Off Her Rockers (Loving All Wrong #3.5) (15 page)

I glared, but he didn’t seem to notice this. He just ran up to us like a kid on Christmas morning.

“Ian!” Jacob shouted when he spotted Davian. Yanking my hair, he pointed at his father. “Ian pay’t me.”

In the time I’ve spent away from Jacob, he’d learned quite a few new words. It was things like that made me feel like a horrible, horrible mother. To have missed so much, and for what reason? Relationships that turned out to be shit?

Obviously, Jacob remembered Davian from when he visited him that one time. Made sense now why he didn’t understand the name, Davi. He’d already dubbed him a name of his own. Ian.

Davian came with outstretched arms, and Jacob went willingly, patting his father’s chest and poking him in the eye.

Dodging Jacob’s assault, Davian leaned in to kiss me on the lips. In time, I realized his aim and quickly turned my face so his kiss met my cheek instead.

Eyebrows drawn down, he studied me.

Through gritted teeth, I hissed low, “I’m
not
playing this game with you, Davi.”

He looked a little hurt by this, eyelashes grouping together.

Mel materialized and relieved me of my luggage, and I walked off, leaving him and his father and following Mel through the crowd straight to the Range, blocking out all the questions hurled at me about Xavier. Just hearing his name alone hurt sometimes.

From time to time, I chatted on the phone with Xena about a whole bunch of nothing. She never mentioned Xavier, and I never ask about him. He was off limits.

I hadn’t told her what I witnessed with Tex and that groupie. Mainly because she never mentioned Tex, either. Maybe she figured out on her own that he was a piece of shit and came to her senses.

The Range door opened. Davian climbed into the back with me and strapped Jacob into the car seat I’d had Mel install for him, seeing as she seemed to be double-agenting with Davian these days.

Eyes on his son, Davian focused on his task while Jacob flailed around spewing crap. I could see his discontent. “I don’t get why it’s a big deal if you’re not with him anymore.”

“It doesn’t matter that I’m not with him. We talked about this. Give me a goddamn heads-up before you
use
me to make yourself look good!”

“Go’dan!” Jacob shouted and then giggled.

Dave, who climbed into the front with Mel, gruffed into the confinements of the car without turning his head, “I would appreciate it if you both refrained from swearing in front of my grandson.”

My eyes flicked up to the rear-view mirror and found his weary blue ones staring back at me.

I rolled mine.

“I’m not
using
you,” Davian defended, yanking my attention back to him.

“Then what do you call all this?!” I waved my hand indicating the paparazzi outside. “You knew what you were doing when you followed me home drunk that night. You knew what you were doing when you held me in the lobby. You knew what you were doing when you showed up outside the bank at the same time I did, even though we
agreed
on different times. And you know what you’re doing right now, tipping off the paparazzi so they could get photos of
you
picking me and your son up from the airport.”

He shook his head at me. “You refuse to take me back, Ally. You ever think that maybe I just like the
idea
of us doing all these things
together
? You ever think maybe I just want it to be
real
so bad that I would go out of my way to get people talking, so you’d realize how good we could be together?”

Mel drove off.

I gripped my head, hoping that would make it all stop. I was going insane. He was driving me insane. With a growl, I punched my fist into the back of Mel’s headrest. Repeatedly.

Mel was used to me losing it by now, so she kept driving as if nothing out of the norm was happening.

“You had two chances to choose me!” I yelled, shifting to face him. A quieted and confused Jacob sat between us, staring. “Two, Davi. Two. In none of those instances did you choose
me
. You
never
chose me.”

Davian’s eyes went glacial, nostrils flaring as he watched me as if I’d sprouted horns. “I left my fiancée for you! I. Left. Her. Like you
asked
me to. And then you turned your—” His voice broke, his expression crumpling. As though resolving not to be weak in this, he squeezed his fists and tightened his jaw. “You turned your back on me. You chose
him
. And where is he now, huh? Where is your
king
?”

Shaking his head, he laughed derisively, mocking me. “He chose her, didn’t he? Jess.
Jessica Stucco
. The same woman I left for you. He chose his precious Jess because she was free and he saw that he could have her. Just like I thought he would.” He laughed again. “I
warned
you.”

As his words munched and nibbled away at my soul, swallowing my soundless screams, I turned from him and gazed out the window at the city flying by.

I had no retort. Because he
did
warn me. He
did
choose me over Jess. Even if it took him forever to do so, in the end,
he chose me
, and I rejected him. Turned my back on a man I was one-hundred percent sure loved me, and entrusted my heart to someone I
hoped
would love me more than he did. In the end, I lost.
I
was the loser here.

After a long, long moment of silence, even from Jacob, I heard Davian say, his voice soft and without fight, “
He
was the one ‘using’ you, Ally. Not me.” A pause. “He used
all
of us.”

