Page 38 of Sustain

. . .

Plastic Heart

Ian

I shut the study door, my pulse spiking at the string of demanding voicemails and texts from Brianna blinking insistently on my phone screen. Bracing myself, I hit call back, fervently praying Mackenzie can’t overhear through walls.

My ex launches in without preamble. “There you are. Why haven’t you answered about Christmas plans? I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”

I pinch my nose, letting her diatribe wash over me. Of course, she assumes I’ll drop everything as soon as she snaps her fingers. While she’s not a completely horrible person, she’ll also never change.

“For your information, I’m currently snowed in and have been without power or cell service until just now.”

She sighs as if she doesn’t believe me. “It doesn’t snow in LA, Ian. I’m not stupid. You can just say you’ve hooked up with someone, you know.”

I grit my teeth, trying desperately not to fall into old patterns of arguments with her. “I’m not in LA, Brianna, I’m in Aspen if you must know. We were hit with a blizzard.”

She’s silent for a moment as if having to adjust her attitude takes time. “Oh. Well. I need you to come get the girls for the holidays. Axel is taking me to Tenerife for Christmas.”

The nerve of her thinking I’ll ferry our daughters back and forth to her whims despite the holiday only being a week away is typical Brianna. The thought of seeing my daughters in person again after so long is beyond tempting, but being ordered to do it has me bristling. Plus, I don’t even know if I could given the band’s touring schedule, which isn’t etched in my brain yet.

“The girls would love to see you, wouldn’t you girls?” She holds the phone out and I can hear my girls cheer excitedly in agreement at the idea. My chest tightens with guilt at the sound of their voices. Exactly what their mother intended. “See? They miss their father.”

“Brianna enough,” I hiss once she pauses for air. “You can’t just announce you won’t be around and expect me to collect the girls last minute from the other side of the world. I don’t even know where I’ll be on Christmas. And, how dare you--”

She interrupts me and her tone turns icy. “Your mother already agreed that it’s a wonderful idea, and she can watch them some of the time. But apparently, I have to tell you since you clearly can’t be bothered to call your own flesh and blood...”

My chest tenses further at the unfair accusation, breath coming sharp and fast as my blood pressure rises. But before I can spit the furious rebuttal clogging my throat, a muffled sound from the other room reminds me to lower my voice again. I curse internally. Nothing about this conversation can reach Mackenzie’s ears. Not now. Not yet.

Brianna and my mother now have me cornered, and I don’t have a lot of options. My girls are my priority and leaving them with my mother is simply out of the question. The last thing I need is another person bad-mouthing me to them. I’m sure they get enough of that from Bri.

Sighing, I make a split-second decision. “Fine. Let me figure out what’s going on here, and I’ll get back to you later today or tomorrow, alright? Just don’t promise them anything yet. Please.”

I have to add that last part because she’s also been known to build up expectations in my daughters that I have no way of living up to. Which makes me constantly out to be the bad guy.

“Oh, I won’t,” she says, her tone sickly sweet, and I don’t buy it for a minute.

“Did you at least get the presents I sent for them already?” I ask, knowing she did because I saw that she signed for them. But coming from me, God only knows what she did with them.

“I did, but I haven’t looked at them yet.” Now that she’s getting her way, she sounds distracted and bored with our conversation.Too bad.

“Well, they’re not foryouto look at. They’re for June and Hayley,” I say, starting to pace again. The back of my mind is already leaping ahead to the next steps I’ll need to take to get to London.

“I know…”

This is useless. “Right. Well, I’ll be in touch,” I announce, hanging up. Right when I do, my phone runs out of the limited juice it got during the brief second it charged.

I toss my phone on the desk, and go back to pacing, raking my fingers through my hair. This is a mess. This is afuckingmess. How the hell am I going to handle this now?

twenty-five

. . .

In the Name of Love

Mackenzie

Ian stays sequestered in the study for so long that eventually, my curiosity overrides my patience. Limping to the closed door, I rap gently. “Everything okay in there?”

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