After I had ended our phone call, I pocketed my cell and turned back to our dressing room, only to be stopped by a somber Justin. His arms crossed, and he looked angry,
“Who was that?” He nodded his head toward my phone. “Allison?”
“No, it was a real estate agent.” I might as well attempt to stick with my original story.
“Ya, right.” He responded, his voice laced with distrust. “You better not be keeping that on during the concert.
“It’s on vibrate.” I sighed.
That night I gave the worst performance of my life. My focus was shot, my mood was sour, and the normal high of being on stage was flat. I wanted to be with my daughter, to be with Ally. I skipped out of the club scene, instead heading straight for a shared hotel suite to drown my sorrows in Whiskey.
Sleeping was impossible. I had too much on my mind. While I tried to replay my evening with Ally, my brain kept reminding me she was with another man tonight. It wasn’t right, it couldn’t be, and yet it was. She deserved a normal life, one I could never give her, at least not with my current career. I would always be flying back and forth. Going public with our daughter would be hard on them. No one wants to be followed, photographed and then blown up in the worst light possible. And when they found out about my secret family, how would the public perceive me? Even worse, how would they portray Ally?
Ian and Justin had burst through the door before I had even attempted to shut my eyes. The two of them were wired, hyper, and high off a great night. They both ignored me for the first few minutes, reliving the highlights of their evening like giddy school girls.
“What’s wrong with you?” Justin finally asked, his tone full of frustration. Ian sat at the end of my bed.
“Nothing.” I wished I had just fallen asleep.
“There’s something.” Ian disagreed. “There’s a reason you’re taking off all the time. We’re not stupid you know.” He pulled off his shoes and threw one at me. “Why don’t you just tell us and get it over with?” His question was more of a demand.
“I can’t.” This was a position I never wanted to be put in. “It’s not really…”
Justin cut me off. “You can and you will. This is messed up Tim.” He was right, they were practically family, my best friends, and it wasn’t fair to keep them in the dark. Even worse, expect them to cover my tracks. Ian had been doing that for far too long.
“Have you been going to visit Ally?” Ian was cutting straight to the chase. I was thankful for the yes or no question. It would make it easier to start talking.
“Yes.” My mouth twitched. “I am going again on Sunday.”
“What about Allison?” Justin piped up, not at all surprised by my admission.
“I haven’t figured it all out. It’s more complicated than you think.”
“Not that complicated.” Ian retorted. “You still love her. We both expected that the second we saw her. You’ve never gotten over her, and we get that, but you can’t play both of them.”
“It’s not that.” I huffed. “I know I still love her, that’s not really the complication.”
“Then what is it?” Justin pulled a bag of potato chips off the nightstand and tore it open. He shoved a handful of chips into his mouth, crunching loudly.
“When Ally left, she didn’t just take herself away from me.”
“Oh, spare us the ‘she stole my heart’ bullshit,” Justin spoke with a mouth full of chips. “We’ve heard it all before.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what the hell do you mean?”
“She was pregnant. I have a daughter.” I said quickly, rushing the words out of my mouth. Neither one of them was expecting that. Justin choked on the chips, spitting them out onto the dresser.
“What?” They simultaneously exclaimed.
“I have a daughter.” Both of their expressions made me feel guilty for keeping that fact from them.
“Well, fuck.” Justin dropped to his bed. “What’s her name?”
“Kenzie.”
“And you were going to keep her from us?” Ian was furious. “How could you do that? How can you keep this from Allison?”
“So, what are you going to do?” Justin followed up. Their reactions were the reverse of what I would have expected. Ian was always the understanding one, while Justin usually overreacted and was hot headed.
“I don’t know.” I didn’t.
“For fuck’s sake. You are going to need to figure this out, and soon.” Ian couldn’t have been more accurate.
“Well, at least you aren’t cheating on Allison,” Justin added, trying to break the tension. My expression must have given away the truth.
