Ice Steam (Loving All Wrong #3) (30 page)

Scooping up the purses, I made a random selection and went to find Xena, who was scanning through a rack on the other side of the store. “You won’t believe what—”

“Yes, I can believe,” Xena said without looking up.

“You couldn’t have warned me?”

She pulled out a floral top, inspected it, and put it back on the rack. “I’m sure I remember telling you she likes you.”

“But not like
that
!” I hissed, hushed.

“Look,” Xena began, turning away from the rack to face me, resting her right elbow on top of the steel. “There’s a reason Davi’s in love with that girl, alright? Jess is one of the nicest, selfless people you’ll ever meet, but she’s a f-r-e-a-k. She’s the epitome of a lady in the streets and a bitch in the sheets. She’s the girlfriend every rock star dreams of having. She likes girls and she likes boys. She likes threesomes and orgies. She likes having sex with the doors open and the curtains pulled. She gets off on watching her man slide his dick inside another chick. She’s every man’s dream, big on charity, big heart, can cook her pants off, can cater to her man both as a housewife and a sex slave. Davian proposed because he gets to have a wife and
still
live like a rock star.”

She opened her purse, fetched a pack of gum, offered me one, popped it in her mouth when I refused, then continued, “So yeah, she wants to eat you. She also ate her two clueless friends, let her fiancé screw them, and then she made them her orgy toys.”

“Jesus,” I muttered. “L.A. is madness.”

Xena popped her gum. “You’re welcome.”

“Did you and her…?”

“She wanted to. But the thought of playing where brother o’ mine has played is a major ewww factor for me.”

“I’m sorry,
what
?”

Xena paused, wincing, then slapped a palm over her face, groaning. “Ohhh, me and my big mouth. Alina,
please
, you’re not supposed to know that. The band’s not supposed to know that.
I’m
not supposed to know that.”

“Know what?” I was up in her face now. “Were they in a re—”

“Not a relationship.” She sighed. “They used to sneak around. No one knows this, Alina. I just know because, well, I’m
me
. I see things, I hear things, I know things.”

“How recent was this, Xena? Has he been che—”

“
No
,” she stressed with a histrionic wag of her head. “This was long before Ice Steam showed up. They were younger. I think he was her first. They hid it from everyone, probably because Benny would never accept it. Xavi was bad, which made him Benny’s least favorite of the band. All old stuff, Alina.”

I relaxed. “
That’s
why you were so cool about me and Davi.”

Shrugging, she admitted, “I thought it was only fair. And ironic.” She sighed again, as if disappointed in herself. “Please, don’t bring this up. Wait for him to tell you, alright? He can’t know that I know. Jess either.”

I gave her my word. The last thing I wanted to hear about was Jessica and Xavier’s once-upon-a-time affair. As long as it was in the past, before I came into the picture, it didn’t bother me. Xavier could tell me whenever he was comfortable enough to do so. Besides, forcing him to come clean about his past would require me to do the same.

Not appealing at all. He could keep his little secret, and I would keep mine.

When Jessica re-emerged from the dressing room, she carried on with her sweet, cute personality as if nothing had happened. Until we were checking out at the cash register and her phone dinged. She read the screen, her face paled, and she looked the same as she had that Sunday at Eye Spy when Xavier threw me over his shoulder: white as a ghost.

Pretending not to notice, I left the concerned questions to Xena.

As we left the store, Xena asked if she could catch a ride with me to the villa because she was starving, and Jessica would be making a couple more stops before heading home.

I agreed, and we started for Mel’s Range waiting at the curb, when Jessica gripped my arm and asked, “Can I…Can I speak with you for a second?”

I looked at her hand on my arm, then into her green eyes that seemed to be growing glossier by the second. “You gonna try sticking your tongue down my throat again?”

Her gaze shifted to Xena, and her chin wobbled, tears pooling now. “
This
is important. Something I’m sure you wouldn’t want your
sister-in-law
overhearing.”

Her tone hardened, not so ethereal now, and with a tilt of my head, I asked Xena to give us a minute.

Patently suspicious, she eyeballed us for a long moment before, thankfully, walking off to the Range without a word.

Jessica moved closer to me, and in an almost inaudible voice, asked, “Do you have a son?”

For a moment, I was blank.
Blank
. Then I heard the loud
tick, tick, tick
of the time bomb in my house of lies. Time was running out. This game would be over a lot sooner than I’d anticipated. “I’m sorry?”

She came even closer, her eyes narrowed, though still brimmed with unshed tears. “Do you. Have. A
son
?”

I folded my arms over my chest, not as an act of fearlessness, but an act of defense, of cowardice. “How’s that any of your business, Jess?”

She looked like she wanted to punch me right back into the store, and I realized then, that her tears weren’t tears of pain, but of anger.

“It
is
my darn business if the father of this little boy is my soon-to-be husband!” she bit out, shoving her phone in my face so I could see the screen.

Same blue eyes,

Same wicked smile,

New southern bride,

Still the same child.

Is he yours?

Or is he hers?

-A

Below that, were photos. One of a pregnant me sitting on a sofa watching television, one of Dave Hamilton holding and grinning at Jacob, and an extreme close-up shot of Jacob, which was practically Davian in toddler form.

The photo with Dave Hamilton was new, I’d never seen it before. But the photo of me pregnant, and the close-up of Jacob were all personal photos that were supposed to be locked up in my room back in San Francisco. I couldn’t understand how someone could’ve gotten a hold of those. Saskia needed to know of this.

Pushing Jessica’s phone away from my face, I asked, “Who’s A?”

