“But you combed my hair yesterday,” she whines.
“And I’m going to comb it again today.”
The doorbell rings, echoing through the house, and my heart skips a beat. What if it’s Seth? I’m not expecting anyone. So why couldn’t it be him? It’s not. After our last conversation, he took my advice to heart. He let me go. I don’t get text messages or phone calls. I don’t get sexy brown eyes with scorching hot gazes following me across the stage. I got exactly what I asked for . . . nothing.
“Stay right there. Let me check who’s here,” I say, moving around the island toward the door.
“Okay,” she says around a mouth full of soggy waffles.
I open the door to find Mrs. Carter on the other side, arm posed ready to knock. She starts when we come face to face, lowering her hand.
“Mrs. Carter, I didn’t expect to see you until Sunday,” I say in greeting, moving back, extending my arm, and motioning for her to enter.
“This isn’t a social visit, Mr. Beckham,” she says, stepping over the threshold and soothing a hand along the seam of yet another ill-fitting suit; this one a dumpy, shitty brown.
“I thought we were past the pop-up visits.” At the last court hearing the judge agreed to grant me temporary custody, meaning that I’ll have Tori twenty-four seven starting on the first.
“This is not a mandated check.” She sighs. “There has been a recent development that may change the current situation.”
There is something in her tone and awkward stance that immediately gets under my armor. It’s hitting a soft spot reserved exclusively for the little girl eating breakfast, finally comfortable enough to not stash food for later. She’s finally carefree to be a little kid.
What could’ve possibly happened to change the situation? Our mother is dead. There is no father around. The court has pretty much handed her over.
“I don’t understand. The court already gave . . .”
“That was before a paternal grandmother was located,” she says in a rush. “It appears that a Regina Coleman has been attempting to locate Victoria—”
“Tori,” I cut in. “She likes to be called Tori.”
Clearing her throat, she says, “A Regina Coleman has been attempting to locate Tori since the death of her son last month. Are you familiar with the name Ennis Coleman? Did your mother ever tell you . . . ?”
I shake my head. “My mother was a junkie who liked to periodically extort me for money. Our conversations never lasted long enough to get around to the last man she was fucking.”
My use of profanity is unnecessary, but it’s all I have. I’m all out of nice and respectful. I’ve jumped through every hoop, literally rearranged my life to accommodate Tori, and a mystery grandmother shows up out of nowhere? “Where was she the three times Tori was taken into state custody? Where was this father then?”
“Mr. Beckham . . .” She breathes out on a sigh, and says, “Adam, I know this is upsetting.”
“Do you though?” I slam my hand against the wall.
She tries again, keeping her voice steady and calm. “There will be an emergency hearing to accommodate Mrs. Coleman’s request for custody, and based on your . . . profession and lifestyle . . .” My heart thuds in my chest at her words.
“My lifestyle?” I manage to ask without sounding like I swallowed a pike.
“You know, the rock star thing, the travel, the late nights, the media attention and scrutiny.”
Oh. She means my career.
“I think if the two of you work together, it might really be an ideal situation for Vic . . . for Tori.”
Sure, it will. “We’ll have to see. Just another hoop I have to jump through to prove to the court I’m more than capable of taking care of Tori. It’s so interesting I have to submit to home inspections and court hearings but this grandmother who quite literally came out of nowhere can undo the last several months I put in to making Tori and me a family. I have to prove I’m competent and not some sick pedophile looking for a live-in victim, but with over three thousand kids reported in the foster care system and not half as many families willing or able to take them in, child services didn’t think twice about returning my sister to the home of an addict who has only known sobriety for weeks at a time.”
