F*cked Page 2

  She repeated it in her head. She’d sworn to God that she wasn’t going back to that life. She wasn’t going back to him. She’d sworn it to God, and she’d sworn it to Pete, when he was just a couple of little dividing cells in her belly.

  She wasn’t going to be one of those people. One of those party moms who ignore their babies so they can go out and get high. She wasn’t going to have a baby who was desperate for a bump of coke from the minute that he was born. And now that he was a beautiful little boy, she wasn’t going to let herself provide a bad example for him. She wasn’t.

  So she sucked in a deep breath, forced herself to keep moving, and walked over and kept straightening out chairs. She needed to call Cara. She wasn’t jonesing. Not really. But she was a short walk away from it, at this point, and she needed to calm down before she found herself thinking how easy it would be.

  The meeting would help, though, she knew. Being strong for someone else was the best way to be strong for yourself. And if you needed someone to be strong for you, then the Lord was always watching. Jesus had been tempted, just like every one of them in that meeting had been tempted, and he had resisted. Just like all of them had to resist. And they would resist. Somehow. She would resist.

  Lara sucked in a breath, settled the last chair in, and walked back over to where Barron was sitting slumped in his chair. Like he hoped nobody would notice him. But aside from Roman, who sat with his legs spread wide like he owned the place, he was the only one there. And likely would be for another ten minutes.

  “You doing alright, Barron?”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it,” he said. His voice was low and sad. She looked at him. He looked sad. She knew that look. She’d seen it a thousand times in the past seven years. She’d been that woman, a few times. But she’d had little choice but to sober up. Barron… well, he had what he had.

  “If you’re sure, then…”

  A voice behind her surprised Mary. She spun. Roman stood over her, looking down on the guy.

  “Hey, man. I’m having a hard time. Can you do me a favor? Just this once?”

  Barron looked up at him glumly.

  “What can I do? Not much, I guess.”

  “I just need to pray with someone, yeah?”

  Barron looked up at Roman like he was asking for him to move a mountain. “Yeah,” he said finally, his voice little above a whisper. “I guess I can do that. You know the words?”

  “I can’t say them. Not right now. I just… need some help. I’m away from home and I’m in a bad place, and…”

  Barron nodded. His back straightened, just a little, as Roman settled in next to him. If Barron recognized him, he made no sign. Then again, without all the makeup on, not that many people would recognize Roman Townsend.

  Roman took Barron’s hand and lowered his head, and then Barron started speaking softly.

  “Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”

  Four

  Mary looked at Roman no differently than she had before. That was a little disappointing, he had to admit. He’d hoped at least a little bit, somewhere deep down, that she’d see that he he wasn’t who she seemed to be so convinced that he was. He wasn’t trouble. He wasn’t bringing trouble. At least, not as far as he knew.

  He just wanted to be himself a little. That wasn’t so much to ask, was it? She’d been chill before. And yeah, she was a different person now. Hell, he was a different person. He’d learned to buckle down a little. Learned to work when he didn’t feel like it. Learned that there was more to his job than having every ounce of talent that God could give a man and a big dick.

  But then again, first impressions are generally the ones you’re stuck with, like it or not. And he’d formed his first impressions a long time ago, for better or worse.

  “I wasn’t so bad, was I?”

  “I don’t understand your game here,” Mary answered. Her voice was low enough that she probably hoped nobody could hear. He hoped she was right, for her sake. She seemed to be very concerned about it, and he had no desire to take that away from her. No matter how much fun it might have been.

  “Game?”

  “I’m not stupid. I know you’ve got an angle here. So why don’t you let me know what it is?”

  Mary seemed defensive. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “No game. I just was in town. I did a show last night at Cobo Hall, and I’m in town for a couple days.”

  “A couple days, huh? So, what then? You thought you’d crash a few NA meetings?”

  “You know some others?”

  “Don’t be an ass, Roman, I swear to you—”

  “I mean, maybe a few weeks. Look, I don’t get that much time off work. I just thought I’d hang around.”

  “And so you went looking for, what? Some old, used…” she swallowed the last word, but he could still see the annoyance in her face. She was angry with him. Angry for something he hadn’t even really done.

  “No. And no. I just… I mean, I guess I was looking for you.”

  “I’m not some pet. That was one time. Once. I’m a totally different person now.”

  “I know that,” he said. “I could tell. It was a lovely meeting, by the way. You run them very well.”

  “Don’t think I don’t appreciate how you handled the situation with Barron. I know what you did, and I do appreciate it.”

  “Then just let me buy you a cup of coffee.”

  “I have to take my son—”

  “Bring him with. I’m not asking you to get down under the table, okay? I’m not who you think I am.”

  She looked like she wasn’t sure of that. She had some very specific ideas about who he was, and he understood why. Ten years was a long time. But that was who he’d been. There was no denying it now.

  “No funny stuff?”

  “None at all,” he said. She got a thoughtful look on her face. Like she wasn’t too sure what she wanted to do. He twisted his fingers up behind his back and tried to calm himself down. If she didn’t go for it, then that was her right. He didn’t have any room to criticize her. Not even kind-of, really. He knew that.

