…

Scheduled for Friday
by Anton M.

52: A Mentor, an Uncle, or a Friend

…
Thursday, February 16 (cont.)

I did not turn off my phone, neither did I hide the fact from Garrett. Instead, I made sure I was still sharing my location with dad before I sent four messages: first, to Edward, specifying where exactly I was, and then, to Emmett, dad and mom, telling them I was alive and okay and taking a walk with Garrett. (Oh, you know, just casual, as you do, taking a chill walk with your world-famous sperm donor.) I refused to give dad the heart attack of not only discovering my worries about the coat in my locker but (possibly) internet full of me and Garrett. He might've met his end if my phone no longer shared my location.

Having parked next to Mt. Vernon Road, just by George Sparks Reservoir, Garrett, his bodyguards and I headed for a nearby trail. It was cloudy but warm, seventy degrees or so. Families and dog-walkers were scattered by the lake but few people passed us close enough to recognize Garrett, and only one asked for his autograph. All in all, not many people were out on this random Thursday in February. I was not entirely prepared for hiking in my turtleneck dress but at least my worn Chelsea boots would serve me well.

Garrett's security detail kept a ten-yard distance with us as Garrett and I began walking side-by-side on the trail.

"You don't trust me," Garrett accused as he watched me finish swiping my message to mom.

"Innocent people don't diligently plan an occasion to separate a minor kid from her parents," I replied, looking up as I locked my phone. "It was the very first thing my parents taught me when I began to act. If someone goes out of their way to separate me from my parents, I have double the reason to be cautious."

Garrett crossed his arms and looked out on the lake. "I did not try to get you alone because I have nefarious intentions."

"Then why did you?" I asked. "On that note—not that I want our first discussion to be an argument, but I cannot let it slide. Why in the world would you pull up in front of my school after an assembly? Are you out of your mind? Blackmail or not, you should've given me a warning."

Garrett's mouth twitched. "Because you're well-known for taking calls from strangers."

"Don't you dare," I warned. "Give me a break. You have the connections and net worth of a small country, and you're trying to tell me you couldn't have found a way to warn me? How many Private Investigators did you have spying on me, exactly?"

His nostrils flared as he sighed, until, quietly, he admitted, "I wasn't sure you'd agree to talk to me. Having an audience made it more likely that you'd agree, if only to avoid scandal."

I could finally understand Edward's fear that whatever I said or did might've been an act. Trusting actors to tell the truth was a tricky game, but Garrett's tense posture and careful glances didn't seem false.

"Okay," I replied as neutrally as I could. "But why not tell my parents? Or do they know?"

"They don't. Same reason. Even if your parents would've agreed to let me talk to you in private, I might've had to go through endless arguments and discussions and ended up waiting a full month to talk to you alone and what what. Make no mistake, I have things to say to your mother, but first I needed to see—" Garrett's accent shone through his vulnerable, unguarded words. "You don't know how I've waited to meet you."

Agreeing with his sentiment but feeling like voicing it would've betrayed dad, I gave him a weak smile.

"How long have you known?"

Adjusting the fancy watch on his wrist, he paused.

"Tanya sent me a clip of you back in November. She'd already contacted me for the role of Nala's father, so I had an NDA. But she taunted me, saying that a little girl in Georgia did voice work that was not only on par with mine but better. I've never aimed to do voice acting, it just found me, but I was curious and asked for your audition tape. She sent me a short clip, no more than fifteen seconds. Thinking nothing of it, I opened it minutes from shooting a scene, but—that was a mistake. I had to excuse myself. Pissed everyone off on set, honestly, but I couldn't—" Garrett shook his head. "I couldn't continue. I called Tanya, asked who you were, and sure enough, you were the daughter of Renée and Charlie Swan. A black girl with two white parents. She sent me your CV which confirmed your birthday. Now, I didn't know Renée for long but I did remember her name. And—"

Garrett stared at me, assessing my face with the hungry curiosity of a starving man, and when his unsettling gaze landed on my eyes, his face transformed into something quiet and aching, almost reverential, until finally, he admitted,

"You're a spitting image of my sister."

