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Jack chucked his phone at the wall after Alana declined his call for the ninth time. His explosion frightened the baby causing her to cry her lungs out. His head falls back and looks up at the ceiling, inhaling then exhaling a breath, doing his best to keep his emotions under control. Jack walks over and takes a seat on the couch where the baby is still in the carseat on the floor. He then unwraps the blanket to see her name on the pink and blue soft fabric.
Vanessa
Just like they had planned seven years ago when they thought they were actually having a child together.
Again, keeping himself from losing his anger, he took a quick second to himself before he took her out of the carseat and rocked her gently, shushing her.
He gazed down at the angel with a soft glow to her blue eyes. If Jack looked hard enough, he could find the similarities that they shared and maybe he could see Alana in her to, but he couldn't look that hard. He didn't want to believe it.
Jack could've sworn that Alana was just pulling some bullshit on him again like she did last time, but why after all these years would she do this now? She was a model just like she planned, so she couldn't want exposure.
He didn't even remember sleeping with her. And he was pretty damn sure that he didn't cheat on Selena for years.
Just when Vanessa transitioned from loud cries to small sniffles, the doorbell rang and the crying started again.
Groaning, Jack reached for her pacifier that was hidden under the other blankets and put it in her mouth, putting her crying to a stop. He set her back in the carseat and rushed over to answer the door.
Dylan and Naomi immediately ran into his arms and hugged him tight. "We missed you Daddy!" Naomi sang.
"I missed you guys too." He kissed Naomi's cheek and ruffled Dylan's hair as he stood up and met eyes with Selena who was almost glowing with loose waves hanging past her shoulders and wearing bell bottom overalls over a small cami.
She looked like an angel. It was still hard to believe that she was suffering from a disease and needed a kidney transplant.
"Hey, I meant to pick them up, but I ran into a bit of a situation." Jack explained as Dylan and Naomi ran past him and into the living room.
"What happened?" Selena asked, folding her arms over her chest, skeptically eying him.
"Dad, who's baby is this?" Dylan's voice came from the living room.
Jack turned around to see Dylan and Naomi leaning over Vanessa with furrowed brows and curious eyes as if they never seen a baby before. "Um, it's my neighbor's daughter, Vanessa. How about you two go and get unpacked in your new rooms."
They took another minute to suspiciously look over the baby before shrugging it off and walking up the stairs to check out their new rooms.
Selena pushed past Jack and sat on the couch before picking Vanessa up and taking the pacifier out of her mouth. "She's so precious." She smiled.
Jack sighed, having a positive prediction on how this would turn out.
He shut the door and joined her on the couch, watching her play with Vanessa, making her giggle.
Selena began bouncing her on her legs. "Is she really your neighbor's, Jack? Or did you just get one of your groupies knocked up?" Selena joked, but little did she know.
"Something like that."
Selena stopped bouncing Vanessa and fixed her eyes on Jack. "What does that mean?" She questioned, fearing that she already knew the answer.
"Ummm..." Jack clasped his hands in between his knees, his fingers weaving in and out of each other. "I was on my way to pick them up, but when I went outside, uh...she was on the doorstep and uh..."
Jack's eyes searched for the sticky note until he found the yellow piece of paper on the floor. He grabbed it and handed it out to Selena who refused to take it.
She inhaled a deep breath then shook her head. "No. Read it to me. Then tell me what happened." Her bitterness clear in her tone.
A shaky breath came out of Jack's bone dry mouth as he re-read the words on the sticky note in his head, hating that he had to say it out loud to the person he owed an explanation to the most.
"Okay...It says, Re...remember a year ago after one of your shows in the ho...hotel room...This is what happened. I took care of her for months." He takes in another long and deep breath. "It's your turn...A...Alana."
Selena tensed as Jack's eyes never left the yellow piece of paper. She never thought she'd have to hear that demon's name again. After all the suffering she once put them through, he slept with her again? It wasn't making any kind of sense.
