All the Forbidden Things

by Jones, Lesley

  “Do not talk to the police. I’m making calls from my other line,” Aaron almost shouts down the line. “Cal, tell her not to talk to the police until I’m there. I’ll try and get a colleague to her now, but I do not want her making statements to anyone till I’m there.”

  “You listening, kid?”

  There’s nothing but silence from both phones.

  “Kid, you need to talk to me. I need to know you’re listening to what Aaron says.”

  “I’m listening, but what if they won’t . . . what if they make me give a statement?”

  “She’s terrified, Cal,” I whisper.

  “Kid, I need you to calm the fuck down and listen to me.”

  I know he’s scared, but I shoot him a look, warning him to keep his cool. He covers his face and tilts it up towards the ceiling.

  “Just take deep breaths and tell us what’s happened,” he says, using a much gentler tone.

  “M-Michael. He was drunk. Cal, I fought him, I fought so hard. I thought I was gonna die.”

  Callum’s arms drop to his sides. His chin falls to his chest for a few seconds before he lifts it and stares at me. His eyes are wide as his mouth hangs open. Tears coat his handsome face, and I reach for my husband.

  He’s looking at me for guidance, but I’m as lost as he is as to how we handle this.

  “Keep it together,” I whisper into his ear. “For Billie, just while you’re on the phone, keep it together for her.”

  His face is buried in my neck, and I can feel his body shake as he crushes me against him. He nods, steps back, and swipes at his cheeks with the backs of his hands. Sniffing, he draws in a deep breath.

  “Okay, kid, listen. It might take me a few hours to get things organised, but I’ll be there by the time you wake up in the morning, and when it’s safe for you to travel, we’ll bring you home.”

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Billie, we’ll be there soon. We love you,” I add.

  She continues to cry.

  “I’ll call you when we have all the details but put your phone on silent and try and get some sleep, I’ll just leave you a message. Love you, kid.”

  “Love all of you too. Please hurry, Cal, please.”

  I watch my husband fall apart. His face is a mask of devastation as he collapses to the floor and cries, so I answer for him. “We’re on our way. Get some sleep.”

  I swipe to end the call and jump as Aaron’s voice sounds from Cal's phone.

  “Fuck. My sources are telling me that Carmen Bosworth was arrested at around nine-thirty Pacific Time in relation to the death of her husband, Michael Bosworth. I’m waiting for a call back with more details. I’ve also gotten onto someone from the hospital. I lied and pretended I was you, Cal, all they’ve confirmed is that her injuries are non-life-threatening. The jet’s good to go, you just need to get your arse to Heathrow ASAP. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Fuck. Fuck!” Cal wipes at his tears then looks to me. “We need to get to her.”

  “Thanks, Aaron, we’ll see you in about two hours, depending on traffic,” I tell him.

  “Okay, I’ll call as soon as I know any more.”

  He ends the call, and Cal holds his hand out and pulls me down into his lap. I wrap my arms around his shoulders, bury my fingers in the back of his hair, and hold his face against my chest.

  “She’s okay. She’s a strong girl, we’ll get her through this.”

  “That fucker. Good job that fucker’s dead.”

  “I know. I know. If he weren’t, there’d be a long line of people wanting him that way, not just you.”

  “She’s been through so much. She’s still only a kid, and she’s been through so much already.”

  “Baby, I know. I’m so sorry.”

  “We shouldn’t have let her go. I should have made her stay . . .”

  I lift his face, so he has to look up at me. “Cal, Cal, she’s twenty-two, you can’t stop her. Yeah, she was only eighteen when she left to go over there for college, but even then, it was her choice.”

  His face crumbles, and he starts to cry again. “I’m her big brother, I’m all she has. I’m supposed to look after her, protect her.”

  “You do all of those things, baby, but what you don’t and can’t do is stop her from living her life.”

  “What the fuck’s going on?”

  We both look up to see Makenzie standing a few feet away. Callum releases his grip, and I stand. “Billie’s okay, but she’s been assaulted and hospitalised. You need to go pack a bag. We’re taking the label’s jet to Los Angeles.”