“The system isn’t perfect but most of us care—I care. I do my best for every child, in every folder. I try to give them the best possible chance at a life that was stacked against them at birth. So yes, I know it’s frustrating. I know it’s not fair. It’s a thankless job, Mr. Beckham, but I do it because of kids like your sister. Sweet babies who have been dealt a horrible hand but with my help just might be able to achieve some level of normalcy and happiness.” A warm flush moves up her neck, ending in red splotches on her cheeks. She pulls a thick packet of folded papers out of her purse and slams it on my chest with force. “All the information you need about the hearing is in there. I’ll be here tomorrow morning, eight sharp.” She storms out of the door, marching down the driveway, getting in her old jalopy, and burning rubber in her hasty retreat.
I just stand there, stupidly in shock.
“Addy, is everything okay?” Tori’s small voice comes from somewhere around my knees. It’s that same timid voice I used to hear when we first met. The sound I associate with her fear and anxiety.
I reach down, cup the back of her messy curls, and let my fingers get tangled. “It’ll all be fine,” I say.
She turns her big honey-colored eyes up to me, complete trust shining in their depths, and I know I would do anything to keep her safe and happy. Everything will be okay because I’ll make sure that it is.
I stand outside of the courtroom, in a suit no less, waiting for my turn. My fancy lawyer is speaking in hushed tones on a cell, and my eyes stay riveted on the door and the people exiting. They are both genders and every ethnicity. Some obviously wealthy and others struggling. Some of them walk through the door with determination while others leave in defeat.
I wonder which one I am. Am I determined, or will I leave in defeat? The lawyer seems to think the hearing is nothing more than a technicality, but my gut says different. I’m not sure how I stack up against a married ex-police officer who works as a secretary for her church, raised four children who turned out to be viable members of society and one who didn’t. Unlike me, who has traveled consistently for almost ten years, she can offer Tori stability.
Lost in thought, I barely notice the older woman taking a seat next to me. Her skin is the rich hue of cacao, her hair is gray and in locks manipulated into an artful bun. She’s wearing an eclectic ensemble of bright colors, thin bracelets, and lace.
She holds my eye as she gets comfortable on the bench beside me.
“I’m sure you don’t remember me, and I’m sorry that it has to be under these circumstances,” she says quietly.
I study her features, looking for something, anything, familiar and I come up with . . . nothing. Sometimes people who don’t really listen to our music still recognize us in the distant sort of way that you recognize a person from the grocery store. You’ve seen them in passing, maybe in a periphery, but never in a way that embeds them in your mind.
“I’m I don’t think you know . . .”
“I know you, Adam Beckham. I knew your momma for years. Lived next door to you for a while, in Pahrump, before she got . . .” She closes her lips, biting back the last part of the sentence. Before she got hooked on drugs is what she was going to say.
“I’m Regina Coleman, and my son Ennis was Victoria’s father.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention and my hands ball into fists. This is the woman trying to take my sister from me. The reason I’m here in a monkey suit in the middle of the day trying to convince the court to keep to our earlier arrangement.
“I’m not trying to make this difficult,” she says with force.
“Then why are we here?”
“I’m here,” she stresses, “because I have nothing els
e, no one else. Victoria . . .”
“She prefers to be called Tori,” I correct.
“Is that right,” she says, a little wistful. A sad smile drifts across her face. “Tori is the last connection I have to my son. He and your momma had a lot of the same problems.”
Regina’s eyes frost over in memory, her face shutting down. I recognize that look. It’s the battle fatigue that comes from fighting an often-unwinnable war against drug addiction. Addiction doesn’t just take the person using, it takes everything they love. Family, friends, self-respect, all slain on the battlefield for another hit.
“He was an addict?”
She nods and lets out a deep sigh.
“A couple of years ago he finally came home. Asked for help. And he was serious this time. Said he had a baby whom he needed to get clean for. So, I footed the bill for rehab in Temecula, California. It was there that they found the cancer. Can you believe it? After all those years of using it wasn’t the drugs that took him out, it was cancer.”
“They finally got my mom—the drugs, I mean.”
“They told me that Manda died, but I didn’t know . . . Sorry for your loss,” she says, and her voice drips with true sincerity. No one else has said that. Well, no one except Seth.
“Ah, thank you, and you too. Sorry for your loss as well. I’m not usually this big of an asshole.”
