Her shoulders rose to her ears. “Maybe he wanted it to be a surprise?”
“He knows I’m in the midst of mini breakdowns every day! Why wouldn’t he tell me?!”
“I don’t know,” she said, tilting her head and giving me a sheepish, apologetic look. “You’ll have to ask him.”
Adrian
“I’m tellin’ you, man, life is good.” I tipped back my beer bottle and let the icy bubbles burn down the back of my throat while I patted Goliath who sat on the floor beside my chair.
“Every man should have your abilities,” Derek said, smirking. “You’re like a woman whisperer. They blow a fuse and you calm them down.”
“Yeah, I—shit.” Through the patio door, I could see Kay storming toward the house. Derek turned from his seat on the leather sofa to look out the door.
“Better get your whisper on,” he said, standing and darting out of the room. “Goliath, come.” The dog trotted after him.
Kay blew through the door and headed straight for me. “What’s wrong?” I said.
“What’s wrong?” She threw her hands in the air and they landed on her hips. “When were you going to tell me about all of your grand plans? You told Derek! Why not me? I’m the one having this baby in case you forgot!”
“How could I forget?” I asked.
“Right! Because I’m a big fucking blimp!”
“Oh my God. That’s not what I meant.” I stood up and reached for her, but she stepped away.
“You’re not going to make me shut up and calm down with sex!”
Derek snorted a laugh out in the kitchen.
“I wasn’t going to.” I reached for her again and caught her hand. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
“Talk to you? Talk to you!?” Her eyes were on the verge of blowing a couple blood vessels. “Look who’s talking! Or not talking!” She stomped her foot. “Ugh!”
“Kay, I know you’re pissed about something, but if you want to talk about it, we should do it soon before your shower guests start arriving.”
Her nostrils flared and she stared daggers at me. It took twenty-two years to learn, but I now knew that the most frightening sight on the planet was a pregnant woman who wanted to tear your nads off.
“I’m not the one with the talking to do,” she said between gritted teeth.
The doorbell rang. Kay’s face didn’t budge. Her eyes still projected fury and her jaw still clenched and twitched with rage.
“Bess! Someone’s here! I’ll get it!” Derek yelled on his way into the foyer. Bess, who had been loitering right outside the patio door, tried to sneak through the great room without being noticed.
“Hello! Welcome,” Derek said. Then I heard my mom’s voice. And my sister. And my other sister. This was when I realized I hadn’t mentioned to Kay that they were coming and she’d be meeting them for the first time.
“I’m Adrian’s mom, Grace” my mom said, “and these are his sisters Lynn and Kendall.”
Karen’s eyes grew even wider and a look of utter horror overtook her face. “Your mom and sisters? How could you do this? Not even tell me they were coming?” Her chest shuddered and tears rolled.
“I didn’t think it was a—Kay, I didn’t think. I’m sorry. I guess because I don’t get bothered by meeting people, so I didn’t even consider that it would be a big deal to you.”
“I’m the old lady you knocked up and you didn’t think it was a big deal to meet your mom!?” She ran for the stairs.
“Kay, you’re not an old lady,” I called after her and heard one of the doors upstairs slam shut.
I turned to find my mom and sisters staring after her, mouths open. Derek’s hand came down on my shoulder. “Nice one, Boy Band. Nice one.”
*
“You can open the door now,” I said, sitting with my back against the guest room door where Kay had locked herself in. Goliath’s head rested on my thigh. He gazed up at me with droopy dark eyes full of pity. “They’re all in the gazebo. It’s just you and me and the chicklet.”
Silence. She’d met me with silence for the past forty minutes.
“Should I get you…um…” I’d almost offered a plate of food, but thank God, thought better of it. “…something to drink?”
I could see through the floor-to-second-story-ceiling windows in the great room that about forty women were mingling on the patio. “Okay, Karen. I’m going to the baby shower. One of us has to be there. They’re all here for you—the mom, the guest honor, but if it isn’t going to be you, they’ll have to settle for me.” I stood up and pressed my hand against the door, hoping she’d open up. “I’m no good at party games either.”
