Hi, everybody! Great feedback on last chapter! It'll only continue, but things are going to have something of a turnaround for Will and Lola! I hope you all like the more frequent Linstead additions. Also, I updated the cover image and I gotta say I'm obsessed!

Thank you so much to all those that reviewed and followed: HermoineandMarcus M39151, Ms. Isabella and NALEY23alwaysforever! Be sure to check out their stories, they are quite awesome!

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NOR HAVE ANY AFFILIATIONS WITH GIVE ME THE MELTDOWN. ALL PROPERTIES OWNED BY ROB THOMAS, RESPECTIVELY. I ONLY OWN MY OWN ORIGINAL IDEAS AND CHARACTERS.

Chapter Twenty One: Give Me The Meltdown

Lola was crying so hard she was curled up in a ball against the car seat and practically hiccuping, she couldn't stop no matter what efforts were made to calm her. The events that had transpired refused to stop repeating in her head, especially the horrible thing Stella said about Paisley. The thought of her sweet, innocent baby girl's face just made her continue crying.

"Lola, please don't cry anymore." Erin plucked a tissue from the limo bar, gently dabbing her sister-in-law's mascara streaked tears.

Tawny Rae rubbed her shoulder. "I've never had a great feeling about that chick, but Stella has made it very clear tonight that she is nothing more than a piece of trash. Hell, she makes me look like Duchess Kate!"

"How is Paisley going to make it in this world? She's completely doomed because of me and Will! I've failed her as a mother, and I don't know how to fix it!"

Lola bowed her head down in her hands, sobbing some more. Would things be different if Will were around on a regular basis? Whenever he was, Paisley would hardly leave his side, but when he left it was up to Lola to cheer her up and let her know that Daddy would be home sooner than she thought. If only that were true.

"Don't say that." Erin gently took Lola's face in her hands. "It's not true at all. Paisley adores you and worships the ground you walk on."

Tawny Rae nodded. "You're such a good mother, Lola. Actually, you're a pretty great mother. I hope I can be as good of a mother to Tinkerbell as you are to Paisley."

"I've let her down." Lola sat up and took a tissue from the tissue box. "Every morning when I wake her up, I go through the whole round of people that love her. "Does Mommy love you?" "Do Aunt Erin and Uncle Jay love you?" etc, and she nods her head mid-sleep. Lately, when I ask her if Daddy loves her, she pauses and then shrugs."

That was one of many moments that was captured on camera, as well as Will walking out of the dance recital. Maybe it was a big mistake doing this show, she was a spectacle now. Not only that, but she would have to discuss this evening's events in her talking head interview later on. Hopefully, something good could come out of this later on down the road.

"Dude, what time is it?" Jay asked, looking over at his brother, who simply shrugged.

"I have no idea. Man, that Trainwreck sure works quickly!" Will took another hit off the joint he and Jay were sharing with their beers after having put the children to bed.

"It does. I shouldn't be smoking this, neither should you."

Will laughed. "Live a little, Mockingjay. Besides, I've got nothing but time on my hands until Showdown and All Stars, and you best believe I'll be kicking ass." He glanced at the flatscreen from his spot at the family room couch. "Damn, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis getting it on. Mmm mmm mmm, that ballerina guy and Ashton Kutcher sure are lucky muthafuckas."

"Yeah, they both did a kickass job in this movie."

"Nothing gets me hotter than girl-on-girl. You should check out this French film Blue is the Warmest Color. You would think that it was a porno with the kind of lady loving action going on in it. Did you know that "lesbian" is the most searched term on porn sites?"

Jay shook his head. "I believe it. Should you really be on those sites anymore? You have a problem."

Will's porn addiction wasn't a secret to the other drivers, some of them even indulging him as far as splurges. Jay wished that his brother would get the help he needed so he could give his all to Lola and Paisley.

