Unlike Any Other (Unexpected #1) (22 page)

2015

“Yes, I disappeared for a few weeks,” Porter adds, his chocolate eyes staring at the floor, his hands inside his pockets, and his shoulders slumped. “Trying to decide what to do with the baby. But I talked too much when I was drunk and Chris heard that I had a thing for her.”

“Code word,” Chris says. “
A thing
… Fuck, if I had known, Porter. I would’ve pounded you, after taking care of my child.”

Porter ignores him and continues.

“Before you two talked to the publicist and set up the fake relationship, I went home.” Porter looks up at me. “One last time, one last kiss before you hated me… instead, I found you curled up in a fetal position crying as you held a small picture.”

I take a long breath realizing I’m close to the finish-line and everything is about to be out in the open.

“I turned on the cell phone that had been dead for an entire month,” Porter takes over, his eyes absent. “A wave of texts appeared at once, voicemails, grainy pictures of my child, possible names, and begging me to come home. Telling me she wasn’t feeling well, telling me she needed me home.”

‘“He’s dead.” The tiniest voice I’ve ever heard announced.” Porter doesn’t look up. “It destroyed me. What I did to her killed me.”

“Is there more to this story?” Chris’s brows crease waiting for a response.

The sad-slumped posture changes, Porter straightens his body, his nostrils flair, and he tries to pin me down with that intense glare.

Not again. I ignore it and nod once to Chris, who keeps his attention on me and maintains to keep his anger at bay.

“Care to share?” Chris’s eyes soften as I gulp the mass of tears draining in the back of my throat. “Take your time, sweetie.”

Gabe rubs my back.

“Three days after he left… I went to see you.” I drop my head.

Once I had been strong enough to drive, I packed most of my belongings and shoved them the best I could inside of Eleanor.

I set my GPS and headed home with my parents. There was hope that they’d be there for me while I licked my wounds.

Throughout the entire journey, I imagined how I’d break the news to them. After two long days, I had no idea how I’d tell them, how much I had lied to them, and how broken I was.

“Wait, you drove the thirty-two hours straight?” Gabriel gives me that fatherly look.

“No, I stopped twice, Dad.”

2012

I took breaks, stopped in New Mexico, and then again in Idaho to sleep for a few hours. When I arrived home, my body could barely stay awake, my legs were giving up, and my eyes had to be taped open.

Porter was there, in my house, with my parents. While I cried about the loss of my child, the loss of him, the loss of my world. I was confused, scared, and lonely.

And he was in my house.

I quivered in anger as he said the most outrageous thing, “are you here to hurt me again?”

Hurt him? He thought I had hurt him? Astonished by what he spoke, I ran through the house looking for my parents. They were in the dining room along with the magazines on top of the table.

“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Gabe asked.

“It’s always the pretty ones who get to be on the magazine cover,” I remembered saying. “Then there’s the truth that you hide, or is it what’s behind the truth that is, in fact, a lie.”

“Ainse, are you okay?” Chris asked, and I shrugged. “Because the shit you said makes zero sense, baby girl.”

“It doesn’t matter, I can throw myself in front of a train, and you wouldn’t care.”

I said that because I wanted it. I wanted a train to take away the pain or throw myself over a cliff and lose the hurt I harbored.

“Ainsley,” Christian glared at me, then at Gabe. “What does lying have to do with Porter’s girlfriend?”

“Everyone lies, you two are the epitome of facades.” I let it out of my chest for the first time. “Burying the ugly truth behind. The stories or people who don’t work with the image. The one you don’t love. You know, making up that you’re dating a twenty-some year old girl is kind of gross, Gabriel.”

I tried to enrage him—the bad cop of the two while hurting the good cop.

“I’m your father and you know why we do that.”

“No I don’t.” I banged the table. “I don’t know why you continue hiding the man who adores you, and the father of your children while waltzing around with the pretty arm-candy.”

“My career matters,” Gabriel reminded me, the usual crap.

“You two are a couple of fucking liars who only care about themselves,” my voice rose. “Be proud of who you are.”

“Ainsley Janine, stop whatever you’re doing right now.” Christian banged the table harder than I did. Not a good sign, good cop never raised his voice. Or the best sign, I was getting to them. “This isn’t you.”

“You should stop feeding the tabloid with lies about your lives,” I yelled pointing at both of them while holding the magazine where Porter was cozying up with a model. “He’s ashamed of you, Christian. That isn’t love, is it?”

His long-time girlfriend read
Entertainment
and
Life
. The headline fueled the need to claw my parents.

“The two of you should stop playing with other people’s feelings. Cease pretending that you give a shit about us—me. It’s not like I care about either one of you.” I was trying to hurt them the way I hurt.

