Piper: A Last Score Spin Off

by K. L. Shandwick

  Simon glanced at me apologetically. “Believe me, the timing of everything sucked, but let’s be fair when I say Piper and I had only been together for a couple of months,” he said with a pleading look in his eyes gesturing toward me.

  I flinched at his words, wondering what he could possibly say in the hope of redeeming himself.

  “Do you think I didn’t consider if there was any other way around this? Besides, it was Piper’s time to shine whether I was there or not.”

  Simon looked at me silently begging with his dull hazel eyes that usually held a gleam of mischief and I felt the angst in his heart. My heart clenched because all I saw in his gaze was sadness, but for what reason? Would he ever have told me where he went if those pictures hadn’t been published?

  Turning his attention to Gibson he shrugged and sighed. “Look, I went over to Seattle with the idea of maybe telling her, but she’d gone out for the day and we spent half the evening arguing. There was no way I could have told her and left after that. I didn’t have the time to explain it properly without leaving her with further questions. It could have destroyed her and left her distressed right before she had to get back on the tour bus.”

  Turning to address me, he shrugged helplessly. “You were performing for the first time that night, Piper.”

  Facing Gibson again he asked, “You really think I wanted to leave her alone on her opening night?”

  Glancing back at me, he swallowed, roughly. “I know you said there was nothing between you and Kerr, but there’s something between you two that feels… intimate, and I had to know if we were solid before I told you.” Gibson looked at Simon and jerked his head back like what Simon had said was totally unexpected.

  “Before you told me what?” I asked, my eyes darting between Simon and Gibson as my heart thumped erratically. The longer I looked at Simon the less strong I felt about walking away from what I thought we had.

  “All right, let’s hear you explain it all away.” Gibson sounded resigned to some bullshit explanation, but instinct told me he had taken Simon seriously and that Simon had genuinely felt threatened by Kerr. He really had no need. I’ll admit Kerr had held my attention, but not in the same way as I felt about Simon. It was friendship like I had never had before, that’s all.

  Simon bit his lip and glanced to Gibson then to Jonny. “I could do this better without a fucking audience.”

  Nodding toward the door Gibson looked at his bodyguard, “Can you wait outside?”

  “I meant you as well,” Simon added quickly to Gibson and my heart race spiked with anxiety because I knew how frustrated Gibson was. Instead of a comeback he remained calm.

  “Not gonna happen, dude,” Gibson responded and shook his head slowly.

  As Jonny headed for the door, Gibson folded his arms over his chest and glanced from me to Simon. “We’re waiting.”

  Inhaling deeply, I tried to calm my nerves. I desperately wanted to hear he hadn’t cheated, but in my heart I felt the chances of a man like Simon staying faithful to me were slim to none.

  Suddenly, I was reluctant to hear what he had to say because for as long as I didn’t hear the words there was still hope.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Clearing his throat, Simon wandered over toward me and pulled me into his chest before I had the chance to move away from him.

  “You’re really gonna insist on being here for this, Gib?” He inhaled and sighed deeply, “Piper’s an adult for fuck's sake, this is private between us,” he ground out. I pulled away, walked over to the small couch and sat with my hands on my lap.

  “Trust me, Piper. I never wanted to hurt you.” Pain cut through me because the sentence implied whatever he said was going to do that anyway.

  Glancing nervously toward Gibson, I pushed my palms under my thighs and sat on my hands.

  “Get it over with, Simon. I want to know how you could be filling my head with possibilities and a week later be plastered all over the papers looking so fucking cozy with that woman.”

  I sounded so together… probably looked together too because I had kept my cool. Inside it couldn’t have been further from the truth.

  My heart ached, and I was a mess because although he was about to deliver a lethal blow to my heart, it still betrayed me and was melting inside.

  Throwing his hands up in the air he cussed under his breath before his eyes settled on me.