  But it still stung a little bit. She barely knew anything about him. He barely knew anything about her. But that was something he’d hoped to change, at least a little bit.

  “You know, if you’re married or something, and worried about that—”

  “Not married, no.”

  “What about the kid?”

  “His father’s out of the picture. Has been a long time.”

  “Oh.” There was a moment where the gears in his head started turning, and math started happening. “You don’t mean he’s—”

  Roman felt his pulse quickening in his veins. The idea hadn’t even occurred to him. Not in a million years. It had always been possible, on some level, but never a real, tangible thought that he had to worry about.

  But that was then, and this was now. He’d more than proved that he could make the biggest mistakes the world had to offer. This was just another one, really. Another stop on his trail of big mistakes. And one that he would rectify in an instant, given half of a chance.

  “He’s what? Oh. Yours? No, of course not.” Mary laughed. It was a soft, nervous laugh. Not the sort of laugh that he really expected to hear from her. Like she wasn’t sure what to say. Maybe it was an awkward question.

  “No, my boyfriend at the time was, like… my coke dealer, and… eh. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Does he know?”

  “Who? Pete?”

  “The father. Which one is Pete?”

  “Pete is… Peter, come here!”

  Her voice was loud, for a library. Anywhere else, it might have been a conversational tone.

  The boy turned. The same boy who had pointed him in the direction of the NA meeting in the first place. His walk was gangly, like he wasn’t quite used to using his legs. Or like they were asleep, which made sense the way he’d been kneeling.

 
“This is an old friend of Mommy’s. This is Mr. Roman. Say hello.”

  “See?” the kid said to him. “I told you. Nothing to worry about.”

  Mary raised an eyebrow.

  “I’ll tell you all about it,” Roman promised. “Over coffee.”

  Five

  Mary Ayers looked into the rear-view mirror. Peter was staring out the window, watching storefronts whip by at forty miles an hour as her car stood still. He hated that booster seat. But the law was the law, and it was that way for a reason. She wasn’t going to flaunt it and then get Pete hurt or killed just because she’d wanted to trust a seven-year-old’s mild discomfort over a bunch of experts’ safety tips.

  She put her eyes back on the road, reached down, and picked up the to-go cup that she’d taken from the coffee place. It was still hot. And apparently, so was Roman Townsend, even after a long time. She pursed her lips.

  She’d learned her lesson with him a long time ago. But he didn’t exactly make it easy to stick to her guns, did he? Every little thing he did made her feel more at ease. And every bit of relaxation that she fell into felt worse, because she was supposed to know better.

  Mary set the coffee back down. “Pete.”

  His face turned to face the mirror. She shouldn’t be watching him in it. But she had an eye on the road, too. So it was probably fine.

  “You want to do anything today?”

  “Not really.”

  “Okay.” He went back to watching stuff. It made him look a little sad, but Mary thought, or at least suspected, that it kept him entertained well enough. And if he was a little bored or a little sad, then that was okay. It wasn’t a problem to be a little bored or a little sad.

  People who thought it wasn’t okay, they fell into the sort of traps that Mary had fallen into. Out of high school, she was never bored, and never sad. Because the minute that she thought she might be, she found something else to keep her interested. And it had worked, in a sense.

  She wasn’t bored. She was a single mother, with a vague sense that at any point she could just start asking around and get a bump within a matter of hours, and fall right down the rabbit hole. It was the same feeling that she had when she thought about Roman.

  It would be so easy to fall down again. There was no advantage to doing it, but there was a temptation. And the temptation would be so easy to give into that she didn’t even have to convince herself she could.

  She was a different person than she’d been in high school. But in another very real sense, that girl was still in there. Still ready to drop to her knees without a second word and get to work making somebody appreciate having her around. She just had to be careful to make sure that she didn’t let that girl out. She’d managed to make it eight years without falling into that trap.

  She only fell into the other traps a few times, for that matter. All told, she had an easy detox compared to some people. And all she had to do was make sure that she didn’t fall back into that toxic pit again.

  The next morning was the same as every morning. Check her messages. Nothing that was important enough to demand an immediate response. She let out a long breath and closed her eyes. It would be easy. Just stay focused a little while.

  She sat down in front of her computer and stared at the blank page. There was a lot that needed to go down. She’d done it all before at this point. Something gnawed at her, though. She knew the feeling. Something was wrong. Something that she couldn’t place.

  So she did what she always did when she felt it. She got to work doing something else. The list of things that needed to be done before Pete left for school was as long as her arm. If she could get five hundred words down before she had to start, then the day was off to a good start.

  But she couldn’t afford to wait on a good start. There were two possibilities. Forcing herself to write, something that she had done more than a few times, especially before he started school, worked.

  But it was slow going, when she had to force it out. Which meant that she wasn’t going to get her targets before Pete had to go, and that would mean having to give him money for a school lunch. Which wasn’t the end of the world, Mary admitted. But it wasn’t great.

