~ The Day After Return from NY ~
** Ding Dong **
Alexia heard small feet pounding toward the door for a minute before it opened, revealing her son.
“Mama!” he exclaimed, hugging her tightly.
“Hey, sweetie!” she said, embracing him back. “Are you ready to go?” she asked, watching Justin as he neared them.
“Yeah!”
“Then where are your shoes?” Justin asked Josh.
“Oops,” he smiled before running off to fetch his shoes.
“So… when do you plan on bringing him home?” he asked Alexia, trying to make small talk.
“I’m not sure exactly. It’ll be after dinner though.”
“As long as it’s before 9 o’ clock. Because you know that’s his bedtime.” Justin peered slightly over her shoulder, noticing JC was waiting for them in the car. “JC is joining you two today?” he questioned lightly.
“Yes, he is. He’s Josh’s godfather, Josh adores him, and he adores Josh.”
“I know.”
“Mama, we can go now!” Josh yelled, running past her.
“Ok,” she turned to follow him to the car.
“Nine o’ clock!” Justin shouted after them just before she climbed into the vehicle and they drove off.
~ The Next Day ~
** Ding Dong **
Justin opened the door to see Alexia standing there, just as she had been yesterday.
“Is Josh ready to go?” she asked him politely.
“Almost,” he said, looking around her to see JC in the car again. “JC’s going again today?”
“Yes.” Her answer was short and vague.
“I’m ready, mama!” Josh said, moving toward her.
“Alright, honey. Let’s go,” she grabbed his hand and walked with him to the car. “Bye, Justin,” she waved over her shoulder.
And that’s pretty much how the rest of the week went. Alexia and JC would come pick up Josh at the house after school let out, and they’d take him to places like the zoo, the park, out for ice cream, etc. And on Friday, he even spent the night over at JC’s house with them.
Justin didn’t like the fact that Josh was spending so much time with Alexia, and JC. What right did JC have? Moving in on Alexia like that. And Josh as well! It was as if JC were trying to take Justin’s place. Or was Alexia trying to replace him with someone else? Either way, Justin didn’t like it at all. And he was almost to his breaking point.
Alexia brought Josh home on the Saturday afternoon after he’d spent the night at JC’s house with her.
Immediately after she left, Josh started telling his father about the previous night. Being the good father that he was, Justin paid close attention to what Josh said, even though he didn’t want to hear it.
“I had so much fun, Dad!” Josh started, sitting down on the couch next to Justin. “First, Uncle JC and Mama took me to the park, and we played catch, and Uncle JC pushed Mama on the swings. He tried to push me, but I showed him that I could do it myself, and Mama said she was proud of me. Then, we ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Then, we went back to Uncle JC’s house and I played basketball with him. Then, Mama let me have ice cream, and we watched movies. Uncle JC convinced her to let me stay up till 11!”
“That was nice of him.”
“Yeah! And he also let me sleep in his room! His room is so cool!”
“Then where did he sleep?”
“Well, Uncle Chris was already asleep in his room, so he said he would sleep on the couch. But Mama said no, she would sleep on the couch. And they fought about it, but decided to share her room in the end.”
“WHAT?”
“Um… I said…”
“I know. I heard you. They shared a room.”
“Yeah. Wasn’t that nice of Mama to share her bed with Uncle JC?”
“Oh yeah, she’s the best. Why don’t you go put your stuff away? Grandma invited us over for dinner tonight, so we’ll be leaving soon.”
“Ok, Dad,” Josh ran up the stairs to his room.
“Sharing a bed? No, it had to be innocent. They wouldn’t do that with Josh so close to them. Plus, she still wants me. Right? Right. I just have to go talk to her. I’ll go while Josh is in school on Monday,” Justin gave himself a pep talk.
~ Monday ~
“Maybe I should call to make sure JC isn’t there,” Justin thought out loud, “Yeah.”
He picked up the phone and dialed the number. After two rings, someone picked up.
“Hello?” the voice asked.
Recognizing the voice as Alexia’s, he suddenly wasn’t sure what to say.
“Hello?” she asked again. “Hello?”
Finally, he just hung up the phone. “Shit! That went well, Timberlake. If you can’t even talk to her on the phone, how do you expect to talk to her in person?” Gathering his pride and courage together, he decided to try again. This time, the phone rang three times before there was an answer.
“Hello?” a male voice said this time.