  “Jenna and Sparky Mitchell were riding high on Sparky’s fame when I first ran into him again. Sparky came from my neck of the woods and lived a few towns over from me. Growing up we ran in mutual friend circles but we were never actually friends then; he was older… cooler, and Jenna had been his girl for a few years before I met them.”

  Simon fazed for a moment like he’d drifted off somewhere, then he took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Shoving his hands in his pockets he shrugged and smoothed his beard.

  “Anyway, right before I joined M3rCy, Sparky’s band was racing up the charts and everything looked so fucking rosy for them, yet every time I saw the guy he looked so fucking miserable it bugged the fuck out of me.”

  Engaging Gibson he said, “You know what it was like, Gib, we were trying at every turn and this guy had what we were all hungry for, yet he didn’t appear to appreciate where he was in the pecking order.”

  “Can you just cut to the chase and get the fuck on with the issue at hand. I don’t want to hear your life story,” Gibson snapped in a cutting tone.

  Simon ran his hand through his hair then stuffed his hands in his pockets and chuckled nervously. He took a deep breath.

  “Anyway, one night I ran into him at a mutual friend’s party. Sparky was blind drunk and it wasn’t pretty. Jenna looked heartbroken every time she glanced in his direction. I don’t know why it bothered me, but it did. Who cared if a rock star got drunk and mugged off his wife?”

  “Don’t tell me you helped his wife to feel wanted?” Gibson taunted, making inverted commas with his fingers as he said 'helped', “Oh. My. God.” He suddenly blurted, and I wondered what I’d missed.

  “Yeah, I did help her… and him, but not in the way you think,” Simon bit back, before glancing to me with hurt in his eyes. “Sorry, baby,” he said to me by way of apology for what I suspected he had yet to say.

  “Jenna confided in me that Sparky couldn’t have kids, and although she had done everything she knew to convince him she didn’t care, he knew it was a lie. It was about the only thing in the world she really did want… to be a mom I mean. What’s the saying, ‘You’re only rich when you have something you can’t buy'?”

  Gibson slapped his legs and stood up. My heart missed a beat as I held my breath for the sentence I was sure was next, and Simon would say he was Jenna’s kids father.

  “So this wasn’t the first time you had an affair with Jenna Mitchell?” I heard myself say quietly, swallowing back tears. My heart felt like it would burst out of my chest and a stabbing pain settled deep in my stomach.

  Gibson’s eyes narrowed like he might commit murder. Simon shook his head vigorously, “Stands to reason you’d both think the worst of me, but no. I’ve never had an affair with Jenna Mitchell. I’d swear on my sister’s life I never touched her.”

  “Sure sounded to me like the next thing you had to tell us was that Jenna’s kids were yours,” Gibson told him.

  Chewing the side of his cheek he shrugged. A desolate look cast over his face. “They are, but not like you think… I mean, I donated… fuck,” he muttered as he stared at the floor and ran his hands through his hair again.

  Both Gibson and I stood quiet. He has two children? I swallowed as my throat closed tight in distress and tried not to cry.

  The only sound in the room was Gibson scratching the stubble on his chin, “Sparky’s dead and what? You’re playing daddy? You knew all of this and still you fucked with Piper’s future?”

  “No… never. I think the world of Piper. This thing with Jenna… it was something I promised them a lon
g time ago and again shortly before Sparky died. They’d already told the kids when it would happen.”

  “Damnit, Simon you’re not making sense,” I barked.

  “I didn’t know any better. I mean, think about it...? I was nineteen when I offered to donate my sperm. At the time I thought I didn’t want kids of my own and it was my way of leaving my mark on the world without the burden of responsibility. At that age no young guy thinks of the implications of doing something like that.”

  I could accept part of what he said. Who really understood the full implications of their actions at nineteen? My mom certainly didn’t understand the implications about bringing up a child single-handed and then getting with Colin.

  Deep down I struggled with rejecting Simon for having a good heart even if it wasn’t an entirely selfless act. Confusion wrung out my feelings.

