The Space In Between(33)

I shrugged. I couldn’t tell who it was, so we approached with caution. The man’s head was resting in his lap as Ladasha got closer and poked him with her heel. My heart got stuck in my throat, noticing the old, scuffed up brown shoes…I knew who it was.
“Hey, freak. This isn’t a homeless shelter. Get the hell out of here before we call the cops, assho—” Ladasha’s voice trailed off as she stared into eyes that were now slowly waking up.
Oh no. “What are you doing here?” I asked, watching him stand.
“Well, after going to the diners that didn’t have any clue who the hell you were, and calling your cell phone one hundred times, I tracked down your apartment. And I’ve been waiting here since six in the afternoon to find you. And clearly now it’s…” He brought his watch to his eyes and looked back to me. “It’s two in the morning.”
I choked back my words, shaking my head, “No. What are you doing in New York?”
“Looking for you, Anders! Mom is freaking out! You didn’t come for Thanksgiving, she said you weren’t coming for Christmas, and we haven’t heard from you in weeks!” My older brother Eric was here, in New York City, in front of my apartment. And I was holding a box with bras, whips, and chains. This had the possibility of getting extremely awkward.
His eyes landed on the box, they traveled to my fake nails, heavy makeup, and then they shifted back to the box. “What the hell is going on, Andrea?!”


Chapter Twenty

HEY, WHAT’S UP? I typed into the message. No. Delete, delete, delete. We should talk. Talk? Talk about what? How my wife was blackmailing me to never talk to Andrea again? How her secret would be world news if I were seen with her in public? It was two in the damn morning and I couldn’t stop pacing this hotel room. I really needed to get my own place as soon as possible.
I fell onto my bed, blankly staring at my cell phone. Son of a bitch. I needed to call.
“Hello?” the tired, but deep, voice said on the other line.
“Kyle. I need advice.” I was desperate, so I reached out to the one person who I knew wouldn’t hate me for calling at ridiculous times during the night.
“I f*cking hate you,” he whined. He didn’t mean it.
“Seriously. I don’t know what to do. Iris is blackmailing me. I can’t see Andrea and she has no clue why. And I can’t tell her because Iris is threatening to expose her darkest secrets. And I f*cking miss her. And I don’t just mean the sex. I mean her, Ky.” I ran my fingers over my eyebrows, allowing realization to set in. I missed Andrea more than I have ever missed anything.
“You know what you need?”
My ears perked up, ready to hear his advice. The last time he gave me advice, I ran into Andrea. So I was anxious for some of his knowledge.
“You need to be single for awhile. Clearly you can’t f*ck and leave it at that. You get all twisted in emotions like a little bitch.” He was extra harsh today; he must have been really tired. “You need to deal with your issues with Iris. Deal with your dad issues. And I mean really f*cking deal. Stop burying that shit and stop thinking that finding a second choice will make it better. Listen, I was up late helping a friend out of a sticky situation. I’m tired, all right? I’m going to sleep, *.”
I sat in my dark hotel room again. With my thoughts. Fuck my thoughts. I didn’t want to be thinking about her, but she wouldn’t get out of my head. I sure as hell didn’t want to be thinking about him, but there he was, in my mind. I wanted everything about my past to disappear, but the memories started to resurface.





I’D STOOD BEFORE my father after he returned home from a heavy night of drinking. He stumbled into the living room, where Mom had fallen asleep waiting for his arrival. He walked past me, shoving me in the shoulder. “Get the hell outta my way, kid.”
I had enough; I couldn’t stand the hollowness of his words. I shoved him back, telling him that I would be better than him. I would never lay my hands on a woman, never drink, and I’d be a better father than he could ever be.
His laughter was dark when he looked me in the eyes. I could smell the rum on his breath as he whistled a tune. Grabbing me by the chin, he pulled me close to his face, and his voice lowered. “You see what you’re looking at right here, Cooper?”
My body tensed up and I narrowed my eyes, wanting to knock the jerk to the ground, but even as a drunk, he was ten times stronger than me. “Look real close, real f*cking close into my eyes, son. You see what’s there? That’s your damn future.”
“No it’s not.”He was wrong. He was wrong. He was…
He shoved me again, chuckling in a wicked tone. “Yup, it is. You’re exactly your father’s son. You can try your hardest to run from it, but the apple don’t fall far from the damn tree, kid.”





I SPENT YEARS proving him wrong, being a better person, giving back to the community, and loving my wife the best way I knew how. And when she became pregnant, I knew I would be better than him. I was ready to be a dad. A damned good one at that. I just didn’t plan for what happened next.
The first time she had a miscarriage, I wasn’t there.
I’d been doing voiceovers for our reality show. Iris had finished her voiceover work earlier that day and headed to her doctor’s appointment. She kept calling me on my cell phone, but I didn’t answer. I had to get the work done so the editing process could begin. The world of television worked on a time schedule, and if you didn’t show up and do your job, you could cost the network a shit-ton of money. My wife could wait, seeing as how she’d dragged me into this f*cked up world of reality television.