by Kat T. Masen
“You’d make a great manager, Milly. You’re organized, and you’d get to travel… not too shabby.” Phoebe winks.
“And you can be my assistant. We can tour the world together.” I laugh, the thought of us two doing such a thing seems ridiculous.
Phoebe giggles. “What about milk-boy over here?”
“That’s it, I’m done with you two. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to grab some beers and enjoy myself.”
With Flynn leaving the room, Phoebe throws in one more joke, standing in the doorway and yelling down the hall, “Drink up, she’s gonna milk you till the cows come… sorry, excuse me… cum home.”
We both burst out laughing, in stitches, barely able to catch a breath as we hold hands and exit the room.
As we walk down the hall, the conversation with Flynn replays in my head.
Think about what, I question in my thoughts.
How I supposedly broke him?
How I should easily forgive and forget?
Checkmate, buddy.
He hurt me more than I can ever have imagined a man could hurt me, and especially one who professes he loves me.
Love.
A word that holds so much depth and evokes an incredible amount of pain at just the mere thought of it. Although the pain runs deep and scarred me in ways which seem irreparable, I miss him like fucking crazy.
But that’s no reason to go back.
Not now, and not ever.
This time in my life is all about me.
And I’m going to make damn sure it stays that way.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Wesley
Bang. Bang. Bang.
My eyelids drooping and leaden with sleep, snap open, violently, the loud banging against the front door waking me up.
Several door chimes sound throughout the house, each pitch equally as annoying as the one that proceeds.
Who the fuck would be here in the middle of the night? It better not be Troy, the fucker got his payment last month.
My head is spinning and out of control, and I look over to my phone. The light is harsh, and I can barely make out the numbers. Five in the morning.
There’s an irritating snore beside me. I turn over, the mattress sinking yet the movement doesn’t wake her. Felicity, Farrah’s younger sister, is sprawled out across my bed, her naked torso laying on top of the white sheets.
She still has traces of coke on her chest, and the more I looked at Felicity, the greater she disgusts me.
Don’t remember her face.
Don’t remember the way she felt beneath you.
Remember she left you for him.
And that wound is fucking closed. I made sure of it.
I grab my pistol from my nightstand, throwing on my navy robe as I make my way to the door. The banging doesn’t stop, my name being called by someone familiar. The voice resonates, but I can’t seem to connect it to a face.
Turning the lights on, the glass doors leave nothing for anonymity. It’s Flynn, standing with a large duffel bag beside him.
“What the fuck are you doing here at this hour?”
He’s out of breath, panicked, and his hair wildly messy. I haven’t seen him for months, and the last time we spoke, he told me not to ask about her. He was pissed at me, and the small piece of information he did tell me was that she’s doing really well and traveling through Europe.
I know he’s hit it big, signed up by Platinum Records and currently world-touring. Hollywood agents were desperate to sign him up. Flynn Beats—his new stage name—is killing it in his career.
“You need to clean your shit up,” he barks.
I’m stunned at his forwardness, yet confused by my ‘shit’ needing to be cleaned up.
“What are you talking about?”
He bends down, reaching behind the duffel bag, and lifts a dark carrier by the handle. I stare, close my eyes, then open them again to finally figure out it’s a baby carrier.
“She’s yours.”
There’s a baby inside. Small, wrinkly, and wrapped in a white blanket. The baby looks like some alien from outer space.
What the hell did he just say to me?
“She’s yours.”
“She’s yours.”
“She’s yours.”
“Dude, are you fucking listening to me?”
Inside, my brain is a mess and refusing to compute the information. Closing my eyes, momentarily, I try to slowly process this information and ignore the heat trapped underneath my robe, causing me to hyperventilate.
There’s a baby—yes.
And Flynn is telling me it’s mine.
Not possible.
“I said, are you listening to me?” Flynn repeats, harshly.
“I’m listening,” I yell back. “But what the hell do you mean she’s mine?”
“Yours.” Flynn lowers his gaze toward the baby, quiet and non-responsive. Moments later, through a thickening voice, he explains, “Milly gave birth three weeks ago. The baby came early or something. I thought she was doing okay, but she’s just ran off. Came to visit me yesterday. It’s because Mom’s not doing the best, and it’s all fucked up.” He begins to sob, panicked and gasping for air. Watching a grown man brought to tears is enough to hold my attention, but I don’t know how to comfort him.
“If I don’t show up for Coachella today, I’m fucked. I can’t take care of this baby.”
It’s like someone switched on the information overload. My mind can’t keep up, spitting out random questions in order to piece together this fucked-up puzzle.
“What? What do you mean Milana is gone?”
“Gone. Exactly that. She wrote me a letter…” He grabs a scrunched-up paper from his pocket but doesn’t read it out loud. “Take care of her, please. I can’t cope… my sister… my mom… I don’t know how to take care of a baby.” He pushes the carrier into my chest, and with quick thinking, I grab onto the handle before he lets go. “What do you want me to do?”
“Just take her, I need to go. I’ll be back tonight, and we can talk more.”
