It wasn’t even eleven, and it was already 26 degrees, and even hotter in the cab without the air conditioning on. I waited outside beneath the shade of the tree I’d parked near. Becky pulled up ten minutes later, sending me a frazzled smile as she parked and practically leapt out of the car.
“Hurry Aiden, you’ve got to go warm up with your team,” she said, holding the door open for him. He jumped out, waving at me with an ecstatic grin on his face.
“Give ‘em hell kid,” I nodded, holding out my hand for a high five as he raced by. When Becky started to move toward the soccer field, I took her hand and pulled her toward me. “Morning, beautiful,” I smiled, bringing my lips to hers for the kiss I’d longed to give her the night before, but hadn’t out of respect to Aiden’s wish about the kissing.
She kissed me back for an agonizingly long moment before she pushed against my chest with her hand. “Travis, someone could see us,” she scolded, although her lips twitched with the smile I’d brought to them.
I glanced around pointedly. The occasional person arriving might see us, but we were mostly shielded from prying eyes by my truck and the large maple tree in front of it.
“Fine, I’ll save the kissing for when we’re alone later,” I promised her, reaching to grab the coffees off the tailgate. I passed one to her, using my free hand to close the tailgate.
“Thank you,” she all but purred. Taking a heady sip and moaning like it was the most delicious thing she’d ever had, she made it incredibly difficult for me to keep my hands to myself as we walked to the bleachers, but I managed.
Becky sat down on an empty bench, and I joined her, our thighs were pressed against each other. I sent her a secretive wink, waggling my eyebrows at her over my Ray-Bans. She laughed lightly, shaking her head at me, her eyes focused on the field before us.
The teams were getting into position, coaxed by their coaches and referees. Watching kids play sports always amused me. Some of them were intense, while others barely paid attention to the game.
Aiden proved to be one of the kids completely focused on the game. He played central midfielder, and cut across the field with the ball with such skill and ease, it was as if the ball was an extension of him. I had no idea seven-year-olds could play like that.
“Shit, he’s good,” I told her, my brows raising.
“Excuse me…Travis? Is that you?” a woman’s voice asked at the same time I felt a finger poking me in the back of the shoulder. I turned my head, my eyes narrowing behind my glasses while I tried to place why the speaker looked so familiar. “It’s me! Kristen Base! Well, Kristen Landry now!” she giggled, flashing her wedding ring at me.
“Oh hey Kristen! It’s good seeing you again,” I smiled politely.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, seemingly oblivious to the striking beauty I was sitting beside.
“I came to watch my girlfriend’s son play,” I explained patiently, grinning at Becky. “You remember Becky Miller, right?” Kristen arched an overly plucked eyebrow at me.
“I thought you were dating that supermodel…the one in your latest video? What’s her name again?” Kristen’s nose wrinkled as she thought. “Serena! Serena Gold!”
“I’ve never spent any time alone with Serena. She was just in the music video,” I responded, my tone significantly less friendly than it usually was.
“Could have sworn I saw pictures of the two of you in Nashville,” Kristen smiled coyly, her eyes returning to Becky. My lips twitched into a smile when Becky snorted, trying unsuccessfully to hold back her laughter. Of course, she knew what photos Kristen was referring to.
“Nope,” I shrugged.
“Oh…well that’s nice,” she said, her tone contradicting her word choice. She assessed Becky quickly before dismissing her. “Well it was good seeing you again! Maybe you’ll stick around after the game, we always take the team out for ice cream to celebrate. Win or lose.”
“Maybe,” I responded, turning my attention back to the field in front of me. I slipped my fingers through Becky’s, bringing her hand up so I could kiss it.
Becky
It didn’t take long at all for the gossip websites to start retweeting a photo circulating of Travis and me at the ice cream parlour in Bala. The photographer had managed to snap a few pictures on their phone as the three of us walked away from the shop, ice creams in hand, but most of them were blurry. The only photo with any clarity had been the one of us paying at the counter, with Travis’s hand on the small of my back, but thankfully my cap had obscured most of my face.
