by R. M. Lynn
“Lily has a mommy,” Lucy suddenly says, and I nearly choke.
I look her over while she still stares down at the elephant, and I weigh my words carefully before murmuring, “She does.”
“Do I have a mom?” she asks next and looks up at me.
I exhale slowly and give her hand a squeeze. “Yeah, you have one.”
She doesn’t reply. She just gives me a nod and looks away from me again. I look at her face, wondering what the hell she could be thinking. She’s never asked me about her mother before, and I quite frankly, I’ve never thought about what I’d say if she ever did. I should’ve known it would happen. She’s getting older; she’s noticing these types of things. It’ll only get worse when she starts school, I know this for a fact. I felt different when I was a kid because my dad wasn’t around. All the days at school when the dads would come, I was left out. I dread it for her. I never want her to feel the way I felt.
“Daddy?” Lucy asks, and I stiffen. “Where’s my mommy?”
I run a hand through my hair and murmur, “I don’t know, baby.”
“Did she go to heaven?”
I could cry, I swear, but instead I mumble, “No, Lucy, she didn’t go to heaven. She’s somewhere, but I just don’t know where. She gave you to me. Do you understand?”
“Like a present? For Christmas?” she asks, her eyes lighting up with the idea of the holiday.
I smile weakly and say, “Yeah, something like that. You’re my gift, and because of that, I get to keep you and take care of you. Is that okay?”
She nods and smiles sweetly. “Yes, that’s okay, Daddy.”
“I love you, baby,” I whisper and brush her hair away from her face once more. “You know that, right?”
She nods again and whispers, “I love you, too, Daddy.”
I stand and kiss her forehead before heading to the doorway. I switch her light off and watch her head twist to look at the Elsa nightlight.
“Goodnight, Lucy,” I murmur.
She whispers goodnight back to me, and I give myself permission to close her door. Leaning back against it, I close my eyes and try to steady my breathing. I know she doesn’t really understand, even though she tells me she does. I know that when she finally is able to understand, she’ll be devastated. Knowing that absolutely crushes me.
I will my legs to move, and I slowly make my way back downstairs and outside to the deck where Dylan and Noah sit at chairs around the marble table.
“How’d that go? Seemed to take you awhile,” Noah says as he takes a drink of his beer and points to a second one in front of an empty chair. “Got you another one, by the way.”
“Thanks,” I mumble as I sit down and lock my hands behind my head as I exhale.
“You alright?” Dylan asks as he digs in his pocket. “I brought it. You want it now?”
I give him a nod and watch him pull a bag of weed out of his pocket. He begins to make a joint for himself and then me Noah doesn’t blink at it, just looks at me with questioning eyes.
“Remember when he used to be such a bitch about this shit?” Dylan laughs out.
I smirk weakly as Noah ignores him and asks, “You alright? You never answered the question. Did she give you a hard time about going to bed?”
“No,” I tell him. “She’s usually pretty good about it. She just… She asked me about her mom.”
Dylan freezes, and Noah’s eyes widen.
“Shit, man,” Dylan mumbles. “What happened?”
I shrug and reply quietly, “She asked me where she is. But this was after she asked me if she even had a mom.”
“What’d you say to that?” Noah questions as Dylan lights up one joint, passes it to me, and lights up another for himself.
I take a quick hit and tell him, “I told her the truth. I told her I didn’t know where she was. I gave her some bullshit about how she’s mine, and her mom gave her to me to take care of her. She seemed okay with that, but I know she doesn’t really understand.”
Dylan exhales a puff of smoke and says, “I mean, you never know. Maybe she’ll be okay with all of it when she gets older.”
“You can’t be sure,” Noah argues. “I’d be fucking pissed, honestly.”
“Thank you for that,” I mutter sarcastically and take another hit of the joint, willing my body to relax. “I just think I’m in over my head with this one. I don’t know what I can do for her.”
“What do the doctors say?” Dylan wants to know.
