by Malone, Nana
Jessica frowned and appeared not to hear her. “Wait, so how did you find this out? He just blurted this all out?”
Izzy blew her nose and recounted Sabrina’s call. When she was done, she slouched in her seat, exhausted from the effort.
For several moments, Jessica sat and said nothing, merely blinking. Every few seconds or so, Izzy could see the brilliant blue of Jessica’s eyes disappear behind the purple plumage of plum shadow, only to reappear again, scarcely a moment later.
Finally, she spoke. “No wonder you’re full of piss and vinegar, Sweetie. I would have killed that bitch by now.”
Izzy blinked back. “I’m too tired to kill anyone. Trust me, I thought about it. Besides, I’m too cute to go to jail.”
Jessica considered. “Good point.” She gave Izzy a pointed look, she added, “So are you going to tell Jason he might be Nick’s father?”
Chapter Thirty-Four
How had her life gone from zero to shit so quickly? One day Izzy had hum drummed along in an uneventful life. Now she had hot tennis players, paparazzi, and a drug-addicted crazy woman in her life. Though, to be fair, the drug addicted crazy woman was more of a staple.
All she needed was some good old fashioned Bravo to take her mind off of everything. As her brain left the world of reality for the world of reality TV, she heard the scrape of a key in the lock. Had Nick forgotten his new set of keys again? “You gotta learn to remember your keys, Nick.”
Swinging the door open, Sabrina, not Nick met her on the other side. On reflex, Izzy swung the door closed, but Sabrina used her foot to block it from shutting.
“Izzy, wait. I need your help.”
She didn’t feel like she had the strength to not kill Sabrina, so Izzy just stared in wonder at Sabrina’s audacity. “You want my help. After everything you’ve done to me, to this family, why should I help you?”
“Look, I’m a mess. I’ve made some horrendous mistakes, and I have no way to get out. You’re all I have left.”
“I thought you had Jason.”
Sabrina tried for her best expression of contrition, but Izzy could see through it. “Would it help if I said how sorry I was? I never should have gone to Jason. Never should have blackmailed him. I had nowhere else to turn. Tony would have hurt Nick if I didn’t pay.”
Izzy shook her head. “We had a deal, Sabrina. You could stay here as long as you were clean. I thought it was healthy for Nick to see you, but I was wrong. You bring destruction and lies everywhere you go. You’re permeated with it. You honestly can’t help yourself.”
Sabrina sniffed and clasped her hands together. “I know. I know. I screwed up. I thought I could get the money and pay Tony, and he’d leave me and Nick and you alone. I thought of everything I could. I should have just stayed away. I’m a user, but I’m not all bad, Izzy. I’m not. I wanted custody of Nick for the wrong reason. B-b-but I only wanted to put things right. I need help, okay?” She used the back of her hand to swipe at the trail of liquid that pooled on her upper lip.
Izzy shook her head, vehemence written on her face. “No, not okay. You try to exploit him for his trust. You blackmail Jason. You vanish for days on end. You show up at his tennis match high. You. Hit. My. Son.” She put up her hands. “Not this time. You can’t wipe those things off with a simple apology. Get off my property.”
Sabrina lifted her face, tilting it to a bruise on her cheek. “He’s going to kill me. He said he’d kill Nick too.” She sniffed and clamped her hands together.
Izzy stood in front of her, arms folded, not budging. She saw the signs. The twitching. The pinpoint pupils. Sabrina was high. “Sabrina, I’m sorry, I’ve had enough. You can’t do this to yourself or to Nick. I’m not going to do it to him.”
“Look, I know.” She bit her lip. She took a deep breath before she shoved past Izzy. “But I’m serious about needing your help. I can’t do this by myself. I’ve got to pay, or we’re all in trouble.”
Izzy shifted her position, but it was too late, Sabrina was already in the house. She clenched her jaw. “I’m not giving you money. I haven’t got it. From the looks of it, you need to get back into rehab.”
“Shit, Izzy. I need money. Bad things will happen if I don’t pay.”
