by Cleo Jones
Shit.
Jasmine stumbled even further when she caught wind of what was happening. She watched the two men converse, but the expressions on their faces weren’t friendly, and it wasn’t long before it turned into a full-fledged argument. She stumbled off stage as soon as her final song came to an end, and it was at that exact moment that she saw Liam’s fist make drunken contact with Eli’s nose.
Jasmine gawked at them for a few seconds before attempting to make her way over to them, but Eli held up a hand to stop her. The look on his face made it pretty clear that he was pissed. He grabbed a wad of paper towel from the bartender and angrily wiped away the blood gathering near his nostrils before hunching his shoulders and making his way towards the door with the rest of the crowd.
It was just after midnight when Jasmine finally made her way back to her dressing room to grab her things. She pushed her way backstage and ignored the many complaints Stephen was hurling at her as she entered the dimly lit corridor where her room was located. Once she reached it, she pushed open the door and froze as soon as she saw Liam.
“What the hell are you doing back here?” Jasmine spat. It astonished her that he’d managed to make it past security after his little brawl with Eli. She’d assumed that he would be smart enough to leave the club after that, but then again, this was Liam. It was impossible to predict his next move.
“Aw c’mon,” Liam slurred. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”
Acquaintance, Jasmine silently corrected, but she didn’t say it. “You’re shitfaced,” she said instead, crossing her arms over her chest and pulling her jacket closed in an attempt at hiding her stomach.
“Nah, I’m just happy to see you, can’t you see the elated smile on my face?” Liam spat back in an overly condescending tone. He grabbed a bottle of liquor up from Jasmine’s vanity and swallowed back a mouthful before she could stop him.
“Liam…” Jasmine warned. She looked to the hallway for help, but of course there was none there when she actually needed it.
Liam smiled and took a step forward. Jasmine tensed when his palm made heavy contact with her abdomen. “Congratulations,” he whispered, keeping his eyes steadied on hers.
“What's that supposed to mean?” Jasmine shot back, stubbornly continuing her charade.
Liam let out a humorless laugh. “If it wasn’t on the cover of every magazine, there’s the fact that our moms are best friends,” he clarified. “How long did you really think it would be before I found out?”
Jasmine stared at Liam in shocked silence, evoking another strained laugh from him. “Don’t look so glum, babe. I get it. There’s no slowing down your type is there? It’s just that, if I’d known you were this easy, I’d have gotten you in bed a long time ago. My bad for assuming you had standards.”
Jasmine’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me?” she spat, shoving Liam away from her. “My type?”
Liam shrugged and waved a hand at her. “Industry floozies who have no problem sleeping their way to the top,” he explained, failing to mask the hurt in his tone. “Knocked up by your publicist, huh Jazz? I don’t know who the fuck you are anymore, but you’re not the girl I knew growing up, that’s for sure.”
Liam’s harsh choice of words made Jasmine deflate a bit, but she didn’t correct him. There wasn’t any point. “Oh please,” she shot back. “I don’t need your judgment. How many bimbos have you been with since we hooked up? Ten? Twenty? And don’t even get me started on the airheads you keep bringing to my shows in some lame attempt at making me jealous. As if I actually give a shit.”
“Yeah, because you definitely sound like you don’t care,” Liam said. “But it doesn’t matter what you think of me, because at the end of the day, I’m not the one expecting a kid with some idiot. At least I’m bright enough to use protection.”
Jasmine narrowed her eyes at Liam and placed a hand on her stomach as if to protect her unborn child from his words. “You say you don’t know me anymore, but I don’t know you either,” she whispered. “The Liam I knew would never talk to me like this. You’re not him.”
“You’re right, I’m not,” Liam shot back. He squared his shoulders and took a step towards Jasmine on his way out the door, causing her to cower under his close proximity. “I thought you were better than this, Jazz, but I was wrong. The only reason I came here tonight was because I needed to see it for myself. And I did. So I’ll stop calling. I’ll stop coming to your shows. And I’ll stop trying to be your friend again. From now on, you won’t hear from me at all.”
Jasmine watched Liam storm out of the room and slid to the ground, allowing the tears she was holding in to roll freely down her face.
Chapter three
Liam emerged from the club and stumbled when someone grabbed him from behind and slammed him up against the building. He turned around and came face to face with Eli, whose nose had already began to bruise.
“Stay the fuck away from her,” Eli spat, giving Liam another rough shove. The dude was cruising for even more of a bruising.
“Sorry man, but I’m not one for rules,” Liam said in an amused tone. “Especially not when they’re set by jack asses who take advantage of girls half their age.”
Eli sniffed through the dried up blood in his nostrils and narrowed his eyes at Liam. “You think you’re hard, don’t you, you little shit? Well guess what? I know a sad sap when I see one, and swinging your fists won’t change that. You can live as miserable as you want, I don’t give a shit, but when that misery starts wearing off on Jazz? Well, that’s when it becomes my problem.”