Garrett's little sister was raped and murdered by his classmate when the girl was twelve and Garrett eighteen. The father of the guy who did it, a High Court Judge, hindered all efforts to bring justice to the case, and either way, the guy fled to Angola to his aunt when the case got hot. Evidence was muddled by corruption, Garrett crossed the border to Angola with the intention to murder the guy, got caught, and spent four years in an overcrowded prison.

So what does one say to that? Thank you felt inappropriate and I'm sorry didn't hold enough weight.

I was about to ask what she was like when Garrett crossed his arms and looked out on the gray-blue lake, continuing, "I'm not proud of how many times I replayed that clip, but yes," he answered the question in my eyes. "I knew. I knew in seconds. I can't say that I see much of myself in your features, but I can see her. All of her. It is disarming. I came very close to beating down your door the day after."

"Why didn't you?"

"I was… it was…" Garrett struggled to speak as he gestured with his hands. "It was an overwhelming discovery. I knew it must've been true but I still couldn't quite believe it. It didn't help that a few people close to me thought it was a coincidence, or that you'd be out to get my money. And… I was filming half-way across the world in the Czech Republic." Garrett hesitated, as if considering if he should continue. "Your mother was a smart woman with an overbearing mother. I never, ever thought she'd— it never occurred to me she'd consider keeping you. She was too smart to drop out of high school to have a kid, and yet…"

I gave him a bittersweet smile. "And yet, here I am."

"You must hate me," Garrett said, quietly.

"Why?"

His tentative, contemplative gaze held mine before he looked out on the lake. Gruffly, he asked, "Where do I start?"

"I know you gave money to my mom to have an abortion if that's what you're worried about."

Incredulous, Garrett turned his head to look at me.

"I also know she lied about her age." I gave him a small smile, explaining, "My parents and I are close."

He took a moment to assess me in silence, and it was wild that he didn't see much of himself in me because all I could see on his face were hints of my features and expressions.

"I'm no predator," Garrett said. "I had no reason to doubt her. Had I known her real age, I would've never—" He cut himself off. Garrett's cheeks puffed as he exhaled, his eyes sheepish. "I have no way of ending that sentence, do I?"

I laughed.

"What I mean is—I'm not sorry you exist," he rushed to explain. "I gave money to your mom. I don't deny that. At the time, I…" His voice was low and heavy with meaning. "She was in high school, Bella. Younger than you, now, which is… absurd. I was, to say that I was terrified when I found out her real age would be an understatement. I've taken measures to never let it happen again, to always triple check the age of—any potential anyone. I expect you to be angry with me for never following up on what happened to your mother, but you must understand that when we last spoke, Renée, she—" Garrett hesitated.

"My mom wanted to have an abortion," I finished his sentence. "I know."

Taken aback, Garrett raised his eyebrows. "She told you?"

I shrugged. "Like I said, I'm close to my parents."

Taking it all in, Garrett cleared his throat. "I had no doubt she'd do it because… she was smart. Reckless but smart. I never expected her to— Look, I understand that it must be contradictory, what I'm saying, but what I'm trying to get at here is that—it was a shock to find out you exist but…" Looking years younger than the forty-something he was, Garrett gave me a vulnerable smile that reached his eyes. "I'm glad you do."

"Me, too," I replied cheekily, a bit uncomfortable with how heavy and intense he felt the topic was. But, observing his tense posture, I realized the man had only had, what, three months to process my existence? His fear that I'd bolt at the knowledge of him wanting my mom to have an abortion wasn't entirely unjustifiable. Honestly, I was surprised he'd (nearly) brought up the topic himself.

"It doesn't really matter to me that you wanted my mom to have an abortion," I told him. "I would've probably felt the same in your situation—as did my mom for a while, obviously. Neither do I blame you for never reaching out to her. I've talked about all of this with my parents and—" My sigh felt like a half-shrug. "Life's just complicated sometimes."

Garrett's eyes glinted with relief. His expression was a mixture of shame and hope when he gave me a nod, grimaced and said, "Thank you, Bella."