"I'm in recovery, little brother, with the best help available. I'll be fine, but let me tell you this: If I could watch all my wives getting it on, I'd die a happy man. Totally naked and oiled up sliding all over each other. Lips, teeth and tongue in every hole imaginable, throw in a strap on, one sitting on one's face while going down on the other while rubbing the first girl. Whether or not I'd join in, I haven't decided yet. Man, the thought of it gets me so hard."

Jay simply rolled his eyes at his brother and drank his beer. "Ha, don't you wish? Take it easy there, cowboy."

"Hell yes I do." Will grinned wickedly before looking over at his brother. "What, you're going to sit there and tell me you've never imagined Erin and Lola making out?"

"No..." Jay broke his serious face and grinned sheepishly. "Ok, maybe... in the pool wearing matching bikinis."

"In mine they're topless, boobs pressed together." Will pushed his hands together in front of him, making him and Jay burst into laughter, ignoring the movie and ended up on the floor they were laughing so hard.

"How are you feeling, Lolee? You ok?" Erin asked Lola as soon as they got out of the limo in front of the house, taking her by the hand.

"I'm ok, I feel utterly exhausted." All the crying in the limo from leaving Brianna's to dropping Tawny Rae off and then arriving back at Jay and Erin's really took its toll on Lola. Her eyes were red and her face puffy, at least her makeup was still beautifully intact.

Erin nodded. "I understand. I'm just as furious as you are. She had no right to say that at all."

"I mean, it's not fun to be talked badly about, but I can take it. Throw anything you want at me, but leave my child out of it. That's where I draw the line. How can I move forward from this? It's not like they'll kick her off the show."

"Believe me, they'll have to after the earful they'll be getting from everybody, me especially."

Erin and Lola heard laughing coming from the other side of the door, knowing it was too deep to be the children. Giving each other a quizzical look, they opened the door and followed the sound straight into the family room, where their husbands were hysterically laughing.

"Hey guys, what's so funny?" Erin asked.

The Halstead brothers looked over at their wives and once again burst into laughter.

"Boobies!" Jay shouted, pulling Will and himself back on the couch again.

"Jay!" Erin put her finger to her lip, shushing him. "Keep your voices down, both of you! The kids are asleep!"

Lola looked up at the screen and blinked in shock. "What the hell are you watching?! Is that Black Swan?"

"Yep." Jay nodded.

Her mouth flew open, her blood boiling even hotter. This was truly the last thing she needed. "I'm gone for three hours and you're watching softcore porn?!" Lola turned to her brother-in-law. "Jay, how could you?!" She gave him a pleading look, hoping he wouldn't mention Will's addiction aloud when the cameras weren't too far behind.

"Guys, can you please give us a minute?" Erin held her hand up to the cameras to block her face before snapping her fingers at Jay. "Babe, where's your wallet?"

"Hey! I just spent the past two hours with singing rocks and dancing snowmen. If Daddy wants to watch Black Swan, Daddy's going to watch Mila Kunis eat Natalie Portman out." He narrowed his glazed eyes at Lola. "Unless you want to come over here and sit on my face, because your pussy will be the only one I'm fixated on, baby."

Erin whipped her head around to look at Will, her mouth and Lola's flying open, even Jay was speechless. In all the time they've been together, Erin and Jay had never seen or heard Will say something so filthily vulgar to Lola.

Lola's face twisted up in a sneer. "Oh, my god! I cannot believe you, you're such an fucking asshole!"

"What?! Don't be such a prude, Lola. You used to do that all the time when we first got married."

"Will, stop it." Erin glared at him. "Quit while you're ahead, she doesn't need it."

"She's right! I don't! I need my husband who loves and cares about me and my well being unconditionally. Instead, I have a frat boy prick!"

It was right before Lola turned around that Will noticed her tear streaked face and snapped out of it. Something was seriously wrong and he had more than likely made it worse.

"Lola, wait!" He jumped up and tripped on the carpet, making Jay burst into hysterical laughter. Picking himself up, he went after his wife. "Honey pie, let's talk about this."

"No! Leave me alone! I just want to see Paisley and go home!" Lola had started crying again, her face flushed from the overwhelming pour of emotions.

