Chapter 8 — Ed
"Come on. Just fucking tell me how much you want it."
I blink a few times, clearing my head. "Want what?"
"Seriously?" Jasper rubs his face. "Just tell him what he needs to know, E. He's being incredibly annoying."
I look at Emmett, who's looking at me while I hold my phone. I keep going back and forth, clicking her name and typing a message before I delete everything again. I shouldn't be doing this. My fingers hover over the keyboard and I almost gag on my own level of patheticness when I read what I typed: loved the show; encore? God, Ed. Grow up. I hit delete and put my phone screen down on the table.
"I don't know what he needs, Jas. Honestly," I mumble.
"I need to fucking know what made you late this morning," Emmett starts. "Or rather, who." He winks at me and drinks from his Venti cup of flat white.
There's no way in hell I'm going to tell him Bella's little behind-closed-doors show got me so riled up I couldn't sleep. Or that I jacked off three times before I finally managed to fall asleep, and in turn woke up way too late since apparently, I shut off my alarm while I was half-awake. I rub my face.
"I told you," I said. "I forgot to set my alarm."
"Why don't I believe you?" Emmett asks rhetorically. "Jay, do you believe him?"
Jasper smirks, licking his lips before he starts playing with the barbell of his tongue piercing, the metal clacking against his teeth.
"Hmm… I don't know, man. He has spent a lot of time looking at that phone today," Jasper remarks.
"Come on, we're here to work." I fiddle with my pen, looking at the pieces of paper in front of me and the list Jasper is working on.
"I can't fucking wait for the party tonight. It's going to be like watching a reality show," Emmett continues.
"Seriously, Em. Drop it. Maybe Rose needs to know how fucking obsessed you are with Ali's friend."
"Who said anything about her, heh?" He smirks, and I know I messed up.
"You couldn't have been talking about anyone else and you know it," Jasper chimes in. Thank god for Jas. "Now, can we please go back to the setlist for our tour? You know Vic's gonna want to see that so she can start planning shit."
"How's Maria?" Emmett asks. "Break up with her yet?" I know Em doesn't like Maria, but she and Jasper go way back. They saved each other from the abyss ten years ago, and that's the only reason I tolerate her since she's the reason Jasper is still walking on this earth with us.
"Stop being a fucking gossip queen, Emmett."
"It's two against one again today. That's hardly fair," he jokes.
"It's always two against one. Get over it and tell us something useful." Jasper sits back in his chair, pen in hand as Emmett rattles on and on about special effects for the show, including the light show he's been working on in his head. Emmett is a lot of things, but dramatic is surely at the top of the list.
Our meeting goes as planned, and by the end of a very fruitful day, we have a set list, and I managed to convince the guys we need one more song to kick off with and set the mood. We all agreed on an original, so we jotted down some ideas I could start with. I can't help that all my ideas are raunchy as fuck, laced with girls with dark hair, long legs, and fuck-me eyes, but I don't need to write that shit down. It lives on and on inside my head, along with the noises I heard through Bella's door when she was fucking herself. She had to be fucking herself, the way she moaned even though it was quiet, that fuckable little grunt when I almost swung open the door and invited myself inside. I take a deep breath and clean up before we leave the office.
"How did it go? Sorry I couldn't be there, I had a shit ton of boring meetings at the label." Victoria puts a giant tote on top of her desk.
"It was good. I have the setlist ready, but I'm gonna have to write one more song. A surprise for the audience to kick off the show."
"Ah, they love unexpected shit like that. Great idea, E." She tucks a strand of wavy red hair behind her ear and takes a steadying breath.
"You look tired, everything okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. Long day, and a young boyfriend who keeps me on my toes with his appetite." She laughs and I roll my eyes.
"First-world problems, eh?" I remember the first time she introduced us to Riley, her beau. Turns out she'd been hiding the fucker from us because she knew we'd be immature pricks to him. We weren't, since we don't care that she's sixteen years older than him. Age is just a number, but suddenly I feel the need to know more about their relationship. "You're bringing Riley tonight, right?"