Our eyes locked. The glint in his eyes was giving me an intense who's-cutting-onions feeling, and suddenly, I felt the weight of his fear and tentativeness, how much he must've circled around my reaction and how intensely he must've felt about this meeting not to be the arrogant man Rose had described him as. Or maybe it was that she couldn't have seen him in a situation quite like this. I couldn't deny a certain arrogance in him, as proven by his less-than-stellar judgement of how and when to reveal his knowledge of my existence to me (and the world), but… he was a whole lot more considerate than I would've thought, or maybe that was the man he wanted me to see because of the whole secret daughter issue.

But it was very clear Garrett wasn't used to being a fatherly figure. As much as dad teased me, he would've never sprung anything like this on me.

"If you're looking for things I'm upset about, I still don't like you appearing in front of my school after an assembly, whatever your reasons. Don't do it again."

"It'll blow over."

"It'll make me look like a nepo baby!" I accused, raising my voice. "You made the world aware of me before they got to know me as Nala! I do not like that."

Garrett crossed his arms. "Tell me the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger's kid, the one he had from an affair with a maid. The tabloids were all over that story when people found out."

Surprised by his question, I hesitated. "I… don't know."

"Would you recognize him on a picture?"

"Probably not."

"What about Viggo Mortensen's son, the one who persuaded him to do Lord of the Rings. What's his name? Would you recognize him on the street?"

"No."

"There you go," Garrett replied. "There's going to be some interest. There's going to be interest for a while. But… how we present this to the world will make a difference, and I think you will find that the upcoming week will pale in comparison to the release of your series. I guarantee you nothing I could say or do would make you as famous as your upcoming role. With Underground Memories expecting to outsell Harry Potter by the next summer, not even Mike with his obsessive fans will have known your level of stardom."

I grimaced. "Even if you're right, and you might be, that doesn't solve the issue of people knowing me through you."

Garrett frowned. "Is that such an unpleasant prospect, being associated with me?"

"I'm not ashamed of it, but if that association creates a false narrative of my life and hurts my parents? Yes. It's not fair. But that's not my only concern. Do you know how many people are going to start digging into what I'm currently up to, once they know I'm acting? People are now much more likely to find out my involvement in the project before the teaser is released."

"Oh don't worry about that," he dismissed me. "I'll talk to Tanya and she'll make sure the studio knows to plant some false flags, both about what's happening with Underground Memories and some other project you're supposedly involved in. You'll be fine."

I scoffed. "You have the answers to everything, don't you."

Garrett laughed. "You don't like that?"

"It's infuriating."

His laughter quieted to a real smile, and I used his good mood to inquire after Edward aunt and Peter's parents.

A week before Christmas, in a local restaurant in Atlanta, Garrett had hired Private Investigators to check into my background. Garrett's best guess was that during one of these meetings, Edward's aunt and Peter's mother Tessa, being close friends, had sat at a nearby table and overheard Garrett hiring a PI (Garrett later recognized Victoria's face). Edward's aunt, having given me substitute classes, recognized my name, and Garrett's reason for hiring PIs must've given them the juicy idea to earn (a lot of) money, so the two concocted a plan to use the knowledge to their advantage. Tessa's husband, a hobby cameraman on the side of the job he wanted to quit, was expected to have been the person behind my window, but the friends hired another man for the bowling alley without revealing their full plot to him. To the best of Garrett's knowledge, the three intended to spook but (probably) not harm me, believing that Garrett would've been quicker to be willing to pay any amount to hide that he'd had sex with a fifteen-year-old seventeen years ago if they showed him how much power they had to thoroughly freak out his daughter.

"But if you were having all the PIs in the world count the hairs on my head, why did you wait for so long to do anything about the stalking?"

Grimacing, Garrett cast me a glance. "We had to gather evidence. I have seen the consequence of not having enough of it or letting it get to the wrong hands. We needed to be reasonably sure they'd face more than a fine for their blackmail, and contacting you in the middle of it might've spooked them off. But my PIs did not, as you say, count the hairs on your head, and they have cooperated with the police all the way. Other than adding to your safety when they thought it best, very little of their job was to follow you around."

"Fun, fun, fun," I replied, annoyed with his casualness when discussing my PI stalkers as opposed to my regular stalkers. "I guess that's why nobody called the police when Edward's dad showed up at his place."