  So she turned on the television, and started working to get breakfast ready while Matt Lauer read through the news from the day before in a self-sure voice that came across well on the television. Mary tuned it out. The talking made a good white noise when she wasn’t working. But the content was never interesting enough to keep her interested, which was key to making sure that she didn’t get off-track.

  She turned the stove on and put a skillet down to heat up. Then she started on lunch, pulling a loaf of bread down from on top of the fridge and pulling the plastic tag off.

  Two slices out, tag back on. Butter from the fridge, drop a tablespoon or so into the pan, and then move it around with a spatula.

  It was a normal day. Eggs and sausage for breakfast. Peanut butter and jelly for lunch, with a baggie of baby carrots that she wasn’t absolutely certain Pete actually ate. It made her feel better to imagine that he did, so she did it. The cookies she dropped into his lunch pail last.

  There were dozens of experts out there claiming that cookies were bad, and it was better never to get your kids eating them. Car safety, Mary trusted them for. Dietary advice, on the other hand? She’d trust her gut.

  She broke two eggs into the pan and broke the eggs with the rubber spatula tip. The TV droned in the background. Roman Townsend finished his tour with his traditional Detroit show. That wasn’t a surprise. There were rumors of work on an album. Rumors he denied.

  Then she heard something that made her stop without finishing scrambling the eggs in the pan.

  He’d been out, they said. TMZ had exclusive footage of a mystery woman and her son. They were speculating that it was a romantic thing. Mary looked up in time to watch the little bit of anonymity that she enjoyed, keeping her work life and private life separate, slip away as she sipped a mocha frappuccino on the screen.

  Six

  “They what?”

  Roman’s head hurt. If he’d said that to any of his fans, they’d have heard it as had a hangover. It was a consequence of his PR decisions. One that he accepted begrudgingly at best, but there was no denying that he’d done it to himself. Nobody else made him portray himself in public as a rebellious drunkard. He’d done it to himself.

  “You did this, didn’t you? Some weird thing you’re doing.”

  “I’m not doing any things.”

  The phone was heavy. His arm hurt. It had been one day in Detroit. One day. Well, two nights and one day. Couldn’t he just have one day to himself before the press decided to descend on him like a pack of vultures?

  No, of course not. That would be asking far, far too much. He knew that instinctively. The press weren’t like a pack of vultures. They were a pack of vultures, and asking them not to act like it was like asking for a leopard to try to change its spots. It wasn’t going to happen no matter how badly he wanted it. He would be smarter to pretend that he didn’t notice and move on.

  But now Mary was angry about it, and that was the difference. He didn’t have room to ignore it when the single, sole reason he was in town was about to be invalidated because of the press.

  “Yeah, I bet. You’re the Prince of Propriety.”

  “Mary, I’m sorry. Is there something I can do to make it right?”

  “You could leave,” she said. She sounded angry. She was angry. And he more than understood why.

  “Other than that. I can get an interview in a second, and tell them whatever you want me to tell them. I just wanted to… I don’t know.”

  “You wanted a booty call, is what.” It stung like a slap, even through the phone. Her tone was so venomous it could poison a man.

  “That’s never what it was about. Look, just give me a chance. I’m not who you think I am, okay?”

  She sucked in a breath, audible over the line. Trying to calm down, he guessed.<
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  “Look, what are you doing today?”

  “I’m working,” Mary said. She was still angry with him, but she was at least making an effort to hide it now. That was progress, and he couldn’t ask for anything more.

  “Come by tonight. Get a babysitter if you’re worried about me being a bad influence on Peter.”

  “You think I can afford a babysitter on no notice, so I can come, what? Hang out? Be your little sex kitten?”

  “I promise. No funny stuff. None whatsoever.”

  “That’s cute. Loving it.”

  “I’m serious. One night. If you’re still convinced I’m just some druggie asshole looking for trim at the end of it, I go home. It’s been a while since I’ve had time by myself anyways. It’ll be a change of pace.”

  “And if you manage to convince me? What’s my end of the bargain? I suck you off just a little?”

  “You do what you want to do. Just let me stick around a little while. I’m not asking you to do anything. I’ve been adrift a while, and I’m just looking for safe harbor, okay?”

  “Don’t try your song lyric stuff on me,” she said. But she was less angry. Now she wasn’t trying to hide her anger—she was trying to find it again, and she was finding, to Roman’s pleasure, that it wasn’t there.

  “It’s not a lyric. You think it would work?”

  “You’re the expert, but I wouldn’t turn the song off.”

  “Yeah? You hear that song, just know that it’s for you.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you’ve said that to all the girls.”

  “Only the ones who I liked,” Roman told her. It was half true. And at the same time, it was half a lie.

  “Yeah, I bet. Look, I can maybe get somebody.”

  “I can reimburse you, if it would help.”

  “Now you’re going to pay me for my company? You know how much VIP tickets are to your shows?”

  “My arm gets tired jerking those kids egos,” Roman said with a long breath. “But it’s the job.”

  “I guess so. Your arms seemed to get very tired when I came to see you.”