“No!” I exploded. “Your fucking cousin is ruining everything. Again! I have to go clean up a mess and then we are all sitting down and having a band meeting.”
Wroth’s eyes narrowed. “What did he do this time?”
“He’s using. There are drugs all over Brie’s apartment and she’s about thirty minutes away from turning his ass over to the cops. So while I should be chasing after that woman…” I pointed after Dallas’s retreating back as she walked up to Linc. The muscle head wrapped her in his arms and kissed the top of her head. “…I have to go to my batshit crazy ex’s house and clean out Liam’s hidden stash.”
“Fuck!” Wroth glanced over at the table he had just come from. Liam was talking with his sister, making her smile. Marissa leaned her head against his arm, adoring the man who was all the family she had left in the world. “This is going to destroy Rissa.”
“Yeah.” I raked my hands through my hair. “And when Emmie finds out she’s going to bust his balls… After I do it. She’s not going to let him go on tour still using.” We had a tour scheduled for March. Natalie was going to be traveling with us but she was going to be reporting everything back to Emmie daily. She wouldn’t think twice about canceling the entire tour over Liam’s problem. Ever since Drake had gotten his act cleaned up, Em had developed a zero tolerance for bad habits.
“Go take care of Brie and clean the place up. I’ll talk to Dev and Zander. Once I make sure that Rissa gets home okay we’ll take Liam to Zander’s and wait for you there. This will get sorted out tonight.”
I didn’t believe him, and I was sure that he really didn’t believe himself. How many times had we been cleaning up after Liam? How many times had we made excuses for him, forced him into rehab and then waited for him to start the cycle all over again just a few weeks after getting out? But I cared about Liam, and I loved Marissa, so I would go through it all again to help my friend.
“Sounds like a plan.” I nodded then pulled my keys from my pocket. “Call me when you get there.”
“Make sure you check the closets. And under the dressers. Sometimes he hides his stash in his dirty clothes hamper.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
Two hours later I sat on Brie’s couch glaring down at the coffee table and the drugs spread across it. All of this had been in the apartment for only god knew how long and during that time Jordan could have found any one of these things and died instantly. Thank god Brie always watched him like a hawk when she had him.
“I’ve packed his stuff,” she told me as she walked into the living room. Her voice was devoid of emotion but that told me more than if she had been hysterical. This was hurting her, coming to the decisions that I knew she’d had to make. “Take it with you when you go, okay?”
I nodded. “If that’s what you want.”
“Of course it’s what I want…” She tossed her long black hair away from her face. “…but if he gets clean…”
“The problem isn’t him getting clean, Brie. He’s done it a half dozen times before. It’s keeping him clean that causes the problems. He’s been using hardcore since we got in the business. His addiction rules him more than anything else. His career, the band, his friends, his family? None of it matters as long as he can get high.”
“Maybe losing me will help straighten him up?”
It broke me a little to see the faint light of hope in her brown eyes. I wondered how much more it was going to take before that hope finally burned out. She hadn’t seen Liam at his true worst yet, and I prayed she never did. “The longest I’ve ever seen him clean was when Marissa was sick, but as soon as she was better he went even more hardcore. He hasn’t touched heroin since then, though. The detox from that nearly killed him.”
“Meth and coke aren’t as bad as heroin—” she started but I cut her off.
“Brie, don’t. You can’t make excuses for him. Meth and coke are just as bad. He needs help but there isn’t anyone who can help him until he wants to help himself. Maybe he will want to now since he’s losing you…”
“But you don’t think he will.” She said what I was unable to because I didn’t want to hurt her more than I was sure she was already hurting.
My phone ringing kept me from having to answer. I pulled it from my pocket and saw that it was Devlin. I put it to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Liam left. He went to New York,” the drummer informed me. “He was pissed that you went to Gabriella’s… He was high, so of course he was spouting off about not being able to trust his friends with his girl. If he were sober he would have known that was complete bullshit, but now he’s raging thinking you and Brie are hooking up.”