Startled laughter rains from her mouth, the sound full and melodic. Her smile completely transforms her face. “I don’t think you’re an asshole. Even as a little boy you were sweet. Always trying to take care of your momma. Like you were the parent.”
Because I was the parent.
“Look, Regina, you seem like a really nice person, but I don’t understand why I’m here. All I’m trying to do is take care of my sister. I’m not trying to step on toes or keep her away from anyone. I was in the system enough to know the longer she’s there, the more danger she’s in.”
“I just want a relationship with my grandchild, Adam. That’s all. A chance to get to know her and be a part of her life. I’m not sure I did right by Ennis. He was a sensitive child, and his father and I wanted to make him tough. Prepare him for the world outside of the walls of our home, but I think all we did was push him to want to escape reality.” Her mouth draws tight at the corners.
“I miss my boy. He had this laugh that made everyone around him smile.” A sad smile blooms across her weathered face. “I saw a picture of Tori and I see him in her. I’d like a chance with Tori. Just a chance to recapture a small piece of my boy who made everyone smile.”
I speak to Regina for several more minutes. Trying to get a handle on where she’s coming from. I don’t trust easily and not really at all when it comes to my family. But we want the same thing: Tori safe and sound. I call the fancy-ass lawyer over to us and the three of us start to formulate a plan. One that might work for everyone involved.
Seth
“I need you up top tonight,” Aiden says through the speaker in my ear.
Since ending things with Adam I’ve needed distance. I can’t sit in the same room and fake the funk. I’m not a dude normally in my head or all up in my feelings, but this Adam shit stung. Especially because I know he feels the same.
“What’s up?” I answer in the mic clipped to the collar of my shirt.
“Joey’s out for the night.”
“You gotta be fucking kidding me. Again? What is it this time?”
“He thinks he got food poisoning. Has been in the crapper the last thirty minutes. It’s coming out of both ends.”
“He has the constitution of my ninety-year-old grandmother.” I can’t hold back the irritation in my voice. I yank open the door and walk the path down the hallways that will take me up to the stage. I brace myself when I get into the restricted area. The roadies are moving boxes and taping down wires. There is the frantic energy of the preshow buzzing backstage.
I brace myself outside of the dressing room door where the band is gathered and listen to the sounds of them teasing each other mercilessly. They’ve apparently just found out about Sin and Jake having sex on the rooftop.
Worst-kept secret in this band.
I thought when Aiden told me about it, he was going to explode. We all know Sin has been his fantasy girl for a while. Having the knowledge that not only is she beautiful but she’s freaky and down to get oral on the top of a roof.
Raising my hand, I twist the doorknob, but I don’t push inside. My pulse hammers in my veins.
You’re a grown-ass man with a job to do. Get in there and do it.
Taking a deep breath, I walk into the room. Four sets of eyes turn in my direction and one pair, a crystalline blue pair, captures my gaze and holds it. There’s a second when I’m staring into those eyes that I forget he’s no longer interested. That I was only the newest piece of ass in a long and probably distinguished line.
It all comes rushing back and I blink, breaking our connection, and I drop back into the room and my purpose for being here.
“You guys ready to hit the stage?”
Sin is the first out the door. Her cheeks shiny with embarrassment. She’s quickly followed by Dan, who is still heckling her about getting some rooftop loving. Miles comes through next, tapping my fist as he moves past. Then there’s Adam. He pauses directly in front of me, opens his mouth, thinks better of it, and then closes it again.
“You better get out there,” I say quickly, my tone professional, so he doesn’t feel the need to speak to me. He doesn’t move a minute and neither do I. The air between us is dense with all the things that we should but won’t say.
Adam is the first to step back and turn to jog the short distance to catch up with his bandmates. I take a full inhale, filling up my lungs, holding it until it burns, and then letting it ease out of my body. I pull up the rear, watching the four of them take the stage.
