I hang up with Sylvie and call Leeyan. She answers on the third ring.
“Before you say anything,” she starts. “Lulu is fine. She’s sleeping right next to me.”
My pulse goes from zero to a hundred.
“Where are you?”
She sighs, and I hear a bed creak. “Hold on.”
I wait for her to return and contemplate telling the cab driver to pull over in case she’s in the other direction.
“I don’t want to wake up Lulu. It took forever to get her to sleep,” Leeyan complains.
“Yeah, because she can’t fall asleep in strange places.” That means Leeyan isn’t at her apartment. She doesn’t have any friends so that only leaves a hotel.
“It isn’t healthy for her. What happens when you go on vacation?” Leeyan has no clue what healthy is.
“We don’t go on vacation,” I snap.
“Why not?”
“Because that takes money!” I feel like calling her a dumb bitch, but I keep the words to myself. I swore I’d only speak to women the way I want a man to talk to my daughter. Leeyan is making that promise impossible to keep. “Just tell me where you are, and I’ll come get her.”
“I can’t do that,” Leeyan states. “Since we don’t have a custody agreement, I have every right to take my daughter.”
Anger swells inside of me like a volcano about to erupt. I hate metaphors, but fuck me, that’s what it feels like when words start rushing from my mouth. I explode.
The cab driver pulls over three blocks from my apartment and kicks me out of the cab. I toss him a handful of money and slam the door.
“I want my fucking daughter, you bitch! Tell me where you are!”
“If you keep yelling, I will hang up,” Leeyan threatens. “Can we have a mature conversation?”
I run to my building and burst through the door. Sylvie runs into the hall from my room with Reese in her arms. When she sees my face, she starts crying.
“Where are you, Leeyan?” I drop my bag and take Sylvie in my arm. “I won’t ask again.”
“I already told you, we’re safe.”
“You’re safe?” I mock. “As if you weren’t safe before?” I back away from Sylvie in case I erupt again. I don’t want to scare Reese. “I don’t care if we don’t have a custody agreement—you can’t take a child from her home and withhold your location.”
“Theo, please don’t try to quote the law.” I can picture her condescending smirk as I punch the wall.
Sylvie jumps back as plaster falls to the floor.
“How about I call the cops, and we ask them about the law.” I walk to the front of the apartment as Reese starts to cry.
“I’m at an Air BNB in Potrero Hill.”
Part of me sighs in relief that she’s still in the city. “Why are you doing this?”
Leeyan is quiet for a long time, and I wonder if she even realizes what this means.
“I want a chance to be her mother.”
I look into Lulu’s empty bedroom. If my daughter were sleeping beneath her pink elephant comforter right now, I’d tell Leeyan she blew it. She had a chance to be a mother, and she chose to be a soldier. I can’t say those things now. I have to lie and tell Leeyan there’s still time. I have to say Lulu needs her.
“Every day you spend with Lulu brings you closer. Lulu loves you.”
“We were at the café today, and a bird flew inside. Instead of saying ‘Mommy, look at the bird,’ she yelled my name.” Leeyan is getting choked up. “I asked her why she didn’t call me Mommy, and you know what she said?”
“No.”
“She said, ‘I didn’t think you’d answer.’ What does that tell you, Theo?”
If tells me your five-year-old daughter knows you’re a fuck-up.
“She’s just a kid, Leeyan. She doesn’t understand.” More lies. “What she does understand is that you took her from her home.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Just come home, and we’ll figure everything out.”
She reluctantly agrees.
I pace the hall no less than one hundred times, waiting for the Uber I sent to pick them up. I jump at the sight of headlights approaching my building. At a little past one in the morning, a Prius pulls to a stop in my driveway.
Sylvie has been quiet up until now. “Don’t run out there, Theo. Let her come in on her own. You don’t want to scare to Lulu.”
I nod and take Sylvie in my arms. “Thank you for being here.”
