Page 11 of The Fix

“Don’t worry, hun.” I hold a hand out in offering. “I’ll make it quick.”

The woman leans in, close enough that her thighs touch the tabletop, and her grimace grows into a forced grin. “That’s what you said last time I saw you.”

What?

Confusion contorts my features, making me drop my hand when she slaps papers over top of the few posters strewn before me. It’s some kind of typed-up, official-looking paperwork with a signature line at the bottom and a complete contrast to the band posters beneath.

“Sign this,” she hisses through gritted teeth. “Or I go public.”

I feel like I’m the mouse caught by the tail.

“The fuck is this?”

“You know exactly what this is,” she whispers and taps a chipped black nail on the papers.

Is she trembling?

My gaze flips to Mac, my brow furrowed, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. “Okay, c’mon. Where are the cameras?”

I force a chuckle that goes unreciprocated. Because Mac looks just as dumbfounded as me.

This has to be a shitty joke.

Right?

“No cameras if you sign,” the chick responds, her eyes darkening, her tight smile thinning.

“There a problem here?” I spare a glance at the papers when Lugh’s voice cuts in and double-take. I’m up out of my seat like it’s on fire, sweat prickling my brow as I fist the sheets the chick laid out for me. Only a few of the printed words register in my head.

Words like child bounce around inside my skull and threaten to pop out.

Child.

“There’s definitely a fuckin’ problem,” I growl to the bodyguard who appears at my side and accepts the shitstorm in my hands. Without another word, Lugh rounds the table and grabs the chick by her elbow. Her face drops when the bodyguard turns her away from me and she begins to struggle.

“Hey! Let go of me—”

“Hell no,” Lugh responds, and even though he moves them another step away from me, my stomach drops.

No way it’s real.

Is it real?

“Get off me,” the woman nearly screams, gaining just enough attention from those around her, promising a scene if Lugh doesn’t get her the fuck out of here. “Let go, or I’ll sue—”

“We gotta go.” I feel eyes on me. Hands. Cameras. The whispered comments filling the room as it goes silent aside from the grating feminine voice beside me, urging my feet to move. “Jeffers, go. Now.”

It can’t be real.

Fake pregnancies and pretend babies have happened with As Above. It’s one of the easiest ways to get attention in our world. But none of them have ever had paperwork.

Real life, honest-to-the courts paperwork.

My head spins. My feet shuffle. My hearing tunnels as I wrack my memory and try to place her face.

Did I ever sleep with her?

Why can I not remember her?

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