Three days after Alex got back to Los Angeles, I got a visit.
It wasn’t from him. He still didn’t know where I was—with Clara, at her Santa Monica home. It was Jenna, Blake, Lucas, and Hudson.
Jenna had a small baby bump that made my heart burst and ache at the same time. Blake looked like he’d won the lottery when he held her hand in his, barely containing a grin he knew he needed to wipe off—my situation wasn’t as great as his. Lucas looked like Lucas, and Hudson…in short, Hudson looked like the fourth lost Jonas brother who’d had too many discount vouchers to the tanning salon. Clara, who was upstairs in bed, told me I could treat this as my own house, so I did, and made them tea with milk and cookies. We all sat in her living room.
“Nice place,” Jenna said coldly, rubbing her little bump, an addition to her otherwise slender figure. She was wearing a crisp, white suit, blazer and all. Blake grinned at her like she was the sun, and again, I found myself aching to be looked at that way. Alex didn’t really count. He was a full-blown drug addict at this point, so who knew if what he felt for me was genuine.
“Thank you.” I tucked my hands between my thighs. “Why are you here?”
They told me they were there because of the whole Fallon thing. They wanted Craig and me to know she would be tried for her crime. I thanked them—and I meant it—I was seriously relieved to know that Lankford would see justice. At the same time, I didn’t have it in me to actually be happy.
“Also, we’re pregnant,” Blake announced.
I smiled. “I knew.”
“You did?”
“Yup.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Blake’s cheeks pinked. He looked like a child himself in that moment.
“Lies kept the tour running, right?” I took a sip of my tea. “Letters from the Liars. That’s what this tour should have been called.”
“Also, I’m gay.” Lucas tried to lighten up the mood by raising his arm and wiggling his fingers.
“I know that, too.”
“Alex?” Lucas sighed.
I shook my head. “I saw the way you looked at him in Paris. It was the same way I looked at him. Like I would kill for him. I knew you would, too.”
And wasn’t it the ultimate irony? The idea that I would have killed for the man who was connected to my parents’ deaths? I decided not to think about it that way. I’d been given a gift—the rare gift of loving wholly and entirely—and it had been good while it had lasted.
“I’m gay, too.” Hudson mimicked Lucas’ raised hand, and we all burst out laughing. Then Blake asked everyone if we could have a moment, and we walked out to Clara’s patio. We stood in front of the perennial shrubs when he opened his blazer and produced an envelope from an inner pocket.
“Your check.”
“I’ve already gotten paid.” I scrunched my nose. Fully, actually. Even though I bailed on them three weeks before the tour was over. Though no one could blame me, for obvious reasons.
“Yeah. That’s a bonus for suffering through the madness.” He smirked.
“You mean, it’s silence money so I won’t talk to the press about Alex’s connection in the case.” I smiled sweetly back. Somewhere along the way during this tour, I’d become a bit of a cynic. Craig said it was a good thing. He said I’d needed that in order to grow.
Blake tilted his head, furrowing his brows. “Not at all. He never spoke a word to me about it, and he talks about you all the time. You should know one thing, Blue. He loves you. In his own, fucked-up, dysfunctional way. He does. This tour changed him. He looked more present than he did the entire seven years since he got big. And I’m not here to make you change your mind—hell, I’m not even sure you should. He is a drug addict and a screwed-up soul beneath it all. But don’t regret a moment of what happened there. It was the real deal, Indie. It was what great albums are made of.”
I told him I couldn’t accept the check.
Then I told him I thought he was going to make a great dad, and he blushed—Blake actually blushed—and told me quietly that he’d bought a ring. I smiled. They were going to make one beautiful, highly functional, extremely put-together family.
I hugged everyone—especially Hudson, time and time again—before they left.
When Lucas squeezed me, he whispered into my ear, “I know I can’t have him, so I don’t mind if you do. But if you ever take him back, please make him happy.”
I told him I would never take Alex back, and Lucas dragged his index finger from his eye to his mouth, like he was sad about it. I was, too.
After they left I picked up my phone—my new phone, not the cracked one, I couldn’t look at anything broken anymore without thinking about Alex—and called Craig. I’d been meaning to do it for a long time, but the visit from the guys made me resolute.
“Hello?” Craig coughed into the phone.
“Alex is back in Los Angeles.” I drew in a shaky breath. Craig had been asleep when Alex had come to see me three days ago, and I’d asked Nat not to tell him, but her loyalty was with him. Always with him.
“I know. The air already stinks of self-indulgent cockiness.”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” I warned.