“She’s been diagnosed with ADHD. They won’t know anything for sure until she gets older,” I tell them. “I’m worried she might struggle in school. She’s already getting things mixed up, things she should know from pre-K.”
“She’ll be fine,” Noah assures me. “You know it could be worse.”
“I know that,” I insist. “It just fucking sucks that I have to watch her struggle, and I can’t do anything about it.”
Dylan clears his throat, an indication he’s ready to change the subject. He says, “So, what was it like seeing her? Alivia, I mean.”
“It felt like a punch in the stomach,” I answer immediately. “She hid from me in the bathroom, by the way. So, if that isn’t an indication about how she felt about the situation, I don’t know what is.”
“Shit,” Noah chuckles. “She’ll warm up.”
“I hope so,” I mutter.
Dylan cocks his head to the side slightly and asks, “Do you think she knows about Lucy?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Fox and Staffer have done a good job of keeping the media quiet. I’m sure we’re out there somewhere on the front of some magazine, though. If she were to Google me, it'd pop up that I have a kid. She hasn't said anything, though.”
“Maybe it’s for the best,” Noah adds. “She was crushed. You don’t want to add fuel to the fire.”
“It’s not like I can hide the kid from her when she starts writing for us,” I mutter.
“Hopefully she takes the news well,” Dylan says as he finishes his joint. “I’m rooting for you guys.”
“That ship has probably sailed, buddy,” I exhale.
He frowns and replies, “Then turn the damn thing around.”
◆◆◆
Chapter Sixteen
Alivia
I arrive at the record label early. I signed a contract last night with Violet Lane’s attorney and Mr. Girardi basically implying I’ll only be able to work with Violet Lane until the end of the contract. I wasn’t allowed to write for anybody else. On top of this, I had to assist in writing the entire next album starting immediately. As I didn’t have my own lawyer to read it for me, I did my best to understand, but signed it without hesitation anyway. I needed the opportunity to make my name bigger in the industry. I wanted bands and singers to know exactly who I was. With this, as much as Kyler hurt me in the past, I knew he wouldn’t let the label put anything into the contract that shouldn’t be.
So, that morning, I tell the secretary that I’m there to see Kyler and the rest of Violet Lane. She types on her computer, as she did yesterday, and dials a number before putting the phone to her ear. A minute later, Kyler comes down the hallway to get me.
“Hey,” he murmurs with a smile. “Come on back."
I follow him down the hallway and to the last studio of the place. He pushes the door open for me, and I slip past him to step into the empty room.
“Where’re the others?” I ask him as my eyes look over the mixing panel.
“Late,” he responds. “It’s pretty typical. Ayden’s probably just waking up with his model fuck buddy. Oliver called and said he’s getting his sister situated; she flew in last night. Noah’s picking up the coffee. And Dylan is Dylan, so I’m not sure what the fuck he’s doing.”
“Okay, well, I have a couple notebooks I’ve filled with songs I haven’t sold to anyone else,” I tell him as I sit down on the leather couch to dig into my bag. “Did you want to take a look?”
“Let me tell you what we’re going f
or,” he says, sitting in the large swivel chair at the panel. “We always have a story for our albums, a theme. Each song on the album is strategically picked to encompass that common theme. Does that make sense? So, whatever you give me, I need them all to be pretty cohesive.”
“Um, okay,” I mutter as I search through the notebook. “To be honest, I have a lot of I-hate-your-guts songs.”
He smirks and muses, “I wonder who those could be about, huh?”
I divert my gaze from his and shove a notebook into his hands. I feel the blush creeping up into my face as his eyes move over every word I’ve written about him. I know Violet Lane tends to have songs regarding love, lost, and heartbreak. Even if I hate him, it doesn’t mean I can’t listen to him.
“This one,” Kyler murmurs and hands the notebook back to me, pointing to my handwritten words. “Have you shown this to anybody else?”
