Nikki's POV
"Why was momma upset?" I flinch when Wylie pops out from behind the door as soon as I walk in.
"What?" I take a deep breath in an effort to slow the racing of my heart caused by my three and a half year old daughter.
"Momma was crying. Why?" She crosses her arms against her chest with the biggest attitude I've ever seen.
She is her mother's daughter.
In all honesty, I'm not sure why Ryan was crying and the same question is plaguing my brain. My first thought is that she doesn't want me to marry Donna, but why would she care when she has her live-in girlfriend that she's so obviously in love with? I want her to be jealous, but I know that it doesn't make sense for her to be. She never looked back after I left, which only made me further question if she ever loved me in the first place.
"Oh. She was just sad to leave you, baby." I think of a quick lie, but she's smarter than your average child and sees right through it.
"Layla says liars go to hell!"
What the fuck?
"Well, Layla is going to hell for a lot more than that." I roll my eyes and her jaw drops slightly, her small face contorting in anger.
"Mean! Mean daddy!" She smacks at my thigh and I grab her wrist as I get on my knees to level with her.
"Wylie Sixx, we don't hit each other in this house." Her head bows at my use of her full name and tears start to pool in her eyes. "I haven't seen you in two weeks and the first thing you wanna do is yell at me and hit me? Are those nice things to do to someone who's missed you so much?"
"No..." She groans, still avoiding eye contact with me.
"What do you say then?" I raise my eyebrows as I tap at the bottom of her chin to get her to look at me, her green eyes radiant under her tears.
"Sorry, daddy..." She sniffs as I wrap my arms around her and pull her into me.
"I forgive you. Now, if you promise you'll be good, I'll let you decide what we're doing tonight."
"Really?" Her head snaps toward me as her eyes start to miraculously dry.
Her 'R's are more like 'W's and I think that's my favorite part of her voice. It's nearly the only thing, besides her size, that reminds me she's a child and not a moody teenager.
"I wanna see uncle Tom." She bounces on the balls of her feet in excitement, a genuine smile flushing over her face. "I wanna go get ice cream with uncle Tom." She raises her pointer finger up as she corrects herself.
She may look just like me, but all of her mannerisms and facial expressions are purely Ryan.
"Alright, well let's go call him." She races toward the phone while it takes me a good fifteen seconds to get off of my knees. Getting old is a fucking bitch.
I tell her the numbers to dial as her small fingers pick at the buttons, and I give her a thumbs up for doing it correctly. In the past year she's learned all of her numbers, all of her colors, and nearly all of her letters. She gets stuck between 'b' and 'd', and 'p' and 'q', but Donna tells me that's completely normal. She's so excited to learn new things that last month I caught her singing the abc song as she fell asleep.
"Uncle Tommy! Ice cream! You in, bro?!" I let out a laugh at her choice of words, she absorbs everything Tommy says and does when she's around him, which isn't always a good thing. "Uhh...I dunno. Here's daddy." She hands me the phone as her fingers dance along her chin in anticipation.
"What's up, T-Bone?"
"Where and when?"
Warmth spreads through my chest at the fact that Tommy has literally never said no to Wylie. Not even once. He is always willing to drop anything and everything to give her everything she asks for, no questions asked. Which is also why she has a kid-sized drum set in her room upstairs, despite me saying fuck no. It's not a play set either, it's a professional grade kid-sized set that he had specially ordered for her last Christmas. And it's loud as a mother fucker.
After a few more minutes of babbling incoherently through the line at Tommy, Wylie finally hangs up the phone and takes her bag into her room to unpack for the weekend.
"You guys going somewhere?" Donna emerges from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a rag with her blond hair piled high on top of her head.
She truly is a beautiful woman, but I still can't look at her for too long without comparing every inch of her skin to Ryan's. I manage by only keeping my sight on her for no longer than a minute at a time. I don't know when my brain will rid itself of the constant thoughts of my ex-wife, but hopefully getting married again will start the journey to peace.
"Yeah, we're going to get ice cream with Tommy in an hour. I figured I'd take Rhyan with me and give you a couple hours to yourself."
I don't know how I'll ever find peace with someone of the same name under my roof, though. Thoughts and conversations of him automatically lead back to her.
I wish I was taking Ryan to get ice cream.
Stop it, Nikki. Fuck.
"You don't want me to go with?" Her eyes droop with sadness and I fight the urge to huff in annoyance, breathing out slowly and unnoticeably instead.
No, I don't.
"You can if you want to, babe. I just thought you'd like some time for yourself." I shrug my shoulders as I turn around to go make sure my daughter isn't creating a tornado in her room.
