by Selena
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
We stood there looking at each other across the island, a distance of only a few feet, but it felt like a thousand miles. All I could do was apologize, and even I knew it wasn’t enough. Words couldn’t make this right. They couldn’t stop the woman I loved, who knew me from the day she was born, from looking at me like I was lower than dirt, less than a stranger. Words couldn’t fill the chasm that had opened in my chest as it opened between us.
Laney took a deep breath and coughed.
“You’re not crazy,” I said, circling the island. “It’s just hard to breathe in here.” I took her face in my hands and kissed her gently, hardly daring to touch her, hardly daring to believe she’d let me.
She pulled away, turning her shoulder towards me. “I’ll tell you what makes it hard to breathe, and it’s not a fog of Lysol. It’s having a random stranger walk in and tell you she’s nine months pregnant with your boyfriend’s baby.”
“She’s not nine—never mind. You’re right. That was fucked up. I’m sorry you had to be there.”
She spun on me, her eyes flashing. “You’re sorry I was there? Why, because then you could have hidden it from me?”
“Because then I could have protected you from it,” I corrected. “I could have told you myself. So you could understand.”
“Oh, that’s rich,” she said, moving further away still. “You think I don’t know how babies are made, Brody? I understand, all right. I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand.”
“Just… Stop moving. Listen,” I said, following her to the living room, where she paced like a caged lion.
If only I could think up the words, the right words. They always came when I wrote songs, but now, every word I said only dug my grave deeper. Still, I had to try. I wouldn’t give up. I’d dig myself six feet under before I’d give up on her. “What don’t I understand? Talk to me, baby. Yell at me, throw things at me if it makes you feel better. But we’re going to get through this.”
She wheeled around and stared at me incredulously. “Get through this? What do you plan to do, Brody? Get a back-alley abortion and pay her a bunch of money to shut her up?”
“Is that what you want me to do?” I asked quietly. In that moment, I knew that if she asked, I’d do it. I would do anything for her. If she asked me to hire a hitman and dispose of Uma, I’d fucking do it. Nothing would keep us apart.
“No, it’s not what I want you to do,” she said, resuming her pacing. “I want you not to have fucked every girl in America. I want one brain cell in your tiny little brain to have told you not to stick your dick in every fangirl who said yes. I want to go back in time and make it all disappear.”
She hadn’t said me, though. She hadn’t said she wished we hadn’t gotten back together or that she’d never met me. Which meant she wasn’t done. There was still hope. I would find a way to make us both happy. All Uma wanted was money, and I’d give her all of it if she’d let me go on with my life. I’d pay for everything in the world to make my baby daughter happy, give her every luxury, the best nannies and private schools, trips around the world that didn’t include me.
She wouldn’t be my daughter. She’d be as distant a thing as Uma. A mistake.
DNA.
“Maybe I did get carried away with cleaning,” Laney said when I didn’t answer. She sagged onto the arm of the couch, her shoulders slumping, her eyes draining of their fire. “Let’s go out somewhere and get some food. I feel sick.”
“Okay,” I said, not daring to say anything more. Not yet.
While Laney went to get her shoes, I opened the windows as much as they would open, which was only a crack. Luckily, the penthouse suites also had a small balcony, so I left the French doors open, not caring if some rain blew in and wet the carpet.
We left the suite in silence, huddled together under Laney’s umbrella, which blocked me from view. Our Uber driver was a curvy blonde chick with a southern accent who immediately alerted us that she had pepper spray mounted on the ceiling, and pointed to the little mount, aimed directly at us. “I’ve never had to use it on a couple, but I tell everyone who rides,” she said. “Full disclosure. I did use it on some drunk college guys once.”
“We’re safe,” I said, then wanted to ram the words back down my throat.
“Oh my God, are you Brody Villines?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you sign something for me?” she asked, then looked at Laney in the rearview. “Is that okay? I mean, it must suck to have a famous rock star for a boyfriend. Mercy. I don’t think I could handle it.”