“Then you need to find a way to pay on your own. I won’t to enable you anymore.”
“Izzy, c’mon—”
“And while we’re at it, you’ve got some things to come clean about. We’re calling Jason.”
****
Jason’s stomach flipped over with nerves. She’d called. It meant she wanted to see him right? Missed him. If he could just see her and explain. Maybe she could forgive him. Or at least not hate him entirely. Shit. Who was he kidding? He missed her like crazy, and he would do anything to see her. Even have her shoot him off her front steps. The doorbell rang, and he knew this was the moment of truth.
Unprepared for the need that clawed at him when she answered the door, he reached for her in an automatic gesture. As if touching her, holding her would put it all right again. “Izzy, I’m so sorry. I—”
She shifted away from him. He thinned his lips and shrugged, making his way inside the doorway. It was too soon. Through his mind, a thousand different apologies ran. He searched for the best one, but none of them were good enough. He settled on, “I’ve really missed you.”
“This isn’t why I called you over.”
“I—oh.”
“You might as well bring him in. What you’re asking about concerns him as well.”
The cool, nervous sweat in his palms turned hot in his fury. He knew that voice. He walked around Izzy and stalked through the living room in the direction of the voice. When he found Sabrina sitting at the dining room table, she sneered up at him.
“You always did have impeccable timing, Jason. Were you already on your way here?”
“What the hell are you doing here? Haven’t you done enough damage?”
Her resounding laughter was devoid of any real humor. “Don’t blame me because you got caught in a lie.”
Izzy’s voice came low and flat from behind him. “Will both of you just shut up? Jason, have a seat.”
He braced himself against the bookcase. “I’d rather stand.” He looked from Sabrina’s half smug, half jittery expression to Izzy’s tight lipped strained one, knowing he wasn’t going to like what he heard.
“Okay, suit yourself.” Izzy levered herself into a chair, and he tried not to remember the last time he’d seen her. The censure and the disgust in her voice kept him awake nights.
“I hate to repeat myself, but what’s she doing here?”
“Truth and consequence time, Sabrina. I want the truth. Is Jason Nick’s father?”
Jason felt the furrow in his forehead before his brain fully computed Izzy’s question. “Now, wait a minute I—”
Izzy didn’t let him finish. “Sabrina, for once in your life, take responsibility for the mess you’ve created. I want the truth.”
Sabrina eyes widened before visibly forcing a swallow. “Jason.”
Jason waited for the revelation to come, but Sabrina looked frozen on the spot.
“God damn it, Sabrina, spit it out.” Izzy’s shout echoed into the kitchen. Sabrina opened her mouth, then closed it again, and her lips trembled. She parted them again, licking her lips before speaking. “Nick is our son, Jason.” She sniffed and used the back of her hand to scratch her nose.
Jason stood to his full height and cocked his head in an attempt to hear her better. Sabrina took a step back like any prey would with a predator in their midst. He fixed his gaze on Izzy. “Are you serious?”
Izzy looked at him, confusion etched in her eyebrows. “What the hell do you mean? Did you hear her?”
A brittle smile cracked his lips. “Oh, I heard her. Only problem is I’ve heard it before.”
The tears tracked freely down Sabrina’s makeup smeared face. “It’s the truth, Jason. It’s not a lie this time.”
“That’s
the problem when you cry wolf Sabrina.” Izzy shook from the anger. Looking at Jason, she asked, “Will you take a paternity test?”
He turned his gaze to Izzy, incredulous. “You’re serious?”
She nodded, somber eyed and tight lipped. She looked like hell.
“What makes you so sure I’m the father?”
“Listen, you son of a bitch.” Sabrina pushed herself out of her seat. “I’m not a liar. I don’t have to explain myself—”
Izzy interrupted before Sabrina could finish. Walking over to the bookcase he leaned against, she pulled a folder out of the drawer and handed it to him. “I took these at your house. The resemblance is striking enough. I knew I needed confirmation from Sabrina that it was even possible.” She searched for the right words. “It didn’t hit me until you told me you’d come back, that you could…” She cleared her throat, not looking him in the eye. “That you might be his father.”
