of a head-scratcher was why whatever he needed couldn’t wait until we got back to New York, of course now, I knew.

  “He heard through the grapevine Kenzie and I are going to be parents, guess he was pissed he didn’t get a personal announcement or something.” It still irked me that he needed to know in the first place. My business was my business, and no signing on dotted lines changed that.

  “So, he just wanted to confirm the news?” Max’s brows bunched as he tried to make sense of it.

  “No, he wanted to make sure Kenzie wasn’t going to use it to sue me or something. Asshole has no idea.”

  Even saying it to Max annoyed the hell out of me. Kenzie had never asked me for a thing, she barely let me pay for the doctor’s stuff and she hadn’t even touched the account I’d set up for her. Not that I expected her to go nuts and hit the mall, but I would have thought she might have caved once I was gone. Nope, not a fucking dime had been withdrawn and I assumed that was the way it was going to stay.

  “Did you tell him she wasn’t like that?” Max was definitely on Team Kenzie; knowing her almost as well as I did. “Jesus, she’s the last person on earth who’d sue your ass.”

  “Yeah, I told him. Hopefully now it’s all a big non-issue.” I waved him off; already annoyed Rich had taken up too much of my brain space today. “Besides, I’ve got bigger problems. GI Joe gets back soon and he’ll probably be bringing with him a shitload of judgment. I don’t give a fuck what he thinks of me, but I don’t need Kenzie dealing with all of that.”

  From what she’d said he was getting in today or tomorrow at the latest and I bet the minute his combat boots hit the ground he would be heading right for his sister. The fucking honeymoon was over and there was so much shit flying from every direction, I had to fight the urge not to toss this whole tour aside and go do what my instinct was screaming at me to do.

  Of course if I did take my ball and go home I would be fucking over three of the most amazing people in my life. My friends. My family. Here’s a rock, here’s a hard place and here I am wedged between both of them.

  “She’s stronger than you think, Joe.” Max thumped his hand on my shoulder. “If she says she’s got it, you got to trust her on that.”

  He just didn’t get it.

  Kenzie was one of the strongest chicks I knew.

  A fucking gladiator.

  She could deal with any situation without even batting an eye, even my shenanigans. So when she told me she missed me and wished that I could hold her, it broke my fucking heart. Because she’d never asked me for anything, and the one time she did, it was something I couldn’t give her.

  “It’s not about not trusting her, it’s about me wanting to do anything I can to make it easier for her. Dude, I love her. And believe me that it fucking cuts me deep that I’m saying those words to you instead of her. I’m completely gone, she owns me. And every day that I don’t tell her is killing me.”

 
It didn’t get more real than that, and I could tell by the look on Max’s face he knew I wasn’t playing.

  I don’t think I’d ever told a girl I’d loved her. I loved her ass, I loved her rack, I loved the way she sucked dick—but never an I love you. So his wide-eyed oh-shit expression was perfectly justifiable given the circumstances.

  “Pick up a phone and do it.” He grabbed my cell from the side table and handed it to me. “Alexander Bell did the hard yards, all you have to do is dial.”

  “She’s worth more than that.” I tossed the phone onto the couch beside me. “I want to be able to see her face when I say those words to her. I want to be able to hold her so she knows I mean it. I’m not giving her a half-assed effort.”

  She was going to get more than that. I promised her every single night before I closed my eyes, pity none of those times she’d been around to hear.

  “We’ve got solid dates for the next two weeks. No breaks between shows. If I can just hold out until then, I’ll fly to her and tell her. I don’t care if I only get to see her for two days, I’ll do it. I just need to get through.”

  Two weeks. It should be a blink of an eye in the scheme of things but I was going to curse every single grain of sand that was going to have to pass through the hourglass.

  “Okay, Joey. You know what’s best but if I was you, I wouldn’t be waiting.” Max didn’t agree with my need to wait but he wasn’t going to ride me either. He never did which is why things with us were always cool.

  “Hey, when we get back.” I took a swallow before continuing. “I’m going to move out. I want to get a place with Kenzie, something new for the both of us. I don’t want either of us to be fighting ghosts of past relationships in our space.”

  “Yeah, I totally understand.” Max nodded. “And I think it might be time I get something a little closer to the city. It will be nice to get a clean break.”

  The two of us had lived in that same house since we were eighteen. We’d pay the rent and the bills and then spend the rest on beer, sometimes food. First few months we’d lived there, we’d had a mattress each on the floor—no box spring, and a couple of lounge chairs in the living room. Max’s parents had hooked us up with a refrigerator and television, which summed up pretty much all our worldly possessions. It was a much different story now.

  “You with me, brother?” Max punched me in the arm, my zoning out catching his attention.

  “Yeah, just thinking about shit when we were younger. I swear living in that house with you, I thought it was the best time of my life.”

  “It was good times, my friend. Some of the best.” Max smiled, the reminiscing probably conjuring some happy times in his own melon.

  The band, Kenzie and the baby. It was a hat trick I wasn’t sure I deserved, but I sure as hell wasn’t handing it back.

  “I’m thinking while those times were awesome, the best is yet to come.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

  “I can’t believe you were so stupid, Kenzie. Really?”

  Brandon was home from his deployment. He hadn’t even gone and seen our parents yet, instead landed on my doorstep and gone off the deep end. For twenty minutes he’d been giving me varying degrees of his disappointment, mixing it up once in awhile by making threats against Joey. Of course that meant I had been yelling too, which made for an interesting conversation.

