by R. K. Lilley
I pondered that. “Just about. He and I…we always had chemistry. We tried to fight it at first, but here we are.”
She nodded. “Yes. Tristan plus any woman would be mad chemistry.”
I didn’t appreciate that. And she wasn’t done.
“I assumed you’d be head over heels in love with him. Who wouldn’t be? But I didn’t realize that he was mad for you, as well.”
“You didn’t? What did you assume? Tell me, what impression has he given you?”
“Well, he’s just…I don’t know, out of town so much. He’s as good as living in L.A., away from you. I just thought that if he was serious, he’d try to be here more.”
“You think either of us have a say in the recording schedule? We don’t, but it’s a temporary problem. I guess he could quit the band, but they should be done in a matter of weeks, I’ve heard.”
She shrugged. “If you say so. It just seems to me that you don’t just turn that lifestyle on and off. I don’t know, I guess that when I heard he had a girlfriend, and then saw the kind of life he leads over there, I just assumed it was a casual thing. The things that go on in that house would test any serious relationships. I don’t know how you can stand it.”
“What kinds of things? Do tell.” I felt my cheeks flushing, my temper rising.
She glanced at the kitchen as though she wanted to be sure that Tristan didn’t overhear what she was about to tell me. “Drinking, drugs, constant parties…women,” she said quietly, pointedly.
I felt bile rising in my throat, but I held my composure. “Are you telling me that Tristan’s been unfaithful to me?” The drugs concerned me too, and even the drinking, when he took it to extremes, but that last one caught my attention like nothing else could.
She shook her head quickly, eyes wide, lips pursed. “No, no, that’s not what I’m saying. He’s not like that. But he’s lonely, I can tell. How long will he be lonely before he caves to temptation over there? Every man has needs.”
My jaw clenched. I loved my sister, but I hated that she assumed that she somehow knew Tristan better than I did, that she somehow had an intuition into his needs that I did not.
“Thanks for your concern,” I told her, trying hard to keep my tone nice, “but it’s my job to see to Tristan’s needs, and if you’ll notice, he’s not complaining. As soon as they get this record done, he’ll be back in town, and everything will be back to normal. We just have a few more weeks left of the long distance relationship.”
My mind avoided the fact that we’d been saying this for months now.
She didn’t look convinced, and I wondered why she needed to be. How did any of this affect her, and why did she feel the need to make it her business? I was getting more agitated by the second.
“And what about when the band goes on tour, to promote the new album? How will things work out then? Would you go with them?”
I blinked. I hadn’t heard anything about a tour from Tristan, though I had heard it mentioned. “Go with them?” I repeated blankly. “Well no, I wouldn’t go with them. I have too much going on here. I couldn’t just quit school, quit working, quit everything to go on tour with them. The idea is ludicrous.”
“I’d do it,” she said passionately.
My hands clenched.
She continued, “I’d do whatever it took to keep a guy like Tristan, even if it meant leaving my whole life behind. Don’t you think he’s worth it?”
It was a much stronger effort this time to keep my tone polite. “I know better than anyone what he’s worth. He means the world to me, but he wouldn’t ask me to do something like that. And besides, he hasn’t said a word to me about the band going on tour.”
She shot a pointed look Tristan’s way. His back was to us as he cooked, oblivious to our conversation, in the kitchen.
“Well, you should ask him about it. I don’t know why he hasn’t told you, but the band is planning a three month tour just as soon as they finish recording.”
“Three months?” I burst out, loud enough to turn Tristan’s head. He shot me a questioning glance, but I just shook my head. I’d bring it up to him later. It would be ideal if we could have that conversation when we were alone.
I gave Dahlia a rather stiff smile. “He and I can discuss it later. Let’s you and I find something else to talk about, huh?”
Tristan made us enchiladas, which he knew were my favorite.
I set the table, getting all three of us tall glasses of ice water.
He brought the bottle of Jack to the table, pouring himself a generous amount. He’d been much better in general since the pregnancy, but his drinking was hitting new levels.
I stared at the bottle. The drinking was becoming more and more troublesome. There was a time when what I thought was his occasional, casual drug use bothered me the most, but the drinking seemed, to me, to be turning into the bigger problem.
“Just to take the edge off,” he explained with a charming smile, flashing me his most dangerous dimples.
I thought about how he hadn’t used to need to take the edge off around me. It used to be just my company was enough to do that, especially for an evening spent at home.
We ate, and the food was wonderful. I wondered how it was that none of Tristan’s cooking ever seemed to set off what seemed to be my constant nausea.
I lasted until dessert before I had to ask, but it was a struggle. “So what’s this I hear about a three month tour?”
Tristan froze, a spoonful of chocolate cake halfway to his mouth. He set it down, looking sheepish, then stern as he shot Dahlia a reprimanding look.
Now that I didn’t like. If they had spent enough time together to have some sort of silent language, that wasn’t good for my peace of mind. What the hell was going on here?
“The record producer is trying to put something together, but I haven’t signed on. I haven’t committed to anything yet. I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I was going to ask you what you thought about it.”