"Eish!" Garrett's face turned ashen. "You've met his father?!"

Masochistically grateful that Garrett was, in fact, telling the truth (and that he didn't have magical, universal knowledge of my life), and that I hadn't been followed by every PI who'd ever taken a breath in Atlanta, I summarized my overnight stay at Edward's (keeping out the more personal specifics, of course). Not at all happy with this news, Garrett assured me the PIs would've certainly gotten the police involved if at any point they would've felt me to be in genuine danger, including on that Sunday morning. Considering Edward's reluctance to call the cops, I was glad Garrett's PIs weren't (instructed to be) following my every move.

"Did Peter know?" I asked, displeased with the idea that he'd only asked me out because his parents had made him.

"I don't have that information."

But was catching Peter unaware even worse? Would both of his parents go to jail for blackmailing Garrett? Did people even go to jail for unsuccessful blackmail? Where would Peter go? It was surreal to imagine how much this could've changed his life. I might've not been into him but he was a great guy, or at least had seemed to be. Had he known all along?

I hoped to ask him at school.

To avoid a couple walking straight at us, Garrett and I (and his bodyguards) turned off the trail to squeeze ourselves past some pines to head to the half-rocky, half-sandy shore of the reservoir. I could feel Garrett's eyes on me when I turned my face to the peeking sun to enjoy its warmth.

"When did your parents tell you about me?" Garrett asked, his expression holding the kind of barely-suppressed fervor for answers that deserved its own word.

"I must've been super young because don't remember. My parents never kept it from me."

"You never doubted them?"

"Oh I absolutely did," I replied, smiling. "Not at first, of course. I thought the idea of having a famous actor for a biological father almost… fairy-tale-like, you know? I found it so exciting. I first realized my mom might've made the whole thing up when my best friend began to doubt the story. I was six or seven, and she's the first and only person I ever told about you. You know how when a kid's dog dies, you tell them they went to live on a farm? For a while, that's what Alice and I thought my mom had done when she told me about my biological father. We were pretty sure she either didn't know the guy's name or he'd taken off, or both."

"What convinced you otherwise?"

"You mean other than my features turning more and more into yours as I get older?" I smiled. "Mom kept a few selfies of you two, and… I was old enough to know how to read. A few tabloid stories started coming out within the next few years that only made sense once you know more details about your history." Confirming that the couple had passed and that we were alone, I nevertheless lowered my voice. "Like why most people are near-certain you went to jail but nobody can dig out records of it. They're looking in the wrong country, they're expecting the records to be in English, and…"

"And…?"

"It wouldn't surprise me if said jail was not only already bad at record-keeping but… they might've had further incentive to keep the issue quiet. Like, a rich, famous actor having the power to remove evidence from public access, or getting rid of it entirely."

Garrett's expression was as impenetrable as I'd expected after pushing his buttons like this, but he kept his tone nonchalant as he replied, "Who would consider such a thing, I wonder."

"Indeed," I agreed, biting back countless questions about his sister and his time in jail. I'd already pushed him beyond what I'd imagined he could take on the topic.

Garrett picked up a rock and threw it into the lake. "Frankly, I'm more amazed by your mother's memory of my past than by my not having a recollection of ever sharing it with her."

"Not by my audacity?"

He crossed his arms and assessed me in silence before the edge of his mouth twitched. "You are your mother's daughter," he said, quietly, but he didn't elaborate as he asked, "Did you ever think about contacting me?"

"I did contact you."

Not expecting my answer, he straightened. "When?"

"I sent you an email when I was seven. You'd made it big, though, so my email was probably lost among countless others."

"Where'd you get my email?"

"From what I remember, you had one on your website."

Garrett turned to look at the still surface of the lake, his expression grave, and I didn't dare interrupt the silence that followed.

"Your mother knows my personal email, Bella," Garrett said, finally. "Even if she went through the trouble of deleting me from her contacts, my personal email is so painfully simple you'd have to have amnesia to forget it."

"My mom didn't want you to know about me," I whispered, understanding his implication. "She allowed me to contact your fan email because—the statute of limitations must've been over when I was seven, but she still—she must've not wanted you to know."

