by Malcom, Anne
“I never said I didn’t like it,” he seethed.
“You like it?” I hated that my anger deflated and the needy kid inside me was seeking validation from him. Who was I kidding? He was the only person I wanted validation from.
“Of course I fucking like it,” he hissed. “I like it too fucking much. And since you’re determined to be mad at me, determined to waltz in here lookin’ like that where I can’t rip off your clothes and show you how much I like it, I’ve decided to be angry at you about it.” He paused, running his eyes over me. “Both of us are pissed, we can have angry sex first.”
The moment hung between us, his look dark with desire, a gaze that was not appropriate with the people watching our fight. But I didn’t give a fuck about the audience, I was seconds away from jumping on him and forgetting about my anger.
“Oh my god, your hair!” Lexie screamed.
“Emma!” Ava screamed, mimicking her mother.
Both Wyatt and I turned to where a tiny human was running at me. I scooped her into my arms, she squealed as I did so. “My little Ava bear,” I murmured, kissing her.
“Your hair looks like midnight,” she said, stroking it.
“Is that a compliment?” I asked, kissing her nose.
“What’s a compliment?” she said, still fingering the strands in her chubby fingers.
“Ava, wanna come to Uncle Wyatt?”
Before she could answer, she was snatched out of my hands.
I scowled at Wyatt, who kissed Ava on the forehead.
“You shouldn’t be lifting her,” he snapped, registering my scowl.
“Oh, I shouldn’t be making an appointment with a hitman either, but we all do what we must to get annoying baby daddies out of our lives,” I replied.
“Emma!” Lexie all but screamed, interrupting yet another argument between Wyatt and I. “You changed your hair.” She stood in front of me, contemplating me with a gaze that only a best friend could use. “You look amazing.” She glanced to Wyatt, who was busy with Ava but still shooting an occasional glare my way. “Are you okay?” she whispered, leaning in to squeeze my hand.
I grinned. “Of course. I just decided that I’m gonna let blondes have their fun while I fuck shit up as a brunette.” I rubbed my belly. “Well, as much fun as a pregnant woman can have while trying to hide the fact the father is one of the most famous men on the planet,” I added.
Lexie furrowed her brows at me vocalizing what everyone was thinking about. Their life in the spotlight meant nothing was private. I guessed the way the world was in the age of social media, no one’s lives were private. But it was getting press that Wyatt wasn’t appearing at parties and didn’t have a different girl on his arm every night.
Nobody told Mark, the band’s long-time manager, but he knew nonetheless. We’d become aware of this at the ‘meeting’ he’d called between us before the incident at this very beach house.
“I’ve been with you since the beginning. That’s what you pay me for, other than to make sure Sam doesn’t get sued or arrested,” he said. “I also know you well enough to know not to do shit a normal manager would do for his client, like get you to sign a nondisclosure, make sure you’re not gonna sell photos to any publication without Wyatt’s knowledge.”
Wyatt burst out of his chair. “You do that, the band’s lookin’ for a new manager,” he hissed.
I blinked at Wyatt, surprised at his outburst, not at Mark’s words. Because Mark was a good manager, suggesting that was exactly what he should be doing. He was there to protect the band, not me. But Wyatt had taken it upon himself to be more and more protective, to the point of insanity. I should’ve felt it stifling, not insulating like I did.
Which was the problem.
Mark gazed at him, expression mild. “I said that’s what a normal manager would do with other clients,” he said. “Even by rock star definitions, none of you are normal clients. Which is why I turn down every other offer I get, despite the pain in the ass you all are.”
“That and your ten percent,” Wyatt snapped.
Mark didn’t react. “I’m not suggesting Emma sign anything, because I know that she would be more likely to pay the tabloids not to print anything about her than the other way around.”
I raised my eyebrow. Mark had been around the band since the start, which meant he’d been around me. But he was the busiest man I’d ever seen, always on his phone, yelling at interns, publicists or Sam. I didn’t think he’d noticed me enough to know my last name, let alone my views on being in the public eye.