To my knowledge, they hadn’t figured out who the ‘mystery woman’ was, but I knew it was only a matter of time, and I was determined not to stalk the websites. It would only fuel into my paranoia, and I wanted to enjoy what little time Travis had left in Ontario.
After work on Tuesday, I picked Aiden up from Max’s house before driving to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner.
I made it halfway through our shopping excretion before the skin on the back of my neck started crawling. I felt like someone was watching me, but every time I looked over my shoulder, I saw nothing alarming. Just regular people grocery shopping, like us.
“Mom! I asked if we could get chips like ten times now!” Aiden whined, drawing my attention back to him.
“Sorry Aiden, but no. Chips are expensive and unhealthy.”
“Uncle Braden lets me get them,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.
I normally would have scolded him, but I said nothing, that prickly feeling back full tilt. I swung around, catching someone’s back as they rounded the aisle and disappeared. I told myself I was just being paranoid, and continued to push my cart forward.
Aiden sulked as we made our way to the checkout. While we waited in the line, my ears caught the sound of my name. I looked over, seeing Melanie Clayton and Kristen Landry standing in front of the magazine rack. I’d gone to high school with both of them and still had to endure Kristen’s presence during Aiden’s soccer games.
Suddenly, it made perfect sense—why I felt like someone was watching me, because they definitely were, and they weren’t being discreet about it at all.
In high school, they alternated between being outright cruel to me and overly sweet. It depended on when Brock was around, really. If he was there—they were nice. Fake nice, but nice. If he wasn’t there, they gossiped and tittered about me. They were adeptly skilled at making me feel like a social pariah. Still were, apparently.
It was Kristen’s second time this week trying to cut me back down to size. She hadn’t been too thrilled to see Travis at the game on Sunday, because he’d been with me. I’d forgotten all about their brief fling together until that moment.
But, the way Travis had reacted to her made her comments bounce off me.
“I couldn’t believe it myself when I saw,” Kristen was saying. She glanced up, caught me looking at them, and smirked before turning her head. “I mean, Becky Miller? Why her?” she lowered her voice a fraction, but I could still hear her. That was the point, though. That was always the point with those two.
“I know, I don’t get it,” Melanie tittered, shaking her head. I looked away, flooded with embarrassment and anger. “Clearly, she’s just a gold-digger.”
“That’ll be a hundred and thirty-five dollars and thirty-eight cents,” the cashier said. I pulled my card out of my wallet and paid. Moving my cart toward the end of the conveyer, I started putting the groceries away.
“Maybe it’s a pity thing,” Kristen mused, peering at me again with consideration, watching while I loaded up the bags with my purchases. “He always did like charity work.” I stiffened, aggravated.
I was tired of petty immature women who made me feel terrible about myself and I was sick to death of being the subject matter of choice for gossip. If Aiden wasn’t with me, I would have stomped over and given them both a piece of my mind, but I was trying to teach him to ignore bullies and rude comments. No matter where you lived, there was
always at least one person who felt the need to rain on other people’s parades.
Melanie and Kristen’s hostility didn’t change the fact that Travis and I were together. Their lack of approval meant very little to me, and I knew with his career, I’d need to do my best to tune them out.
When I turned to tell Aiden to follow me, he wasn’t waiting beside the cart. He was marching over to Melanie and Kristen. “You aren’t nice!” he scolded them, his brow furrowed with anger, his little hands clenched tightly in fists that he held at his sides. “Travis doesn’t pity us, but I bet he’d pity you! You’re horrible and—and you’re UGLY!”
“Aiden, come here,” I told him sternly, flushing at the attention we were receiving from the other shoppers. “It’s not nice to call people names.”
“They’re calling you names and saying mean things!” Aiden pointed out hotly. Several shoppers glanced over, watching the scene unfold with hungry eyes. I stood taller, lifting my chin.