Of course Porter didn’t want the baby, he had another life. In the picture, Porter grinned as he whispered something in her ear—some love words? Because that’s the way he used to look at me when we whispered sweet nothings or sang to each other.

My parents didn’t want me either; they only wanted their career.

“Be fucking honest for once.” I cleared the table with one quick swoosh. “I don’t need to be in the front of a magazine, but at least being recognized as your child wouldn’t hurt. Cowards, liars… I hate you.”

Coincidentally, a month earlier Chris had recognized JC and MJ as their children.

The media called them ‘The Decker Twins.’

Twins.

We were three.

“AJ, stop and apologize right now,” Gabriel ordered. “You’re being a heartless, selfish brat.”

“No, I won’t stop yelling the truth,” I screamed louder. “Never. I’m done with this farce. You two are dead to me.”

“Apologize,” Gabriel repeated firmly. I shook my head and tossed the magazine I held to the floor, next to the others. “Then don’t come back until you can act like a grown-u and ask for forgiveness.”

My life, my world… everything disintegrated with each step I took.

I couldn’t believe it. When I made the decision to ask my parents for direction, when I needed my parents the most, they bashed me with nonsense. Instead of speaking out, I lashed back creating a terrible situation for myself.

Shutting off the freaking tears took a toll on me. For the past few weeks they’d been pouring down nonstop, and when I sought support from my family, they shut me down.

Parents were supposed to be there for you, to love you, cuddle you, and make the boo-boos go away.

Apparently not, they said, “Apologize to us or never come back.” Those words seemed too… catalytic.

I can be on my own,
I sniffed.
Yes, yes, I can
. Repeating it twice made it true.

Yes, I can.
I voiced once more, because the third time was a charm.

I banged the steering wheel determined to make this work; that’d teach them.

“Dad,” I cried out no more than a mile from my parents’ home and pulled over waiting for the wave of sadness to succumb, with fear that it wouldn’t happen. “Papi!”

I picked up my phone and called.

“I…” the tears and sobs wouldn’t allow me to speak clearly. “I had a fight with my parents.”

“Stay where you are, Nine. I got you.”

He arrived within the hour, took me out of the car, and wrapped my body with his strong arms. Mason knew about Porter, the baby… I didn’t have to speak while he let me sob for everything that had happened.

“Where to?” he softly asked when I quieted down.

“I… don’t know. I need a new home. There’s no way I’m heading back to the one I shared with Porter.”

“Let’s drive Eleanor then.” He kissed the top of my head. “Another fun road trip with Nine as my co-pilot.”

“How did you get here?”

“A friend gave me a lift.” He winked at me. “Shall we stay in Portland and go from there? We can always stop at the Grand Canyon and throw a dummy representing Porter.”

He dragged a chuckle-sniff combination out of me.

“There, those green eyes are coming back to life.”

Mason helped me move out from Porter’s house. We found a cozy two bedroom apartment… but it didn’t work out quite well.

2012

The intense June sun blasted through the windows, taking away the option to sleep late. A yawn followed my mental rant, I should’ve stayed at a hotel while the blind company came to install the window treatments for the apartment.

It was the desire to start my new life immediately and staying at a hotel—again—was getting too old.

Sunglasses, please.

Hesitant, I pushed the covers aside and kissed my pillow goodbye.

“I’ll see you my love.” I waved at my new bed and pillow, which must be made out of clouds and cotton.

With a sigh I staggered outside my sanctuary—or it would be when the plantation blinds were in place and not one ounce of light can slip through them. Ounce? How did one measure light?

I definitely need coffee.

I must prepare that sweet elixir that makes all coherent thoughts flow through my head. Or as coherent as they can be.

Six fifty-three read the microwave clock of my new apartment. I rented a two bedroom apartment close to the university—in a new development.

It included a parking space and had enough square footage to place Constantine—my baby grand piano—inside.

“Ugh, four hours of sleep,” I whined. Thankfully the kitchen was the first room we unpacked yesterday and that Mason had set up my fancy coffee maker. His housewarming gift.

My plans to finish unpacking yesterday almost worked perfectly. First, I unpacked the kitchen, my room, then I tuned the piano, and set my books in the bookcases. Yes, I could’ve gone to bed or finished unpacking, but I became absorbed by one of the novels I put aside as we unpacked. One of those books I buy because I have to have it, and either forget to read it or I misplace it in the sea of other ‘To Be Read’ books.

Whatever black magic this machine had going on was much better than what baristas did at a coffee shop. There were so many buttons that prepared different beverages. Latte, cappuccino, tea, hot water, decaf, half-caf…

No need to write it down with a marker.