Garrett didn't meet my gaze. "It's more than likely. If your email went through the regular channel… it probably slipped through the cracks. Not even my assistants could've kept up with the amount of fan mail I was receiving at the time."

I didn't like finding out that my mom had kept Garrett's real email from me but I also wasn't willing to shit on her choices without talking to her first. I appreciated that Garrett kept his feelings about my mom's actions to himself.

Seeing that the coast was clear, we turned back on the pine-needle-covered trail. The sun shone through green pines and the bare deciduous trees, making it warm enough for me to push my sleeves up to my elbows.

"So what happens, now?" I asked. "The world is not forgiving to men about their past mistakes, even genuine one-offs."

Garrett assessed me with such startled, inquisitive thoroughness I nearly squirmed under his gaze.

"What?"

He shook his head, smiling more with his eyes than his mouth, and his voice had a gruff, emotional edge to it. "The world has gained a lot from your existence."

It was such a kind, unexpected response to my question I didn't quite know how to react.

"Thank you."

A whining, low-pitched tua-wee of a bluebird distracted me enough to stop walking—I only recognized its song because dad's obsession prior to cyclists had been birds. Finding the beauty on a nearby pine, I smiled and kept walking.

Startled, I realized I didn't even remember the last time I went on a casual walk like this.

"What happens now is that, together with you and your parents, I'll release a statement. There will be backlash, of course, but I don't have the kind of half-hidden, rumor-packed, consistently shit behavior in my past that would do permanent damage, neither can there be any other genuine accusations of me having dated any minors. Your parents and I will say that we've kept our relationship on the down-low, we've always been on good terms, and that raising you out of the spotlight was intentional to provide you with the best childhood. After that, I'll take you to the Academy Awards, introduce you to the—"

"You'll what?" I interrupted.

"I'll take you to the Oscars."

"No you won't."

Displeased by my answer, Garrett scoffed. "I don't think you understand—"

"I understand perfectly," I argued. "But the first time I go to the Oscars I will not go as an accessory to you. I'll go if I'm invited. Not only that, but I have a deal to take my dad to the Oscars. I can't even describe the level of betrayal he'd feel if I went with you instead to get introduced as your daughter. Forget about it. It's not happening."

Garrett made another attempt to change my mind, but I wasn't going to budge, so instead, I asked for the statement his PR team had prepared for the tabloids. In the absence of his phone, he had to log into his personal email through my phone's browser (something Garrett hadn't known was possible, hilariously enough). The perfectly-worded statement began beautifully but, scrolling and scrolling to the end of it, I realized his PR team had written a damn essay.

Looking up from my phone, I said, "We're not using this."

"This piece has been written and approved by—"

"...the world's leading experts in PR, I'm sure. I don't care. We're not using it."

Clearly disagreeing, Garrett narrowed his eyes but instead of raising his voice like I'd expected him to, he blew out an annoyed, controlled breath. "And why not?"

"It's, what, four pages of text? Even if every sentence within it is polished and curated to show you or us in the best light—a wall of text, really? Nothing screams like a spontaneous, casual meeting between a father and daughter who've always known each other like feeding the tabloids pages of pre-planned text about it. No. We're not doing that."

Stopping in the middle of the trail, I opened my Instagram and began swiping a story into my drafts. Maybe it wasn't the most curated, PR-approved message to the world that could've existed, but Garrett's plan was worse. Puffing his cheeks in disagreement, Garrett nevertheless read my draft over my shoulder and made little corrections until we had a short and sweet but somewhat official-sounding draft for a post.

I'm sure you've seen by now why my daughter doesn't usually allow me to pick her up from school. Her existence is no great secret, but, together with her parents, we've kept my involvement in her life as low-key as possible to allow her to have a normal childhood. I can attest that her parents have done a phenomenal job, raising her, and we'll appreciate your continued respect for her privacy.

Garrett's mouth twitched when I cheekily wrote phenomenal job but he must've agreed that blowing some smoke up my parents' ass would've only made him look good. The story sounded stiffer than what I would've otherwise written but I tried to follow his usual posting style and didn't add the hashtags I used in my own posts.