“Of course he is.” I rolled my eyes. “Can the three of you make it to New York this week?” I had to be back there by the end of the week anyway, but I wouldn’t be able to handle Liam on my own. It would take Wroth and Devlin at the very least to just restrain a raging Liam. “Maybe by the time we find his ass he will have calmed down.”
“Wroth is taking Marissa back to Tennessee tomorrow. He said he would be able to get to New York by Thursday. Zander is going to head out first thing in the morning, try to find him before the tabloid vultures spot Liam. I can’t leave until Friday night because Harris has school. Let’s plan to meet up Saturday morning, okay?”
“Fine.” I rolled my neck back and forth, trying to get some of the tension out of my shoulders. “I’ll talk to you before then, Dev.”
“I’ll talk to Natalie about finding him another rehab. Tell her to keep it on the DL from Em.”
I exhaled sharply. “Good luck with that.” Natalie and Devlin were like fire and ice when put together, but I knew that he was the most likely to get her to help without involving Emmie. “I have to go. I have to get rid of this stuff and then try to smooth things over with Dallas before it’s too late.”
“Sorry, man, but it’s already too late,” Devlin told me with what could only be reluctance in his tone. “Dallas heard Liam raging about you and Gabriella. So when he left, she asked if he wanted company.”
“FUCK!”
Lana
When Drake wasn’t on tour he always brought me breakfast in bed. Nothing too serious. A bowl of cereal, some fresh fruit, sometimes some pancakes if he was in the mood to cook. This morning, I was awake before he was, having barely slept at all the night before.
Every time I closed my eyes last night, thoughts of Lucy and Vince Grady filled my mind. All I could think about was that she could be that vile man’s daughter. He had treated my mother like pure crap, which was saying something when you compared the usual disgusting men she had tended to hook up with. While most of them had creeped me out, Vince had truly scared me. Memories of my mother’s face, black and blue from the beatings he had given her, flashed behind my eyes and I felt sick to my stomach.
I stood in our living room, staring out at the predawn sky. I really liked this condo, maybe even more than the house we had back in New York. But right now, the home we had created together wasn’t bringing me any of the peace that I normally found here. The baby, feeling my distress, kicked out hard and I twisted as I rubbed my hand over the little foot. Drake and I hadn’t settled on a name yet, although we had narrowed the long list down to two. I wished we could have just decided already, but knew that Drake wanted to wait.
Not even the baby could distract me for very long, unfortunately. My own fears and trepidations couldn’t come close to what Layla and Jesse must be feeling right now. Both had been a wreck when they had finally left the wedding reception last night with a tired, but happy Lucy tucked between them. We had all decided not to tell Lucy about what was going on until we absolutely had to. There was no reason to upset her when this could all go away as quickly as it had started.
I knew what I wanted to do about the whole thing. I wanted to grab Lucy and take her back to New York with Drake and me. Hide her, protect her. My whole being was anxious to do it. The buzzing in the back of my head screaming at me to do it now, be
fore something happened.
“You scared the hell out of me, Angel.” Drake’s voice startled me and I turned to face him as he came into the living room in nothing but a pair of boxers that hung low on his lean hips.
I was momentarily distracted by the view before me and that sexy V at his waist that disappeared inside of the black boxers. But then what he said penetrated my desire-fogged mind and I shook my head to clear it. He wrapped his arms around me, squeezing me tighter than he normally would have. “I’ve been calling for you for the last five minutes. When you didn’t answer I thought something had happened.”
I buried my face in his bare, clean smelling chest. “Sorry, babe. I’ve been lost in my own thoughts for a while.”
“Lucy?” I nodded and he blew out a long sigh. “I wish I could snap my fingers and fix this for you, Angel. I’m worried too, but seeing you like this is killing me.” He brushed his lips over the top of my head. “It will all work out. Emmie will do everything she can.”