“Hey, Chris,” Justin replied, with some relief that it wasn’t Alexia. “Is JC home right now?”
“No. He left to run errands a while ago.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you want to leave him a message, Justin?”
“No, no message. Bye, Chris.”
“Bye.”
They both hung up. Justin threw his shoes on and headed for the door.
“Good. No JC, which means I have plenty of time to talk to her without interruptions.”
~ At JC’s House ~
“Alex, what is wrong with you?” JC asked in frustration as they settled down in the hot tub. “You’ve been in a weird mood all day.”
“I just… I can’t… I can’t stop thinking about him. Every day I’ve gone over there to pick up Josh, and he’s just had this look on his face. A look that I can’t even explain. There’s just so much hate in his eyes. And when he sees you in the car, his eyes darken and he becomes short with me, like I’m not even worth his time or something.”
“You,” he pointed at her, “need to stop worrying about him. I promise you, he will come around. But in the meantime…” he grinned an evil grin, “I want to see that beautiful smile of yours.” He lunged for her and pinned her where she sat. His hands attacked her sides, tickling her mercilessly.
“No… JC!…” she squealed in between laughs, “Stop!… Don’t!”
“Not until you promise to stop moping.”
Justin rang the doorbell and waited for an answer. Chris opened the door and told him that she’d gone out to the Jacuzzi to relax. He moved quickly through the house, to the sliding glass doors that led to the backyard. The scene before him paralyzed him in front of the door.
There she was. Sitting in the Jacuzzi in a small bikini, with HIM. His so-called “brother” was hovering over her body, their faces just inches apart. And she was smiling up at him like it was the best day of her life.
As his heart broke, he saw red. In an anger and pain that couldn’t be expressed in words, he punched the glass door suddenly. Cracking the glass and breaking the skin stretched over his knuckles.
A loud bang caught the attention of Alexia and JC, who immediately turned their eyes toward the house. Through the cracked glass, they saw an infuriated Justin watching them.
“Oh no,” Alexia abruptly pushed JC off of her and climbed out of the Jacuzzi. She watched as he turned around and began to walk away, so she followed after him.
He’d just gotten in his car and buckled his seatbelt when she got through the front door. He stared at her for a moment, the angry glare cutting into her heart, before he peeled out of the driveway.
“No,” she whispered, not wanting to believe this was happening.
She turned around and ran back in the house. She was throwing on a shirt and shorts over her swimsuit when JC walked into her room.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m going after him,” she answered as she picked up her car keys and brushed past him.
He grabbed her elbow to prevent her from going any farther. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?” she asked incredulously.
“I mean, you can’t go after him right now.”
“And why not?”
“He’s upset and angry. So angry that if you go try to talk to him now, he’s only going to yell and hurt you more.”
“Then what am I supposed to do? Did you see his face? His eyes? You didn’t see the glare he gave me before he drove off. He hates me. Even more so than he did before. So what am I supposed to do?”
“Let him cool off, and then go talk to him. Talking to him now would be pointless and painful to you. He needs to calm down because right now he is very irrational.”
“You’re right. I just hope this hasn’t completely screwed up my relationship with him, as well as his friendship with you.”
“Don’t worry. I have faith that everything will be fine, and you should too.”
~ The Next Day ~
While Josh was at school, Alexia decided to go and talk to Justin. She rang the doorbell and waited for him to answer. Finally, the door opened to reveal him standing there in just a pair of sweatpants.
“What are YOU doing here?”
“We need to talk. May I come in?”
His only answer was hesitantly opening the door, then shutting it behind her. She followed him into the living room.
Damn, he looks good. She stared at his strong back as she walked behind him. Beads of sweat shone on his skin. Must’ve been working out.
He dropped himself onto the easy chair, and she followed suit, sitting on the couch, facing him.
She saw that his hand was wrapped in a bandage. “Is your hand ok?” she asked.
“It’s just cut up a little. I’ll live.”
“I guess that’s what you get for punching glass, smart guy. Anyway, that’s the reason I’m here. I wanted to explain what you saw yesterday.”
“Oh, really? This should be interesting.”
“Before I can explain, I need to know exactly how much you saw.”
“Ok. I saw my whore of an ex-girlfriend all over my best friend, dressed in a skimpy bikini that looked like less material than fucking underwear. That’s what I saw.”
“I am NOT a whore!”