“I’m just gonna tell you both, there’s an expiration date on secrets in our world. I’m fucking great at my job, so you’ll have a longer shelf life than most, but we’re going to need a statement for when the news does come out.” He looked between us. “Unless you want to be ahead of the pack, announce it together?”
“No,” I said immediately before Wyatt could say anything. “We’re not announcing anything. Not yet.”
“We’re gonna have to say what we are when the time comes,” Wyatt put in.
I glared at him. “We are nothing but two people having a baby together.”
He glared back. “We’re fuckin’ more than that and you know it.”
Mark’s phone buzzed. “I’m gonna get this while you two”— he looked between us— “be you two.”
Then he walked out.
Wyatt yanked me out of the chair. I tried to fight out of his grip, but he didn’t let me, his hand settling on the bump hidden by my flowy black blouse. “The world is gonna know sooner or later, Em,” he murmured. “And I don’t give a fuck about what the world thinks, but I do know I want to fuckin’ boast about my two girls.”
“I’m not yours,” I hissed.
He cupped my cheek. “You are and you know it.”
I blinked at his gaze. At the words. How fucking warm and fuzzy they were.
“No, Wyatt. All I know is you’re a rock star. And I’m nobody. And I know exactly how that’s gonna play in the press.”
Wyatt’s face hardened. “No, babe. You’re somebody. You’re everything.”
The words hit me physically.
Luckily, so did morning sickness, so I had to yank myself from his arms to go and throw up. He’d tried to follow me, but Lexie had barred him from the bathroom like the amazing best friend she was.
We had yet to discuss the ‘statement’ we’d be making about our situation. Just add it to the list of things piling up on my shoulders.
Lexie squeezed my hand. “Well, when the vultures eventually get a hold of the news, at least you’ll look great in the paparazzi photos.”
Gotta love a silver lining.
* * *
“Emma, I need your baby photos,” Gina said.
Wyatt and I hadn’t spoken since he suggested angry sex, and I could feel his gaze all over me. I’d been actively trying to ignore this and entertaining fantasies of the sex, so it took a couple of seconds for Gina’s question to permeate.
I blinked at her. “My what?”
“Baby photos. I’m making an album of everyone from then ‘til now kind of thing, now that we’ve got the new generation running around.” She smiled to where Sam was holding Zeppelin, her eyes melting a little.
To be fair, Sam with his tattoos, muscles and rock star style, holding a baby was pretty fucking sexy. My eyes drifted to Wyatt, to find them already on me. I imagined him holding our child, and if Sam, of all people looked sexy doing that, then I was in trouble. Because I was already having trouble holding onto the reasons why getting together with Wyatt was a bad idea—I was too mentally fucked up, he’d already hurt me before, I’d hurt him, it would go terribly wrong and then affect our child.
“Obviously I’m going to be the sexiest baby of us all,” Sam put in, giving his wife a melty look of his own.
“Dude, babies aren’t sexy,” Noah said. “That’s just fucking wrong.”
Sam shrugged. “Don’t hate because I came out of the womb a sex s
ymbol and you didn’t.”
Noah shook his head and emptied his glass. “Just stop talkin’, dude.”
“I don’t have baby photos,” I said to Gina, trying to make myself sound as even as possible.
She furrowed her brow. “Like you don’t have any physical ones? Yeah, everyone is transferring to digital files. It’s so sad. So impersonal, you know—”
“No,” I interrupted. “I don’t have any baby photos, period.”
She blinked, and I was aware of Wyatt in the corner of my eye, I was aware of the way the energy in the room changed at the awkward moment I created. Gina’s eyes softened in pity, and Lexie, who was sitting next to me, squeezed my hand.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Sam declared. “Because if there was anyone giving my sexy baby self some competition, it would be Emma.” He winked at me. “Thanks for making it easy to win amongst all these commoners.”