"Of course, why wouldn't I?"
"Just asking." I smile. "How are you guys?"
Victoria's brows knit together, a suspicious look on her face. "What's with the inquisition, Ed? Getting jealous?" She crosses her arms in front of her chest. I almost snort.
"You wish, Vic." I'm not asking any more questions tonight if I don't want her to find out why I'm asking.
"Is this about that chick Em told me about?" There's a wicked smile on her face that makes her look young and careless, the tired expression vanished.
God fucking damnit. Em and his big fucking mouth.
"He really is worse than a fucking teenage girl. No, it's not about her. It's about Alice," I lie.
"What about her?"
"I may need a female's opinion on this because there's n—"
"There's no way in fucking hell you're gonna call Jean and talk to her about it?" Vic always reads my mind. She knows me well enough to do that.
I nod.
"Tell me briefly and I'll think on it, then tell you what I think tonight," she says, smoothing the fabric of her dusty blue velvet pants before tucking her hands into the front pockets.
"Okay, so she was supposed to come live with me along with her friend Bella," I start. Vic nods for me to continue. "Now her dickface of a boyfriend basically snagged her out of my house to move in with him. Poor baby Alice is too naive for her own good, so of course she listens to him. She doesn't do well with confrontation, and doesn't want conflict if she can help it. You know her…"
"Copy of her daddy when he was younger, isn't she?" Victoria smirks.
"Whatever," I say. "Now, Bella is still living with me since the girl can't afford to go anywhere else; her parents kicked her out. Alice hasn't even reached out to her or to me. I really don't know what to do here. I almost imprinted my knuckles on her boyfriend's face."
"God, you and that fucking temper of yours." Victoria shakes her head. "So, I assume you haven't called Alice yourself?" She arches a brow at me, her hazel eyes a little judgmental. "Why do you always have to teach that girl lessons like that? She's twenty-fucking-one, Edward." Vic's using my full name, so I guess she means business. Nobody calls me that except for my mother, which Vic knows.
"She hasn't needed me for almost her entire life, Vic. You gotta understand that, yeah, I'm her father, but she doesn't fucking tell me anything. You know how hard that is?" I ask, a little louder than I intended to. I see Emmett and Jasper from the corner of my eye as they pretend like they're not even here.
"Maybe just call her, talk to her… I don't know, meet somewhere for a drink."
"So I can have paparazzi join in on a private conversation? You know I hate them, especially now since they found out Alice is in Chicago, too, and hunted her down."
"Then invite her over to the house… I don't know, dude. She's your kid."
"I think he's bad for her, Vic. You should've seen the way he snatched her by the arm and walked her out of my fucking house." I run a hand through my hair, unable to stay still.
"Talk to Bella. She'll know more about those two, for sure. I mean, they used to live together, so I bet she'll put your mind at ease—or have you break his face. Please don't do the latter, except in your mind, because that would be really bad publicity. And also," Vic says. "Talk to your mom. She knows you, and Ali is just like you when you were her age. You thought you had it all figured out and under control, you were a naive bastard, and you thought every girl you met was going to be the love of your life. Break the fucking cycle and wake her up. Your mom will help; Esme is the only person on this planet who's able to rein you in a bit."
"You're right," I admit.
"I know I'm right. Now get out of here and go relax. We'll see each other tonight." Vic kisses my cheek and squeezes my arm soothingly.
After all these years together, our manager turned into one of my best friends after we realized we were not couple material. The past is the past, and neither one of us has issues with that or hard feelings. She met me when I was eighteen and she was twenty-five, just starting out as a manager since she left her secretary job at a crappy record label. Her boss there made her do more than what she got paid for since day one, so Victoria essentially knew everything about managing someone in the music business since she set foot in that company. She's a shark. Our shark.
"Feel better?" Emmett asks. "I'm sorry, man. I didn't know what had happened with Ali. You didn't tell us the details, so I just assumed her pretty friend was the one swimming laps inside your brain."