“Too late. Did you really think I wasn’t going to seek him out? He hurt me just as much as he hurt you, and Nat knew I deserved to know.”
He was wrong, but arguing this point was futile.
“Jesus, Craig. What did you do?”
“Messed him up a little. Don’t worry, your lover boy will still survive. Why are you calling me, Indie?” He sounded cold. All business. I blinked away my tears, looking up, at the patio, at the shrubs, at the beauty in the world. I am doing this for you, Craig. And you just made my decision a whole lot easier. “Pack a bag. You’re going to rehab first thing Monday morning.”
“Says who?” He snorted, but didn’t argue. I knew he was toying with the idea. Nat told me. But I also knew Craig needed me to make him. Needed to rebel against me, just for the sake of it.
“Says the girl who’s going to kick you out of the apartment she will stop paying for if you don’t get cleaned up. Me.”
I did wake up that morning.
I woke up, and instead of hating the world, and my life, and the Suits, and even Indie for not being with me, I forced myself to say a little thank you—inwardly. In-fucking-wardly, of course—and called a cab to get me to the airport on my way to Bloomington, Indiana.
I was waiting by the locked iron gates of the fancy-schmancy condo with my Wayfarers and scowl intact when I saw him. Simply Steven: blogger, fashion-icon, and the bane of my existence. He loitered outside, hands shoved deep in his pockets, looking worried, anxious, and guilty.
I didn’t know why he’d be the latter. Last I checked, I was the one who’d planted a fist in his face. In my defense, his face looked better that way, and not because he was ugly, but because he was smug.
You know, the kind of smug that warranted a punch in the face. Really, I was doing some kind of public service. I didn’t ask for a thank you, but the arrest was a stretch.
Contrary to general belief and Us Weekly, what had prompted me to lose my shite on Simply Steven wasn’t, in fact, because he’d asked me how it felt to have my fiancée shagged by my best friend. No. It was afterward, when he yelled at me that my last album was depressing and that ‘music is supposed to be fun.’
On what planet was music supposed to be fun? He sounded like MTV after the Suits killed it and made it a reality TV channel for pimply teenagers. Music is supposed to be overwhelming and defeating and bone-crushingly moving.
So I punched him. Now he hates me. Which begs the eternal question—what the fuck?
“The Botox clinic is down the road.” I gathered phlegm in my throat and spat it on the ground. My back still felt naked and too light without Tania. How the hell was I going to face rehab without her?
“Ha-ha. I’m here for you.” He shifted a little and kicked a rock that clashed against my boot.
“Yay me,” I said flatly, putting a fag in my mouth and lighting up. “What do you want?”
“My sponsor says I owe you an apology.”
“You have a sponsor? What did you get addicted to, eyelash extensions?”
“Always the funny guy, Winslow. And, yeah. I was. It…was…heroin.”
I did not expect to hear that. Didn’t matter, though. This entire city was built on powder and coats upon coats of makeup. Nothing surprised me anymore, other than the sheer surprise of finding someone who still had their soul intact, like Indie. I tapped my cigarette with my finger, looking sideways. Where’s that cab?
“Apology accepted,” I said.
“You don’t know what I’m apologizing for,” he countered, sticking his head between the bars of the gate like a dumb puppy. As if that wasn’t enough, his eyes were sad. His malnourished body and too shiny hair and veneer teeth depressed me, and I wondered if I looked the same. Perfectly pathetic.
“What are you apologizing for?” Seriously, where was that cab?
“Hey, did someone beat you up?” He squinted at the blue and purple staining my face, then rattled the gate like a prisoner. I halted for a moment before opening the gateway and letting him in. Perhaps I was the one who’d had his arse kicked, but he was the one looking pitiful.
“None of your business.”
“You look rough, man.” He stepped inside the premises.
“Well, let’s just say Karma is a nasty bitch, and her brother, Fate, is not much better,” I muttered.
“Anyway.” He ran his fingers through his sunshine hair. It was obvious we were making conversation—maybe even an important conversation—but we were both locked inside our worlds. “The alcohol you had sent to your rooms…that was me. I hated you, Winslow. Still do. You humiliated me in front of the entire world and made me look like a pussy. Getting back at you was almost easy. Hotel staff would do anything for money. But, it was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
I finally stepped out of my own head, from my misery and doubt and worry over everything Stardust-related, to attend the shitshow in front of me. I turned around to face him.
“You sent the alcohol?” My head was pounding. I’d been so certain it was Will. Turned out, it wasn’t his doing, either. So what was Will responsible for, really, in terms of ruining my life? Just for taking Fallon. And even that had been a huge favor.
