Tonight is my real birthday celebration though – with my real friends. We meet at a small sports bar before heading to the club later. After my last performance, I left the club before finding out if I had advanced to the finals or not. At the time I didn’t really care, but when Mitch sent me a text to let me know I’m one of the five finalists set to perform next weekend, I have to admit I was excited. So now I have to figure out what song I’m going to sing. I have an idea but I need to work out the details in my mind first.
It’s still early, but the restaurant-slash-bar is already pretty full. The two TVs over the bar are on the local channels and we’re sharing some appetizers when I hear the reporter saying my name again. I roll my eyes as I say, “I thought my 15 minutes of fame was over.”
The silence at the table is suddenly deafening. I look up to see Christina, Tania and Katie’s stunned faces. I whip my head around to the TV and they’re showing the youth center. I’m being investigated for my involvement with the kids and what kind of influence I am on them.
There’s a social worker, who has never met me, giving an interview and reciting all the ways that I may be a threat to the children. They’re questioning who approved me to work there. They cut to a parent who is asking if I will be suspended until an investigation can be conducted.
They don’t even know that it’s my personal money that funds that youth center. They’ve never questioned my involvement or my motives before this week. They’ve never cared that while some of the parents were too high on drugs to care for their own children, I was feeding, clothing and protecting them from the dangers of the neighborhood. Or when the parents were working multiple jobs and long hours just to try to make ends meet, I was helping their children with their homework and doing everything possible to keep them in school. But suddenly, I’m the monster who has been hiding in plain sight and feeding on their children without them even knowing it.
The reporter is holding up the front page of several different publications – magazines, tabloids, and newspapers – with various headlines but all about the mental hospital, the youth center or my alleged attack on my foster father. It’s sickening how the vultures have descended upon me and have torn me apart without the first shred of evidence. The term “innocent until proven guilty” has never really rang true with me – why else would someone have todefendthemselves? It’s more like “guilty until proven innocent, but even then doubt will always remain.”
I bury my face in my hands for a minute. I am not retreating, I am not giving up, and I am not caving in. I am simply refortifying and readying myself for all-out battle. I can’t avoid this any longer – it’s impacting the youth center now and there are too many kids who need support. And if my former foster family has any foster kids now, they need to be protected more than anyone I know. I steel my nerves and take a deep breath as I raise my face to my girls.
“It’s about time to head to the club,” I firmly state.
Our usual table is inhabited by the usual suspects – Shane, Will, Brandon and of course, Luke. He has his back to me and doesn’t know I’m here yet. So I walk to the DJ booth and tell him to queue up a song for me. I had a few drinks at the pub we just left, I’m pissed and I’m really fucking hurt, so I’m going to take it out on the stage. The song,Just A Fool,is actually a duet between Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton, but tonight I’m singing it solo. And I’m singing it with every bit of emotion I have bubbling just below the surface of my cool façade.
The lyrics are perfect for me right now. I obviously feel like a fool because I can’t get over him and I can’t let him go, but I know I should. I feel like I’m weak for wanting him to make this all up to me. For even thinking I could forgive him if he would just do something to take this pain away. Love feels like a cruel joke and no one has hurt me in the way that he has. I just want to forget about love and about him, but somehow he’s in every thought I have and every move I make.
I leave the stage and a friend from the gym I haven’t seen in a while stops me and asks me to dance with him. Another slow song is playing so I step into his embrace and we take the opportunity to catch up. He asks how I’m holding up, knowing how bad my life sucks right now, and I give him a non-committal shrug of my shoulders. Christina taps on my arm and her gaze suddenly shifts and I turn to see what she’s looking at.
Oh.It’sLuke and he is charging forward like a bull, hell-bent on his destination. Which happens to be me at the moment.
“Andi,” he barks at me.
“Yes,” I reply smugly.
I watch intently as he grits his teeth and clenches and flexes his hands. His anger is barely contained and he’s working hard at restraining himself. I know I’m not helping it but I’m no more in the mood to be fucked with right now than he is.
“I need you to come with me,” he finally says.
“No.”
He nods his head, seemingly understandingly, until I realize that I read him completely wrong. He just decided he wasn’t going to argue with me. In the typical method of the men in my life, he picks me up with ease, throws me over his shoulder, and charges back to the front door. People watch with amused expressions as I scream obscenities at him like a lunatic until he reaches the door. Then I realize we’re going outside and there may be cameras that catch me actually acting like a lunatic so I stop.
“Luke – do not walk out that door with me over your shoulder. I’m in the news enough as it is. I don’t need to add anymore to it,” I say in my sternest voice possible. This stops him in his tracks and I know he hears the words I didn’t say –thanks to your family.
He puts me down but doesn’t let go of me. “Then walk with me like a normal person would.”
I sigh heavily, not hiding my dislike of his demand, and respond with the typical pissed-off female response. “Fine.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
LUKE
Damn, infuriating woman! I’ve called, left voicemails, sent texts, banged on her door at all hours of the damn day and night. No answer – not even one! The last thing she said to me implied that I was only with her to help my dad get what he wanted. That not only hurt, but that also infuriated and insulted me. Then she ignores me and won’t even let me fucking respond to that fucked up statement. What the hell?
Shane has been barely speaking to me for the past couple of weeks. He’s known something has been really wrong. He’s not stupid by any means. He’s known all this shit with Andi has something to do with me. I finally broke down and told him everything today and I swear I thought he was going to tear my head off. I’m not afraid of any man but I know I would’ve deserved this ass-whooping. He broke a bunch of shit in the gym to work out his anger and avoid breakingme.
He did ultimately threaten to have my balls stuffed and mounted if I didn’t make everything right for Andi. I believe he would carry out that threat. He really does love and protect her like a brother should for his sister. Like I should have as her friend and her lover, but when the pressure was on, I caved. The press is getting bad around her and we’re both concerned about what kind of toll it’s taking on her. Her strength amazes me.
I’m waiting inside the club because I know she’ll be here tonight. Shane told me he’s meeting the girls here so I am taking full advantage of it. We were waiting here for them when her face was all over the TV screens and when I heard all the people, who don’t even know her, tearing her down, my protective instincts went into hyper drive. Then she walked right by our table and went straight for the stage. I’ve had to use every bit of my willpower to keep from storming the stage and carrying her off so we can be alone.
That song she’s singing is killing me.Killing me. She’s pouring all of her pain into it and singing about what a fool she is over me – because she thinks I used her. She thinks the reason I didn’t stand up to my dad is because I was in on his blackmail scheme. She thinks every second I spent with her was a sham and that I’m not sitting here with my heart bleeding out inside me.Killing meone damn word at a time.
Shanestands up and he is one pissed off brother. He glares at me and I swear he was about to break my jaw when Katie stands up, takes his hand and leads him to the dance floor for a slow dance. The others follow suit and leave me here to stew and wallow alone in my pitiful state. All of my willpower drains when she finishes singing and starts dancing with some other man, who is too happy to have her in his arms. So, I stomp towards her and demand that she come with me.
And, of course, being as stubborn as she is, she refuses to come with me. So, being as stubborn as I am and refusing to let one more day go by, I nod to my own conclusion that I will resort to kidnapping her and deal with the consequences later.
