Cougar

by M. A. Foster

  My eyes flick between his. I’m not the type to pour my heart out to a total stranger, even a handsome one. Trust and I aren’t on good terms at the moment, but something in his eyes has me opening my mouth and spilling my entire life story.

  “Crying doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human,” he says when I’m finished, using his thumb to wipe a tear from my cheek. “Your brother sounds like an asshole.”

  I snort a laugh. Max was kind of an asshole back then, but that all changed when he met and married his wife, Jessica, and became a dad. I’ve seen him shed a few tears over the past several years: on his wedding day, the day his son, Dylan, was born, and there may have been tears in his eyes this morning when he hugged me goodbye.

  “I think he took his big brother role seriously.” I smile. “Tough love and all that.” I shrug a shoulder.

  For the rest of the flight, I do most of the talking, but I learn a few things about Marcus. His name is Marcus Alexander King, he’s twenty-three, he lives in Malibu and he’s the front man for the rock band Royal Mayhem. I’ve actually heard of them. Last night, as a matter of fact, because Max and Jessica had gone to their concert while I babysat Dylan.

  The plane touches down at LAX and Marcus walks with me to baggage claim.

  “Don’t you have any luggage?” I ask, knowing he’d been on tour. Suddenly it dawns on me and my brows pinch in confusion. “Where’s the rest of your band?”

  Shoving his hands into his front pockets, he rocks back on his heels and averts his eyes. “On the bus.” He sounds sheepish.

  They left without him? Why—oh.

  I feel the blush creep across my cheeks. I only just met the man five hours ago, so the fact that I’m jealous is utterly ridiculous. Get over yourself, Emerson.

  “So, what are your plans?” he asks.

  “For what?”

  “For the day? For lunch? For dinner? For the rest of your life?” He shoots me a wink and I smile.

  My heart flutters in my chest.

  “My cousin Lilly is waiting for me.” Lilly was so excited when I’d called and asked if I could spend the summer with her. She’s twenty-one, has her own apartment and is a junior at UCLA earning her degree in public relations. It’s because of Lilly’s influence that I’m also attending UCLA in the fall.

  “Emerson!” Speak of the devil. I turn just as Lilly slams into me. “I’m so excited that you’re here!” She pulls back but keeps a grip on my upper arms. “Girl, we are gonna have so much fun. By the end of summer you’ll be saying, ‘Chris who?’”

  When I talked to Lilly the other day, I told her about Chris cheating on me, but I didn’t tell her about my fight with Liz. I’m not ready to talk about that yet.

  A throat clears and I look over my shoulder to see Marcus watching us with interest and a smirk on his face.

  “Lilly, this is Marcus.” I gesture to him. “Marcus, this is my cousin Lilly.”

  “I know you.” She points at him. “You’re the lead singer in that band.” She snaps her fingers. “Royal Mayhem, right? You played at UCLA last month.”

  Marcus’s eyes shift from left to right before he gives a stiff nod. “It’s good to meet you.”

  Lilly’s brows dip in confusion. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be on tour?”

  Marcus chuckles. “Tour’s over. I took the shortcut home.” He gestures to me. “I was hoping to convince Emerson to hang out with me today.”

  “Um….” Lilly’s mouth pops open but nothing comes out as she turns her curious expression on me. As much as I’d love to spend the day with Marcus, I’m not sure it’s a good idea, and I can’t ditch Lilly.

  “I should probably get settled in,” I say. Marcus’s shoulders drop slightly. “But how about dinner?”

  “Dinner it is.” He pulls a cell phone from his pocket. “Can I get your number?”

  Oh yeah. I’d forgotten about the cell phone my parents gave me. Fishing through my purse, I pull out the phone and power it on. “I don’t know my number. Give me yours and I’ll call you.”

  After exchanging numbers with this semi-famous rock star, something prompts me to ask, “Would you like a ride home?”

  “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll grab a cab.”

  “It’s no trouble, really,” Lilly insists.

  “If you’re sure,” he hedges. His eyes flick to me and I nod.

  “Absolutely,” Lilly chirps.

