“How is it your fault?” he asked.
“I barged into your lives.”
“You didn’t barge anywhere,” Frank said. “The second Rose saw you, it was… a father’s worst nightmare.”
“I did everything for him and he gave nothing back.”
“That’s his personality, Foster. You’re not him.”
“I am him,” I said and slammed a fist to the counter. “I left before I knew Rose was pregnant. And she never told me.”
“You didn’t know?”
I shook my head. “She never told me. She called me last night and I heard the commotion with my father. I packed up and left. I haven't slept in over a day, Frank. Trying to swallow all this down.”
Frank approached me. He touched my arm. “Do you love my daughter?”
“You know that answer.”
“Then who cares? You’re here. She’s here. Foster, I hate your father. I’m sorry for what happened all those years ago.”
“No,” I said. “Frank, I’m not here for that.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I came to drink coffee,” I said with a grin.
“Then drink it.”
I caught my breath a little as I sipped the coffee. What I really needed was sleep. I needed Rose and sleep.
I wandered through the kitchen and looked around the house. I thought about the first time I was in the basement with Frank, when he tried to scare the hell out of me for being too close to his daughter. Climbing up those old basement steps and seeing the look on Rose’s face when she saw me emerge alive and well.
Standing near that door, I smiled.
I thought about being a father. The next step in my wild life.
“I miss her all the time,” Frank said. “My wife. I could have used her for a lot of situations in life. But I made it. I got through. Even now, I hurt because she would have been great with Rose. I mean, you have kids and at some point you think about when they have kids. It’s just the way it goes. And nothing is perfect, Foster. Believe me. There’s no good time to have a baby with the way life moves.”
I turned and put my mug on the table. “Frank, I want to take care of Rose for the rest of her life. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“I know.”
“I have to cut ties with my father for good,” I said. “I’m going to pursue any and all legal action to make sure he never gets out, and if he does, he never comes near my family.”
“Your family,” Frank said with growing smile.
“That’s right. My family. My fucking family.”
“Your fucking family,” he said. “That’s why I’m not worried. I should be because you’re a crazy son of a bitch, Foster, but you’ve got a warrior’s heart.”
“I need you around, Frank,” I said. “Not Rose. Not Vivian. Not this baby. Me. I need you around.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Frank said. “I’ve got enough kale to make me live until I’m a hundred years old.”
We both laughed.
I finished the coffee and Frank walked me to the door. At the last possible second, he gave me another one of those bear hugs.
“Stay steady, son,” he said. “That’s all I can say to you. Stay steady.”
“Thanks, Frank,” I said.
He called me son.
I left the house and when I started to drive to go back to Rose, there were three more phone calls to make. The first was to the police station. To make sure my father was put away. I needed as much information as I could get so I could call a lawyer. The second phone call was to Carl. To let him know I wasn’t returning. That I was going to cash out of the music business unless he could find me work that I could do locally. And the final call was to my brother. To Rhett. He didn’t answer it, but I left him a message. There were a lot of things we needed to talk about, but I kept it simple. I reminded him he was long overdue for a guitar lesson.
I wiped the corners of my eyes and drove with a heavy heart.
To go home to the woman I loved.
42
The Alien Gets a Name
Rose
Foster got down on one knee before me and my heart skipped a beat. My fingertips tingled with excitement as I reached for him, but stopped. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I didn’t know what to do at all.
“Rose,” Foster said, looking up at me. “I have something to ask you. Before we leave and find out if we’re having a little boy or a little girl. There’s something I need to do.”
“Foster… what are you doing right now?”
“Shhh,” he whispered. “I’m going to ask the questions here. First off, do you like the crib?”
I looked over at the crib against the wall. I wasn’t sure what world Foster lived in where he thought that living in a studio apartment meant he could pretend to have a nursery for the baby. But I had to hand it to him, he tried his best. The wall next to the bed was decorated with pictures of animals. Then there was a crib with animal sheets. We really hadn’t talked about what the living arrangements were going to be. We still had time though. Plenty of time. I was just taking in each and every day we were together. His strong hands touching my body, always finding their way to my growing belly.
“I love the crib, Foster,” I said.
“I know this isn’t what we want right now, but don’t worry about it. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Foster took my left hand. He ran his thumb over my ring finger. My heart pounded even harder. I swallowed hard, trying to keep my balance.
“Rose. The only days in my life that have ever mattered were the days when I was with you. And this baby now makes it so we are stuck together forever.”
I nodded. Smiling. Waiting…
“So, I wanted to ask you, before we leave,” Foster said. “Will you… lift your shirt so I can kiss your beautiful belly and talk to our little alien before we know what it is?”
He started to laugh.
I didn’t.
“You’re serious?” I asked.