“It’s fine,” Laney said dully. Usually, she could laugh it off or make some flippant remark, smiling magnanimously while I signed autographs. Now it was like she couldn’t be bothered. A knot of dread began to build inside my gut, thrumming my heart like an electric guitar.
I signed the cocktail napkin the driver found in her purse, and she recommended a quiet local pizzeria where we could eat tucked away in a back corner so no one would notice us. When she let us off, she took an awkwardly angled selfie with us, leaning back between the front seats while we leaned forward.
The pizzeria was kind of a dive, a place where you took a girl like Uma, not Laney. I didn’t eat at that kind of place much anymore, but it was quiet and empty that late, and that was good enough for me. We seated ourselves in a back booth. The Uber driver was right about it being dark and private.
Our waitress, a tattooed chick with royal blue hair, black fingernails, and the pallor of a vampire, appeared as soon as we sat down. She slapped down two one-sheet laminated menus, grinding her gum between her teeth like Jace after an all-night coke binge. “Want anything?”
“Give us a minute,” I said.
She sighed and stood tapping her pen on the edge of the table while we looked at the menus, then flounced off to get our drinks. She barely cleared five feet even in her chunky fuck-me boots, above which a slice of thick, pale thigh showed below the hem of her bouncy black skirt.
“She’s a dream,” Laney said.
“Uh huh,” I said, scanning the pizza menu.
“But hey, maybe that’s what you get off on. I mean, she’s probably closer to your type than I am.”
“Laney, stop. You know that’s not true.”
She glared across the table. “Don’t tell me what I know.”
I sighed and pushed my menu away. “Fine.”
“Obviously, you like the wild ones.”
I grabbed the edge of the table and leaned forward, locking my gaze with hers. “I like you, Laney. I fucking love you. That hasn’t changed. I know I fucked up, okay? I’m not stupid. But that was before we were together.”
“Oh, no, Brody,” she said with a sweet smile. “You fucked up long before her. When we were together.”
“So you’re punishing me for that now, too? I thought we’d gotten past that. And I know this sucks. I know that. I know you’re pissed. But how can you hate me for something that happened when we weren’t together?”
“Because,” she said. “Maybe I am crazy. I mean, look at me. I smell like a disinfectant factory, and no matter how hard I scrub that hotel room, or myself, I can’t scrub away that crazy feeling.”
“What feeling?” I asked, reaching for her hand.
Before I could touch her, the waitress slammed tall, red plastic cups of soda down on the table and straightened. “What’s it gonna be?”
While Laney ordered, I studied her, trying to decide what she had meant. I had a feeling of my own, a feeling that I didn’t want to label. After Laney ordered, I pointed to a random slice on the menu, knowing I wouldn’t be able to eat but thankful that the waitress didn’t know who I was. She’d probably never heard a Just 5 Guys song in her life.
When she was gone, Laney sighed and slid her hand across, surprising me. I took it in my own and held it like a treasure, cupped between both of mine.
“Maybe it’s wrong, but I care that, hello,
you’re going to be a dad. I’m sorry, I’m probably as hopelessly old-fashioned as my mother, but I don’t want to stand in the way of that. If that makes me crazy, then yeah, that’s exactly what I am. I’m crazy, and I’m pissed, and I fucking hate the fact that I lost you to another girl again.”
“You didn’t lose me,” I said, squeezing her hand until she looked up at him. “You never lost me, Laney. I’ll make it right with her. But it doesn’t change what we—what you and I—have. You and me, Laney. That’s all I want. All I’ve ever wanted.”
“Me, too,” she said, her voice so soft and broken it scared the fuck out of me. I wanted to cover her pretty lips with my own, keep her from saying what she said next.
But I didn’t, and she said it, anyway.
