How Good It Was, page 4
“It’s not been as easy as you make it sound.” Willow’s eyes began to sting. She studied Luke whose face was giving nothing away. She wanted to say more, about what she’d learned about her father and what he’d been doing. But it still hurt to talk about, and she didn’t want to tell anyone in case word got out.
“That very first moment, though? When you did the maths in your head, or did the test or whatever, you didn’t have an ‘Oh, shit’ moment?”
“Fine. Yes. I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest. But I knew I wanted to keep it, Luke. It was the one thing I knew for certain as soon as those two lines appeared on the test. I didn’t care what I had to do to make it happen, I wanted it. I organised everything to get away, booked a ticket, and here I am. I needed somewhere I could think about what to do beyond knowing I wanted the baby.” Tears spilled over and she batted them away. Freaking hormones. She hated crying in front of him. Hated looking weak.
“I was in a popular kid’s TV show for seven years and did a few movies until I was thirteen, and puberty meant I wasn’t a cute kid anymore. Now, I make money on Shamaze as one of their top content and trend creators, where I also have a bunch of carefully curated family-friendly sponsors. I could lose every single one of them by falling pregnant during a one-night stand. I have a baby to support, so I can’t afford that. I can’t care that you aren’t excited. I just need you to step up for me for twelve months. Pretend that we are happy about this. Social media never reflects real life. We just need to make it look good on camera.”
Luke blew out a breath, tugged her to her feet, and pulled her to his chest. “Look,” he said, gruffly. “You need to give me twenty-four hours. Let me think this through. Get my own mind straight. This is all a really long way from where my life is heading. But you’re safe here while we figure out what to do next.”
We.
The word was like magic.
“Your folks don’t know you are here?”
Willow shook her head. “They should know by now that I’ve left. I know they’d try to coerce me into a decision that worked best for them if they knew any more.”
He worked his hands down her back. “I bet. You’ve been being sick like that a lot?”
“Yeah. And long haul flying and stress. None of it helps.”
She pressed her cheek to Luke’s chest, and he kissed the top of her head, chastely, almost sisterly. “It’s a head fuck, Will.”
There was a hint of levity to his comment. His hug reassured her it was in jest. But it still hurt.
“Right,” he said. “Give me a minute to change the sheets in the spare room, and we’ll get you sorted.”
He led her from the bathroom, from the intimacy of their conversation and her hope of convincing him she needed his help if she was going to salvage any of the threads of her life that would allow her to break free of her dad.
He owed it to her.
Tomorrow was a new day, and she’d get him on board.
A small part of her, the part that had felt secure in his arms, wished he’d invited her to sleep in his bed. One where he could hold her and chase away the shivers she got when she woke up panicked, fearing that she wasn’t capable of being a single mom.
But as she watched him make space for her in the spare room, she hoped he’d make room for their child in his heart.
Even if there was no room for her.
3
Sunday morning sunlight drifted through the cracks in Luke’s curtains as his eyes fluttered open. He watched the dust float in the rays as he shook clear dreams about vacuuming and bottles of pine-scented Dettol.
He yawned, wondering why he’d thought about cleaning when . . .
Fuck.
Willow.
Baby.
Sleeping in the room across from him.
And wow, wasn’t the thought of that like a slap across the face. Better than any alarm clock. His heart thundered in his chest, and any trace of sleep disappeared. Not that he’d had much. He’d fallen asleep with ideas playing mental Jenga in his head. Some settling into place, some jarringly awkward and painful.
Yes, he was oddly relieved to learn his sperm functioned. Odd, because no, he wasn’t ready for kids.
Yes, there was pride that Willow had felt she could come to him, and no, there was no way they could live together for the next year. He’d only just got the place back to himself after his sister had moved out.
Yes, he was fucking furious at the very idea that her family might push her into an abortion.
Because.
A fucking baby.
Yet, there was no way on God’s green earth he was cut out to be a father.
He tossed back the covers of the bed and walked to the bathroom, rubbing his temples where a low-grade headache throbbed. Hangovers needed sleep. Juice. Perhaps a wank. Normally, he slept naked, but for propriety’s sake, he’d pulled on joggers, which he promptly dropped to the floor. Luke turned the spray on ice-cold and stepped under it, his breath catching as he gasped beneath the chill.
And, yes, the thought of a child growing up without a dad, like he had after his firefighter father had died in a warehouse blaze, made his chest ache. But no, he wasn’t sure he was even remotely a good fit for Willow’s child.
His child.
And it wasn’t like he’d done a stellar job of looking out for his sister after his dad had passed away and their mum went to live in Brighton with his dad’s best friend. No, fatherhood was not one of his key skills.
Just as he’d turned the heat up and soaped his body, the bathroom door slammed open, and Willow sank to her knees in front of the toilet before throwing up in the bowl. “Sorry,” she mumbled, her voice small.
Quickly, he rinsed before turning the shower off. “You okay?”
A part of him wondered about the oddity of showering while someone was puking, but given him getting naked was part of the reason they were in this mess, he figured it was a non-issue. Bit too late for either of them to worry about what she might think of his dick. That ship had sailed.
He reached for his towel and wrapped it around his waist.