“Seriously Tim?” Ian threw his hands up in the air. “You’re that guy?”
“It just happened.” I rubbed my temples; a headache started to build. “I swear, I didn’t mean for it to happen. But God, I don’t regret it.”
“Do you realize the mess you are putting us in?” Justin demanded, his first sign of anger. “Allison works for our label. Not only does she work for them, her family are the owners. Hell, she might as well own us.”
Justin and Ian made plans to talk to our publicist to determine the best way to handle the situation. I wasn’t prepared to do anything at that point. They wanted to meet Kenzie. They wanted to talk to Ally. I had determined that they would at some time in the near future regardless, but I wanted to have a more developed plan before throwing all of this at Ally. The more of us that visited her in Texas, the more of a chance there would be that we would be recognized. Up to that point, I had been able to sneak in and out without detection. I wanted to keep it that way.
Saturday wasn’t much better. I was losing the battle to focus on work and Allison had been blowing up my phone. I could only avoid her for so long before I had to give in. Fortunately, there were hundreds of miles between us to act as a buffer.
“Hey, Allison.” I greeted, after dialing her number.
“Nice to finally hear your voice.” She seemed cheerful. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Something was up. “You must be busy.”
“Ya, it’s been a bit crazy.” At least that was an honest response.
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m on my way to help you relax tomorrow.”
My stomach dropped. I was booked to fly to Texas in the morning. “What do you mean you’re on your way?” I needed time to come up with a way out.
“Like I’m standing in your hotel room.”
“What?” I panicked.
“Ya, I am going to book a suite for the just the two of us. No way am I sleeping in the same suite as Ian and Justin.”
I felt sick to my stomach. How the hell could I talk my way out of this when she was already there? I just wanted to go home to my girls. If I didn’t make it tomorrow, I wouldn’t be there until Wednesday, and I hadn’t gone that long without seeing them since I found out about Kenz.
“Allison…” I was lost for words. I needed her to leave.
“I’ll see you soon; I’ll be there for the concert.”
“Okay.” She ended the call, leaving me standing in the dressing room defeated. I wasn’t going to be able to avoid her, meaning I wasn’t going to be able to catch a flight anytime soon. I dialed Ally’s number, upset at myself that I was going to let her down.
“Hello?” She sounded exhausted, and it wasn’t even that late in the day.
“Hey.” Cancelling on my girls was a phone call I never wanted to make.
“You’re early. Is everything alright?” I should have been the one asking her if everything was alright, she sounded drained.
“No, not really.” I was miserable. “Something has come up that I can’t get out of and I’m not going to be able to make it tomorrow.”
“Oh, okay.”
“I want to be there. I swear, I wish I could get out of this. I don’t want to let you down. I don’t want to let Kenzie down.” I wanted her to know how devastated I was about
this, that there was nowhere I would rather be than with her and Kenzie.
“It’s okay Tim. I understand.”
“Al, I promise I will be there Wednesday. Nothing will keep me away.”
“Tim, honestly it’s okay. The time apart is probably a good thing.” I disagreed. “I’ll put Kenzie on the phone.” I spent a few minutes babbling with my daughter before having Al end the call and send me back to my reality.
Twenty minutes before we were due to hit the stage, Allison arrived in a tight black dress that might as well be painted on. Funny how only months ago, I found that sexy but my preferences had changed. I would take Ally in a pair of yoga pants over that any day.
“Tim!” Allison’s smile was big and bright, as she strutted toward me. She leaned in for a kiss, and out of habit I quickly pecked her lips. It immediately felt wrong, causing me to pull away.
“Hey, babe. We are just about to go on.” Ian and Justin glanced my way, knowing we had more than enough time for Allison and me to sneak away.
“Damn.” She pouted. “Well, we will just have to make up for it after. I moved all of our stuff to another room.” Shit. There was absolutely no way I could go there tonight. “Oh, I found the weirdest thing on your bed, a pink piece of cloth. It looked like something for a baby maybe. I took it down to the lobby and informed them that their staff needs to be more thorough.”
