My Misery Muse (6 page)

“He did!” I exclaimed.

Jaks nodded his head then wiggled to be let down to explore.

“None of that Jaks, you and Daddy are going to hang out in the office while Mommy finishes work,” I told him.

I handed Jaks back to Seth, “So how was it?”

“Those women are vicious, Devi. Damn I barely made it in the building before they started giving me dirty looks, hell then some of them tried giving me their phone numbers.”

I laughed, his daycare was something else; the teachers were awesome, but the other parents were judgmental as hell.

“Yea I know, but the teachers are the best.”

“Yea, his teacher was really nice, I liked her,” he said. “Ok we’re going back to the office, how long till you’re done?”

“An hour and a half, two hours max, and Drake should be here around 8. There’s a box of toys in the office, along with an art easel and crayons.  Jules ran out on her lunch break, she’s going to bring something back for Jaks. If you need anything come up front and let me know.”

“We’ll be fine Devi, don’t worry,” he said.

I snorted, don’t worry, I spend most of my time worrying about Jaks.  They went back to the office, passing Max and Vic on their way up front to get ready for their evening of tattooing.

¯¯¯

“How does your mom do this all the time, kid?” I asked Jaks.

He just glanced up at me then went back to crashing cars.  I looked around the office and it looked like a tornado had passed through, toys everywhere, spaghetti on the desk and the floor under it from his dinner.  It gave me a new respect of what Devi had been through the last few years.

I was under the desk cleaning up spaghetti when Drake walked in; he took one look around and started laughing.

“Not so easy, huh man?” he said.

“Unca Ake,” Jaks squealed then took off hugging Drake around the legs.

“Hey kid, looks like you’ve been giving your dad a hard time tonight,” Drake said as lifting Jaks up. “You want to come home with me tonight and give Mommy a night off?”

Jaks smiled at that idea and nodded.  Drake put him down, and started helping put toys away, while Jaks went back to crashing cars.

“Thanks for watching him tonight,” I said.

Drake looked over at me, “You two need to talk, figuring things out  would be easier without taz here running around,” he said.

“Taz, huh,” I chuckled, “pretty apt description of him.”

“I meant what I said last night Seth, if you hurt them, I won’t hold back this time,” Drake said.

“I know, and I have no intentions on hurting them.  I didn’t mean to hurt her last time either.”

“You may not have meant to, but you did hell, you still do. She changed when you left man; she’s not the same girl.  She won’t date, all she does is work and hang out with Jaks. Every now and then with a lot of arm twisting, I can get her to go out with friends, but I don’t think she actually enjoys it, she only does it so she doesn’t have to listen to us bitch about her lack of life,” he said looking at me meaningfully.  “I don’t think she ever got over you, and yea I know she’s the one who pushed you into going.  She’s the one, who ended it between you. She tried to hide how much it hurt her from me, but I saw and I knew and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do about it and that just pissed me off more.”

“I wanted to make things work, she said she needed a clean break. And yea, I knew it hurt her to say it, but it hurt me too and it pissed me off that she didn’t even want to try.  So I went out to LA tried to forget her, but I couldn’t, haven’t and I’m not walking away this time, Drake.”

“Good luck with that, you’re going to need it,” he said. “Ok Jaks, you ready to go hang out with your Uncle Drake?”

He grabbed Jaks’ stuff and led him out of the room.  I finished picking up the office and was heading back to the shop when Cris stopped me.

“Hey Seth, can we talk a minute?” Cris asked.

“Sure,” I replied.

I went back to the office with Cris following me.  He shut the door then turned around and looked at me, and I knew I didn’t want to hear what he was about to tell me.

“I’ve asked Dev to marry me,” Cris said.

It felt like I was punched in the solar plexus, all the air left my lungs.

 “You what?” I managed to get out.

“You heard me man, I love her, always have, she never even looked at me while you were here, but you left and she needed someone.  I stepped up, I’ve been here helping her while you were running around the globe, and she was left here with a baby and scared.  So don’t you dare look at me like that, you left but I stayed.”

I knew he was right, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear. Cris had asked Devi to marry him, what did she say?  Why didn’t she tell me she was engaged?  Not knowing what else to do I left the office and headed back to the shop to wait for Devi to get done with her client.

I watched Cris head back to the office after Drake left, and I knew nothing good could come from it. A few minutes later Seth came out looking pissed as hell.  He went over to talk to Max and I went back to work finishing the tat I was working on. Nothing I could do about it now, I had work to get done.  After I finished and had the guy all taped up with after care instructions and some samples of creams, I walked over to where Vic, Max and Seth were standing around talking.

“Hey, you ready to go?” I asked Seth.

“Yea, let’s go,” he said. “See you guys later.”

He didn’t say another word; just put his hand on my lower back guiding me out of the shop and to his car.  I got into his old Chevelle—man this car brought back a lot of memories—he started the car and
Sevendust’s “Bitch”
started blaring from the speakers, we left still not talking the entire way to the café.  We got to the café and sat outside on the outdoor patio, watching the cars speed down central expressway.  His not talking was starting to really unnerve me, I had an idea on what he and Cris had talked about, but I wasn’t sure on how to bring it up.