Jack couldn't look at her. He just stared at the empty carseat. "I don't remember sleeping
wit-"
"Save it."
"Selena, I hones-"
"That means stop talking, Jack."
He finally met eyes with her. Her brown ones holding onto a rage that was coming from deep within. An anger that she didn't even know could exist in her body.
Selena put Vanessa back in her carseat then glared at Jack. "Alana? Out of every person in the damn world, it had to be Alana. You must've fucked every girl you ever laid eyes on and decided to put us through re-runs."
"Us? Did you forget that you divorced me? This doesn't have anything to do with you."
"It doesn't? We have to explain to our kids that they have a sister who isn't their mother's daughter. When they grow up, they're gonna know that you, their father, cheated on their mother and got someone else pregnant. And then, we're gonna have to tell them about the other thing Alana did to you, years ago. Not to mention that when people find out about this third child you have that isn't mine, I will be the one who suffers through humiliation. So yes, Jack, it has everything to do with me and somehow whenever you fuck up, I'm the one who goes through hell, because of it."
Jack then raised his voice up a level. "I'm fucking sorry." He snarled. "We don't even know if she's mine yet."
Vanessa let's out a howling cry, interrupting their argument. Selena picks her up and puts her head on her shoulder and gently bounces her.
No matter who's child this was, Selena's would never hold a grudge against someone who was innocent and had no idea what was going on. It wasn't her fault that she was the result of an affair.
Jack's back fell against the cushion of the couch and rubbed his forehead with his index finger and thumb, letting some of the anger leave his body. "That's her fourth time crying and she's only been here for twenty minutes."
"She's a crier. So was Nye." Selena said, her voice back to normal as well.
"I know."
Selena patted Vanessa's back, her crying coming to an end. "I hope you're getting a test."
"I will." Jack shrugged. "She's not mine. I didn't sleep with her."
"Whatever." Selena rolled her eyes. "She's one of the most disgusting people I have ever come to known. Who leaves a baby on the doorstep out of an act of revenge?" She then snorted. "Yeah, you sure know how to pick the good ones."
"I picked you, didn't I?"
Selena chuckled. "I picked you. I wasn't into you until the next day when I agreed to give you my number. This never would've happened if I never gave you my number."
Jack disagreed silently.
Dylan and Naomi came down the stairs and stopped in front of them. "Are you still taking us to the park?" Dylan asked Jack.
"I don't think I can right now. I have Vanessa and I don't have anything to put her in. I can't watch all three of y'all at the same time." He told them, making them frown.
Naomi looked over at her mother. "Mama, you can come, so Daddy doesn't watch us by his-self."
Selena shook her head. "I don't think so, babe."
"Please, mom?" Dylan begged.
Jack was praying that she would decline their invitation, but she didn't. "Okay, I guess I'll go. I think um..." She looked at Vanessa with curious eyes, forgetting her name.
"Vanessa." Jack reminded her.
"...Vanessa needs a stroller before we go anywhere."
The beaming sunlight glows on their skin as they walked along the path next to the lake. Jack pushed the stroller as Selena walked behind the kids and next to him.
"So uh, what was the good news you wanted to tell me." Jack asked Selena, then noticing that Naomi's shoe laces were loose. "Nye, let me tie your shoe."
Selena watched as Naomi skipped over to Jack and put her foot on his jeans. "Well, it's not as exciting anymore, but they found a match in my family."
Jack turned his head from Naomi's shoe as a smile slowly grew on his face. "Seriously?"
Selena nodded. "Yeah, seriously."
Once Naomi's foot hit the ground, Jack wrapped his arms around Selena and embraced her tightly. "That's amazing." He said, pulling away.
As they began walking again, Selena shrugged and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "It's not exactly positive yet. I don't know if she's going to do it though. We never really had a conversation since we were like seventeen."
"Who is it?" Jack asked.
They got to the playground where other small children played on the various color equipment. Jack and Selena sat down on a blue park bench as Dylan and Naomi ran off with the other children.