The smile on his face told me everything. I let out a long breath and grabbed my shirt. Okay, before I could completely and totally hate him, this had become almost a game for Foster. At my last doctor’s appointment, the one where Foster saw the baby for the first time on an ultrasound, he caught me looking at a wedding magazine. Jokingly, I told him I wouldn’t have his baby unless we were married. Or at least engaged. That there would be no baby without a diamond ring. I was playing with him, flirting terribly in the doctor’s office. Leave it to Foster to drop to one knee right there in the office, getting the attention from everyone. Only to flirt right back at me, asking some stupid questions, all the while touching my left hand.
So now it was an inside joke between us.
I hated him for it.
But I knew that if the time ever came, my answer was pretty clear.
Foster’s hands touched the sides of my stomach. He came forward and kissed it, then put his nose to my belly.
“You’re supposed to hear me,” Foster said. “I hope you can. Whether you’re a boy or girl, it doesn’t matter. You stole my heart, kid. Faster than your mother did when I first saw her.”
Foster stood back up, towering over me.
I slipped my hands under his shirt, feeling his hard stomach. “I love when you do that, Foster.”
“What, fake propose to you?”
“You’re such a jerk sometimes.”
“All the time, Rose. I have a reputation to uphold.”
“We’d better get going so we’re not late.”
“The appointment isn’t for another hour.”
“Yeah?”
“The ride is only fifteen minutes.”
“Your point?”
Foster grinned. “I’m not one to get to places early. I like to make an entrance.”
His hands touched my hips and inched down.
I felt my body shudder and I sighed. “I can’t right now. But once we’re done there�
�”
Foster curled his lip. “I don’t like to be messed with, Rose.”
“I feel so bad for you,” I teased. I moved my right hand down and eased between his legs. “So bad for you…”
I squeezed him.
Foster sighed. “Rose…”
“Shut up,” I whispered.
My fingers tugged at his zipper.
I pushed at him, making him walk to the bed.
Foster was a strong man and already an amazing father. But to me, he was going to forever be the bad boy who would show up in the middle of the night to steal my heart.
“Are you ready?”
Foster held my hand tight. He sat on the edge of the chair in the dark room, staring at a large TV on the wall across from us. Soothing music played in the background while the flames from the lit candles danced around.
We could have found out at the doctors but Foster wanted it this way.
Which was fine by me. I was up on a large, comfortable bed with lots of pillows. So relaxed that I almost wanted to ask that if Foster paid more money, could I stay and sleep for a few hours. Or days?
“We’re ready,” Foster said. “Come on. We’re ready.”
The ultrasound tech moved the jelly laced wand down my belly. She pressed and twisted. Right there on the TV screen, it was pretty obvious what we were looking at. I gasped.
“Well?” Foster asked. “What am I looking at? It’s still an alien to me.”
I laughed. “Foster…”
“It’s a boy,” the ultrasound tech said.
Foster jumped up. “A boy?”
“Foster, that dot right there is the… you know,” I said.
Foster let my hand go and stepped forward. “That right there. That’s the…”
“It’s a boy,” I said. “No denying it.”
Foster stared at the TV screen as the ultrasound tech paused the screen and began to type.
He turned and looked at me.
I shrugged my shoulders.
My mind already started to race. To play all this out. A boy. A mini Foster. A second Kingsley. I wasn’t sure the world could handle that. I wasn’t sure I could handle that. But the smile on Foster’s face soothed me.
The ultrasound tech continued, pointing out all the parts of our baby. Little arms. Little legs. Even smaller toes. A big head, resembling his father.
A perfect baby.
Foster looked back at me and smiled.
Our world had always been a mess. But now we had a life on the way.
When the ultrasound was done, we were given a ton of pictures. Foster plucked out the one that proved that the baby was a boy and studied it.
“My boy,” he whispered. “Fucking right.”
I laughed. “Easy now.”
Foster looked around the room. “Oh, wait. Now’s a good time for something.”
Foster tucked the ultrasound picture into his back pocket.
He dropped to one knee again and took my left hand.
“Foster, not now,” I said. “I’m not falling for this again.”
“Who said there’s something to fall for?” he asked.
I tried not to get excited, but it was impossible to do when he was in that position.
“Rose, I love you. Everything you’ve given me. Now I want to give you everything in return.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you now, Foster?”
“Yes. And I want to start right here…” He squeezed at my ring finger. “Rose, will you… let me help you off the bed?”
I pulled my hand away and then swatted at him, slapping him across the face. Not hard, but it still felt good to do.
“I take that as a no,” Foster said, rubbing his cheek. “Damn.”
I swung my feet off the bed and wrestled to get to my feet. “You keep that up and I’ll find someone who will actually propose and take care of me.”
Foster’s hands shot right to my waist and held my steady. His lip curled as he looked down at me.
See, Foster could mess with me… but I knew how to mess with him… just make him jealous…
I stared up at him, curling my lip to match his. Wanting to be cocky. Wanting to be fierce against this monster of a man. The man who had swept me off my feet before I realized what that really meant.
