♪♫••═════CHAPTER 21 ═════••♬ ♭
An internal alarm woke me, and I lay staring into the shadows, enjoying the feel of Jack's leg twisted with mine, and the sound of his breath. A few quiet snores, the ones I remembered from the hospital, intermittently broke up his breathing. It had been more than five years since anyone but Tristan had been in my bed.
Tristan was the reason I waked, and my gaze drew spontaneously to the door left open a crack to listen for him, once Jack and I were done and dozing. Padding to the bathroom, I took care of that urge, and my eyes blissfully fell to the two foil packets in the trash.
Stepping into a steamy shower I began to soap up, and every brush of the lofah caressed skin still tingling from last night. After washing and rinsing my hair, I wrapped in my robe and returned to the bedroom.
Jack had moved to lay diagonal in the bed, as if searching for me in his sleep, and now rested with his head on my pillow. Easing back into the bed, I allowed my fingers what they craved, the slick softness of his hair, the smooth firmness of his skin, and stopped short of what I really wanted, contemplating the light of dawn through the slats of the mini blinds. Unable to resist, I pressed my lips to his chest, then again..and again...unconsciously drawing closer to my craving..and was rewarded when he responded in a very conscious state.
“Mariss....” That particular utterance of my name was an addiction. “Mariss mmh...”
“Mmmh,” I drew out the echo against him and savored the immediate response.
Minutes later, my cheek was against his chest, and he was mumbling in sated satisfaction about the best way to wake up in the morning.
With another look at the window, I unwillingly whispered, “You need to get out of here before Tristan gets up.”
Fully awake, he raised his head, and the shadowy pools of his eyes sought mine, “Okay," he agreed, then, “Wait do you mean leave, leave? Or is it okay if I move to the couch?”
Always he double checked with me any important decisions about Tristan, and this was reassuring, and endearing. One of his hands stroked through my hair, and my lips turned to the warmth of that inked forearm as I answered, “The couch.”
Despondent, yet entranced, I watched as he returned from the bathroom and picked through the clothing on the floor, dressing. Lastly, he pulled on his tee shirt, then pouncing onto the bed, he hunkered over me on all fours and raised goosebumps with a line of kisses down my neck.
“Mariss?”
“Mmh?”
“When are you going to be ready to tell him?”
My muscles went rigid as he spoke against my skin, and I pushed at him needing to see his eyes. The room was getting lighter by the minute and I studied his earnest expression. In the middle of the night I had waked intertwined with Jack and idly fantasized telling Tristan that Jack was his daddy. But, in that imagining, we were also telling our son that we were married, or were about to be married. In my fantasy, there was a future with the three of us, and no fear of me losing Tristan in this equation to some belated custody hearing.
“I don't know...” Fingering the necklace dangling from his neck, I considered, and softly replied, “We will figure it out today. Okay?”
With a last press of a kiss to my hairline, he bounded out of the room, cracking the door behind him as it was.
The sun was now bright, casting vertical shadows on the wall, and I closed my eyes, yet still couldn't drift into any sleep stage, although we had been up most of the night. A vibration sounded from the night stand, and my head twisted as the face of Jack's cell lit up. Resolutely, I ignored it, but when it sounded again only a couple of minutes later, my curiosity won. With a wary look through the narrow slit, to the shadowy hall beyond the door, I brought up the missed calls finding them both from 'Randi.'
At that precise moment, a text came through and because I was holding the phone, I got a preview. Again, from 'Randi' reading, 'Sugar, let me know as soon as you know if you will be back in time.'
Stretching my hand I was about to return the phone when the next text came through from 'Mom' asking, “Jacks did you tell her? I can't wait to meet him. Call your mother!
Letting the phone drop back to the stand as if it were a dangerous snake, I rolled over, and, as soon as I settled comfortably, heard the clink of Tristan's crutches. He stopped in the hall bathroom, and afterward pushed open my door.
“Morning Momma!” Mustering a liveliness that, after viewing the texts, I no longer felt, I return chanted the greeting and he asked, “Can I feed Bally...”
When his words dwindled, I raised to see what his wide eyes beheld, and found Jack's socks and shoes among my discarded clothing. Falling to my pillow, I brought a reassuring hand to my robe and in a desperate attention diversion asked, “What do you want for breakfast?”
