by Maya Hughes
“I highly doubt that, Gabe. We will keep things strictly business, but we’re going to be together a lot. I can talk to Alex, if you think that would help,” Lesley offered.
He thought about Alex and how he screwed up. She was not someone who forgave and forgot. She was never going to take him back, especially after all those calls and messages and no response.
“I don’t think she would go for that. I’ll try to think of something.” He lay back on the bed and covered his eyes with his arms.
“I’m going to take my shower now. I think I’m starting to get used to the smell and that can’t be a good thing. I need to make sure all of this is off me before I leave this place. I’m sure the photogs would have some pretty interesting names for me if I was wandering around smelling like puke.”
“Knock yourself out. I’m just going to lay here and try not to think about how I have absolutely screwed things with Alex.” She popped out of the cracked open door and sounds of the shower turning on filled the room.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’m sure things will work out eventually. And if they don’t, I know not to offer you a drink when you’re feeling down.”
Gabe draped his arms over his face, dreading everything that was to come. This was supposed to be one of the best days of his life. He hadn’t even called his family to let them know about his yet. All he could think of was Alex and that look on her face just before she’d left the room. Devastation, he’d done that to her. Maybe it was for the best, since he kept fucking everything up. Maybe she’d made the right choice; he was a mess.
Alex left her bags down in the lobby and headed up to his suite. She stomped down the hallway, determined to talk things out with him, just like he wanted. Feeling sheepish for running away after her talk with Jen and a good night’s rest, she was determined and ready to hash things out.
It was time to face things head on, let him know her fears and let him know that she loved him, but she wasn’t going to let him treat her like crap. She grabbed her key card out of her pocket and waved it in front of the door. The light turned green and she slid into the room, careful not to make any noise in case he was on a call or something. The shower was running and she made her way back toward the bedroom. The scene in front of her stopped her in her tracks. He was laid down on the bed in nothing, but his boxers. His muscled chest was bare and he had his arms flung up over his head.
From the bathroom, a feminine voice call out. “Gabe, can you call down for some more towels? The ones in here are all dirty,” Lesley called from the bathroom. It was like time froze in that instant. Her mind went blank before a rushing roar filled her ears and she stumbled back into the living room. She held her fist up to her mouth—biting it—to keep her cries back. Her eyes were overflowing with tears and she choked back a sob as she backed up across the living room.
“Yeah, sure,” Gabe called out from the bedroom.
He had lied to her. She wondered if the relationship clause was even real or if that had been his way of breaking things to her. Sorry Alex, but I’m going to be a movie star now. You couldn’t really think I’d want to be seen with you? So stupid, she’d been so stupid to make this mistake. She needed to get out of here.
Alex backed up until she hit the table in the living room, causing one of the glasses to fall over. Not wanting to see a look of pity from Gabe or Lesley, she ran for the door before anyone could come out. She broke down in the hallway half way to the elevator, sliding down the wall and bringing her knees up to her chest. She held onto them and rocked herself back and forth. She sobbed against them, trying her best to keep the noise down.
In less than twenty-four hours, he was already bedding down with Lesley. He’d said how they were just friends and there wasn’t anything more to it. He’d also said how much he cared about her and would never hurt her. Lies, it was all lies!
Someone from hospitality was walking toward the room with towels in their hands. She knew she had to get out of there now before Gabe—or worse, Lesley—opened the door and saw her there. She scrambled up and sprinted down the hallway, pressing the elevator button, hoping it opened before the towels made their way to the room.
Thankfully, the elevator doors opened just as the staff person rang the doorbell for the room. Alex pressed the close button and leaned her head against the wall of the elevator, her tears dripping off the handrail. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her knuckles and tried to compose her face. She looked at her reflection in the elevator doors; she looked like she’d been hit by a two-by-four right in the face, which seemed appropriate because that’s the way everything was hitting her at that moment. A total gut punch had her sprinting into the lobby looking for the nearest trash can, where she promptly lost the entire contents of her stomach.
She went to the lobby bathroom to rinse her mouth and try to compose herself a bit before retrieving her bags, then made the sad trek back to the hostel she’d seen earlier. Buying a last-minute ticket back to the East Coast was probably going to cost her a quarter of her semester savings, but what were her other options? Dragging her bag down the street, she stood completely paralyzed as she thought about how much things had changed over the past twenty-four hours. At least now she knew that things couldn’t get much worse.
12
Gabe stood outside, his hand gripping the dark wooden fence so tightly he feared he might snap one of the planks in two. In his other hand, he was holding seven years’ worth of envelopes that contained a huge piece of his life that he never even knew he existed. When he suspected Aaron of withholding scripts and indie projects and went to his office to investigate, Gabe never could have imagined that he would find so much more than that.
Two days ago, he’d walked into Aaron’s office and told his secretary that they had a meeting that day. She’d seemed flustered that he had arrived without being on the schedule, but he assured her it was no problem and that he’d wait in the inner office. Years of success granted him a considerable amount of latitude.
