Broken Crown

by Susan Ward

  Amusement and diversion.

  Success.

  I make my way toward him.

  He takes me in a wraparound, one-arm, patting hug. “Hey brother, what the fuck are you doing in LA?”

  We go to the back of bar, into the VIP private area. I sink on the couch and call out to the cocktail waitress to bring me a coffee. I ignore the amusement that sparks in Ian’s eyes. Fuck, get over it, Ian. I need to stay sharp with Chrissie. I need to cut down on the booze. I need to cut down on my hours in places like these.

  “Got sick of east coast gray,” I say casually, “and the east coast got sick of me.”

  He laughs. “Seriously, how long are you here for?”

  “Three months. Just taking some downtime. Staying quietly out of the mix.”

  His lips purse in an upside down sort of smile and he nods. “Well, you’ve been pretty fucking quiet. I didn’t even know you were here.”

  He laughs.

  Our conversation quickly evolves into the standard array of shit. Music. Concerts. The road. Women. Shop talk and industry gossip. The more we talk, the larger the circle around us gets, and I’m feeling impatient and bored.

  I look at Ian. “Do you want to cut out? Have dinner somewhere?”

  Ian gives me a strange look, shakes his head, finishes his drink, and then stands. “I’ve got to hit it. It’s getting late.”

  Late? “It can’t be past five.”

  He shrugs. “Taking off with you tonight would not be a good thing. There’s trouble at home. Better to go home early.”

  My brows hitch up. “Ah, Yotti is still leading you on a chase, is she?”

  I laugh.

  He glares.

  I like his wife.

  I shouldn’t give him shit.

  Ian juts his chin at me. “Fuck you. Besides, you don’t want me hanging around. Every guy’s wet dream just walked in and she’s got her eyes locked on you like a laser.”

  I look over my shoulder. Jen, former centerfold model and current employee of the promotion company managing my tour. Beautiful. Built. Definitely sexually adventurous. My LA preference from my list of friends I sleep with when I’m here.

  Ian tosses me an amused look. “Lucky bastard. She’s like a bloodhound when it comes to you. I didn’t even know you were in LA. How the fuck did she find you? Asshole.”

  I manage a small laugh as he fades away and Jen closes in. She settles on the couch close to me. She is wearing Dolce & Gabbana. It carries a special tang on her. I’ve never liked the scent, it is usually too pungent, unless it’s on Jen.

  Her eyes do a leisurely once-over of me. She smiles that I’m up for anything kind of smile. My cock twitches. Nothing more. A Pavlovian type of response. Not interested.

  “In town, three days, and you haven’t called me,” she says, following that with a catlike pout. “You look as if you need a little tending. Why don’t we find something better to do than this tonight?”

  Ah, direct. I usually admire that, and there is certainly no need for the preliminaries with us. But tonight it annoys me, and paradoxically the annoyance feels good.

  “I was about to cut out,” I say.

  Her eyes brighten. “Good. We can cut out together.”

  She leans in, and Ian is right, she is every guy’s wet dream.

  I ease away from her. I turn on the couch, one leg on the cushion in an open and inviting posture. “Come here. Get as close as you can get, surround me, without touching me.”

  “What?”

  My laughter grows huskier. “Do as I say.”

  Her eyes do a frantic dart around the room. Checking who is here, I imagine. Hardly anyone, it’s early, and definitely no one important or else I wouldn’t have done this. She’s confused but I can see she’s excited about where this is going.

  In graceful, clever moves of her body, she spreads herself over top of me without contact. Softly, she laughs. “What I have in mind will require touching eventually. You used to know that.”

  “Touching.” I frame her face with his my fingers, spreading them wide. I have a long history with Jen. I like her, but I like even better that she’s no longer even appealing to me, though not exactly unappealing. I lower her face to mine. Breath touching, nothing more. “Thank you. Be a really good friend and lose my number.”

  Her eyes flash. She pulls back and sits on the edge of the cushion. “Fuck you, Manny.” She fixes her eyes on me. “So it’s true?”