“I did. I wanted you to relapse.” He rubbed the back of his neck, sighing. “I wanted you sad. Like me.”
“You little…”
The cab arrived just then, the driver honking outside of the gate. I grabbed my duffel bag and slung it over my shoulder. “Fuck you.” I shoved my index finger to his chest, then left.
“Alex…” he called after me.
I would forgive him, later. Not today.
I rang Blake on my way to the airport, knowing he’d fill Alfie and Lucas in.
“We should probably report him to the police,” Blake said. “That’s what he did to you.”
“Nah. I’m better than the shithead,” I said, and at that time, it wasn’t true yet. But I knew I needed to be better than him, and better than most people, to redeem myself.
So I did.
The second time in rehab was different. I knew it was different because this time, I paid attention. Not that I’d had any reason not to give it an honest shot the first time around. I was simply too self-absorbed and full of words like ‘integrity’ and ‘artistic process’ and ‘Iggy Pop.’ The first time I’d had absolutely nothing to distract me. My last album had flopped harder than a Lindsey Lohan movie, Fallon was with Will, Blake and Jenna were putting out all of the fires I’d left behind, and all I’d been asked—literally, the only thing I was expected to do—was to come out of there in one piece.
This time, I had a huge album in my hands, my greatest masterpiece, waiting to be produced and released, and I just had to sit on it. I had a girl to win—Stardust—and the uncertainty of second-guessing whether she’d even hear me out consumed every millisecond of my day. Still, I knew rehab was important.
So I listened.
I went to every class.
I held hands with strangers. With suburban mummies who’d gotten addicted to prescription pills, and a preacher’s son who’d fallen into the arms of heroin, and a Russian oligarch’s daughter who, like me, had snorted pounds and pounds of cocaine to numb the feeling that the world was closing in on you from all angles. I wrote letters to my family and friends. Angry letters. Apologetic letters. Funny letters. Then I burned them all. I couldn’t write Stardust shite, though. Everything I had to say to her—every single groveling word—had to be said in person.
I took the extended rehab program—I call it the I-truly-give-a-shit program—despite my urge to win Indie—but also because of it—even though I knew every day I wasn’t releasing my new album, I was losing money, and sponsorships, and listeners, and fandom, and who the fuck knows what else.
Three months passed. I came out of rehab.
Blake wanted to pick me up, but I didn’t want to rehash the last time I’d gotten out. I thought it’d jinx the whole process, which, in itself, was a ridiculous thought, but I indulged myself anyway. I took a cab straight to the airport. I landed in New York a few hours later. Ate a gas station sandwich—because some things never change—then crashed for fifteen hours. I slept like I’d never slept in my life. Like I’d worked the entire three months in a fucking cornfield. Then I woke up, took the subway just to feel human again, pulling my beanie and hoodie all the way down, and showed up at the recording studio.
Two months passed. I recorded an album.
Another three months of promotions, and interviews, and magazine covers, and The Comeback of the Year! headlines. Alexander Winslow: An Artist, a Poet, and a New Man. And, Guess Who’s Back? And, Will Bushell, Who?
I felt the time slipping between my hands, but Blake told me it was okay. That she would still remember. That real love never dies. That I needed to prove to her I was actually sober for long enough to make her believe it.
Now, let me tell you something about my album. Midnight Blue broke the record for fastest-recording album in the history of that Williamsburg studio. It took me one week to record and produce twelve songs.
- The Little Prince
- Chasing Asteroids
- Under Darker Skies
- Maybe It’s You
- Was She Worth It?
- Perfectly Paranoid
- Oh, But You Are
- A Different Kind of Love
- Seek and Kill
- Why Now?
- Fool For You
- Midnight Blue
Midnight Blue was the first single I dropped. Jenna and Blake flew into New York that weekend to remind my fragile ego and pompous arse that it was a process. That, at first, the radio stations run the song for trial on different hours of the day and see how it goes. That building hype takes time, and patience, and a lot of arse-kissing. But with Midnight Blue, I didn’t need any of it. The song just sort of exploded, the way my career had when I’d first broken into Billboard when I was twenty-one years old, and took over the charts like they’d been sitting pretty and waiting for me their whole lives.
And it was nice. And reassuring. And completely unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Don’t get me wrong—I recorded the album because I wanted to record it. It was a part of a bigger plan, a detailed, persevering, calculated one. I wanted Indie to know what she was to me. She wasn’t a dirty fuck, or a pristine secret, or a mistake. She wasn’t some roadie I’d climbed on top of every night because she was there and available.