“So you and Cris, huh?” he said.

I closed my eyes cursing my best friend, why did he have to do this to me?  Why did he have to tell him instead of letting me explain it to Seth? But then again I knew why, he wanted Seth to think more was going on between us than what actually was.

“He’s been trying, I keep putting him off.”

“Why?” he asked.

I was surprised at this, why had I been putting off Cris, well I knew it was because I still loved Seth, but I wasn’t going to let him know this.

“I dont love Cris like that,” I said. “He says he doesn’t care about that, that he loves me enough for both of us, but I don’t think I could marry someone I don’t love.”

He looked to be thinking over my answer but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.  Was he happy about me not being involved with Cris? Did he pity me like Chloe had said he did because I couldn’t get over him?

“So what did you want to talk about Devi?” he asked.

I guess he didn’t want to talk about Cris anymore, not that I blamed him, I didn’t really want to either.

“I thought it would be good for us to clear the air, become friends again. It would make things easier when we try to come to terms about Jaks.”

Our waitress came up at that point to take our orders; I ordered a coffee and my favorite spinach crepes.  After she got Seth’s order and walked off, I looked at him and still couldn’t get a read on what he was thinking.

“I want you to believe me that I did try and tell you. I tried for six months, but at some point I had to figure out how to do this on my own, I had to make plans to get my life back together.  So I stopped trying to contact you, I had a baby to take care of.”

“I understand Devi.  I know last night I was pissed, and while I am still upset at not knowing, I understand why you didn’t keep seeking me out,” he said. “But now that I know, I’m not going away; I will have a part in his life Devi.”

“Okay,” I said, “I think he would like that.”

“So how are we going to do that Devi, any ideas, I will of course start paying child support.  I want to make sure he has everything he needs.”

“I make enough to make sure he’s taken care of Seth, I’ve been doing it for over 2 years now without your money, and we don’t need it now,” I spit out.

“I didn’t mean to make you mad Devi, or try and make it sound like you don’t take care of him, I just want to help and I need to help. Please let me, I’ve missed so much already, but this would mean a lot to me.”

“Fine,” I said grudgingly.

“Thank you,” with that he reached over and took my hand slowly rubbing his thumb over my knuckles.  That small touch made my breath catch; this man could get to me like no one else.

Our coffee came then, I pulled my hand from his so I could fix my coffee and also get a little space between us.  I still didn’t know what I wanted with Seth, was I willing to put my heart on the line again for this man?  Hell did he even want more than his son from me, was I being delusional that the spark between was more than one sided?

“Hey, where did you go? he asked.

I shook myself out of my morose thoughts. “Sorry, guess I drifted there for a minute. So how long are you in town?”

He blew out his breath, “I’m not really sure actually, we started on the new album in LA but it just wasn’t working, we thought a change of scenery would help. We go back in the studio on Monday,” he said. “Not really sure how long we’ll stay, all depends on how long it takes to get the album done.  We’re scheduling some shows around the area while were here, playing some of the old haunts we used to.  Xavier’s been in a rut with his lyrics, and Sam and I haven’t been much better with coming up with riffs and stuff.”

That was a first for Seth, as far as I knew, when we lived together he was always working on new bass lines, as well as writing his own stuff, half the first album was written by Seth.

“I’m sorry you guys are having such a tough time,” I said. “If you need any help let me know, I still mess around writing sometimes, also the guys still play every Monday and Wednesday nights at Drake’s.”

“Really, they still play?”

“Yep, they don’t do shows or anything anymore, they just like to get together and mess around.”

Then our food came, and didn’t know what else to say, so I tucked into my food, tasting the delicious cream sauce over perfectly cooked crepes.

“So guess we should get some kind of visitation schedule put together, huh?” Seth said.

That took me back a second; I still didn’t know what to think about him coming back into our lives, or how to deal with it.

“Yea, I guess that would be a good idea. I still want to kinda limit it for now, until Jaks is more comfortable with you, and you have more time getting used to taking care of a two year old. By the way how did it go tonight?” I asked but Drake had already told me what he had walked into.

“We did ok, he never stops though. I was constantly running after him, keeping him out of things, I don’t know how you’ve done it all this time by yourself.”

“I didn’t do it by myself; I’ve been lucky and had a lot of help.”

“Yea, I guess you have,” he said looking sad, I knew he was thinking about how he wasn’t one of the ones here helping, watching Jaks grow.

I reached into my bag and pulled out my journal. I detailed my days with Jaks in it, along with some of my favorite pictures; I thought Seth might like to look at it.

“Here, it’s the journal I told you about last night.”

He took it with a smile, “Thanks, Devi.”

“Seth I want you in his life, I want him to have his father, but I don’t know how we are going to make it work, I mean you’re always on tour.  When you’re not on tour you’re working in the studio. I’m just trying to figure out how we could possibly make this work.”

“I don’t know yet either, Devi, but I,
we
will make it work.”