Deciding he would choose a cereal, he hopped off, and I followed a few minutes behind him, taking the time to pull on a pair of jeggings and a long tunic top. My bare feet hit the cool tile of the hall floor, and my strides stopped when I saw Tristan propped on his crutches before the couch, and Jack blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
“Did you spend the night?” The young boy wondered, and since I was behind him, unable to read his face, I tried to read his tone, but failed.
Jack pushed Bally's snoot away from his face and sat up. “I thought if I was here when you first woke up that we could drive through McDonalds and get some breakfast.”
“Okay.” Tristan took a couple of steps toward the kitchen, then undeterred made a second inquiry, “But did you spend the night?”
Jack's gaze came over Tristan's shoulder, meeting mine, and I only grinned back. Tristan's persistence was a direct genetic link from his father, and it was fun to watch paybacks come back around to Jack.
“Actually, I did,” Jack admitted. “It got really late and I thought you and I could surprise your Momma with some breakfast. Is she still asleep?” With an innocence that would have fooled even me, had I not been staring into his eyes at that very moment, he made the inquiry.
“No, but we could still surprise her,” Tristan was gleeful at the idea.
“Okay buddy, I will just go tell her that you and I are going to the store for...for...”
“For toilet paper!” A slight bounce accompanied the tot's exuberant answer.
“Are we? Are you out ?” Jack inquired of the hall bathroom that he had not been in since the previous afternoon.
“No. But I can hide it.” Tristan's matter of fact statement had me staring in surprise, yet again. Maybe he was more like his father than I would have wanted, I thought; comparing the toilet paper deception to the cryptic phone messages I had just intercepted.
Darting into my room before my son turned around, I stood brushing my hair into a ponytail and turned from the dresser when Jack rattled a knock and entered.
In a loud stage voice he explained, “Tristan and I are going to the store to pick up some toilet paper.”
Perching on the bed, he pulled his socks and shoes on, shooting me an impish smile, and retrieved his phone. With a slight pucker of a frown, he punched in presumably answers to the texts, then clipped the device to his jeans.
“What do you want from MickyD's?” The whisper was in the midst of a quick kiss.
“I don't care. Whatever Tristan picks out for me.”
“You okay?” His fingers drifted down my neck from the slightly visible whisker burns to my chest where the slight sweet bruises on sensitive skin was now covered.
Fiddling with the hair bands scattered on the dresser top, I wanted to demand answers to those texts. At the same time, I didn't want to show my insecurity. The best way to solve this custody situation, if there even was one, was to make him marry me. The only way to solve the issues of my heart was to make him fall in love with me.
“Yeah.” Catching his eyes in the mirror, my reply was neutral. “I was just thinking about some stuff. We need to talk.”
“Okay. About what?”
“Just stuff. It can wait,”
“Okay.” With a lingering sweet hug, he was gone, and a piece of me hoped he would stew on whatever was waiting. Actually, it would give me time to bring my emotions under control.
“So you really want to talk?” Jack closed the distance between us on the couch as soon as Tristan was napping in his room later that afternoon.
“Not when you put it like that,” I curved a smile into his hair and when we adjourned to my room happily put the talk off for a hushed half hour or so.
“I need to talk to you too, but you go first,” His fingers brushed over the line of my cesarean scar as he spoke.
Oh great. How was it he always bested me at my own games. Now I was the one waiting anxiously. Pulling away from his hand, I twisted, reaching for the tea I had carried with me to the room. “I need to schedule the paternity test and I guess I just wondered how long you were staying. Because it has to be done by--”
“Paternity test?!” Raising up on an elbow, he shoved his hair from his eyes.
“I have to do it since I cashed the check, right?”
“What?”
Slinging out of bed, I stalked to the dresser and pulled the folder from a drawer. Flinging the long legal sheet into his lap, I kept walking and closed myself in the bathroom.
When I returned, dressed, he had also pulled on everything but a shirt and shoes and the paper lay abandoned on the bed beside him. “Mariss,” Gently, his eyes searched mine, “You know this was before...”
Crossing to the door, I cracked it to better hear down the hallway, then in pacing the room, I came too close to him, and he reached for my hand.
