Epilogue #3
“He had like three broken toes and couldn’t even do our scene because, well, it seemed like someone had kicked the shit out of his um, manhood. Popped a hernia or something. You did that??”
“I didn’t do that exactly, but it was my—”
She grabs my phone and dangles it in front of my face. “Tell me what happened, or I’m gonna share your location on all your socials, right now! You’re going to be stuck signing shit for an hour and a half!”
I sigh and sip on the freshly poured whiskey that arrives at our table.
“I was out of it, I was unhinged, and I know you like that about me, so be gentle. I got his address from Camden, stumbled into the bougie pub under his flat, and proceeded to chat up the bird who was going up to his apartment. I lied and said my best friend had sent me to make sure her boyfriend, Rye, wasn’t cheating on her, so she’d get pissed off at him and do the dirty work for me.
All I did was encourage her to go let him have it!
I didn’t know she was going to bruise his balls and break his toes!
I mean, she probably did have stilettos on, fuck, all right!
This was my fault. I’m not going to pretend it’s not.
I was a manipulative, fucking liar, and then when she was done with him, I brought her back to my place to … cheer her up.”
Baby sets her jaw and glares at me with the power of a thousand suns. She tips back the full double of whiskey, and then as soon as the chips appear in front of her, she starts shoveling them in her face like they’re the ones that have made her so angry.
“Do you hate me, princess? It’s all right if you do; I’m not a fan of myself right now. I’m fucking despicable.”
Her face softens, and she offers me a chip.
She lets out an exhale that lasts about a week.
“When you get like that, you’re supposed to take a triazolam and go to bed, baby.
” Sounds familiar. I grin like a madman when she calls me baby, not that I deserve to be let off the hook.
“It’s a trauma response, you know that.”
“Well, I didn’t have you to keep me sane back then, Baby.
I was like an out-of-control, unsupervised kid,” I say, pretending I don’t hate the therapist speak she's using. But no one wants to say why I am the way I am, not out loud. Apparently, it’s not all right to say Jett was beaten to a bloody pulp by bullies and left for dead as a child.
You have to say trauma, a word I bloody hope to never hear again.
“You were. And what you did was completely fucked up! A few months later, Kill Cash cornered me and felt me up on a back soundstage! Rye caught him and punched his lights out, so I could run off and report Kill. If it weren’t for Rye, I probably would’ve been raped by that asshole!”
I blink, and my hand is wet, and Baby is running to grab a towel. It appears my glass exploded in my hand. I had fucked with the wrong actor. God, I am bloody stupid. That little cunt Kill Cash, the one I kissed on the mouth, is the one I should’ve fucked up, a lot worse than what I did to Rye.
Crimson drips onto the glinting glass shards as she returns, wrapping my hand tightly before ushering me out into the late afternoon heat. She pulls me into her G Wagon and speeds towards the five with the windows open, wind whipping her gorgeous hair around her worried face.
“I’m sorry, Baby, but I’m going to need you to get the address to Cash’s house so I can kill him. All right? Then everything can go back to being perfect, and I can give you the best day ever tomorrow.”
“We’re going to see your other therapist, Jett. The aging one with the hazel eyes and faded tattoos? The one who invented self-destructive behavior like this?”
The anger inside me chills to a tolerable level at the mention of the only person, other than Mads, that could level me out, the only one who knows what it’s like to battle these kinds of demons while trying to stay in control, while still being everything to everyone. Dad.
She marches me up the stairs of Mum and Dad’s like I’m being escorted to the headmaster’s office, clearly not vibing with my idea to go murder a pretty boy actor she used to know. “Fix him!” she practically hisses, throwing me into Max’s study.
Dad takes one look at my hand and the sad state I’m in and proceeds to start pulling on his hair and mumbling curses, “Oh fuck. Now? You’re like this now? We have about fifty people flying in from the UK tomorrow, and this is a good time for you to go off the bloody rails?”
“The … other therapist…”
“Oh, you mean the one you pay? I’m the one who should be on the clock, son!”
“Yeah, that one. She uh, she said I only get like this when it comes to … change.”
“What’s the big fucking change? I haven’t seen you like this since the night of your stag do. What about Baby’s party is making you like this?”