He stared at the photos, awareness dawning in his eyes. He didn’t look at her when he asked his question. “When were you going to tell me?”
Her eyes snapped to meet his, and she folded her arms across her chest. “After you dropped the bomb on me last week, I suspected. I needed Sabrina to confirm it was possible.”
“You’ve suspected for over a week. When were you going to give me the heads up? Or were you just waiting to leak it to the press first?”
“Don’t. You. Dare.” She shoved a finger in his chest to make her point. “Don’t you dare. You were the one who lied to me. Without a confirmation, I couldn’t very well—”
“Yes, you could have very well. You’re always on and on at me about trust.” He waved the photos at her. “You kept your mouth shut.”
“You’re the liar, Jason. For weeks, you looked at me and lied.”
“We’ve been seeing each other for weeks and not once did it occur to you to mention, hey, you know, the kid, I might be his father.”
“You act as if I kept him away from you all these years. I didn’t know for sure until Sabrina confirmed it.”
“But you suspected, and you kept it from me.”
“I’m not the only one with my suspicions. You must have suspected. You can do the math, or did you take too many tennis balls to the head?” She put her hands on her hips, eyes flashing with contempt. “What, Jason, did you think I’d hit you up for money? Did you think I’d tarnish your oh-so-stellar rep?” She ran a hand through her hair. “Shit. I knew I should have tried harder not to trust you. But I wanted to believe in you. As always, I guess I was naïve.”
He worked the muscle in his jaw. “You’ve been looking for a reason not to trust me since I met you.” He straightened. “Well, I guess you found one.” He took the photos with him as he strode to the door. “Set up a paternity test and a time to sit down with Nick.”
“I don’t think it’s best to tell him before—”
He pierced her with a stare. “You really think I’d let you determine what’s best? You’re not even his mother.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jason drove for hours trying to get the image of Sabrina telling him he had a son out of his head. A son. She hadn’t been lying. The look on Izzy’s face had told him that. And Izzy. She’d lied too. How could she have known and not told him?
You lied too. But he wasn’t in the mood for his own truths.
He drove the 101 until he came to the non-descript beach bungalow. He didn’t bother to knock and walked straight in.
“Y’know, I could have been butt naked getting it on with some hot model.” Aaron came from the kitchen wielding a beer for each of them.
“When was the last time you had a hot model?” Jason looked at him askance.
“That’s not the point. The point is I could have been… in theory anyway.” He gave Jason a long look. “You look like shit.”
Jason took a pull of his beer. “Feel like it. I got a kid.”
Aaron choked on his beer. “Come again.”
“You heard me. One stupid mistake, and I got a kid. You want me to tell you where babies come from?”
Aaron frowned. “You mean the stork doesn’t bring them?”
Jason glowered at him under hooded lids.
“Who’s the kid? And who’s the mother?”
Jason, relieved that Aaron’s first questions weren’t if the press had wind of it all yet, relayed the story. Aaron listened for the most part, standing next to Jason on the deck not saying anything.
After he finished, Aaron put his beer down. “Does the press know yet? We’ll need to figure out a way to contain the whole abandoned kid angle.”
Good ol’ Aaron. He had a job to do after all. “No. And we’d better keep it that way. I don’t know how Nick will react, and he doesn’t need that. And I didn’t fucking abandon him. I didn’t know about him.”
“Hey, bro, don’t be so touchy. It’s just a question.” He took a swig of his beer, then he added, “I told you dating that chick would be complicated. Though I had no idea how complicated it could get. Only you could get in this much shit.”
“I need to figure out what to do.”
Aaron cast him a look. “None of my business and all, but you should talk to the lady. Sort it out. Amicable like.”
Jason stared at him and frowned. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Aaron shrugged. “I’m just saying. She loves the kid is all. From what I can see anyway.” He shrugged. “Look man, you dropped a bombshell on her a week ago. You were always better at telling chicks what they wanted to hear, not what they needed to hear. It’s better for the kid if you guys work this shit out away from the limelight.”