I snort. "It's alright. You didn't know. I should've told you, but I don't really know what to do and I thought…"
"When you don't talk about it, it'll disappear?" Emmett clicks the button on his vape when we walk outside, and I immediately hear the screaming voices of the paps. They're like fucking seagulls.
"Kinda, yeah."
"You know that doesn't work, buddy. Here." He hands me his vape and I take one deep, deep hit. I quit everything; drinking, drugs, smoking, but at times like these when I'm stressed the fuck out, I need the latter to make me feel a little more at ease. I gag at the taste of lemon sherbet and hand the device back to him.
"What happened to you, dude? You used to be cool," I joke, watching how Jasper lights up and holds his pack out to me.
"What happened to all of us, Ed? We fucking grew up," Emmett says.
"Yeah, we're getting old," Jasper chimes in as we sit down in the car, windows cracked. "Big forty is right around the corner." He sighs.
"I have two more years, and your birthday isn't until summer," I say to him.
"Maria wants to have a kid," Jasper blurts out. My eyes widen, and I watch as Emmett's do the same.
"Fuck, really?"
Jasper nods. "That's now subject number one on our what shall we fight about tonight list."
"That's shitty." I don't really know what to say to my friend. Except that he and Maria are zero percent compatible.
"She really wants kids now that she's turned thirty-five?" Emmett wonders.
"I don't know why, dude. But lately, she won't shut up about it. Keeps saying it's now or never. Then when I say it's probably gonna be never, she makes me sleep on the fucking couch."
"You got to be careful, though, Jas. Don't let yourself knock her up by fucking accident. Bitches do that, so you better watch out."
"I know, Em. I never fuck without her without a condom, anyway, because she's one of those hippie chicks who doesn't believe in birth control."
I bury my face in my palms after I throw the cigarette butt out the window. We're quiet all the way to my house. Emmett keeps shooting glances at me, and Jasper's eyes are glued to his phone screen. He's really digging himself deeper and deeper into this shitty situation. I knew nothing good would ever come out of Jasper dating his sober sponsor. Especially when she was the one who lied to him about falling off the wagon. Repeatedly.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I shoot Emmett a look when I see it's from him. Talk to him, dude. You're the one he listens to.
I jot down a reply. I'll try, like I always do. And he won't listen. Like he never does.
"Hey." I put a hand on Jasper's shoulder, stopping him in his tracks while Emmett goes inside the house. "Can we talk?" He nods, sits on a plastic crate in the garage, and lights up another cigarette. I shake my head when he offers me one.
"You're gonna lecture me?" he asks. Now that I get a better look at my friend, I see the way he's got shadows under his golden eyes, mouth pressed into a thin line. Jasper is the moodiest of us three, true, but I haven't seen him like this before.
"I'm not here to lecture you, no," I say. "But this fucking scares me, dude. The entire Maria-thing… You know where Em and I stand. She's wrecking you, can't you see that?"
"I fucking know, Ed. She's tearing me apart from the inside out, and it's like there's nothing I can do to change that. I can't break up with her because then she keeps haunting me and pulling me back in with sex and… I just don't know what to fucking do. Especially now with this whole baby debacle."
"Do you want to have a kid with her?" I ask carefully.
"No, man. I never wanted kids. You know that. It's just not for me, Ed."
"I know. It wasn't for me either, but then I was stupid one time, and look at me now." I chuckle, trying to lighten the mood.
"You're a great father, though."
"We're not here to talk about me, Jas. Tell me, why did she start this whole thing?"
"Maria thinks it will be the glue that holds us together. Like, honestly she's not wrong since a kid links you together forever, but no. I don't want that with her. I don't want that with anyone. My life is great the way it is. If she can't be happy with the way things are right now, she can go fuck off and move back to Germany for all I care."
"You say that now…"
"Two words," he replies. "Treacherous vagina."
"Another two words," I shoot back. "Weak-minded soul." We laugh before heading inside.
"That's three words, asshole," Jasper jokes.