31. SIXTEEN
SIXTEEN
EDEN
“Mom! Have you seen my black fedora?"
“Which one, buddy? The herringbone one or the one with the gray striped ribbon?” I ask, bouncing on one leg as I pull on my socks in the living room.
It’s been two days since the soccer game, and I’m officially back to reality.
Macon yawns, lingering in the doorway to his bedroom. He’s never been much of a morning person—something he inherited from me. “Gray striped.”
I tug my sock too hard, lose grip, and slap myself in the face. Well, at least it’s on now. Inside out and back to front, but we’re already running late, and I can’t be bothered to fix it. “Is it not on your hat stand?”
His little eyebrows draw tight. “No. Maybe I left it at Dad’s.”
The mention of his father churns my gut. Although Sebastian has stopped blowing up my phone in the week that has passed since the soccer game, and he hasn’t reached out about setting up a meeting, his silence makes me uneasy, especially since the last thing he left me was a threat.
He may have deleted the message, but screenshots are forever. And thankfully, I thought quickly enough to take one.
“Can’t you wear your herringbone one instead today?”
Macon frowns down at his houndstooth jacket. “The patterns will clash.”
My son is going into show business one day, I just know it.
“The olive-green one would look cool,” I tell him, glancing at the clock. Shit, we should have left for school ten minutes ago. “Go grab it, then get your shoes on. We’ve really gotta go.”
I shove two pieces of bread into the toaster and rub my stinging cheek. It’s a breakfast-in-the-car kind of day today—a situation that happens far more often than it should.
Sebastian would have something to say about that if he knew.
Macon reappears, dressed like he’s going hunting in the English countryside, his olive fedora tipped at an angle. It’s by design, of course. The tilt gives him a little extra flair, so he tells me, and who am I to disagree?
In my eyes, the kid looks awesome, fedora tilted or not.
He slips his feet into a new pair of brogues and grins. “Ready.”
“Are you okay to wait in the car for me? I’ve just got to butter the toast, and I’ll be right down.”
I toss him the car keys, and he catches them with a proud whoop.
My chest heaves from urgency as I get to work on the toast. In the recesses of my mind, Sebastian berates me for being a shitty mother who cares more about her sleep than getting her son to school on time, but I tell him to fuck off.
Not today, Satan.
His chiding persists anyway. It’s there every time I make a mistake. As is the fear that every tiny fuck-up I’ve made will be used against me in court to prove I’m not a fit enough parent to raise Macon on my own.
It doesn’t matter that we’re barely ever late for school, regardless of how often he eats breakfast in the car.
And I forget about the fact that his homework is always done and that I show up to every single one of his performances, parent-teacher conferences, and field days.
Every imperfection of mine as a mother is another blade Sebastian wouldn’t hesitate to use against me.
Which is bullshit, I know.
Because no parent is perfect. We’re all fucking up our kids in one way or another, so we should focus less on being perfect parents and think more about the perfect moments.
But Sebastian wouldn’t know any of that. He hasn’t parented Macon a day in his life.
Macon screams.
It’s muffled by the distance between us, but I’d know it anywhere.
Like a missile, I launch through the door and storm down the stairs. Panic whooshes in my ears like thunder so loud that I almost miss the clicking sounds coming from outside.
Fuck, I recognize that noise.
It’s the shuttering of camera lenses.
Daylight blinds me as I barrel through the side door, dozens of blurry shapes snaking around as I search desperately to find the one that most resembles my son.
So many men, some with tripods, others with long straps suspended around their neck, gather on the dying grass. A wake of vultures squawking at a tiny, trembling cub hunched in the center of them all.
Macon.
He’s frozen, halfway between our apartment building and my car. Even twenty feet away and with still-blurry vision, I can see the quaking of his knees and the way his fingers puncture the palms of his hands.
“Get away from him!” I scream and tear into a sprint.
Lights flash like bolts of lightning. Grown men yell, telling Macon to look in their direction, asking questions they have no business asking a boy of only ten years, their voices as jarring as the howls of coyotes.
“Macon!”
He spins toward my voice, his face breaking in relief the moment he sees me. I catch him in my arms and wrench him behind my back.
I can’t believe these men are grown fucking adults who believe it’s okay to frighten a child just to profit off of it. How do they get away with shit like this? How is it even legal?
“Get off my property!”
