38. Claire
38
CLAIRE
He stares at me until Sav, Callie, and Mabel leave.
Sav tells me she’ll call tonight. Mabel says she’ll see me tomorrow. I nod and say thank you, but I don’t look away from Jonah.
When the door shuts, signaling that we’re alone, I brace myself for whatever comes next. This isn’t the way I wanted to have this conversation, but it’s a conversation that needs to be had. Might as well be now.
I give him a tight smile and gesture to the couch.
“Do you want to sit?”
“Is it mine?”
My eyes widen, and I wince at the question. “Yes, Jonah. It’s yours.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
He narrows his eyes slightly, and I grit my teeth, anger heating my blood. He’s skeptical, and it makes me want to punch him.
“How far along are you?”
I huff a laugh. “Why? You don’t believe me?” I march toward him and slap the ultrasound pictures on his chest. “I’m nine weeks. Madrid resulted in a pregnancy. Surprise, asshole. Now I have a souvenir to go with that pleasant memory.”
His hand covers mine, holding my palm to his chest, but I pull away from him. Slowly, he drags his eyes from my face to the strip of ultrasound pictures. He blinks, and as his face softens, so does mine .
“How long have you known?”
My brows furrow as I’m hit with a wave of guilt. “Since Cardiff.”
“The hospital,” he says quietly, almost as an afterthought.
When he finally brings his eyes back to mine, they’re hard again. Emotionless. Giving nothing away. It just makes me more agitated.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
My guilt morphs into anger. I grow defensive. I think I hear a hint of accusation in his tone. He has no right.
“Gee, I don’t know, Jonah. When do you think I should have told you? When you were buying drugs from the roadie? When you told me you were glad you didn’t have kids? Oh, I know, how about when both you and your father said I would get knocked up on purpose and take all your money? You said you needed a break, sent me back to New York, and haven’t returned a call or text since. When the fuck should I have told you?”
His eyes bounce between mine as I seethe. My heart is pounding, and my chest is heaving, and he’s just...cold. Again.
“So it was an accident?”
“Jesus Christ.” Angry tears surge to my eyes. “I sure as fuck didn’t do it on purpose. Rest assured, Jonah, I don’t want anything from you. No money. No commitments. Nothing. You can leave now.”
I turn and walk quickly into my bedroom, but when I try to shut the door, his boot stops it.
“Go away.”
“No.”
“I don’t want you here, Jonah! I don’t need you here. You’re absolved of any responsibility, and you never have to see me again.”
He grabs my wrist and pulls it to his chest again. I flex my fingers into the fabric of his cotton T-shirt. His heart is beating so fast.
“Don’t say that, Claire. That’s not what I want.”
“Well, it’s what I want.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“It’s not!” He takes a step closer and cups my neck with his other hand. “You don’t want me to leave. You don’t want to do this alone.”
“You think I want to do it with you? You think I would trap you. You asked me if I got pregnant on purpose. Fuck, you thought I was lying that it was even yours! I don’t want to do anything with you.”
I pull away from him and put as much distance between us as possible.
“God, I’m such an idiot. You’ve showed me time and time again what you think of me, and I just ignored it. I ignored it when I should have sprinted in the opposite direction, and now...”
I press my fingers to my temples and tilt my face to the ceiling.
Now I’m fucked.
“I want to do this with you.”
“We’re not doing anything.”
“What do you mean? You’re pregnant. You’re having my kid.”
I sigh and look back at him.
“Jonah, I need you to really think about this for a moment, okay? You and me? We would be terrible parents. You said it yourself—you don’t want to think about all the ways you could fuck a kid up.”
He shakes his head. “No. We can do this. We can do this together.”
“Me being pregnant isn’t going to just erase all our issues. I’m still going to have slept with your dad, remember? That was a huge trigger for you. I’m still going to be me, and you’re still going to be you. You’re an addict, Jonah, and I’ve relapsed with my eating disorder. We both hate ourselves. We can’t even get our own shit together. How can we coparent a child?”
“I don’t want to coparent with you, Trouble. I want to do this with you. Together. Me and you. Mom and Dad.”
I shake my head and bite the inside of my cheek. He’s not getting it.
“I didn’t get pregnant to trap you into being my baby’s daddy, Jonah. That’s not what I’m trying to do, okay? I’m not going to force you into a situation you don’t want to be in, especially when I don’t know what I want either.”
He tilts his head, then lowers his voice to a whisper.
“What are you saying? Are you saying you want an abortion?”
“No,” I whisper back. “I considered it, but no.”
All the fears that have been building inside me bubble over and spill out of my mouth as anxiety wraps around my chest.
