Chapter 31: Bad Girls Fight With Nice Guys

Mac, A Week Later

"I hate you today, Dawsie," I plop down in the leather captain's seat across from him, and accept a glass of champagne from the flight attendant, and glare at him, taking the smallest sip.

Dawes doesn't even look up from phone. "More than any other day?" he murmurs, thumbing steadily.

"Yes. A lot more."

Adam is glaring at my champagne, a look somewhere between resignation and irritation. This is how we do now...I accept drinks when I'm offered one in front of SCIC, so it doesn't seem weird that I'm constantly refusing one, and after I take the barest sip, Adam is obligated to sneakily drink them. He's worried about his liver, but worried more about me poisoning Babycakes.

Adam's narrowed eyes slide from my champagne to me.

He's angry with me. He has been all week, but that doesn't mean that he's not still taking care of me and Babycakes. I smile at him as sweetly and sincerely as I possibly can and his grumpy face melts away as heat comes into his eyes. He takes the glass, tips it in silent salute to me, and finishes it in two heavy swallows. I watch carefully as his throat moves—his Adam's apple bobbing and the powerful cords of muscle on either side undulating.

Oh god, I need him so bad. It's been an entire tortuous week since my fingers have had free reign of the wondrous playground that is Preacher's gorgeous, sinful flesh. A week since he's pressed me into a mattress and looked deep in my eyes and silently assured me he is about to become my everything—my ecstasy, my shelter, my victory, my surrender. A week since he's read me exactly right and sexed me just like I need—either fucked me hard until I thought my heart would burst from the intensity or loved me completely senseless until I thought maybe my soul would simply slip my body and meet his somewhere in the ether.

It never does though. because just when I feel on the edge of coming out of my body, another little soul tugs at me, deep down inside. It's like Babycakes feels me slipping and he doesn't want me to go, and he makes his presence known. Suddenly my womb will feel so...heavy and sensitive, and I'm anchored in my body again, feeling Adam inside me, feeling our baby's growing presence deep in his little nest. It's kind of freaky if you think too much about it—that there are actually three beings involved in our love-making...so I try not to. Think too much about it, I mean. I just know—it feels wonderful, Adam being so close to us, and loving us.

Except he hasn't been that close to us...not lately. I miss him so incredibly much, but...we've had a hard week. The hardest week since the week the condom broke.

I've been staying in Leed's suite. He's very depressed. I think he's decided that he will be a part of his son's life, he just doesn't know how to find his place with Tamara right now. He doesn't want to insert himself between her and Ben, and he's still angry with her for not being honest with him. He hasn't confronted her at all, since I told him the truth. She doesn't know that I told him the truth, so as far as she's concerned, Leed is still thinking he could be the father, not coming to terms with the fact that he is her baby's father.

He puts on a good front, when he has to be around her. He simply told her he hasn't decided how he feels and they agreed to let it ride for a few weeks. The silence when she styles him is deafening, but he's not unkind to her—he's just not there, in that chair, when she has his hands oh him.

Of course all that means, I'm still keeping secrets—now from Tamara. I'm cool with it. Fuck it. Bad girls do what they have to do.

Adam is not so cool. He's irritated—with me. At first, when I told Adam about Tamara's pregnancy, I withheld the knowledge that Leed was the father. If Leed hadn't wanted to know, I would have taken it to my grave. I would have watched my nephew grow up from afar, secure in the knowledge that I would never rock his little world by spilling the secret. Leed's needs come first with me. If he had decided to never know—to release his claim to Ben—I wouldn't have had any qualms about what was true, or right, or moral. I only cared about what was good—for Leed.

But after I told Leed the truth, I also confessed it to Adam. To my surprise, he was seriously annoyed with the way I handled the situation. He has some moral objection to my position—that I would have helped Tamara keep the truth from Leed, unless Leed actively demanded to know.

He's also upset that I kept the secret from him—or that I told him a partial secret, which he said is more like a lie than if I hadn't told him Tamara was pregnant in the first place. "You can't twist what you trust me with, Shortcake. I get that sometimes a secret isn't yours to tell, but don't tell half-truths or manipulate the truth of the things that you tell me. You told me Tamara didn't know who the father was, and that was a lie. If you'll lie to me about one thing, it makes me wonder what else you'll lie to me about. If we don't have trust, we don't have anything."

