UNBROKEN (Friends, Lovers, or Nothing Book 5)

by Jackie Chanel

  “You better sit down for this.”

  Lord, how I wanted to! I didn’t have anything with wheels so I could sit and roll around my workroom so sitting wasn’t an option. My feet were killing me but tonight was going to be another long night. That’s what I get for spending all that time in Atlanta being babied by my mother and talking to Pastor Hodges. Delilah and Kirk are good but they aren’t me.

  I held up a pair of turquoise and gold earrings next to the mannequin’s head. They didn’t go and Kirk was right there next to me with about twenty-five other pairs of earrings.

  “Just tell me, Daniela.”

  “Garrett and I found our surrogate. She’s a lovely girl. She’s twenty-six, in excellent health, very fertile, but weird as hell though. She’s like a professional surrogate. We’re all meeting with lawyers tomorrow to get all the paperwork signed. Then, we’re going to schedule the IVF. We’ll have a kid in less than a year. Isn’t that awesome? Our kids will get to grow up together!”

  “Aww man!” Delilah groaned. “You’re having a baby too? I want a baby!”

  “Bubbles, you have to toss the birth control pills in order to do that,” I reminded her. “You’ve been talking about having a baby for a year yet every three months, you’re at the OB/GYN for a re-up.”

  “I could get accidently knocked up like you,” she teased.

  “Umm, we’re still talking about me,” Daniela pouted. “But yes, Delilah. Toss the birth control and have a baby too. Then all of our kids will be around the same age. Then, when they get older, they’ll be the “it” crew like those kids on Rich Kids of Beverly Hills. They’ll be fabulous.”

  “You could have your own reality show, Daniela,” Kirk kidded. “I can see you having a show like Kimora did.”

  “Do not encourage her,” I warned. “The last thing the world needs is Daniela Adriani-Tate with cameras following her around 24/7.”

  “Garrett won’t let me anyway. They wanted to do Basketball Wives NY but Garrett was like ‘Hell naw! No wife of mine is going to work for VH-1.’ I was like, ‘It’s Shaunie though. And we love Shaunie.’ He still wouldn’t let me do it.”

  Kirk shook his head. “But you’re going to be a mom. I’m sure there’s a network that would pay good money to document that. You are the Queen Bee after all.”

  Daniela shrugged and kept messing with my garments. “I know. I’m so excited. I didn’t think it was going to be this easy to find a surrogate and do the IVF. We’re going to rent her a place in New York for the duration of the pregnancy and pay all her expenses while she’s pregnant. I might be coming off cheaper than you and Aiden with this pregnancy,” Daniela laughed.

  “Considering I’m pregnant because we didn’t use a condom, you’re not coming off cheaper than anyone. Maybe Kaiser though since I don’t pay my medical expenses out of pocket.”

  Daniela sank into my desk chair. Her eyes were staring straight at my belly. She had this weird glazed over look in her eyes. Her face had gone extremely pale. Kirk raced over to her and offered her some water. I feared that she was either about to cry or pass out.

  “What is wrong with your dramatic ass?”

  Daniela’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m going to be a mom. We’re going to have a baby.”

  Kirk, Delilah, and I crowded around our friend and embraced her in a loving group hug.

  “You’re going to love being a mom,” I said. “It’s the best thing ever. Welcome to the club, Mom.”

  Chapter 21: A Lot to Learn

  “AIDEN, ARE YOU DECENT?”

  Joey and I had just returned to from a meeting at Sony which always requires a professional appearance according to Joey and my management. When I was conducing CMG business, I had to look the part. I have four suits and an unmentionable number of dress shirts and slacks handpicked by Sunny specifically for record company meetings. However, as soon as we got back to our building, I made a mad dash to my office where I keep a stash of jeans, sneakers, and t-shirts.

  “Yeah, I’m dressed,” I answered. Mona opened the door and walked inside. “What’s up?”

  “What took you so long to get here? I’ve been calling you for an hour.”