That was possibly the only thing that was keeping me sane. If Emmie couldn’t take care of this, then I knew no one could. Two hours later, as we sat in Emmie’s office listening to the lawyer lay everything out for us, I realized that it was truer than I originally thought.
Brad Horton, the lawyer who had handled Lucy’s adoption, was not going to be able to help much at all. Because Lydia hadn’t put Lucy’s father’s name on the birth certificate Jesse and Layla hadn’t known who, if anyone, they had to get permission from to legally adopt her. With a man coming forward now, only a paternity test or his signature on the bottom of the papers saying he didn’t contest the adoption would keep this from going to court with what would only be an extremely ugly, widely publicized custody battle.
“What’s our first step?” Layla asked, her voice sounding small and completely so not the Layla that I knew. She kept rubbing her hand over her stomach as if she were in pain and I wasn’t sure if it was because of all the stress she was under or if the twins were causing her problems. If those monsters inside of her were anything like the girl bouncing around in my stomach right now I knew that they weren’t happy.
“First we need to do the paternity test,” Brad said, taking off his thin wire-rimmed glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “As soon as we get that cleared up we can move forward. I’ll have the private investigator agency I use look into Mr. Grady’s background. He obviously has a messy past, and if we can prove just how messy a judge won’t even blink before giving you custody. However, the judicial system tends to favor the biological parent. If he can provide for her—put a roof over her head, keep her clothed, and make sure she has three meals—then that is technically all they want. The fact that Mr. Thornton and yourself can provide a private school and just about anything else a child could want doesn’t matter. Plus, with you pregnant at the moment, Mrs. Thornton, the court could conclude that as you have your own family to take care of Lucy would be better off with her real father.”
Jesse stood, knocking over the heavy chair he had been sitting in beside Layla. “I am Lucy’s real father!” he roared, causing everyone in the room to jump except for Emmie. “I was the one who taught her to ride a bike, to surf on that beach out there! It doesn’t matter that Layla is pregnant. Lucy is just as much my daughter as any child we will have together. We aren’t a family without her, damn it!”
“Jesse…” Layla reached out for his hand and he seemed to calm a little at her touch. “You’ll always be her dad, Jesse.”
“No one could do a better job than you, bro,” Shane assured him from his seat on the short couch near the window where he sat with Drake beside him and Harper on his lap. “No one could ever question that.”
Emmie pushed back from her desk and stood. Her face was pale and her eyes were unreadable. She had a lot on her plate lately and this was just adding more to an already full load, but she wasn’t going to complain. When it came to Emmie’s family she would walk through hell and back to help us.
She stopped in front of Mr. Horton and offered her hand. “Thanks for coming by on such short notice. Get your PI people on it as soon as you possibly can. I want a report of everything they give you as soon as it’s in your hands. Also, I need you to set up the paternity testing. Make sure that Grady isn’t present when Lucy is getting it done. His lawyer can witness the test being administered if he must, but we want to keep this private for as long as possible. As soon as the media gets wind of this it is going to be a field day for everyone.”
Horton stood, knowing that Emmie was dismissing him and that he had better get on the list of things she wanted done as soon as the door shut behind him. “Of course. I think we can have the test done this evening, if that is okay with Mr. and Mrs. Thorton?” Jesse didn’t spare the man a glance but Layla nodded her head in acceptance. “Good. I’ll text you the time and location.”
“How long will it take for the test results come back?” Nik asked, leaning against the edge of Emmie’s desk.
“Depending on how soon we can get Mr. Grady’s DNA sample it shouldn’t be longer than three days.”
“That’s a lifetime,” I muttered, clenching my hands in my lap. It also meant that Drake and I would be in New York when the results came back. I wanted to be here, holding Layla’s hand when she found out if Vince Grady was Lucy’s biological father. It just wasn’t possible though. Drake had to go back for work and I couldn’t handle being away from him for more than a few hours since I had found out we were pregnant. “Does it really take that long? Or can we pay extra and get them to rush the test results?”
