CHAPTER 9 DANNY
In every comfortable patch of silence that falls over the front seat while we head toward Los Angeles, my brain works overtime.
I have to figure out some way to patch things up between her and her dad, but he’s making it harder and harder.
Freezing her assets?
Seriously?
Who does that shit?
It’s her money to spend, but he’s had such a tight leash on her for her entire life, he’s just yanking on the chain a little harder right now.
I can cover us. I don’t have the kind of money she has, but I do all right for myself. Enough to purchase that house in Vegas. Maybe enough to snag the one in Mission Beach, too.
I don’t care about the money, and I don’t think she really does, either. We could live in a studio apartment with a futon and be happy as long as we’re together.
But it’s the principle of the thing. She earned that money, and he has no right at all to prevent her from doing whatever the fuck she wants with it.
Still, as we drive toward her father’s house, time seems to slow down. The trip is a long drag, and it’s probably because we just made this trip less than forty-eight hours ago in the opposite direction. Before that, we drove all over the long-ass state of California, covering close to five hundred miles between Carmel and San Diego and beyond that back up to Anaheim and to Los Angeles.
Jesus. I’m tired just thinking about it.
She’s right—she hasn’t really had a home base in a while now apart from when she’s filming, and that’s a grind, too. Early mornings and late nights, and time in Vegas when she was filming there.
She needs a home of her own. She deserves one. We both do, together. How else do we kick off our married life together if we can’t be together?
That’ll be the lifelong question given our careers. I’ll be traveling a solid six months out of the year on top of spring training and the postseason, and she’ll be traveling for tours. Who knows when we’ll have this sort of time together again?
The grind of the season always weighs down on me come September, but then playoffs hit and that makes it all worth it—provided my team makes it into the playoffs.
But what about her? The grind of a tour weighs down on her, and then she gets home and immediately jumps into filming a movie. And not just any movie, but one where she believes she’ll be a contender for a huge award, and then once that’s done filming she’s jumping right into recording her next album.
It’s a lot.
And now her assets are frozen.
I feel for her, and I want to make it all better.
And that’s why I’m planning to confront her father today. Alone.
I need to talk to him about the way he’s treating her, and I need to help him see that I’m not the enemy here. I just want to support her in whatever way I can.
“Oh shit,” she mutters as she scrolls her phone.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, glancing over at her rather unusual use of a curse word. Her face is white as she reads an article.
“The paparazzi got wind of us. They’re saying we snuck off and got married.”
“Well…we did,” I say, pointing out the obvious.
“Yeah, we did. But we’re on our way to confront my father, and this isn’t going to make things any easier,” she says, turning off her phone and tossing it on the dashboard.
“No, you’re right about that.”
“The article dubbed you the bad boy of baseball and said that you’re corrupting America’s pop princess,” she says softly.
“So you’re saying they nailed it?” I tease.
She narrows her eyes at me. “This isn’t the time for jokes.”
“I’m sorry,” I say immediately.
She sighs.
“Listen. You’re my princess now, okay? And I will do whatever it takes to protect you from all of it.”
She presses her lips together, and then she turns her gaze out the window.
“Hey, it’ll be okay,” I say softly.
“I know. I just know how important branding is to my father, and I know it’s a big reason why he wanted me to marry Brooks. So this…this is going to be a big obstacle in our way as we try to win him over to our side.”
“I’d like to talk to him when we get there. Alone.” My voice is firm, but I try to go for some warmth in there, too.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I know. It’s a terrible idea. But I also think it’s a necessity.” I shrug.
“Okay. But first we go in together. Then I run upstairs to pack a few things…like my pillow. Okay?” she asks.
I nod. “Okay.”
We pull into the circular driveway of her father’s mansion a little after two o’clock in the afternoon, and she keys something into the keypad at the front door. Her father walks into the foyer as if he saw us pulling in.
“What are you doing here?” he demands.
“I’d like to know why you froze my assets,” she begins, and I don’t think that’s exactly the right start.
“We’re here to talk,” I say quietly, trying to smooth things over. “Did you have a nice Christmas?”
“Jesus, like I want to shoot the shit with you.” He looks at me distastefully, like he just ate something sour.
I shrug. “Look, I’m trying. Like it or not, I’m now your son-in-law, and I have a few things I’d like to talk to you about.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” he says, lifting his chin in defiance.
Alexis looks back and forth between us like she’s watching a tennis match. “I have some things to say myself,” she says. “Starting with…unfreeze my assets. Now.”
He purses his lips but doesn’t say a word, and that’s when I know the truth.
I’m not sure how I know. I just have this really strong feeling that I do.
It’s as if some quiet force is intervening and whispering what’s really going on.
It’s the look on his face that gives him completely away, maybe, or his refusal to address what she’s saying.
He didn’t freeze her assets.
He took her money.
I stare off with him, certain I want to put words to my hunch but also certain I don’t want to do it in front of Alexis.
“Daddy, why are you doing this to me?” she begs as tears start to freefall down her cheeks. “I thought we were on the same team, and anyone can see how much I love Danny. I never wanted to be with Brooks. Can’t you see that? He wasn’t right for me. Danny is. He takes care of me. He loves me. I know you loved Mom. I know you know what that feels like. Why wouldn’t you want that for me, too?”
His eyes soften as he looks upon his crying daughter.
I watch him carefully to see whether he gives anything away. He’s doing a good job of hiding it, but he doesn’t quite have the acting chops his daughter does.
“Has money really driven this big of a wedge between us?” she asks, crying in earnest now. “The fame? Or is it the power you’re after by merging with D-Three? I just…I don’t get it. You fired Gregory, you’re pushing me away, and yet you’re keeping Brooks in here like he’s untouchable. Why? Why, Daddy?”
He blows out a heavy breath, and he closes his eyes for a beat. “I’m only trying to provide the best path to the future you’ve asked me for.” He sounds tired. Worn down. Fatigued. As if he’s repeating the same thing for the hundredth time to a child who keeps asking the same question over and over.
Only Alexis isn’t a child. She’s an adult who deserves answers.
She’s an adult who needs to figure out how to untangle her career from this conman.
More thoughts I can’t put voice to—at least not in this crowd.
“I don’t care about the awards anymore,” she says, and her father steps back as if he’s been physically struck by her words. “I’ve realized something over the last couple of weeks, and it’s that the Grammy and Academy Award in the same year was your goal for me. It was never my goal for me, but you put it in my head and dug it in so hard that you made me think it was my own idea. I’ll try my hardest to earn them. It’s a rare and amazing accomplishment. But I’m knocking on thirty’s door, and I’m still being treated like a teenager. What about what I want? What about my own dreams and goals…not the ones you’ve chosen for me?”
“What do you want, Alexis?” he asks, his posture rigid and his tone unforgiving.
She shakes her head as she shrugs a little, and then she holds both hands out in front of her, indicating me. “Love. Marriage. Home. Babies. Permanence.” She looks over at me. “With him.”
It’s all the things we’ve talked about—or talked around, anyway—and it’s all the things I want, too.
With her.
“And that’s what I’m going to do whether you like it or not,” she says to her father. The words are akin to those of a spoiled teenager not getting her way, but this is a completely different context. These words are beautiful as they’re spoken by this adult in front of me who is standing up and taking her life into her own hands for the first time ever.
She’s taking control back. It’s the control she always deserved to have. The control that was stripped from her when she didn’t know any better than to sign it away when she was a teenager with a dream.
I reach over and squeeze her hand in solidarity.
The accolades and awards and performances have been incredible, but I don’t know if I’ve ever been more proud of my wife.