  “Sony’s trying to steal Shay away from us. I’ll tell you the details later. And why were you calling me?”

  “Put some shoes on, please. We have to go. You have a hundred and fifty kids and their parents waiting for you. Everything is already set up at the Civic Center.”

  I stopped looking for my retro Reebok Classics and turned around to glare at my assistant. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m on a plane to Detroit in an hour. I’m not going downtown. Sunny and Chloe were supposed to be handing out those Christmas gifts.”

  Every year, Chloe puts together multiple fan events in December for the children of my fans. Usually, it’s a big Christmas party and we give out gifts from me and my band. We have these parties in LA, Atlanta, Chicago, and Vegas. I found out the day before yesterday that I couldn’t make the LA party and asked Chloe to reschedule because I had to get to Detroit and straighten some things up. Apparently, she couldn’t reschedule, but that wasn’t about to stop my trip to Detroit to get Kameron back in line.

  I met Karmen and her little boy Kam over the summer. Kam had sent me an email that really touched a few nerves. His dad had gotten killed in Afghanistan and I’ve been looking out for him since we met. He was getting guitar lessons and doing well until Karmen called me the other day and told me that Kam’s been getting in trouble and begged me to come talk to him.

  After a brief disagreement with my baby mama—‘You’re not that boy’s father! Why do you have to go all the way to Detroit when a phone call will suffice?’—she agreed to help Chloe since rescheduling wasn’t an option. Now, all of a sudden, the plan changed?

  “Sunny’s not feeling up to it. You know her doctor wants her take it easy,” Mona reminded me as she rushed to keep up with me as I walked to my car.

  “Then you do it. They already know I’m not going to be there, right? I don’t just pay you to follow me around with your damn iPad, Mona. Take care of this.”

  I had too much to do to worry about this. I wasn’t trying to be mean to Mona or disappoint my fans, but shit happens and I pay her to handle it. I’m getting married in five months and having a baby in three. I had enough on my plate as it was. Going to Detroit threw a wrench in everyone’s itinerary but it had to be done.

  I had three missed calls from Sunny and follow up texts wanting me to pick up some papaya and mango on my way to her house. I ignored that request. She has two assistants. One of them could do it. Just when I was about to call Delilah to relay her boss’s request, my ex-wife’s face popped up on the dashboard screen for my phone.

  “Damn it,” I grumbled. “What the hell does she want?”

  I leaned forward and accepted the call. “What, Ramey? I’m driving.”

  “Tati and I got the first draft of our book back from the editors. My editor says I need you to sign some release papers.”

  I’d been expecting this call for a week. Paulie had already received a copy of the release papers and forwarded them to me and Roxy. The bullshit publisher was calling every other day to get a response from me. I was waiting on Ramey’s call because I had the perfect response for her.

  “Go to hell, Ramey. You, Tati, and your publisher can kiss my ass. I’m not signing anything that’s going to allow either one of you to make a dime off my name. Better get to rewriting, baby.”

  “Aiden! Don’t do this,” Ramey pleaded.

  “Yeah, I remember saying those same words to you after the sheriff served me with your divorce papers. I said the same thing when you tried to get my sister’s condo in the divorce settlement. Karma is a bitch, but you already know that.”

  “You are being unreasonable,” Ramey shouted. “I already rewrote half of my part after our conversation in Atlanta! I can’t a write a book about my life and not mention you, Aiden!”

  Just to get her o
ff the phone, I told her to send me the book. If I approved of what I read, I promised to sign the release papers. Eventually, I will sign them. I don’t really care what she wrote and I have no intention of wasting my time reading it. I know that book means a lot to Ramey. It’s the first thing she’s been truly focused on and happy about since our divorce. I’m not trying to deliberately hurt her, just prolonging the inevitable until Sunny says ‘I do.’ Ramey’s book is going to cause a major disruption in our lives and Sunny is going to overreact and have a fit.