I did take notice of his 331 million followers, yikes. Just a casual post, indeed.

"Do you want to draw attention to my mom's age when I was conceived?"

"God, no. I'll address it when I have to." Garrett paused, glancing at me. "Can I guide them to your TikTok? It's funny stuff."

I grinned. "You're kind but you can't tell them to keep respecting my privacy while also telling them to follow me on social media. Link to my Instagram. If they find my TikTok, that's fine, but I'd keep it as it is."

Garrett read through my missive one more time before I stole his sunglasses (to not be insanely recognizable in the photo) and we took a selfie together. I found a casual photo of myself and my parents at a Waffle House from a few years ago and attached it to the side of our selfie.

"You know you can add multiple photographs to a post, right?"

"No way!" I fake-gasped, covering my mouth. "Are you for real?!"

He stifled his smile. "I take it you're aware."

"Yes, I am aware, thank you," I replied, returning his glasses. "But please don't do that. If people take screenshots of this post, and they will, it is unacceptable that our selfie gets centre stage rather than my parents. I want both photos, side-by-side, same size, just like this. Okay?"

Silently, Garrett nodded and instructed me to email him the edited photo as well as the story I'd written, and he did, in fact, agree to post it from his Instagram once he got his phone back, which made me happy.

"You're good at this," he said as we began walking again. "Your PR team has taught you well."

I'd only laughed for a few seconds before Garrett realized his mistake and scoffed in amusement.

"You don't have one?"

"I never needed one," I replied, smiling. "Being a nonstupid teenager is my PR team—until now, anyway. Will you get in trouble for not running this post by your people?"

"I'm usually so compliant with my team's wishes they can hardly argue with you creating the post that puts you on my fans' radar."

A single jogger nearly collided with us. She paled and stuttered an apology as she recognized Garrett but quickly passed us.

Noticing the time, Garrett and I began walking back to the parking lot.

I liked Garrett more than I'd thought I would. I found him more introspective and considerate than arrogant. He did tend to be presumptuous, assuming I'd agree with his PR statement, that I'd go to the Academy Awards with him—hell, even showing up at my school, but he'd also ensured that CPS would assign Riley to my parents after Victoria's arrest. And even with his presumptions, he didn't run over my opinions with his own. I kind of loved how he treated me as an adult with opinions and thoughts worth considering.

Garrett told me little facts about his life: how his home base in the US was in Malibu but he had an apartment in NYC, too, the projects he was working on, how eager his mother would be to discover she had granddaughter. I had an aunt and three cousins in Namibia, which was… pretty strange to think about.

We'd barely scratched the surface of getting to know each other, but it would've been impossible to achieve it in one afternoon, anyway.

"This is an awkward question but I have to ask — are you and Tanya an item?"

"No, Bella." He chuckled. "I don't shit where I eat. We're friends."

Relieved by his denial, I smiled. "Does she know about you and me?"

"I'm sure she does now. She'll call us both tonight, but I'm not going to get pulled into that discussion before we meet tomorrow, and neither should you." His smile turned rueful. "Tomorrow's chemistry read will be a lot of fun."

I laughed. We'd certainly be a spectacle.

The two elderly ladies who passed us were clearly unaware of who Garrett was as they scowled at his suited bodyguards.

"How did you know I'd even recognize you as my biological father?" I asked, voicing the question that had been nagging at me since he'd shown up at school after the assembly. It was all well and good to rely on my reluctance to cause a scandal, but how could Garrett have known my parents had told me about him? What if they hadn't? "Did you tap our living room or what?"

"No. That would've been illegal." Garrett glanced at me before he looked out onto the lake for so long I nearly gave up receiving an answer until he spoke. "I asked Emmett."

My heart dropped to my boots. "Jesus, did you hire him—?"

"No. But he's good. I recommended him to Tanya, who recommended him to your parents. I did not influence your parents to hire him, nor was I in contact with him while we gathered evidence of my blackmail. I considered contacting Emmett last week, but in the end, I did not want to risk him getting comfortable in his job. We decided that if we were wrong about the danger you were in, or if something else happened, his instincts to protect you would have to be razor-sharp. I only called him during lunch, today, when I knew he'd be in Nashville."