“Of course,” she says and wraps her arms around my waist. “Just stay calm.”
The door opens, and I lose it a little. I rush to the hall and take Lulu from Leeyan. She’s still asleep, thank God. I carry Lulu to her bed and tuck her in. She never opens her eyes. She just turns over with Froggy clutched to her side.
“You should probably go,” I hear Sylvie say. “This conversation can wait until tomorrow.”
“Maybe you should go,” Leeyan replies.
I walk into the living room, and both women look at me. The fire in my eyes is enough to stop either one of them from speaking.
“Leeyan, you need to leave right now.” I clench my jaw and exhale slowly.
“But you said we’d talk.”
“I lied.” Those two little words never felt so good. “Now get the fuck out.”
Leeyan tries to pass me, and I block her from going down the hall. She’s never going to be alone with Lulu again.
“I want to say goodnight to my daughter,” she protests.
“You don’t have a daughter,” I spit back.
Leeyan doesn’t cry or even look heartbroken by my words. She doesn’t even slam the door when she leaves.
I know that I’ve just started a war.
Jimmy hooks me up with a lawyer. He’s a friend of a friend’s son, so he agrees to meet me at the club. This is my first weekend headlining. I can’t afford to blow it. Even cheap lawyers are expensive.
I walk into the office, and the lawyer is already there. He’s in a suit, and I’m in camo pants and a wife beater.
“Sway, this is Matt,” Jimmy introduces us.
I step inside and shake his hand. “It’s Theo.”
“Sorry, Theo.” Jimmy makes a gesture like he’s scatterbrained. “I’ll leave you to it.” He walks out and closes the door. I sit in Jimmy’s chair.
Matt takes out a pad and pen and starts asking me questions. “How long were you with Leeyan Flores?”
“A little over two years, I guess.”
“How long after you were dating did she find out she was pregnant?”
“Two months.” That sounds so bad.
He makes a note. “And how old was she at this time?”
“She had just turned eighteen,” I remember the day she took the test. The day all of her dreams were crushed.
“How did you take the news that you were going to be parents?”
“I was scared. Who wouldn’t be? But I was sort of excited. I loved her, and I didn’t want her to leave.” I’ve never admitted that out loud.
“What do you mean leave?”
“Leeyan was enlisted in the army when we met. She was supposed to leave for boot camp four days after her eighteenth birthday.”
Matt nods like he’s getting it and makes more notes. “Would you say Miss Flores was less than thrilled to find out she was pregnant?”
I give him a simple yes and don’t go into detail about how she cried for two days.
“Was there ever a time when she expressed any negative feelings towards being a mother?”
“Yes, she wanted to have an abortion.”
Matt’s eyes smile at this. It’s sick, but he’s only thinking about the case. “Did you talk her out of it?”
“Me and her godmother,” I admit. “They were really close; we named our daughter after her.”
I explain that Louisa let us live in her building for next to nothing, and how her son is threatening to evict me if I don’t allow Leeyan to see Lulu.
“How old was your daughter when Miss Flores decided to re-enlist?”
“We were planning her second birthday when she told me she re-enlisted.”
“She never consulted you beforehand?”
“No.”
I can tell when something I’ve said is good because Matt does a long head nod and scribbles furiously on his notepad.
“Tell me about your life after she left for the army.”
I give him the short version about how I struggled financially and worked any job I could find to make sure Lulu was fed and clothed. When he asks if Leeyan helped in any way, I tell him no.
“Did Miss Flores make an effort keep in touch with Lulu?”
“At first yes, but it was sporadic. Sometimes we’d plan a date and time to video chat, and she’d flake. Lulu would get really excited to see her and then she wouldn’t call. So, after a few missed dates, I told her I wouldn’t do it anymore.” It wasn’t just Lulu; I began to look forward to our chats.