  Is Simon with Jenna now? There was still the question of the pictures, and I wasn’t sure how I felt knowing Simon had teenage children. It hurt me to think I wasn’t much older than they were.

  “What are you doing here, Si? You had enough of comforting the merry widow? Or did the picture force you back here because you knew I’d be gunning for blood?”

  “Fuck. You need to stop. Both of you. This is hard enough without the judgments before you have the whole story. The day of Piper’s first gig was the twins' thirteenth birthday. Since they were five years old they have known Sparky wasn’t their biological father.”

  “I don’t understand,” Gibson said.

  “Normally, a kid has to wait until they are eighteen to find out who the sperm donor is, but I had agreed they could know from the time they were thirteen. Jenna felt this way they still had time to come to terms with who I was while they were still at home. A lot of kids get emotionally stressed when they find their birth father. This was her way of protecting them from doing that because she had another five years to help them accept me before they went off to college or whatever.”

  “Makes sense,” I mumbled, reluctantly. Gibson’s wary eyes darted toward me.

  “Obviously Sparky’s untimely death made Ellis, their son, go off the rails quite a bit… he wasn't listening to Jenna and became angry about the whole situation. Jenna could see him slipping away and knew if she didn’t handle him in the right way she’d lose his trust, so the original plan of going there with the purpose of introducing me got changed. I agreed to go and spend time with them on their birthday on the Mitchell’s yacht because being at sea Ellis couldn’t run off anywhere.”

  Gibson sat with a frown on his face and I wondered what he was thinking. The fact he’d stopped interjecting meant he was considering what Simon was telling us.

  “That was the call I had to deal with that morning in Portland. Jenna was pre-empting me of all the comebacks Ellis may use, so when I spoke with the kids we’d be singing off the same hymn sheet as it were. I’m sorry I ignored you, but every time I looked at you I felt guilty as fuck for keeping it to myself.”

  “Father of the year,” Gibson goaded, obviously wanting to protect me again.

  “That’s very unfair, Gibson. I supported you when Melody came into the picture,” Simon snapped, and Gibson immediately winced. Simon had been fantastic listening to Gibson’s fears and giving him words of advice.

  “Anyway, Jenna asked if I would stay a few days and help the kids learn more about Sparky, you know, tell them stories about myself and their father from when he was young, to give them a sense of identity.”

  “That’s where you’ve been… for a week?” Gibson began.

  “Six days,” Simon corrected, “Then as it was also the two-year anniversary since Sparky’s death, Jenna wanted to take the kids to their place in the Bahamas, to have a small service of remembrance, just her, myself, and the kids, and to scatter his ashes in the place she felt as a family they were the happiest. Only she was worried about Ellis and how he’d react once she got him ashore.”

  “How did they take meeting you?” I asked, totally forgetting the pictures and what the newspapers had said. There was a young boy in distress who had only just met his biological father for the first time. As I’d never met my natural father, my concerns were focused on him.

  Simon gave me a small smile, walked over and took my cheeks in his hands. “You’re such a sweetheart. Only you would ask me that. Good. It went well. Much better than Jenna and I expected, and I think it gave Ellis closure. For the whole time I was down there we talked about their ‘real father’ and all the things he had taught them in life. I’m sorry, babe, truly I am.”

  Gibson sat speechless for once. He and Chloe had their own issues in regard to what Simon had to say. Simon wrapped his arms around me like Gibson had ceased to exist.

  “I was going to tell you everything after the tour. We’d only been together such a short time. Is it reasonable, I’d hold on to something like that until you got to know me better?”

  My eyes searched his face and his gaze grew intense. “You have no idea how much it killed me to walk away from you in Seattle. Now you know why, but that was only part of the reason. I know what you said about Kerr, but for the first time in my life I felt threatened, and it wasn’t on looks or talent or anything like that. I was scared you’d found someone you related to better than me. As hard as it was, I figured we’d been full on since the moment we’d gotten together and being apart would test how you really felt. For the record it was the worst six days of my life.”