Nothing.
“Your mom’s down there. She got here about ten minutes ago. Want me to send her up so you can tell her how terrible I am?”
More silence.
“Fine. I get it.” I let my forehead fall with a thunk against the door. There were things that needed to be said and if it had to be here and now, then it did. “I’ve been making plans, Kay. There’s a lot to do before the chicklet gets here. A bigger house to buy, a nurse to hire, college savings. Listen to me, I’m going to prove to you that I’m more than a twenty-two year old kid who graduated from his boy band into accidental fatherhood.”
I grasped the door frame with both hands. “I can do this, Kay. I can be the man you need me to be. I’m not just a guy you wanted to have a fling with and ended up trapped having his baby. I can take care of you and the chicklet. That’s all I’m trying to do. I should’ve told you, but I wanted everything taken care of first—done and settled so you had nothing to think about and worry over.”
I stood there feeling empty after pouring my soul out. I listened to my own breathing for a few minutes with my eyes closed, then stood straight and turned toward the stairs to go.
The door cracked open. “You worry that you’re too young for me?” she whispered. “That I think you’re a kid who can’t handle this?”
I ran my hands through my hair and left them there, resting on top of my head, but didn’t turn around. “That’s what I don’t want you to think, so I’m doing my best to make myself the man you deserve.”
Her hand rested on my back. “I never thought that. I thought I was the old woman you had a fling with that you were stuck with. That you kept telling me it was all good because you were trying to convince yourself that it was or you didn’t really get the pressure I was feeling.”
I looked back over my shoulder. Her eyes were puffy and red and her face was streaked with dried tears. “I didn’t want you feeling any pressure. That’s why I said it was all good. I was taking care of things for you.”
“But, I didn’t know. I thought it was all on me.”
I spun around and cradled her face between my hands. “No. Nothing is ever going to be all on you. That’s what I’m here for. Like I said, your job is to be the blissful expectant mom. I’m the guy who takes care of the details.” I traced my thumbs across her cheeks. “Let me be that guy.”
Kay ran her hands up the back of my neck and pulled my head down to hers. “You can be that guy.” She kissed me and my world exploded. I was someone new. Someone I was trying to be for months. All I had to do was tell her I was that guy—the one who would watch over her and care for her and our baby—and I could be him. I only had to claim him to be him.
I pulled her in closer and parted her lips, seeking her tongue with mine. She inhaled a shaky breath and her tense muscles released. She was warm and smelled like summer—lotion and sand, fresh air and sweet grass. Our baby would nestle into her chest and know this scent as Mom, just like I knew it as my heart. Kay made me want to be more than a pop star. More than a good boyfriend. More than a good father. She made me want to be a good man. Her good man.
FOUR
Karen
The shower was perfect. Bess was a party planning genius. Adrian’s mom, Grace, was kind and generous, telling me all about Adrian as a little boy and promising to fly in from
Connecticut when the baby is born—but staying in a hotel to be out of our hair unless she was needed. She said she was excited to be a grandma even if it came as a surprise. Both of his sisters, Lynn who was nineteen, and Kendall, seventeen, offered to come stay with us and babysit. Adrian teased them mercilessly, his adoration for them even more so than for Pricilla.
“Good day, huh?” Adrian said, threading his fingers through mine as we stepped off the last wooden stair-step from the gazebo down onto the beach.
“It turned out to be a perfect day,” I said, feeling the tears well again as I looking up into his gleaming blue eyes, but blinking them back. Baby hormones…
He stopped and turned to me, taking both of my hands. “Kay, we’ve never talked about it, but I was wondering if you would--”
“Goliath!” Bess yelled a second before the horse-dog came crashing between Adrian and I and sprinted down the beach. “Goliath! Come!”
Bess ran after him. “You guys should start with a dog!” she yelled to us as she passed. “You have four more weeks, right?”