The house lights drop, and the roar of the audience gets louder, hands clap, feet stomp, and whistles blow. This never gets old. Standing in the wings, this close to stardom, is like nothing I’ve ever experienced.
The lights come up, the first heavy guitar riff echoes off the walls, and a thousand people push to their feet chanting “Sin City, Sin City, Sin City.”
Sin lets loose the first high-pitched wail that has the fan yelling louder. Looks like they’ve switched things up. They’re now starting with “Exquisitely Broken.” Sin’s voice is so expressive, so connected to the lyrics, and this time so am I. I understand every tortured lyric. It takes me back to when I watched Adam walk out the door with the parting shot, “Forget about me. You’ll be better for it.”
She moves from one side of the stage to the other, losing herself in the music and the crowd. Something keeps catching her eye to the far left. Which in turn catches mine. I dip my head to try to locate who or what has her so enthralled. It’s a hard task with the curtain and the lights.
“Yo, Aiden?” I say into the receiver. “You see anything stage left? Something off. I can’t get a good visual from my perspective.”
“Hold up.” He says.
Sin misses a beat, fixated on someone stage left. I squint, trying follow her line of sight.
“Aiden, I need that intel now,” I demand into the mic, the feeling of uneasiness getting stronger and stronger.
The first song ends, and Sin raises the mic to her lips.
“Good evening, Las Vegas!”
The crowd goes wild, yelling and stomping in response.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to see every one of you. Being here on this stage is honestly a dream come true. In the words of a much better writer, there is no place like home.” The audience cheers.
“We love you, Sin!” someone yells.
“And I love you back. You ready to rock?” she asks the audience. They scream in response and she smiles big and genuine. She’s in her element, but then her eyes drift back across the stage.
“Shit. We have a serious problem, Seth,” Aiden rasps into the
earpiece. “Second row, six seats in from the aisle.” I take a couple of steps back to peer behind the back of the curtain and fuck me sideways. That’s Ian Foster. I’d recognize the weaselly eyes void of emotion, the greasy, dark hair and the too-small, worn Sin City T-shirt anywhere. He’s the motherfucker who sent her a real animal heart and the one that tried to jump over the stanchions at the press release when Sin City first started its residency.
“How in the hell did he get in here?” I demand.
“No idea. But we have to remedy this shit now. I’m calling in the hotel security but stay alert down there. Who knows what this asshole is capable of doing?”
Dan taps out a fast tempo on the high hat and moves rapidly around the drum kit. Adam follows his lead to signal the start of the next song and comes in shredding the guitar, completely lost in the music. He leans against Sin, fingers working over the strings, face twisted in pleasure. Totally unaware of the threat in the audience.
Sin is trying to lose herself in the music and meet Adam in that place the two of them occupy but she can’t. I see the struggle. Her eyes keep going back to Foster and she freezes. Stumbling over lyrics, tripping over her own steps. She sashays around Adam to the other end of the stage.
“Fuck. He’s got a fucking rifle,” Aiden yells in my comms. Fuck staying out of eyesight. I push past the curtain in time to watch Foster push the woman next to him down to the ground as he tries to follow Sin’s movement and then swing on another person standing between him and the stage. Hotel security finally fight through the stampede of bodies trying to get far away from the gun shots, but it’s too late. He takes aim, the gun pointed straight at Sin. A barrage of bullets hits the stage. The wood cracks and splinters, fragments flying. In the chaos I see Sin go down. And I don’t think, I react. I throw myself off the stage at the same time he pulls the trigger.
Bullets whiz close to my face as my body collides with the shooter, knocking us both to the ground. We get tangled in the folding chairs and wrestle for the gun. He smashes my face into the ground, still trying to crawl over me to get to Sin. I yank him back by the scruff of his neck, reversing our positions. It takes everything in me to muscle him down and duck the wild punches he’s throwing. I get a hand around the barrel and yank hard, but he doesn’t let go. He comes forward with the weapon, his body collapsing on mine.
Exquisitely Hidden: A Sin City Tale Page 17