"You're infuriating, you know? You just have to have answers to everything."

Garrett laughed. "You should've heard how unhappy he was with me doing this without your parents' knowledge."

"Thank you for providing him with someone else to be mad at for once."

We returned to the car. Garrett instructed me to message Edward to meet us on some side-street away from school, but my smart boyfriend, one step ahead of us, had already shared his location at a Walmart parking lot.

Garrett's bodyguards left the car after we parked, but Garrett stayed. Fiddling with his sunglasses, he turned to me with an unguarded expression, drinking in my features with earnest eyes and a vulnerable smile.

"Thank you, Bella."

"Not sure I'd do it again knowing what a know-it-all you are."

He returned my grin but even his smile didn't hide the fear in his eyes. Earnest, almost grave in his tone, he said, "In case your parents disagree with my presence in your life, I want you to know that I'd like to get to know you. I understand that you have a stepfather—"

"Never call him that," I interrupted. "He's my dad."

Garrett nodded sharply. "Fine, fine. My point stands. I don't quite know how to properly convey to you what a gift you have among actors—not your voice but character. Saying no to people surrounded by yes-men is as audacious as it is refreshing. People will fall over themselves to get to know you, but… you have to learn to protect yourself, who you are, how you are, and how not to disappear into what people will want you to be. You are in a fantastically unique position to prepare for your future life before you become famous, world-famous, probably with a speed neither I nor your co-star have seen before. I was stupid and unprepared when I dove headfirst into that life, and I may not know what it will be like for you, now, with the kind of pressure teenage girls face and with social media the way it is, but I'd like to guide you and help you, if you will allow me, maybe as a mentor, an uncle, or—a friend." He drank in my features with furious, unguarded intensity as he asked, "What do you think?"

If he practiced his speech he hid it well, and I felt a lump in my throat as I gave him an emotional smile. "I will not accept any power-play with my dad. You play for the same team."

His careful, hopeful gaze locked in mine, Garrett said, "That's fair."

"In that case, I'd appreciate your guidance."

Garrett's winning smile lit up his eyes, and I laughed at his relief. "Nice buttering me up, though. Or should I have refused after all your pretty words about how good I am at telling you no?"

Chuckling, he shook his head and handed me his sunglasses. "I have too many." Before I had time to consider my response, he thrust his folded leather jacket also into my arms. "This one, too—leather is not just fashion for bikers. Now let's return the cub back to her lion."

Leaning against his motorcycle, Edward looked like a thunderstorm had blasted through him. His fiery gaze jumped between the two of us as we approached him, and he held out Garrett's iPhone before any words were shared. Garrett switched it on and published our agreed-upon post on Instagram before he sat in the backseat of his car and drove away.

Cars were sparse in this corner of the parking lot, and the sun had disappeared behind clouds.

Edward slid his hands in mine and pulled me against him, anxiously searching my face. "Are you okay?"

Collapsing against him, I buried my face in his chest and inhaled his soapy, panty-dropping scent. "I'm okay," I replied, pulling back just enough to see his apprehensive, questioning eyes.

"I'd be mad at you for not telling me if I wasn't so aware of what a hypocrite that would make me," Edward admitted with a pent-up sparkle in his eyes.

"Believe it or not, I wanted to tell you tonight. I was going to do an extra-dramatic reveal, pausing the movie and letting you know that you were, in fact, looking at my biological father, but apparently Garrett had something entirely more dramatic in mind for my big reveal."

Edward brushed his thumbs over my hairline with such tenderness I could've melted. "I have so many questions," he admitted in a quiet exhale.

"I'll tell you everything."

I almost felt like crying when he wrapped me up in his arms and held me, kissing the top of my head as we swayed, exhausted. He held me tighter as it got windier, explaining that he'd turned into Mr. Popular and had barely been able to escape school without an army of students following him on the off-chance that they'd meet Garrett again. Edward was positive I'd get the brunt of the questions and attention on Monday but I didn't want to think about that yet.

"Thank you for being so amazing about it all."