"Fine. I'll stay here." Her voice is combative as she waits for me to soothe her and tell her I want her to come with me, but I really don't want her to come so I continue up the stairs as if she hasn't said anything.
"Look, daddy! I got dressed!" Wylie extends her arms as she twirls in a circle, a purple tutu hanging over her hips on top of her normal clothes. "Am I pretty?" I stand in the doorway, marveling in the beauty of all of her distinct features.
I know I'm in trouble when she gets to dating age.
Scratch that, she'll never be of dating age.
"You are the prettiest girl in the whole world, baby."
"No, that's mommy. I'm the second prettiest girl in the world!" She tilts her face upwards, her smile beaming with pride as she thinks of her mother.
Can't argue with her there.
Ryan's POV
Instead of going home, I go the opposite way on the freeway toward Riley's house. I need someone to talk to, and as much as I've bragged on Layla not having many insecurities, Nikki sure as fuck is one of them. I wouldn't feel right crying over my ex-husband to my girlfriend anyway.
Besides, that's what best friends are for.
I don't know why I'm crying over him anyhow.
I stand at the doorway to the old Victorian in hopes that she's home. I would've called, but I didn't see a pay phone at any of the gas stations I passed along the way.
"Hey, Ryan! What's up, baby?" A mound of long blond, fluffy hair greets me as the door swings open. "Oh, no, what's wrong? Are you okay? Where's Wylie?"
"I'm fine, Sebastian. I just dropped Wylie at Nikki's. I was hoping Riley was home so I could talk to her for a minute." I give him a tight-lipped smile as he moves to the side to let me in.
"She's in the kitchen cooking something or other."
"Thank you." I dip my head as I walk through the house to find my best friend.
Skid Row albums and photos litter the whole living room, and I have to refrain from snorting at how conceited Sebastian is. Don't get me wrong, he's a super tender-hearted guy and he takes really good care of Riley, but he can never get enough of himself. He's probably one of those guys that watches himself in the mirror while he has sex instead of watching his partner. I make a mental note to ask Riley when I finish with my rant.
My face lifts a tiny bit when I see her staring at a pot on the stove, completely entranced at the bubbles surfacing on the once-stagnant water.
"Hey." She flinches when I call out for her, making me laugh for the first time in a few hours.
"Ryan! Jesus Christ. I don't know where I was there for a second." She awkwardly chuckles as she walks toward me and pulls me into a hug. "What's wrong? Why is your face all fucked up?"
"Nikki's getting married." My bottom lip quivers as I fight the urge to break into hysterics once more.
"Really?" Her eyebrows raise as her mouth falls into a frown to match mine. "Oh, honey, I'm sorry." She runs her fingers through the ends of my hair as I sob into her shoulder. "When?"
"I don't know. When I dropped Wylie off he asked if he could have her next weekend, because he wants to take her to Donna's parents so he can propose."
"And how does that make you feel?" I quirk an eyebrow at her general therapist response.
"Obviously it makes me fucking upset, Riley!" I motion my hands to the tears falling down my face and she nods in understanding.
"Sorry, I meant more like why does it make you upset?" She ushers me to the living room couch, Sebastian no longer in sight.
"I- I don't know." I lie, my eyes attached to a platinum record hanging above the bay windows facing the street.
"Oh, come on, Ryan. Just admit you're still in love with him. The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have a problem." She tilts her head to me and I roll my eyes.
"I don't need you to spit the same shit I hear in meetings, I hear it once a week already." She leans back against the couch, her eyes wide in an effort to test me. "I'm not still in love with him. I just don't like the thought of him being married to someone else is all." I shrug my shoulders nonchalantly and she breathes out a scoff.
How can I admit I'm still in love with Nikki when I'm supposed to be in love with Layla?
"Look, I know you love Layla, honey. Nobody is saying that you don't." She reads my mind as she twirls her fingers into mine. "But we all know it's not the same way you loved Nikki."
Of course it's not. I've never loved anyone the way I love Nikki. My chest tightens at the thought that I'll never be able to experience that type of burning desire again. Sure, we fought like cats and dogs, but that's only because of how passionate we were.
"It doesn't matter if I still love him or not. We've both moved on." I sniff back the next round of tears as I refuse to shed anymore over that asshole. "The only thing we share now is Wylie. We aren't even nice to each other. We never talk without some type of hostility. He's always yelling and talking shit about either me or Layla, or me and Layla."
"You know why he does that, right?"
"Because he hates me?" I snort.
"Because he loves you."