She was my muse.
She was my life.
She was my all.
I took a plane back to Los Angeles nine months after I landed in New York. I was sober, on top of my game, and ready to chase what was mine.
Only Indie had never been mine. She was, in fact, the one thing I couldn’t even think about ever claiming, because I didn’t deserve her. But I finally understood what Will, Lucas, and Blake had wanted to do. Even more frightening than that—I was happy they’d done it, because if they hadn’t thrust her into my life, I would’ve never given rehab a second chance, I would’ve never written Midnight Blue, and I definitely wouldn’t have understood what this thing I made millions upon millions upon—Love—had meant.
“Alex Winslow! Looking mighty fine, dude.” An American paparazzo jumped into my face at LAX, followed by a bunch of paparazzi photographers. They all wore ball caps and black clothes and smiles that were a cross between taunting and downright smug.
“Never been better.” I smiled. Which was partly right, and partly so, so wrong. I was breezing through security, two nameless bodyguards by my side. I didn’t usually use them—I counted on my friends to throw off potential stalkers or overtly aggressive fans—but I needed to do this alone.
I slid into a rental car—I didn’t want a driver or anything else remotely fancy—and programmed Indigo’s address into my Waze app. I knew she still lived at her old place, even though she’d rented a better one for Craig, Natasha, and Ziggy. Because that’s the kind of person she was. Selfless. It’d been so many months, the thought she wouldn’t remember me occurred as I pulled out of the massive parking lot and into the constant, never-ending traffic of Los Angeles. It was utterly ridiculous to feel that way. Indie couldn’t have forgotten about the first man who’d fucked her—really fucked her—the first man she’d given her heart to, the first man who’d broken it without even meaning to, and the first man who’d ruined her life. Those were too many firsts. Good and bad. Fact.
I was all wired up and ready to explode in the car on my way to her. My foot kept bouncing on the brake pedal, which prompted the drivers behind and ahead of me to honk their horns and flip me the bird.
“You can’t rush love!” I popped my head out from the window, forcing myself to laugh.
“Holy shit, Mom! It’s Alex Winslow!” a teenybopper yelled from a Toyota Corolla next to mine amidst the traffic jam.
When I finally took a turn to her neighborhood, my heart started racing insanely fast. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but I was worried it might be a heart attack. That couldn’t be too good. I already looked like shite. I had bags under my eyes from working nonstop and my hair needed a cut two months ago, straddling the line between a tousled mane and an almost man-bun. Not that I would ever collect my hair in an elastic. That was almost as unacceptable as making country music. Point was, I looked rough, and now I was also sweating like a pig. Great.
Come get it, Indie. A sweaty, ex-druggie with baggy eyes. Every girl’s dream.
It took me twenty minutes to find a parking space, and I was actually pathetically thankful for that, because it gave me time to stall. It gave me the chance to think about what I was going to say to her. You’d think I would’ve been more prepared, but you’d be wrong, because the conversation I wanted to have with her could go so many different ways, I constantly changed my mind about how to approach it.
I parked.
Got out of the car.
Heavy feet. Heavy heart. I climbed up the stairs, feeling irrationally hopeful and soul-crushingly disheartened at the same time. I knocked on the door. Stared at it for a few seconds, feeling a sweat drop slithering from my temple all the way into my right eye without moving an inch. I tried to listen to the sound coming from the inside, but the place was dead. I knew I would, and could, stay there. In the hallway. Waiting for her. There was something symbolic about it, too. But the truth was, I couldn’t endure another minute of waiting.
I’d waited for her in rehab.
And I’d waited for her when I recorded Midnight Blue.
I’d waited for her on every airplane I took, every interview I’d given, every fan I’d hugged, every hour I’d spent away from her. Every breath I’d taken without knowing what she was doing. I’d paid my dues.
I knocked again. The third time. Then rang the doorbell.
She wasn’t there.
I decided to get out of the building and walk around. Maybe she’d gone to the grocery store down the road. Maybe she would meet me halfway, and her big, blue eyes would widen, and she’d run toward me in slow-motion, and we would kiss slow and hard and wouldn’t even have to talk about any of the bad shit that had happened between us.
My legs carried me down her street. I passed the grocery, and the Israeli coffee shop, and the Korean nail salon. I knew these places because I may or may not have visited her neighborhood once or twice or twelve times before I’d finally dragged my arse to rehab. I cut a corner and stopped at a junction that kissed a small park with a few benches scattered around some swings and a slide. It was tiny, really, and wouldn’t have caught my attention in a million years if it weren’t for a bright blue pram parked beside a bench.
