A/N Hey ya'll! We are getting close to the end of this lil tale and I hope you are still enjoying it. I will tell you what, I have really gotten a kick out of writing something that I never figured I would be able to pull off. I am writing an outtake in Young Rock Stars POV for the Fandom Against Domestic Violence Project, so if you want to catch it,please, contribute to that worthy case that is near and dear to my heart. My own personal story is on their site and it might surprise you.
There are 3 more chapters after this one and I haven't decided if I will write another story with these guys or different POV's. I have enjoyed them though and I have enjoyed the reviews and talking with you guys that have reviewed and recommended me to your friends. This story has been fun because it was written with love, affection and humor and any resemblance to anyone live and kicking is purely ya'lls pervy imaginations.
He was still asleep in the floor when I got back to the apartment. Spence was starting to stir, so I scooped him up and changed him and got him a bottle as I asked the Captain and J.D to set young Rock star up a cot in the babies room with a side table and place for his stuff. I didn't want him to think that he could just count on sleeping in my bed every night, because on nights when I was working SWAT or any other related details, I didn't want to have to worry about waking him up when I came in and needed to unwind. I wasn't sure where he would end up most nights, and I figured he would migrate back and forth as the mood suited me and him. Even with all the rattling around and commotion, he didn't stir, and that made me realize just how thin he was. I looked at really closely for the first time since he had arrived and I was taken aback at how dark the circles were under his eyes, and how thin he looked. His shirt had pulled up as he slept and I could see his hipbones and some of his ribs. Dammitt! He needed us and I guess I was going to be tending to him for a bit, at least long enough to get him fattened up and healthy before I sent him out into the world. I pulled the throw off the couch and covered him up, flipping off a smirking Captain and J.D. as I did so. I still was saying I didn't want a freaking house cat.
He slept most of the damn day away, only waking when Spence really got fired up and angry about a diaper change taking longer than he liked. He was still bleary eyed and out of it, so I handed the baby off to daughter and I escorted him down the hall to my room and stripped him down and tucked him into my damn bed so he was at least out of the middle of all of the commotion. I was waking his young ass up for dinner no matter what because I was cooking enchiladas and we were having a big family dinner and getting him to eat was part of the plan so I was going to cook guy food. Captain and J.D. made a grocery run and picked up all the requirements for dinner, and daughter and I made a big pan of brownies, so we were set for dessert. Spence was happy in his seat while we cooked and he batted at his toys hanging from the bar of his seat in his funny uncoordinated way while we cooked and rattled around in the kitchen listening to the radio.
Once dinner was ready I went and woke him up. He was obviously still tired, but he needed to eat and I told him that he needed to make sure he had let people know where he was and that he was safe. I turned on the "Mom" for some reason, but I didn't want to be blamed if he was going to go down in flames, so I was going to make sure he was doing what he was supposed to be doing. I scooped him up a big plate of food, including salad and a glass of milk and set it in front of him while he picked up Spence and cuddled him. " That baby is going to be there after you eat and take care of yourself, hun, eat your dinner and then I will show you how to give him a bath and you can get some more pictures of him for your family with him all cleaned up and respectable looking. He finally set to eating and he had his plate cleared in no time, even with making small talk with the Captain and J.D., he was comfortable around them and daughter, but he was acting like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, so I decided to let it.
"You can stay, for as long as you need. I have set you up your own space in Spences room if you need it so you will have a place to just get away from it all. We will go tomorrow and get the papers filed to change his name and to put you on his birth certificate so you will have some rights as his father. I have already had papers drawn up before he was born even naming those two chuckleheads as his legal guardians if anything happened to me, so I will need to get that adjusted to reflect you being in his life as well as appoint you beneficiary of some of my estate for his care so you wont end up having to fight to take care of him if anything were to happen to me. " Im not poor" he muttered. "Say what" " I am not poor. I came from money, I have money, in fact I would be described as wealthy, but I just prefer to not flaunt it. I keep it simple because living all rich and flashy is just a way to ask for trouble, But I am not poor by a long shot, in fact I don't have to work at all, I just choose to for the hell of it." He works for the hell of it? He is wealthy? I may seriously kill him.
Alrighty then, so he is wealthy. He just chooses to live like a hobo. So I have a child with a modern Howard Hughes…wonderful. "Okay, so you are wealthy? That's fine, I guess you can help with groceries some then, maybe pick up a pack of diapers now and then?" He looked at me like I was a bit dense, " I can pay for everything. I can buy you a house if you want. You don't have to work if you don't want." I laughed out loud then and said, " I don't need you to buy me anything. I am nobodies kept woman. I have handled things nicely on my own and I don't need you to come in and try to take care of everything when it looks like you can barely take care of yourself. You are bone thin, your clothes look like they have seen better decades and you are exhausted. So why don't you see to your own knitting and I will handle everything else?" He got a little red in the face and it appeared young Rock star was fixing to try and throw a little attitude at me!