“Do they still have it?” Kenzie’s sleeper, and my favorite one.
“Why does that matter?” She scrunched her face in disgust.
“I guess it doesn’t.” I lied. She just threw out the only item I have with me. I didn’t have photos in my phone for obvious reasons, that piece of fabric was the only physical thing I could hold onto to reassure me they were out there, waiting for me.
Four hours later, I was shooting back shots in the hotel bar with the guys and Allison. Shots that I was spitting into my quarter full beer bottle. My plan was to pass out drunk or at least appear to pass out drunk. So when I informed Allison, who actually was three sheets to the wind that I was heading up to our room for the night, I veered into the ice room instead. I curled up against the back wall and waited an hour before going back to our room. Allison was fast asleep in the bed. I pulled a pillow and blanket out of the closet and set up the couch for the night.
If Allison had been upset about my disappearing act the night before, she never mentioned it. Before leaving she commented on the benefits of letting go every once in a while, and enforced her opinion that I needed to do that more often. I leaned in to kiss her goodbye before watching her walk down the hall of the hotel to catch her drive to the airport, and started my countdown to when I could board an airplane for Texas.
I was growing accustomed to the two-hour drive from Houston to Ally’s place, happy to see each landmark, knowing how close I was to my girls again. The apartment was quiet as I climbed the stairs. Thankful for my key, I let myself in at four in the morning.
I tip toed quietly into Ally’s bedroom, expecting to be able to score a few minutes of gawking. She wasn’t sleeping. Ally was wide awake staring at the pages spread over her bed. Her eyes were red, her posture slumped in exhaustion, and her hair pulled messily into a ponytail, the short strands sticking out from the elastic.
“Hi.” She mumbled, no surprise in her tone. She looked terrible. “How was your flight?”
“It was okay.” I sat down on the bed beside her. “You look exhausted.” I tried to put one arm around her, but she pulled away. “Al…” I coaxed. I could understand her being upset with me, but I wasn’t going to let her hold a grudge. “Come here.”
She relented, resting her head on my shoulder. “I couldn’t sleep.” I wanted so badly to press my lips to hers, to hold her tightly and fix everything, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to touch her until I could make her my girl. My only girl. She deserved that.
“How long has it been since you’ve slept?” I questioned, using the arm now wrapped around her to push away to papers I could reach. She didn’t answer, just looked at me with guilt in her eyes. I had a feeling my canceling the weekend was behind this. “Al, I wanted to be here.”
“I know.” She shrugged. “It’s just that everything is falling apart.” She wrung her hands together. “Luke knows something is up. Tim, I have to tell him.” Her tone was full of desperation.
I groaned in frustration. “Okay.” I couldn’t make her keep this up. It was apparently affecting her negatively. “Can we talk about it tonight, when you’ve had some sleep?” She nodded her head. “Now, why don’t you get some rest now?” She nodded her head again and pulled away to slip under the sheets.
“Can you lay with me for a few minutes?” I hated that she even had to ask. Lying with her wouldn’t hurt anything, as long as it didn’t go any further than that. I laid down beside her, keeping one arm loosely around her body. She felt too good, smelt too good. What I wouldn’t give to hold her every night.
I woke up to the sound of Kenzie babbling loudly and the sound of Ally moving around in the kitchen. I turned over to see the clock read eight am. I pulled myself out of Ally’s bed and stumbled into the kitchen.
“Morning.” Ally greeted. She had dressed for work, in a pair of black dress pants and a mint green sleeveless dress shirt. She looked beautiful, with no trace of the red rimmed Ally I walked in on only hours ago.
“Do you want some help?” I asked as she poured a bowl of cereal. The images of crashing dishes, her lying partially naked on the table, with my buried deep inside of her, rushed to my mind. Oh god, how I wanted to help her.
