Page 62 of Timeless: Encore

Carter keeps staring the picture. “When I went to see her at the bar, she looked—and acted—rough, but I remember thinking at the time I might have known her at one point. Huh.” He bores a hole in the photo with his laser-beam eyes. “You have the paternity info? I wonder if maybe I’ll know the dude. You’re, what? Three months older than Zane? Limelight was still playing the clubs around then. It’s certainly possible.”

No. No. No.

Ty fidgets a bit. “The main reason I wanted to talk is to confess something else that happened when I started spending time with you both and Jada realized who you were, Carter. She demanded that I steal Limelight stuff from your house. She said the band ‘owed’ her.’ I promise, I never took anything. I would never …”

Carter scoffs, “Of course, you didn’t.”

“I’d never think that.” I’m now on complete autopilot. All of this is…a lot. It’s not the time for this conversation.

Today is my day.Fee’s day. I’m bordering on pissed.

Ty shifts in his seat. Pauses. Shakes his head and looks at Carter with slight trepidation. “Is there any reason she’d say that? Before I open this, I thought I’d better ask if she knew the other guys in the band? I mean, you were with Lianne? …”

“Fuck. Those days are a blur. But, yeah. It seems about the time when Lianne and I were together.” He scrubs his chin with his hand thoughtfully. “Man, she played hard to get, I was so fuckin’ smitten. We were together for only a minute before she got pregnant with Zane.”

Ty and I exchange glances, both of us suspecting the old “wear a condom” lecture is coming on. A lecture I feel a certain kind of way about.

Carter’s gravelly voice warbles on. “I cleaned up for her. She was worth it. Before that? I was no angel. None of us in the band were. There’s a reason I lectured all you guys about wearing condoms. We all fucked all the women. We snorted all the coke. Smoked all the weed. Drank copious amounts of alcohol. I remember so little of it. Fuck, man. I’m surprised we were productive at all.”

Jesus God. I can’t take this much longer.

Ty waves his hands at my dad to stop the madness. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Carter. I just don’t want to ruin some guy’s life. Especially if it was someone in your band.”

“It’s fine, Ty.” Carter’s voice is calm. soothing. “You can’t change the past, you have to own up to it. I fucked up a lot of relationships. With Lianne. Zane. My band. Doesn’t change the fact that back then it was nonstop partying and fucking. None of us cared about consequences. We didn’t even think about them.”

Kill me now.I’ma fucking consequence, doesn’t he see how hurtful these comments are?

Ty flaps the envelope around. “Well, anyway, these are my paternity results. As I said, I’m afraid of fucking up some guy’s life who has no idea he has a kid. Or another kid, as the case might be. I thought, since you are both dads, and you’re basically my dad, Carter, I’d ask for your advice. What do you think?”

“You’regonna be a dad. What doyouthink?“ I halfheartedly knock his shoulder with my fist.

“I’d wanna know.” He nods. Then owns it and says definitively, “I’d wannaknow.”

Ah, fuck it. Now I wanna find out which of Carter’s bandmates is Ty’s dad. “Me too.”

“I’d want to know.” Carter stands. “But, yeah. Once you find out, you’ll have to decide how to approach it.”

Ty waves the envelope. “Should I open it? Now? Rip the bandage off?”

I change my mind again. This is a terrible idea. “Uh, maybe you should do this with Zoey.”

“Zoey and I discussed talking it over with her first, but I think she’d be okay with me doing this with you guys. In fact, I think she’ll be proud of me.” Ty grabs a plastic knife from the hospitality table. Slices open the envelope. He faces me and Carter, pulls out the paper. Shakes it.

Stares at the paper.

I stare at Ty.

Watch his face morph from curiosity into utter devastation.

Then white-hot rage.

The next three seconds are a little like this: You’re driving a hundred miles an hour. Racing down the freeway. You press on the gas. Accelerate. And then, all of a sudden, you see it. The brick wall that’s a hundred yards away. In front of your windshield. It gets closer and closer. The car’s going so fast, you aren’t going to be able to stop. Your body knows this. Your mind knows this.

Somehow, you don’t even want to.

Stop.

And then …

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