47. Hawk
It was dark when the knock sounded on my study door. I had no idea how much time had passed, but I could tell it had been a lot by the way my neck ached when I turned my head and called, “Come in.”
Charlie stepped inside, his normally expressionless face looking exceptionally concerned as he crossed the room and stood in front of the desk.
“Is everything alright?” he asked, staring down at me where I sat, leaned back in my desk chair. “We wanted to give you some time, but it’s been a while now, and the guys were getting antsy.” He straightened his shoulders, hands clasped behind his back in a pose that I assumed was reminiscent of his military days. “Alex wanted to be the one to come down and check on you, but Gavin and I thought it might be best if he did...literally anything else.”
Normally, a comment like that would have had me snorting out a laugh, loving to dunk on Alex as much as the rest of the guys.
But right now, I didn’t feel like laughing.
I didn’t feel anything. I was numb, completely and totally removed from myself and my body and reality in general, I guessed. How else could I explain the fact that a bomb had just been dropped in my lap, and I’d done nothing but sit, staring at it, for hours.
When I didn’t respond, Charlie stepped closer, his hands coming to rest on the surface of the desk as he leaned over me, his eyes narrowed.
“Hawk, man, what’s going on? You’ve been different for weeks now. Wound tight as a fuckin’ clock, making some big changes, big decisions after years and years of just riding the wave. Going with the flow.” He paused, his lips compressed into a flat line before he spoke again. “Don’t get me wrong; I’m fucking ecstatic that you’ve finally decided to cut ties with everything Castor, but I worry that you’re doing things a little fast. First the festival, then the label. It’s alright to want to take a step back and consider all your options. You don’t have to make a choice right in this moment.”
Charlie was such a stand-up guy. He was the kind of guy you wanted on your side, the kind of guy that could always be counted on for good advice. I used to smoke up and think about how different my life would have been if I’d had a guy like Charlie in it from the beginning.
How awesome it would have been if Charlie had been my dad.
Fuck.
The thought struck me like a fucking freight train, and I choked down the lump in my throat as I stared at the little square photograph that had been tucked in with the last letter. The image was grainy, but I thought that was how these things were supposed to look. I couldn’t tell one part of the image from the other, but that didn’t stop me from knowing exactly what it was and what it meant.
It was an ultrasound photo. An image of the baby Wren claimed was mine.
“The time to hesitate is through,” I said, quoting Jim Morrison, before reaching up and holding out the photo to Charlie.
He took it, turning it one way and then the other before it finally registered exactly what it was and what it meant.
This time, there was no denying the animation on his face.
“Holy shit, Hawk. Do you know what this is?”
“I do,” I replied, not minding his insinuation that I was a fucking moron because, honestly, it had taken me more than a fair chunk of time to come to terms with what I had been looking at.
“Do you know what this means?”
“I do.”
“Holy shit. Like, holy shit.” He sat there, the look on his face as dumbfounded as I expected mine had been, and I waited while he continued to process.
Fuck, I was still processing.
“Wait,” Charlie finally said, and I raised my head to look at him. “Just wait a fuckin’ minute here. This was in the letters? The ones that Lewis just brought over from his safe?”
“Yeah.”
“So you’re telling me that Tori had this? In her possession all this time?”
“Had what?” came the chipper voice of Alex as he pushed his way into the study, a sheepish Gavin on his heels. I’d bet he’d put up a token protest when Alex suggested they come crash in here, but judging by how they both marched right up to the desk, I would have thought it was weak at best. “What’s the Terrible Tori done now?”
Charlie looked at me for permission before doing anything, and I nodded.
The guys knew about Wren and her letters, so they might as well know about this, too. In for a penny, in for a pound, I guessed.
Charlie held up the ultrasound and Alex snatched it out of his hand before Charlie could even speak.
“Tori’s pregnant?” he blurted, and just the thought made my gut churn. “Does Lewis know?”
“Alex,” Gavin chided, reaching for the image. “It’s not Lewis’s baby.”
“Holy fuck!” Alex gaped, immediately jumping to another wrong conclusion. “Hawk, you’re still bonin’ Tori? Behind Lewis’s back?” He fired off the question, then snapped his fingers as though something else had just occurred to him. “Or you and Lewis are bonin’ her together! I thought you hated them both, though. Is it a group hate fuck? Is it good? Can I watch?”
“Alex!” Gavin barked, punching him in the shoulder hard enough that Alex whined. “Shut the fuck up, man. Not one single thing you just said is in any way accurate, so stop talking. Can’t you see you’re stressing Hawk out.”
I was going to be stressed regardless, but Alex didn’t need to know that.
“So who’s the baby mama, then?” Alex asked, his voice quieter but still excited; fuck, he loved drama.
“Wren,” I said, and they all turned to look at me.
“Your letter girl?” Alex asked, and I nodded. “That Wren? She’s pregnant?”