“I’m good.” She responded, munching away at her cereal. I was mesmerized.
“I was thinking I could say here with Kenzie today, instead of her going to daycare,” I suggested. I wanted to be close to at least one of them.
“Sure, that would be fine.” She agreed, tipping back the bowl to sip down the last of the milk, before placing the dirty dish in the sink. “I should leave now though, to get there in time.” She looked around the kitchen, clearly feeling awkward.
“Do you want me to drive you?” I was willing to offer anything that would give me a few more minutes with her.
“I think that would draw too much attention.” She stated, grabbing her purse off the counter. “Thank you though.”
“Maybe you should buy a car,” I suggested, watching her slide on her trademark flip flops. “I’ll pay for it. It would make things easier.”
“Can we talk about it later?” At least she wasn’t saying no. “I’ll see you two later.” She made her way over to Kenzie, kissing her cheek and ruffling her hair. I was jealous. I wanted the same treatment. “Love you.” Ally’s parting words, as the door closed behind her.
“So little Miss Kenz, what should we do while Mommy’s at work?” Kenzie babbled in response. “Great idea, little one. The park sounds like a great idea.” I had remembered seeing a small one on my drive into town. With a hat and sunglasses, I should be able to manage a few hours in a park.
Within an hour, I had Kenzie dressed, her diaper bag packed and some snacks stowed away. I googled how to buckle in her car seat and spent another thirty minutes installing it correctly. I still had a way to go on this whole father thing. The playground was a three-minute drive from the apartment; it would have been faster if I had just walked.
The playground was empty aside from Kenzie and me. The gods were on my side. I pushed Kenzie on the swing until she started to fuss, and then took her down the slide until the traces of sand began to chafe my legs. By the time we were ready to leave, it was lunch time. I wished going to meet Ally could have been an option. A meal together would have been nice.
As I made my way to the rental car, I noticed a car parked on the other side of the road, still occupied. The driver was staring at us, causing me to worry. I shouldn’t have tried to take her out into public. I should have known the Paps would find me. I buckled Kenzie into the car, deciding it was worth it to pay the guy off. At least it would p
rotect Al and Kenz. As I approached the car, the driver took off. Ally was going to kill me.
Chapter 12
All Caught Up
After Tim had left, I called in sick, just as I had told him. I spent the day home, tidying the apartment and playing with Kenzie. I wasn’t prepared to face Luke, not yet. I needed to form a game plan regarding how to keep Tim and that night out of my mind when I was with Luke. There had to be a way to eliminate the guilt I was bound to feel.
My day of rest and relaxation was null and void when Luke showed up at the door that evening, with take-out and a bouquet of roses in hand.
“How are you feeling babe?” He asked, kissing my cheek. “I brought dinner so you wouldn’t have to cook. And I thought I would take care of Kenzie tonight so you can get some rest.” I would have felt guilty for my actions regardless, but at that moment I deserved the depths of hell.
“I was just a little under the weather this morning. I feel fine now, but thank you.” I leaned forward and touched my lips to his. His contact repulsed me, not because of him, or anything he had done but because I was repulsed by what I had done.
“I missed you today.” He walked through the door and emptied the contents of the take-out bag onto the counter. I took the flowers from him and placed them in a vase.
“Me too.” I lied. I didn’t even have to put effort into them now; they were part of this two-sided life I was living. I let Luke take care of Kenzie, cuddled up on the couch as he put her to bed. He read her a story, told her he loved her, did everything a father should do, but it didn’t leave me with the same warm and fuzzy feeling that Tim provided. The apartment was void of his lullaby and her soft giggles. It felt empty and cold, despite the Texas heat.
Luke joined me on the couch a few minutes later, pulling my body tightly to his. “Being away from the two of you is torture!” He ran his fingers through my messy hair. “I cannot wait until we are all under the same roof.” My stomach churned, sending me sprinting for the bathroom.
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