“I know I’m the last one you want to hear from right now. I get it,” Cathy says, “but I don’t know who else to call with experience who can tell me how to handle this.”
“Handle what?” I ask, my own feelings like a tornado spinning inside of me.
“They’re everywhere.”
“Who’s everywhere?”
“Photographers. Paparazzi. Whatever you call them. They’re camped out on the lawn. Sitting in the trees across the street. Trying to peek through the blinds. Even going through our trash for Christ’s sake. Anything to try and get that first picture of Jagg and cash in. I know he’s not your responsibility, but he’s terrified. How do I make them go away?”
He’s terrified.
Those two damn words replay in my head as I haul ass to Bristol’s place. I have no plan in place. Hell, I haven’t even sorted out my feelings and sure as shit don’t feel like talking to her yet, but I have eight years of experience dealing with this kind of chaos. It’s nothing a six-year-old should have to deal with.
I’ll get them out of there.
I’ll protect them from it somehow.
Then I’ll figure out what the fuck I’m going to do about . . . everything.
Her street is chaos when I drive down it. Cars are parked on every free inch of curb and occupy every space in the apartment lots. Photographers, some I recognize by sight now since I’ve been in LA so long, mill around in what are considered the public places. The ones who have taken up residence on lawns have paid the residents for access no doubt. Their lenses are long and monstrous. Their appetites for invading and disrupting people’s lives is shameless. Their drive for the first exclusive shot, tenacious.
I pull up to the front of her place and park in the only spot I can find—the middle of the street. By the time the paparazzi register who I am and scramble to run after me with their shouts and flashes, I’m already pounding on the front door, shoulders rounded, head down.
The minute I hear the door unlock, I open the door, step inside, and shut it at my back. But the noise is still there, muted, but riotous.
Cathy stands in the center of the family room, her eyes solemn, her expression somber. “I begged her to call you,” she whispers. “She didn’t think she had any right to ask for help, but I told her maybe you could tell her how to sneak out of here. How to avoid them. I didn’t mean for you to have to come here. To face her and . . . him again before you were ready to.”
I nod as I notice things this time. The half-built Lego set in the corner. Jagger’s artwork framed on the wall behind the small dining room table—a display of a proud parent. A stack of books on the end table. Framed photos of Bristol and Jagger over the years scattered on surfaces around the place.
I’m drawn to them. To memories I don’t have a right to but want to see anyway. Jagger a few months old with a dark shock of hair and a gummy smile. Bristol holding Jagger at the beach as he tries to shove a handful of sand into his mouth. The two of them on a dock together where it’s clear Bristol is trying to teach him how to fish. One after another. Bits and pieces of a life being lived.
When I look up, Cathy is gone and Bristol is standing there. “Hi.” She clears her throat while I just stare at her, seeing her in a different light.
As the woman I loved.
As the woman who kept secrets from me.
As the mother of my son.
And I wonder how that last one comes into play now. Will it be the thing to bring us together or will the hurt her decision caused be what tears us apart?
That’s what I’m struggling to comprehend.
“Is he okay?” I ask.
She gives me a halfhearted smile but doesn’t answer the question. Protecting her son from the outside world and from me.
Fuck, man. I don’t know how that makes me feel.
“You didn’t have to come,” she says quietly. “You could have told me what you thought was best over the phone.”
I nod and take a few steps toward her. “He didn’t ask for this. He doesn’t deserve this. The least I can do is help him with the mess I made for him.”
Tears well in her eyes. “Thank you.”
I clear my throat and resist the urge to go to her. To find comfort in the only woman I’ve ever looked to for it.
“We need to talk about . . . everything,” she says.
Another nod because it’s easier than talking. “Not now. Not yet. I’m struggling with what to say . . . and how to feel about you.”
I think punching her in the stomach would have hurt less than the words I just said, but she takes it on the chin. “I know.”
“Pack a bag for a few days,” I say as a plan forms in my head. One triggered by the pictures I just looked at. “Till everything dies down some at least. Call McMann. Ask for some time off—”
“No need to. He fired me this morning for fraternizing with a client,” she says quietly.
“Christ.” I feel helpless. The fucker fired her because of me. Fired her because of something she didn’t do. “I’m sorry. I’ll talk to him. I’ll leave the agency so there’s no conflict of interest. I’ll—”
“Right now, all I care about is getting Jagger out of here. He’s my only priority.”
“Okay.” That word feels so utterly inadequate.
“I’ll go pack.” She turns and goes down the short hallway. A part of me wants to follow her, to see where Jagger sleeps, to run a hand over his things, while another part of me questions how I can even think that.
I turn back to the photos, reaching out instinctively to touch them as if I want to insert myself into the memory.
“It wasn’t an easy decision for her. You need to know that.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t,” I say to Cathy but don’t turn to face her.
“She tried for months to get ahold of you. Your road manager tried to pay her off after you blocked her. She was certain of two things. That she was keeping the baby and that he was made out of love.”
