I have a son.
I can’t get him out of my head. His little fingers trying to hold the guitar. His huge green eyes looking at me. His smile. His laugh. The truths he told about his dad.
Are you ready to handle all his awesomeness, Vin? Are you man enough to?
My eyes blur as I sit in my car with a scalding cup of coffee and debate my fucking life. My fucking choices. And I finally turn on my phone.
It dings instantly. Constantly. Missed calls. Missed texts. I’m not exactly sure I’m ready to deal with any of them yet.
As if on cue, it rings in my hand, and it’s probably the only person in the world I can talk to right now.
“Hey.”
“You doing okay?” Hawkin asks. “And don’t come back with your what do you think crap. I’m serious. You just had a shitload land in your lap. Talk to me, brother.”
I sigh and appreciate that he lets it sit there without pushing me. “Did you read the article?”
“I did. You?”
“I’ve been a little busy processing the fallout of it all to get a chance to read more than the headlines and quotes people were texting me.”
“You want to know?”
If I trust anyone to give it to me straight, it’s Hawkin. The man I pushed away. The friend I refused to let see me hurting. The brother who is still on the other end of the line anyway. “Yeah.”
“It’s a desperate attempt by a piece of shit to have control over you one last time before he dies. And I’m assuming that last part—the dying part—you already knew about.”
“Yeah. For about a year.”
“So about the time you walked away from us.”
“I told you I’ve fucked up a lot of shit. I don’t need a lecture—”
“No lecture, Vin, I’m just trying to put the pieces together so I can help you the best way possible.”
“Thanks.” The word is barely audible.
“He tries to paint you in a bad light—the famous son who has cut off his dying father—but his slimy greed comes through. Hell, the writer even says cashed checks proved that you’ve paid for all his treatment—which for the record, is more than I’d do for that fucker—but I digress.”
“I know.”
“He slams you for not being successful on your own. Sounds like a real fucking douchebag, to be honest. Clearly the asshole hasn’t checked social media lately because you can’t watch anything without hearing that fucking bridge from Sweet Regret on it . . . so fuck him.”
“Fuck him.”
“The gist is, it was a total fluke that he learned about your son. Reading between the lines says that he figured if you weren’t going to give him the cash he wanted, then he’d sell you out to the tabloid to get it himself. What does he care about the fallout? He’s dying, right? So yeah, fuck him.”
“Fuck him.”
“Nothing’s changed about him, Vin. It never has. And because small men hurt others to feel bigger, he’s making one last charge to turn your world upside down simply because his rotted soul can. He’s going to be gone and in hell and you’re going to be hurt . . . so my question is this. Is your world still spinning, or are you already trying to steady your feet?”
“I’m all over the fucking place, man.”
He’s quiet for a few seconds. “Jagger, huh?”
The name alone has me closing my eyes and seeing him sitting there. “Yeah,” I all but whisper, this territory completely uncharted.
“Cool name. It’s almost like someone knew you were a Stones fan,” he says with a knowing tone.
The notion that Bristol gave him a piece of me, the singer’s name from the first music I ever learned to play on my guitar, even without telling me isn’t lost on me.
“I met him yesterday.” I can barely get the words out. Not because I fight them but because it’s still so overwhelming.
“You want to talk about it?”
“I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”
“That’s typical when blindsided.”
I grunt.
“Want my two cents?”
“Yeah. I do.” I can practically see the shock on his face from me saying that.
“You’ve got to stop running, man. I can name three reasons why right off the top of my head.”
“Of course, you can.”
“The band. Bristol. Jagger. And not in that particular order.”
I laugh. It’s the first time I’ve cracked a smile in a while. “Fuck, man.”
“I can’t make you fight, hell, I can’t even make you want to fight, but I can tell you that those three things just might make you a better man than the kick-ass one I already know you to be.”
This, coming from the man I used as a verbal punching bag months ago. Who I left high and dry mid-recording on an album. Who I walked away from because of my own fucked-up head. “Point taken.”
“Hey, Vin?”
“Yeah?”
“One last thing. Wouldn’t the ultimate fuck you to your dad be you becoming the exact opposite type of father he was to you? To prove you’re nothing like that piece of shit?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Vince
“I know I’m the last one you want to hear from right now. I get it,” Cathy says, “but I don’t know who else to call with experience who can tell me how to handle this.”
“Handle what?” I ask, my own feelings like a tornado spinning inside of me.
“They’re everywhere.”
“Who’s everywhere?”
“Photographers. Paparazzi. Whatever you call them. They’re camped out on the lawn. Sitting in the trees across the street. Trying to peek through the blinds. Even going through our trash for Christ’s sake. Anything to try and get that first picture of Jagg and cash in. I know he’s not your responsibility, but he’s terrified. How do I make them go away?”
He’s terrified.
Those two damn words replay in my head as I haul ass to Bristol’s place. I have no plan in place. Hell, I haven’t even sorted out my feelings and sure as shit don’t feel like talking to her yet, but I have eight years of experience dealing with this kind of chaos. It’s nothing a six-year-old should have to deal with.
I’ll get them out of there.
I’ll protect them from it somehow.
Then I’ll figure out what the fuck I’m going to do about . . . everything.
Her street is chaos when I drive down it. Cars are parked on every free inch of curb and occupy every space in the apartment lots. Photographers, some I recognize by sight now since I’ve been in LA so long, mill around in what are considered the public places. The ones who have taken up residence on lawns have paid the residents for access no doubt. Their lenses are long and monstrous. Their appetites for invading and disrupting people’s lives is shameless. Their drive for the first exclusive shot, tenacious.
I pull up to the front of her place and park in the only spot I can find—the middle of the street. By the time the paparazzi register who I am and scramble to run after me with their shouts and flashes, I’m already pounding on the front door, shoulders rounded, head down.
The minute I hear the door unlock, I open the door, step inside, and shut it at my back. But the noise is still there, muted, but riotous.
Cathy stands in the center of the family room, her eyes solemn, her expression somber. “I begged her to call you,” she whispers. “She didn’t think she had any right to ask for help, but I told her maybe you could tell her how to sneak out of here. How to avoid them. I didn’t mean for you to have to come here. To face her and . . . him again before you were ready to.”
I nod as I notice things this time. The half-built Lego set in the corner. Jagger’s artwork framed on the wall behind the small dining room table—a display of a proud parent. A stack of books on the end table. Framed photos of Bristol and Jagger over the years scattered on surfaces around the place.