“I remember signing this letter. But after that I tried to call you to find out when the surgery was. If Tristan was mine,” here he slowed at whatever he saw in my eyes and proceeded carefully, “and I was beginning to have a feeling he was, else you wouldn't have called, right? I wanted to be around for this surgery, to make sure he didn't want for anything. To just be there. Anyhow, like I told you at the hospital, I had the lawyer figure out the details of the surgery and, ever since, I've never thought of this,” He rattled the paper, “again.”
“So?” With that sarcastic rejoinder, I snatched the paper that weighed so hard on my heart and head; the paper that he had 'never thought of again.' “That doesn't change the fact that I have to do it right? That Tristan has to do it.”
The last part of that sentence was added as a correction when I thought for the hundredth time of the test, that Tristan would not even know was an indignity; a test done on kids whose father's were reluctant to claim them.
“No, honey.” His dark eyes were as sweet as the endearment. “I will get it straightened out. I will call the first thing in the morning,” He promised of Monday.
“So,” This time the word was hesitant, and I paused wondering if I dare speak the next thorn in my soul; my real fear within the words of that letter. “So, are you going for custody or not?”
Standing, he moved to the chair where his shirt had been flung and I tried not to hunger over the decorated arms and sinewy shoulders that shrugged into stretchy cotton. Not able to sit through this deliberate hesitation, I surged to my feet and with a tip of my chin glared into his eyes.
This man had loved me all over. Was he now going to commit the ultimate hate and fight me for the only thing besides him that meant the world to me?!
“Jack?!”
“I've missed five years of his life. And they were hard years for him--”
His words may as well have been chipped in bricks, because with each one, I flinched with pain, and sank back to the bed crushed by the weight.
“You are a great mother.” His words were soft. “And I know my life is probably not the life for him...” Before I could breathe easier, he continued, “I would, of course, change what I'm doing. Stop touring. I was already in the process anyway of some huge changes in the music. That's what these meetings have been about--”
My cell came to life with the ring tone Clayton had set up at lunch one day; a recording of himself in a crazy voice saying, 'Miss Marissa pick me up.' Jack glared at the device and I ignored it as if it hadn't happened. “What are you saying?!”
Tearing his eyes from my phone, he met mine and I saw sympathy, as well as some type of determination, in their dark depths. “I'm saying I don't know yet. I guess I'm saying that I do not want six states between me and my son. And I'm still trying to figure out what to do about that.”
My breath felt sucked out in a suffocating second, and I sought sanity; maybe it wasn't as sinister as it sounded. It was expected that he would want some time; weekends; holidays. I recalled my own childhood. The next level, joint custody, would rip me up, but if it happened, I was beginning to see how great of a father he would be. As for full custody, I couldn't even think it without tearing.
“What then? Holidays?” Studying his stoic face, I tried again, “Joint?”
Finally, he spoke, but it was the last thing I wanted to hear. “I want more than that, Mariss. So much time has been wasted. I want it all--”
“No!” The word growled out of my mouth as more than one syllable, and I felt like I was going to puke. “No.”
I wanted to scream every curse I knew; call him every ugly name. I wanted to cry. I wanted to take Tristan and run. Instead a plea squeaked out, “Don't do this...”
“Listen,” Before I could blink, he was across the room kneeling beside me, and the harder I hurt, the harder my heart became.
How could he have shared a passion so hot, and all along had this simmering on the back burner. There is no way he gave a damn about me, and if he was this cold, there was no way he ever would.
'Did you tell her? We can't wait to meet him' The text flashed into my mind. I guess he had just told me. And the next text, the beautiful Leanna Miranda Gavin, 'Sugar, sugar, sugar...'
Were we banging as friends? Is that all he was capable of? What if Leanna Miranda silently loved him too?
Phase three; 'Make Jack love me as much as I love him' was a major fail.
Putting as much distance as possible between us, I swore, “I will fight you on this. And I may not have money. But don't forget, I know things.”
“What do you know?” Getting back to his feet, he seemed slightly crestfallen, but also amused, as if it were one of our word games. Defiant dark brows arched. “That I sit at home with my dog most nights? That every chance I get I spend it with my family? A stable family I might add. Parents who are loved by the public and who have been married for more than half their lifetime. A grandmother who hasn't missed a church service in twenty years. A sister who is the newest sensation of the surfing culture, and an uncle and grandfather that--”
“You have a rape charge that was never resolved!” Interrupting his accolades, I spat the threat.