We skip ahead to when Leeyan came home and how things were the first few weeks. He has most of that story from the police report I filed. I was granted temporary custody of Lulu. Leeyan can only see her twice a month, and the visits are supervised. I didn’t want it to come this far. I don’t want to drag Lulu through court, but Leeyan is going balls out. She wants full custody, even though Lulu doesn’t want to be with her.
“It looks like you have a winnable case. I just have one concern.” He places his notepad in his briefcase and looks up at me. “It’s your job.”
“What do you mean?” I notice a streak of shea butter on my arm and rub it in.
“She’s going to use this place against you,” Matt explains. “The stigma of a male entertainer doesn’t coincide with father of the year.”
I get what he’s saying, but my private life is completely separate. “Lulu has no idea what I do for a living. I don’t bring my work home.”
“You have to look at the big picture. The judge is more likely to give custody to a parent that doesn’t take his clothes off for a living. She’s applied to the police department,” he reminds me. “I suggest you start looking for another job.”
“Can’t we use this to our advantage? I only started working here so I could support Lulu. If it wasn’t for Trance, she wouldn’t be starting school at the Elite Institute this fall.”
“What you’ve done is commendable, but you have no exit strategy. When it comes down to it, you’re a stripper. If the roles were reversed, I’d play the same card. So I need to know if there is anything you’ve done while employed here that could be mistaken as illegal activity.” He gives me that stern lawyer look.
I flip through a hundred scenarios in my head. Honestly, I don’t know if storage room sex would be considered illegal. Was the night I went back to Rachel’s hotel room questionable? Neither one of them would ever testify against me, so it doesn’t really matter.
“No, I’m completely legit. I rarely even take side jobs.” That’s kind of a lie.
“That’s good,” Matt sighs. “Try to limit your activity to inside the club. No private parties or anything where photos can be leaked.”
I tell him I understand and think about all my failed career attempts. Selling cars, personal training, waiting tables. I suck at everything but this.
“I hate this job. If I could do something else, I would.”
“What about school for you? If this job were funding your education as well as your daughter’s; that would be slightly easier to sell to a judge. Leeyan is going to paint you as a misogynistic egomaniac.” He sits back and looks at my picture on the wall. It’s the same one hanging on the outside of the building. I’m wearing my MMA costume. The robe, gloves, and a smirk on my face that says “I’ll fuck you up.”
“I’ll start looking for a new job immediately.”
“Good. Well, I think that’s all for now.” Matt looks at his watch again. “I’m meeting my wife for dinner nearby. I want to keep her as far away from this place as possible.” He laughs as we walk out.
The club is opening, so women are slowly pouring in. We pass a bachelorette party on our way to the door.
“It’s Sway,” one of them yells.
The rest of the women giggle. A few stop to ask me to take a selfie. I pose with a fake smile, then keep walking.
I stop at the door and shake Matt’s hand.
“Thanks for coming out.”
“No problem. You have my card. Call me if anything comes up.” He turns to leave, and another mob of women walks inside. One of them is wearing a t-shirt with my face printed on the front. Matt looks at me and shakes his head. “Yeah, this job is the worst.”
It’s standard procedure in custody hearings for the father to take a paternity test. I have two swab kits, one for Leeyan’s lawyer and one for Matt. I swab my cheek and place the Q-tip in the tube. I do the same for the other test.
“You should do one more for luck.” She straddles my lap. “Open wide.” I do as I’m told. Sylvie rubs a Q-tip along the inside of my cheek. She removes the swab and places her mouth on mine. I get hard when she gently sucks my tongue.
“Where are the kids?” I ask.
She slides off my lap and looks into the living room. “Lulu is reading Reese a story.”
I place the tubes with my saliva samples into the plastic bags marked for the lawyers and zip them closed. I’m not worried in the slightest about the results. There is one thing I am absolutely confident about; it's knowing that Lulu is my child. The connection isn’t something I can describe in words. It’s the way she smells, her eyes when I pick her up from school. A parent knows.