We had an argument after that, and when I ended it with "Fuck off, Preacher," I meant it. And he did, fuck off. Sort of. I've been sleeping in Leed's suite all week, partly because he needs me and partly because I wasn't ready to make up with Adam. Adam hasn't asked me to come back to our suite. He hasn't tried for make-up sex all week. But during the days, Adam is still Adam. He's still gentle and caring and trying to take care of me and Babycakes. He asks me how I'm feeling. He checks in with me about my anxiety and stress levels. He makes sure I stay hydrated during shows and that I have snacks for the bus rides.

We haven't argued once since that first fight, but we haven't made up either. In a weird way, I wish Leed knew that I was pregnant and could see how Adam is behaving. He's angry with me and I'm angry with him, but he's too strong to let that anger pollute the big picture. We are his family and he's still taking care of us.

I want to make up with him, but it's hard. It's so hard to be the one to yield. I mean, what does he think? That any of this is easy for me? I am eight weeks pregnant, coping with morning sickness and trying to keep this pregnancy on the down low. I get up from Leed's suite in the morning and run to mine and Adam's to vomit, while Adam wordlessly comforts me. Every morning when he rubs my back and silently hands me a morning sickness popsicle, I want to melt into his arms.

But I don't. I'm trying to stay strong. I feel like making up is going to involve some serious heart-to-heart opening up. I'm not ready to talk about the future. I am trying so hard to stay in the moment, and not freak out about what happens in seven months. But now, Leed's having a baby a whole lot sooner than that. If I'm not listening to him fret about how he's going to fit into his kid's life, I'm with Tamara and she's all baby-bumped and planning a wedding and planning a nursery and worried about breastfeeding and what kind of babygear to buy and whether Leed is going claim his right as the father and frantic over how Leed and Ben will handle being at the birth together if it comes to that.

Which are all big fucking worries, I get it. But all her planning and speculations are freaking me out. Next year, I'm supposed to be playing Europe's biggest festivals. I know that's not happening now, but I sure as hell don't know what's going to be happening instead.

So anyway, this whole situation is spiraling. It was super sweet at first—me and Adam keeping our Babycakes secret. But everything with Leed and Tamara has made me realize...Babycakes is not going to be a super-sweet secret much longer. He's going to be the damn baby elephant in the room, and unlike Tamara's pregnancy, the band is not going to be able to ignore him. I start to feel panicky again, but Dawes draws my attention from the dreaded future back to the present.

"Any particular reason you hate me more today, Mac?" Dawes is smirking at me now.

Oh, shit. I forgot I was going to fuck with Adam a little bit. Watching Adam's throat moving as he finishes my champagne, I want to put my lips against it and rub my cheek against his stubble and tell him how much I've missed him this week. But then I think, fuck it. I'm not going to be the one to break. He irritates me, playing the kind-but-stern-boyfriend-trying-to-teach-me-a-lesson-all-week.

"Yeah, Dawes. You hitched a ride on this flight to LA, and that means I don't get fucked into the Mile High Club today. Preacher is far too decent to split me with his enormous dick and make me scream while you listen."

Dawes laughs, but Adam's azure eyes darken. With a little lust, I think, but mostly anger. He hates it when I talk about our sex life. Especially crudely. Especially to Dawes.

Dawes looks at Adam speculatively. He hooks a thumb to the private space at the back of the plane, "Even though you are trying to fuck me, Heartley, I don't mind if you fuck Mac in the back of the plane. Do us all a favor, and choke off her screams, though. Can't have our girl going hoarse again." He grins evilly at me, again with the hands around his throat.

Before I can tell Dawes to fuck off, Adam says quietly, "If I ever hear you joke about Mac's assault again, I won't have to get you fired from the label, Dawes. I'll just fucking kill you instead."

Without looking at me, Adam puts his AirPods in and tunes us both out. Leaving me feeling a little bit sorry, a little bit angry, a lot confused and of course...hornier than ever.