Sam’s remark severed the awkward moment and the night went on.
Not without another reminder of the fact my past may not have existed in photos, but it was scarred on my flesh all the same.
* * *
I was out getting fresh air. After my little misstep with the baby photos, things had fallen into the rhythm that had become the norm now that one half of the band was married with kids. It was easy. There were smiles. Swearing. Admonishments for swearing in front of the children. Teasing. Laughter. Love. Warmth.
And it all got too warm for me, too much of a big happy family that I considered myself so lucky to be a part of but also wanted more of. More being Wyatt kissing me inappropriately at the dinner table like Sam had with Gina. Or whispering things in my ear while wine was being poured and making me spill aforementioned wine like Killian did with Lexie.
Wyatt had sat beside me, laying his hand atop my thigh and leaning in close enough so his heat flayed at my skin. “Just bought the most expensive camera combo I could find online,” he murmured. “Gonna be the fucking king of baby photos and home videos.”
And then his hand was gone, leaving a burning palm print in its wake and I had to pretend like breathing was easy and normal after that and my heart wasn’t in my throat.
So yeah, I needed air that wasn’t saturated with Wyatt and with all the beautiful, disgusting love the rest of my family were dripping all over the place.
I should’ve known he’d follow me. It seemed like our spot, ever since the day we got high the day Lexie was shot.
Most times he’d just sit across from me and not speak, pass a joint if he had one. Since the baby announcement the joint was obviously absent—since he’d quit smoking weed as well as cigarettes—but he still came. It was the place where we had an unspoken truce. We left all of our shit at the door and gave ourselves a pocket of peace that was impossible to carry past this small area overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
He didn’t sit across from me this time.
He sat beside me on the sofa that was big enough for two but never had we tested it. Testing it would surely tear through the tenuous peace this space offered. I stiffened at his closeness at the same time I ached for his touch. He didn’t cross the small distance between us.
I told myself it was for the best.
“Go out with me Thursday night,” he said after a long silence.
I turned to look at his profile. He was already watching me. “Why?”
“Because I want to take you on a date.”
I scoffed. “Wyatt, you’ve already impregnated me, you can’t take me on a date now.”
“Why not?”
I searched for reasons. “Because it’s not how it works,” I said lamely.
“We’re not people to play by the rules, so it works for us.” He smirked.
I gritted my teeth and ached to escape his gaze, but I couldn’t. “It’s a bad idea. You know that. We’ve got to keep our boundaries. For both our sakes.”
His grin disappeared. “I don’t know shit,” he said. “All I know is that you’re fighting something I know you feel. And I know it because I feel it too. It’s always been there, Emma.”
The truth hit the air, mingled with the salt in it, added more emotional barnacles to this place. I couldn’t escape it, so I had to face it with a truth of my own. An ugly one.
“We were never meant to be,” I whispered against the waves. “We were always meant to be a what-if. We were meant to be a sentence without a full stop. An unfinished paragraph. A story without an ending. Because then we could always think about each other with a strange kind of nostalgia for a life we never had. Find comfort in the idea of what we could’ve had. We were never meant to be this because I don’t think there’s comfort in us, Wyatt. We weren’t meant to end up together. I respect you too much to sentence you to a life with me.”
I almost said I loved him too much, but I was already giving away enough. Who was I kidding? I’d given up everything I could to him.
He snatched my chin as I tried to look away to the ocean, away from his gaze. “I don’t want comfort, Emma,” he hissed. “I only want you. We might not be meant to be, but we’re gonna be. Because you’re all I want, and despite your protests, I know you want me too. So just say yes to the fucking date and let me prove it to you.”
I should’ve gotten up, walked away. But instead I spoke. “Yes.”
Chapter Thirteen
It was Thursday.
I was in my bedroom, surrounded by my entire wardrobe. Yeah, I was that girl. Losing it because she had nothing to wear on a date with a guy she was in love with.
