I’m a mix of emotions, and the one riding shotgun is confusion. What in the hell is going on?
“You’re fucking crazy,” Vince mutters and begins to move off the stage riser.
“Or you’re bullshitting us, which is exactly what your dad said you’d do.”
“The man’s a money-grubbing asshole who probably got paid for his lies, so don’t put too much faith in his claims.”
“That’s enough, Vince,” McMann says, losing control of the narrative and the spectacle that this is becoming. I battle between wanting to search on my phone and not wanting to miss a single minute of what’s transpiring on the computer screen.
“Read for yourself.” Gil holds out his phone as Vince’s feet stop. “His name’s Jagger.”
The world drops out from under my feet.
No.
I struggle to breathe.
No.
To think.
God, no.
To force myself to look at Vince and his cocky, disbelieving smile at the reporter like he’s going to prove him wrong with the same punch he threw last night. “Jagger, huh?”
Gil doesn’t miss a beat. But my heart does. It misses every single one as the reporter looks Vince straight in the eyes and says, “Yes, Jagger Matthews.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Vince
All the air is sucked out of the room.
My lungs feel like they’re collapsing.
My heart feels like it stops.
My head feels like it implodes.
“You’re lying,” I say, the whisper on my lips but a scream in my head.
Jagger Matthews.
I struggle to process. To think straight. To refute what a part of me feels to be undeniably true.
The urge to knock the phone from Gil’s hand is strong. The impulse to grab it and read every goddamn lie that my fucking father said just as strong.
McMann grabs me before I can do either and ushers me out of the room as the reporters go apeshit at my back.
It’s just white noise.
It’s just white lights ahead.
It’s just an unbelievable pressure in my chest that increases with each and every second.
“Vince.”
“No. Don’t touch me.” I throw my arms up to push Xavier’s off me. “I just . . . I need to go. I’ve got to go . . .”
See if I have a son?
See if Bristol has been lying to me?
See if my father is right?
“I just have to go.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Bristol
Tears threaten but don’t come.
My chest burns but is forced to breathe, each inhale hurting more than the one before.
My hands grip the steering wheel as traffic closes me in much like the claustrophobia I feel right now.
The phone rings over my Bluetooth. Again and again. The electronic voice Vince uses for a message speaks. “Vince. I need you to call me. Please. We need to talk.”
I dial the next person I need to speak with. The phone rings. Over and over as my knuckles turn white. “Pick up the phone, Mom. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.”
“This is Cathy. Please leave a message.”
“Mom. Please call me. It’s urgent. He knows about Jagger. He. Knows.” My voice breaks.
And it feels like everything else within me does too.
I dial Vince again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Vince
The wrong address.
Not inviting me in.
The setbacks in going to law school.
Minutes. Moments. Seconds. Each one I’ve spent with her need to be dissected and reconsidered and mind-fucked to death, but the only things my mind can focus on right now is getting to her house.
Is finding out the truth for myself.
Is knowing if Jagger is real or not.
Is plowing a fist through my old man’s face.
I pull up to the curb, yank my SUV into park, and then realize the kid might not even be here. Her work. His school. A babysitter. Who the fuck knows.
But I jog up the sidewalk anyway, knowing that if I have a son, he’s here.
But how is it even possible? We used a condom each and every time that night. There’s no way this is possible.
Can’t be.
I pound on the door. One fist after another.
“What is the prob . . . lem,” Cathy says when she opens the door to find me there.
Her eyes are wide. Her lips are lax. And the last conversation we ever had comes zooming back in a way that makes more sense than ever before.
She knows that I know.
“Vince.” My name is a whisper that I don’t hear as I shove past her and into the small apartment.
But all my gusto, all my reasons why this isn’t real, how he cannot be mine, goes to shit when I see the little boy sitting on the couch. He’s so little. His head is down, a mop of dark hair falling over his forehead as he focuses on a small acoustic guitar braced across his lap. He makes out-of-tune noises as his small fingers try to operate the fret and strings on the face of it.
He angles his head to the side and purses his lips in concentration, much like I’ve seen in hundreds of photographs taken of myself.
Words escape me.
My head shakes back and forth as I’m frozen in place staring at something I told myself I’d never allow to happen.
Everything else disappears when that little face looks up and sees me there. I’m met with my own eyes looking back at me. With a crooked smile that’s the mirror image of mine smiling in return.
The wind is knocked out of me.
Every image I’ve seen of myself as a kid is sitting across from me, staring at me with a curiosity in his expression and an innocence in his eyes.
“Hey. Who are you?” he asks in a raspy voice.
“I . . .” I glance over to where Cathy stands, tears welling in her eyes, before she smiles as if to tell me it’s okay to talk. “I—I’m a friend of your mom’s.”
“Huh.” He angles his head to the side and takes me in, his eyes lingering on my tattoos, making me feel self-conscious about them when I never have been before. “How do you know her?”
“From a long time ago. We’ve known each other longer than we haven’t.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Nothing. Just that . . . we’ve known each other a long time.” I smooth my palms down my jeans, needing something, anything to do with my hands. It doesn’t stop them from trembling. “Do you mind if I sit down?”
He gives the subtlest of nods, his eyes never leaving mine. “You kind of look like that singer we see on TV, doesn’t he, Nana?” He looks at Cathy. “The one that makes Momma sometimes get tears in her eyes.”
“Kind of,” Cathy murmurs, her hand resting over her heart, her smile concerned yet hopeful.
“Are you him?” he asks.
“Maybe,” I whisper and finally find the courage to move farther into the room so I can sit across from him.
“Then does that mean you know how to play this?” He lifts the guitar. “My papa bought it for me. It has some scratches but he says scratches give it character. Momma’s saving up for lessons for me but I’m trying anyway.”
My throat burns with emotion. “I do know how to, yes. Maybe I could teach you sometime if your mom and dad don’t mind.”
His smile falls. “Just Momma.”
“Oh?” The sound gets caught in my throat.
“My dadda loves me more than the world, but he wasn’t ready to handle all this awesomeness,” Jagger says, with a sheepish but bittersweet smile on his face. “Maybe someday.”
I open my mouth, but words don’t come. I’m still overwhelmed with such violent contrasts of emotions. Disbelief married with shock. Hurt with anger. Awe warring against skepticism.
“A huge amount of awesomeness,” I say, my voice breaking. “How old are you?”
I ask but already know the answer. He’s six. The empty restaurant. The limo ride. The hotel. The walking away without looking back. Her voicemails that I erased because it was too hard to listen to them, and her calls I then blocked.
“Six. It’s a good age, don’t you think?”
I laugh, and for the first time I feel like when I inhale, oxygen reaches my lungs. “It is definitely a good age.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty.”
“That’s old.” His eyes grow wide as he catches himself. “Sorry, Nan. It’s not old.”
She laughs, and it’s like the sound eases some of the tension in the room. But the barbed wire that’s wrapped around every goddamn sensation inside me remains.