“You know, it’s funny how you always say you don’t know what you’ll do, but you always seem to do whatever the hell they ask you to. I’m thinking you have your decision already, you just don’t want to tell me, because you know it’s a terrible idea, and I won’t approve.”
His hand covered my clenched one on the table. “Sweetheart, my decision is made, now. I can see that you don’t like the idea, so I won’t do it. Simple as that. Like I said, I’d never agreed to it. It was just something that the record producer wanted to do. I have no problem saying no.”
He sounded so convincing that I let myself be convinced.
Dahlia wound up crashing on the couch, rather than driving all the way back home late at night, and it wasn’t until Tristan and I were alone in the bathroom adjoining his room, brushing our teeth, that I brought it up again. “Why didn’t you tell me you had met each other? Why would you keep that from me?”
He spat, setting his toothbrush down, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“What does that mean?”
His brow furrowed as he scratched at his jaw. “Don’t get upset—“
“That’s never a good way to start off.”
“Yes, I know. It’s not good. Dahlia started coming to the house maybe three months ago. She was hanging around a lot. I tried to warn her off, and I made sure all of the guys knew that she was off-limits, but, I don’t know. I thought you’d worry about her, hanging around the guys that much, getting into that scene. She’s a very nice girl, but she doesn’t listen to me.
“I was hoping,” he continued, “when she met up with you again, that you could talk some sense into her, but she just kept putting off the meeting. She stopped coming around the house in L.A. a while ago, so I thought the problem was solved, but I was worried it would hurt your feelings that she’d spent time with the band, and still hadn’t so much as called you. I’m relieved you two seemed to hit it off, after all.”
“You two seem to have hit it off, as well,�
�� I muttered.
He grimaced. “Yeah, I guess. When she came around to the house, I was usually locked up in my room to avoid whatever mess Dean was cooking up, but I did see her a few times. I just assumed she was there to visit one of the other guys, though I couldn’t have said which one.”
“And she told me you still have groupies visiting the house.” I wasn’t exactly shocked by this, but even so, I wasn’t pleased.
“You know I wouldn’t—“
“Yes, I know, but that’s not the point. The point is that you promised me you’d make some house rules over there.”
“I did, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been able to enforce them. Every time Dean does it, I refuse to work in the studio the next day, but I’ve got to tell you, that seems to be just what he wants. He’d love it if we were stranded there inevitably. The first three times he brought random chicks back, I left, went to a hotel, but that didn’t change a thing either. I try to kick them out myself, but they’re girls. I’ve kicked Dean’s ass, but he doesn’t give a shit what I do. I could leave, but at this point, I’d owe the studio more than I can afford to pay back if I back out of this deal. I’m sorry, but it’s become a mess that I don’t know how to clean up. Right now I just want to finish up and get the hell out of there.”
“How come you didn’t tell me about any of this before? It’s been going on for months?”
He shrugged, looking unhappy. “You have enough on your plate. What kind of man would I be, if I can’t even handle my own problems, especially considering your condition?”
“Just don’t go back,” I said suddenly, decisively. “It’s bad for you. This thing is taking its toll on you. We’ll figure out a way to pay back the studio, and if they try to sue, we’ve got Bev and Jerry to help you fight them.”
He moved behind me, both hands going to cup my belly very, very gently. “I can do this. I’ll finish it and walk away. We’ll need all of our spare money when this little angel comes along.”
I smiled, my heart in my eyes. I couldn’t help it, every time he talked about the baby, I melted into a puddle at his feet.
“She has a huge crush on you,” I told him after a time my voice very quiet. I did not want to be heard through the walls.
He winced, which told me that he already knew that. “Trust me, I hate that even more than you do. But what am I supposed to do? I have to be nice to her. She’s your sister. I’ve already asked her to back off twice. She stopped hanging around the house, so I think she got the picture.”
That satisfied me, at least on his end, but I had no clue what to do about her. Hopefully she’d just get the picture and move on.
He kissed my neck, one hand going up to palm my breast.
“Tristan,” I told him, trying to sound stern, but falling far short. “We can’t. Not with my sister under the same roof.”
“Oh, hell no. I’ll kick her out right now, if it’s going to be like that.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You’re just going to have to get over this type of shyness. We’ll be living in a house with a baby soon. Are we going to abstain just because our baby is under the same roof?”
I mulled that over. I hadn’t thought about the logistics of it yet.
“The answer is no, Danika. There’ll be no abstaining. If you need to, you can try to be quiet, but I’m not keeping my hands off you tonight, or any night. And think about how silly you’re being, considering all of the times with Bev and the kids under the same roof?”
He had a point, but so did I. “But this is different. The apartment is much smaller, and the sound carries in here.”
“I don’t fucking care.”
This was also a good point. I could see when I’d lost a battle, and this one I conceded gracefully, and unfortunately, loudly.
He stripped me, splayed me out on his bed, and worked on me with his tongue until I was biting my hand not to scream. He was relentless, and finally, when one small shriek burst out of me, he moved up my body and took me hard. There was no mistaking what we’d been up to by the time we were done.