Dawes tries to talk to me about those tracks he sent me last week, but he's exceeded my bullshit tolerance. I flip him off and stroll to the back of the plane away from them both. A reminder alert goes off on my phone. I can never remember the days and times when Ashlynn is allowed to have her phone, so Leed programmed alerts for me.

I call her. She doesn't sound as cheerful as when I talked to her a week ago—she sounds anxious.

"Hey, Mac. How are you?"

I snicker. Knocked up. Pissed at my baby daddy. On the edge of a panic attack over going to my first baby-doctor appointment. Avoiding thinking past that at all costs. "I'm good. Day off. On a flight to LA. Adam and I have an interview." Of all the things...the interview is not stressing me at all. We will both play our Madam parts. Adam will be the earnest nice guy, I'll bring the bad girl, and the interviewer will eat it up.

"Oh," is all she says. "So Leed's by himself?"

I snort. "No, Leed is with Trace and Bodie, and Riley, and the crew. And anyway he's a grown-ass man. He doesn't need a babysitter. He'll be fine."

"I know he'll be fine, eventually, he's Leed Lawson," she has that fangirl awe in her voice. It's not the excited awe the fangirls get when they meet him backstage. It's the solid morning-after awe when Leed has become the best memory of their life.

I find that amusing, since I'm one hundred percent sure that Leed has never ever pointed his awe-inducing-dick in Ashlynn's direction. Ashlynn wouldn't have noticed if he had, since she was either always high or running her ass off trying to make Trace feel comfortable in their completely uncomfortable platonic marriage situation, or running away from Trace to avoid the pain of her unrequited feelings.

"It's just...I talked to Leed earlier. Again. About...the baby. He's...off-balance right now. I worry about him."

I shake my head. The girl is brokenhearted, in chronic pain, in rehab fighting to get her life back and she's worried about a rock star and his little bit of baby-mama-drama?

"Well, I worry about you," I tell her. "You sounded better the last time I talked to you. Are you still doing okay?"

"Ooooh, I'm doing great. It's not that. Really." I can hear the smile in her voice. "I actually can't believe how good I feel. The acupuncture is a miracle. My head hardly ever hurts anymore. It's let me get completely off pain meds. I don't even want them...but of course, it's easy to stay clean here..." she trails off.

"You've got this, this time," I tell her, and I believe it. Without the pain, and without the narcotics she was supposed to take for it, I think Ashlynn will be able to stay clean. She seems more like an all-or-nothing type person.

"I'm so glad I came here, and did alternative therapy. I honestly didn't think it would work any better, but Leed convinced me I had nothing else to lose by trying..." she says softly. "Now that I've been here for two months and completely pain free for the last three weeks...I feel like I have my life back. I owe Leed my life." She laughs nervously. "That sounds dramatic, I guess."

"It doesn't. I get what you mean. Leed is only three years older than me, but he practically raised me. And he brought me into Soundcrush..." I watch Adam, his eyes closed, focused on his playlist, and realize if it weren't for Leed meeting Tamara, and then Bodie, and Bodie meeting Trace and Trace meeting Adam, I would never have found Adam. We are all connected through links of fate. "Yeah, I owe Leed my life, too. But I'm really glad you are on track. So glad. And I'm glad you've got the time and space to get healthy." Suddenly time is a finite resource to me.

"Me too," she says simply. "You know what, Mac?"

"What?"

"You are the only person that doesn't ask me what I'm going to do after rehab. Thanks for that."

"Girl, I got you. Sometimes you just need to be in the moment."

"Yeah. Especially when you have no clue." She laughs.

Suddenly, the obvious clicks into place. Ashlynn is getting out of rehab before Thanksgiving. Tamara's baby is due right after. "Uhhhm, actually I'm not asking you because I already know what you are doing. You're coming to LA, to help with this baby." And possibly stay with me, if the guys go to Europe after the holidays. "Tamara says she's not getting a nanny, which probably means that she'll need a lot of breaks from babyland. But if Tamara doesn't hire help, I bet Leed won't let me hire us one." Adam is crazy if he thinks we are not having a nanny, but that's a bridge to cross in the distance. First we have to survive the Lion Cub, before we worry about Babycakes.

