Bad Case of Loving You

by Deborah Cooke

“That’s what grandmas do.”

  He smiled and snuggled deeper. “And she made this to keep you warm forever.”

  “She did. She could remember what every piece of fabric was from. Those were the stories she told me when I was staying with her and couldn’t sleep.”

  “Do you remember them?”

  “Not really. I mostly remember her.”

  “We’ll have it at the apartment, right?”

  “Of course.” Lyssa rolled to face him. “What do you think if we learn to make one of our own?”

  “We’d have two then. One for you and one for me.”

  “Or two to pile on the bed when you can’t sleep.”

  “What about Theo?”

  Lyssa was caught by surprise. “He might have one already.”

  “We could ask.”

  “We could. Let’s start with just one more first.”

  “Okay, Mom,” he said and eased closer to her. “I hope Theo’s mom wants to be my grandma,” he murmured. His eyes were already closing and Lyssa’s chest tightened. She’d tried to do her best for him, but she knew there were deficiencies in his life.

  She was hoping Theo would help to fill the gaps.

  He’d always wanted a grandma. If Lyssa could have prayed for anything in that moment, it would have been the understanding of Theo’s parents.

  “Story,” Logan murmured, giving her hand a squeeze.

  “Once upon a time,” she murmured, telling the story she always did, and watching him smile. “There was boy as handsome as a prince who had a heart of gold. He lived in a palace...”

  “No. He lived in that apartment,” Logan murmured and Lyssa smiled.

  “You’re right. He moved from his palace to an apartment that faced Central Park, one with his very own bedroom...”

  Eleven

  After Logan fell asleep, Lyssa left his room and quietly closed the door. It was late but she knew that she wasn’t going to sleep.

  Her thoughts were spinning. She needed to get organized.

  Logan would be with Theo the next afternoon and she had her appointment with Mr. Sinclair at the bank on Thursday. She hadn’t been managing her finances or paying her bills since she’d hired Justin again, but she knew she had the money. Justin had booked her to the limit, wanting to start a cascade effect, and his strategy had worked really well. It seemed that she’d barely had a minute to catch her breath. The funds would just have to be moved around from investment accounts.

  First, she’d familiarize herself with all the social media accounts that Mercedes had been managing and be sure she hadn’t missed any photographs of her and Theo.

  Lyssa booted up the computer and got to work. She’d removed the images of herself and Theo earlier in the day, after she’d made her deals with the photographers and tabloids and celebrity news sites. She reviewed the profiles in case more images had been tagged and populated her profiles, but to her relief, Theo’s fifteen minutes of fame, at least connected with her, seemed to be ending.

  He was still on a lot of sites as a result of the F5 promotion, but that had been his goal. The club had a lot of visibility, as well.

  Lyssa checked her email and then eyed the log-in for her domain email, the one used for publicity requests. She never looked at that account, but just left it to Mercedes. That made her wonder. Had Theo really asked Mercedes about Angel making an appearance at F5? Lyssa couldn’t imagine that Mercedes wouldn’t have at least mentioned it.

  She couldn’t imagine that Theo had lied either.

  There were quite a few new messages on that account, which meant that Mercedes wasn’t monitoring it during her vacation. That was fine as they’d agreed to that, and really, on Monday it was going to be Lyssa’s job anyway. It would be busy for a month or so, she reasoned, then the activity would die down. She glanced through the new messages, noting a few she’d open later, then scrolled to the older ones.

  There was Theo’s original request, from September. It had been opened.

  There had been four follow-ups, before Mercedes had even replied. Lyssa frowned, then read the entire thread. It was true that she’d told her publicist that she was going to spend the holidays with Logan, but Mercedes’ reply to Theo made it sound as if she’d discussed this with Lyssa, and that Lyssa had refused. Mercedes could have just said that Lyssa wasn’t available.

  What else hadn’t Mercedes told her?

  Lyssa scrolled down, a chill in the pit of her stomach. She found an offer from a cosmetics company, one that she’d been excited about. She’d spoken to the founder at a party and been excited by their business. Not only did they use all organic ingredients and responsibly source them, but they didn’t do animal testing, and they donated a large percentage of their profits to finance plastic surgeons visiting third world countries. Appearances weren’t everything, but children with cleft palates and facial deformities had fewer opportunities. It was just a fact of life. Lyssa had been excited at the possibility of becoming involved. The VP had told her that they wanted to use models who defied expectations and she was all for that.

  Justin and Mercedes had insisted that they’d never gotten in touch, and that the VP must have been stringing her along. But here were a dozen messages from the VP, following up on that conversation. There was only a reply from Mercedes to the last one, requesting that the VP cease and desist his email campaign since Angel wasn’t interested.

  She even called it harassment.

  Lyssa was outraged.

  She quickly found three more similar instances. How much did Justin know about this? She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but couldn’t imagine that Mercedes would act without instruction.

  Lyssa almost missed the message from Justin. It was from his old personal account, the one he’d been using when she’d hired him this most recent time, the one she thought he’d terminated. It was very short.

  * * *

  M—

  We need to talk about the house.

  Call me on the private number.

  —J

  * * *

  What private number?