  I shrug, since I don’t know what she’s asking.

  Her gaze turns impatient. “You’re back with Chrissie.”

  What the fuck?

  The way Jen is staring at me leaves no doubt that Chrissie and I are the fast moving gossip in the scene again. Though how that’s possible, I don’t know. We haven’t even done anything as benign as go out for dinner. Probably just logical assumption, but fuck, gossip means soon there will be tabloid print and that always fucks up Chrissie. And the last thing I need is one more uncontrollable element complicating matters with her.

  I ignore the comment and stand. “Have a nice night, Jen.”

  She stares up at me. “If you decide you need a friend, call me.”

  “If I need a friend, you’ll be the first I call.” I remember the slip of paper in my pocket. I take it out and hand it to her. “There is something I’d like you to do. Messenger two passes to the LA concert to this name and address. Enclose a note from me. Send a car on the day to get them there. Let them know it’s coming.”

  Jen looks at it and frowns. “Who is Devon Tyler? I’ve not heard her name before.”

  The smile I let surface is lazy and enigmatic. “My pizza delivery boy. I’m working at keeping promises. I’ve kept two in five minutes. Good night, Jen.”

  I head back to my car, unsure where I’m going next. After an hour of fighting rush-hour LA traffic, I’m here again.

  At Chrissie’s house.

  Uninvited.

  Without a call.

  But, fuck, it’s where I want to be.

  I knock on the door and wait.

  After more minutes pass than seem necessary, it’s jerked wide and then hits the inside wall with a thump. I stare down at a four-foot-high echo of Jack. The kid looks just like his grandfather. “Which one are you?”

  One of the twins, I don’t know which, stares at me, annoyed. “You ask me that every time you see me. Do you think it’s funny or do you have a bad memory?”

  Echo of Jack. Bright and blunt in surprisingly improved language skills he’s somehow developed in the last year.

  I shrug. “Which one do you think? Funny or bad memory?”

  The door is slammed in my face. Laughter bubbles upward, though I’m not certain why.

  I don’t move. I wait. I’m starting to feel like an idiot, crouched on the stoop. The door reopens and the kid slaps something on my chest. I look at it. Ah, lopsided letters done in crayon on a mailing label in the center of my shirt: Alan. Another label, carefully made as well, on his shirt: Ethan.

  Ah, the boy has not only learned to write during my absence, but he can spell.

  I smile at Ethan. “It’s very nice. Where did you learn to do letters?”

  “I go to school.” He says that in a way that makes it sound as though it had been a stupid question.

  “School is doing you good. The labels are very nice. Do you think it’s funny or do you have a bad memory?”

  “I remembered the letters.”

  I turned the tables on a six-year-old and Ethan turned them back. Laughing, I pick up the boy, step into the house and shut the door. “You’ve made your point, Ethan. You’ve had enough of the joke.”

  Ethan nods. “You’ve been gone a long time. Where did you come from?”

  I laugh. Where did you come from? The childlike wording is endearing. “New York. I’ve been gone because I’ve been touring. You’re not mad at me, are you? How have you been?”

  “I hate my new house. I liked my old house better.”

 
I nod and leave that one alone. Ethan likes the old house better because Jesse had been there. “You’ll start to like this house, too, Ethan. I promise.”

  “Do you want to play video games? There’s no one to play with today.”

  The house does sound quiet.

  “Maybe later on the video games.” I smile and then notice his cheeks have a bright red burn. “You look like a lobster. Does it hurt? Who let you get too much sun?”

  “Aarsi. She took us to the beach but I stayed in the water with Krystal so she couldn’t turn me into a clown with that white stuff she smooches on my face.”

  White stuff. Zinc. Fuck. I hope Chrissie isn’t pissed that the boy got a sunburn Aarsi’s first day working here.

  “Better a clown than a lobster,” I chide.

  Ethan crinkles his nose in disdain. Clearly the boy thinks not. I cross the empty family room, then go into the kitchen. Vacant as well.

  I set him on his feet. “Where is everyone?”