"Us?" Ashlynn asks, amused. "So you are thinking Leed is going to be hands-on in his son's life? And you are going to be his surrogate mommy?" Ashlynn's peal of laughter is both wonderful and irritating to hear. She used to stifle her laughs when her head hurt.

"Why is that so damn funny?" I challenge with a smile. I know why it's funny. It's fucking hilarious to me too. What the fuck do Leed and I know about babies?

"It's just...Mac...you with a baby? Come on. Maybe Leed, but you?"

I laugh. "Fuck you, Ash! I can totally do better with a baby than that dumb-ass."

"I don't know, Mac," Ashlynn says. "Leed is so...sweet. And sensitive. I could see him...scared at first, but then getting comfortable and diving in. But you?"

"I am fucking sweet, you cunt!" I yell at her, but I'm laughing, and she laughs too. "I mean, obviously not like you, you Polly-goddamn-Anna..."

"I am not a Pollyanna," she says quietly. "I'm an addict that did...awful things...for drugs."

"And that's over, and you're getting better and now you're a Pollyanna again. Either way you were always gentle except when you and Trace were raising hell. But surely even I can be sweet to a tiny, innocent, helpless little human being? I mean, a baby wouldn't make much of a meal for a maneater like me, right?"

Surely, right? I feel panicky, but then my eyes settle on Adam. I can be sweet to him, sometimes. I can be even sweeter to a little sandy haired baby that has his Daddy's soulful blue eyes, right?

I press on. "I'm way smarter than Leed and he's sweeter than me, but we are both clueless about babies, that's why we need you." It's true. Ashlynn is a Baby Queen.

She used to part-time nanny on the weekends when she was in college for this couple who were doctors and worked weekend shifts. They had an older kid, but then they had a baby and she started helping with it when it was just two months old. She told me all about it, and how she realized she wanted to be a pediatrician because of the experience.

"Say you'll come to LA. Ash—oh my god, can you imagine the Lawson Sibs trying to take care of a baby-even just to give Tam a break? The entertainment value alone—you have to come."

"I don't know. Trace and Kat..."

"Are another good reason for you to come to LA. You have to make up with Kat eventually. And you can't hide from Trace. The more you do that, the more Kat will think you still have feelings for him, and..." Shit. Maybe she does still have feelings for him? "I mean..."

Ash sighs. "I know. It's just...embarrassing, you know? Trace has seen me at my very worst, and then I...I admitted to him that I had feelings he didn't have..."

"Still?" I ask quietly. If so, maybe I shouldn't press her to come to LA.

"Not so much," Ashlynn admits. "The annulment, the complete break of contact...it helped me get perspective. When I was hurting and high, it was just...confusing, because Trace is..."

"Yeah, girl. I know. Trace IS." I say with a laugh. "He's not my type, but I get it. When he brings that take-care-of-you-intensity thing...he's hard not swoon over." I shake my head, thinking of his Priestess metaphor.

"But you are right. I do want to repair things with Kat. Probably face-to-face is the only way that's going to happen," Ashlynn sighs. "Still...I don't want to come to LA unless they are ok with it..."

"You leave Trace—and by extension Kat—to me. Let me figure that part out, and you plan on LA for Thanksgiving, ok? The American leg of the tour will be finished and we'll have the holidays off before Europe early next year..."

"I'll think about it," she says.

"Great. I'll get the guest house ready while you think about it," I tell her smugly.

"Mac—"

"Ash-" I cut her off.

"Mac—" she laughs, insisting on the last word. "Leed calls me every time I'm allowed my phone," she says quietly. "He's really hurting. He really needs you right now."

"I know. I'll take care of him, like he always took care of me," I assure her.

We hang up, and I watch Adam, serenely shutting out his hate of Dawes, his irritation with me, his worries. I wish I could find some peace like that. My emotions are a constant swirl of anxiety and guilt and unease right now. I'm dreading this touch-down. These prenatal appointments.

I have a feeling things are about to get real in LA.

Hmmmm....some interesting things are going to happen in LA. And we'll be bringing back a few favorites from EPIC!  Do you think Mac and Adam will make up or have another big fight?