They don’t, of course. People like them don’t care how much distress they cause, not if there’s a paycheck waiting for them at the end. They’re bounty hunters, scavengers, the lowest of lowlifes, content to use their one life on this earth to feed from the souls of others.
I knew this from the night of the party. But it’s one thing when their cameras are pointed at me and another thing entirely for them to point them at my son.
Fuck, oh fuck, I’ve gotta get him out of here.
But the door to the apartment feels miles away. Even as I edge us backward, keeping Macon behind me, it doesn’t feel like we’re getting any closer. He shakes against me, whimpers escaping him with each step we take, loud enough to hear above the shouts of the paparazzi who just. Won’t. Shut. Up.
“Eden, is he your son?”
“Does Alex know?”
“What does he think about you being a mother?”
“How do you think Alex will deal with the responsibility of being a stepfather?”
If I were wearing shoes, I’d take one off and throw it at them. Violence has always been Aspen’s thing more than mine, but I’m filled with such vitriol that I wish I was carrying a weapon. I could gut one of these bitches right now and not feel an ounce of remorse.
No one comes for my son.
“Don’t you dare come near him again. He is a child!”
Some asshole with overinflated confidence and zero humanity pushes to the front of the crowd with his camera drawn like a weapon. “Was he a teen pregnancy?”
“Fuck you.”
Come on, just a few more steps.
Whatever threat they can read in my eyes must be enough to keep them from getting closer, so I take advantage of the smidgen of room they’ve given us to throw us the last few feet to the door.
Thank God I didn’t close it behind me when I bolted out here.
We stumble through it together, and I slam it shut behind us so hard that it rattles the framework. It doesn’t make me feel any more secure, though, even as I lock it and bundle us up the stairs to our apartment.
Macon’s face is a mess of rolling tears, his lower lip quivering. The only reason I’m not crying myself is the adrenaline roaring through my system, but I can feel them building, ready to burst at a moment’s notice.
“Mom, who were those people?”
I can’t answer him.
Fear, anger, and guilt burn through my veins, paralyzing me in place.
I did this.
This is all my fault.
It’s my decisions that led to the paparazzi being out there. This wouldn’t have happened at all if I hadn’t made the most reckless decision of my life and agreed to this ridiculous ploy with Alex.
It was me that made us late this morning. Me that told him to wait for me in the car. It’s my fault that he was all alone out there. It is my selfishness that has caused him pain.
Sebastian is right about that, at least.
I am selfish.
And so fucking naive.
Not only did I think I would be able to protect him from the paparazzi, but I thought that this whole scheme would be worth it if I got to keep my son at the end of it.
I thought the hardest thing we’d endure would be keeping track of the lies and trying to keep them away from Macon.
I never considered that this would happen.
But it’s obvious now that my desperation has done nothing but put him in an even worse position.
So, I just hold him. There’s nothing I can do to make this better for him. And as his tears splash from his face onto my neck, my own leak rapidly down my cheeks.
Macon sniffs, lifting his head from my shoulder. “Do I still have to go to school?”
“No, baby.” Despite everything, the innocence of his question makes me smile. “I’ll call them soon to let them know. But we can’t go out there again. You know that, right?”
“That’s okay. I don’t want to see those people again anyway. They were mean and scary.”
“I’m sorry, baby.” My heart crumples like paper in a waste basket. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Why? It’s not your fault.”
If only he knew.
I flick the brim of his fedora and fake a smile. “I need to work out how I’m going to get them to go away.”
“Okay, can I call Aunt Aspen? She always cheers me up.” He dries his tears with his sleeves and flutters his eyelashes at me. “And can I have some Oreos?”
I nod, watching him skip back to his bedroom as if the last fifteen minutes didn’t happen at all.
It’s crazy how children always seem to have such unwavering resilience in the face of terrible things.
They’ll melt down about dinner not being what they wanted or that you cut their sandwiches into the wrong shapes, but when it comes to anything of real weight, they’re always able to bounce back so much faster than adults.
I don’t understand it, but I’m glad for it now.
Alex: I’m outside. Can you let me up?
Eden: Aren’t you supposed to be at practice?
Alex: Aspen called and told me what was going on, so I left. Buzz me in please.
Of course she did. I should really get my sister to delete his number. While I am hesitant to ask the man for anything, she clearly has no qualms with it at all. Not that I’m mad. I would have called him myself if I wasn’t worried about disturbing him at work.