"Oh, please." I roll my eyes at the idea, if he loved me then he wouldn't be so goddamn mean. If he loved me, he wouldn't be asking someone else to marry him. If he loved me, he would've never left me in the first place.
"The opposite of love isn't hate, Ryan, it's indifference." I give her a blank stare as her face beams with pride of her newly found emotional depth.
"Okay, Confucius."
"It's Elie Wiesel, actually."
"It was a joke." I laugh. "And no it wasn't actually, he recycled it from an old Austrian psychologist."
"Fuck off, Ryan. You always have to burst my damn bubble." She lets out a belly laugh as she slaps my arm and I lay my head against the back of the couch.
"What am I supposed to do, Riley?"
"You have two options. You can go profess your love to Nikki and beg him not to marry his bitch, or you can stay with Layla where you have a stable, loving, solid family and just try to let him go." She rubs my leg as she looks deep into my eyes, it's obvious what she thinks I should do.
"You're right. I should go home."
Nikki's POV
"She cried?"
"She cried." I nod my head at Tommy as he shoves another mouthful of ice cream into his mouth. "Then she nearly crushed my hand getting into her car and peeled out of the driveway."
"I told you she still loves you, man."
"No she doesn't, she's probably just pissed because she wants me to pine for her forever." I push my melting ice cream in a circle with my spoon, my mind too preoccupied to enjoy the chocolatey treat.
"You will be pining for her forever." He snorts out a laugh and takes another bite, his face twisting into pain. "Fuck. Brain freeze. Goddamnit." He stomps his foot under the table in an effort to kill the brain zap.
"Karma."
"Daddy, can I have another quarter? I have to beat Rhyan and I'm out of coins." Wylie bops back to the table from the small arcade in the corner of the ice cream shop, her big puppy dog eyes out in full effect.
"What do you say?"
"Please!" She holds out her hand, knowing I'll always cave as long as she asks politely.
"Fine." I dig into my pocket for my change. "What are you guys playing anyway?"
"We're shooting dinosaurs!" She makes a gun out of her thumb and pointer finger, pretending to shoot Tommy. "What's wrong, Uncle Tommy?"
"Brain freeze." He taps his forehead, his face slowly untwisting as the zap starts to fade.
"What's a brain freeze?" She tilts her head to the side as she places her hand on top of his head in an effort to find what's wrong.
"It's when you eat too much ice cream too fast and your brain starts to freeze from the cold."
"Aunty Riley says you don't have a brain, so how can it freeze?" I can't help but laugh, Tommy's eyebrows furrowing at her words. He looks at me with a 'help me' look, but I stay silent and let him have that all to himself.
"Riley is just mean. I have a brain just like everyone else."
"It's just located in the wrong head sometimes." He shoots me a death glare as I try to calm my laughter. "Here, baby." I give her a few quarters and she drops the conversation to skip back to the arcade.
"That woman will never forgive me."
"I mean, you did basically ditch her for another chick right in front of her face." I shrug my shoulders as a look of guilt floods his face. "You also never apologized for it."
"And have you apologized for ditching your wife for another woman the same night, Saint Nik?"
"She had made her bed already." I huff in annoyance, I don't want to talk about Ryan anymore. "Can we talk about something else, please? I'm trying to get her out of my head."
It's been two years, it's pathetic that I'm still upset over someone I was only with for the same amount of time. Someone that all I did was fucking fight with anyway. Is it even normal to feel this way? Or am I psychotic?
Maybe I feel so attached, because she was the only thing that got me through rehab and one of the only things that kept me (mostly) sober at such an uncomfortable time in my life.
Wylie always sleeps with the same teddy bear and if she doesn't have it, she freaks the fuck out. It's the only thing that calms her persistent nightmares. Maybe Ryan's just my teddy bear.
"You made any decisions about a singer yet?"
"I liked Corabi." I gratefully take the change of subject and try to shift my thoughts into business mode.
"Fuck yeah, man! He's my choice, too! I love his look. He's like the underdog version of Slash with those curls."
"Seriously?" I give him a cold stare and he blinks at me.
"Oh, sorry, dude." He mumbles as he shoves another bite of ice cream into his mouth. "Have you talked to Mick? Who'd he like?"
"Mick never likes anyone, but I think he hated Corabi a little less than the others. It's probably a good idea to insert another guitar into the mix to take some of the pressure off of him. His health seems to be getting worse lately."
"It's the stress, dude. Stress kills."
"Yeah, maybe."
"Fuck, dude, is it already eight? I gotta get home before Pam kills me." He glances at the clock on the wall behind me as his eyes widen in fear of his wife.