♪♫••════••♬ ♭
♪♫••═════CHAPTER 22 ═════••♬ ♭
Astonishment crossed his face, maybe that I would even say such a thing to him.
Suddenly it felt strange to me, too, that I could respond with such hate after reacting with the degree of love and passion that passed between us minutes ago. Part of me was sick at the evil words that I had just flung between us. Did this make me as cold as him? Still, I rationalized, like a mother lion I was fiercely protecting Tristan even if I had to take a tiger by the tail.
“I explained that to you,” He seemed hurt by my words, disappointed in me, and ashamed that this thing was a part of his past. “It's not true and you said you knew.”
“You should go.” Unable to look at the mixture of emotions on his face, I turned. Unfortunately, I faced the mirror, so I didn't miss the slow fury marinating his face.
“That's always your answer isn't it?” He taunted nastily. “Distance.”
“You don't know anything about me.”
“I know how to make you scream.”
A shocked breath lodged in my throat, and I wrestled with my gaze trapped by his dark challenge.
The soft answer used as sarcasm instead of seduction heated up my insides and inflamed my fury as it only reminded me that he could be intimate in my bed and indifferent out of it.
As I eyed the various things on the dresser, choosing what I wanted to throw, he went on with the argument.
“You wouldn't tell me about Tristan, because you felt safe with this secret living so far away. When you got mad at the hospital you wanted me to leave, and now you are saying it again. You run away from problems or push them away from you.” Softly, “I know more about you than you know about yourself.”
“I call bullshit on that. You think you've got me figured out after knowing me for a couple of weeks--”
“Call it what you want but you need a wake up call. You are missing out on good things because you are too scared to see that they are even there.”
Again, I piddled with the hair accessories on my dresser, and the silence stretched. He was right. There was nothing I wanted more than for him to disappear; to leave me in my misery. But, after that speech, I refused to say anything of the sort.
“Momma?” The tiny voice whipped me around, and protectively, I advanced on my little boy, who was peering into the slit of the door. “Want to see what I can do?”
A pull of the door knob swung the door in, and I grinned seeing his mischievous smile, wondering what it was concerning this time. Bally was on his heels, minus any pranks on her fur.
A piece of me wanted to glance at Jack, to see his proud smile, but I was so hurt by his deceit I could not.
“Ready?” Standing in the doorway, he drug the moment out with suspense.
“I'm ready!” I accompanied the enthused exclamation with an equally excited smile.
“I know I'm ready!” Jack's deep voice agreed.
Dramatically, Tristan held his arms slightly up, and his crutches raised like wings. Watching the floor, he took one step, then another, then another! Swaying some, he caught himself on his crutches, then turned his eyes to mine, seeking my reaction.
Jack and I reached him at the same time, our knees doing a synonymous guitar solo type slide the last couple of feet across the floor. Enfolding the tiny body in a bear hug, I dabbed my damp eyes on one of his tiny shoulders. Jack's fingers brushed mine as he participated in the hug the best he could, and realizing I was being selfish, I passed Tristan his way. My eyes filled emotionally again while watching them wrapped together.
Jack went with Tristan to the kitchen, for the chocolate milk and Teddy Grahams he requested and I fell face down on the bed, by sheer will power holding in my tears. Tears of happiness. Tears of fear. Tears of sadness and betrayal.
From the den, the television noisily came to life with one of Tristan's shows and then Jack was back with me. The mattress dipped with his weight, and I stiffened, but remained with my face comfortingly in the comforter. It could be my imagination, but it smelled like Jack.
“I don't fly out until Friday. And since my schedule is going to be busy for a couple of weeks after that, I don't want to change plans and miss out on time with Tristan just because we had a fight.”
A fight? I thought hysterically. My whole life was culminating into one giant train wreck and he calls it a fight? “We didn't have a fight.” Rolling over, I glared into his face. “A fight is something eventually over and done with with a few apologies.” And makeup sex! My mind tormented with sensations barely passed.
Jack quietly studied my face and I could not find even a trace of guilt in his. Oddly, I was seeing mirrored in his expression, every emotion I was feeling; the biggest of those being betrayal.