  Marcus reaches for the largest and heaviest of my three suitcases, while Lilly and I carry the two smaller ones out to where her two-door black Mercedes is parked.

  “Nice ride,” Marcus says.

  “Thanks,” Lilly preens.

  “You live on the beach?” I ask incredulously as we roll to a stop outside the two-story home made of stone and glass.

  “Yes.” He climbs out of the front seat, slides it forward and holds out his hand to me. “Come check it out.”

  Lilly shuts off the car and we follow Marcus inside his home. I suck in a breath because the first thing I notice is the view. The entire back wall is glass, overlooking a swimming pool, the blue ocean, and clear sky. The entire bottom floor is an open floor plan with marble floors. The living room is situated in the center with a stone fireplace. To the left looks like a game room with a pool table and a bar. A staircase is on the immediate right and just past the staircase is a dining table. Also on the right is the kitchen with cabinets and appliances lining the entire wall and an island lined with barstools separating the kitchen from the living room.

  A woman who looks like she’s in her early thirties with dark hair and tan skin is standing behind the long island in the kitchen. “Grace,” Marcus greets her, then gestures to Lilly and me. “This is Emerson and Lilly.”

  Grace eyes us skeptically, giving us a curt nod before leaving the room and heading upstairs.

  Marcus chuckles and shakes his head. “Sorry about that. She thinks you’re, uh….” He scratches the dark scruff peppering his jaw.

  “She thinks we’re groupies,” Lilly finishes with a laugh.

  “Yeah.” Marcus winces.

  I make my way over to the wall of glass and take in the view of the endless ocean. Lilly steps out onto the deck like she owns the place. “This view is amazing.”

  “It is,” Marcus says as he moves to stand beside me. “This is where I sit when I write.” He gestures to the leather sofa facing the window.

  “I can see why. It seems so peaceful here.” I’ll bet the view of the sunset is amazing.

  As if he hears my thoughts, Marcus says, “Wait until you see the sunset,” and I suck in a breath. Marcus turns to face me, leaning a shoulder against the glass wall. “Stay,” he whispers.

  “Your housekeeper doesn’t like me.” I frown.

  “She doesn’t know you.”

  “You don’t know me either,” I reply and look over my shoulder. Where the hell did Lilly go?

  “Grace has been in my life for a long time, since way back when the guys and I were playing in dive bars. She can be a little overprotective but she’s amazing once you get to know her.”

  “Do you bring a lot of women home?” I wince. “Sorry, that’s not my business.”

  He smirks. “No, but… we’ve had parties.”

  “Oh.”

  Marcus curls his arm around my waist and pulls me to his chest. “Please stay.”

  I stayed.

  Fate is tricky. It’s all about timing: being at the right place at the right time, the wrong place at the wrong time, the right place at the wrong time or even the wrong place at the right time. Things happen for reasons we can never explain.

  Fate put Marcus and me together on that plane, and he became the love of my life.

  He should’ve been my happily ever after.

  But… fate is tricky.

  Emerson

  Present day

  “Today we gather to celebrate the life of Marcus Alexander King,” Pastor Solomon begins.

  A celebration
of life is what Marcus wanted instead of a funeral. To me, a celebration of life is still a funeral, though one without a casket because he wanted to be cremated.

  Call me cynical, but I don’t want to celebrate my husband’s life. I want to mourn his death. I want to lock myself in my bedroom, cry and scream and maybe punch something. Because I’m fucking angry.

  Instead, I’m sitting in a church, wearing a two-thousand-dollar dress and a ridiculous hat that I’ll never wear again, pretending to celebrate the life of a man who died an ugly death.

  But today isn’t about what I want. It’s about what Marcus wanted and what our daughter needs. Today is about giving our family and friends the chance to say goodbye.

  Marcus and I were married just four months shy of twenty-two years. He was an amazing husband and father, but even more, he worked hard and became one of the most famous yet humbled rock stars in the world. Not only as the front man for Royal Mayhem, but for his other accomplishments as well. Marcus founded King Records, plucking striving artists from dive bars and even YouTube. He produced one of the biggest talent shows, America’s Voice, and he founded a charity called the Mayhem Foundation, geared toward putting music back into schools.