“We don’t call people names, and we don’t say mean things. If they decide that’s how they want to treat other people, they will find themselves very lonely one day. That won’t be us, bud,” I said, not caring that everyone else could hear me as well. Melanie and Kristen gawked at me, but I barely spared them a second glance.
Aiden’s shoulders sagged as he walked back to me. He turned to face Melanie and Kristen. “I’m sorry for calling you ugly, but you’re still horrible.”
“Aiden!”
“I’m sorry for calling you horrible to your face.”
“Good enough,” I sighed. “Let’s go.”
Kristen gasped, completely affronted. I shot her a look that conveyed exactly what I thought of her before we walked out of the store.
I pushed the cart through the parking lot with one hand while I rested the other on Aiden’s shoulder. He sniffled, looking up at me with wide blue eyes full of hurt.
“I hate how mean people are,” he said, his voice heavy with sadness.
“You can’t focus on how mean people can be,” I told him gently. “You have to focus on the good. There are some real jerks in this town, Aiden, but you’ll encounter people like that wherever you go. So long as you surround yourself with good people, you’ll be okay…and there are a lot of good people in this town too.”
“What about you?” he asked me, still looking at me like I held all of the answers to life’s complicated questions. “Doesn’t it make you sad?”
A few years ago, Melanie and Kristen’s words might have destroyed me. Every year, my skin thickened a little more and I cared less and less about the opinions of people who didn’t like me. It wasn’t always easy to let the comments roll off my back, but I’d gotten better at it, especially the last little while.
“Sometimes,” I answered truthfully. “But at the end of the day, I know I’m blessed.” I stopped walking and pulled him against my side, kissing him loudly on the top of the head.
Aiden laughed, his arms wrapping around my waist. He hugged me tightly, staying that way for a moment longer than he typically did.
“I heard something this afternoon,” Katie said, pausing to swirl her glass of wine around. We were sitting in the living room, Katie in the old armchair that nobody ever sat in, Tessa on the other side of the couch with me and Elle sitting crossed legged on the floor.
They’d finally roped me into doing the girls’ night that Tessa and Elle had threatened me with after finding out about Travis. I’d told Katie to come along, thinking that I would need an ally against the other two. Gauging by her tone, I wondered if I would come to regret that.
“What’s that?” I asked, reaching forward to grab a small handful of popcorn. According to Tessa, girl’s nights had to include boxed wine, five different candy selections, and popcorn. If Aiden wasn’t already in bed, he’d be livid at me.
“That Aiden told off Kristen and Melanie at the grocery store yesterday,” Katie finished, arching her eyebrows at me.
“He did,” I nodded, trying not to smile.
“Really? What happened?” Tessa asked, her eyebrows raising in surprise. Aiden was gentle and kind-hearted, he didn’t often have outbursts.
“He overheard the things they were saying about me, and he went off on them for being mean. He also might have called them ugly, which wasn’t cool but—“
“If the shoe fits,” Elle muttered. “They are pretty ugly, personality wise.”
I shrugged, nonplused. “Whatever, I’m beginning to realize that I don’t actually care what they think.”
“Cheers!” Katie proclaimed, lifting her glass.
Not long after that, the girls roped me into talking about the trip to Bala Falls.
“Is he still leaving in September?” Elle asked.
Adjusting so that I was sitting with my legs tucked beneath me, I lifted one shoulder up in a shrug. “We haven’t really discussed it yet, but I’d imagine so. I can’t picture him walking away from music, and I don’t want him to.”
“People make long distance relationships work all the time,” Tessa said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She wasn’t concerned about it, but I was.
The feelings I’d been so worried about catching were beginning to afflict me, to the point where the very idea of going months without seeing him made me feel absolutely dreadful.
“You should definitely have that conversation soon,” Katie interjected, giving me a pointed look as if she knew where my head had gone.
“I will. He’s coming over for dinner on Thursday, and we’ll talk after Aiden’s in bed,” I informed her.
“Are you cooking?” Elle asked, her lips twitching with amusement. I nodded, and she grinned. “Better tell him beforehand, then.”