  Standing up, Gibson blew out a ragged breath. “Why have you never told me any of this? You’ve never mentioned Sparky apart from when you went to his funeral.”

  Loosening his arms, Simon stepped back and walked toward Gibson. Placing a hand on his shoulder, Simon shook his head. “I swore I’d never tell anyone the kids were mine. I’d never met them until the funeral, and only then until last week. Man, it felt weird because Ellis looks like my dad’s older brother at that age.”

  Inhaling deeply, Gibson ran his hand through his hair, “I thought we had no secrets from each other?”

  A smirk crossed Simon’s face and he shrugged, “I almost told you once… the night you found out about Melody. Man, it was so hard to keep what I knew inside because it was then that I realized I was staring at my future. That sometime in the years to come I’d face the consequences of the decision I’d made.”

  Gibson stood and threw his hands around his back and pulled him in for a hug. “Jesus, dude, what a cluster fuck.”

  Breaking free of Gibson, Simon turned to me and stretched out a hand. Without hesitation I took it and he clasped his tightly around it.

  “I’m sorry you found out like this, Piper. I’m sorry I couldn’t make you my priority… how could I when I had made a promise and was faced with something like this?”

  “You made the right decision to go. They were a consequence of something you did in your life before I knew you. Whether you had a relationship or not with them, I’m glad you took your responsibility seriously. If my dad had done that I may not have had the upbringing I had, and my mom would have had a much happier life.”

  Clearing his throat, Gibson said, “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions and interfered it’s just…”

  “Don’t. I’m so fucking glad Piper has you. She’s a lucky girl to have you as a dad, trust me, Gib. I’m so impressed with how seriously you want to protect her.”

  “Yeah, but this was none of my business. I’m sorry, but you could have called.”

  “You think? If I had I’d have wanted to come straight home or told Piper on the phone.” Simon chuckled, then his mouth turned downward. He shook his head in disgust, “Fucking press, they’re the people who start wars you know? When I saw that report, it looked as shady as fuck.”

  “Yeah, but the one of me didn’t look much better,” I offered.

  “One of you?” he asked. My heart quickened as my mind scrambled for how to explain. Gibson got there before me.

  “They tried to make her out to be a player. Some f
ucker took a picture of Kerr helping Piper down from a loading bay when she almost fell. Photograph looked pretty damning and claimed she’d dumped you for a younger model.” Gibson laughed at the irony.

  Simon glanced at me, “Glad I didn’t see it because I may have come back before I’d finished what I had to do,” he admitted.

  “Yeah, it hurt Louisa, Kerr’s girlfriend, but she’s amazing, Simon. She and Kerr are solid, but it made Kerr and I more sensitive about the people around us. Things are a little weird between us right now because neither of us wants to upset our other halves.”

  Simon slipped his arms around me. “Other halves, eh?” he looked thoughtful for a moment, “I really like that, Princess. So does that mean you’re keeping me?” he asked with a raised eyebrow and a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

  “Oh, fuck, well I guess that’s my cue to leave,” Gibson muttered, and I blushed, pulled away from Simon and took a tight squeezy hug from my amazing protector.

  “Thank you for everything, Gibson,” I mumbled as my heart clenched from the warmth I drew from his arms around me.

  “Always,” he ground out with ferocity and determination in his tone. He kissed the top of my head and separated from me and wandered toward the door. “Will we see you next week?” he asked, hesitating with his hand on the door handle.

  “Of course. I can’t wait to be back in Colorado,” I confirmed.

  Gibson opened the door and as he was about to leave, I ran over and hugged him again. “Thank you for caring about me,” I whispered.

  “Love you, baby girl. It’s an honor to have you in our lives.” I hugged him again and saw Jonny appear at the end of the corridor. Gibson strode toward him and they disappeared out of sight into the stairwell. Stepping back into the room, I closed the door and turned to look at Simon who had sat on the edge of the bed.