How Good It Was, page 5
“It’s better this way. A contract, with boundaries and salaries, keeps all the emotions on the right sides of the lines. It avoids messiness.”
“Messiness?” Luke coughed. “This is already as messy as it gets.”
“You’re going to need the money, Luke. We need a new apartment. Bigger, with lots of light. And there are going to be trips. High-end hotels. And a half-decent journalist worth their salt will endeavour to find out who paid. You want them to find out the mother of your child is paying for everything?”
“Wait. I’m not moving.”
“You can’t think we’ll stay in your place. It’s too small. Especially when the baby comes. I looked online and read about the Golden Triangle. Alderley Edge, Wilmslow. Some place beginning with an ‘M’. It seems a lot of footballers live there. It’s only a thirty-minute drive away.”
Luke put his hand to his forehead. “For fuck’s sake. Stop a minute. I’m not moving. Matt and my sister live two floors above me. Ben, Jase, and Alex live a short walk away. We rehearse most days. I’ll concede the apartment needs some work inside, and that’s it.”
Willow frowned. “It needs to be aspirational, Luke. Nobody wants to see what life is like in an apartment they could afford.”
“Aspirational, my arse. It would be more realistic to tell the truth and show this is how you deal with things in real life, instead of fancy houses and holidays. It is what it is.”
“That’s why you need the—”
“Do. Not. Say. Money.”
“Fine,” she muttered, twisting her fingers together.
Luke took a deep breath. “Jesus, Will. Look. Do we have to have all this figured out today? You’re safe. You can stay. Let’s figure out the rest as we go.” He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. “We’ll clean up. Decorate. Whatever. It’s my place so we’ll do it with my money.”
“Fine. We’ll split chores. I don’t mind cooking.”
“I don’t mind eating. What else do you need?”
“Just you to look at the contract.”
“Later.” Luke rinsed the dishes and noticed the sink was looking pretty grim. “God. This place is a pigsty. Sorry, Willow. Look. Go sit down or unpack while I clean up. I’ll make you a tea.”
“You don’t happen to have a coffee machine and decaf beans, do you?”
He shook his head. “I’ve got instant coffee.”
She grimaced. “No, thanks. Tea will be fine. Is it lemon tea?”
“No. Just regular PG Tips.”
“Does that have caffeine?”
Luke nodded.
“I’m not supposed to have caffeine.”
“Why not?”
She pointed to her stomach. “It’s not good for the baby.”
Luke laughed. “I’m not a baby expert, but I’m pretty damn sure half the babies in England are born with tea in their veins. Sounds like a load of tosh.”
“Well, maybe English guidelines and American guidelines differ.”
He shrugged and put the kettle on. “Maybe. But I’ll put my money on an occasional cuppa being fine. Want me to pop out and try to find something decaffeinated?”
“No. I’m fine.”
“The fridge is a mess, so I’m going to start tidying here so we can put all the food away when we go shopping later, okay? Put the TV on or, you know, do whatever it is you usually do.” He began to run water into a bowl in the sink.
“What I normally do is film everything going on around me, make videos of my day.”
“Do me a favour and don’t do any of that until I’ve at least cleaned up. In fact, do we have to include my home at all? Not sure I want the world seeing the private side of all this.”
“What do you normally do on a Sunday morning?”
He eyed her. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
“Right. Things I’m asking you to stop doing. Women, sleeping in after a party or concert. All that stuff. Not cleaning your home for a pregnant one-night stand. I’m asking a lot, aren’t I?”
Luke turned the tap off. “Yeah. You are. You’re going to need to give me time to figure out where my boundaries are, flower.”
She walked over to him and placed her hand on his forearm. “I’m sorry. About all of this.”
Doe. Fucking. Eyes. He realised this was even harder for her than for him. “There were two of us there that night. And we took precautions. Shit happens. It’s how you deal with it, right? But this contract of yours is making me itch, not going to lie. And what you do for a living . . . It’s not my style to share everything with the world. Hell, I barely share shit with my best mates.”