I stare down at the baby again. My stomach is churning from the sheer panic of taking care of this baby that’s supposedly mine.
As he begins to walk away toward his car, I shout anxiously, “You can’t leave her with me!”
Flynn stops in his tracks, turning around to face me. “She’s your daughter, Wesley, not mine. There’s no greater love than that from your own father, trust me, I know. So, if you want to do something right for once, take her, now, when she needs you the most.”
He turns back, only for me to yell at him one more time. “Wait, what’s her name?”
Without turning around, he stops, posture slumped, and his head falling forward. “Katerina. She’s named after our mom.” The sadness lingers in his tone, and after a quick moment of silence between us, he walks to his car and drives off.
As soon as his car is out of sight, the baby begins to stir.
What the fuck do I do?
Okay, breathe.
Take her inside, that will be the first step. I grab the carrier and the bag beside her, a balancing act which has me almost dropping the carrier. Placing the carrier on the lounge, I sit beside it and gaze at her face.
I have no connection to this kid. I thought that when you have babies, you supposedly look at them and became overwhelmed with this love that’s impossible to explain.
My anger toward Milana overshadows this moment.
How the hell did she keep this from me?
We were careful, used protection most of the time. I recall her telling me, ‘She takes the pill religiously,’ and she ‘Has no interest in starting a family,’ Odd, yet I respected that decision at the time. I only brought it up occasionally because I thought that’s what all women wanted to hear, and keep her, I had to sacrifice a little, or a lot.
But this, this is fucking unbelievable.
And how could she abandon our kid?
What type of monster has she
become?
“Baby, where are you?” Felicity calls out, stumbling on the bottom step of the staircase and lunging forward to the floor. With a delirious cackle, she searches the area, locking eyes with me in the living room.
“Who the hell is that?”
I keep quiet. I need to process.
“Wesley… who is that?”
“Mine.”
“Yours? Is this some sort of sick joke? Let me see.”
Felicity moves closer, naked and barely able to compose herself. Armed with a look of disgust, she complains, “Jesus, Wesley, get rid of her. What a killjoy.”
This woman, an accessory to my over-indulging lifestyle, is the wake-up call I desperately need. A snippet of my life—what it has become and who I have become. The more she breathes in my space, the more I’m revolted by the person I’ve allowed myself to be.
This is exactly what Milana envisioned.
Why would she want me? A man who depended on pills, drugs, and anything that will erase the fucked-up life I built for myself.
I don’t know what comes over me, this protective beast who wants to unleash on Felicity. With a deliberate slow breath, my teeth clench upon saying, “Leave.”
Chuckling at what she thinks is a joke. “You want me to leave?”
“Get. The. Fuck. Out,” I bellow, almost lashing out. “Take your fucking dirty ass out of my house. Now.”
Crossing her arms to cover her fake tits, she huffs at my request. “You wouldn’t dare do this.”
This time, I laugh, foolishly. “Try me. Now get the fuck out.”
I remove my attention from her and back to the baby. She stirs, again, no doubt from our raised voices. I don’t have the nerve to remove her from the carrier but know I will need to, eventually.
Felicity shouts profanities into the room, dressed and with a bag in hand. I ignore her spiteful comments, welcoming the silence after she slams the door behind her.
Then, the panic sets in.
I’m alone with a baby who needs attention. As if she can read my thoughts, she begins to wail, only adding to my anxiety about having to lift her. The panic grips my throat, and with a mad rush, I run upstairs to grab my cell and call Em.
I’m talking, fast and incoherent. Trying to explain it all but not believing the words spilling out of my mouth.
“Slow down. You have what there?”
I take deep breaths, trying to calm the nervous energy and explain it again, slower.
“Wesley, I can’t believe it.” She sighs, loudly.
“Just get here. Please. The kid is crying, I don’t know what to do.”
“Pick the baby up, watch its head, and I’ll be there soon.”
She hangs up.
What does she mean watch its head?
Is it going to fall off?
Fuck, this is stressing me out.
I take more deep breaths, pushing aside the sickness settling in my stomach. I have seen this in movies, and I recall holding a baby once, maybe, years ago.
It takes me five minutes to get the goddamn seat belt off. After it finally unclasps, I try to figure out how to get my large hands under the baby and pull her out without her head falling off. Fuck, why is this so hard?
Sliding one hand under her head, and the other under her bottom, I pull her out, gently and slowly, holding her in the air because I don’t know how to bring her close to me without moving one hand.
What if I fucking drop her? Shit, don’t fucking drop her.
After many failed attempts and my poor judgment, almost dropping her, I ease her into my chest, which seems to calm her down until Em arrives.
“Did you know about this?” I question her, my voice low, shielding the baby from the noise.
Emerson remains silent, sitting beside me on the sofa. I can tell she rushed over here, her hair’s barely brushed, tied up and out of her face. She’s wearing baggy sweats, almost too baggy that I suspect they don’t belong to her.
“You fucking knew, and you didn’t tell me?”