“Maybe I didn’t lose you,” she murmured. “But you lost me.”
twenty-eight
Laney
When we got back to the hotel, the room had aired out some. I was too exhausted to be embarrassed about the psychotic cleaning episode. Some people drank, some people trashed their guitars on stage, and some people cleaned.
I fell into bed already ready to pass out. Maybe it was all a dream, and I just had to go to sleep and wake up to erase it.
Brody slid in beside me and turned to face me. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” he said, adjusting his head on the pillow. “It doesn’t have to be over.”
“Then how come it is?”
“That’s your decision, Laney,” he said. “You’re doing this. Not me.”
“Then maybe it’s Uma.”
“Not Uma,” he said, his hand moving to my hip. “She’s not part of the equation, and she never was. It’s me plus you, just like it’s always been.”
“Well, maybe me plus you equals a giant mess that just isn’t meant to be.”
“Don’t say that,” he said fiercely. “You plus me equals us. And that’s it. You can’t change a mathematical fact.”
“Yeah, but does me plus you? Or does me plus you, plus the memory of all the girls you’ve been with, plus the past that never really goes away even when I pretend it’s not on my mind, plus a fucking child, equal a big fat clusterfuck? I’m not ready to be a mom. I mean, if it had happened to me, if I’d gotten pregnant, of course I would keep it. But now? Like this? What are you going to do, Brody?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“What does she want?” I asked the ceiling.
“She wants money.”
“How much money? Is she getting an abortion? Or does she want you to pay for her medical bills, and she’ll put it up for adoption? Or does she want to raise the kid, so you’ll have to keep paying her millions in child support for the next eighteen years?”
“I don’t know,” he said again. “I wanted to come back and talk to you. We didn’t talk that much.”
This ridiculous fear shot through me, that maybe they did something else. But that was beyond ridiculous.
Wasn’t it?
He had been with her before, found her attractive for incomprehensible reasons. They had a history, too. And she wasn’t big yet, her belly just a little rounded, probably only showing because she was so skinny.
“So what does that mean for us?” I asked, turning my face toward him at last.
“I don’t want things to change,” he said. “Nothing has to change.”
“It’s a little late for that.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“You can’t just pretend it never happened. This is part of you now. Part of us.”
“Not every part of us is going to be beautiful,” he said, pushing up on one elbow to look down at my face. “If we’re together for the rest of our lives, there will be ugly parts, too. But I’ll love them just as much, because they’ll be parts of us, and I love every part of us.”
I didn’t know it was possible for a heart to melt and break at the same time until that moment. My throat tightened, and my chest ached so badly I wanted to hurl into the fetal position and scream at the unfairness of this world, this life, this man.
When he leaned in, I pressed my lips to his instead of turning away. It wasn’t frantic, like the time under the tree. His familiar hands moved over my body just the way I liked. He knew how to touch me, how to kiss me, with his lips brushing across my ear and down my neck, his hands moving gently over my breasts, squeezing my nipples, sliding down my belly and into my panties.
I ran my fingers through his soft brown hair, tugging at the fringe at the nape of his neck. I knew how he liked to be touched, too. Over the past few months, I’d let myself believe it would last. I’d let myself be happy. But now, even as he slid my underwear over my thighs, I couldn’t keep thoughts of Uma at bay. She came barreling in, like she’d charged into the backstage area to ruin our lives. Suddenly, all I could see was that pale, bare face with the eyes like grape jelly. I hated grape jelly.
Brody rolled on top of me, his lips sealing with mine again as his thigh nudged mine apart. Had he done that to Uma? I could feel him against my opening, hard and hot and throbbing. “Are you ready?” he whispered into my ear, his warm breath sparking embers inside me.
I nodded mutely. While he stroked my hair back and kissed me softly, I reached down to guide him in. But when he pushed into me fully, tears slid from the corners of my eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, pulling back to look down at my face.
“Don’t stop,” I said, gripping his hipbones to keep him close. “Keep going.”
