Chapter Thirty-One
Joel
It’d been a week since we all left Kauai, and I was losing Alessandra.
I don’t know what the main component was in the beginning, but being hounded by paparazzi at the airport curb in L.A. didn’t help. Neither had all the gossip news, rumors about her being my side chick, or that Jenson had been getting into the Hollywood scene of drugs and sex that some teens in the business do.
All of it would calm down once our relationship wasn’t new anymore. But it was a lot harder than even I was expecting. She was trying, and Jenson too. He didn’t care that much, but he did care about his mom. He wanted to protect her, now that he was older. Both of them protecting each other was really all they ever truly had. Her family was in Brazil, and Jenson’s dad was a shithead.
I didn’t know anything else I could do to help her. This world was hard, and I couldn’t be there all the time to watch over them.
I’d stayed the night in her apartment once, and it turned into a disaster.
She and I wound up in the paper indecently dressed. She was in sleep shorts and a tank top, and me in just trunks, with no shirt. I was heading to the beach for a swim, but the wind blew the right way and showed off more of her ass than I would have liked to have been seen by people.
Someone was waiting and caught it at the right moment.
I invited them over to my house in La Jolla for a break, and she thought it was a good idea, to get out of the big city.
Seeing their car pulling into my drive was like taking a breath of fresh air in a stagnant world.
“Hey, guys!” Jenson gave me a nod, but didn’t say hello like usual. As he passed me, I couldn’t help but notice the bruise under his eye.
“Don’t ask,” Alessandra huffed, and grabbed her bag, which I took from her and carried into the house.
“Fight?” I couldn’t not ask. This was a big deal, if it was. She took a deep breath and went straight for my liquor cabinet.
“Yep. Some kid at the beach that goes to Jenson’s school made some comment, and Jenson punched him. Thank God it didn’t happen at school; he would have probably been suspended. This was just on the beach, so they were pulled apart, and he came home.” She grabbed the tequila and took a long sip. Shit. That wasn’t good.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, feeling like hell that this was happening because of her relationship with me.
“I know. It’ll blow over one day. Jenson is still good with us, that is all that matters to me.” I heard her words, but it didn’t stop that nagging feeling.
After she got buzzed, and her worries disappeared for a night, she was smiling and laughing again. I missed her. This Alessandra had been buried beneath the stressed mother that had a life to protect. Jenson was acting normal again, too. We surfed, and had dinner together. I talked about how I was going to appear in a few panels at the big Comic-Con convention at the end of this month, and told him that I would get him and Alessandra some passes. He was nothing but grins after that.
When Alessandra crashed in my bed from the alcohol, I sat there looking at her with a heavy heart.
Maybe I was being selfish, wanting a life with them, all while dragging their family through the mud.
I knew it was going to blow over, but at what cost will it take to get there?
Jenson getting in more fights? He was thirteen, hormones and everything else going on was hard enough.
Her job? I hoped it didn’t have any effect on that. Lisa liked her, and said she would always recommend her. She didn’t have a contract with a particular studio. I’d hoped with this past movie under her belt that she would land a studio gig, but she hadn’t heard anything yet. Leighton said he’d talk to them about it, since he agreed she did a good job.
I felt like I was destroying them.
Feeling the need to breathe some air, I left her sleeping peacefully in my bed, and walked outside. I dialed the only person I knew would answer at this hour.
“Hey,” Killian answered, on the third ring.
“This shit sucks.”
“Care to be more specific?”
“I’m destroying their lives.” I heard him huff at my statement.
“A little dramatic.”