She fixed the waistband of her cream silk pyjama bottoms. “Kinda used to it. It’s supposed to get better any day. Or so the books say. Do you have any arrowroot cookies?”
“Pretty certain I don’t, but if you tell me what they are, I’ll get dry and go buy the closest thing to them from the shop. Or make you some toast? That’ll help.” At least, he thought it would because he wasn’t a fucking pregnancy almanac.
Willow looked up at him, her skin sallow, and he felt sorry for her. He’d been hungover enough to puke occasionally. Never fun. “That would be good, thanks.”
Luke stepped out of the bathroom and retrieved clean bath and hand towels. “Here,” he said, handing them to her.
Once dressed, he stepped into the living room, and saw the space through Willow’s eyes.
It was a fucking tip.
Now the cleaning dream made sense.
Remembering how the smell had made her feel sick the day before, he threw the windows open wide before grabbing a couple of large, heavy-duty black bin liners from the cupboard.
Leftovers from the party he’d thrown the evening before last were littered on every surface. He’d gone to bed with a groupie from Wilmslow. Hot, but not the beauty Willow was. They’d stayed in bed all day, only coming out for leftover pizza, water to chase away the hangover, and his packet of cigarettes—until he’d had to shower to go to the party.
Shit, even a small patch of coke powder residue from the lines that had been cut on the glass table. He ran his fingers through the dust and rubbed it on his gums. A powdered morale boost to get through another shit-tacular day.
He grabbed the bowl from the sink, filled it with soapy water, and returned to clean the glass table, unwilling to risk the dust from the coke harming Willow or the baby.
He’d become a bona fide slob, and he hadn’t even noticed it happening. Too busy partying, enjoying his fucking life. He put the rubbish in his narrow hallway to take out, but even there was a mess. Mismatched shoes kicked into a pile, coats for every season crammed onto two hooks. God knew how long the single football sock had been gathering cobwebs in the corner.
After washing his hands, he grabbed some bread from the freezer and put it into the toaster, then set the kettle to boil. He opened the fridge to grab some milk for tea and butter to go with the toast and noticed his fridge was down to slim pickings. Hell, he should go shopping and stock up on, well, everything.
And tidy up.
And just like that, his whole Sunday was consumed. Which it would totally be every Sunday with a child.
Now he felt sick.
They’d used protection. He always carried his own in a size that fit him perfectly, given he was a little wider than most. But he’d had to grab vending machine ones in the hotel in the middle of their night together, and he should have known they’d be shit.
Luke breathed through it.
How could he think about the next twelve months when his heart felt like it wouldn’t make it through the next five minutes?
“Can I help with anything?” Willow asked as she walked into the living area. She wore a pair of loose-fit jeans and a thin, cream sweater.
“Nearly done,” he said, just as the toaster popped. He gave both slices to her before he put two more in for himself.
She looked fresh faced after her shower, her hair still damp. Pretty pink lip gloss covered her lips, and he bit down the urge to slide over there and nibble it off.
“Have you had time to think?” she asked, buttering her toast.
“I’d love to tell you that I have a master plan, but I still think I’m in the denial stage. It’s a lot to get my head around. We barely know each other. It’s not like we did a lot of talking.”
“Perhaps if we’d talked a bit more, we wouldn’t have had time to make, well . . .” Willow smiled at him, then continued applying butter to her toast, and yeah, he suddenly felt as though he were right back in her suite in Detroit. Before the whole baby shit kicked off. When he’d found her sense of humour endearing, her body hot, and her mouth captivating.
He jumped when the toast popped out of the toaster and he reached for his plate. Once he’d buttered it and smeared it with strawberry jam, he took a seat next to her at the breakfast bar.
“I know this is a shock,” she said, brushing the crumbs from her fingertips over her plate. “But I really do need your help.”
Luke swallowed his toast. “I’ve got my head that far around it. What was the absurd talk about a deal?”
Willow turned to face him. “The easy answer is: I don’t want to lose my sponsorships or platforms. And I need to know you will never breathe a word of this to the press.”
“For fuck’s sake, Will. Do you honestly think I’d do that?” Luke’s heart skipped a beat. A warning that he wasn’t going to like the next thing out of her mouth.
“I barely know you, Luke.”
“You said that’s the easy answer. What’s the hard one?”
“I’ve been let down badly by my family. It’s raw and unresolved. They betrayed my trust. How am I supposed to trust you? We slept together, one night. We talked for a little while backstage and in the cab. I don’t know who you are, or what kind of person you are.”
Luke raised a questioning eyebrow. “Who let you down?”
Her heart skipped a beat. “My dad, lawyer, and accountant. My business was set up by Dad when I was a minor. Everything is in his name. Everything my money was spent on is in his name. And the contract we have is outrageous. It’s going to take me a while to legally and financially emancipate myself from him.”
“Shit. That sucks. Do you have any money?”
“Yes. I have a Coogan account.”
“What’s that?”
“A studio legally has to put fifteen percent minimum of a child’s salary into a Coogan account to protect it from anyone around the child. The rest goes to the parents to manage. Taxes. Reasonable expenses. Management fees. The balance is meant to be saved for the child. My parents spent all of what was left on houses and investments in their own names. We were dirt poor when I got my first role, now my parents lead an extravagant lifestyle.”