  “Mom is in the studio. Kaley is gone. Khloe is with Aarsi. Krystal and Eric are at Grandma’s.”

  Almost a childless house.

  My day is rapidly improving.

  Aarsi rushes into the kitchen, looks at me, doesn’t smile, and focuses on grabbing her things and car keys from the counter.

  Ethan runs off.

  I frown. “What was that all about?”

  She sighs, exasperated. “He’s afraid I’m going to take him to his grandmother’s. It’s hell getting that kid from his mother. He doesn’t want to leave her. Not for a second.”

  Not an encouraging bit of news, but not surprising. “He’s afraid she’s going to die like his father.”

  Aarsi gives me a cold, hard stare. My skin covers in prickles out of nowhere. What the fuck did I say to make her look at me that way?

  “Did your first day go well?” I ask.

  She shrugs.

  “Is Mrs. Harris happy?”

  Her eyes become more intensely unpleasant. “I have a full schedule. She wants me back tomorrow.”

  “Good.”

  She shakes her head. It looks almost like she’s struggling not to say something. “Good night.”

  She flounces out of the kitchen. I hear the front door close.

  I leave the kitchen intending to go to the studio since that’s where I can find Chrissie. In surprise, I discover myself at the end of the hallway, outside the nursery.

  I go in.

  The room is bathed in the soft light of a single lamp turned low and every detail of the room holds the feel of Chrissie. Not a single item placed by an impersonal hand. Delicately made natural hue teak furniture. A whisper of color from a scattering of pillows woven with scenes from fairy tales. Stuffed lambs and bears. One of the walls is covered by a full-size mural, the dreamy-hazed images familiar. Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

  I slowly inhale and then exhale. I haven’t looked at her yet. Not really. Not the way I should have. And certain not with the attention that Chrissie expected of me.

  But I couldn’t do it at the time.

  I wanted to.

  I had to fight to stop myself.

  It’s better that I did.

  It just wasn’t something I felt ready to do with Chrissie, unsure what I’d feel, and more worried about letting her see. I didn’t want to hurt Chrissie again. I didn’t want to disappoint her. I didn’t know for sure what this would be for me.

  I cross the room to the crib.

  Khloe lies at an angle, hands under her cheek. She is wide awake and there is a faint sound coming from her like hiccups. It’s nearly a noiseless passing from her lips but it makes her whole body jerk. I laugh. She is wearing only a diaper. I can see every detail of her tiny body. The full bottom lip, the bluish-veined lids with long dark lashes over bright blue eyes, a little pug nose, round creamy cheeks, tiny fat fingers with tinier faintly pink nails, and curls in black.

  I slowly stroke her hair. I gaze at my daughter. Emotion lodges in my throat…my daughter. It’s amazing that even so small she is very distinctive in personality. I can feel the serenity of who she is just by touching her, how her body shudders from the reflex she can’t control, untroubled. I’ve not touched her before. My feel and my sound are not familiar to her. She lies calm beneath my fingers, no tears, wide awake and content.

  Trusting of the world in every way. Four months have made her world already shaped and defined and comfortable to her. A baby surrounded by love from the start. I feel an unwanted stab in my chest. The only part I’ve had in her being here, in who she is, was at the moment of her conception.

  I pick her up, wondering if a change of position will stop the hiccups. She melts into me, a little curl of body parts that feels almost like an embrace. She has her own scent beneath the fragrance of raspberry soap. I settle on the bench built into the long row of full length windows, and lie back against the pillows, legs bent, with her nestled into my chest. Her little body hiccups again. I laugh, the sensation sweetly endearing even with that stream of dampness rolling down her chin onto my shirt.

  I smile down at her and let her drool. Surrounded by a stranger, my hold, my warmth, my scent and she falls back to sleep.

  I struggle to hold in my emotion.

  Being here in Chrissie’s house tonight it feels different. Richer. More intoxicating. More vibrant. Being with Khloe sucks me in deeper, and odder, makes me want Chrissie even more painfully.