“I don’t
know
,” she said in a strained voice. “I’ve been getting a bunch of texts from this A since the first time you had dinner with us. I figured someone was just bored and obsessed with
Pretty Little Liars
, so I refused to play along and deleted them. This is the first one that’s made any sense at all, and that’s because of the images. Now I’m realizing this A
person has been trying to tell me something all along.”

Tears were etching down her face now, and I wanted to feel bad, feel guilt, remorse, but I felt…nothing.

“Yes,” I admitted, “the boy in the pictures is my son.”

“And…and you don’t deny Davi is his father?”

“My son’s name is Jacob Hamilton.”

She broke, covering her mouth and sobbing in her hand. “I always…I always knew there was more between you two than he let on. Ever since you showed up, he’s been different. Distracted. More and more reluctant to pick a wedding date. The overly pretentious affection he shows me whenever you’re around, always kissing me and touching me and telling me he loves me, as if he’s trying to convince someone of this. How angry he gets every time I suggest a threesome with you—he
never
turns down a threesome!”

“Wait, you think Xavi would’ve just
let
me do a threesome with you and your man?”

“Of course. I asked him.”

What the what?
“And…?”

“He shrugged and said ‘whatever’.”

Was she being serious, or just lying to piss me off
?

Jessica sniffled. “Now it’s all starting to make sense. You and Davi had a child together and he li—”

“Whoa there,” I cut her off. “Let’s not get carried away here. Davi doesn’t know about Jacob.”

She stiffened, wet green eyes stretching wide. “
Excuse me
?”

“He doesn’t know,” I repeated. “And I don’t plan on telling him.”

With the back of her hand, she wiped her snotty, red nose. “How can you even…how can you
do
something like that?”

“You mean raise a child on my own?” I shot back. “Let’s see, I went out on a limb to get him, your fiancé, signed to your daddy’s label. He left to go on tour, met you, and forgot I existed. I’m left to raise my child on my own. That’s how.”

“Oh, God,” she groaned, daintily holding her stomach. “How can you be so…so cruel to keep this from him? That’s his
son
!”

“No, that’s
my
son.
I
carried him for nine months.
I
pushed him out. Davi’s just a sperm donor. My son is fine and dandy without him. Jacob doesn’t need his support, alright?” I stepped into her space. “And here’s why
we
are gonna keep it from him: You want to marry Davi, and I want to be with Xavi. You throw in this baby bombshell, and you know what’s gonna happen? Davi’s going to choose
me
, because we have a bond, a soul to soul connection that you can’t even begin to imagine. And he knows, unerringly, who I’ll choose.”

“You—you
love
him?”

“I never stopped.” I held up my tattooed wrist. “This looks familiar?”

She studied the tattoo for a moment, and I saw the second she pieced it together. “You’re
her
, aren’t you? You’re the girl. The girl he used to drink himself into oblivion over every night when I first met him. The girl he used to beat himself up about because he ‘
let her down
’. The girl I had to
make
him forget about.”

“I’m sorry?”

Something dawned on her, her grimace morphing into a revelatory expression. “Does Xavi know?”

“He knows I have a son, but he doesn’t know Davi’s the father.”

She laughed. Actually
laughed
at me.

“Oh, you do not know Xavi,” she muttered more to herself than to me. She no longer seemed devastated, but rather eager for more information to cement whatever conclusion she’d come to. “You do realize that it doesn’t take more than a glance at your son to see the stark resemblance, right?”

“He hasn’t seen him yet,” I snapped out. “And I’ll worry about that bridge when it’s time to cross it.”

I turned and started to the Range, but she followed me.

“I don’t understand one thing. How does Davi’s father know and he doesn’t?”

“Dave is keeping his mouth shut for the same reason you’ll be keeping yours shut.”

“Why is that?” She was still following me.

“You
love
him,” I said, stopping and turning to face her. “And you
care
what a discovery like this—at least the twisted version that
I’ll
tell—would do to his reputation and to your impending marriage.”

As she stood there and thought about this, I turned and continued walking.

“What if A sent this message to Xavi, too, Alina?”

“He gives a shit, or he doesn’t.”

I was almost close to the Range when she called out, “He’ll never love you, you know.”

I should have asked her which rocker she was referring to, but instead I asked, “And how are you so sure of this?”

Her lips curved up into a terrifying smile, a smile that said she had one up on me, a smile that said the winner of this game would not be me, but
her
.

“Because he’s obsessively hung up on someone else. And that’s the
real
reason you’re here.”

Xena didn’t question me when I finally climbed into the back of the Range, but I knew her antennas were up. Either she was waiting for me to tell her what my chat with Jessica was about, or intended on investigating herself.

I offered her nothing, and instead told Mel to swing by Danni’s apartment.

Although he hadn’t been answering my calls for the past two days for whatever reason, I bought him a gold-buckle belt at Hermes and wanted to drop it off for him,
then
curse him out for leaving me to pick a dress on my own.

I liked buying nice things for people. Giving was one of my
very
few hobbies. If I liked someone, I would splurge on some of the finest things for them. I couldn’t recall ever going shopping and
not
buy something for someone else.

Danni lived in a luxury studio apartment in an upscale community that charged an arm and a leg in rent for the smallest of spaces.

Xena insisted on coming up with me even though I told her I would just be a minute. So, together, we navigated to his apartment on the second floor and pounded on the door.

It took a full sixty seconds, or more, before Danni swung the door open, in nothing but boxer briefs, hair ruffled, skin glistening with a sheen of sweat.

His eyes blew wide when he saw us.

“Damn, boy,” Xena said, followed by a wolf-whistle. “You’ve got a fantastic package. Why’d you have to be gay?”

“Alina! Xena!” Danni said out loud,
too
loud, considering we were right in front of him. “What are you doing here?!”