“Oh please. You’ve been all over JC since the moment you walked out my door, and probably even before that. Was I not enough for you? Does he fuck you better than I do? He must be good if you’re screwing him with Josh in the next room. Can’t even go without it for one night, huh? Damn. I’m gonna have to ask him for some pointers.”
“I’m NOT sleeping with JC.”
“You actually expect me to believe that? I saw you two at the New Year’s Eve party. You were together all night, and you left together. He’s with you every time you come to pick up Josh. And yesterday, you were practically making out in his fucking hot tub. I saw it with my own two eyes. I watched you!”
“I’m not screwing JC, but you’re obviously not going to believe me no matter what I say. And while we’re on the topic of New Year’s Eve, you have no room to talk. You were pretty much fucking that girl in the limo, with me and JC sitting right there.”
“Hey, I was horny, and my usual lay was with my best friend, so I had to turn elsewhere.”
“That’s all I am to you? A good fuck?”
“I never said you were good,” he smirked. “Easy is more accurate.”
Her hand made a loud sound as it connected with his cheek. “Fuck you, Justin! You can go to hell. I HATE you!” Tears were streaming down her face as she walked out of the house, leaving him in the living room.
He stood there for a moment in shock, “She hit me… I can’t believe she hit me.” He sat silently for a few more minutes, letting everything that had just happened sink in. “Ok, yes I can believe it. What the hell was I thinking? I called her easy? Oh, God, she’s never gonna forgive me for that one. What am I gonna do?”
Picking up the phone, he dialed a familiar number. After four rings, someone picked up the phone.
“Hello?” a groggy voice asked.
“Lance? I need to talk to you.”
“Justin?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s 10 in the morning on a day we don’t have to work. Why are you calling me?”
“I need your advice.”
“On what?”
“Alexia just left my house, after bitch-slapping me and saying she hates me.”
“And why did she do that?”
“I called her a whore and told her she was just an easy lay.”
“Why the hell would you say that?” Lance yelled into the phone.
“I was angry. I went over to C’s house yesterday to talk to her and apologize for how I’d been acting, and I found them in the Jacuzzi together, and he was all over her.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t what it looked like.”
“He was on top of her, Lance.”
“Justin, we all know that she wants to be with you, not JC. So why are you doing stupid shit like this? You have no reason to be jealous of JC, and you know it.”
“But she was all over another guy.”
“All the more reason you should stop acting like a prick and try to get her back.”
“Hey, whose side are you on, here?”
“The right one.”
“Thanks,” Justin mumbled sarcastically.
“Just lettin’ ya know the truth, man.”
“I just don’t understand it. I don’t know why I keep fighting with her. It’s like I can’t control my emotions around her or something.”
“It’s called love.”
“No. I don’t think that’s it. Maybe I just thought that’s what it was. Maybe I just wanted Josh to have his mom.”
“He has her. He's had ever since she came back. The only issue was you. Think about that for a while. Now, since I’m fully awake, I should go and get ready for the day. See ya.”
“Bye.”
After hanging up the phone, Justin sat thinking about how he could make up for his mistakes. “If she’ll even take me back,” he thought out loud.
~ At JC’s House ~
“Where did you go?” JC called to Alexia as she came through the front door. Looking at her and seeing the tears streaked down her face, he knew immediately where she’d gone. “You didn’t.”
She nodded her head as he embraced her in a hug. “He called me a whore. And he said all I was to him was an easy lay. I never meant anything to him, JC.”
“Of course you did. He’s just upset still. I told you to give him time to cool down.”
“I just didn’t want to give him too much time and have him think that I didn’t care anymore.”
“He didn’t mean it,” he wiped the tears from her eyes.
“Then he wouldn’t have said it. That’s it. I’m giving up on him. I knew I never should’ve come back.”
“That’s nonsense. If you hadn’t come back, then you wouldn’t be with Josh now. And that’s who’s most important.”
“I know. Why couldn’t you have been his father?”
“Because you love Justin, and we would never work out anyway.”
“True.”
“You’re not really giving up on him, are you?”
“Yes. There’s no point. What we had was in the past, and I never should’ve tried to mix the past with the present. He obviously doesn’t care anymore, so why should I? I’ll just keep going to see Josh, and try to forget about Justin.”
“If that’s what you really want.”
“It’s not what I want, but it’s what I need. I’m going to my room. If you need me, you know where to find me.”
“Ok.”