“We don’t want him,” I called after her.
“He’s a good dog,” Adrian said, watching Bess chase him through the surf. “Maybe a little high strung, but he’s still a puppy.”
“Biggest puppy I’ve ever seen.”
“Four weeks,” he said, turning back to me. “We’re ready. I promise you. There’s only one thing left that I haven’t taken care of.” Adrian lowered to one knee and took my hands in his. My heart stuttered then stopped before lurching into a frantic, pounding beat. “Kay, you can say no and nothing changes between us, but I will always be with you our baby and won’t stop asking for as long as it takes. Whether you tell me yes today or in ten years, I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me?”
It was the perfect Adrian proposal and it made me cover my mouth to hide my silent chuckle. “It sounds like you’re planning on stalking me if I say no, so I better just say yes.”
He let his head drop before looking up at me, laughing. “I should’ve just said, marry me, babe.”
“I’ll marry you, babe.” I tugged on his hands. “Now stand up and kiss me.”
*
Bess poured champagne and Derek raised his glass in a toast. “I can’t believe you’re engaged before me,” Bess said, before he could get a word out.
“Oh, you’re past engaged,” Derek said. “House, business, dumbest dog God ever created. You’re stuck with me. Pick a date, book the church.”
“Buy the ring,” she said.
I held up my hand and spread my sausage-fingers. “I don’t want a ring until this swelling goes down.”
The doorbell ended our toast before it began. Derek went to answer it and came back into the kitchen with Trent, Adrian’s older brother. I knew his face from all of their old band photos. Plus, he looked a lot like Adrian, only rougher around the edges. He needed a shave and wore a beat up leather jacket. His dirty blond hair was too long and hung over his ears and collar. His eyes were longer and more narrow than Adrian’s. It made him a little intimidating, like he was glaring at me.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Adrian said, shaking his hand and doing the man-back-pat thing.
“Your woman’s text said the show was at ten,” Trent said. “It’s nine. I’m even early.”
“Ten in the morning,” Adrian said.
Trent grimaced and jerked his head back. “Who the fuck does a show at ten in the morning?”
“If you’re on the Today show, it’s even earlier,” Bess said, then immediately dropped her eyes at his hard gaze. “Never mind.”
“It’s a favor for my niece,” Derek said. “For her birthday. Private show for friends and family.”
“No press?” Trent said. “I don’t want to do it if it ends up on TMZ or some shit.”
“No,” Adrian said. “I don’t want that either. This isn’t an official reunion.”
Trent nodded and looked me up and down. “Big baby. You having twins?”
Suddenly, my future brother-in-law wasn’t so intimidating, at least not enough so that I didn’t want to punch him square in the face.
Adrian
“How about a drink,” I said, stepping between Trent and Kay before she tore his face off and handed it to him. “We’re celebrating.”
“What are we celebrating?” Trent asked. “Babies or birthday parties for little girls?”
I poured him a glass of champagne and handed it to him. “I’m getting married, big brother.”
Trent held up his glass. “Mazel tov,” he said, and downed it. “Hit me again.”
His lack of enthusiasm pissed me off, but I wasn’t the kind of guy that let the limitations of other people get to me. And Trent had limitations. My brother was an emotional demon, existing to suck the life out of anyone who tried to get close to him. He hadn’t spoken to our mom in years, I wasn’t sure he remembered our sisters existed and since I left our group and went solo, he’d spoken to me a handful of times after telling me I destroyed his fucking life by breaking up the band. He drinks too much, he sleeps with anything that has a pulse and has fallen so far into self-loathing, there’s no helping him.
“I’ll get another bottle,” Bess said.
“I think this was it,” Derek said, tilting the empty champagne bottle back and forth. “How about a beer?”
“Make it two,” Trent said, sauntering toward the patio doors. “Great place. Must be nice to be on top of the world still.”