  “I’m not fifteen, I’m twenty-five. Lots of people have children at my age, you’re making it sound like it can’t be done.”

  I was tired and if it hadn’t been my brother—someone who I knew loved me deeply—then I wouldn’t have bothered justifying myself. He’d hated almost every boyfriend I’d ever had. As far as he was concerned, no man would ever be good enough.

  “If everyone was jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you be doing that too? Kenzie, I know I’m hard on you but it’s only because I love you. When Mom and Dad told me about this I freaked out.” He paced in my kitchen, his feet threatening to wear a hole through my linoleum.

  “I know you are trying to protect your little sister, but I’m not a kid anymore and I don’t need protecting. Not from Joey anyway.”

  Brandon had been gone a lot when I was in my teens; he’d joined the Air Force straight out of high school and dutifully went wherever the US Government sent him. My dad had a mild heart attack right before he was due to reenlist, which is why he switched to the Guard, so he could be home more. And while I loved having my brother around, he ran his life like a military operation. I, on the other hand, did not.

  “Sis, he’s not even here. He left you alone. How do you know what the hell he is doing out there? He could have a different girl in every city and meanwhile you’re here pregnant with his kid.” He gave me every possible worst-case scenario because obviously I wasn’t capable of thinking them up all by myself. That was sarcasm in case you didn’t catch it.

  “Would you stop?” I shook my head trying to remember if my brother had always been this high strung. “I trust him, okay. I don’t believe he would cheat on me just because I’m not there. Besides, he could just as easily cheat on me here if he wanted to; I’m not with him twenty-four hours a day. I love him. We’re having this baby together.”

  Now I had come to the realization I couldn’t stop saying I loved him, unfortunately I still hadn’t said it to him. That was going to change though. I didn’t care if it was on the phone or via carrier pigeon—I was telling him. The longer I kept it down the edgier it made me, and if he happened to not feel the same way, then at least I’d know. Not that it was a real concern. He must have those feelings; there was no way this could be one sided.

  “And does he love you?” Brandon tossed in, bringing up doubts if I’d had any. “Has he said what he wants to happen after the tour? Is he going to stick around? Or is he going to go live the highlife in a big-ass house while you are at home raising a child.”

  I couldn’t help it. My voice rose as I waved my arms like a lunatic wondering what it was going to take for him to see that this was the real deal. That we were two people in love and that maybe it wasn’t a typical situation, but we weren’t typical people.

  “We’re going to be together. We haven’t worked out everything yet but we’ll be together. I’m sure we’ll move in together. Maybe we might even get married.”

  I was purely speculating but I assumed we’d move in together. Joey hadn’t asked, but neither had I. And while previously I had completely shot down his idea of getting married, it wasn’t something I would immediately discount. I mean, maybe it could work. No, it would work. We would be happy and if I was going to marry anyone it would be him. It was just my stupid insecurities coming to play, because even if we hadn’t talked about this stuff, I knew he loved me and the baby. He would want to be with us.

  “Kenz, I just don’t want you getting hurt. That’s all. I know you said you don’t need protecting, but those habits die hard.” He stopped pacing and looked at me, it was hard for him to accept I no longer needed him to chase the boogieman out of my closet.

  “And I love you for it, but please. Back off.”

  He opened his mouth to continue when my phone started to buzz, my screen lighting up like a Christmas tree with a number I didn’t recognize. It was local, the number displaying a New York area code.

  “Hello?” I pressed my phone to my ear fully expecting some random wrong number.

  “Hello, is this Ms. Kenzie Clark? My Name is Rich Steer, I’m Black Addiction’s attorney.”

  The mention of Black Addiction immediately made me panic. What if something happened to them on the road? When was the last time I spoke to Joey? I tried not to hyperventilate as I answered the man who’d been patiently waiting for me to respond.

  “Yes, I’m Kenzie. Is everything okay with Joey and the band?”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” he assured me with a smooth laugh. “I just spoke to Joey yesterday actually. He was kind enough to send me a copy of your paternity results.”

>   “Oh? He did that? Oh, okay then.”

  What? Paternity results? We had those results weeks ago and he had been in no hurry to file them. If it hadn’t been for my insistence he wouldn’t have even bothered with the test in the first place, happy to take my word. So why this was all an issue now was beyond me.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Clark, does that surprise you?” The lawyer—I couldn’t remember his name—probed like I was somehow on the stand. He might sound polite but I could tell it was an act.

  “No, I mean I told him he should. I just didn’t think he’d done it, that’s all.” Or he hadn’t mentioned it to me and I assumed he would. I also assumed that if he hadn’t done anything with them at this point, he probably wasn’t going to. It seemed a weird thing to do while he was on tour.

  “Good, I’m glad we’re all on the same page.” His assurance made my skin crawl. “I assume you have your own representation?”

  Hold on. What was happening here? How had this conversation moved from paternity to him questioning me?

  “What do you mean, my own representation? Why do I need a lawyer? I’m not suing him for support.” I immediately got defensive.

  “No ma’am, he mentioned you weren’t.” He slithered about politely but I knew it was to buy time. “But we’ll be filing for joint custody for the child after the birth, so you’ll need someone to represent you for those proceedings.” He waited to let it all sink in. “I can recommend someone if you like? As you both seem to have the best interest of the child at heart, it shouldn’t take very long at all. I expect you aren’t going to contest his right to custody?”

  It was as if the air was pushed out from my lungs and no matter how hard I tried, they wouldn’t expand. The heat flooded me in a light-headed rush and suddenly I had to grab a hold of the kitchen counter in front of me just to stay vertical.