  What house?

  Lyssa sat back and stared at the screen. There was no house. None of them owned houses and none of them—so far as she knew—were contemplating buying one.

  She was only planning to buy an apartment and no one but Logan, Theo, and the real estate agent knew about that. She hadn’t told Sandra, but Simon undoubtedly knew. Mercedes and Justin certainly didn’t know about it.

  How much didn’t she know?

  It wasn’t possible for Lyssa to manage the details of her life when she was working a lot, as she had been for the better part of the last year. She’d been on the road constantly, and the pace had paid off in earnings and visibility. She’d done all the big shows. She’d spent every spare minute with Logan, glad that Justin was managing the details.

  What was the price of that?

  How badly had he tricked her?

  Lyssa went back to the laptop, impulsively changing the password on the domain email. Once she started, she changed every single password for every account, including her financial ones. She even changed her passwords for her online shopping accounts, going through the bookmarks until every single one of them had a new log-in.

  Then she sat back, arms folded around herself, chilled. She couldn’t prove much of anything, not yet, but she had a very bad feeling about this.

  She really hoped she was wrong.

  She almost called Theo, but remembered that heart tattoo in time. It was late. He might have company.

  And Lyssa really didn’t want to interrupt that.

  Cassie checked her watch one more time, then flung out her hands as Theo finally appeared in the F5 lobby on Wednesday morning. “You’re late!” she complained. “Did you have to pick today for a personal first?”

  “Sorry.” He actually looked frazzled, which was so completely out of character that Cassie looked again. “The call to my parents took longer than I�
�d expected.”

  Why had he called his parents? Cassie was worried then. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” Theo looked at his watch and swore. “Too late for the subway.” He met her gaze. “Cab?”

  “Cab. I’ve got one waiting at the curb. I sent the others on ahead to meet us there.”

  “Great,” he said with obvious relief, then smiled. “Thank you.”

  As ever, he held the door for her and Cassie didn’t speak until they were in the cab and on the way. “Want to tell me about it?”

  Theo glanced her way. “You mean you don’t already know?”

  “Know what?” Cassie didn’t understand. “And why would I know?”

  “Because I told Kyle already.”

  “And he can’t keep a secret to save his life,” Cassie concluded. “But he kept this one because I have no clue what would have delayed you.”

  “Imagine that.”

  “When exactly did you tell him this secret?”

  Theo looked at his watch. “About fourteen hours ago.”

  “Given that everyone slept for about eight of those hours, that’s still got to be a new personal best for him. Six whole hours!” She smiled and to her relief, Theo chuckled. He looked a little less strained. She wondered if he’d had to tell his parents something that upset them, but couldn’t figure out what it might be. “It must not be a juicy secret.”

  “Oh, but it is,” he said sobering. “I have a son.”

  “What?” Cassie gaped at him, certain she’d heard wrong.

  “I just found out yesterday.” Theo ran a hand over his head, not looking significantly less astonished than Cassie felt. “He’s ten.”

  “You mean ten years old?”

  Theo nodded.

  Cassie heard herself make a sputtering sound before she could manage a coherent question. “Eleven years ago, we were in college,” she said finally, then flicked a glance at the driver. He was on his phone, arguing in Spanish with someone. “Angel?” she whispered.

  Theo nodded.

  “Wow.”

  “Wow is pretty much it.” He gestured back toward F5. “I was telling my parents.”

  “Oh God, how did that go?”

  “There were some moments, but my sister helped a lot. It’ll be better when the shock is over and they have time to think about it, after they’ve talked to each other about it.”

  “You’re taking some time after today, right?” Cassie said. “Because you worked over the holidays?”

  “That was the plan. Logan goes back to school on Friday, so I said I’d take him to the museum this afternoon, after the pop-up.” Theo looked nervous, which was a first in Cassie’s experience. “It’ll just be a couple of hours and his friend is coming, too. Thank goodness we moved the weekly meeting to tomorrow so that Chloe would have time to compile the promotion results.”

  He’d forgotten about the two local television stations who were going to interview them after the pop-up, which told Cassie everything she needed to know about Theo’s level of agitation.

  “Can you stay for a couple of minutes to talk to the television crews?” she asked and Theo swore again.

  “I forgot! I got timed tickets to the museum...”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll cover it. I was just asking.”

  He rubbed his brow. “I can’t believe I forgot about a television interview. I don’t want to let you guys down...”

  “Theo, you’ve knocked it out of the park the past week and a half,” Cassie said sternly. “Let me do what I do. If you can give us one soundbite before you go, that would totally rock, otherwise, just go.”

  “Thanks, Cassie.”

  “Is it your first time alone with him?”

  Theo nodded, then his eyes widened a little.

  “You’ve got this, you know,” she said because he seemed to need some reassurance. “It’s a big change and everyone will be off their game for a week or so, but then you’ll all settle into a new groove.” She didn’t want to ask about his relationship with Angel, even though she was curious. “You’re going to be the best dad in the world.”

  “I’ve got time to make up.”

  “Not your fault and don’t you forget it,” she said fiercely and he smiled.

  “I have to learn fast.”