Willow took a deep breath. “I understand.”
“Hey, when’s the due date?”
“Sixteenth of November.”
Water sloshed as he rinsed the cloth. “Can you feel it move or anything yet?”
“Not yet. That won’t happen for another couple of months.” She grabbed her phone out of her pocket. “Here,” she said. “You want to see our baby?”
Luke dropped the cloth back into the sink. “Sure.” He leaned back against the counter, and she stood next to him, offering him her phone.
Their child. The grainy image every parent-to-be was familiar with. “It’s the size of a large plum about now.”
“Holy shit. It’s got hands and feet.” He slid his arm over her shoulder, pulling her closer. “Look at that.”
He could feel the warmth of her, smell the lingering fragrance of her body wash and the lemon-scented cleaner he’d been using on the fridge.
It would be so easy to kiss her.
But that wouldn’t help either of them out of the mess they were in.
4
“Who are you looking at?” Matt shouted two days later, joining Luke at the balcony of the club they’d ended up in after recording a live music slot for a popular Friday evening TV show.
“Watching Alex.” He tipped his head to where Alex was talking to an attractive couple he’d seen earlier, noticing Alex had wrapped his hand around the woman’s wrist, and the man’s. Luke tipped his chin in their direction. “Want to take bets on which one he is going home with?”
Matt looked over and grinned. “Both.”
“Greedy fucker,” Luke huffed.
Perhaps it was because Willow had told him he would have to stop all that stuff he did that he craved another line of coke. Or maybe it was simply the copious amount of alcohol he’d already drunk. But the pounding in his head matched the drum and bass of the club, and he needed a flood of dopamine.
He felt shitty leaving her alone. Felt even worse that he’d not introduced her to his sister only a few floors away in the same building. But he’d not been ready to make everything public knowledge.
Yet.
“Figured you’d be in a better mood after the arrival of Willow. She’s a cute thing.”
Luke sighed and rubbed his finger over his lip before taking another gulp on his beer. “Yeah, she’s fun,” he said, vaguely. And pretty. It was like his dick and his brain were playing ping-pong. His dick thought she was sexy as fuck. His brain had concluded she was a ball and chain there to take his freedom. The ball getting smacked between the two every five minutes.
“She staying at your place?” Matt asked.
“For now, yeah.” He finished the rest of the beer and debated getting another. He wondered how the two of them living together would work in the longer term. Being around her was half terror, half arousal. The way her lips always looked so fucking pink and juicy that all he could think about was how they’d looked wrapped around his cock in Detroit. When she’d listened to his instructions on how he liked it so thoroughly, he’d had to throw her on the bed before she made him come in her mouth in less than sixty seconds.
Matt took a sip of his beer. “Do you and her have a thing going on?”
Luke raised his eyebrow. While he had found it easier of late to deal with the fact Matt had fallen for Izabel, Luke’s sister, he still wasn’t ready to discuss his life with him right now.
“She’s just a bit of fun.” The lie fell from his mouth too easily, and he hated it. Lying didn’t sit well in his gut. Matt and Izabel had lied to him for months. It wasn’t who he was.
“As long as Willow knows the score. What’s she over here for, anyway?” Matt asked.
“Work,” Luke answered. “Something to do with her social media platforms.” This time, it wasn’t a blatant lie. She was over here to save her career. But he wasn’t ready to tell Matt what was going on.
Yet.
The ticking of the clock had never sounded louder than that of a pending child. Christ. What kind of a father would he be? Half-cut on a Tuesday in a nightclub, wishing he was Alex.
Although, Willow would be taking the baby back to the States with her once the year was up . . . if he agreed.
Shouldn’t becoming a parent be a joy? Something to look forward to? Heck, his mum had told him how hard she and his dad had tried to have kids. Years it had taken them. Which was funny because she’d fucked off to Brighton with his dad’s best mate, leaving his sister, Izabel, in his care—still a fucking teen himself.
