31
The best you can do is set your kids on the right track; staying on it without falling is up to the kids.—Gene Simmons
In direct defiance of the instructions on the attached tag, Rhys wrapped the cord of the blow dryer around its barrel before dropping it into his suitcase.
After a quick glance around the tiled shower room to make sure he wasn't leaving anything behind, he zipped the bag closed and carried it into the dressing room.
He side-stepped Parker who was balanced on one leg as he pulled on his shoes and placed the suitcase next to the others waiting to be collected and taken to the airport.
"Drew and David already at the M and G?" he asked Ross.
"Yeah." The guitarist tucked the back of shirt into his jeans. "You comin'?"
"Not just yet. I'd like to see Sienna alone first."
Ross ran his fingers through his hair as he headed for the door. "I'll have Owen bring her back."
"And I'll keep her friends occupied," Parker added with a grin.
Rhys leveled a warning look at the bass player. "You keep your hands off those girls. They may be old enough to play with, but they're still my daughter's friends."
Parker snickered. "I was just messing with you, man. Don't worry, they're safe from any Illicit behavior."
Ross and Rhys both groaned at the overused phrase employed by the media when they learned of any rock star antics by the band. Not to say it wasn't apropos at times, but after almost thirty years it had gotten old.
Alone in the dressing room, Rhys ran a hand over the back of his neck in an attempt to alleviate some of the tension that had settled there.
The small venue had been hotter than the deepest pit of hell, and that, combined with the lingering effects of his fight with Rhett and his apprehension over seeing Sienna again, left him with a raging headache.
Two ibuprofens knocked it back some, but his neck was still as tight as hell.
He rolled his shoulders and grimaced at the pops and cracks that resulted. A massage was definitely in order and looking up someone to sort him out would be his first order of business in Portland.
Portland. Rhett was supposed to have been with him when he got to Oregon, but she was back in Dallas.
Or he assumed she was. He hadn't heard from her since she left him standing rigid and angry in Drew's guest bedroom.
When he finally got it together enough to look for her, the house had been empty.
Drew had driven her to LAX, and Rhys hadn't been able to bring himself to mention that, or her, to Drew since.
What the hell was wrong with him, anyway?
He'd treated her like shite, and after she screwed up her courage and came to L.A.
to be with him. Standing there with her cheeks flushed with rage, she yelled at him that she deserved better.
And she did. But what did he do? Tried to push her out of sight when it might mean upsetting his grand self, that's what.
Make sure the life of Rhys James rocked along with minimum friction.
The way he treated Rhett filled him with shame.
He felt as small and guilty as the time when he was ten and had thrown the contents of his sister's underwear drawer into the front room where she was sitting with a boy.
It was hilarious to his pre-adolescent self, but Rhys still remembered the look of hurt and mortification on his sister's face as the knickers and bras rained down around her.
It was same look Rhett had worn when he told her he wasn't going to take her to San Francisco with him.
His mother blistered his arse after the undies fiasco, and he spent the next three weeks laboring in the garden with his dad instead of playing at the beach with his friends.
He almost wished his parents were there to punish him accordingly for the way he treated Rhett.
If he had to come up with his own punishment, he might just throw himself under a bus.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught the movement of the door to the dressing room as it was slowly eased open.
"Sienna?"
After a moment, she looked around the partially opened door, her dark blue eyes wide and apprehensive. "Hi, Dad."
Rhys smiled and saw the mirror of that smile appear on his daughter's face. "Hello, sweetheart. Come on in."
Sienna burst through the door and ran to him, almost knocking the breath of out of him as she hurled herself into his arms.
"Daddy, I'm so sorry we had that fight." Her voice was muffled against his chest as she buried her face against him. "I said all kinds of horrible things I didn't mean. I love you, and I missed you so much."
Rhys hugged her tight and kissed her hair. "I love you, and I missed you, too. I'm glad you came tonight."
Face shining, she looked up at him. "It was such an excellent show. Even better than last year's."
This was the daughter he remembered, full of life and excitement and wonder, not the Princess of Pout he dealt with in Chicago. On impulse, he hugged her again, making her giggle.
"You wanna come meet my friends?"
"Not just yet," he said. "I want to talk to you a bit first. Sit down and tell me about school."
She dropped onto the couch with a bounce. "I love Stanford. All my professors are awesome, and I love all my classes. Now I know why Dax stays here over vacation."
Rhys sat next to her and stretched his arm across the back of the couch. "I still wish he'd have driven up with you tonight."