Tears burn and threaten. I clear my throat. “That was the past, Cathy. I can’t change that. But I’ve been here for weeks now. Weeks where Bristol and I’ve spent time together and she still opted not to tell me. I had a right to know.”
“You did. I told her as much. And then she showed me a few interviews you gave. Rolling Stone was the one I remember the most. You talked about—”
“Fatherhood.” Fuck. “I said something about how I’d rather be sterile than ever take a chance at being a father.”
That’s on you, Jennings. One hundred percent on you.
When I face Cathy, lines of concern and worry are etched in her expression. Did my mom ever care enough about me to have that look on her face?
“Has it been hard for her?” I ask the question, needing to hear the answer I already know. Needing to be punished for being who I am. For saying the things I said. For being such a chickenshit about how I felt about her that I blocked her number. That I caused this.
She nods. “She put her dreams on hold for a new dream she never expected to have happen yet. She refuses monetary help. She . . . you know how stubborn she can be.”
“You worry about her.”
“Every day.” She smiles softly. “She burns the candle at both ends all the time. She doesn’t want to give up on her dream so she can prove to Jagger that it doesn’t matter how old you are, you can still accomplish it. At the same time, she feels guilty for missing so much time with him because of work, that she tries to be super mom in all other aspects. I wouldn’t be a good momma if I didn’t worry.”
“I’m going to take them away for a couple of days. Then what? I don’t know. You’re welcome to come. I know if you stay here that you’ll be harassed too.”
“I’ll be fine. You three need this time to . . . do whatever it is that you decide to do.” She looks down at my hands where I’m holding a picture of Jagger. I didn’t even realize I picked it up. “You’re a good man, Vincent. Your parents don’t make you who you are, but sometimes they can make you think you are who you aren’t.”
Shuffling down the hall has my complete attention, and when I look, I swear to fucking God, my heart balls up in my chest.
“Excuse the boots,” Bristol says as Jagger clomps his way down the hall in a pair of oversized cowboy boots. “We’re going through this is my favorite phase.”
“Hi,” Jagger says, waving the hand of his that’s not holding his mom’s.
“Cool boots, dude.”
He looks down at them and then back at me from where he’s hiding partially behind Bristol’s hip. “Momma says we’re going on a little trip with you.”
“Just for a few days.” I squat so I’m down on his level.
“She said I can’t bring my guitar. It’s too big.”
“There are guitars where we’re going. Maybe I can give you that lesson you wanted.”
He nods, his teeth in his bottom lip, and steps out a little farther. “Mmkay.”
“How are we going to get through all of that?” Bristol asks and lifts her chin, meaning the paparazzi.
“I bet you like to play hide and seek, don’t you?” I ask Jagger and get a nod in response. He smiles and it takes me a second to find my voice. “I bet you’re good at it.”
“Momma can never find me.”
“So that means you’re really good. So here’s what’s going to happen. We have to go outside to the car, but all of those people are out there.”
“They’re scary.”
“They are. That’s why we’re going to play hide and seek.” I look around the room and spot a blanket on the couch. “I’m going to carry you out to the car while you hide under this blanket so no one can see you.”
“Do you think it will work?” he asks.
“I know it will. But while you’re under there, I want you to plug your ears because it’s going to get really loud for a few seconds. Can you do that for me?”
He nods as Cathy grabs the blanket for us.
“You ready?” I ask as I pick him up without thinking. But the minute he’s in my arms, legs wrapped around my waist, hands clasped together at the back of my neck, I freeze. The enormity of who I am holding hits me. He looks at me, fluttered lashes and rosy cheeks, and I struggle to breathe.
My son.
“Blanket?” I ask, my voice breaking on the syllables, as I turn my face from his so he doesn’t see the tears in my eyes. But Bristol does. She just holds my gaze, a well of emotion in her eyes that I don’t have time to unravel.
But I know one thing—I’ll never forget the look in her eyes or the expression on her face for as long as I live.
Jagger giggles as Cathy puts the blanket over his head, and he rests his head on my shoulder, his arms holding tighter.
“Cover your ears, buddy,” Cathy says as she rubs a hand over his blanket clad back.
“Ready?” I ask Bristol. When I see her nod, I open the door and step out into the chaotic abyss. Shouts, requests, and flashes rain down on us as I push through them to get to the SUV. Instinct has me reaching back for Bristol’s hand to make sure she’s okay.
We fight our way to the SUV. To open the door. To get both Jagger and Bristol in the back seat before I make my way to the driver’s side.
I know once I start driving that some will give chase. I know others have already called coworkers to tell them we’re on the move.
All questions are ignored. I just keep my head down until I have the car started and am pulling out of the neighborhood.
“Good job, Jenzo,” Bristol says, ruffling his hair after she makes sure his seatbelt is fastened.
“Jenzo?” I ask.
Her eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “Jagger Enzo Matthews.”
Vincent.
Vincenzo.
Enzo.
Jagger Enzo.
Another piece of me she gave our son. Something else I may have never known.