His head was going to explode.
Everything was all tied up together. Responsibilities he didn’t want now because of responsibilities he’d been given by the very people who should have been responsible for him.
And, wow, how pathetic was he, blaming his dead dad and lonely mum.
Fuck, how useless was he, unable to shake the feeling of doom.
Matt turned to face him, leaning against the railing. “I haven’t told Izabel she’s here. It’s your business. But it’s weird you’re keeping it a secret from her and the rest of the band. And a dick move to leave her there alone when Iz, Cerys, Chaya, and Zoe are out for dinner tonight and would have totally taken her with them. You want to tell me what’s really going on?”
Luke shook his head. “None of your business, really.”
“I don’t understand why you don’t trust me. We’ve been best friends for a really long time.”
“Pity you forgot that when you fucked my sister, eh?” Deflection felt like a fair strategy.
Matt looked down at the bubblegum-stained floor for a moment before meeting his eye. “Take your best shot at me, I don’t care. Yeah, I fuck her, you dick. And I make love to her. And I cook breakfast with her. And write songs about her. Because I love her with every bit of my being. And when you aren’t being an arsehole, I appreciate that you’ve found some kind of peace with me and her.”
Luke looked down at the nearly full pint in Matt’s hand and took it, downing half in one go.
“What is it with you and your sister always stealing my pint?” Matt said.
The thought of his sister stealing Matt’s drink almost made him smile. She was half his size, and clearly had Matt wrapped around her little finger. Jealousy surged through him. The dichotomy of wanting exactly what they had but not wanting to feel tied down battled in his mind.
“Don’t you miss it? Being out like this, able to chat with whoever you want, drink and smoke and do a line of coke whenever you want? Stay out all night if you fucking feel like it?”
Matt shook his head. “I am out like this. I’m standing right here. And I can chat with whoever I want. I’m a grown man. But what I do is respect Iz. I don’t need to be flirting and touching and sleeping with other women when I’ve already got Iz waiting for me at home. And I drink and smoke. Just nowhere near as much as I used to. Because I’m finding I enjoy a night out a whole lot more if I can remember it in the morning. Drugs were a dealbreaker for your sister, and if it was a toss-up between Iz and a couple of white lines, there would be no competition. I’d pick Iz a thousand times over. And, what else was there? Oh, right . . . I can stay out all night if I want to. Iz trusts me, and I wouldn’t do anything to wreck that. But I’m taking the early train home tomorrow because it’s Iz’s day off, and I’d like to spend it with her more than I want another drunken crawl around London.”
Luke rubbed his hand across his face. How would it feel to go home to someone you wanted to, rather than someone you were obligated to? To feel that pull toward someone instead of external forces pushing you to them.
“Thought you’d want to be heading back to Willow, no?”
“Fortunately, she doesn’t own my balls. And what happens in London, stays in London, right?”
Matt shrugged. “Whatever you say, man. It’s your life and your mess. I’m going to head back to the hotel. Why don’t you head back with me? We can pick up an overpriced kebab and eat it in the lobby of that equally overpriced hotel the label put us up in, just to piss them off, seeing they were so fucking judgemental earlier.”
The lanky man who’d checked them in had sniffed at their tattoos and accents.
Snobby fucker.
Luke looked toward a redhead near the DJ. She smiled at him, and he decided to take his chances. He hadn’t signed Willow’s contract.
Yet.
People rarely knew what the drummer of a band looked like. Nine times out of ten, people couldn’t even name them, even in the biggest bands in the world. Mick Jagger was instantly identifiable, but most people wouldn’t be able to pick Charlie Watts, God rest his soul, out of a lineup. So, he’d give the woman a fake name. No one would know.
He shook his head and gave the half-drunk pint glass back to Matt. “I’m going to stay here. I’ll see you back in Manchester, yeah?”