I shake my head and say, “No, that one is a lot older. It’s just never come up.”
“Hold on a second,” he mutters and stands from the couch to poke his head out of the door to talk to someone. A minute later, Holly enters the room looking as frazzled as ever, and Kyler says to her, “I need you to take this and rewrite this on the computer. Do not save the document, okay? I don’t need any of these other fuckers taking my song. Print it out and bring it back to me.”
“Yes, Mr. Parks,” she replies in a rush and hurries out of the door, my notebook in hand.
“I fucking loathe it when she calls me that,” Kyler grumbles with an eye roll as he sits back down in the chair.
“So, you type your songs now?” I ask instead of replying to his statement.
He shakes his head and says, “No, I just need her to type it up for Noah. It’s easier for him to write on and shit for when it’s time to put the music together. But you handwrite now, huh?”
“Maybe you rubbed off on me a bit,” I tell him with a small smile as I look down at my lap. When I look up at him, I can see him biting back a grin, and I snap, “Why must you make everything I say sexual?”
“I literally did not say a thing,” he laughs out.
I try hard not to grin and retort, “You didn’t have to. Your face said it all.”
He shakes his head and smirks just as his cell phone rings in the pocket of his jeans. Pulling it out, he checks to see who’s calling before he mutters an apology to me.
“Hey, baby,” he answers quietly as he begins to stand from the chair. “No, I’m at work… I wish I could, baby, but I can’t…”
He slips out of the studio; the door closing behind him. Now, with him out of earshot, I exhale and run a hand through my hair. So, he has a girlfriend? Everything the guys do is usually plastered all over the internet and magazines, but I hadn’t seen or heard anything about Kyler having a girlfriend. That would be front cover news just like when Ayden got his DUI, or when Dylan was caught bringing three girls back to his house after a night out. Even when Oliver gets a new tattoo, it’s the first thing you can find on a news media outlet.
After another minute or so, Kyler returns to the room and gives me a tight smile.
“Everything okay?” I instinctively ask.
He gives me a nod and replies, “Yeah, just needed to take that. Sorry again.”
“No problem,” I assure him as Holly comes into the room with a paper and my notebook in her hand.
She hands it to Kyler and stammers out, “I-is there anything else you need, Mr. Parks?”
He smiles up at her and responds, “I need you to stop calling me that, Holly. That’s what I need.”
“So sorry, sir,” she mumbles and escapes the room as Kyler rolls his eyes.
The door is pushed open again almost instantly, and Noah is there with a cup holder full of coffees. He hands one to Kyler and then me before setting the rest on the side table and sitting down next to me.
“Morning, guys,” Noah greets cheerfully. “The others not in yet?”
“Nope,” Kyler mutters around his cup.
Noah is handed the printed piece of paper of my song, and I watch him look it over briefly before he says, “This is pretty good. You wrote this?”
I nod and mumble, “Yeah, it’s an older one, so I’m not sure if it’s quite up to par.”
He looks at Kyler and tells him, “There’re a few things I think need to be changed. A few lines and words. It’ll make it flow better once we put sound to it.” Noah’s eyes lock to me again, and he asks, “Can you sing this for me? I need to know how you envision it to sound.”
“Um, sure,” I reply, a bit unsure of myself. “I’ll need a keyboard.”
“In the box,” Kyler says softly and gestures to the glass room behind him. “We can listen from out here.”
I give him a nod and head inside, sitting at the keyboard and adjust the microphone. It must be obvious that I don’t know what I’m doing because Kyler is in the box with me a second later, putting headphones over my ears and making sure the microphone and the keyboard are connected properly.
“Good?” he murmurs when he finishes the set up.
I nod and avert my eyes to the keys in front of me. A moment later, I watch him stand at the panel next to Noah in the chair. Both put headphones over their ears, and Noah fiddles with buttons and switches before looking up at me through the glass. Giving me a thumbs up, he gives me the signal to begin. I exhale and move my fingers across the keys.