  It is so fucking strange that I love Chrissie so much, and yet do it badly. I’ve never known how to love her the way she needs to be loved and we are both too old, too tired, too wounded by life for how we’ve loved before—my fucking her, her walking away, my letting her go, her coming back, my fucking her again and on and on even to this point—to start it all over again unless one of us figures out how to change that quickly.

  My body and heart ache for her. But I don’t know how not to fuck this up. How to prevent the cycle from starting all over again. I’m sick of losing Chrissie. I’m ready to get to keep her.

  I’ve spent twenty years of my life playing fuck and run with the only woman I’ve ever loved, the only woman I’ve never wanted to let go of. What was it that James Hetfield had said? To keep his family he had to be ‘here, clear and in the now.’ Well, I’m here. I’m clear for the first time in a fucking long time. But I am nowhere near in the now.

  My lips pucker.

  I feel the dampness on my cheek.

  Fuck, I’m crying.

  Len is right.

  British rockers never die. We become fathers and fade away.

  I’m shocked how much that thought is appealing to me, and how little interest I have in my life beyond Chrissie’s front door. Everything I want—everything I need—is here with Chrissie.

  Holy fuck.

  I just want to come home.

  Chapter 11

  I go into the kitchen, bypass the hard liquor, and pour myself a glass of wine.

  The house is quiet. Chrissie must still be in the studio working. She probably doesn’t even know that I’m here yet. Good. I need time to regroup.

  I go out onto the patio and settle on a lounger. I need to think this one through before I make so much as a single step in any direction. Figure out what I want. Figure out how to make it work. Be honest with myself about what I can and cannot do.

  Honest with myself.

  Fuck.

  My weak suit.

  Can I even do this?

  It won’t be the same as it was last time we were together. To be with Chrissie means I have to be willing to do everything in this house. Anything short of that would be unfair to her and wrong for the kids.

  Do I want to complicate my life with kids?

  It’s already complicated. One of those children is mine.

  It’s an incredible feeling.

  Does Chrissie even want me in her life?

  Fuck, that isn’t something I’ve thought about.

  Why did I just assume we’d be together?

>   Fuck, I love her.

  I don’t want to lose her again.

  I take a sip of my wine. I want to be here, nowhere else ever again, except with her, but Chrissie comes with kids—lots of kids—and that’s hardly an element I expected myself to be considering at this point in my life.

  Not after Molly.

  I push away those memories. It hurts too much to love a child and then to lose them. I never wanted to go through that again. The pain of loving someone, completely, and then having it taken away. Too soon. Leaving a hole in you that never goes away.

  Yet somehow, Chrissie’s kids have roped me in since the day of their birth. I’ve always loved them. The love I feel for her children runs deeply through me in a way that has always left me sharply surprised. Probably just an extension of loving her. No, they’re wonderful children. I like them.

  But to live with them fulltime.

  To be here.

  Is that even something possible for me?

  I have always enjoyed my visits surrounded by Chrissie’s family. I spent a lot of nights during her marriage in her backyard overlooking the Pacific, talking late into the night with Jesse, envious and admiring them both, and relieved of that tedious sedative boredom that claims me too often by doing nothing but watching her for hours with her kids.

  The way she smiles at them, touches them, made me ache. I’d wonder if that was the way she was with Jesse in their private moments, what it would feel like if I’d known her this way when we’d been together before.

  It was like visiting a spa when you can’t afford it. I’d leave rejuvenated and pinched. The experience recharging me; the cost hurting me. The cost was always leaving, sharply aware that Chrissie was happy and married to Jesse.

  I’m not the man Jesse Harris had been.

  I don’t have a clue what they need from me.

  How am I supposed to make this work?

  I finish my wine, lie back in my chair, and run my hands through my hair. Whatever I hoped would happen tonight—my cock pulses. Fuck, I’d hoped a lot of things. Wanting her is becoming a painful ache—but it is not going to happen.

  She won’t let it.

  We’re not there yet.

  Not in her mind.

  Fuck, I just hope we get there soon.