Sylvie tiptoes back into the kitchen. “They’re asleep,” she whispers then does a celebration dance.
“Give me that.” I reach for the Q-tip still in her hand.
She pulls back. “No, I’m keeping it as a souvenir.”
“You’re weird.”
“Weird would be a lock of your hair or a vile of your blood.” She pulls a baggy from the drawer, drops the Q-tip inside, and zips it shut. Then she jumps into my arms. “We have twenty minutes.”
I stand and grab Sylvie around her waist. “I only need seven.”
There was a time when Sylvie and I would spend all day in bed. I’d count the condoms on the floor and marvel at my manhood. Now I’d take seven minutes of muted sex with Sylvie over a night of porn-level fucking. Muffling her moans when she’s having an orgasm is real, honest, sex. I’m not worried about what she thinks of me; my performance, skill, size. It’s all about how I make her feel. She’s less self-conscious of her body and how sexy she looks. We’re both people that sell illusions for a living. Sylvie has been out of the business for over a year but it took her awhile to realize looking sexy doesn’t mean you feel sexy. It’s all about the feels, baby.
When it’s over, we lie on the bed and listen for the kids.
“I should get up before Lulu comes in here and sees my bare ass.” I start to get out of bed, and Sylvie pulls me back.
“Can’t we pretend this is a romance novel where we lie in bed after sex and stare at each other?” She reaches over and rubs my cheek.
“Okay.” I settle beside her. “Do we live happily ever after?”
“No,” Sylvie says. “This isn’t our story.”
I move closer and drape my arm around her waist. “What do you mean?” Whatever she’s about to say isn’t good. I feel it. Dread it.
A tear runs from the corner of her eye to the pillow. “Our story can’t begin until this one ends.”
I pull her to my chest and kiss the top of her head, wishing I could tell her she’s wrong.
Her lips drift across my neck. “I wish it could be like it was before, just our little family. You, Lulu, me, and
Reese.”
I hold her for a long time before I reply. It takes that long to find the right words. I want our perfect GAP family back too. That isn’t reality. We’ll always have to deal with Leeyan and Aaron. This nightmare will never end.
“If we get married, at least I’ll be Lulu’s step-mother.” Sylvie sits up with the sheet covering her breasts.
“Yeah,” I say. No other words come to mind. I’m not ready to have this conversation.
“How would you feel about being Reese’s father?” She pulls her knees up and hugs them.
“Where is this coming from?” I rub Sylvie’s hand. “If you’re worried about us, don’t. I love you.”
“With all this paternity talk and custody stuff, it makes me think about the bullshit with Aaron.” She pauses and kisses my hand. “Is this ever going to end?”
I wish I could tell her Leeyan and Aaron will be transported to the land of bitches and assholes, and we’ll live happily ever after in our rent controlled apartment where we never age or gain weight, and the kids will stay in that cute-but-not-annoying-stage forever. This isn’t a fairytale. Not even close.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to make our lives as happy as possible for as long as I can.”
Sylvie doesn’t look comforted by my words. “Do we have an expiration date, Theo?”
“What? No, I don’t know...what you mean.” I sit up because this isn’t a laying down kind of conversation. “Are you asking if I’m all in?”
“Forget it.” Sylvie dismisses her question. “I’m just being a girl. You need to get ready for work.”
I make her look at me. “The only thing I love more than you is us. We’re not going to have a happy ending or happily ever after. I’m going to give you a happy-for-fucking-ever.”
“That is so not romantic,” Sylvie laughs.
But it’s real, and I’ll take reality over fantasy any fucking day.
***
I’m sitting in the dressing room at Trance when I get the email from Matt. I have to pay his retainer before our first court date five days from now. I can’t afford to dip into my savings. That money is for rent and Lulu’s tuition. I promised Matt I wouldn’t take any side jobs, but I have to. It’s the only way I can afford him.
Got Mine (Men of Trance Book 1) Page 14