Chapter 32: Nice Guys Are Bad Liars

Adam

When we part ways with Dawes in the new VIP terminal at LAX, my mood improves by degrees. We're out of the airport before 9am Pacific time, and we have an hour before our tour at Palisades Women and Children's Hospital. With traffic, it will take most of that time to arrive.

I wave off the limo driver and open the door for Mac myself. When I climb in and sit next to her, deliberately taking her right hand and playing with the rings on her fingers, the expression on her face is truly comical. She looks—frustrated.

"Aren't you angry with me?" Her light feathery eyebrows are peaked in irritation, but her voice is mild and her hand is perfectly willing in mine.

"Despite your best efforts to piss me off with that Dawes fuckery," I say testily, "Not so much."

Now she looks flat out confused. "Why not?"

I twist the large silver ring on her middle finger, pulling it over the knuckle and then pushing it back into place. "Because I know you are swimming in stress all the way up to your pretty little eyeballs. I know you don't want to do this—tour these hospitals, and think about what comes next. I know you were trying to pick a fight with me on purpose—to channel that shit into something you can cope with."

She doesn't deny it. "What about the other stuff—me not telling you about Leed being the father? Aren't you still upset about that?"

I shrug. "I was annoyed, but I said what I needed to say a week ago—I don't like being lied to. I hope you heard it and took it to heart, because I will never lie to you. So as far as I'm concerned, that's done."

"Then why have you been cold-shouldering me all week?" she huffs.

"We fought, You told me to fuck off. We've both needed some time and space. You've been right where you need and wanted to be—in Leed's suite. Cold shouldering you? No. Every day I've wished you good morning and goodnight, and seen about you all day in between. "

She bites her lip and turns her hand, curling her fingers against my jaw. "You know what I mean. You haven't tried to get inside me all week. You don't want me, right now."

Mac's hazel eyes are pinched in uncertainty and hurt. Christ, does she actually think that? That I don't want her? The only thing I ever want is to be inside her, drenched in her without a single damn thing between us—no pride, no boundaries, no fear. Fucking her renews my lifeblood; making love to her restores my faith.

I put a hand on her cheek, guiding her gaze to mine. "Hear me, okay? We had a fight. The bad mo-jo stuck around for a few days. It's over. I still love you and I still want you. Loving you is the best choice I will ever make and bedding you is a damn religious experience for me. I will never choose to not love you and it's physically fucking impossible for me at this point to not want you," I assure her.

The color drains from her face. I fucking love causing that.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "You were right..what you said in the limo that first night I told you I loved you. You said I would be raging pissed at you again soon enough. This is the first time I've really been angry with you, since I realized..."

I play with her pretty rainbow hair. "Since you accepted that you love me?" I ask lightly.

She nods. "And I do...love you. I hate the distance." She climbs into my lap sideways. "Adam, I didn't think about what I said to you as a lie. I don't think like that—right or wrong. I think like—what's good for me and my people and what's not. I was thinking of Leed—only Leed—and not about you and me, in that situation."

I lay my head back against the seat. "I know, Mac. That's what hurts. Wondering if he will always come first with you."

"I get that now. Please, Adam—please be patient with me. He's all I've ever had and he's so hurt right now. I know what this means—you and me and Babycakes—I know it means I have to put you two—put us first. I...I'm working on it."

I watch her. This kind of openness and honesty is such a huge step forward for Mac.

"I heard you," she continues. "No lies. No half-truths. From now own, I'll tell you the truth, even if pisses you off." She cuts her eyes out the window and then back to me. "And you are right. I was baiting you—on the plane. I'm so fucking tense, and I thought..."

"You thought if we couldn't fuck on the plane, we could fight," I smile. "Be almost as much release?"

Her hand skates the lock of my hair that wants to fall on my forehead no matter how much I gel it. "Actually I was thinking, fight on the plane, fuck in the limo?" She raises her eyebrows.

I rake my finger across her perfectly glossed lips. "You sure you wanna get smudged and sweaty?" I know she's nervous about these appointments in LA because she had Tamara style her this morning. Not in full performance make-up, but she definitely looks like the LA girl today, not the grunge goddess in ripped jeans shorts and tank tops and messy buns that has become my live-in touring lover.

She grabs my hand away from her makeup and guides it to her breast. I gently massage through her sheer tank top. "I want to really badly, but...maybe we should wait until tonight. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I thought maybe...we could stay at your place?"

Oh Shorty, that was always the plan. But it can be your idea, if you want.

It's a big deal. She has never slept over at my house. She's rolled up for a lot of booty calls, dropped her panties and let me fuck her on my couch—and pool table, and kitchen counter— and walked out before I could get the goddamn condom off, but she's never let me get her in my bed, and she's certainly never stayed over.

I kiss her softly—forehead,nose, chin, lips. "You really are trying to show you are sorry about our fight, aren't you?"