  My loud-mouthed seventeen-year-old daughter, who usually has an answer for every-fucking-thing, opens and closes her mouth a few times. Her eyes slide from me to Cal. “Is she . . . Why? Mum . . . Dad?” She flings herself at Cal, and he wraps her in his arms. I leave him to explain all that we know as I head upstairs to pack our bags.

  Max

  “Max.”

  I begrudgingly open my eyes at the sound of my mum’s voice and have to blink a few times before she comes into focus.

  We had a bad night last night. It started with a shit afternoon and went downhill from there. When I’d gotten back from my meeting with Lennon, I told Mum about my plan to allow Whitney to recover here. We rarely disagreed. Mum might not always be happy with my choices, but generally, she was cool and kept her thoughts to herself. I knew without words when she was pissed off or disappointed in me, and more often than not, her silence affected me more than her ranting and raving. Yesterday, she didn’t hold back, though, and flat-out told me I was a fucking idiot for even considering letting Whitney move back here, even temporarily. She didn’t hang around to try and understand my reasoning. Instead, she left.

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” Mum says, “but Cal has called three times and now Mel’s just rung.”

  Mum’s worried blue eyes look down at me.

  I place my hands across the back of Layla’s head and bum to support her, as I swing my legs around and get myself into a seated position.

  “Want me to take her?” Mum asks softly.

  I shake my head. “I’ve got her.”

  She watches me for a few seconds before reaching out and running her fingers through my hair and then over my beard. “You need a haircut. Those whiskers are gonna give the baby a rash.”

  “Yeah, I need to ask Gaynor to book Sharee for me. I like the beard though, I’ll get some oil to keep it soft.”

  “It does suit you. I know I’m biased, but you’re such a handsome boy, Max.”

  I chuckle. “I’m thirty-eight, Mum. Hardly a boy.”

  “You’ll always be my boy.” She smiles at me from the coffee table, where she’s now parked her backside. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I spoke to Mel when I got home last night, and she explained why you were doing what you’re doing. Makes sense now.”

  “It would have made sense yesterday if you’d have just calmed down for a few minutes and listened to me.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry. It’s just that even the mention of that woman's name gets my goat.”

  “Really? And, yet, you hide it so well.”

  She pushes my shoulder. “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, did no one ever tell you that?”

  “I thought the mention of her name got your goat?”

  “It does, why?”

  “You just said Whit.”

  Mum rolls her eyes at me like a teenage girl. “I said wit, not Whit, and just because you’re now a parent, doesn’t mean you can start with the Dad jokes.”

  “What the f—”

  Mum raises her brows, cutting off the F-bomb I was about to drop.

  “What do you know about Dad jokes? Go make me a coffee, Grandma.”

  “You’ll be getting a thick ear if I get any more of your lip, solider. I made you a coffee earlier, but when I brought it in, the pair of you were snoring.”

  I look down at Layla cradled in my arm, sleeping soundly. “We had a bad night.”

 
“You’re doing great,” Mum says with a hint of pride in her tone.

  I raise my gaze from Layla’s dark head of baby hair to meet Mum’s shining blue eyes. “I’m so worried I’m fucking it all up and terrified that going for full custody is the wrong thing to do,” I admit.

  Mum reaches out and places her hand over mine. “You’re doing brilliantly, Max. Apart from your swearing in front of the baby, you’re doing such a good job. I’m so very proud of the way you’ve stepped up.”

  My chest feels tight, and my throat feels clogged as I reply with a strangled, “Thanks, Mum. I just worry.”

  “Welcome to parenthood, you’re always gonna worry.”

  “I'm not sure that’s true for everyone. Whitney didn’t even ask how Layla was when I went to the hospital. She begged me not to take her away, but she never once asked how she was doing or if I’d bring her with me for a visit.”

  “I don’t think that girl cares about anyone or anything except herself.”

  “Why didn’t I see it before? You’ve never liked her, Cal doesn’t like her, and yet, I married her?”