"Go pry your niece away from the dinosaurs." I nod my head toward the kids shooting at a screen, Wylie perched on top of a stool because she's too short to see on her own.
"I'm scared she'll bite me."
"She just might."
-
My brain is finally entranced in thoughts of Corabi with new ideas for songs floating around when we make it back home. I haven't felt this inspired in years, and I know I need to put it all down on paper before I lose it.
"Let's go get in bed, baby." Wylie looks at me with sleep-drunken eyes and groans, extending her arms for me to carry her up the stairs.
Her tiny body feels hot on my chest, small snores already filling my ears halfway up the stairs. If I could keep her right here against me for the rest of my life, I would be happy. I don't want her to grow anymore, she's already too big for my liking. I miss the days when she fit perfectly in my hands, staring up at me with her big eyes as if I was the only person in the world she could see.
"Will you marry me?"
My heart twists when I remember the day she was born, and how that feeling of elation seemed like it would never end. The perfect family of three, completely content with laying together on that hospital bed. The pure feeling of love shined through that room the entire time we were there.
Loveshine
Baby won't you let my love shine in
"Goodnight, princess. I love you so much." I gently lay her on her bed as she automatically reaches for her teddy that stays on her pillow throughout the day.
"I love you, daddy." She mumbles through tiredness, her snores picking back up as soon as I pull the covers to her shoulders.
No matter what Ryan and I did wrong, we did right by creating one of the most beautiful human beings the world will ever see.
I gently close her door almost to a shut, and look in the next room to see Rhyan passed out in his bed as well. It's nice when Wylie is here, because they wear each other out. I've always wanted a house full of children, and when they're both here it gives me a warm feeling of comfort.
I creep back down the stairs and breathe a sigh of relief when Donna is nowhere to be found. I don't want to have to deal with the cold shoulder she'll give because she wasn't invited to ice cream.
She would be happy if I never left her side for anything. Unlike Ryan, she was completely ready to go on the Monsters of Rock tour, and I have to lie and say the studio is a 'no chick' zone or she'd try to tag along there, too. I appreciate the love, but goddamn I feel like I can't breathe sometimes.
I shuffle through my desk drawer in search of a new journal and plop onto the den couch when I finally find one. It's moments like these I've missed the most, sitting by myself in my own space and letting the words just flow onto the lined paper.
I've walked a million miles climbin' up this mountain lookin' for your smile.
Where's my baby been?
My heart is like the ocean waitin' for your love to sail on in.
"Life is like that sometimes though, huh? Just ironic event after ironic event. The people you think are everything end up being nothing, and the people you barely know end up being the one's that mean the most. You do everything you can to stay in control then you end up in a fuckin' place like this anyway." Ryan stares out onto the ocean, her bare skin glistening from the sun setting in front of us.
"I'm glad you ended up here." My eyes meet hers as she gives me a bashful smile.
"I am, too, which is ironic in itself. I told myself I'd rather do time than go to rehab, but here I am, thinking it might be the best thing that's ever happened to me."
"I think it's gonna be the best thing that ever happened to me, too." I slide my hand towards hers as we watch the waves crash against our toes.
Let my loveshine.
Let my loveshine in.
Remember yesterday?
Spoke to me in riddles and mystery remains.
"Don't fucking touch that, Nikki! It's not ready!" Ryan tries to grab the spoon of cake batter away from me, but I reach my arm out to keep her away.
"You know I love cake batter. I can't help it!" My tongues slides across the front of the spoon as she bends my arm and falls into my chest. "Come on, you know you want some." I pull her closer into me as I hold the spoon up to her mouth.
"No! That's so bad for you, Nikki. It has raw eggs in it!" I flick the spoon onto her cheek, cake batter dripping down her tan skin. "You asshole!" Her laughter lights up the room and I think I could listen to that sound forever.
"Mmmm, so good." I lick up her cheek to get it all off as she falls into an even deeper fit of giggles.
"You're so gross!"
"You know you love me."
"I do. I really, really, really do." She shoves her lips into mine, humming at the sweet taste of cake batter residue on my mouth.
Be my oldest friend.
You held me in my youth and you'll hold me in the end again, my friend.
"Hey, baby. What are you workin' on?" My body tenses when Donna wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me from my pleasant thoughts.
"Oh-uh- nothing really. Just had some ideas and wanted to get them down before I head to bed." I stutter as she picks the journal from my hands and scans over the words.
"This is sweet, honey. I've never had a song written about me before." Her eyes shine with happiness and I avert my gaze to the other side of the room.