“Right,” Liam shot back. His sarcasm was apparent. “Cuz she’s so happy with you, isn’t she?”
Eli shrugged. “Actually, she is. If you actually gave a shit about her, you’d see that her only real problem these days is you. As soon as you disappear back into obscurity, which lets face it, is exactly where you belong, Jazz will pick up right where she left off before you shoved your way back into her life. You’re her past man. I’m her future.”
Liam snorted. “So you got her pregnant. Big fucking deal. You and I both know that doesn’t equate to a commitment. The only thing you did was fuck up her career. Do you really think she’s going to continue being your cash cow once she has a baby on her hip? And when the money starts drying up, what are you going to do? Support her? Stick it out through thick and thin? Yeah fucking right man. You can lie to Jazz all you want, but there’s no sense in lying to yourself.”
The underlying layer of truth in Liam’s words left Eli visibly perturbed, so much so that it caused him to loosen his grip on him. “I would never abandon them,” he spat, but Liam could hear the insincerity in his tone as clear as day.
Liam grinned and shook his head as he continued down the road. “I’m not the sad sap in this equation,” he called over his shoulder. “You are.”
Liam hailed a taxi and slumped into the backseat as he grated out his address, waving a hand at the driver to signal that he wasn’t in the mood to talk. He was pissfaced, but in his defense, there weren’t many coping mechanisms that didn’t involve alcohol when it came to finding out news like this.
Today marked the sixth day in a row that Liam had gotten this drunk. Ever since his mother giddily announced to him that Jasmine was pregnant, drinking was just about the only thing he could find it in himself to do. He didn’t know who the father was, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to ask, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. That publicist of hers was such a tool it was almost award worthy. Liam figured it was only a matter of time before he fucked up her life in some way.
After hearing the news, Liam left his mother’s place bright and early the following morning and immediately set about on throwing himself into an alcohol-induced trance. After bombing his exams and getting into a meaningless argument with his roommate, he downed an entire bottle of Jack in one sitting and decided somewhere in the midst of his fifth or sixth drink that he absolutely had to see Jasmine. It didn’t
matter that she’d made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want to see him.
Now, in the present, Liam was more than a little regretful. He had a monster hangover, sore knuckles, and more anger than he knew what to do with. He thought seriously about downing the bottle of aspirin on his bedside table, but he clawed his way out of bed and searched the floor for his clothing instead. As good as sinking into a permanent slumber sounded right about now, that particular course of action didn’t exactly coincide with the kind of guy that he was.
“Damn dude,” Liam's roommate, Jason, spoke up from his doorway. “You look like shit.”
Liam rolled his eyes. “Thanks,” he muttered, pulling his arms through the first clean t-shirt he could find.
“Wild night I'm guessing?”
“You could say that.”
“Celebrating?”
“Not exactly,” Liam said with a sigh of annoyance. “I just found out that Jazz got herself knocked up.”
Jason whistled but appeared sympathetic. “Shit,” he said after a few seconds of surprised silence. Suddenly the reason behind Liam's weeklong binge drinking rampage made sense to him.
Jason knew Liam better than anyone. He was one of the few people Liam shared personal information with, and he knew enough to know when he was bummed about something. Now was one of those times.
“Fuck, I'm sorry dude,” Jason spoke up.
Liam shrugged but didn't say anything. The look on his face was purely complacent.
“How far along is she?” Jason questioned, attempting to carry on the conversation despite Liam's obvious discomfort.
“Twenty weeks according to my mom.” Liam exhaled another sigh and took a seat on his bed. “I fucked up. I made the mistake of going to her show last night and it all went to shit.”
“Hold up...twenty weeks?” Jason spoke up, furrowing his brows. It didn’t surprise Liam that he was doing the math in his head. He always was the analytical type. “So the kid was conceived during the summer then. Weren't you two still together?”
Liam stared at Jason like a deer in headlights. His mind wouldn't stop racing. The only thing he could think about was why this hadn't occurred to him sooner.
Chapter four
Jasmine heard her doorbell rang and hesitantly approached her front door. She knew who it was without having to look, but she did anyway. When she saw Eli lingering on her front porch, she exhaled a deep sigh and rolled her eyes before propping open the door. “Goodbye Eli,” she called out to him, unlocking the top lock but keeping the chain secured so that he couldn't push his way inside.
“Come on Jazz,” Eli begged. “I thought you said that you wanted me there for the big scan. It's today isn't it?”
“I said I'd think about it, which I have,” Jasmine corrected with another roll of her eyes. This whole arrangement was shaping up be far too suffocating for her tastes. If she wasn't honest with Eli now, she felt like she'd never get him off her case.
“Look, Eli, I really appreciate all the support you've given me these past few months,” Jasmine continued. “It's been invaluable and I can't thank you enough. It's just...the tours almost over. I think it would be best if you just let me take things from here.”
