Love of a Rockstar (9 page)

Her nose scrunched up, baffled. “But you said he was your friend.”

I swung my arm over her shoulders and hugged her from the side. “Yes he is my friend but he is also your dad.”

Nil quietly processed the bombshell I dropped on her. When the silence became too much, I took her tiny hand in mine.

“Do you have any questions?” I prodded.

“Am I still going to live with you?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“Of course honey. If anything, this means you’ll have two houses now. Won’t that be fun?

Nil bit her bottom lip. “Does Luke have a house on the beach like Aubrey’s dad?”

I had no idea where Luke lived, let alone, if it was anywhere near a beach. It dawned on me I knew very little about the man he’d grown to become. Looking up, I saw him approach the booth with a mug of coffee in his hand.

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“Ask me what?” Luke inquired.

At the sound of his voice, Nil huddled closer to my side and shyly looked at him from underneath her eyelashes.

“Go on, tell your dad what you want to know,” I encouraged.

Luke’s body radiated with joy when he heard the word dad. And if people weren’t around, there was no doubt in my mind, he would have broken out in a jig. He slid into the booth next to her.

“You want to hear a story?” he asked.

Our daughter nodded. With the go ahead, Luke launched into a story about the time he visited India and met a real live princess. Whether it was true or not, it didn’t matter. Nil was spellbound.

“And as my car was about to pull away, the princess handed me a charm in the shape of an elephant, and told me to never forget the life I was destined to live,” Luke finished.

The shyness now forgotten, Nil lurched forward in her seat. “Do you still have it?” she asked.

“Of course. Do you want me to show it to you?”

He pulled a slim chain out from underneath his shirt; the elephant trinket glinted in the light. Nil’s expression of pure awe, matched my own. Luke had been on far greater adventures than I imagined.

He unclasped it from his neck. “Turn around.”

With Nil’s back facing him, Luke gently lifted her hair off her shoulders and secured the necklace around her throat. With a glint of wonder in her eye, our daughter laid her hand over the elephant charm.

“I’ll never take it off,” she whispered.

To be able to witness the bond forming between Nil and her father turned my heart upside down. There was no doubt it was the right choice letting her meet him but now I had to deal with what would happen if we moved to Paris. A problem for another day, I supposed. My cell phone vibrated in my pocket, and I reached in to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Marlene, you need to come into work. We’re short on staff,” my manager barked.

Robert was a man of few words with a personality that bordered on asshole. The big annual Christmas bonuses he handed out every year were the only reason people tolerated him.

I sighed, “Now isn’t the best time.”

“Great, thanks. Be here in fifteen minutes,” he ordered, ignoring what I said.

The sound of silence on the other end had me shaking my head in disbelief. I wished I were leaving for Paris tomorrow so that I didn’t have work for Robert any longer. Creating wedding cakes in my small Parisian kitchen would be a dream come true.

Luke’s eyes crinkled with concern. “Everything alright?”

“It was just my stupid boss. He needs me to come into work.”

“Mommy works a lot,” Nil piped in.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. Grandma Doris couldn’t watch Nil until four o’clock, which was five hours from now. I would ask Camille for help, but she was awful with kids. And my mother donated her time at the children’s hospital on Thursdays. Robert hated it when I brought Nil to work, but it looked as if I had no other choice. It wasn’t like I could leave her at the coffee shop by herself.

“Guess what sweetie?” I said cheerfully. “You’re going to spend a couple of hours with me at work.”

My optimistic tone didn’t fool her.

“I don’t want to.” Frowning, she fiddled with her necklace. “It’s so boring there.”

Sometimes, I saw glimpses of what the future would hold with a sixteen year old Nil. There would be a whole lot of stubbornness and slammed doors. It exhausted me just thinking about it.

Luke jumped to the rescue. “I can take her.”

I turned to him. “Really?”

“Yeah, I’m free for the rest of the day. We can visit the zoo.”

Mentioning the zoo in Nil’s presence was never a good idea. . We had an awful experience there last year involving a monkey throwing his poo at her.

“Nooo, I don’t want to go!” she yelled, burying her head into my stomach. “Monkeys are mean.”

Baffled at her negative reaction, Luke attempted to put a smile back on Nil’s face. “OK then how about we get ice cream?”

“It’s too cold outside.”

He gave me a desperate glance over Nil’s head as if I knew what would make her happy. The problem was sometimes our daughter got in these moods where nothing could console her. She wanted to fight the world.

“Jellybean, what do you want to do?” I asked.

Her bottom lip jutted out. “I don’t know.”

Sneaking a peek at my watch, I saw I had twelve minutes to get halfway across town. Luke probably didn’t want to be left alone with a pouty child but too bad. It was about time he saw what the title “parent” really meant. I grabbed my jacket and slid out of the booth. Nil skittered out after me.

“Mommy where are you going?” she questioned.

I bent down on one knee, eye level with her. “Work, but you will get to hang with your dad while I am gone. Won’t that be fun?”

Tears gathered in the corner of her eyes, indicating a full-blown meltdown was on the horizon. Today was an overwhelming day for her and if I could stick around I would, but responsibility called. Nonetheless, maybe Luke wasn’t the best person to watch over her today. Camille caught my eye and without a word understood exactly what I needed. Closing her textbook, she approached our booth.

“Hey Luke,” she said.

He smiled warmly up at her. “Hey Camille, it’s nice to see you. You look good.”

“Thanks.”

Camille and Luke had clashing personalities but they put their differences aside because they had one thing in common. Me. And for that I was grateful.