“I can’t believe you, of all people, are saying keep it out of the press.” Jason wasn’t sure what he was going to do. But the last thing on earth he wanted to do was deal with this.
“Yeah, never let it be said I don’t have a heart. Even if it is made out of a gin and tonic cocktail.”
Aaron had a point, though. It was in Nick’s best interest that he work something out with Izzy. But what arrangement did he want to work out with her? It wasn’t like he wanted a kid.
Did he?
No matter what, he’d meant what he told her. Nick would find out from the both of them. No matter what.
****
“Mom? Is something wrong?”
Izzy looked from Nick’s concerned expression to Jason’s stoic one and wished there was an easier way to have this conversation. “Yeah, I—” She shook her head before she started again, this time trying for a united front. “We wanted to talk to you about something. Both of us together since this involves all of us.”
“You know your mom will always love you no matter what. Nothing will ever change that.” Jason tried to help, but only made it worse if Nick’s expression was any indication.
Izzy’s stomach rolled as Nick’s expression turned from giddy excitement, to mild worry, back to excitement again. Shit. They needed to just spit it out already. “So you know how I’ve been looking for your birth father?”
He nodded encouragingly as if to urge her on. “Yeah, so you can adopt me.”
“After talking to Sabrina, we need to discuss a few things with you.”
He stood abruptly. “Damn, Mom, just tell me. Whatever it is. Do I have to go live with her? Are they taking me away from you? Does my birth father want custody? What? Just freaking tell me.”
From the corner of her eyes, she saw the muscle in Jason’s jaw tick as he gnashed his teeth.
His voice was low and controlled. “Nick, have a seat, what your mother has to tell you is hard enough without you getting upset.”
Both she and Nick snapped him looks that said shut up. She sent a small prayer to whoever might listen and gave Nick the truth. “According to Sabrina, there’s a chance Jason might be your birth father.”
Nick stared at her with his head cocked for several moments before he turned his attention to Jason. “Is it true?”
For the first time she c
ould recall, she heard poignant grief in Jason’s voice. Unable to turn to face him, she wondered what he’d look like through her lens.
“She never told me, Nick. I had no idea it was even possible.”
Regardless of Jason’s words, Nick wasn’t interested in reason. “Is that why you’ve been so nice to me? To get close to me?”
Anguish in his eyes, Jason looked at his son. “No. I promise I didn’t know. If I had, I would never have abandoned you like that. I would have been there.”
Mutinous, Nick stood and stared at Jason. “Yeah well, I didn’t need you. I had my mom.”
Jason stood to face him. “I know Izzy did the best she could, but that doesn’t substitute you having your father around. I’m sorry I haven’t been there. But I hope to be there for you now.”
“Bullshit. I don’t need you.” Then as if realization dawned, wide eyes stared at Izzy. “I won’t live with him.”
Her heart broke at the pleading look he gave her. “No of course not.”
She spoke just as Jason said, “Well, nothing’s been discussed yet.”
Nick crossed his arms. “Well, I won’t. If you try and make me, I’ll run away.”
Izzy stepped between the two of them. “Nick, you will do no such thing. Nothing has been decided yet, mostly because we need to have a paternity test done. If it comes back positive, we need to have some conversations about where to go next. Until then, there’s no need to get upset.”
Jason shrugged. “No one’s upset. Nick and I are having a conversation.”
Nick’s eyes didn’t waver from Jason’s. “I’m not leaving you, Mom. I don’t care what those stupid tests say.”
Jason folded his arms around his broad expanse of chest. “We’ll see what the Judge says.”
She stood between the two of them, as they geared for battle. So much for a united front.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Jason hadn’t paid attention when the taxi passed the security gate. After his chat with Nick, he didn’t have the energy. When he saw Sabrina’s compact form exit the taxi, he ground his teeth. “What the hell are you doing here?” Jason stood with his arms crossed, legs braced apart. His lips thinned as she drew nearer.