I buzz him in, and it’s only seconds before knuckles rap on the door. Even though I know who it is, I check the peep hole before letting him inside.
The biggest guy I’ve ever seen, wearing blacked-out aviators and a ball cap, pushes in behind him.
“Don’t mind Doug,” Alex says with a grin. “He’s here for security.”
I’d assumed so already, given that his hat has the word “security” printed on the front of it in block lettering. He’s also wearing some kind of headset. And given his sheer size, it isn’t a stretch to think that he was born into this world destined for a career in protection.
He dwarfs my apartment, the kitchen surfaces reaching his hip bones. He could sit on them and still manage to keep his feet on the floor. That’s probably an exaggeration. But believe me that the man is tall, with thighs like tree trunks, and biceps as thick as my head.
He’s intimidating as hell, which makes him the perfect man to get Macon and me past the paparazzi unscathed.
A portion of panic drains from my blood.
“Fancy coming with me at some point to meet my ex-husband, Doug?” I ask him. “I think I’d quite enjoy watching that man shit his pants in public.”
“I can’t touch him unless he tries to touch you, Miss,” he grunts.
“I think just a hard glare in his direction would do the trick.”
Alex chuckles. Doug, though, shows no facial expression whatsoever. He also shows no sign of moving, despite me motioning him into the living area, so I leave Doug to guard the front door with his arms crossed, and I take a tentative seat on my couch beside Alex.
“Are you okay?” Alex’s smile fades. “Aspen told me Macon went out there alone.”
Guilt burns across my chest again. “My sister needs to leave you alone.”
“She’s only looking out for you in her own relentless and menacing way.”
I smile at that. “I know, but it’s not fair to make you leave practice.”
“You didn’t think I’d leave practice if you’d called me yourself?”
My shoulders lift as I pick at the threading of a throw pillow. “I didn’t want to ask you to.”
“You wouldn’t have had to.” He shakes his head. “And for the record, Aspen didn’t make me do anything.”
What?
He left practice by choice?
“Wait. Are you telling me that Aspen didn’t have to make several unhinged and outlandish threats for you to come to our rescue?”
He looks at me like I shouldn’t have to ask that question at all.
But it’s not like I know him well enough to demand that he drop everything because I need help.
And I certainly don’t know him well enough to predict that he would do it without me asking at all.
I know Brynn said that Alex is the type of guy who would, but he’s her big brother.
Of course she thinks the sun shines out of his ass.
All I’ve got to go on is a bizarre arrangement, money in my bank account, and a couple of public kisses. None of those things signify trust. Yet, he’s pouting at me like a wounded puppy.
“Won’t you get in trouble?”
He’s already on thin ice with the team. That’s the whole reason we’re doing this. If he starts leaving practice because of me, then surely that will only work against him.
He gives me a true smile then, his easy nature returning. “I think Coach is so ecstatic about the fact that I’m in a relationship that I could fuck you on the field during a game, and he’d stand there cheering us on.”
That’s an image I won’t be able to get out of my mind for a while.
“Oh,” I breathe. “Well, then, I don’t know what to say. Thank you, I guess.”
He dismisses my words with a flick of his hand. “Don’t worry about it. You can show your appreciation with a blow job later.”
My mouth drops open. “Excuse me?”
“I’m kidding.” He slaps his knees and stands, as if he hasn’t made mine instantaneously weak. “Not that I wouldn’t be open to it, but we have things we need to discuss. Where’s Macon? I’ll watch him while you pack.”
“Pack?” The whiplash of this conversation is starting to hurt my head. “For where?”
He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Well, you certainly can’t stay here anymore.
Not now that the media knows where you live.
Do you think they’ll give up after today?
” He holds out his hand to pull me up beside him.
“Eden, if you and Macon continue to live here, then what happened this morning will only happen again tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. You can’t get rid of them now that they know where to find you. ”
My heart tumbles into my stomach.
I hadn’t even thought about that. God, I’m so fucking naive. Of course they won’t leave us alone now, not while Alex is still such a prominent figure in the press. We’d be confronted by them every time we open the front door. We would never be able to go anywhere.
“Shit.” I clutch fistfuls of my hair. “Oh, fuck. What do I do? We’ve got nowhere to go.”
Alex grins, big and wide, as if this predicament isn’t a concern at all. “Sure, you do. You guys are moving in with me.”