She nods. No words, but the sweet smile and the honest open eyes show she means it.

I sigh. "I don't want to get our fight started again, but Mac—there's something else I need to get off my chest. I know you did it on purpose with Dawes, but I really do hate it when your turn our sex life into a crude joke for some other dude's benefit. I hate that you get off on that exhibitionist shit. "

"I know. I know it embarrasses you—"

I laugh. "It doesn't embarrass me, Shortcake. I'm goddamn proud to be fucking you. Have you seen yourself in the mirror?" I draw her chin towards me until her mouth is so close to mine my lips brush hers as I say the next words. "I'm jealous of your dirty mouth and your sex. Mac, I have to share so much of you, with so many people. I will always gladly share your beauty and your talent with the world. And your musical focus with Trace. And your love and your loyalty with Leed. And this baby that's coming...I'm going to have to share every part of you, give you over at times, for the love of our child. But I won't fucking share our sex with anybody. I want every dirty thought that soaks your panties and every filthy word that comes from your mouth to be mine and only mine. When it comes to sex, I want you to perform for me and only me, MacKenna Lawson."

Her eyes are so close to mine, and with every word I utter, her pupils are flaring, expanding and contracting, but slowly stretching for me. "Damn," she croaks, and wets her lips. "That was hot, Preacher."

My fingers are gripping and kneeding her hip. I want so badly to push her knee out wide, reach up her frilly pink and cream polka dot skirt and put my hand in what I want to claim as mine forever.

But I hold back. "You are my lady, MacKenna. I want you to be as proud of that as I am to be your man. Our sex is sacred to me. I wish it were to you."

She puts both her hands on either side of my head. "It's hard for me not to play the part, to be the bad girl, but our sex is sacred to me, too. I feel like we share souls when you love me. Adam, I can feel...life we created...growing inside me. It's terrifying but it's also...the most amazing thing I've ever experienced. Our sex—and our child— is sacred to me, I promise."

This girl. My angel. I'll never love her again like I do in this moment, because every day she makes me love her more.

If I kiss her now, I won't be able to stop. I'll love her lips until the gloss, lower color, upper color, and two shades of lip liner are all worn away and her lips left swollen. If I kiss her like I want, my beard will be wearing more of her makeup than she is, and possibly her eyes will be streaming black rivers, protesting her lack of oxygen. With deep regret and a sincere hope that the inventor of makeup met their karmic end by drowning in a vat of liquid foundation, I refrain from marring Tamara's artistry and instead, gently kiss her inner wrist. She leans against my chest. We ride in silence the rest of the way to the hospital we'll be touring.

When we pull up at a private entrance, I see a tall, professionally dressed blonde woman in heels waiting for us with a cream leather binder. She must be the VIP liason assigned to us. Hospitals in LA are just like everywhere else in LA—celebrities get special treatment. Of course I want our privacy protected while we welcome our baby into the world—but I'm sure we are about to experience some laughable celebrity perk bullshit.

Before I give the driver the signal to open our door, I say to Mac, "Shorty, I know you are anxious about the future. We'll figure it out, I promise." I smile at her. "Today, all we have to do is tour these two facilities and meet with some doctors. If it doesn't feel right, then we strike it off the list. That's all. We don't have to decide anything else."

She takes a long slow breath and releases it even slower. Then she does it again. And a third time. That's when I know, she's on the edge of a panic attack.

"Let's take a few minutes," I say gently.

She shakes her head adamantly. "I want to get it done. Let's go."

Our liason—Callie Something—chirps brightly but very discreetly refrains from any congratulations, as her eyes cut to the driver and the doorman. Ah yes, back in the wonderful world where there's a tipster around every corner, just waiting to make some quick cash selling a story. As we breeze through the lobby and up the elevator, Callie explains that the Woman and Children's Facility houses gynecologists, obstetricians, pediatricians and various specialists. "Plastic surgeons specializing in post-pregnancy restoration, of course," Callie says with graceful hand encompassing Mac's torso.

"Good to know," Mac replies, but her expression is unreadable. She's got her killer face on. That's probably a good thing right now. I do my best not to roll my eyes as Callie describes the plastic surgery options in detail. Great. We've skipped over the labor and delivery of our child, and Mac's recovery, and we are focused on what's important here—lasering of potential stretch marks, which as far as I'm concerned, would not mar Mac's beauty in the slightest.

Callie ushers us past a glass waiting room filled with pregnant woman and their partners. "If you'll wait one moment in one of our VIP reception areas, I'll make sure we have a prenatal exam room, and a premium birthing suite ready for you to view—so much nicer than the standard ones, of course. Then we'll move onto our state-of-the-art VIB nursery. Our head of security will join us as well, along with our in-house stylist, to answer any questions you might have about security and first exposure options. Will your publicist be joining us today?"

