CHAPTER 3 ALEXIS
I’ve been wringing my hands in my lap for the last hour, and I haven’t heard from Brooks at all. Not a single word to let me know my dad is doing okay or any sort of update. Nothing.
I tried listening to music as that’s my usual distraction, but it did nothing for me today.
Instead, I feel lost as I stare out the tiny airplane window with a baseball hat on in some futile attempt to avoid being recognized.
The problem today is that Gregory was recognized, and as much as he tried to shield me, people saw me, too.
I signed autographs. I smiled.
Nobody cares that I’m dealing with a family emergency. Nobody has any idea what’s clawing inside of me. They only see one side of it, so if I’m not perfectly polite and they have a bad experience, that reflects on how they feel about my music.
It doesn't matter that I'm fighting emotions and inner turmoil and fear over what's going on with my father.
If I don't stop and give whoever's asking me for an autograph a moment of my time, I look like the ungrateful bitch who doesn't care about her fans when nothing could be further from the truth.
I love them, and I'm grateful for them every single day.
I wouldn't be able to do this without them.
They don't know that my father is in the hospital.
They don't know that I don't know the reason why and I’m scared as I wait for word about what's going on.
They don't know that I'm faking my engagement with Brooks and I'm in love with Danny Brewer.
They don't know that I would rather be with Danny right now, holding his hand through these tense moments.
They don't know anything about me personally other than what my father allows them to see.
It's for my own protection and privacy, which I can appreciate, but this thing I'm feeling with Danny makes me want to shout from the rooftops about what I’ve found with him.
Not being allowed to do that because it'll make me look a certain way or make Danny look a certain way feels like the biggest betrayal to my fans. To the world. To him and me.
But these are things I can't dwell on right now. Instead, I’m choosing to focus on the many blessings I do have.
So rather than tell Katie at the airport that I don't want to take a selfie, or rather than tell Tiffany as she hands me a piece of paper to sign that I don't want to do those things right now, I grin and bear it.
As more people recognize me while Gregory tries to usher me through the airport and the paparazzi start snapping photos upon our arrival at LAX, I realize what a strange life I lead.
While I'm certainly one of the lucky few, I don't get to just walk through an airport to get to my car.
Sometimes I think about running away from it all.
I've never honestly considered that. I have too many responsibilities, places to be, and things to do. But what if?
What if I did just run away from it all and ran straight into Danny's arms?
Even better, what if Danny ran away with me?
What if we were able to go somewhere where nobody could find us, and I even escaped Gregory and my father and Brooks, and I just…ran?
What if we could have that time together when nobody knew who we were and nobody cared, and we were just another couple walking down the street in the sunlight?
The pressures of this business are overwhelming, and they're even stronger and harder to deal with when you add in the fear over what's going on with my father.
Will he be okay? I still don’t know. I still haven’t heard from Brooks. I still don’t know what’s going on.
What would my dad think if he knew I was at Danny's Thanksgiving dinner table, laughing with his mother and bonding with his sister over our shared disgust of green bean casserole?
What if I just told him? What if I stopped hiding and told him the truth about how I've fallen in love with a baseball player?
Somehow, I don't think it would matter. Because, as much as I love my father, he has his own agenda, and he's not going to stop until he gets what he wants. And what he wants is a merger with D3 Management.
Why?
I don’t know.
Maybe in some bid to take over the world.
All I know is that he has to be okay…and I send up a silent wish that I will do anything for him to be okay.
Be careful what you wish for.
We finally arrive at the hospital, and I’m ushered straight back. I bypass the ER waiting room completely, instead going into the ambulance entrance for my own privacy, so I don’t even see Brooks.
My father is awake and appears…well, fine—mostly. He’s got an oxygen tube under his nose, his only sign of distress apart from some coughing, and he’s barking at the poor nurse when I peek my head in. “Alexis! What are you doing here?”
Immediate relief floods me.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Daddy,” I say softly. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Fine! I’ve been taking that medicine for my knee, and they’re telling me it’s some immunosuppressant or something. I guess that means I got really sick but didn’t know I was really sick.”
“It means pulmonary edema,” the nurse says, raising her brows and looking at him pointedly.
“That sounds serious,” I say.
“Pneumonia,” he clarifies, looking at me. “I passed out from low oxygen. I’m fine now.”
“He will be fine, but I can’t say that the oral antibiotic he’ll be prescribed will make him any nicer,” the nurse teases, and I can’t help a giggle at that.
“Can you work on that before you release him?” I beg, and the nurse shoots me a smile before she walks out of the room.
“You didn’t have to come all this way, Alexis,” he scolds.
“It’s okay, Dad. I wanted to. I needed to see you, and they wouldn’t tell Brooks anything.”
“Well, I’m fine,” he snaps.
“That’s good. And I can be here for the next few days before I head back to Vegas for the location shoot.”
“I’d like that,” he says, patting my hand as he leans back. “Except they gave me something that makes me have to pee, and I have to go again. Go out in the hall for a minute, would you?”
I laugh as I walk outside, and relief floods me. He calls me back in, and we chat for a while.
“How was your turkey dinner?” I ask, knowing it was catered from the same place he orders from every year.
“Fine until I ruined a perfectly good plate of mashed potatoes and gravy by passing out in it,” he says, and I swear there’s a twinkle in his eye.
I wrinkle my nose. “Dad! Did that really happen?”
“Brooks and Arthur were worried I was going to snort up the potatoes.” He rolls his eyes and shakes his head a little. “No, that’s not what really happened. I kind of just slumped backward into my seat.”
“How terrifying,” I murmur.
“I didn’t even know what was going on, so it wasn’t so bad for me. Until I came to, and they were carting me onto an ambulance.” He shrugs.
“You’re quite the jokester today,” I say.
“Defense mechanism,” he admits.
He does that a lot over the next couple days, because as it turns out, he has a bit of a stay before he’s released from the hospital.
They’re keeping an eye on his lung functions, and he’s been irritable and coughing, but as we progress through the days, he heals up just fine as I spend time by his side, making sure he’s doing everything his nurses tell him to do—none of which he wants to do because he’s stubborn as a mule, but I do my best to step in as the voice of reason.
I tell him I need him here with me, so he needs to do what they say.
Usually that’s enough to spur him into better behavior.
Not always, but usually.
Little do I know what he’s planning under the mask of good behavior.