“This isn’t something you really want to rush, Angel.” Drake tried to reason with me. “We want them to be completely certain that this guy didn’t donate his sperm, right?”
I sighed. “Yes…”
“I’ll be expecting your call later today, Horton,” Emmie told the lawyer and Nik stepped forward to show the man out. When the door was closed behind them Emmie turned to Jesse and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I think we can settle this without the lawyer. Just give me a few days, okay?”
After a small hesitation Jesse finally nodded but the tears rolling down his face gave another answer entirely. A few days really was going to be a lifetime for everyone, but especially for Jesse.
Chapter 11
Jesse
Layla wasn’t feeling well. After the morning—and the weekend leading up to this morning—that we’d had, I wasn’t feeling so great myself. As soon as we got home I carried her upstairs and put her in bed. She said her back was killing her and she just wanted to sleep.
Maybe I should have lain down with her and held her, but I couldn’t stand still let alone go to bed. There were three hours left before Lucy came home from school. Three hours of wondering, worrying. We had to tell her. She was too smart not to wonder why she had to have the DNA test done and I didn’t want to lie to her.
I found myself downstairs cleaning, something I had been doing more and more of lately since Layla was getting so big and unable to move around so much. We could have easily hired an entire housekeeping staff to keep the house in order, but she didn’t want strangers in our home. Layla loved making our house a home on a daily basis. So I rinsed Lucy’s breakfast dishes and put them in the dishwasher then wiped down all the counters before climbing the stairs to see if Lucy had any clothes that needed washing.
Opening the door to Lucy’s room, a feeling of defeat washed over me and I dropped down on the edge of her bed. My eyes went around the room that she had decorated herself, grimly avoiding the snake in his habitat. Ziggy and I had come to an understanding. I wouldn’t chop his head off in his sleep if he didn’t escape from his home that Lucy painstakingly kept organized. The walls were two shades of purple, her favorite color. A zebra print separated the two colors and matched the fuzzy pillows on her bed. Against one wall was her desk with her computer and her notebook that she kept all of her rough drafts in. Lucy loved to write, to create worlds and characters th
at she would escape in for hours at a time.
On the wall above her desk were posters of Demon’s Wings and one of OtherWorld. All of them newer, having been taken in the last two years. I loved that she liked our music, but didn’t let her listen to all of our work. Some of the stuff Nik wrote was too hardcore for a nine-year-old.
My gaze went to her bedside table. A picture of her, Lana, and Layla in a purple picture frame with a dolphin sat beside her lamp. They all looked so similar, but so different. Lucy and Lana had the same shade of dark hair, but Lucy’s short locks were so curly it took her forever to get her hair sorted in the mornings. They all had brown eyes, but in varying shades. Lana’s whisky, Layla’s chocolate, and Lucy’s an almost midnight black. While her sisters were slightly tanned, Lucy was a soft cream. The three all had the same nose, the same lips.
I lifted the second photo from the table. I remembered the day it had been taken and my lips lifted in a half smile. We had been sitting on the beach in the sand, watching as the sun was taking its time setting. Layla had been shouting at us from the kitchen to come in and have dinner but we couldn’t be bothered to move. We were settling in well, I thought. And Layla and I had signed the adoption papers that afternoon. We had finally become the family I wanted us to be and it felt like nothing could ever go wrong in my life.
“I love it here,” Lucy had said, a happy sigh escaping her.
“Me too. It’s finally feeling like home.”
“Thanks for today.”
My head turned to frown at her. “You’ve been mine since the day I met you, Lu. Today just made it legal.” I reached over and tugged on one of her short ringlets. “If anything, I should thank you for wanting to be my daughter.”
She threw her arms around my neck so suddenly I nearly fell back into the sand. “I love you, Dad,” she had whispered.
Those four words had been my undoing and I had to blink hard to keep from crying. I hugged her tight against me, never wanting to let this little girl who had snuck into my heart so quickly go.
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