  Which is why I’ll never understand how such an incredible man, who worked hard and loved harder, was handed a death sentence and left to suffer while the world crawled with scum who deserved so much worse.

  Life can be cruel.

  Fate can be a sadistic bitch.

  “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing more we can do.” Dr. Singh’s words play on a loop in my head. Two years ago, Marcus and I walked into Dr. Singh’s office looking for answers.

  The exhaustion.

  The headaches.

  The dizzy spells.

  The confusion.

  The result? A brain tumor.

  And after months of aggressive chemotherapy, all we got was a sympathetic “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing more we can do.”

  Words I never expected to hear.

  Words no one ever wants to hear.

  Words that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

  “How long?” Marcus asked, squeezing my hand.

  “A year. Give or take,” Dr. Singh replied.

  Marcus was never one to play by anyone’s rules but his own. He died eighteen months later.

  “Jayla,” Pastor Solomon calls on my daughter, and with a nod, he adds, “Whenever you’re ready.”

  My gaze turns to Jayla, our seventeen-year-old daughter who goes by Jay. She stands and gracefully makes her way up the steps to the stage, dressed in a black, knee-length fitted dress with her dark hair in a high ponytail. Pastor Solomon pulls her in for a brief hug, then moves to the side as Jay steps up to stand in front of the podium.

  She pauses to compose herself before addressing the congregation. “Thank you all for coming today, and for your continued love and support throughout the last few months. It means a lot to me and my family.” She scans the front row where our family and extended family sits. “I could stand up here for hours and talk about Marcus King, the incredibly talented musician, singer, songwriter, producer, and headstrong businessman. But if you’re here today, then you already know those things about him. So, instead I want to tell you about Marcus King, my dad.”

  A sad smile pulls at my lips, recalling a time when I didn’t think Marcus would ever become a dad.

  Jayla was our miracle baby. After three years of marriage and multiple attempts at getting pregnant, we’d just about given up. It was mentally and physically exhausting, and I couldn’t handle the disappointment on Marcus’s face every time a pregnancy test turned up negative or I miscarried. Marcus did his best to mask his disappointment by reminding me how much fun it would be to try again, and I loved him for it. But I knew he wanted a family, and I hated myself for not being able to give him one.

  And just when we were ready to accept that a baby wasn’t going to happen for us, our miracle happened, and nine months later, Jayla Mackenzie King came into our lives.

  I call her Jay.

  Marcus called her his Jaybird.

  She was our one and only child, but she couldn’t have been more perfect. Beautiful, kind, graceful, smart, and talented like her father. A daddy’s girl.

  “Before he passed,” Jay continues, “my dad said to me, ‘People come into our lives for a reason, no matter how long they stay. It’s fate.’ Now I’m not going to lie. I’m upset with God for taking him away from me—from us—but I’m also thankful to God for choosing Marcus to be my father, and I’m grateful for every single day he was in my life. I’d give anything for one more day, one more minute, but that’s not how God works. I ask God every day, ‘Why him?’ It’s not fair, but the saying is true. Life isn’t fair. I’m sure every one of you has had those thoughts if you’ve lost someone you love. Sometimes I feel like this is all just a bad dream, that any moment now, I’ll wake up to the sound of him strumming his guitar. I keep expecting to find him in the kitchen, dancing in his boxers and singing about making pancakes and bacon.”

  I smile, blinking back the tears. Marcus made her pancakes and bacon for breakfast almost every morning and it’s still her favorite breakfast.

  “He was funny and entertaining. He was always happy. Music was his remedy for everything. If I was sleepy, he’d grab his guitar and sing me a rock-a-by.” She smiles fondly. “That was his version of a lullaby. If I was moody, he’d crank up the music, grab me by the hands, and we’d dance until we were breathless and laughing. There was never a dull moment in the King house. I still remember the day I wrote my first song. I’ll never forget the prideful look in his eyes, or the smile that stretched across his face when I performed it for him and my mom. That look inspired me to embrace my talent. And in return, I was rewarded with that look often.”