Granted, I couldn’t find anything to wear because all the clothes she wore were skin tight and made to show off skin and a body she worked her ass off to get. Now I was pregnant, and my ass was coming back with a vengeance. And my tits. So none of the clothes fit me.
And the man in question had impregnated me so it wasn’t like it was some kind of first date.
It felt like one somehow.
I had fucking butterflies.
My phone buzzed and I looked down at it.
Wyatt: Is it wrong that the only thing getting me through the day is knowing you’re going to insult me over dinner tonight?
I read the text over three times, smiling by the end of it.
Me: It’s wrong that you need to be insulted to have fun. You should probably get yourself a shrink. Totally fucked up.
His reply was instantaneous.
Wyatt: You’re the only one who can insult me. And it’s not to have fun. I have that with you too. But you’re the only woman who can insult me and turn me on at the same time. I don’t give a shit if it’s fucked up, because it’s with you.
Yeah, fucking butterflies.
Me: Stop texting me and go and yell at an assistant, smash a guitar. Act like a rock star.
I was still smiling when I got an Instagram notification. It was from one of the trashy tabloids that I must’ve forgotten to unfollow. My smile got wiped clear off my face when I saw the latest photo on their account.
It was of Wyatt.
Kissing a skinny, blonde, tanned woman outside of his recording studio.
It was from today.
Because he’d sent me a photo earlier today informing me he wore a beanie and short sleeves just for me. It was the same outfit. And Wyatt was a total rock star douche. He never wore the same outfit twice. He wore almost identical versions of the same outfit on the daily, but never the same actual clothes.
Woodenly, I put my phone down and stared at the carnage around my room, clothes littered everywhere, remnants of a life that was slowly disappearing with my ever-growing stomach.
One that I’d be living alone while Wyatt kissed skinny blondes in between recording sessions.
I could’ve cried. Crawled into bed and had a Gossip Girl marathon, shut out the world and thought about all the things that were wrong with me that made Wyatt want to French skinny blondes instead of me.
I did not do that.
I made some more bad decisions instead.
Self-destruction was a hobby of mine.
* * *
“You can get it, you know.” He nodded down to my vibrating phone. “Someone really wants to get ahold of you.”
I glared at the name on the screen.
Aaron did the same. “Asshole?” he said, face carefully blank.
“My boss,” I lied, snatching up the phone. “I’m busy,” I hissed by way of greeting.
“Jesus, Emma!” Wyatt shouted. “You scared the life outta me. You’re not at your apartment and no one knows where you are. Why the fuck didn’t you answer your phone?”
“Um, because I have a life and it doesn’t involve me having to pick up the phone every time you call.” I made my voice purposefully sharp and didn’t acknowledge the fact we were meant to be on a date right now.
He hadn’t acknowledged the fact he was spending the day sucking face with other girls, so it was fair play.
Aaron’s eyes widened as he politely pretended he wasn’t listening.
“I’m meant to be pickin’ you up for our date,” he clipped.
“I changed my mind. I’m a woman. I hear we do that,” I replied, deciding not to mention the photo I saw. I didn’t think I could physically do it.
“Stop fucking around, Em,” Wyatt snapped. “You fainted yesterday.”
I knew that would come back to haunt me. Before the infamous Instagram photo, I had been certain our date would’ve been changed to a hospital so Wyatt could have them monitor my blood pressure or some shit, if I told him about another small fainting episode with Gina at Shake Shack.
“Sam has such a fucking big mouth,” I muttered. “I’m not getting Gina those first editions anymore.”
Of course I was going to get Gina the first editions—because I liked her—Sam was going to get paid back for that. I’d think of something good. I looked to Aaron. Revenge was my specialty after all.
“No, for once, Sam is actually making good decisions telling me the mother of my kid is fucking fainting at Shake Shack,” Wyatt all but yelled in the phone. “And what in the fuck were you doing at Shake Shack anyway?”