Sienna spread her hands in a "don't blame me" gesture. "I tried to get him to, but he's got some big paper due by the end of the week, and he said he had to work on it."
"I know, I spoke to him earlier. Oh, well." Rhys shrugged. "I saw him just last month, after all." He fixed his daughter with a gimlet eye. "Speaking of last month, your grandparents were disappointed when you didn't come for Christmas."
"I know." Sienna squirmed and looked down at her lap. "What did you tell them?"
"I said you had a scheduling conflict, and I told them that you'd be flying over on your spring break."
"I will, I promise." She looked up at him again. "I mean it, I'll go over to see them in March."
Rhys nodded. "Yes, you will. And no blowing it off to go to Florida or something."
"Cross my heart." Raising her hand, she did just that. "England, not Florida."
"Good." He cleared his throat. "While we're here, there's something else we need to discuss."
She went on immediate alert. He could tell by the way her shoulders stiffened and the rapid tap of her foot.
"No fighting or screaming," he continued. "We're going to talk about this calmly. And I'm going to start by picking up where we left off in August."
Sienna's eyebrows lowered and she looked away, but she didn't interrupt.
"I don't know how to say this any other way, all right? But Sienna, your mum and I aren't ever going to be a couple again."
Still silent, she hunched her shoulders and looked down.
"I know that's disappointing to you, because you got your hopes up." Rhys kept his voice gentle and his tone reasonable, and prayed he was getting through to her this time.
"But Mom said..."
"Your mother may have said something, but I don't think she really meant it.
I think she was upset about her divorce, and when she saw me in Chicago last year, she got a bit off track.
" Right. He was surprised his nose wasn't doing a Pinocchio at the whopping great lie he just told.
"But she and I aren't meant to be together.
We're two totally different people who don't mesh well.
Your mother..." He sighed. "Your mother needs someone who's home more than two or three months out of the year, someone who keeps regular hours and can provide some stability.
You know as well as I do that stability isn't exactly part of my repertoire. You said it yourself, right?"
He was heartened when she nodded, however unwilling it might have been.
"And by the same token, I need someone who accepts that I'm not around a lot.
I need someone who can ignore the rumors and gossip online and in the media when someone snaps a photo of me talking to an actress at an awards show after party.
Someone who can not only handle the people I'm with but can fit in with them if she needs to. Do you understand?"
"I guess." Her tone was more petulant than he would have liked, but he thought they were making progress.
"That's good. I'm glad you understand why it didn't work out between your mum and me, and why it won't ever work. Look, Sienna, your mother is young and beautiful, and she'll meet someone else in time."
An irritated huff greeted this statement.
"She will, trust me. And when she does, I want you to give him a chance. If he's good to her and makes her happy, then it's what's best, right? Same thing for me."
Sienna's jaw firmed, and she shot him a hard look from the corner of her eye.
"Yes, I'm talking about Rhett. She's good to me, she's good for me, and she makes me very happy."
"I can't stand her."
Rhys repressed a sigh. "You don't know her.
I realize it was a shock to you when you saw her with me in New York, because you'd been led to believe there would be a different outcome to your visit.
But none of that was Rhett's fault. She didn't do anything wrong, and you need to stop blaming her for it. "
And the Princess of Pout made a reappearance. "I'm never going to like her, Dad. Ever. So, you need to get rid of her now before it goes any further."
"That attitude is very immature, and I'm disappointed in you. I'm not going to get rid of her, Sienna." With a sinking heart, he watched the outrage grow more pronounced on his daughter's face. "And I'm not going to choose between you and Rhett. I love you both, and I want both of you in my life."
She jumped to her feet and glared down at him. "Never gonna happen, Dad. I mean it. As long as you're with her, you can't be around me."
Rhys held onto his calm demeanor with supreme will. He wasn't going to let her goad him into another fight. "That's your choice, not mine. Just remember, Sienna, you're going to have to live with the consequences of it."
"Whatever that's supposed to mean." She tossed her head, and he was reminded of the many times Hayley employed that same gesture. Jesus God.
"It means that I'm not going to beg you to accept Rhett. It means that I'm not going to be sorry about being with her. It also means that until you apologize for thinking you have any right whatsoever to meddle in my life and try to control anything I do then I have nothing more to say to you."
Her mouth dropped open. "So, you are choosing her over me."
"I'm not choosing either of you over the other.
There's room for both of you in my life, and I hope you'll come to realize that.
When you do, and when you're ready to apologize, you know how to reach me.
" He got to his feet, his body heavy with sorrow.
"Until then, I'm through talking. Come on, I'll have T escort you and your friends to your car. "