“Am I hurting you? Why are you crying?”
“I just am,” I said. “But I want to do this. Please don’t stop. Tell me this will always be right between us.”
“I promise,” he said, brushing kisses across my damp eyelids. He began moving, each stroke slow and deep, and I came almost immediately. But I couldn’t help but wonder if it was the last time we’d make love.
twenty-nine
Brody
In the morning, I had dozens of messages from Nash. I ignored them and ordered room service for myself and Laney. We ate in a silence punctuated only by polite comments about the food, requests for salt, and a brief rundown of the next three shows, which would wrap up that leg of the tour. But the conversation was so stiff that I didn’t think I even knew Laney anymore. As much as I’d hated seeing her pissed, it was better than this courteous distance.
But here was where I was woefully ignorant. Laney fretted about her lack of sexual experience, and I always reassured her that it was the best sex I’d ever had. And it was. But what I didn’t say was that she had a different kind of experience—relationship experience. I didn’t know what to do in this situation because I’d never been in it. I’d never even been in a situation a thousand miles from this minefield, where every misstep might blow me to hell.
Was I supposed to leave her alone, let her have her space to come to terms with it? Or would that make her feel neglected? If I pursued her, would she feel loved or hassled?
In the end, I did nothing, because I didn’t know how to reach her through that frosty exterior she’d put up around herself. I could only hope it would thaw with time.
When we reached the lobby, Uma was sprawled across a chair, her little belly just a slight bulge in her t-shirt that could have been her slouchy posture. It seemed small for six months, not that I knew anything about it. For a second, I had a surge of hope. It might not be mine after all.
“What is she doing here?” Laney hissed as Uma heaved herself to her feet and strolled toward us.
“I got her a place for the night,” I said. “Did you expect me to tell her to sleep on the street in the rain?”
“’Sup,” Uma said, hooking her thumbs into her front pockets.
“We’re heading out,” I said. Spotting the flushed face of the matronly hotel clerk who was watching us avidly, I jerked my chin toward the side entrance. “Why don’t you come out to the bus for a minute so we can talk?”
When we climbed onto the bus, I suddenly remember
ed with perfect clarity that fateful night. Dragging Uma through the bus, throwing her down on all fours. I was such a dick. No wonder Laney wouldn’t look at me. I’d known better than to go after her again, had known it would be bad for her. Hadn’t I said from the start I’d only break her heart again?
And here I was, with a broken-hearted girl I loved and a pregnant girl whose first name I’d only found out the night before. The sad thing was, I’d treated her better than some of the others. That night we’d been together, I’d given her what she wanted. I’d even made her come.
Most of the baby-dolls were just toys to me, like Laney said when she’d called them sex dolls. They were things, not people. Not real people, anyway, the kind who could get pregnant and make more people. Not the kind who could tear apart the only good thing, the only real thing, I’d had since leaving home at eighteen to join the band.
“So, are you going to give me some money?” Uma asked. “Because it sucks to have to keep asking. I figure maybe five hundred will do, but a thousand would be better. I could use it for a deposit, and then if I get a job, I could keep gigging at night until the baby comes. I just gotta find a band.”
“What are you planning on doing with the baby?” Laney asked.
I wanted to wrap my arms around her and never let go. She didn’t worry about hurting Uma’s feelings, about being delicate.
“I hadn’t gotten that far,” Uma said.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “If it’s mine, then it’s three months away.”
“Sorry,” Uma said, sounding defensive. “It’s a little hard to grasp right now.”
She was nineteen. Jesus. How the fuck was she going to take care of a kid? She couldn’t even take care of herself, and not in the way that most people meant when they said that. She had literally let herself be kicked out on the streets, and though it wasn’t her fault, she didn’t seem to have any grasp on how much care a baby would need—less of a grasp than me, and that was saying something.
The driver tapped on the side of bus next to the open door. “You about ready?” he asked. “Nash is blowing up my phone.”