  “Do you love her?”

  I’ve gone over this time and time again in my head this past week or so, and I consider for a few seconds before answering, “Ya know what? I grew to love her. I don’t think when I met her my first thought was that I’d met the one. We met just before I went on tour, and it was more lust than anything at that stage. I liked having her in my bed, so I asked her to come with us.” I let out a long breath and lean back into the sofa, still holding a sleeping Layla in my arms. “It’s like we were living in fantasy land: The rock star and the model, planes, tour buses, hotel rooms, a different city every couple of days. And when we stepped out in public, the press would follow us around, and we got swept away in all of that. It felt good to have someone to finally share it with. Life on the road can get lonely,” I admit and shrug.

  “I always thought it was just one big party.”

  “It is if that’s the way you want it, but it doesn’t mean it’s not lonely. Different hotel bed with a different girl in it sounds like living the dream to most blokes, but when you’ve done it for as long as I have, it’s . . .” I trail off, not wanting to go into that part of my life with my mum while holding my daughter in my arms.

  Not that Mum doesn’t know the truth. I can tell her anything.

  “It was time, Mum. I was done with the partying. I was ready to settle down, and Whitney was there. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I wasn’t using her or anything, it just all kind of fell into place. She told me she was pregnant, and I wanted to do the right thing.”

  “Sounds like you were more in love with the idea of being in love.”

  “I think you’re absolutely right. Don’t take this the wrong way, Mum, you did a fantastic job raising me on your own, but that’s not what I want for my kid. I want to be there, I want her to have brothers and sisters. Despite what’s gone on, I still want that. I’d love for that . . .” I lick at my dry lips again and meet Mum’s stare head-on as I bare my brutal truths with her. “I want to be loved, Mum. I don’t want it to be about the fame, the band, or the money. I just want someone to love me. And I’m scared. I’m fucking terrified now that I’ll never have that. I couldn’t get it right when it was just about me, and I’ve Layla to consider now. She’s my priority. Between giving all of my time to her and my music, I worry that it’ll never happen, that I’m just gonna grow old all alone.”

  I release another long breath, feeling better and worse at the same time for laying all that shit out there. “This life isn’t for everyone. Whitney sort of thrived on it. She loves the press attention, even when the stories they print about us are complete bullshit, she enjoys reading them. I don’t wanna be with someone like that again, but I need someone who can handle it when it does happen. I don’t know that there’s anyone out there that’d be prepared to take on me, Layla, the band, my music, and everything all of that entails.”

  After a few moments of watching me, Mum shakes her head. “It’ll happen. When you least expect it, you’ll meet someone, and you’ll just know. And she’ll put up with all of those things because she loves you.”

  “Didn’t happen for you. You never found the one and moved on after Dad left.”

  She tilts her head to the side as if considering her words before voicing them. With a wistful smile on her face, she shrugs, and something suddenly occurs to me. “You did? What the fuck? Who? When?” I ask in a rush.

  Mum giggles. Sounding like a teenage girl, she giggles. “I was only twenty-five when your father left, do you really think there’s been no one else since then?”

  “No. Yes. Who? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She shrugs, and it’s her time to let out a long breath. “Because there was no one special enough to introduce you to. I wasn’t going to bring an endless stream of men in and out of your life—”

  “Endless stream? What the fuck, Mum, how many were there?”

  She laughs but at least has the good grace to look a little embarrassed. “There weren’t many, least not by your standards.”

  “Far out—” I pause and cover the ear Layla doesn’t have pressed to my chest even though she’s still sleeping soundly. “Don’t listen to this, Layla.” I look down at my daughter. “Grandma’s a ho, and you won’t be growing up to be anything like her.”

  Mum’s continued chuckles warm my insides. As shocked as I am to be hearing her revelations, I’m glad she’s not spent all these years alone, but, at the same time, I’m sad that she never again found ‘the one.’