The corner office with its floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the city was practically the poster design for an egomaniac's lair. Pictures of Aaron hobnobbing with a who’s who of Hollywood lined the walls, all with Gabe front and center.
Closing the door behind him, he’d made his way to Aaron’s large glass desk and flipped on the computer. It took him three tries at the password “Dollars.” He only had to guess the correct number of dollar signs at the end—no shock there. Once he was logged into the computer, he went to the email and started checking through messages and folders.
He found the email from Matthew Short with the script he’d said he would send, along with a shitty reply from Aaron stating that Gabe just wasn’t interested. He wondered how many other projects he’d missed out on due to Aaron’s indiscriminate filtering. After years of blockbusters, it seemed odd that there was only one type of film studios were willing to consider him for. Now it made a little more sense.
Switching agents was the only way he was going to be able to have the kind of career he wanted; a career that provided him with more fulfilling projects. He had made more than enough money to last him a hundred lifetimes, he was a hair’s breadth away from quitting altogether. Being in the spotlight was something he always thought he wanted, until he’d got to live the life. He’d given up Alex for it, but now he knew that behind the camera was where he was most comfortable.
He’d told Aaron that he wanted to get into producing, and maybe even directing, and had instructed him to seek out projects that might offer the creative leaps he wanted take. Instead, script after script modeled so closely after the Stargazer films that they could be sequels were the only things Aaron sent him. It made his blood boil to think that Aaron had been the reason these types of projects never made their way to him.
In the email, Matthew mentioned that he’d couriered over the script for him to look at. He checked Aaron’s desk and didn’t see anything. Looking for the Matthew Short script, he started
going through the filing cabinet in the corner. It was locked, so he gave it a few hard tugs to break the lock. If Aaron had a problem with it, he’d have to suck it up.
Running his fingers over the tabs, he stopped short when he found a file titled “Alex.” Memories of deep brown eyes and pouty lips flooded him, and he grabbed the thick folder out of the filing cabinet. Why did Aaron have a file on Alex? He crossed the room in swift strides back to Aaron’s desk and flipped open the folder.
Inside were seven card-sized envelopes, each packed full. As he grabbed the first one, a big six drawn on the front and it was stuffed with a letter and photos. He pulled out a letter titled “Emma Year 6.” In it was a handwritten letter from Alex.
Emma’s started first grade this year. It’s amazing how quickly she’s growing. I bought her a bike with training wheels and she’s already whipping around the block without them as I chase after her. She's also reading easy reader books; she’s quite the little book worm and usually asks me to read at least four books to her at night before she will go to bed.
She hasn’t started asking too many questions about you yet. I guess that’s a godsend. I’ve told her that her daddy is far away. I told her that maybe when she’s older she’ll be able to meet you and that we loved each other very much. Even with everything, at least she knows that her mommy and daddy loved each other when they made her.
I hope that’s true. I really hope that’s true. I don’t even know why I continue to write these letters and send pictures, because you never respond. I guess I hope that one day when she starts asking more questions and gets older and starts looking for you, I can tell her that I tried my best to make sure you knew about her and tried to do what’s best for her. I can’t imagine how you can look at the pictures I send you year after year and wouldn’t want to know her, to meet her. She’s a really amazing little girl and I’ll do everything I can to protect her. Well, until next year ...
~Alex
P.S. You’re really a piece of crap for not being a part of your daughter’s life and I’ll never forgive you for it. I hope someday she can.
Gabe stood holding onto that letter for an eternity as his mind reeled. He started to crush the envelope in his hand before he realized that there were pictures inside. He ripped them out of the envelope and bent them back to flat from his crushing grip. It wasn’t until he started flipping through the pictures that the reality of the situation started to sink in. He had a daughter.
A gorgeous little girl with her mother’s deep brown eyes, his chestnut hair, and a smile that could melt an iceberg. It wasn’t until the tears started dripping onto the pictures that he even realized he was crying. Knowing that if Aaron came back to his office right then, he would kill him, strangle him with his bare hands, he grabbed the folder filled with the rest of the envelopes and stormed out of the office.
The secretary seemed startled and tried to stop him as he charged out of the waiting area. He didn’t even give her a backward glance. Taking the stairs, he ran down twenty flights of stairs until he hit the lobby and pushed out the front doors to his town car. Max, his driver, was ready and waiting as always.
Ever since a couple DUIs a few years ago, he was determined not to make that mistake again. Having a driver was an easy solution to save himself and others, because the other option—quitting drinking—wasn’t going to happen, even though no matter how much he drank, he couldn’t drown the feeling that he just wasn’t whole.
Gabe tore into the folder as soon as his butt hit the seat and dug for the first envelope with a large zero printed on the front. He started flipping through all the pictures, his heart wrenching. There was one of Alex when she was heavily pregnant. Gabe ran his finger over the curve of her belly. The belly that held his child. He wished he could have been there to see her and to feel their child growing within her. It took everything in him not to go back and throttle Aaron to within an inch of his life.
“Boss, where we headed?” asked Max when Gabe didn’t say anything once he got into the car.
“I just need you to drive around for a bit, okay?”