"Not today," Mac says. I do my best to match her cool. Actually I want to burst out laughing. VIB? Very Important Baby? Isn't every baby very important to the excited parents that greet it? Christ, what is wrong with LA?

Then I feel guilty. Maybe I shouldn't be looking down my nose at this pretentiousness. I chose this hospital for a reason—they have one of the best obstetrical surgeons and best neonatal intensive care units anywhere in the country. So if an emergency were to arise with Mac or Babycakes, this would be the place I would want them to be.

Callie has ushered us into a large dimly lit room that looks nothing like a doctor's office waiting room and more like a swank eastern-themed spa. Or possibly a den of inequity. The rather large room is circular with a—I shit you not—a juice/alcohol bar in the center, complete with a bartender. Private VIP spaces are sectioned off with heavy velvet draperies, in a ring against the walls. Some of the curtained areas look occupied; others have their drapes pulled back to expose little cubicles with comfortable couches, lit candles, and crudite platters under glass.

We pass on drinks, and Callie ushers us into one of the curtained partitions and promises to return shortly. Mac gives me a slight smirk and whispers. "If there's a bar in the waiting room, what do you think they have back in the labor and delivery area?"

"You won't need drinks, they'll give you the good drugs," I assure her. All my sisters actually seemed to have relatively smooth, nondramatic childbirths. Except for Alex and Luke's fifth child. Her water broke and the baby came so fast, they barely made it to the hospital. Luke said he was on the phone with a nurse from the hospital because the baby was literally coming in the car. He said it was fucking terrifying and Alex's labor was so quick, intense and violent without an epidural he thought she might be dying. Scared the shit out of him. He got a vasectomy when Carter was a month old.

She wrinkles her nose. "I want a natural child birth."

I blink. I'm starting to get the idea that she's actually serious about that. It's not the first time she said it. Christ, I don't know if I can handle that—seeing her in unrelenting pain for hours. "Fine. If you do natural childbirth, they can give me the drugs," I murmur.

"That's not funny," she says, then abruptly. "Hospitals freak me out."

"This looks more like a club than a hospital, Shortcake." I collapse on the small couch. My long limbs unfurl everywhere. I pat the seat beside me. "Wanna make-out a little while we wait?" I'm not kidding, but it's only because Mac is pacing and her breathing is a little fast. A little lovin' might distract her.

She ignores my invitation and keeps pacing. "Adam, I'm serious, I don't like hospitals."

"Well, nobody does, but they are the place to be in a medical emergency—"

Mac is rounding this little curtained area, her pink Jimmy Choo sandals tapping down consistently. I watch her feet move. I don't have a foot fetish or anything, and usually I don't know a damn thing about fashion, but I like Mac's expensive and expansive collection of footwear, especially the heels. They make her ankles and calves look fucking gorgeous. I haven't fucked her naked but heeled—not since we got back together. I put that on the long mental list of ways I want to take Mac soon. Hmm...no maybe wait on that one a little, until she has a little baby bump. She'll be fucking adorable in heels with Babycakes a little bigger in her belly...

I snap back to Mac's voice, growing more distressed now. "No, I really don't like hospitals. Not since—"

She stops talking behind me. I twist on the couch to see why. A blonde little boy about three or four is pulling the curtain aside near the wall, and peaking at Mac, a shit-eating grin on his face. He abruptly pulls the curtain back into place, only to draw it back again slowly, just around his blonde head. I chuckle, but it's not so much at the kid. It's at Mac—the way she's beaming at the little boy.

She picks up the Italian Leather Binder Callie left with us and puts it in front of her face, effectively blocking our little visitor out while she winks at me from behind the notebook. The kid makes an attention getting screech to get Mac to lower the notebook, and she does—just long enough to stick her tongue out at him. Then she retreats behind the notebook again as he giggles. They play this game for awhile—Mac peaking over the notebook and giving the kid a different funny face each time. His peals of laughter get louder. Suddenly the soft adult murmurs from the partition next to ours raise.

A woman's voice says, "Baby, stop that and come here."

Little Man's eyebrows furrow in a way that seems startling...familiar? Then he rolls his eyes at his phantom mother behind the partition and stomps right on through the curtain into our area, hurtling around the opposite edge of the couch and crouching low in an attempt to hide from the search-and-retrieve he already knows is coming.

I lean over the edge of the couch and peer down at him. Damn, this kid is cute. He reminds me of somebody I just can't place. He gives me another shit-eating grin and puts a finger over his mouth, obviously trying to recruit me as an ally in his attempt to flee parental oversight.

"No can do, Dude," I laugh at the kid. "You can't be running from your momma like that. You'll give her a heart attack." Suddenly I realize, who ever is on the other side of this curtain is likely a celebrity of some sort, too. Suddenly I feel some sense of urgency to return this kid before some Diva flips out...