Matt squeezed his shoulder. “This lifestyle you’re living. There’s a balance sheet. And it’ll need settling eventually.”
He thought of the baby. He couldn’t imagine a bigger toll. “Maybe.”
“Sure I can’t convince you to head back with me to Manchester? We could do something, the four of us. Have Iz and Willow meet. Take a day trip to Blackpool or something.”
That felt too much like . . . family. Like the kind of thing couples did. Him and his pregnant . . . friend . . . fake girlfriend. And his best friend with his sister.
Shit.
It was what Willow was asking from him.
Which made him want to do it even less.
“Nah. I’m good, mate. Catch you back home, yeah?”
Maybe it was because he was weaving, but he took the staircase down to the dance floor slowly, skirting the edge where the table service was doing a hopping trade. The music was a dull throbbing beat, bright lights sprayed flashes of colour up the walls. The redhead noticed him approaching and grinned, shifting her body so her hip jutted towards him. She placed the straw of her drink in her mouth and sucked it provocatively, hollowing her cheeks.
She was everything he looked for in a woman. Sexually confident. Obviously open to his approach. Heels and easy-to-flip skirt.
Why, then, did his dick not register even a flicker of interest when she pulled her shoulders back, when she pushed her ample tits forward?
Fuck.
He’d left his balls behind in his apartment. With an American in baggy sweats and white trainers.
Luke took a deep breath, knowing the next step he took would be the most decisive.
Willow swung her still damp hair into a bun and padded into the living area to make a coffee on the luxury coffee maker she’d had delivered the day before. There were some compromises she was willing to make, but a decent coffee in the morning after she’d got over the whole throwing up thing was not one of them. Sure, the coffee was now decaf, some fancy Swiss Water Process to make it caffeine free, but it still tasted like coffee. Psychologically, she could pretend it was the real thing.
Perhaps she should have measured what little countertop Luke had available before ordering it, and she wondered for a moment how he’d feel about the silver-and-black device that now took up so much space. Once the coffee had brewed and she’d taken her first sip, she sighed.
It didn’t matter what Luke thought—the coffee maker was staying, because tea was gross.
Sitting at the breakfast bar, she opened her messages. There was one from Riley.
Remember that guy from 7th grade? Bryce. Was only in school for a year before he moved to Winnipeg? Turns out he moved to play hockey and just signed with the Kings. Looks HAWT!
Willow grinned and typed. Then, go get him, Tiger.
Kelly, Riley’s mom, had also sent her an email. They hoped she was okay and were worried and wanted to know if they could help, because leaving without talking to them was so unlike her.
She took a sip of the coffee, wondering how on earth to respond. They’d been her real family, while her own family had been nothing more than a business, where she was the only product. John, Riley’s dad, had been a used car salesman who’d done good. He’d worked hard, opened franchise car dealerships, scrap metal merchants, and been good with people and money. While his wealth was now mid-level Malibu, he was still a blue-collar grafter who remembered where he’d started.
Riley was embarrassed by her dad, but Willow admired him. Heck, she admired both Kelly and John. They were as in synch with each other as any two people could be. Still very much in love with each other after nearly thirty years.
She’d always said they were couple goals.
Supportive. Loving. Always open and honest in their communication.
She glanced over at the contract printed out in triplicate, waiting for Luke to sign it, and wondered what John would think of her plan.
Yesterday, she’d put her signature in all the relevant places. Now, she just needed Luke’s. Her phone told her she’d also missed three calls and five emails from her father, added to the DMs he’d sent to her social media platforms. He was furious with her. But she wasn’t ready to deal with him yet.
Quickly, she responded to Kelly, letting her know that she was fine and that she was staying with a friend.
With a clatter, the door burst open. “Motherfucker.”
The curse, even mumbled, was clearly Luke, and it made her smile. “Hey,” she said as he rounded the corner. His eyes were red and tired.
“Everything okay, flower?” he asked with a yawn, dropping his large black tote bag.
Flower.