“No problem, boss,” replied Max, pulling away from the curb and into traffic to begin their aimless drive around the city.
After flipping through all the pictures, he went through them again, this time taking in every detail. After the one of Alex pregnant, there was one of Emma right after she was born. She looked like a squishy little alien with a cute pink bow on her head. He smiled through his tears as he looked at his little girl. His little girl.
There were more pictures of her and Alex on that first day of her life. A sharp pain stabbed him in his chest—he’d missed the birth of his daughter. He hadn’t been there for Alex. He hadn’t taken the baby breathing classes, gotten to drive her to the hospital like a panicked idiot, or hold her hand as she tried to crush it while going through her contractions. He’d missed all of it and the yawning feeling of loss only compounded as he looked at all the other envelopes of years missed.
He made his way through each one of the envelopes and watched his little girl grow up year by year. The addresses changed over time, to a couple of different states, but she always included them. After two envelopes, his phone started ringing non-stop. He knew who it was and he refused to answer.
If Aaron ever thought he could talk his way out of this, he had another thing coming. Because the next time he laid eyes on him, he was punching him directly in the face as hard as he could. It wasn’t until he started getting tag team calls from Aaron and Ciara that he finally turned the phone off.
He looked at the pictures of Emma again, her umbilical cord being cut, sucking on a pacifier, pushing up on her tummy with her little bright blue eyes sparkling, crawling, reaching for a toy, and walking. He came to one of her first day of school and ran his finger over her big bright captivating smile. She had Alex’s riotous curls, but the color was his. The ache in his chest finally became too much and he had to put the pictures down. He felt like he was having a heart attack.
Why was she sending these to Aaron? Why hadn’t she tried to contact him? Did she hate him that much? He knew he screwed up, but he had a right to know his daughter. Her P.S.s on the letters made him think she had been trying to contact him and had obviously failed. Checking the envelope, they were all addressed to him, but with the address for the management agency. It was almost enough to make him tell Max to turn the car around so that he could beat Aaron within an inch of his life for keeping this from him for so long.
But there was one thing he knew for sure; he was getting his family back.
13
Gabe stood at the fence that ran along the front and sides of the house and opened the front gate. Walking up to the front door, his heart was pounding so hard that he could hear the rushing of blood in his ears. As he lifted a shaky finger to doorbell, a squeal of laughter came from the back of the house. Making his way to the side of the house, he unlatched the side gate and walked into the backyard.
It was a meticulously landscaped, lush green yard with every color flower imaginable around the perimeter. A huge swing set with a slide and clubhouse attached sat off in the back corner of the yard. It was picture-perfect.
Alex and Emma were in the middle of a water fight, complete with water guns, balloons, and sponges. The sprinkler was on and it had cast a mist throughout the air that streaked the whole scene with rainbows. It was like he had walked into a dream. Alex and Emma were screaming and laughing as they completely drenched one another and chased each other around the yard.
“The tickle monster is going to get you,” Alex growled, stomping her feet toward the little girl in exaggerated steps. He tucked back a little bit into the shadow of the house, not wanting to be discovered yet as he watched the scene unfold in front of him. Emma squealed and ran as Alex stomped after her, hands full of water balloons. Emma grabbed a water gun and shot Alex in the face.
“Argh, you got me,” Alex growled, staggering before she fell onto the grou
nd facedown. Emma laughed and jumped up and down triumphantly.
“I did it, I did it!” she said, stopping abruptly. He was standing in their backyard. Gabe Stevens, father of her child, was actually here in the flesh. “Did you see? Did you see me kill the monster, Mister?” she said, bounding over to him.
That caught Alex’s attention and she whipped up from the ground, so fast that he was sure it had made her dizzy. She sat frozen for a few seconds, then pushed up on her knees, staring at him. Emma pulled on his arm for him to bend down and she whispered into his ear, “I didn’t really hurt mommy, we were just playing.” He nodded at her dumbly, with his gaze locked on Alex.
She’d changed a little bit over the years. Her hair was shorter, the long raven locks he’d twirled around his fingers during their nights together was now chin-length and soaking wet. Her body had taken on a decidedly more adult figure with rounded her hips and a fuller chest. The white t-shirt she was wearing clung to her breasts, which he still dreamed about some nights. Her waist remained almost as he remembered it. It was a little thicker but he appreciated that, especially because he knew the cause—the little water nymph currently pulling on his sleeve.
“Hey Emma, I think our water battle is over; why don’t you head inside and start taking out our pancake ingredients?”
“Ok, mommy,” she replied to Alex. “Are you staying for pancakes?” she asked as she turned to Gabe.
“Uh, I don’t—” Gabe started. Pancakes. His mouth started watering simply thinking about Alex’s pancakes. He’d only had them twice in his life, but that was more than enough to bring back vivid memories of those melt-in-your-mouth discs of heaven.
“He’s not.” Alex said, interrupting his daydream.
“Emma, just run inside, ok? Don’t forget the chocolate chips,” she said, shooing the little girl toward the back door. As he watched her go, he knew from the bottom of his toes that she was his.