  She pauses to suck in a shaky breath. “Marcus King was just a man who loved his family. Music was his life, but family was his everything. He was an amazing father and husband. I can only hope that one day I’ll be lucky enough to have a man love me as much as my dad loved my mom. What I’ve learned from this experience, this loss, is that at the end of the day, we’re all human. Our titles, our social status, our money—none of that stuff matters when it’s our time to go. I know he’s in a better place, and he’s at peace. I’m relieved that he no longer feels pain. Call me selfish, but that doesn’t make me miss him any less, nor does it dull the pain of having to let him go. A pain so fierce it hurts to breathe because my heart is broken.” Tears begin to spill down her cheeks. Mine, too. I’ve done my best to hold it together this long, but watching my child fall apart is my breaking point.

  Jayla’s therapist, Dr. Ramos, rises from her seat and makes her way over to the steps leading up to the podium. Marcus hired Dr. Ramos to help our family—mostly Jayla—cope with his illness and, eventually, his death.

  Jayla gives a slight shake of her head, silently telling Dr. Ramos she’s not finished, before she turns her teary gaze on me. Her chest heaves as she continues. “I speak for my mom as well when I tell you that my dad was the moon in the night sky. The sun on a cloudy day. He was our life. Our world. He was our everything.” And then she breaks. “I’ll miss you, Daddy,” she croaks before bursting into tears.

  I start to stand, to go to her, but my father wraps his arms around me to hold me back. “Give her some space.”

  Dr. Ramos hurries up the steps, curls her arm around Jay, and leads her off the stage as she whispers something in her ear. Jay nods as she returns to her seat between her two best friends, Evangeline and Lucas.

  Andrew “Drew” Wild, Marcus’s best friend and bandmate, stands and makes his way to the podium. Andrew and Marcus met when they were just kids growing up in a foster home. The two formed their band, Royal Mayhem, when they were just seniors in high school. Drew was the first of Marcus’s band members I’d come face-to-face with.

  “Who are you?” a deep male voice asked from behind me. I gasped as I whirled around
to find Andrew Wild, half-naked and covered in tattoos, leaning against the kitchen island, eyeing me skeptically beneath his shaggy blond hair.

  “Oh! I’m Em—”

  “She’s off-limits,” Marcus interrupted as he skipped down the stairs. He slugged Drew in the arm as he passed him on the way over to me. “Put some clothes on.”

  Drew scowled. “Since when do you care?”

  “Since now,” Marcus snapped. “You don’t need to be walking around half naked in front of my girl.”

  His girl? My heart somersaulted in my chest. He was a hot rock star and I was his girl.

  Drew quirked a brow. “Your girl?”

  Marcus wrapped his arms around me from behind and rested his chin on my shoulder. “Yeah. This is my girl, Emerson.”

  “So you’re the reason he missed—”

  “No,” Marcus cut him off, and I felt the green-eyed monster stir inside me.

  Andrew grinned, then extended his hand to me. “It’s nice to meet you, Emerson. I’m Andrew Wild, but you can call me Drew.” Drew was a lot like Marcus in certain ways. He was kind and genuine, and he liked me.

  When the time came to meet the other two band members, Tommy and Chaz, they weren’t as welcoming as Drew.

  Drew leans forward, resting his palms on the podium, and clears his throat. “Good morning. I’m Andrew Wild. If you don’t know who I am, then you didn’t know Marcus.” He lowers his head and blows out a breath. “I don’t have anything written, and honestly, I think my goddaughter said it all.” He gestures to Jay. “So I’m just gonna wing it.” He sucks in a deep breath and blows it out. “Marcus, I’m gonna miss you, brother. You impacted so many lives, including mine, with your wisdom, talent, courage, and your heart. I’m so proud to call you my best friend. My family. My mentor. My bandmate. And my hero. I love you, man. I’ll see you in the next life.” He throws his hands up in the universal rock sign. “Godspeed.”

  After the service, a small group of our close friends and family arrive at the house to pay their respects personally. The room is crowded, and I’m struggling to breathe as one by one they make their way over to offer their condolences.