"It's my cousin, Francia." She revealed, looking over at the lake then seeing a few men with cameras across the water taking pictures of them. "Look, there's your friends." She gives a nod towards them.
Jack glanced over there for a split second then ignored it since it was the normal for him and continued on with the conversation. "So, what are you going to do?"
"I really don't know...Hopefully I could try to talk to her, but I hate doing this. I can't just take her kidney especially if we haven't talked in years."
"How bad is it?" Jack leaned forward to check if Vanessa was asleep in the stroller, which she was, before resting his back against the bench. "Your lupus, I mean."
"It's good on somedays. Terrible on others. It's like having the flu and it won't go away. I probably won't come out of the room, depending on how I'm feeling or looking."
"What does it do to you physically?"
Selena hummed before answering. "I gain and lose weight like it's nothing. My feet swell up. I get rashes, and honestly, I'm not even supposed to be in the sunlight a lot cause it can irritate my skin. And the arthritis is a bitch. I get that constantly."
Jack sat up. "If you can't be in the sunlight then maybe we should leave, don't you think?"
Selena shook her head and chuckled. "It won't kill me, Jack. It just causes flares on my skin. It's okay."
Jack nodded, looking over to see Dylan and Naomi playing tag with another group of kids on the playground.
"What are you gonna do with her?" Selena asked, pointing towards Vanessa who stirred in her sleep, a hint of a smile showing before quickly fading.
"Keep her." He answered, almost not believing that those words just left his mouth, but he knew it was the right thing. "If she's not mine then I'll give her back to Alana, maybe."
Selena's brows shot up. "What does maybe mean?" Wondering why he would want a third child especially with his schedule and the whores he would routinely bring in and out his house.
He wouldn't have time to be a full time parent. Naomi and Dylan were lucky enough to see him on weekends and that would only last for another few months before going back on tour, and then what would he do with Vanessa?
"I don't want to turn her in to CPS, but Alana can't have her unless she knows how to take care of her. Leaving a baby on a porch is pretty fucked up mothering. I seriously might just keep her."
"Yeah." Selena agreed after hearing him out. "I think she deserves someone who can treat her right." She smiled, leaning forward to run a finger over Vanessa's cheek. "You're a great dad. That's something you never had trouble with."
Jack smiled at her compliment as he watched her stand up from the bench and call for Dylan and Naomi. "You leaving?"
Selena nodded. "I have a doctors appointment and then I have other things to do between that and work."
Dylan and Naomi ran over to them and looked up at their mother with curiosity in their eyes. "Are you leaving?" Dylan asked, wiping sweat off of his brow.
"Yeah, I'm leaving. I have work in a few hours."
"Okay." Dylan frowned before looking over at Jack who was texting on his phone. "Can we stay here?"
Jack nodded. "Yeah, you got twenty more minutes then we have to go pick some things up for Vanessa before it gets dark."
Dylan and Naomi hugged Selena goodbye. "Be good for daddy, okay?"
The both of them nodded furiously before getting a final goodbye from Selena letting them know they could run back to the playground and continue their game of tag.
Selena combed her fingers through her hair, ruffling her waves. "Bye, Jack." She dryly stated, before seeing Vanessa was awake and crouching down to her level. "Bye, Nessa." She grinned and said in the sweetest voice.
"Don't call her that." Jack hissed, not wanting anyone to become attached her, especially his ex-wife.
Selena rolled her eyes at how quick it was for him to get mad over something so small. "Goodbye, Jack." She rose up, snickering as she walked past him, ruffling his hair. "Should've wrapped it up." She sang.
After he swatted her hand away, Selena continued down the path, still hearing the clicks of the paparazzi across the water. As long as they didn't invade her personal space, then she wouldn't have a problem.
Feeling her phone vibrate against her side, she pulled it out of the pocket to read a text from the screen.
Adam: Still up for that date? - 5:45 p.m.
- Not a date, but yeah...I'll be home in fifteen. - 5:45 p.m.