"She's asleep. Lola, what happened at dinner?" He tried to grab her wrist but she pulled it away as she began to walk up the stairs.

"I don't want to discuss it! It's not like you would even care!"

Without saying anything, Will wrapped his arms around Lola's waist and lifted her up. Once Lola's feet were off the ground, she started kicking the air and flailing her hands in fists.

"Will, let me go right now! I'm not kidding!"

"No! Something is wrong and we're going to discuss it."

He flipped Lola over his shoulder as she continued to kick and scream, the cameras capturing it all. Erin walked up to the cameramen.

"What are you doing? You can't air this, it's not right."

One of them shrugged. "We don't have a choice. It's up to the producers to decide what gets left on the cutting room floor."

All Erin did was roll her eyes with a scoff and walked away. Why the hell had they ever agreed to doing this?

Will went into Jay's downstairs office and closed the door. The second he set Lola down she further snapped.

"I cannot believe you did that to me!"

"Lola, sweetheart, please." Will grabbed her shoulders once her hand was on the doorknob and turned her around, sitting her in Jay's leather office chair as he crouched down in front of her, neither one of them aware that the door was now open ajar and the cameras were once again filming everything. "I know you're lying when you say nothing happened because you wouldn't be this hysterical otherwise."

"What's the point? You're too fucked up to listen!"

"No, I'm not!" He put his hands on the sides of her head and made her look in his eyes, which were blood shot with dilated pupils, further proof that he actually was under the influence. "I'm all ears, every single word. You have to tell me what happened so I can help you out."

Lola threw her head back and laughed menacingly. "Now you want to help? What's your endgame, Halstead? Fucking me in the ass?! I see right through you!"

She tried to get up but he forced her back down.

"Lola, stop! You sound like a crazy person."

"I am a crazy person! You have no idea and it's all thanks to you!"

"Listen, I told you I was going to make a turnaround and I'm starting. I'm sorry about what I said to you when you walked in, it was wrong of me. Please, please tell me what happened."

"Looks like you guys had a fun night." Erin said as she walked around the couch and sat on Jay's lap.

"We needed it. Sorry we went overboard." He wrapped his arm around her waist.

"Hey, as long as it's behind closed doors, the boys are safe and illegal drugs aren't involved, I'm pretty easy going." She looked at the contents strewn on the table. "It's times like this I wish I weren't pregnant, because after the night I had I could definitely use a shot and a hit."

"Aww, did my two girls have a hard night?" Jay asked as his hand landed on her stomach, smiling when he felt the slightest of kicks.

"Well, everything was fine until Stella ran her mouth off at Lola and then all hell broke loose."

"She said what?!"

They whipped their heads around to Will's shouting, Erin knowing that Lola had told him about what Stella called their only child.

"I can imagine it was pretty terrible."

Erin shook her head. "Believe me, you have no idea."

"Who in their right mind says that?! About a defenseless child nonetheless?! And then to go and put her hands on you?! She's going to get a piece of my mind." Will was pacing back and forth, infuriated. He stopped and held his hand out to Lola. "Give me her number, she's not going to get away with this. Tomorrow morning I'm calling our lawyer and she'll pay through the nose for what she did to you."

Lola shook her head. "I took care of it, that's not the point! Who am I to you?"

Will furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "What kind of question is that? You're my wife! Look at how furious I am, I could knock somebody out right now! What else would you be?"

"I don't know, but everybody's laughing at me! And when they're not, they pity me! I see the look that Trudy and Cindy and the rest of the WAGS have in their eyes whenever I'm around! I'm just a joke to you!" She bowed her head and started crying again, feeling beyond a breakdown. At this point, she was shattered glass.

Will studied his wife, thinking maybe his brother was right somehow and she really wasn't well. Was it all his fault?

"Lola," he wiped her tears away with his pointer finger. "you could never ever be a joke to me, not even close. I know that a lot of times I put myself before you when I really shouldn't, but it's not intentional... at least I don't think it is."