I doubted the neighbors hadn’t heard.
“You’re an ass. It’s like you wanted her to hear.”
“Well, let’s put it this way. I don’t care if she knows, and now you won’t be as embarrassed the next time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
DANIKA
In the end, it was the exhaustion that broke me.
I had so much to do, day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. Between work and school, my life was a marathon, and I didn’t know how to slow it down.
There were no pauses for breaks, or naps, or even proper meals.
My fatigue was consuming, but I had always been such a tireless person before the pregnancy that I had no patience for it.
I did not give that fatigue its proper respect.
To this day, I blame myself for that. Hindsight is so very brutal.
It was one misstep, one careless slip that began my unraveling.
I was nearly five months along, a firm bump evident on my belly when I wore something tight, which I’d stopped doing. I wore baggy T-shirts and sweaters, still hiding the pregnancy from Bev, even knowing that it was hardly something I could hide for long. I knew I was being a coward about it, but I hated the idea that this would make her disappointed in me.
So no one knew. No one but Tristan and I, and Leticia, and Tristan wasn’t around much.
It was four a.m. on a Friday, and I was expecting Tristan to be back at his apartment sometime that afternoon. Expecting was a generous word. I was hoping, because he’d told me he’d be there. But, more and more, what he said and what he did were two different things, and I knew that there was a fifty/fifty chance I wouldn’t be seeing him until late that night.
He’d been on point for a while, after the initial stunning news of the pregnancy. But then the band had finished up the album, which was everything we’d wanted, and he’d come home to stay.
But my schedule had gotten no better, no less hectic, in fact, it was more so, and our time together still wasn’t what it should have been. And so Tristan had too much free time on his hands, which was bad for him. I could see it within days, that this wasn’t going to work, and within weeks, desperate to find the right balance, I’d told him to go ahead with the tour.
So to his detriment, we’d gone back to the long distance schedule, and he’d gone on the road. Recording in L.A. had been bad for him. The road was worse. They only had three weeks left of it, and I was counting the days.
I’d been up until one a.m. studying, and I planned to meet up with a study group at the university library for a few hours before my first class.
It’d been a rough week.
I took a five minute shower, rushing in, and unfortunately out, trying to step over the lid of the tub and out with one lurching step that missed its mark, sliding back into the tub.
One foot, and then the other, slipped out from under me, and I jerked forward. I threw my hands out, trying to catch myself, but the lid caught me hard in the stomach before my hands met the ground.
It knocked the breath out of me, the hard metal ridges that formed the tracks of the shower stall cutting sharply into me.
I huddled back into the tub, rubbing my belly, tears stinging my eyes at my clumsy carelessness.
I was thoroughly shaken.
It took me so long to dry off and get dressed, sitting down to slide on every piece of clothing, that I was nearly an hour late to my study group.
But I seemed to be fine after that, and I moved forward with my day, the more time that seemed to pass without any worrisome developments giving me confidence that the fall had done no lasting harm.
It was around five p.m. that I began to cramp. They were not severe cramps, but I called the doctor’s office anyway. I had a brief word with the nurse on call. She sounded bored, and impatient, and I explained my problem in a halting tone. I hated to even talk about it aloud, as though acknowledgi
ng a possible problem with my baby was allowing that problem to gain more substance. I did not want this fear of mine to become tangible.
I heard gum smack in my ear before the bored female voice quoted an explanation about braxton hicks contractions, and the things I should look for before I jumped the gun, and hauled off to labor and delivery.
I said a numb goodbye right before the phone went dead at my ear. I’d apparently used up my allotted nurse on-call time.
I called Tristan next, desperate to talk to someone, and he was certainly the only one I could talk to about this. There was no answer.
No answer at five or at six. Or at seven.
At eight, I began to spot. I never called the nurse back, thinking that I’d rather go to labor and delivery than deal with her bored tone again, and none of my symptoms were quite severe enough for that.
I went to his apartment, the cramps getting worse, though not severe.
He wasn’t there. Not even Dean was there.
At ten o’clock, I was doubled over by a shooting pain, and the spotting hadn’t stopped.
I didn’t know who to call. I didn’t want to tell anyone how irresponsible I’d been, getting pregnant by a man that didn’t show up when he said he would, who wasn’t even taking my calls anymore.
I knew I wasn’t supposed to be bleeding this much, but then again, didn’t you hear all the time about pregnant women spotting?
I didn’t know what to do. Should I call an ambulance? The hospital was not that far away, and besides that, after calling Tristan, texting him, over and over for the last five hours, my phone had died. Dean and Tristan had never bothered to get a home phone. Who did, nowadays, when everyone had a cell? But neither of them were here now, and I didn’t have my charger on me.
I didn’t panic. I felt too tired, too lethargic to panic. Panic took energy.
The blood was not so very much, I told myself.
I laid down and found a towel, pressing it against me, hoping to stop the flow if I held very, very still. Was it getting worse all of a sudden? Could it even be called spotting anymore? It had become a steady, worrisome flow.