A bench on which my very personal Blue, Indie “Stardust” Bellamy, was sitting.
Cooing at the baby inside the pram.
A baby.
Not a toddler like Ziggy. A newborn baby.
She was wearing a big, floaty white dress, and her blue hair was braided and flung over one shoulder the way I liked it. I froze in my spot, unable to take a peek. But she did the job for me by rocking the pram back and forth. When she pulled it away from her, I got a decent look at the little human inside it.
He or she was so tiny.
My heart stopped. Literally stopped—and yes, I know what the word ‘literally’ means. It was too early in the day, after too many hours on a plane, to do the math. Was it mine? Was it someone else’s? God. Fuck. It couldn’t have been someone else’s. This baby was mine. Jesus Christ. I had a baby. Indie had a baby. And she hadn’t said anything. Not a phone call. Not a letter. No nothing.
She’d had so many ways of contacting me. I’d made sure my whole staff was available for her. Blake checked on her every week to assure me she was fine. Jenna would accept any message she’d wanted to send me through her with open arms. Especially now, when she was a mother and actually resembled a warm and welcoming human being. Not to mention Indie had both my phone numbers, my email, and my secret Facebook account I’d only given ten people in the entire world. Anger swept through me.
Now I was moving, all right.
Back and forth, pacing on the sidewalk by the busy road like a bloody moron. She hadn’t seen me yet, but she would, soon, and what was I going to say? Cheers for letting me know I’m a father? Then again, she had a very good reason to be mad at me…
Fuck. Fuck.
We’d deal with it, I decided. We’d deal with the baby. He or she was so small, anyway. They wouldn’t even remember I hadn’t been present in their lives for the first few months or so. It was fine. We could pick up from where we left things off. If anything, wasn’t it an incentive for Indie to give me another chance? I was sober, richer than God, and desperately in love with her. Plus, I’d change diapers and do all the messy shite a lot of blokes shied away from. Hell, I hated that I saw the baby as a way to have leverage over her. I was thinking like high, manipulative Alex again, and I really wanted to leave that bastard behind, in rehab, when I left it.
I took a step into the park at the same time someone else did. But he was faster, not slowed down by the shock and horror at finding out what I just had.
He breezed past me.
Walked over to her.
Wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
Kissed her cheek…
It is scientifically impossible to die of a broken heart. I discovered it in that moment. Because if it was, I’d already be dead. Done. Over. That’s how much it had hurt to see them together. I watched them. She smiled at him as he sat down.
She was so beautiful.
He was so…not.
Normal brown hair. Normal clothes. Normal height. Normal weight. Just normal. What the hell did he think? Walking into her life with his normalcy and picking up the pieces—my pieces—playing daddy to this baby—my baby. I wanted to walk over there and beat the shit out of him. I didn’t even care that I had a criminal record, and the last time I got bailed for DUI and insinuating I’d wanted to shag an officer, my lawyer had warned me that the United States of America had just about had enough of my sorry arse, and the next time I got into trouble, I could get deported.
You can’t allow yourself to get deported, idiot. You have a baby to think about now.
Fine. I wasn’t going to beat the shit out of him. But I was going to do something.
I wish I had the virtue of patience. Then, maybe, I would have thought things through. Taken a few steps away, made a phone call, to Blake or Jenna or even Lucas, and asked them how does one react to the news that his ex—Indie was my ex, for the sake of this argument—had his baby, and moved on with some useless prat. I would maybe even go as far as asking them how—despite all the progress I’d shown—they still couldn’t trust my judgment, and had therefore hidden the existence of my baby from me. Because they absolutely knew. They had to know. Blake, Hudson, and Lucas were all in touch with Stardust. I knew that.
But I didn’t have anything other than a thousand burning suns in the pit of my stomach, suns that told me I’d be burned alive if I didn’t approach them, and so I did.
I light-jogged to them, feeling angry and relieved at the same time.
Indie’s head snapped up when I was about three feet away from her, and she dragged her eyes from the baby she cradled and fed, staring back at me.
I stopped, unable to make the rest of the journey. Her eyes paralyzed me, but it was her expression that undid me. She looked like she was…sorry. Like she’d missed me. Like she, too, had a lot of things to say. But she didn’t move, either, so we just looked like we were in an old movie that had frozen on a scene. The bastard beside her dragged his gaze up, every muscle in his face lax and happy.
“What’s going on? Do you know this guy, Indie?”
This guy?
This guy?