“It’s her thirtieth birthday, Max.”
“Yeah, and that makes me old as sin! So?”
“I promised I’d make her a mum, Max, when she turned thirty.”
“Jesus Christ, Jett, you don’t need to impregnate my daughter tomorrow! If the thought of it makes you act like this, you should probably wait till you're in your forties!”
My eyes prick with tears, and I slam my bad hand into his mahogany desk, wincing. “I don’t want to wait! I want to get started right away. I want a big family to make up for all my loneliness as a child. I want a baby that’s perfect like her and not fucked up like me!”
“Then you have to fucking pull yourself together, or you’re gonna fuck this kid up before they’re even conceived!” He pinches between his eyebrows and sighs before gesturing to my hand. “What made you do that?”
“Baby told me about something that happened a long time ago, something I couldn’t protect her from because we weren’t together.”
“And what was that?”
I grit my teeth, and my good hand becomes a tight fist. “Killian Cash.”
Max grabs a blue stress ball that says, ‘Anarchy in the UK’ and places it in my fist. “My dear son, have you, oh, I dunno, seen anything on telly with Killian Cash in it recently?”
“No,” I sneer, squeezing the ball harder than it can probably handle.
“And you’re naive enough to think that’s an accident?”
My eyes blink open like I’m finally waking up in my own body again. “What ’ya mean, Dad? Accident?”
Despite being as old as dirt, Max pulls my chair with me in it so we’re knee to knee like it took zero effort.
“Jett, you’ve done a great job protecting Baby since you’ve been together.
But before that, it was my job. And I couldn’t always be there, just like you can’t always be.
It would suffocate her, you know that. But when you’re old like me, you’ve collected a lot of connections that can be useful when needed. People who can help you right wrongs.”
“What did you do, Max?” I rest my wrapped hand on his shoulder.
“I didn’t do anything, that’s what you’re not getting, that you need to get.
If you’re going to be a good father, you can’t be getting your bloody hands dirty anymore, pun intended.
Killian Cash didn’t magically crash his car and end up in a full-body cast, or film a particularly awful B movie and get himself blacklisted so badly he had to move to Mexico.
Perhaps one of my associates did have something to do with that, but I’ll never say.
Although I fully believe my scrappy daughter could have gotten away unscathed, I didn’t want to risk anything happening to anyone else’s daughter, so I pulled a few strings, that’s all.
That’s what you will do from now on, and not take anything into your own hands that would risk you getting caught and taken away from the child that you say you don’t want to be lonely like you were. Do you understand, Jett?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course. Thank you, Dad.”
Tears of relief fall from my blurry eyes, and he dabs them with a tissue while he snorts.
“All my friends say they want a sensitive, emotional son-in-law like I have. Maybe they should be here to deal with this, then.” He kisses me on my hairline and shakes his head.
“Wouldn’t trade ya for anything, you know that? ”
I nod.
“You’re me, and I’m you. A normal shrink can’t understand you the way I do.
If you get like this again, you need to come here instead of calling the headshrinker or going to the pub!
I’ll talk you down, and you can save the money you’re paying her for my future grandchild.
Sure, you’re scared of change, but who isn’t?
I think you’re afraid of being a shit parent because of how you- how you handle your—”
“Please don’t say the bloody T-word!”
“Oh, fuck that, yeah, you’re right, son, because of your …
past. We’ve all had bad shit happen to us, Jett, that doesn’t mean you don’t know how to love.
You’ve certainly proven that you do, that you can, and that’s all you need.
You think I’m a good dad because I have a perfect little past you can wrap up in a damn bow? ”
I shake my head, knowing about how awful his parents were to him growing up and all the crazy, fucked up shit he’s done since then.
That’s why he’s such a good dad, protecting his kids from all that.
“None of this is about being perfect; it’s about doing things differently.
Making up for what happened to you is the only way to move on.
Is that what you’re saying? Am I on the right track? ”
He smiles and squeezes my neck. “There ya go, son. You know everything you want to do differently, so stop second-guessing yourself. The universe brought you to us for a reason, don’t you think?”
I nod and wipe at my eyes. “Yeah, and the reason is not to fuck all this up. I have it so good, Max.”