Using oven mitts, I carefully removed the lasagna I’d spent the last two hours trying to cook. Tessa had sent me the recipe, insisting that not even I could mess it up. I’d been extra careful to follow her instructions perfectly.
I set it down on the stove top, hoping that it tasted as good as it looked. Cooking wasn’t really my forte, but Travis had already prepared a fancy meal for me and I felt that it was my turn to make something other than frozen pizza. Knowing how he felt about cooking made me want to try harder.
Knuckles rapped against the door, and I called for Aiden to answer it. Travis was right on time. I grabbed the shiny silver spoon holder off the stove, using it as a mirror to make sure I looked okay. My hair was a little messy in the high ponytail I’d thrown it in, so I did my best to smooth it out.
“Is your mom home?” a voice that definitely wasn’t Travis’s asked. I froze for a fraction of a second before darting out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the front door. Aiden held the door open, frowning while he stared at the stranger in front of him.
“Yes. Who are you?”
My heart dropped into my stomach when I came face to face with Richie for the first time in over eight years. “Aiden, go to your room please.”
“But Mom!”
“Now!” I barked, my hands trembling. I normally wasn’t one to yell, and Aiden’s eyes widened with surprise. I gave him a look and he scurried down the hall to his room. I braced myself, raising my eyes to look at the monster that had terrorized me for years.
Richie didn’t look like the carefree boy I’d fallen for all those years ago. The constant use of hard drugs had aged him. His hair was thinning, his skin was sallow, and he was dressed in torn jeans and a black t-shirt that fit loosely over his wiry arms. His cheeks were sunken in, but the same cruel dark brown eyes still looked back at me, a glint to them that I didn’t trust.
“Long time no see, Becky,” the sound of his voice made my skin crawl.
“You can’t come within thirty feet of either one of us,” I said, surprised to find that my voice wasn’t shaking as badly as I expected it to. “Leave right now, or I’ll call the cops.”
“I’m not leaving until I get what I came here for,” Richie shrugged, enjoying the panic he was causing. The colour drained fr
om my face, and I stared at him with astounded horror.
“And what’s that?” I demanded.
Richie cast a glance through the door, down the hallway where Aiden had disappeared. He smiled slowly, a cruel smile that made me feel cold straight into the marrow of my bones.
“Let’s be real Becky…I want nothing to do with the kid. I have zero interest in being a dad, but when I found out you hooked yourself a millionaire country singer, well. Let’s just say an opportunity arose that I couldn’t resist.”
“What opportunity?” I asked through my teeth.
“I need money, and if I don’t get it…I will make your life a living hell.”
“How much?”
“Fifty-thousand should be more than enough,” he answered, smiling at me with yellowed teeth.
“You’re out of your mind,” I seethed. “I don’t have that kind of money.”
“But your boyfriend does,” Richie pointed out. “You have one week to decide. Either I get my money, or I get the kid.” Finished with his threats, he turned and began to walk down the driveway to the sidewalk to a gold Sunfire parked against the curb in front of my house.
Something in me snapped. I grabbed the wooden baseball bat from the front hall closet and chased after him. He heard me coming and turned, a look of pure amusement on his face that only served to fuel my anger.
“You are a vile piece of shit, Richie Anderson, and I’m not afraid of you anymore. You’re not going to get anything from me, and I swear to god if you come sniffing around here again—“
“You’ll what?” he laughed. “Hit me with the bat? I’m so scared Becky, so scared.” He stepped toward me, and I pushed the end of the bat against his Adams apple, a venomous look in my eyes. I didn’t care that we were on the sidewalk in front of my house, that my neighbours could potentially see this drama unfolding.
“You should be,” I promised him, my eyes narrowed. “I’m not the timid girl I was back then, Richie. I’m not going to let you walk all over me, I’m not afraid of you anymore.”
Rebel Song: (Rebel Series Book 3) ((Rebel Series)) Page 21