“But how can I be a parent? How can I be a mom when I can’t even take care of myself? What if I fuck it up? What if I make all the wrong decisions? How can I do that to a baby? I don’t want to saddle a child with my baggage. I don’t want to fuck it up the way we’re fucked up. It didn’t ask for that.”
I squeeze my eyes shut against the tears, and not for the first time since discovering this pregnancy, my stomach swirls with anxious nausea. My body wants to vomit, and it just makes everything worse. It just confirms all of my fears. I place a hand on my abdomen and breathe through it. I picture the little strawberry, and I breathe.
As soon as I think I can open my mouth without throwing up, I try again. I speak more calmly, but my voice still shakes. My words are still cloaked in despair.
There is no hope here.
“I watched my mom struggle after finally getting away from my father. She tried her best, but the damage was done. Macon turned to alcohol and drugs. I started purging. If I try to be a parent, I’m going to fail. I’m going to fail, and this baby is going to pay the price. I’m not cut out for this. I can’t do it. I’m going to fail.”
Calloused hands cup my cheeks as I’m engulfed in the scent of Jonah’s bodywash.
“Listen to me, Trouble. I love you.”
I shake my head, opening my mouth to protest, but two fingers press against my lips.
“The only person in this room down on you is you. You’re so busy beating yourself up that you can’t understand why anyone would love you, but I do. I’m sorry I made you doubt it. I did and said stupid fucking things because I was afraid of how I felt. Even today, when you said you were pregnant, I thought it was too good to be true. I fucking love you. I’ve never felt so connected to another person like I do to you. You are the strongest, smartest, most caring person I’ve ever met, Claire Davis, and I want to have this baby with you.”
Tears stream down my face as his words settle in, but I don’t speak. I don’t move. I barely breathe. Then he presses his forehead to mine and threads his fingers through my hair.
“Tell me you haven’t thought of it. Tell me you can’t see it, Claire. Me and you and this baby. Happy and together. If you haven’t thought of it, if you’ve never once wanted it, tell me, and I won’t bring it up again. But if you have, even just once, I’m begging you to do this with me. I’ll even be the more loving one. If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me. I don’t mind. If it means I get to keep you, I don’t mind. Tell me, Claire.”
I force a swallow and shake my head, and I feel his body droop in defeat. His breath hitches, his fingers loosen in my hair, but just as he starts to pull away, I grab his shirt. I keep him close to me.
“I’ve thought of it,” I confess. “I have.”
I don’t say any more. I don’t tell him that I’ve dreamt of it. I’ve seen it so vividly that I’ve woken up in tears, longing for him. Mourning that life I thought I’d never have.
And yet...
I keep going back to him in that hallway with the roadie. Him in the hotel room digging through my suitcase in search of my prescription. Spiraling over things I can’t change.
Checkmate, Trouble. Pack your shit and get out of my life.
You’re cute thinking I talk to my therapist about anything of importance.
The only thing I learned in rehab is how to be a better liar.
“Jonah,” I say on an exhale. “I can’t be with an addict. I have my own shit to work out. It’s not good for either of us, and it’s certainly not good for a baby. I can’t be wor?—"
“I’ll play you for it.”
I pull back and look at him. “What?”
“The chess board I got you is set up in the corner. You’ve even got the queen from Stockholm on the board. I’ll play you for it.”
“For what?”
“For us. If I win, we do this. I’ll go back to rehab. I’ll complete the program for real this time. I’ll take it seriously, and then we give it our all. You, me, and this baby.”
Macon’s words play over in my head.
Getting sober was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but the easiest decision I’ve ever made.
I start to want things. To imagine things. My stomach flips as hope blooms in my chest, but I shove it down. Not yet. I can’t do this to myself again.
“And if I win?”
He shrugs. “Then I step back. We do it your way.”
“We can’t play a chess game to decide that. ”
“Why not? You’ve thought of us together as a family. You’re not completely against it. If you were, you never would have admitted to it. We’re not making the decision any other way, so why not this way?”
Something in me knows this is ridiculous, but another part of me, that stupid hopeful part of me, wants to try. I’m exhausted and emotional. My brain is foggy. I can’t settle on a decision on my own, and he’s right. I’ve thought of us as a family. I’m not completely against it.
It’s the absolute worst thing to leave to chance.
I shake my head again.
“I’ll beat you, Jonah.”
“Maybe not. I’ve been practicing over the last few weeks. It helped with my detox.”
Detox .
It helped with his detox. That stupid feeling of hope grows.
“Have you used anything?”
I ask the question tentatively, but he answers immediately. No hesitation. I know it’s the truth.
“No. Hardest thing I’ve done is this nasty ass mocktail Sav made for me.”