The fucker better not have touched my baby, or I would have to kill him, deportation or not. Besides, what the hell did he mean, ‘this guy’? Had she not told him she’d had Alex Winslow’s baby? I wasn’t some arsehole from the street. Even if he didn’t know who I was—fat chance, but some people just have bad taste in music—she still ought to have mentioned I was, in fact, a famous musician of some sort.
“Yeah, I…” she said slowly, still clasping the baby to her chest.
“Don’t.” I took a step forward, shaking my shock off. “Don’t downplay us. Not right now, and especially not after what I’m seeing here.”
“And what, exactly, are you seeing here?” She held my gaze. How could she say that? While holding the product of what we were to each other. Did I turn the women in my life into cold bitches, or was I naturally attracted to them and Indie had just been incredibly good at hiding it so far?
“We need to talk.” I breathed through my nose slowly, slowly, so fucking slowly, trying to incorporate every single piece of advice I’d been given in rehab. No one had warned me that the outside world I was being sent to had turned upside down while I was sitting in a circle clapping for people who bragged about not drinking their mouthwash to get high when their mother-in-law was in town.
“Maybe it’s not a good idea.” She sighed. Jesus, what the fuck? She didn’t even want to talk about it?
“No.” Another step forward. “Stardust, you listen to me. I’ve been through hell the last few months. For you. I’m not asking for a medal, or even for forgiveness—though that’d be really fucking grand, mind you—I’m just asking you kindly, respectfully, pleadingly, to listen to me.”
She put the formula bottle down on the bench and hugged the baby to her chest. He was cute. Cute, but he did not resemble her, and I was starting to grow incredibly confused. For one thing, he looked closer to a year old than a newborn. Secondly, I wasn’t much of a gene expert, but little guy had a head full of raven hair, and both Indie and I had brown hair in different shades. Mine was more chestnut; her original hair color was honey-ish, flirting with blond. I knew that because sometimes she forgot to wax the hair off her p—actually, it didn’t really matter how I knew that. I just did.
“Now’s not a good time.”
Her voice was quiet and guarded, and why in the world had the guy beside her not punched me yet? If this were me sitting beside her, the first fist would have been thrown the moment someone had even approached my girl. My girl. Was she his girl? I was going to be sick.
“When’s a good time?” I asked, still standing too closely and staring at her too eagerly. She looked left and right, blowing a lock of hair that fell from her braid aside.
“I don’t know, eight? Would you still be around?”
Would I still be around? I had no intention of fucking leaving this neighborhood until we had a lengthy talk. I nodded, pointing at the baby. I had to. Even though I knew I was going to hate either answer, though for very different reasons.
“I’ll wait outside your door. Just one thing, Indie. Is he mine?”
She looked down at the baby, and smiled at him, and he smiled at her, and oh, fuck, she looked like the perfect, wholesome mum. She opened her mouth and spoke to me, but looked at him.
“No.”
I knew he’d be there, so I stalled.
Alex had never been good at waiting. Everything was given to him quickly, urgently, easily. I wanted to see if he had changed. It was stupid, and small, and petty, but also necessary.
I was babysitting Clara’s grandson, Grayson. Grayson’s dad, Ollie, had gotten back from work early and decided to join us at the park. It wasn’t out of character for Ollie to show up, but it was completely unexpected for Alex Winslow to be there.
Shortly after Alex came back to the States and I’d sought refuge somewhere he couldn’t find me, Clara called and told me she’d broken her hip and was no longer able to look after Grayson for the upcoming months. She asked if I wanted the job, since I was a friend of the family and got along nicely with her son and his wife, Tiffany, and I immediately said yes. I didn’t need the money particularly, but I needed the company, and the temporary accommodation before Alex left for rehab.
I liked my job, but that didn’t mean I liked my life.
I hated my life. My life was Alex-less, and that was the worst way to live your life once you’d had a dose of the rocker.
I thought about it as I strolled at the farmer’s market, looking, but not touching, all the rows of strawberries, peaches, and jars of homemade jam. It was only two weeks ago that I stopped waking up crying and hating myself for missing him.
Because I did. I missed him every day.
I missed the man who knew, or at the very least had great suspicion that his ex-girlfriend had taken lives that night.
The man who’d covered for his ex-lover’s crimes knowingly.
The man who could have saved my mother, maybe, if he had been more persistent, and stubborn, and less jaded, and drunk, and tired of life. Because I knew he hadn’t done it out of love for Fallon.
When you love, you want to fix.
When you love, you don’t help to destroy.
And wasn’t it what Alex was trying to do right now? Fix things between us?