Derek and I traded looks. I’d told him how Trent viewed my going solo as a personal betrayal. “You doing any recording anymore?” Derek asked him, offering up the beer. “I can get you in the studio downstairs before you leave and we can see what we can come up with.”
“Nah, man, I’m no solo artist.” Trent waved him off and went back to staring out at the dark cliff with the ocean beyond, black fading into black.
“Maybe a duet?” Derek pressed. “I’ve got a new female artist looking for a project.” My stomach clenched. Trent was about two seconds from his hair-trigger temper going off.
“Forget it,” he said, twisting the cap off his beer, tilting back the bottle and chugging.
Karen strode over to his side, indignant. “Your life isn’t Adrian’s problem. He didn’t do anything to you. What you do with yourself now is on you. Got it?”
“Kay,” I said, coming up behind her, “leave it.”
Trent grinned. “Baby mama fighting your battles. Just like it was when we were kids. Mom always stuck up for her little man.”
“Don’t call her--”
The smack of Kay’s hand across Trent’s face echoed through the great room. “Get yourself together. You’re a grown man,” she said, and turned, calmly striding back toward the stairs. “I’m going to bed. Thanks for everything, Bess. This day was amazing.”
She was amazing. Now that she knew where my head was with the baby and our future, she was back to being the old Karen—in charge, sassy, take-no-prisoners. I needed to remember that she could be shaken by change and make sure she always felt stable in our relationship. Being a dad was going to be a piece of cake compared to being a husband.
“I’ll be up in a minute,” I said, eager to lay by my fiancé’s side in bed. I turned back to Trent and grabbed his second beer before he could open and down it. “Let’s talk outside.”
*
“I really am happy for you,” Trent said, stubbing out a cigarette with his boot. He picked up the crushed butt and dropped it in his empty beer bottle. “You have everything you want. You deserve it. You took a big risk and it paid off.”
“What about you?” I asked. “Isn’t Crotch Rockets what you wanted? You always talked about owning a bike shop.”
“It’s great.” He leaned back in the wicker patio chair and tapped his fingers together. “I’ve got the motocross team I sponsor, been doing a lot of riding of my own, the shop’s making money. I can’t complain.”
“Why are you pissed at the
world then?”
He shook his head slightly. “Waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under me. It always happens. Women. The band. Anything good goes to shit.”
“There’s no rule that things have to last forever.”
He looked up at me and smirked. “Says the man who just got engaged.”
“Other than marriage.”
“Yeah, well,” he blew out a breath, “it’d be nice if something did. I’m sick of starting over.”
“Listen, Trent, I’m sorry I broke up the band.”
“No, don’t be. How long can a boy band hang on anyway? We’re too damn old to be some little girl’s fantasy.”
Adrian laughed. “Stay away from the birthday girl tomorrow. She’s a queen of manipulation.”
“She must be if she got you to talk us into doing a show.” Trent reached over and shoved my shoulder. “Your kid’s going to be so spoiled.”
“She already is.”
“She? It’s a girl, huh? You’re in for it. Wait until the guys start hitting on her.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I can’t think about that.”
“Don’t worry, Uncle Trent will keep all the boys in line.”
Uncle Trent. He was planning to be part of the chicklet’s life. I had my brother back. One more miracle to end this unbelievable day.
FIVE
Karen
I woke to the alarm on Adrian’s phone blaring from the nightstand. “Go back to sleep, babe,” he whispered. “I’ve got sound check in an hour.”
“I don’t remember you coming to bed last night,” I said, stretching. I slept wrong and my back had a kink.
“You were snoring when I came up.” He kissed my nose and got out of bed.
“I don’t snore.”
“Then the chicklet does and she’s loud.”
I stifled a laugh. “Whatever.”
He shuffled into the bathroom rubbing his eyes. A few minutes later, the shower turned on. I wondered if it would fit both of us. There was only one way to find out.
“Can I join you?” I asked, through the crack in the not-quite-closed door.
Listen To Me: A Rock Star Romance (True North) Page 3