Eli didn’t bother to mask the look of defeat that surfaced on his face. “Alright,” he finally managed. “But will you at least let me take you to your appointment?”
“I don't think that's a very good idea. I mean, what if the paparazzi catch us going in together? All it's going to do is make people think we're together. They already think you're the baby's father. I don't need that assumption lingering over my head too.”
Eli placed his hand on Jasmine's and forced her to meet his gaze through the crack in the door. “Would that really be such a bad thing?”
“Yes,” Jasmine shot back. “It's not true.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say what she was really thinking, which was, ‘you’re old enough to be my father’.
“It could be.”
Jasmine narrowed her eyes at Eli and pried her hand out from under his. “I think you’re misunderstanding things here. You’re my friend, Eli, a very good friend, but a friend all the same. Please don’t make this anymore complicated for me than it already is.”
Eli’s hopeful expression faded as he slumped off Jasmine’s front porch towards his car. When she was sure he was gone, she closed the door and went to go change for her appointment. Her wardrobe was so bland lately. She had to resort to maxi dresses and overly loose tops because she was already so huge. Her mother had informed her of what a healthy-sized infant she was, so she knew there was a chance that her baby would be big too, but this just seemed flat out insane.
After she was dressed, Jasmine glanced at herself in her bathroom mirror and debated on whether or not she should put on some make-up. The image obsessed Jasmine would have done so without question, but that wasn’t her anymore. This Jasmine didn’t see much of a point. Any chances of her looking like a supermodel for the paparazzi were made null and void by her pregnancy.
Jasmine knew enough to know that no one cared about how her face looked anymore. With a deep sigh, she grabbed her purse and went outside to tell her driver she was ready. When they arrived at the hospital, she turned down his offer to escort her inside and shivered as she entered the freezing corridor that housed her obstetrician’s office. This all still felt so new to her, and it didn’t help that all the other elite mothers-to-be in the waiting room were sporting wedding rings. Most even had their spouses there with them. Being one of the only single mothers there was more than a little uncomfortable, star status or not.
Jasmine pushed her embarrassment aside as she walked up to the reception desk and checked in using her real name as opposed to her stage one.
“Have you followed the preparation instructions?” the receptionist asked, giving Jasmine a look that made it clear that she knew who she was.
Jasmine nodded even though she hadn’t. She hated the whole ‘needing to drink a half-gallon of water an hour before the scan’ thing. It seemed so counterproductive to her. She actually did it for her last appointment, and by the time the scan was performed, her bladder felt on the verge of exploding. This time she did it right. She downed a couple bottles of water during the drive here, and though she was still aching to pee, it wasn’t anywhere near as uncomfortable as that first time.
Jasmine turned her paperwork in to the receptionist after filling it all out and froze in place when she turned back around. Liam had entered the office and was sitting in the empty chair beside hers. Not wanting to make a scene, she forced herself to regain her composure and took a seat beside him, picking up an outdated maternity magazine along the way. "What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed from behind its pages, feeling all too aware of the presence of the other parents-to-be.
“Ten surefire ways to induce labor with sex huh?” Liam exclaimed instead, nodding towards the page Jasmine had open.
Jasmine’s face flushed. “Liam,” she pressed, keeping her voice low. “Answer me or I'll have to go get security to escort you out.”
Liam shrugged and picked up a magazine of his own, idly flipping through it. “I'm just here to support my oldest friend in her pregnancy, that’s all.”
“We’re not friends,” Jasmine bit back. “If I needed support, I’d have called someone who actually is.”
“Come on, Jazz,” Liam said. He laughed but it came out as more of a sneer. “I have a right to be here and you know it.”
Jasmine’s blood ran cold. “Meaning?”
Liam looked at Jasmine pointedly. She briefly met his stare, but it was far too intense for her liking, and she quickly looked away. “Why did you let me think it was that assholes kid?” he whispered, sounding equal parts angry and desperate.
“I didn’t let you think anything,” Jasmine said after awhile, still not looking Liam in the eye. “You assumed. There’s a difference.”
Liam exhaled a deep breath. Jasmine didn'
t need to be looking at him to know that he was clawing his hands through his hair. “So he’s mine,” he finally spoke up, glancing at her stomach.
Jasmine wasn’t sure if it was a comment or a question. “Or she,” she corrected. Her voice came out so quiet that she could barely even hear herself.
Liam didn’t say anything. He didn’t know how to play the role of supportive father-to-be, but he could charm the panties off a woman from miles away. It was a skill he’d utilized when he called Jasmine's assistant to obtain the date, time, and location of this appointment. However, now that he was here hearing the truth for what it was, he wasn’t sure how to react.
Fate worked in mysterious ways. For some people it was fatal. For Liam and Jasmine, it was a broken condom on the last night they spent together before parting ways, with her taking off on tour in celebration of her first self-entitled R&B album, and him beginning his last year of law school at UCLA.