“How do you unravel all that?”
“With a lawyer and forensic accountants who go back and work out where all the money went, and where it should have gone. Resolving it will take a while. Meanwhile, I’m focused on my influencer income, and I changed all the passwords on my social media accounts before I flew out. Dad had access before. I set up a new bank account, independent of Dad, and I’ve started to contact my sponsors, asking them to deal directly with me.”
“It sounds like you have this all under control, though. Why do you need me?”
“Apart from the fact you are the father?”
Luke bounced his knee and eyed the Scotch he kept next to the fridge. “Yeah, apart from that.”
“Brands can be puritanical. They may ditch me because of the legal fight, or the pregnancy. That’s why I need you and an angle to announce the pregnancy.”
“Angle?” he asked.
“Yeah. Angle. You commit to being in a relationship with me for the next twelve months at least. We’d say we met when we met, but that we kept in touch in between, realised we couldn’t live without one another, and that we are now thrilled to be together and expecting. And maybe you could be in the content with me. Like videos of us doing baby stuff. Make it look as wholesome as it could be, without anybody knowing I got knocked up during a one-night stand with a total stranger.”
Luke’s mouth opened and shut, forming words that didn’t come out. He shook his head. “You want me to what? Hell no.”
Willow placed her hand on his thigh. “I need a fake relationship. Give me one year, and then I’ll go back to America, with my reputation intact, and you don’t have to have anything to do with us.”
“Wait, I didn’t say I didn’t want anything to do with you. I just meant . . . It’s a lot.”
“I know. People often say that the first reaction is the one you should listen to. You made it clear last night that this isn’t what you wanted. I’m just asking you for twelve months. That’s all. You can go on tour; I’ll go back to the States. I’ll say I was missing home. Whatever. We could even pretend we are doing long-distance for a little while, and then say it didn’t work out. Part ways as the best of friends.”
“Jesus Christ, Will.”
“Look at it this way. You get to be around for the pregnancy, for the fun stuff like scans. And you’ll get to be there for the birth, assuming you want to. It’s a business agreement with a contract. I pay you for the twelve months in return for confidentiality. Then, I get full custody, move back home, and never ask you for a cent.”
My kid. Her. Me.
While he didn’t want a relationship, or to be a father right now, surely she wanted or needed something more than just a business agreement, right? “I don’t know, Will. That sounds awful.”
“It’s just a year. Hell, try it for a few months. At least help me make it appear that this baby and you and me mean more to you than that one night. I already gave your band a huge leg up the ladder. You would never have got a recording deal without me. And I feel like you owe me because you are fifty percent responsible for this anyway.”
Fuck my life.
“Why do I feel like I’m being blackmailed into something I’d do simply because it’s the right thing to do?”
Willow shook her head. “There’s no blackmail. You say no, I leave.”
“Fine. But we need rules. I’m not lying to my friends. And I’ve not been a saint since I last saw you.” He saw Willow wince and tried to ignore the flash of disappointment that he’d let her down. “Could one of those women pop up in the media? Sure.”
“It’s a chance I’m willing to take. We’ll spin it. We’ll say we hadn’t decided to be exclusive. That we were on a break because we couldn’t figure out how to make it work. Just . . . there can’t be any more. Not for this to work.”
“You want to tie up my balls too?” Luke asked. “A fucking year of celibacy?” Now, he needed a cigarette. Or some of his Scotch.
Willow scoffed. “It’s not as though I’ll be getting any for a good long while.”
“I can’t do that.” Luke grabbed his hair and tugged it at the roots. “This is a lot of changes.”
“Again,” Willow said, pointing down at her stomach. “At least you don’t have to deal with throwing up and growing an alien.”
“Fine, but this isn’t a race to the bottom, Will. This business agreement will suck for both of us. You can’t really want this.”
Willow looked wistfully toward the windowpane, where rain pattered softly on the outside. “No, Luke. In an ideal world, I’d be older, my husband would love me, we’d be settled in a nice home, and he’d be excited about the baby. So, no. This isn’t what I want. But it’s what I’ve got and I’m trying to make the most of it. And you need to step up.”
“How does this work in practice, then?” Luke asked.
“I live with you, in my own room is best so we don’t confuse things. We go about our lives like normal. But when we go out, we act like we are a couple. And we make social media content for my page that is totally in keeping with my brand. We start now, as a couple, just the two of us. Then, when I start to show, we make the announcement. And we generally just share our excitement with the world.”
Luke stood and took their plates to the sink. “I’m not much of a ‘share my excitement with the world’ kind of guy. I barely use social media. I’ll look like a performing dog if I suddenly start gushing fake sentiment all over it.”
Willow winced again. Fuck.
“Well, I’m going to have to make it look like I’m suddenly thrilled to be twenty-three, recently knocked-up, and in love with a man I haven’t seen in months. It’s called acting, Luke, and I’ll pay you to do it.”
Luke gripped the counter. “Can you stop with the comments about paying me? It’s fucking ridiculous.”