I close my eyes and try to bite my tongue. I try to force myself to turn him down, but when I open my mouth, I say the opposite.
“Fine. One game.”
Jonah grabs the chess board, walking carefully so as not to tip over the pieces, and takes it into the living room. He sets it on the table, then sits himself behind the white pieces, so I take my place behind the black pieces.
“Ready?”
I nod, and then he moves his king pawn two squares. I arch a brow.
“You have been practicing.”
“Told you.”
I move my piece and wait as he studies the board again. He takes a long time before making his move. Every turn of his is carefully considered, and it’s obvious he’s taking it seriously.
He doesn’t want to lose. It makes my heart hurt, but it also has me hoping he wins. I want him to beat me. I want to do this with him.
But then, in fifteen moves, I see a pathway to checkmate him with my queen. That blue wooden queen he made for me in Stockholm. I flick my eyes to him and find him staring at it. He can see it, too, and he knows he’s about to lose.
It’s almost poetic that my queen, the queen he made for me, would be the piece to win it for me.
But what would I be winning?
My fingers tremble as I reach for the queen. I rest my forefinger and thumb on it and look at him once more. His blue eyes shimmer with unshed tears. He swallows roughly, and I watch that heart on his throat beat with the movement.
“Just do it, Trouble.”
God, his voice is so strained, like he’s holding back a sob. His breaths are ragged. His chest is heaving. Tears well in my own eyes. I won’t do it. I can’t do it. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t, and I don’t want to.
Without a second thought, I lay my queen on its side, forfeiting the game.
His eyes lock on mine. He blinks, causing those unshed tears to fall. He swallows again and his brows furrow in question.
I give him a small smile.
“Okay, Jonah. Okay.”
He blows out a puff of breath, then lunges over the chess board. I barely register the pieces falling to the ground as he cradles my face in his hands and presses his forehead to mine.
“Thank you. Thank you. I won’t let us down. I swear it. You won’t regret this.”
I nod, but I can’t speak, and when he kisses me, I let him.
I’m so scared. I’m so fucking scared, but just having him here makes me feel better. Even knowing he’s leaving on Monday to finish the tour my nerves have calmed a little. I wrap my arms around his neck and deepen our kiss, finally letting myself admit how much I’ve missed him. When he finally breaks away from me, it takes all my self-restraint not to pull him back.
“I came to tell you I’m going to rehab. I leave tomorrow.”
My eyes widen. “What? What do you mean?”
“I mean, at the advice of my therapist, I’ve admitted myself into a ninety-day residential program. I won’t have access to my phone or internet—no outside contact at all unless it’s an emergency—so you won’t hear from me until I’m out. I leave tomorrow. ”
“You’re supposed to leave for the last leg of the tour on Monday.”
“Rock’s playing the rest of the tour for me.”
“You can’t...you can’t do that. What about the contract?”
“Nowhere in the contract does it say we can’t bring in musicians to fill in for us. Torren did it after Callie’s accident. I’m doing it now.”
“But the morality clause?”
“That was added as a gotcha. The label expected one of us to fuck up and for the tabloids to run with it, but Hammond’s already gotten ahead of this story. He’s reached out to the big media outlets, and they’ll be printing that I’ve been admitted for rest and recovery . Now that you’ve made me a media darling, they were nothing but supportive, so we’re expecting the same reaction from the public. And Hammond already told the label that if they try to say we’re in violation of the morality clause, we won’t finish the tour. They’ll be out a lot of money, and let’s be honest, that’s all those fuckers care about.”
I don’t know what to say. I just wipe at my tears and shake my head. How is this happening? Is this real? Can I trust this?
“You already set this up?” I ask, bouncing my eyes between his, searching for the lie. The trick. “Even before the chess game, you were going to do it anyway?”
He nods slowly and traces his knuckles over my jaw.
“That’s what I came to tell you. I came to beg for your forgiveness and prove that I won’t fuck up again. I don’t want to lose you, Claire. I’ll do anything to keep that from happening.”
He reaches up and fingers one of my loose curls, tugging it down before letting it spring back up, and then he smiles.
“I want to be able to do that for the rest of my life, Trouble. I want to travel with you. I want to get my ass kicked in the gym with you. I want to play chess with you. I want to teach our baby to play. I want everything with you, and I’m going to earn it. I swear to God, Claire, I will. Let me.”
My breath hitches as I swallow back a sob. I believe him. I can see it. I want it so badly that it’s a physical ache in my chest.
“Okay.” I nod, pressing a quick kiss to his lips. “Okay, Jonah Hendrix. I love you too, so let’s earn it together.”