“If one of them saw the stunt you just pulled—you chasing me out here—what would they think? Let me answer that question for you. They would have thought I was just as stupid as every other girl in Stevie’s band.”

He crosses his arms in front of him and looks amused¸ which pisses me off.

“I’m not. I’m not going to chase after you. I’m not going to let you try to have me waiting in the wings for you to use your, your ‘rock’ status to seduce me.”

He bites his lip and cocks his head to the side. “You done, None-ya?”

I throw my hands in the air, exasperated. “You smug son of a bitch—”

“You do have that correct.” He laughs haughtily.

“Stop playing with me. Forget about me. I don’t understand why you just won’t leave me alone. I mean, find someone else to have ‘under you,’ ” I sneer.

He grimaces, then clears his throat. “Did I chase after you this morning?”

“No, but—”

“But nothing. The minute you walked, I showered the scent of your pussy off my face, my beard, and my fingers. Then I scrubbed it out of my mouth with a fucking toothbrush. I erased your fucking print from my phone. You were gone, poof.” He makes an explosion with his hands. “Then I realized it was my fucking print I erased, so don’t kid yourself, None-ya. I don’t chase ass. Ass chases me.” He turns and stomps away.

I feel like an idiot. Each step he takes crushes me. And I know, each step he takes, he is deliberately doing so when he holds his middle finger up in the air at me.

***

I sit on the bed, finally holding my coat. Stevie had it. She said it was an accident. I know she was snooping through my phone, and I know there is no way in hell she found whatever it was she was looking for.

I keep my treasures locked safely away.

I click on the app, the one password protected with my most treasured photos.

I look at him and his perfect, beautiful, cherub face, and my heart immediately swells. Then I punch in the number, the one I have called almost every day for the past four years.

“Hello.” He is smiling; I can hear it and feel it.

“Noah,” I say, trying to mask the sadness in my voice.

“Mommy?”

I force a laugh. “Who else calls you?”

“You done with school? You coming home? I miss you. I have trucks, lots of them, and cars, and they are lined up in a row. Do you wanna play?” His words seem more pronounced than they did yesterday. How is that possible?

“School is fine,” I lie to him. I hate lying.

“When are you coming to visit? Auntie Margie is tired a lot. She can’t play. She coughs, too.”

“I’m not sure when I will be back to visit, but I will, Noah. I promise.”

“Cross your heart?” he asks.

“Eat a pie?” I reply.

“Say our prayers to the night sky,” he says with a little yawn.

“You in bed?”

I hear him moving, the clinking of the trucks. Then I hear them all drop into what I assume is a bin he keeps on the bookshelf I bought him when I was home last and Margie complained about the mess and disorganization. Finally, I hear the bed squeak.

“Am now. I picked up my toys, put them on a shelf.” He sounds so proud.

“You are such a good boy, Noah. I am so proud of you.”

“Did you pick up your toys?” he asks because we typically do it together.

“Sure did. You ready to tell me about your day?” I ask.

“Yep. I went to school.” His story continues for ten minutes until I hear him yawn again, and then I hear his little, sleepy voice, next the whisper voice, and then comes the part I hate.

“Okay, Noah, hang up. I love you, okay? Mommy loves you so much.”

“I lo—” He stops and yawns again. “Love you so much, too, Mommy.”

“Sweet dreams, sweet boy. I love you.”

Once we have hung up, I call Margie and endure her wrath for fifteen minutes. It’s the usual.

“How long will you be gone?” she asks.

“The tour ends October third. A few of the shows have a couple days between the next, so I may be able to fly in,” I answer.

“He needs you. I’m getting too old for this.”

I want to say, You insisted. You told me I could go to college so I could give him the life he deserves. You made me feel horrible for even thinking about giving him to a family who could have given him so much more. I want to scream, You did this, but she wasn’t the only one who made me feel like giving him away was wrong.

Instead, I thank her, then assure her the mortgage will be paid and that she will receive a little more money in the next few weeks, and she stops complaining.

***

I pick up the journal and open it to the page I always turn to when I am feeling low or down.

His dark hair, his dark eyes, the darkness that surrounds him is beautiful. He is beautiful, and he loves me. He loves me and wants to be a family.

He wants to protect me and save me from my self-doubt and from what he considers my problems. He loves me.

I deserve a family. I deserve it after all I have been through. So does he.

He is my dark knight.

Three pages later, she writes:

He is my light, my smile, my escape. He knows when I need to fly, and he soars with me. I feel freer with him, young, carefree, not old and held down, even though I am carrying our child. He assures me I can live like this forever. I believe him. I believe that all my troubles are behind me. I believe he is beside me and will be always.

I close the book and toss it on the nightstand. Reading the journal I found when I was forced to live away from my home is different now than it was when I was sixteen and pregnant.

Like everything in life, with age, we gain wisdom. It’s a pity this Jesse girl didn’t live long enough to realize it. She had a man who loved her, or at least, she said he did.

Each entry had a high and a low; each day was different. Hell, she was a mess, but so was I.

I believed I could be stronger than her, that when I was able to go back home after Aunt Margie finally moved into the house, and I could sleep in my own bed again, I would tell him I was pregnant. Then, just like Jesse, I would have someone who wanted a future with me.

I lie back and look at my phone, at my Noah. He is so precious, so beautiful, and deserves so much better than me. He deserves bedtime stories and hugs that are so tight they could never be broken. He deserves … more.

I place the phone on the hotel bed and begin packing up my things. It’s been months now, months that I have told him I am away at school, and Aunt Margie plays along. Of course she does. She is living the same privileged lifestyle she has always lived, even though all of our circumstances changed dramatically almost five years ago.

***

I am picked up by a Town Car at seven in the morning and taken to LaGuardia. After going through security, I wait to be called to my seat in first class. This is a first for me. Honestly, I would prefer to sit in business class. First class is wasteful.

Waste not, want not isn’t something I was raised to worry about. We had everything we could ever dream about and then some. Even after Father’s legal issues, Mother kept things unchanged. Well, all except for Father no longer living with us and her tearful performances when the detectives periodically checked in to question her about his whereabouts, which of course she didn’t have a clue about.

A year after he was gone, I remember breaking down, telling her I missed him. She rolled her eyes and told me he obviously didn’t miss me. I remember the hurt, the pain of hearing that from her, but what she disclosed next was far worse.

J.T. Silver was, in fact, not my real father. My real father was a lowlife nothing who also wanted nothing to do with me.