This machine knew how to do everything—except clean itself. I hooded my eyes at it, but didn’t apologize for that defect.

“Sweet, sweet, coffee, marry me and keep me awake forever,” I said after my first sip of the dark potion.

Looking at the clock and remembering everything I had to do today, I realized there was plenty of time for a few laps in the swimming pool. The phone guy was scheduled to arrive at eleven, the cable man at nine, and the internet guy at noon along with the window treatment installers. All of them had a two-hour window. Based on the famous Murphy’s Law, I guessed all of them will arrive together—at eleven.

Lucky me!

Mason planned to arrive around eight thirty to help me finish unpacking. Definitely time for a cup of fruit, a bowl of oats, and some milk before heading to the gym for a twenty-minute walk and swimming a few laps.

Swimming calmed me, it made me forget for a few minutes that my life shifted and I no longer had a family, I never had a boyfriend, and my baby had died.

The baby, James.

I forced myself not to think about him or anything else negative that had happened.

Stay strong.

I did stay strong for a couple of months. I only cried at nights, I was able to go to school and work.

Every day I thought less and less about them. Instead of twenty-four hours during each day, it was an average of twenty weeks.

The new development I moved into was nice, quiet, and I had the advantage of not having neighbors next to me. Until…

One night after a late class, I arrived home, prepared myself a sandwich, and changed into a pair of lounging pants and a comfortable t-shirt. I grabbed Breezy and my phone and headed to the balcony where I turned on the fake fireplace to illuminate me and called my brothers. Conference calls were fun with those two.

The twins, who considered themselves Switzerland, decided to keep me in their lives. The three of us agreed not to talk about my parents—at all.

“Whatup, princess?” JC answered.

“Hey, AJ?” MJ’s mellow voice said.

“Not a princess,” I told JC. “I think I’m going to add another degree or go to grad school.”

“I can’t say I’m too surprised,” JC confessed. “You like books and to study, you should’ve gone into medicine. That’s like twelve years of your life behind a book.”

I chuckle but don’t say anything back to him.

“Other than continuing your professional education, are you okay?” MJ asked.

“Yeah. I’m still upset about…” I washed away the thought. “Nothing I can’t fix by writing a few lyrics about how much I hate men.”

The wave of sadness threatened to overtake me, and I fought hard not to let it.

Strong.

“I have just the singer in mind for that kind of music,” JC said. My brother sold songs to the perfect performers. “Amidala, have you heard of her? She’s the next Fiona Apple. Dad signed her a couple of months ago. We discovered her.”

“I can’t say I have.” I wracked my brain trying to find out if I had heard of her at all. “But if you think she’ll do it justice, I’m all for it. Give me a week and I’ll get you a few songs. Now, I’ll make my guitar scream with rage if you two don’t mind. Any plans?”

“Bar hopping,” JC said. “We’re trying to find fresh meat for Daddy.”

I laughed because that sounded so wrong. Vampires finding new blood for the king, wolves with a tribute for the alpha… a new sub for the dom. When in truth they meant new musicians who had the talent and would work hard to make it big.

“Does Daddy give you something special when you bring him offerings?” I asked him.

“No, but our names will appear as producers on their songs and albums.”

Ah, that made a lot of sense.

“If our musical child makes money, we make money. Now, if you don’t mind, we’re hunting wabbits, so we have to be willy, willy quiet.”

“I love you two,” I said between laughs.

They had lightened my mood along with my night.

“Likewise,” they both said and hung up.

An angry song, hmmm. Should I sing about Porter, the asshole?

Instead of strumming Breezy gently, as George Harrison sang, I wanted to smash it against the floor like Peter Townsend from The Who used to do after his concerts. But then Breezy would be dead, and I would cry even more.

My parents gave me Breezy for my eighth birthday. It was a bigger guitar than what I should’ve gotten, but I fell in love with her when I went to pick one from the crafter. Handmade, one of a kind.

Play, tell the world how much men suck,
Breezy murmured.

The sound of a sliding door opening interrupted my concentration but instead of stopping, I played the song again. It frustrated me that I was losing the privacy I thought I had, but I tried to work on ignoring the fact that someone else was listening.

No, I can’t.

I stopped singing and grasped the strings to silence the guitar.

Changing the tune, so to speak, I scribbled some of the lyrics I came up with but before I finished the first line, a voice interrupted.

“That’s some angry tune.”

I lifted my gaze. There was only a dark balcony next to mine, but then as the man behind the wall took a couple of steps, I saw him.

Porter.

Mr. 4B?