Choosing not to respond to my words, he looked away. “All I'm saying is I can spend my time with Tristan here, or take him to the hotel every day. So figure it out and let me know. Also, before I fly home, we are telling him.”
When he stood, I propped on my arms incredulously inquiring, “You would really do that?” Deepening my voice I ridiculed, “I'm your father, and by the way, you're living with me from now on!”
“You know that's not what I meant.” Disgusted with my words, he exited the room, heading down the hall to the den, and heaven help me, I watched that departure, the way his jeans molded to his backside, and the fit of his tee shirt on his shoulders, with as much interest as I ever had.
Retreating to my cry zone, a hot shower, I continually adjusted the water until the hot water tank bled empty, and only then did I step out.
Jack was teaching Tristan a drum beat when I twisted the door open with pruned fingers, and passed the two of them in my trek to the kitchen. Foraging the pantry to figure a meal from the ingredients on hand, I gave myself over to some sort of numbness.
Confused and conflicted I listened to his interactions with Tristan, a piece of me feeling like I should demand that he leave, and a part of me feeling as if I should not deny the two of them any time together.
Jack stayed for jambalaya, and Tristan did not seem to notice we were not speaking. After reading him a book for bed, before his bath rather than after, he hugged the little boy, and promised to him to return the following day.
From the kitchen, where I had been a cleaning maniac, I again indulged my favorite pastime, running my eyes down his backside, and my heart physically hurt when without a word he let himself out.
The second Tristan heard my story and was in bed, I texted Olivia to call me, adding a code we had between us. 911 combined with 'call me' was a real emergency, and had been used twice; once when I was in labor and once when Tristan busted his chin open on the patio. 910 was an emotional emergency used moments after Kel cheated on me, and now. Secure in the knowledge that my friend would call on her first work break, I curled miserably into a ball in the bed.
The phone was still in my hand from Olivia's late night consolation when the doorbell peeled the next morning, and I jumped from the bed in a panic. Again, I had overslept on one of Tristan's physical therapy days. Yanking a brush through my hair, I peered down at yesterday's jeggings and wrinkled shirt still on my body, and fit a fresh shirt on.
Jack, not the young professional woman, stood just beyond the peephole. Dressed in his usual attire, his appearance was fresh, unlike me. His hair, hanging long and loose, was still damp. The only sign of stress was slight shadows tinting the area beneath his eyes.
“You're early,” I mumbled, stepping back so he could come inside.
“Didn't know I had an appointment.”
“Speaking of, Tristan's therapist will be here in a half hour.” From down the hall I heard Tristan's t.v., meaning he was awake, just not up and around. “If I get a shower and dress, can you make sure he gets dressed? And there are some blueberry muffins--”
“Sure, no problem.” His eyes ran sweetly over me, and although he moved on down the hall, for a moment, the atmosphere felt intimate.
The shower restored my state of mind, as well as energy level, and soon I was trying not to laugh when the PT went all fan girl upon seeing Jack.
“Oh!” With a twirl of her hair she blurted, “Did anyone ever tell you you look like Jack Stone?”
“His name IS Jack.” Tristan informed.
Wait, you ARE Jack Stone? Oh my Go—Oh!” All of this gushed as Jack continuously shook his head in horror with cautionary glances at Tristan. But, his decorated arms, in photos, on the internet and in magazines, were a dead give away.
Even more amusing, was Tristan's take on this. His wide eyes took in the scene, but he said nothing as his father signed the hem of the young woman's scrub top and I used my phone to take a picture of Jack standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders..
During the therapy session, the young woman's eyes were more on Jack than Tristan and this was a shame because Tristan took a half a dozen unaided steps. My heart paced with happiness, and Jack moved against me, lacing his fingers with mine. Despite the animosity and anger fogging my heart, I leaned against him, mutual with this momentous moment.
“I did it! I'm walking like you!” Tristan happily sang to me, but he was exhausted and leaning heavily on his crutches once more.
Jack saw the PT to the door, buying her silence with the promise of an autographed print of the picture taken on my phone. All in all, it was brilliant to subtly withhold the picture until he was safely out-of-town. What he generously offered was to blow it up into a few sizes. I wondered how many ruses he had, and how many times he had to use them.
Tristan was having his own thoughts, as well because he asked, “Why did you write on Miss Dana's shirt?”
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