Edward's weak but near-maniacal laugh felt detached from his voice. "I'm pretty sure I'm still in shock. I'm running on shock and fumes. Give me a few days before I'm able to wrap my head around this weird-ass day or the fact that I'm dating… Garrett fucking Kamwanga's daughter. What the fuck. Seriously."

Grinning, I pressed a kiss against his chest. "I love you. I'm sorry."

"I love you more," he whispered, his voice sincere in spite of the total strangeness of the day. "Come." He kissed my forehead and handed me my helmet. "I'll take you home before I have to pick up Riley."

I put Garrett's leather jacket on when Edward continued to refuse to wear it.

The comfort of the motorcycle's vibration and Edward's stomach under my palms filled me up as we drove home. Edward's heartfelt, throaty 'what the fuck' perfectly described my thoughts on the day, and I had high hopes for becoming one with the couch and cuddling Edward to oblivion in the evening but we discovered Garrett's now-familiar, shiny Cadillac parked in front of my house. His two bodyguards stood on the porch on either side of the front door.

Turning off his bike, Edward waited as I slid off from behind him. We removed our helmets and stared at the scene.

"Did he tell you he'd be here?"

I shook my head.

Edward took off the backpack on his stomach. Eyes torn, he brushed his knuckles over my cheek. "I'd love to stay but the kindergarten will only be open for another twenty minutes. They hate tardiness in the evening. Will you be okay?"

"Of course," I assured him even if my heart was in my throat. "Don't worry about it."

I still hadn't moved from my spot when the roar of his motorcycle had faded. I didn't know why I felt so apprehensive about Garrett showing up at our home without a warning. Shouldn't this have been a good thing? But he'd made some comments about wanting to talk to mom, and as painfully curious as I was about it, I was a little scared, too.

My parents' car wasn't in the driveway, so mom's event must've finished earlier before someone dropped her off. But if Garrett had known he'd stop by, why couldn't he have just dropped me off at home so that Edward could go pick up Riley immediately?

Unless… Garrett didn't want me to hear whatever he wanted to discuss with my mom. It was likely, but I was too curious to go on another walk for the sole purpose of waiting out their talk.

I took Edward's backpack and walked up to the front porch, hearing the raised voices loud and clear as I stopped in front of Garrett's bodyguards. The taller one had vaguely Middle Eastern features and a wavy black pony-tail. The shorter black man, clean-shaven and bald, wore a permanent frown on his face. Neither acknowledged me.

"What's your name, sir?"

The taller man shifted but gave me a nod. "Ismail, ma'am."

"Álvaro, ma'am."

"Nice to meet you both."

"—a field day journalists would have with photos of an eighteen-year-old staying over with a girl under the age of consent?! Do you understand the shitstorm you could've invited to him had these pictures fallen into the wrong hands? Did you learn nothing from your past?"

"And I suppose locking Bella up until she's twenty-one would solve everything!" mom shouted back. "You don't get to waltz in here and tell me how to raise my daughter!"

"I think you'll find—"

Tuning them out, I turned to one of the bodyguards.

"You've heard every word of their argument, haven't you?"

Ismail pushed up his sunglasses. "Yes, ma'am."

"I'll invite you for a rescue mission if the new assholes they tear each other become literal."

Álvaro stifled his smile almost as soon as it appeared, but both gave me a nod. Bracing myself, I carefully pushed the front door open, but I needn't have been so quiet because the hurricane in the living room was unbothered by my presence.

"—wonder why you went through the trouble if she is, as you say, a spitting image of your sister," mom hissed. "Did you tell Bella you went behind her back to get her DNA?"

"Does it matter?! Of course I did a DNA test, Renée! Do you understand how much I have at stake, here?! You fucked every black guy with a pulse!"

…

"…and what what." - This is a Namibian English (Namlish) way of saying "etc." or "and so on." Much like Finnish (moi moi, terve terve, etc.), Namibian English uses quite a bit of repetition in their language, e.g. "Fine fine," "Now now," "Hi hi," etc.

"Eish!" - an exclamation of surprise, shock, awe etc. (a Khoi term often used by Namibians)

…