I try hard not to look through the glass at Kyler talking to Noah as I sing to them through their headphones. I know my voice is shaky, but I’m nervous. It’s the first time I’ve actually been in a recording studio before and actually singing my song. Kyler waves an arm at me, telling me to stop just before I come to the end of the song. When I look at him, he gestures for me to come out and talk with him.
“Was it that bad?” I ask, embarrassed, and force myself to make eye contact with him.
He smiles softly and murmurs, “It wasn’t bad, Liv. The pitch is too high, though, and I won't be able to hit the high notes. So, we’re going to rewrite it in a lower key. Otherwise, Dylan will have to take the song.”
I just nod and ask next, “What about the lyrics? Are they fine?”
Kyler sits down on the couch, pats the seat next to me, and I sit next to him. Noah swivels to face us, his headphones wrapped around his neck.
“The lyrics are a good start,” Noah tells me. “They’re just not quite up to the standards.”
Kyler glowers at him before adding, “What he means is that as Violet Lane, we’re held to a specific standard. If we put something like this out, as is, we risk a flop.”
“So, it sucks, essentially,” I grumble and heft out a sigh.
Kyler turns serious and says, “Listen, Liv, this is the big leagues now. We’re not writing for some bullshit college performance or for someone who wishes they were us. We have a reputation and a fan base that expects us to live up to that reputation.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “If you want to work for us, you’re going to have to take our critiques and learn from it.”
“We promise we know what we’re doing,” Noah adds. “It’ll still be your song. Just tweaked a little.”
“Okay, fine,” I relent. “I trust you guys. I just want people to hear my words. If you can promise it’ll still sound like me, I’ll feel better about it all.”
“It will,” Kyler assures me. “If anything, we’re just trying to enhance what you’ve done.”
I give him a small nod and murmur, “Okay.”
“Let’s start with this,” Noah says, and we quickly get to work.
◆◆◆
We’re in the studio nearly all day, the rest of the guys having finally showed up between ten and eleven that morning. When we finally break for the day, I feel good about where things are going. We worked on a second song, also about Kyler, and then Dylan, Kyler, and I began to write our own original to potentially include on the album.
I leave after all the guys, expect for Kyler. He walks out with me, m
indlessly scrolling through his phone as I spot a photographer at the end of the parking lot.
“Does that happen a lot?” I ask quietly.
Kyler looks up, and I gesture to the man and his camera, and he says, “Yeah, all the time. Usually, there’s only one or two around here. There’s nothing too exciting about taking a picture of us leaving work, you know? Nights out and events and shit, though? You can’t even see, constantly getting blinded by their flashes.”
“Is it everything you wanted?” I find myself whispering as we reach his fancy, shiny car.
He eyes look into mine, and he murmurs, “Sometimes. Sometimes it’s everything. Other times, it’s just a lot. Occasionally, I just miss how it used to be. When things weren’t so complicated, and when I could walk around without anybody even knowing who I was.”
“Yeah, I imagine that gets pretty old,” I tell him and begin to question why I’m even lingering around to talk to him. “What’re your plans for tonight?”
He eyes me with an amused expression and teases, “Why, you want to take me out or something?”
“You wish,” I counter. “I’m sure you have a plethora of beautiful women waiting to take you out.”
He smirks and informs me, “I don’t date, so don’t worry.”
I cock my head to the side in confusion. “Why not?”
“I don’t have the time,” he answers with a shrug. “That, and I’m just not interested.”
I just nod in response. I want to ask who was on the phone if he doesn’t date, but decide against it. I’m not sure if I’ll like the answer. Plus, he said he’s not interested, not that he isn’t currently in a relationship.
“What about you?” he asks quietly. “Plans? Hot date?”
I roll my eyes and tell him, “I don’t date either. Men are jerks.”
“Seems rather presumptuous of you,” he replies with a head tilt. “I know your ex did you wrong, but you don’t have to swear off all men because of it.”