The woman behind the curtain doesn't sound too Diva-ish, as she calmly says, "Babe, can you get off your damn phone and go get your son? I'm trying to change a diaper, here...sit him down in that chair, please, because he is SO NOT FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS RIGHT NOW AND HE'S IN TIMEOUT IF HE DOESN'T COME HERE RIGHT NOW!" Her voice is raised so that the little kid can hear her.

The little boy mutters, "Dammit," and flings himself starfish-like on the floor.

Mac is bending backward, looking at the ceiling as she tries not to laugh. I quickly choke off my own bark of laughter by shoving a knuckle in my mouth and biting down. Mac gets control of herself and steps over to the little boy, holding out her hands to help him up. "You did the crime, now you gotta do the time, Little Man."

"Yeah, he does," says a masculine voice from beyond the velvet. "Sorry, he busted in on you. He's a maniac but my wife says he gets that from me. Lane, get your naughty butt up off the floor and say sorry for..." the man draws back the curtain and his voice trails away.

"Well, fucking A," he adds with a smirk, as he recognizes us. Of course, even if I hadn't met him several times at industry parties, I would know who he is. His band, Skid Marcs, has been famous for thirty years.

Now, he's a new kind of famous. At least in the Soundcrush Circle. It's only been about a month since he and Trace revealed their mythological father-son relationship.

"Hi Matt," I say, keenly aware of how lame I sound, compared to him. Matt del Marco's bad-assery exudes. It must be some kind of dominant del Marco trait—that bad-assery. Matt has it, Trace has it, Little Man trying to escape to the next partition over as it...

Matt del Marco strides over, pluck's up Trace's little brother, swats him harmlessly on the butt once, and points to the partition from whence he came. Lane makes a four-year-old sound like he's dying and stomps back through the curtain, making a huge effort of fighting and punching and batting it away as he disappears behind it.

Then Matt claps it out with me. "Long time no see, Adam. How you livin' man?" He cuts his eyes at Mac then back to me.

"You know...mostly in a bus, right now."

"Shit, know that feelin'," he agrees.  "Saw the fake oral video. You guys really upped your game to cover Trace's absent ass. Nice teamwork," he nods at me,  the grins at Mac, "And nice touch, turning the mic around like that for maximum effect." He gives her the universal rock star chin tip.

I can see Mac's eyes are dark with panic, but she returns the chin tip and says, "Thanks, Daddy del Marco." Her voice sounds thick like she might cry; I don't think she can say much more.

"Yep, you got that right," Mac crosses his arms, tucking his thumbs up into is armpits, and shaking his head in resignation. "Trace makes six...and one on the way..."

"He's bullshitting you," Marianne says immediately, drawing the curtain back with one hand as she holds a dark-headed baby girl on her hip. "We are just here for Lane and Alley's check-ups."

"Right," I say quickly, relieved to realize that there are  reasons people would be in this waiting room other than an OB check-up. Maybe they won't automatically assume...

"So how far along are you?" Matt asks Mac, with a fatherly twinkle in his eye.

That's when her killer look crumbles and she blinks. Tears spill over. She puts a hand over her mouth.

"Oh she's not..." I try to interject. "I mean...we aren't...It's not what you are thinking...there's no..." I gesture futily at Mac's stomach, and then I rub my beard in defeat.  "Awww, fuck it."

Matt's barky laugh is dampened slightly by the curtains. "Jesus, Adam, you're a bad fucking liar, you know that? Almost as bad as that frontman of yours."

"Yeah," I admit.

Then Mac does something totally unexpected. She bursts into full tears, flings her arms around Matt's neck and cries, "Eight weeks. The baby is due in February. The European leg of the tour is booked though spring!This baby is a tour-killer and Trace doesn't even know! Please, please don't tell him! Matt, oh god, what the fuck are we going to do?"

I just stand there rubbing my temples as Matt laughs at her and pats her back. "Relax, Mama-Child. It's not like you're doing a solo album. It's just a baby. They pop up from time to time when you fuck a lot. The good news is...tiny babies are highly portable. You can pick those little boogers up and plop them down anywhere and they stay right there. Europe is no biggie. Tell her, Annie..."

Marianne is hoisting Alley on her hip and looking at me with sympathy. "Congratulations, Adam." Then to Matt, "Matt, just...stop. You are insane, baby. Mac cannot tour Europe nine months pregnant. What do you think—she should deliver onstage?"

Matt laughs. "Now that might be the only thing to top the fake oral video!"

Oh god. I have no idea what happens now, but I feel like we are in a Skid Marcs video. The one where there is a long, skin-crawling peel of the tires right before the fiery crash.

HAHAHA, the Babycakes secret is unraveling!!!!! Are you glad to see Matt in this book? And we finally meet those two younger del Marco siblings!!! What do you think happens next? I'd love to hear from you!

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