“Rose, you don’t ever get to say that again,” Foster said. “We’re stuck in this mess for the rest of our lives. The problem has always been the outside world. We let it in. We chased it too much. You said it yourself, we never took the risk. We never jumped. Yet we were meant to jump years ago.”
“So what are you saying, Foster? You want to jump?”
“We already did, Rose.” Foster turned his head and nodded to the large TV screen. It was a still shot of the baby and his perfectly shaped head. Tiny hands near his mouth. “We already jumped. And whether you’re wearing an engagement ring, wedding ring, a ring that our son buys you for a birthday present, what we have matters more.”
I reached up and touched his face. “I know that, Foster.”
“I’m going to do something someday Rose that’s going to change everything. I promise. Right now, I just want this moment. I want us. I want to spend every single day watching your beautiful body change and become more beautiful. I’m stuck in this moment with you. I’m not sure that’s the right way to do things, but I don’t give a shit. If this moment I’m living in has you in it, Rose, then it’s the only moment that matters.”
I swallowed hard. My tough guy bad boy was showing that tender side again. A side that I only ever saw when he stood on stage and sang songs.
“You’re sort of wrong though,” I whispered.
“How so?”
“This moment isn’t just about me, Foster. Or you.” I felt for his right hand and moved it to my stomach. “It’s about the three of us now.”
Foster grinned.
I blinked, trying to hold back tears.
When I blinked, I saw him back at that party all those years ago. The way he walked with a swagger. The way people weren’t sure about him. The way he locked his eyes on me and became my protector.
“The three of us,” Foster whispered. “I think I can handle that, Rose.”
“I don’t think you have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” he whispered. Foster moved his other hand to my chin, tilting my head back a little. “Here’s the thing, Slug… I fucking choose you.”
WEEKS LATER
43
Hey, Bro
Foster
I paced the long hall of the basement. I was trying to piece together what was left of a song that I had started the night before. Rose had been up feeling extremely uncomfortable. We were actually getting pretty close to grabbing the hospital bag and heading out. She walked through the discomfort, her phone in hand, with a timer running. Finally, she started to feel better and just wanted to sleep. So I got her back in bed and I couldn’t fall asleep. I sat up and watched her sleep, on top of the covers, on her side, her very round belly, my son resting inside her womb.
Talk about a spark of inspiration.
I went back into my music room where I gave guitar lessons and sat down on a metal folding chair. Reaching for a guitar, I kept running through a set of lyrics that just didn’t feel right.
My phone lit up and began to vibrate against the table.
All my attention went to the phone.
I spun around, my heart in my throat, knowing one of these days it was going to be Rose calling to say the baby was coming.
It wasn’t Rose.
It was Rhett. My brother, Everett.
Things had been touch and go with him since we found out we were brothers and since our father was back in jail, this time for a really long time. What I ended up learning was that our father was using Rhett to help this time. Basically, Rhett had become the new me. Strangely enough, there was a small part of me that was jealous of that. The only time my father talked to me and showed he cared was when I was helping him.
At the same time, I knew how much it fucked with Rhett’s head that our father was gone. I did the best I could to talk to him. Keep him focused on his guitar and try to keep him focused on school and his future.
I made it clear that my phone was always on and I would do everything to make sure I answered or called him back. This was no longer me teaching him guitar lessons. This was two brothers trying to figure out what the hell that meant.
“Hey, bro,” I said into the phone.
“Foster?” a voice asked. It wasn’t Rhett’s voice. It was a girl’s voice.
“That’s me,” I said. “Who’s this?”
“This is Carrie.”
“Carrie,” I said. “Where’s Rhett?”
“He needs you,” she said. “Please say you can come and save him.”
“Save him?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”
I heard her voice crack. “Foster…”
“Hey, hey, hey. Carrie. Take a deep breath and talk to me.”
“Please come and save him from doing something really stupid.”
I had the love of my life in her apartment, in bed, trying to rest. She swore she was coming to my gig at the coffeehouse and I wanted her to stay put and relax. She wasn’t on bed rest because of the doctor, but ordered to by me. And there I was, navigating my truck down a dirt road, looking at the all the ghosts from all the parties I used to have in the woods surrounding me.
All Carrie had to say was the ridge and I knew where Rhett was.
He was going to try and hurt himself.
Carrie had managed to get his phone and call me. She said he snuck a bottle of booze from his foster family’s house and was acting crazy. Believe me, the kid wasn’t crazy. He was heartbroken. He was lost.
I parked my truck and jumped out, leaving the door open. I ran through a thicker part of the woods and saw the flicker of a hot pink color ahead. It was Carrie as she hurried to get near me. She was a pretty young girl, and the look of worry on her face reminded me way too much of me and Rose. These two fools were going down that same path. Maybe I should have been more like her stepfather and tried to keep them apart, but face it, when fate puts its finger to the ground, there’s no getting around it.
Let You Go Page 27