  “Cal and I used to hope that you’d end up with Pete. It made sense to us. I had a single mum; he had a single dad. We would deliberately not be ready when we got picked up from each other's houses so you’d have to come in and . . .”

  I take in the sheepish look my mother is now wearing, the way her eyes are roaming around the room, making contact with anything except me, and my jaw falls open. “Oh my fucking God, you did. You banged Pete. What the actual fuck, Mum? How did I not know about this? W-wait, does Cal know? Please tell me he’s as much in the dark as I am about this.”

  Mum wipes tears from under her eyes from laughing so hard.

  “Glad you’re finding this so bloody amusing, woman.”

  “Oh my days, I needed that laugh.” She clears her throat and attempts to keep a straight face as she looks at me. “No, as far as I’m aware, Cal doesn’t know anything. It was a long time ago, and because of the relationship between you boys, we kept things quiet and thought we’d just see how things went—”

  “Not so well apparently.”

  Mum smiles and shakes her head, and I honestly don’t want to know what memories she’s recalling to have that dreamy look on her face.

  “Pete was a good man. We had a lot of fun together, but he just wasn’t . . .” She shrugs and searches the room again before her eyes slice back to mine. Her shoulders pull back and straighten in resolve. “We weren’t compatible in the end. He just wasn’t man enough for me if you want the honest truth. Like I said, he was a good man, caring, considerate, I just needed . . . more? You know that old saying about wanting a whore in the bedroom, but a lady in the living room? Well, I wanted the male version of that, and Pete, he was just too much of a gentleman. I need a man who’ll open doors for me but grab my arse as I go through it—”

  “Yeah, yeah, you can stop now. I get the picture, Mum, really, I hear ya very loud and clear.”

  She giggles again before rolling her eyes at me. “I might be your mother, Maxwell Hendrix Young, but I’m still a red-blooded woman with needs.”

  I hold my hand up to stop her from talking when my mobile rings beside her on the coffee table. She picks it up and passes it to me.

  I swipe to answer, but before I have the chance to say a word, Cal is speaking. “Max, we’re on our way to Los Angeles. Billie’s been assaulted and is in the hospital.”

  I’m silent for a few long moments as I pr
ocess what he’s just said. My stomach churns with a sensation I should be getting familiar with since it’s happened so often these past days, yet, it still manages to make my mouth fill with bile as I fight the urge to throw up.

  “What?” Is all I get out as I gesture to Mum to take Layla from me.

  I’ve not seen Billie in years, and the last time I did, she was little more than a teenager, maybe thirteen or fourteen, with long red hair and braces on her teeth. Although Mel and Cal had raised her since she was seven, she spent most of her school holidays over in America, staying with her mum’s sister and family, so I didn’t see her around as much as I did Makenzie, their daughter.

  “She was attacked and assaulted by the bloke she’s been working for—”

  “What the fuck, Cal, where are you? Where’s she? What can I do?”

  “She’s okay, but she’s in the hospital. Lennon organised one of the label’s jets for us, and we’re about to take off from Heathrow. Mel, Kenzie, and Aaron are with me. I just . . . I wanted to let you know before anything was reported on social media or the news or . . . fuck, wherever.”

  “Man . . . fuck. I’m so sorry. Can I do anything?”

  “Not really. You can call the boys and let them know. I’m sorry we’re not gonna be around for a while. I know you’re going through your own shit right now, and I’m sorry that—”

  “Dude, seriously. Fuck off with all that. I’m a big boy. Go be with your sister, and just let me know if there’s anything I can do. Anything, I mean it. And keep me posted on how she’s doing. Did they get him? The bloke who did it?”

  “His wife shot him. From what Aaron’s been able to find out so far, his wife came home, found him on top of Billie, and blew his head off.”

  “Fuck me. On top of her? Fuck, Cal, did he . . . she wasn’t . . .”

  “She wasn’t raped. She probably would’ve been, but the wife saved her.”

  “Fuckin’ hell.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You doing okay? The girls?”

  “We’re all pretty shook. We’ll be better once we get there and can see for ourselves what her injuries are.”