By the time we got to Davian’s new house, the only person talking was Jacob. Everyone else was silent. Tense. Just going through the mechanics of unloading from the vehicle.

Unbuckling Jacob from his car seat, I transferred him to my lap and remained where I was. I wrapped my arms around him. Hugged him tight. This was where I said goodbye. Davian agreed I could have him whichever two days of the week I chose.

I would be judged for this. Temporarily relinquishing Jacob to Davian. I would be accused of taking the easy way out. Running from the responsibilities of motherhood, all too happy to cast it all upon Davian.

Whatever. I was doing this because, regardless of what I felt for Xavier, I still loved Davian. I believe me—and my crazy cousin—have hurt him enough. Considering he missed some of the most precious moments of his son’s life because of my lies, what he asked of me wasn’t unreasonable. How fair would it be to withhold this one request from him?

Growing fussy, Jacob wriggled and jerked in my arms. I knew that gripe. Already tired of being in one place too long. The back of the car was boring him now.

Releasing my boa-constricting arms from around him, I set his chubby little body to stand on my lap. He immediately began poking my face, letting out short bursts of laughter each time I dodged a poke. Clearly, hurting people gave him pleasure. Let’s hope he doesn’t grow up to be a psychopath.

Seizing one of his poking hands, I told him, “Mommy loves you, okay?”

He continued assaulting me with his free hand. “Aweayda a wuvu kay?”

I had no idea what that was, but I smiled and reassured him again. Just in case Davian ever tried painting an ugly picture of me. “Yes. I, me, your mommy,
loves
you endlessly. I mess up sometimes. I think of myself instead you sometimes. I leave you sometimes. Hand you over to others sometimes. None of it means I don’t love you. Okay? I never, ever regretted giving birth to you. Ever. You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

His free hand kept poking relentlessly, so I grabbed it to keep him still and stared into his bright blue eyes. “No matter what anyone tells you about me, always remember that you are mine, and
I love you
. I am not a bad person. I’m just misunderstood.”

Jacob’s smooth brown eyebrows drew in, eyes darting all about my face. “A wuvu?”

I laughed. This time tears came with it. I crushed him to me again, wishing I could crawl inside of him and start life all over again. “Yes, I do.”

At the sudden jerk of car door opening, I lowered my head and tried to wipe my tears in Jacob’s cotton shirt, but the sucker leaped, attempting to escape my crushing hug, shouting, “Ian! Ian pay’t me!”

Loosening my grip on him, I quickly wiped my tears with the back of my hand instead, keeping my head dipped as his father took him from me.

Jacob babbled on, but Davian was silent, still lingering by the door.

I didn’t know what he was waiting for. I didn’t ask. I didn’t look.

“You’re not coming in?” he asked after a while. “Help Dad get settled?”

“No,” I told my lap. “He’s your father, not mine.”

Long silence. Then, “Ally, I’m—”

“Don’t, Davi. I don’t need your apology.”
Because everything you said was true.

I heard a sigh, some movements, and some jingle. A bunch of keys dropped in my lap.

I stared at the keys and then forced myself to look up at him. Before I could ask the question, he answered, “Spare keys to the house; reassurance that I’m not stealing him from you. You can come here whenever you want to see your son. Stay as long as you want. He’s not
your
son, and he’s not
my
son. He’s
our
son.”

He closed the door, and I watched him walk up the steps to his mansion.

With
our
son.

I opted to do a power-walk home after a cross-fit session with my trainer. From the gym to my apartment the distance wasn’t long, so most mornings instead of using Mel, I walked, using the time to clear my head.

Having about six hundred dollars’ worth of coffee left from that thousand dollars’ worth of free coffee Xavier had hooked up at Starbucks for me, I dropped in during my walk back and got a Frappuccino. Sweet, sweet reward after a grueling workout.

People stared at me a lot these days. After all, I was the center of a love square with a baby thrown into the mix. I wasn’t half as famous as the other three, though, so I walked on the streets wherever I felt like it without ducking. No way would I let paparazzi dictate how I live.

As I ambled down the street enjoying the unhurriedness of the morning, cautiously keeping my mind off all things Davian-Xavier-Jessica related, I sipped and savored my coffee, and smiled and waved at strangers. Trying out the whole nice, unselfish thing.

It was nice.

Only it didn’t last long, as I stopped in my tracks by the glimpse of a magazine cover through a store window. It looked like him. Same height, same build, same hair color, and length…except I didn’t want to believe it was him.

I didn’t want to believe it was him because this person had long, familiar fingers curled around the long, frosted neck of a half-empty Greygoose bottle, and the crook of that arm was hooked around the neck of a tall skinny blonde, her bony, glittery nail-polished fingers pressed to his chest.