I knew my brother and sister-in-law were not going to fault me for hearing him out. I even knew Alex did everything he could to take care of me. He sent me checks every month. Checks I tore and threw into the trash. Blake called me once a week. Jenna helped Craig get a maintenance job at her office building. The day Craig, Nat, and Ziggy had moved out, Lucas came in to install a new alarm system at the apartment and helped me paint the walls. Hudson would come every other Friday for sushi and Gossip Girl.
They all meant well.
Even Fallon hadn’t meant any harm, but harm she did, anyway, which was why she was awaiting trial right now. I didn’t know what Will thought about the whole thing, and sometimes, when I thought about him, which wasn’t often, I’d hurt for him, too.
At seven thirty, I threw in the towel and headed back home. I didn’t know what I was going to say to Alex and hadn’t decided if I was going to forgive him or not. And that, in itself, was irresponsible and dangerous for my poor heart.
He waited for me in the hallway, his long legs bent in front of my door for lack of space. He was long, and lithe, and completely gorgeous, the way I remembered him. I stopped and squeezed the railing, my knuckles whitening, trying to gather my thoughts.
He noticed me and rose to his feet, and we stood in front of each other, staring, mostly.
“Feels a lot like midnight,” he said. I didn’t want to smile, but I did, anyway.
“Are you okay?” I whispered.
“Is he really not mine?” His eyes shone.
I shook my head. “No. He’s with his dad now,” I referred to Grayson.
“Okay.” He nodded. “Okay. Have you listened to—”
“I have,” I cut through his words. How could I miss the song about me, when it was the most played song in contemporary radio stations all across America?
Two souls collide on a too dark floor in a graveyard for the stars
Funny, when you walked into my life I thought I’d be the one leaving all the scars
There wasn’t one moment when I knew you’d be mine
There were pieces of jigsaw, when I looked into your eyes
And at midnight, the sky turned blue
The night belonged to us, it was just me and you
And at midnight, you undressed me from my fears
I devoured your tears
Seconds became illuminated like years
And at midnight, I kissed your skin, your eyes, your lips
You shone so dangerously, my own little personal eclipse
And at midnight, I broke your heart
You broke mine too
We fell apart.
Once upon a time, I wanted to be someone’s white knight
One upon a time, I thought I saw the light
Then you burst into my life like cerulean powder falling from above
Teaching me I never knew true love
You took my heart and held it in your teeth
I begged for you to bite it, oh, how I fucking loved your heat
And at midnight, the sky turned blue
You taught me feelings and moves, brand-new
And at midnight, I nipped at your flesh
Your walls crumbled one by one, even though you said you were in it for the cash
And at midnight, I fucked your body, your heart, your soul
Joke’s on me, ’cause now I’m the one who needs to crawl
And at midnight, we broke together
On the floor
So fucked forever.
He even used a line I wrote to him.
A line I later saw somewhere else. On the Internet.
“Is that how you see our relationship?” My throat caught. God, I shouldn’t have wanted to listen to him, but I couldn’t help not to, either.
He nodded. “Not to be a jerk, but I’d rather we have this conversation inside, after you offer me a glass of water, because my mouth is still dry from the notion that baby could’ve been ours and you were raising it with some random bloke. But just to put it out there, I’m going to raise him as my own if you give me a chance.”
Raise him as his own? I frowned, cocking my head to the side, before the penny dropped. Then I started laughing like a maniac. Oh, God. He thought Grayson was ours. Mine. That was hilarious, and frightening, and so, completely Alex to jump to such a drastic conclusion. I unlocked my door and pushed it open, and he followed behind me. The tension that was thick in the air evaporated—some of it, anyway—and I took out two bottles of water from the fridge, handing him one. I leaned against the countertop while he stood at the doorway to my small, stuffy kitchen and stared at me.
“I babysit Grayson. He’s not mine, or yours. He’s Ollie and Tiffany’s. Clara’s grandson,” I clarified.
“Holy fuck, you could have started with that instead of laughing at me.” He plastered his forehead to my fridge and smiled. “Thank God. I mean, cute kid. But still. Thank God.”
I laughed some more, and he did, too, before we both turned serious again.
“I’m clean now, you know,” he said, referring to the time he’d come back to Los Angeles, angry and crazy and so lost, trying to drag me back into his arms, never acknowledging my tragedy but illuminating his. “Just got done with my tour. Nine months sober. I wanted to show up after the month, but couldn’t help myself. I was afraid you’d move on.”