She rolls her eyes, letting out a frustrated sigh at the same time. “I didn’t know, okay. But I suspected something was wrong. It’s unlike her to have zero contact. One minute she’s sending me emails telling me how much fun she’s having in Sweden, but her internet access was limited to communal computers or something, and the last I heard, she got this nasty virus on the plane ride home. I lost track of time with the filming of ours, Logan’s and my show, plus the launch for my homewares range.” Em’s face is riddled with confusion. “Her brother never breathed a word. Honestly, I thought she just went back to Liam, and maybe they got hitched.”
It hadn’t crossed my mind.
He hadn’t crossed my mind.
“What if it’s his?” I mumble, staring at the baby’s face.
She has no features to indicate she’s mine. There’s an Asian look about her, and that would be from Milana’s heritage.
“Wait… the timing is off,” Em says, counting numbers out loud that make no sense to me. “I don’t think Flynn would have brought her here if he didn’t believe you were her father.”
“Can’t I get that shit tested? I mean, fuck, what do I do now?”
“You be a daddy. Man the fuck up. We can start by ridding this place of the shit you’ve been snorting all night.”
Em disappears, and with the baby still quiet in my hands, I follow closely. Inside my room, Em looks around, recoiling with a disgusted expression, ripping the sheets off my bed and grabbing the small plastic baggie that sits on my nightstand, flushing it down the toilet.
“Emerson, fuck!”
“Don’t even try to justify it.” She points her finger at me, her face turning red as her eyes widen with anger. “You are it. You are her dad. Until Milana is found, you are all she has. You need to get help, you understand me? For good. Or you’ll fuck her up, too, and she doesn’t deserve this.”
Speechless, and with my mouth slightly open, Em’s words begin to resonate. I can’t fuck up this kid’s life. I went through hell growing up, and look how I turned out. Everyone’s Bad Boy. The guy who just can’t get his shit together and loses everyone he loves.
I need help.
I know this much.
“Stay, please,” I beg, desperately. “Just show me what I need to do with her.”
Em removes the baby from my arms, the sudden loss of contact satisfying yet odd at the same time. Watching her smile and coo at the baby, like a natural-born mother, makes me think about us. What we once had, what we could have been.
And although the thought brings me happiness, it doesn’t erase what my heart completely craves.
I simply need to find Milana.
“I’ll show you how to feed her, change her, and bathe her. But then, it’s all you. You understand?”
I nod my head, grateful that Em still cares enough to help me during my lowest time. And hopefully, care enough to help me find the woman I love.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Flynn never returned liked he promised.
Time’s lost on me. Minutes dragging on while I sit here in my own personal hell.
My thoughts become a broken record. Replaying the last eight, nine, or whatever the fuck it was, months in my head, trying to pinpoint exactly how I got here.
In the dead-silent room, I can hear her breathing—soft, almost like a flutter and eerily harmonious.
It’s dark, night has fallen, and the silence disappears as my cell vibrates against the glass coffee table. It’s Flynn.
“I can’t get out of here.” The noise is loud, people and music blaring through the speaker making it difficult to understand him. “Hold on, let me move somewhere quieter.”
Impatiently, I wait for him to talk, sitting on the sofa with the baby beside me. We have done this for most of the day—sitting, sleeping, drinking the formula that Em helped me prepare, three dumps and repeat. Oh, and one violent burp that results in puke all over my shirt.
I stink and am utterl
y exhausted. I haven’t had a single bite to eat. Each time I leave the room, it’s almost like she senses it, crying loudly until I cradle and rock her back to sleep. I manage to down several bottles of water, dehydrated and barely managing to stay still. The surge of adrenaline followed by withdrawals makes it difficult to think straight.
“Okay, I’m back. Look, I’m sorry… they want me here for the rest of the night.”
“Just tell me where she is,” I demand, curling my fist into a ball to curb my anger toward him. “I need to find her.”
“Wes, I seriously don’t know. In the letter, she told me she couldn’t raise the baby. She thought the baby needed love, and she couldn’t give it. She apologized and said she needed to be on her own for a while.”
With bated breath, I release, “She wouldn’t, you know, do anything. Would she?”
I had been there, standing on the ledge ready to end my life. I could almost see the fucker, his dark cloak draping over his face, luring me into his sweet hell.
The first night with Milana, when I took her to the cemetery, I wanted her to see the dark abyss I had found myself trapped in. She had to fucking save me from myself. So, I knew, first hand, how easily we fall into a dark place.
“Stop.” Flynn’s voice wavers. “She loves Mom too much. She wouldn’t want to inflict pain. She’s around, and knowing Milana, she’ll find her way back to Mom.”
Of course, I should have known that. If there is one thing that should have been clear as day, it’s Milana’s love for her mother. Something I can’t grasp.
Family. What the fuck is that again?
But then again, I know very little about her. I was a fucking fool to let her go. I wanted this perfect soul to guide me back and couldn’t fathom anyone needing me.
“I have to go. You can find her, Wes, she loves you. She’ll never admit it, but she never got over you. The baby was just… not planned. That’s what stopped her coming back to you.”
Flynn makes no sense. Babies bring people together, not distance them.
“Why would it stop her? If anything, it should have brought her back.”