  Sunny wasn’t a big part of my marriage. I couldn’t talk to her about Ramey because they hated each other so allowing her into that part of my life wasn’t happening. Ramey and I were a married couple but Sunny rarely saw us together, kind of like how I hardly ever saw her with Xavier. Sunny and I existed in a world of our own. We didn’t talk about our relationships with each other. Sunny and I didn’t have a lot of boundaries or lines we didn’t cross in our friendship but for some odd reason, Xavier and Ramey were lines that were hardly crossed.

  When Ramey releases that book, Sunny will read it. She’s not going to be able to help herself. Then she’s going to realize that at one point, Ramey and I really loved each other and had many happy moments that she didn’t know about.

  Sunny has this idea in her head that my marriage was horrible. In fact, she thinks that any relationship I’ve had hasn’t been good and that I was miserable without her, which isn’t true at all. I don’t think she’s ready to know how wrong she’s been about me and Ramey. I don’t think she’s ready to see in black and white how much I really loved my wife and didn’t want my marriage to end, especially the way it did. I’m also pretty sure that Ramey wrote about our attempts at reconciliation after our divorce, something the only person who knows about is Erica. Those revelations could not come to light until after my new wife was comfortably situated in her new role.

  Not a moment before.

  ***

  “Hey, Karm.” I greeted the haggard single mom with a hug when she opened the door.

  “Hey, Aiden. Thanks for coming,” she answered.

  Karmen was tired. I could tell that right away. Despite easing her burden of a mortgage payment and car note, despite knowing that she could call me anytime and I would do anything to help her small family, Karmen was still a widowed mother trying to safely raise three young kids in Detroit. She’d lost her husband in an inexplicable war. Relieving her financial strain did not take away her grief.

  “So, what happened?” I asked as I sat in Karmen’s modest kitchen while she fixed the twins lunch.

  “It’s not just one thing,” Karmen sighed. “He’s been getting in trouble in school. His grades are consistently dropping. He gets angry with me and won’t speak to me or the twins for days. He got caught trying to steal a pair of batting gloves from The Sports Authority. He’s gotten into three fights and was suspended for three days. The final straw, Aiden, was the call I got from his baseball coach.”

  She sat the plates of ham sandwiches, potato chips, and baby carrots on the table and called for the twins. She sat down and cupped a mug of hot tea with both hands.

  “His coach? What happened with his coach? It’s not even baseball season yet.”

  “The team conditions twice a week at the rec center until spring training starts,” Karmen explained. “I’ve been dropping him off every Tuesday and Thursday for the last three weeks only to find out from Coach Walters that Kam hasn’t been to the last four workouts. And he won’t tell me where he went but I suspect he’s hanging out with some older boys over on 8 Mile.”

  I have no experience raising pre-teen boys but I remember being a pre-teen boy. Nothing about Kam’s behavior was all that surprising, but mothers often fail to understand their sons. My mother used to get my father to talk to me when she thought I was behaving abnormally. Those talks usually ended with us at Burger King discussing the nuances of the twelve-year-old girls that I liked. If Kam was acting out and Karmen didn’t know why, my money was on a girl being involved.

  “What time does he get home from school?”

  “I pick him up at three. I won’t let him walk home anymore because I don’t trust him to come straight home.”

  “I’ll get him today. Me and Kam will have good man-to-man talk,” I promised.

  That’s exactly what I did. As I sat in front of his school, I couldn’t help noticing Kam’s immediate sulk as he walked towards his mother’s cars while the rest of his crew went in the opposite direction.

  “Mom, this is stupid,” Kam started complaining as soon as he opened the car door. “I can walk.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But not hanging out with your friends after school is punishment for all the shit you’ve been giving your mom the past few months.”

  The shocked expression on Kam’s face was priceless and almost instantly turned to guilt when he realized that his mother wasn’t driving. I started laughing and pulled out of the line of parents waiting for their children. I knew just where to go.

  “Aiden! What are you doing here? Mom didn’t say you were coming! How long are you staying?”

  “Just long enough to find out what the hell you’ve been up to and why you’re causing your mom so much grief.”