“I know you’re sober.” I bit my lower lip, then took a sip of my water just to do something with my hands and mouth. Blake kept me updated—even though I’d told him I didn’t want to hear it. I was happy Alex was seeking help. I just didn’t want to be in the loop to feed my obsession with him. Because I hadn’t moved on.
“I’m happy for you, Alex. I am.”
He swiveled his body to be aligned with mine, staring me down like the predator I longed to be devoured by. “It was the hardest thing I had to do in my entire life. Not the physical bit. That was a piece of cake, actually. But mentally. Making the conscious decision to never consume another drop of alcohol or a line of cocaine. Being so far away from you, because I knew you wouldn’t accept me any other way—but even more alarmingly, maybe you wouldn’t accept me even after all the changes I’d made. I’m not here to make promises, because promises are meant to be broken. I’m here to give you the facts, one by one. Fact number one”—he took a deep gulp of air, squeezing his eyes shut before opening them wide like he’d just risen from the bottom of the ocean coming back for air—“I love you, Indigo Bellamy. My love for you is like a studded leather jacket worn inside out. It digs into my chest, eager to produce blood. And I will do anything for you, not because you’re my muse or my salvation or my best lay, but because you’re inside me, like an organ, like a vital thing I cannot function without. I don’t even want you at this point. I need you. It’s different, and carnal, and completely necessary for my existence. Fact number two.” He took a step toward me, and I tried hard not to wince, because it was too soon to touch, even if he’d just swiped my hair off my face. “I recognize, now, that I made your heartbreak about me. I was so consumed with wanting you, I cared more about not losing you than comforting you. I want you to know I’m deeply, wholeheartedly, dreadfully sorry. Regardless of who you are to me—the love of my life or some nameless girl I was never going to meet—I still would have done right by you had I known what was going on when Fallon came home the night of the accident. But I didn’t. Not at the time, at least. You have to understand that, Indie, because I won’t be able to survive living in this world knowing you think I could have saved your parents but chose not to.”
Another step, and the distance between us erased, replaced with body heat and familiarity. The intimacy you couldn’t fake in a million years. The one that comes with love. “Fact number three—I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t see you as a charity case. I thought it was sad that you were an orphan, but no sadder than how I’d lived my life without a family. In my mind, we were two asteroids orbiting around each other. I thought I was the sun and you were earth, but now I see I got it all mixed up. You were always the sun. And even now, when I look at you, I don’t see regret and pain and suffering. I see the biggest opportunity, the sweetest promise, the road I should be taking.”
We were toe-to-toe now. He put his palms on my cheeks, and my eyes stung, my heart racing wildly. I didn’t push him away. Even the pain he gave me was special because it was his. I knew exactly what he’d meant by saying he needed me. I needed him, too. My life felt so hollow without him in it. Most days, I felt like I was merely existing, but nowhere near living.
“Fact number four—it doesn’t matter what or who brought us together. But it happened, and we can’t undo it. It’s there, and we can’t go back. When I saw you with a baby this afternoon, the first thing I wanted to do was snatch you both and run away from here with you in tow. Most of all, what scared me was that I wasn’t even remotely disturbed by the idea of having a kid with you. And that says a lot. Shit, Stardust, that says everything. You’re holding my world together in your delicate, freckled hands, and all I ask is for you not to toss it against the wall and break it to pieces.”
His mouth closed in on mine, his lips tracing mine like braille, like he was trying to read the reaction out of me. I sucked in air and opened up for him, and we kissed so slow and so soft I thought I was being drugged into a lull. Eventually, I was the one to suck his tongue into my mouth and moan, trying to peel off his leather jacket. I wanted to believe he was sober and was going to stay that way, because deep inside, I’d already forgiven him.
Alex Winslow made me lose a part of my heart.
But he’d also sewn it back together, in tattered patches, in ugly patches, but it was whole. In its own, imperfect-but-still-working way.
“I love you,” I whimpered into his mouth, tearing our kiss apart to say something important. “Before she died, my mother told me that in order to know if you’re in love, you need to make a list of all the stupid things you did for that person. I made a list, Alex. It’s not pretty. On paper, I’m kind of a fool.”
He stared at me for a second, curving one side of his mouth and showing off the perfect row of teeth, like in the movies. His everywhere eyes sparkled with newfound happiness.
We stumbled to my bedroom. I laughed when we tripped over my new sewing machine. He hoisted me up and wrapped me around his waist, his signature move, and we were together again, in Moscow, Poland, Germany, London, and Paris.
He licked my cheek like a dog. “Mine. Claimed it.”
“Yours.” I licked his stubbled jawline, smiling. “Until the very last note.”