" I am just fine, thank you very fucking much! I have been busy working and when I am working its hard to take the time to go shopping or cook a decent meal. I end up having to eat a lot of junk food or crap in a hurry, so rather than run the risk of eating stuff that will make me fat, I just skip meals and make do with coffee and cigarettes, so yeah, I may be a little thin right now, but I can afford any damn thing I want to eat. I am not trying to make you a "Kept woman" (he did little air quotes and if I hadn't been getting really fired up and pissed off I would have gigged him for the less than masculine nature of that gesture) I am trying to do the right thing!" I started stepping towards him, more than a little pissed off that he raised his voice to me, and ready to grab him by the collar of his ratty t-shirt and throw his scrawny ass out of my house along with his guitar and whatever crap he had brought with him and we could just hash it out in court, but the Captain stepped in front of me just as I was getting close. "Step off Cullen!, I am not having some kid disrespect me in my own damn house!" He grabbed my arms and held onto me while J.D. stepped up behind me, " Bella, he doesn't mean it the way it sounded, he's not Jacob! Give him a break, please! For Spence! He is just trying to help, he just didn't know how to go about it. You have said so yourself that you aren't the easiest person to deal with and he is soo young he is trying to figure things out. Come on, give him the benefit of the doubt and think of him as a rookie in all of this." Young Rock Star was looking at me wide eyed and nodding furiously. "Dammit mom! Settle down! You are scaring him and pissing me off. I you hurt him again I am really going to be annoyed and I am going to hide all of your boots, so cut the shit and sit down and talk to him!" Daughter was using her, " I really mean it!" voice, so I knew I was whipped, I was going to have to submit…for the first time in my life I was out numbered and outgunned by a bunch of kids.
I sat. He sat, (on the other side of the table from me) with the Captain and J.D. on either side of him like bodyguards, and daughter sat at the end of the table like some erstwhile Judge Judy wannabe. Spence was asleep in his carrier and I was glad he had managed to doze though the worst of the tension and as I gave young Rock star a look, I could tell he was genuinely worried about the change in the mood of things. " Do not ever raise your voice to me like that. I wont stand for it. If you have something to say to me in regards to something I did or said you don't agree with, then you talk to me like we are adults and both human beings. I am not some servant. I am a self-made woman who is more than capable of taking care of myself, my kids and pretty much anything else that needs taking care of, I have done it on my own for the last 17 years, so don't come in and think I need rescuing by some rich kid. It offends me. We have what we need. If you want to contribute to your upkeep while you are here, that would be nice, but we don't need your support. I am glad you have money, good for you, but hear me now, I will not see Spence turned into some spoiled, Hollyweird, trust fund brat. He is going to have normal and that means living a normal, middle-class, life, I have seen the train wrecks those people are and I don't want that for him. Can you understand that?" He nodded, " I understand where you are coming from, but if I can provide him with some things that make life a little better, would you let me?" " Give me examples." He seemed to think for a minute or two as if he was really struggling to try and not make me angrier, " Well, medical care and braces and things like that. I can pay for him to have the best of those." I had to give him that, my insurance was good, but not fantastic and if he wanted to pay things like co-pays and upgrades for things, then I would let him. It took me years to pay off daughters braces. "I will agree to that, but no plastic surgery or anything like that." It seemed as if everyone around the table had been holding their breath, and when I said I agreed to his first offer, they let that breath out and everyone began smiling. Maybe we could figure this out with minimal blood shed.
We talked for another hour, until Spence began fussing, and I went and made a bottle while he got him up and changed him out of his wet diaper. The Captain and J.D., sensing that we had reached a peace accord, decided to head home for the evening and leave us to sort things the rest of the way out. I saw the Captain whisper to daughter that he would have his cell close by if he was needed, as he headed out the door, and I flipped him off as he waved goodbye. I loved those guys, but gah! Sometimes I just needed to thrash something or someone, though I have to admit, when it came to him, I wasn't sure if the desire was more to thrash him, or do something else with him, and that was leaving me all kinds of conflicted inside.
Daughter decided we could behave well enough without her supervision now that the baby was awake and in need of tending, so she headed to her room to get ready for bed, so we were left alone with just Spence to referee any disagreements that might arise. "Would you like to learn how to give him a bath, it's a little late to dress him up for any pictures tonight, but we can give him a bath to clean the worst of the funk off of him and he will start of fairly fresh tomorrow, unless he blows out a diaper tonight or pees on his head again." That got the first laugh out of the young Rock star in over a couple of hours, and he said he thought like a bath sounded like a great idea. I gathered up the towels and bath gear after turning the heat up in my bathroom so it would be nice and toasty for him, and then I showed him how to run just enough to cover baby butt, and to test it with the elbow to make sure it wasn't too hot or too cold, as well as the football hold for a slippery baby, even one that peed on him as he was lifting him up to wash his butt. He handled it all pretty well, and then bundled him up like he had done it a dozen times. I showed him how to trim fingernails and all the fun that could be had with the full head of hair. We combed it all kinds of directions and even into a mohawk, which was adorable and he snapped a picture with his phone to send out to his friends. "I guess you have finally broke the news to everyone now?" He sighed deeply, "Yeah, some took it better than others, and my agent is still having a heart attack. The guys in the band are cool with it, and they are understanding about me missing some of the tour, so its not going to be a deal with them." Wait…missing some of the tour? The tour that wasn't supposed to start for SIX MONTHS? I was doing my best to stay calm and not let my voice betray my worries, "So what about your movies and things like that?" "Well, that is why my manager is having a heart attack, I asked him to look into getting me out of my contract so I could have more time to spend more time to get to know my son." His manager was having a heart attack? hell, I could trump that! I was having a heart attack with a nervous breakdown chaser.