"You don't even know? How the hell is that supposed to be reassuring?!" She started crying again, this time even harder than before. "I'm nothing more than your pathetic dim witted wife! Nobody takes me seriously!"

"No! Don't cry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! That's not what I meant and I have no idea why I said it. You know I'm not an emotional person, Lola."

That isn't reassuring either.

"But I'm trying, you know I am. I'm sorry that this is how you feel because it's the last thing I want for you, for us. The first time I saw you, I knew that you'd be part of my life in some significant way, and look at how far we've come. We're married now with a beautiful child, and you can guarantee there isn't a single thing I wouldn't do for either one of you."

Lola sniffled. "You mean that?"

Right now, this was exactly what she needed. Maybe all those punches rattled his brain into some sense.

He nodded. "Of course, doll. Hey," Will took her face in his hands. "I love you, Lola. And I love Paisley. I promise I'll try to make my actions as meaningful as my words, whatever I can to make sure that you don't go down that dark path again."

He leaned in and kissed her, Lola closing her eyes, two final tears falling as she slid down to his level. A small part of both of them was reminded of how things were after Paisley was born.

For two months, Will never left her side, enduring the screaming phone calls from Kirkland for backing out of races and meetings, not to mention having to tend to newborn Paisley. Lola's postpartum depression had rendered her practically catatonic, not even her OBGYN knew how that happened.

FOUR YEARS AGO

"Lola? Wake up, honey. Look who's here to visit you."

Lola opened her eyes to see Will holding Paisley, freshly washed, fed and dressed in a lavender dress with a petaled skirt and a matching headband in her hair.

"Say hi to Mommy, PJ."

Will lifted her chubby little hand and waved to Lola. Paisley cooed and giggled at her mother, who reached out and touched her foot with a small smile.

"Hi, my beautiful baby."

"Look, I put a headband on her and made sure the outfit matched, I know that you got her a headband for all her clothes." He pointed to the headband that was quite frankly bigger than Paisley's whole head.

Lola nodded and smiled. "She looks really cute."

"She misses you." Will held Paisley to his chest, giving her a kiss on the forehead before putting her in a vibrating baby chair with a brightly colored toy. He turned back to his wife. "Come on, let's get you ready for the day."

Will drew back the covers and picked Lola up, carrying her to the bathroom. "Can you stand?"

She nodded slowly. "I think so." She whispered. Once he set her down, she gripped the counter so she wouldn't stumble and got a good glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her skin was unusually pale, her eyes had dark circles underneath them, her lips chapped and her hair a tangled mess. Lola glanced over at Will, who was getting everything ready. He took her chin in his hand, opening her mouth with the toothbrush and gently brushing the front of her teeth.

"Open your mouth, sweetheart."

She did as she was told, which made him very happy.

"Atta girl."

He continued brushing her teeth very gently, followed by washing her in their luxurious bathtub, scrubbing her hair and face. This had been going on for about a month. Every day, Will got her out of bed and did all the things she had stopped doing for herself. Washing, dressing and feeding, not to mention doing the same for the baby, who he kept putting in front of Lola trying to get them to further bond. Neither one of them knew why the hell this was happening, nor did Dr. Nina Shore, Lola's sunny OBGYN. This was supposed to be the happiest time of her life, yet she felt completely miserable.

After dressing her in a navy blue velour Juicy Couture track suit, he carried her back to bed. She was about ready to close her eyes again when Will surprised her with a kiss. When he pulled away, she had a deer in headlights look on her face, blinking her eyes.

"I love you, Lola, and we're going to get through this together."

Will took her hand in his, giving the back of her palm a kiss. Whatever marks she had had long disappeared but the emotional scars were permanent. If he hadn't have walked into the bedroom to grab his cellphone, he would have been too late. The only other person that knew about it was Hank, who happened to be over at the house to discuss upcoming races. Miraculously, the events that transpired that day were what made Lola snap out of her depression, and they hadn't spoken about it since.

"I love you, Lola, and we're going to get through this together."

She nodded slowly. "I hope so."