"Yeah, well, there you go."
Ryan's POV
"Hey, baby. How was your day?" Layla finally rolls in about three in the morning, collapsing onto the bed in exhaustion.
"It was fine." I shrug my shoulders as I put Misery on pause. "How was work?"
"Same shit, different night. Nothing too exciting, just a few drunk assholes like always. It's boring now that you're not there with me."
"Layla..."
About a year ago I decided on the path I wanted to take for my life and enrolled into the local community college to take chemical dependency classes and be a drug counselor. Dr. Mouse has had a profound effect on my life, and I hope to do that for someone else one day.
Layla understood, but she still likes to make me feel guilty for abandoning the Whisky every once in a while. She's had a hard time finding a reliable replacement and has had to pick up most of the slack by herself.
"I know, I know. You need to focus on school. I'm not trying to make you feel bad or get you to come back." She grabs my hand as she gives me a weak smile, her eyes studying my face. "You okay? Why are you still up?"
"Wylie had a hard time going to Nikki's today. I have a feeling she'll be calling any minute, crying about a nightmare."
"That poor baby. I thought we were past all that. I wonder why she has so many nightmares."
"Fuck you, Nikki! You haven't made any effort with your daughter in two months and now you want to walk in here and tell me it's all my fault?!"
"It is your fucking fault! If it weren't for you, we'd still be a happy family and I'd be with her everyday!" He moves for the screaming child in my arms and I take a step back out of his reach.
"A happy family? We were never a happy fucking family!"
"Give me my fucking kid!" He grabs ahold of her back and yanks her out of my arms, sending her into an even bigger fit of screams.
"Momma!"
"She doesn't want you! She wants me! Give her back to me right now!" I lunge forward as she reaches her arms out for me, Nikki swinging her in the opposite direction.
"M-Momma! Momma! Momma!" She gets louder with every screech, her face turning purple from crying so hard.
"Goddamnit, Nikki, she's blue in the face! Give her to me so I can calm her down and I'll let you take her, okay? Please just give her to me, she's not breathing right! Please!" Tears of desperation cascade down my cheeks and I let out a guttural sob when he finally hands her back to me.
"I dunno." I lie through gritted teeth and Layla shrugs her shoulders in response.
"I'm gonna get in the shower. I love you." She kisses my forehead before she disappears into the bathroom Nikki and I once shared.
I hate when Wylie is gone. I'm plagued with gut-wrenching anxiety every second that she's not with me and it drives me insane. Through the first months of the divorce, Wylie and I got unbelievably close and it took another solid four months for her to be okay with going to Nikki's, and to be okay without me. In those four months of adjustment, she would scream for me as soon as I got back in my car to leave. The worst pain as a mother is knowing your child needs you, but having to let her go anyway.
I think Nikki hated me the most during those four months, because I 'turned her against him', but really it was just that her and I leaned on each other in the painful absence of him. We learned to be okay without him, because we had each other, and it was just plain difficult for us to be apart after that.
I've probably created an unhealthy separation anxiety between us, but oh well, it's not a crime to love your mother.
"Hello?" I pick up the phone on the first ring.
Call it a mother's intuition, but I know when my daughter needs me.
"Hey, uh, it's me." I quirk an eyebrow at Nikki's soft voice, my heart starting to race at the thought that something's wrong with Wylie.
"What's wrong? Is she okay?" I swing my legs over the side of the bed, ready to jump up and go as soon as he says the word.
"She's fine, she's asleep. She's actually sleeping pretty hard." He nervously chuckles as his breath creates static on the line. "We went and had ice cream with Tommy tonight, and she wore herself out shooting dinosaurs on some arcade game. You wanna know something she said tonight that will make you smile?"
"Okay?" My voice is a whisper, my mind torn between confusion and amazement that he's actually being nice to me. What the fuck is the point of this phone call?
"She put on her tutu and asked me if she was pretty, and when I told her she was the prettiest girl in the whole world, she told me no. That the prettiest girl in the whole world is you."
Tears accumulate in the back of my eyes as I try to reach for words to reply, coming up completely empty. The silence on the phone is deafening for a few seconds as he shuffles around awkwardly.
"Ryan?"
"Yeah? I'm still here." I clear my throat, wiping the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand.
"I couldn't argue with her. She was right." His voice wavers with emotion and my chest heaves into a sob.
"Please only call me if Wylie needs something." It's clear in my voice that I'm bawling, and I slam the phone onto the receiver, crawling back under the covers to pretend to be asleep when Layla gets out.