“Hold up,” Gavin said, lifting the image and holding it close to his face. “It would be more accurate to say Wren was pregnant. This ultrasound is dated almost fifteen years ago.”
And that was the real kicker to the entire fucked-up situation.
Because not only had Tori somehow found the letters and opened them, she’d also hid them from me.
For fifteen years.
Of all the shit Tori had pulled in the time I’d known her, I’d never have expected something like this. Not in a million years.
“Jesus Christ, Hawk,” Gavin breathed, passing the ultrasound photo back to me while he picked up the letter that went with it. I held the photo gently, staring down at the tiny gray blob that may or may not have been my child. “How the fuck did Victoria Castor, of all people, find out about this before you? And how has she managed to keep it from you for so long?”
“Those are really great fuckin’ questions, Gav. And I don’t have an answer for either of them. But you can bet your fuckin’ ass I’m gonna be askin’ her.”
“Okay, hang on.” Charlie turned away from the desk, lacing his fingers behind his head as he stretched his back, his classic thinking about shit pose. “We can’t just go off half cocked here. We need a plan.”
“We?”
“Yes, Hawk. We.” Charlie spun and stared at me, his expression telling me he thought I was an idiot. Alex and Gavin mirrored him in a way that was eerie. “You’re not in this alone, you know? I understand that as an artist, your natural inclination is to descend into a pit of despair or whatever, but that’s not how this is gonna go.”
“Damn fuckin’ right, it’s not,” Alex piped in, then paused and turned to Charlie. “So, how’s it gonna go, then?”
“First thing is, none of this information leaves this room. There is no way that Victoria can find out that we know about this before you’re ready to confront her. That would just give her time to cover her tracks, and if we’re gonna figure out just how deep her bullshit goes, we need her comfortable. She has spent the last fifteen years thinking she got away with whatever the fuck it is she pulled off. We need her to keep believing that for a few more weeks.”
“Fine, but what about the baby?” I asked, then froze as I realized that if the date on that photo were accurate, that baby would be fourteen years old right now. “Holy fuck,” I breathed, rubbing my chest where a large pit of fire seemed to have opened up. “That baby is a goddamn teenager.” If that kid was mine, I’d fucking missed everything.
Every milestone. Every late night, and birthday, and whatever else went with having a kid.
My kid probably thought I was a terrible fucking father.
I thought again about my own dad, absent since the two pink lines had appeared. He’d caught wind of me and high-tailed it out of L.A. so fast, you’d have thought his ass was on fire.
I’d hated him for a long time, longer than I’d cared to admit, anyway.
The thought of my own child feeling toward me even a fraction of the anger and resentment I’d felt for my dad sent a jolt of crippling pain through my chest, and I rubbed at the spot a little harder.
“We don’t know anything yet, Hawk,” Gavin said, his steady voice reassuring. “Charlie, what’s the plan?”
Yes, that was good. Charlie was head of my personal security. He’d have a plan. Charlie always had a plan.
“I need a few days,” he answered, pulling his phone out of his pocket and firing off a text to someone. “I have a few contacts that might be able to track down this girl and get us some information.”
“I tried to find her online, but she has like, zero social media presence. Not even an old Myspace account,” I said, and Charlie gave me a pitying look.
“My contacts have a little more skill than a Google search, Hawk.”
Hackers. Charlie was talking about the people he knew that looked into people through less than legal means.
“Alright,” I said, agreeing because finding Wren was the most important thing.
“I’ll need everything you know about her. The more, the better. No one makes a move until we have more information,” he added, glaring at Alex, who had the balls to look offended.
“Hey, I can keep a fuckin’ secret.” When we only stared at him skeptically, he huffed and crossed his arms. “You fuckers don’t even know how good I am at secrets.”
“And one more thing,” Charlie went on, ignoring Alex’s pout. “Someone has to tell Mick. He needs to be prepared to get ahead of this. If it turns out that Hawk really does have a secret love child, the press will have a fucking field day.”
Once we’d all agreed that telling our manager would be my job, the guys all left, Charlie to get started on all the work he now needed to do, and Gavin just going home. Alex, on the other hand, wouldn’t tell us what he was doing for the rest of the day, instead looking down his nose at us and declaring, “It’s a secret,” before flouncing out the door.
Once my house was empty again, I retreated back to the study, settling myself at the desk and picking up the ultrasound photo.
Was that my child? Had I actually met Wren the night she came to the concert? And if I had, why hadn’t she told me who she was? She was so vibrant and bold in her letters; it was hard to believe I’d come in contact with her—fuckin’ slept with her—and had no memory of it beyond the flashes of her hazel eyes and some music that never left me.
Holding the photo in one hand, I let my other hand fall to the bracelet, spinning the beads idly while I considered.
“Oh, Wren,” I whispered out loud. “What the hell have you been up to all these years?”