  “Aww man, she’s just trippin’.”

  Taking my eyes off the road, I glanced that the barely twelve tough guy in the passenger seat sulking. Kam had changed a lot since I saw him over the summer. His hair was a little longer. He may have grown another couple inches too. There was something else that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He didn’t have that same boyish enthusiasm that he had when I saw him last. He was tougher. There was definitely a girl.

  “I don’t think so, kid. I can tell right off the bat that something’s different with you. And you’re gonna tell me what’s up because the last thing your mother needs right now is your little ass giving her a hard time.”

  I took a quick right and pulled into a Burger King parking lot. I grinned and silently thanked my dad for giving me the blueprint for this conversation.

  Over whoppers and fries, Kam told me everything. For the most part, I just listened. We were tucked away in a booth furthest away from the counter and the restaurant wasn’t that busy so no one interrupted our conversation. I was right. There was a girl or two involved.

  “What I don’t get is why you’re letting this girl make you do dumb shit? Stealing, Kam? You’re smarter than that. If you wanted new cleats or new gloves to impress this girl, stealing with your little friends ain’t the way to go about getting them. It’s more impressive to these girls that you have my phone number. You could have just called me and told me you wanted new gloves. Wouldn’t your little girlfriend been more impressed if I sent you $500 than by you getting arrested? And why risk getting caught sneaking over to her side of town after your mom drops you off? That’s not going to get you anything but grounded and kicked off the baseball team. Trust me; I’ve done enough stupid shit to impress girls so believe me when I say that it’s not worth it.”

  “But I like Amanda.”

  “You’re twelve,” I laughed. “There will be a hundred more Amandas before you graduate from high school. Stop getting in trouble and being a little dipshit to your mom.”

  I took a long sip of my Sprite and stared at Kam. The poor kid definitely had some weird internal struggle happening. His eyes were remorseful and apologetic but his shoulders were stiff and defiant, almost as if he had something to say but didn’t know how to say it. Finally, he spoke.

  “Did Mom call you because she couldn’t call my dad? You’re not my father, Aiden, so you can’t really tell me what to do.”

  “First, I’m absolutely sure that’s why she called me. And second, I am not your father. I’m not trying to be him, but I can damn sure tell you what to do. Every bad ass little boy needs a man to set him straight every once in a while. With you, it’s either going to be me or your coach. She picked me this time. Hell, I’m grown and I still have men
trying to take up where my dad left off.”

  “For real?” Kam asked with wide eyes. “Who? And why?”

  “There’s Joey. He’s the main one. Then there’s Jermaine, Sunny’s father. He calls me son instead of my name and that drives me crazy because my father didn’t do that as often as Jermaine does. Then there’s Kat’s husband, Jerry.”

  “But you’re grown. Why do they tell you what to do?”

  “Because they’re men. It’s instinct. When you get grown, you’re gonna meet a knucklehead or two that needs some guidance too. Just because I was an adult when my dad died doesn’t mean I wasn’t affected. You never stop needing your father, Kam. You’re lucky to have someone you can talk to about that.

  “Look, Kam, I get it. But just because people say you’re the man of the house now doesn’t make it true. You’re not the man of anything right now. Karmen is your mom. Do what she says when she says do it. She’s still the boss of you until you become a man whether you like it or not.

  “And,” I leaned forward and stared at him so he could see how serious I was. “If all else fails, I’ll just stop paying for your guitar lessons. You’re not nearly good enough yet to make it without them. And you’re too young to get a job and you can’t steal guitar lessons.”

  Kameron shook his head. “Fine. I’ll try to do better.”

  “There is no try. Got it?”

  “Got it. Are you really going to give me a record deal after I graduate?”

  “Depends.” I shrugged. “Totally depends on what you do these next six years.”

  Chapter 22: Truth Is

  “DADDY, WHEN ARE you going to get a Christmas tree? Everyone else already has theirs up. You’re late. Even Mommy has a tree. It’s pretty too.”