I tucked a strand of blonde hair behind Nil’s ear. “Do you want to hang out with Camille instead and play Barbies?”

She gave me a watery nod. With that settled, I rose back up and slipped on my coat.

“At four o’clock, Doris will come by the house to watch her. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call,” I told Camille.

I looked over at Luke to apologize for the change in plans. The shattered expression on his face told me he wasn’t happy about it.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he said to me.

On the way out the door, Luke stopped and smiled at Nil. “It was nice to meet you.”

She timidly avoided eye contact by fiddling with the necklace Luke gave her. “You too.”

He hesitated a second. A thousand unsaid words hung between them. He seemed to come to the conclusion that action not words would repair their relationship as he followed me outside with one fleeting glance back at his daughter. The short walk to my car was done in silence.

“This is me,” I said, stopping in front of the car.

Whenever something weighed heavily on Luke’s mind, he tapped his fingers against his pants leg, which was exactly what he was doing right now.

“She will warm up to you.” I soothed. “But you couldn’t except it to happen in an hour. In her eyes, you’re a stranger.”

Luke’s fingers stopped tapping. “Thanks for reminding me of that Marlene,” he bit out.

While his anger was directed at me, the person he was truly mad at was himself. I opened the car door and climbed inside. Sticking my key in the ignition, the old beetle coughed to life.

“You made your bed Luke, now you have to sleep in it,” I said, right before closing the door.

I pulled out of the parking lot into traffic and headed toward work without glancing back.

SINCE I HAD to swing by my house to pick up the mini chocolate cake I baked as a thank you to Josie, I arrived at work ten minutes late. A fact I couldn’t care less about when Robert made me come in on my day off. Josie was flipping through a magazine when I walked into the break room.

Smelling the chocolate, she glanced up. “Is that for me?”

“Hello to you too.” I placed it on the table. “And yes, it is.”

“Thank god. It’s been a nightmare of a week.”

I could understand that. Unfortunately, cake wouldn’t solve my problems. Grabbing a fork from the stack in the middle of the table, Josie dug in.

“I wish I had something to drink,” she mumbled around a mouthful of chocolate crumbs.

Always prepared, I pulled a carton of milk from my purse. My fridge was stocked to the hilt with mini containers for Nil and I always had one on hand.

Josie let out a happy sigh. “I think I love you.” She pulled out a chair for me. “Now sit and enjoy this cake with me since it’s anything but mini.”

The layer of mousse I added to the top made it look bigger than it was. Stealing a glance at the clock, I realized I was now twelve minutes late. What was another two minutes? I grabbed a fork and broke my cardinal rule; never have more than one bite of the desserts I made.

I moaned, “Holy crap that is good.”

The chocolate mousse perfectly complemented the fudgy cake. Sometimes, I forgot how good I was at baking, since it was a talent I had no idea how I inherited. My mother and grandmother boiled and burned.

Josie stabbed another forkful. “So, what’s new in life?” she asked.

Maybe it was all the chocolate flowing through my veins, but I had a strong need to tell her about Finn. She was somebody who could give me an objective opinion about what to do.

I approached the subject cautiously. “I need some advice.”

“Shoot.”

Setting down my fork, I wiped my hands on a napkin. Josie couldn’t know Luke was Nil’s father, so I had to think of another name for him. Logan would do. It was close enough to his real name I wouldn’t fumble with it.

“For the past three months, I have been dating this guy named Finn.”

Josie pointed her fork at me. “Is he the blonde Ken doll who comes to visit you sometimes on your lunch break?”

I smiled; amused she saw the resemblance as well. “Yep, that’s him.”

Josie nodded and gestured for me to continue.

“Well, the other night, he told me he got a job offer in Paris, and he wants Nil and me to move with him.”

She frowned. “That doesn’t sound like a hard decision to make. It’s Paris.”

I wished it were that easy to pack up the only life I knew to jet off to a place I only dreamed about. However, now that Nil had met her father, things had gotten a tad more complicated.

Josie tilted her head to the side, “I’m guessing there is another detail to the story or else you wouldn’t be considering saying no.”

“Nil’s father has popped back into our lives and wants to get to know his daughter,” I answered. “If we left then he wouldn’t have a chance to.”

“You love him.”

The assuredness of her words threw me. I loved the man Luke was at twenty two, until the day he left and showed me a side I didn’t know existed.

“Why do you say that?” I questioned.

“Because you still don’t want to hurt him, which is frankly amazing because my guess is he broke your heart.”

I shoveled another mouthful of cake in my mouth to avoid answering. Luke didn’t just break my heart; he took a hammer to it and smashed it to smithereens. I thought I would never be able to put the pieces back together again until Finn came along. In his own way, he had helped me heal.

“It’s not about me not hurting him, it’s about Nil,” I said. “My daughter has asked to meet her real father for ages and now that she finally has, I don’t want to take away that relationship she could potentially form with him.”

She pushed the cake closer to me. “Give yourself some time to mull it over. In the meantime, chocolate will help.”

“I have to figure it out sooner rather than later,” I wailed. “Nil’s father is leaving to go back on tour.”

“There is a thing called a cell phone. Seriously, Marlene. Relax.” She polished off the last bite of cake and pushed back her chair. “I have to get back to work. I’ll see you out there.”

As I watched Josie walk out the door, what she said nagged at my mind. Nil’s well being played a big part in my apprehension about Paris, but I couldn’t help but think it was also because I couldn’t imagine starting a new life without Luke in it. And if so, did that mean I still loved him? I barked out a laugh at the absurdity. The man already hurt me once, it would be a cold day in hell before I traveled back down that road.