  “He’s old enough that he’ll want to talk and hang out. You’ll be awesome.”

  Theo smiled. “Thanks.”

  “Be glad you missed diapers.”

  He laughed at that, surprised into it.

  “You want me to tell the others?”

  “Assuming that Kyle doesn’t burst with the news first, I’ll tell them tomorrow at the weekly meeting.”

  Cassie nodded understanding as the cab pulled over to the curb. “Sounds good. Now, let’s rock this pop-up and finish this promotion with style.”

  Lyssa was waiting for Theo in front of the museum with Logan and Simon. They were a bit early and she was surprised when the alert she’d set for Theo chimed.

  It was the official video of the final pop-up. Actually, it was for both clubs, since they’d done them simultaneously. The New York one was in Times Square and the San Francisco one was in Union Square. The song was Born This Way again, and the video cut between the two events. The groups of dancers on both coasts were much larger.

  Once again, a guy put down a boom box in each square, turned it on and walked away from it. Passersby in both cities immediately began looking around for the F5 team, a sure sign of the success of the promotion. Theo stepped out of the crowd and handed off his jacket, revealing his F5 T-shirt and his prime physique. He pointed at the camera as he lip-synched the first line, then it cut to Kyle, doing the same thing in San Francisco. It was a sunny day on both coasts, so all the dancers were wearing sunglasses.

  The boys crowded beside her to watch, and Lyssa felt Logan begin to echo Theo’s moves. There were dozens of people recording the pop-ups on their cell phones and taking pictures of the dancers. Cassie joined Theo on one side, the other blond woman on the other, and they danced together. Kyle danced with two women, one with pink hair and one whose head was shaved. They’d practiced a lot because they were in perfect step. They switched out then, two other guys taking the lead for the chorus, and Lyssa guessed that other members of the team were having their moment in the spotlight. She remembered this guy from one of Theo’s spots on the people of F5. He was a vet named Nate who ran a special session in the weight room for those who were missing limbs. Lyssa had admired that the club had made a private time for them.

  The song ended too soon for Lyssa’s taste, then the camera view spiraled up in Times Square to the massive billboard for F5. It showed Nate laughing as he hung from a harness on a climbing wall. He was wearing a prosthesis on one arm, but it clearly wasn’t holding him back. Go for it at F5 was the caption.

  “Your dad is so cool,” Simon said wistfully.

  “They have a climbing wall at the club,” Logan said with excitement. “It’s right there in the ad and I saw it on their website. I totally want to climb it.”

  “Maybe you should ask Theo,” Lyssa had time to say before her screen filled with uploaded clips from the crowd. She chose one of the chaos on the square after the pop-up. “Look at all these people,” she said to Logan.

  “It totally rocked,” he agreed.

  Once again, they were giving out T-shirts and coupons, but Lyssa saw a television crew there, too. Theo was signing autographs and posing for pictures, so confident and gorgeous that Lyssa could have eaten him up with a spoon.

  The person filming it on her cell phone obviously felt the same way. “Oh my God, it’s him,” she whispered, then steadily made her way closer.

  Theo tugged on his jacket as the television crew approached him, their expectation obvious. “Cassie’s here to do the interview,” he said easily, drawing that woman closer. She smiled when the interviewer might have protested. “My son’s waiting on me,” he said easily, smiled, then spun to stride away wit
h purpose.

  “Son!” the woman with the cellphone echoed in shock.

  “Son,” Logan said, as if talking to her.

  “Family first,” Cassie said to the interviewer with a breezy smile. Lyssa could hear her then but not see her. The woman with the cellphone was trying to follow Theo, but he ducked into the crowd and disappeared. She swore eloquently and Lyssa changed to another video.

  “We know that word, Mom.”

  “That doesn’t mean you need to hear it all the time.”

  There obviously had been a bit of a delay between the finishing of the pop-up and the posting of the video, because Lyssa looked up to see Theo jogging down 79th Street from the subway. He smiled when he saw them and slowed his stride. He checked his watch and relief lit his expression. “I thought I’d be late,” he admitted when he dropped to sit on the steps beside Lyssa.

  “This is my friend, Simon,” Logan said and Theo shook Simon’s hand.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “You, too, sir.”

  “I don’t think you need to call me sir,” Theo said with a smile.

  “What then? Mr. Tremblay?”

  “Then I’ll think you’re talking to my dad,” Theo said and the boys grinned. Lyssa wondered how his conversation with his parents had gone. “How about Theo?”

  Simon smiled. He was a serious boy and Lyssa was glad to see him warm up to Theo.

  “We were watching the pop-up,” Logan told him.

  “How’d the video come out?”

  Lyssa handed Theo her phone to save him the trouble of looking it up. He watched it, his smile turning satisfied, then nodded when it was done. “Those video guys did a great job with this. And they’re fast.” Of course, he gave credit to others.

  “I think you did a great job, too,” Logan said.

  “Thanks!” His hand brushed Lyssa’s as he gave her back her phone, and their gazes met for a hot moment. “Joining us?” he asked.

  “No, it’s your afternoon.”

  “You just don’t want to see the butterflies,” Theo accused lightly.