To Hate Adam Connor

Adam

Despite Dan’s objections, I felt I’d made the right choice asking for Lucy’s help. Yes, as far as we knew, she didn’t have any kind of background with kids, but I’d watched her with Aiden, and I’d heard plenty about her from Aiden. He was happy around her, and I wanted him happy. All of that aside, I knew she would keep him safe. She’d already done that once. Besides, Dan had done a background check on her the minute she’d left the house with the cops that day.

She was clean as a whistle.

The first day she was supposed to look after Aiden, Dan had insisted we put a small listening device on one of Aiden’s toys and make sure everything was okay throughout the day. I didn’t object; it was the safety of my son. Overkill? Who cares; my mind was at ease.

When I was over at Jason’s place to pick up Aiden, I was running on three hours of sleep. I had a grumbling Lucy sign the damn NDA then grumble some more, and I got out of there as soon as possible.

The second day, after I spent some time with Aiden, I found Lucy’s very firm ass climbing up the wall that separated Jason’s property from mine.

Apart from being a pain in the ass, she was doing her best to stay out of my way, which was a surprise for me considering she’d watched me and my son without our knowledge for God knew how long.

It was going to be the first night she’d spend in my house, and I preferred her to keep her distance as much as possible. I’d accepted her request only because I was out of options. Aiden had a tendency to disappear into himself when he wasn’t happy, and taking him to the set with me was out of the question. I would never forget how much I’d hated it when my parents took Vicky and me with them, only to forget about us for hours while they were lost in their own world. Sure, they had their assistants check up on us to make sure we were still breathing and behaving, but some days we barely even saw their faces. However, we made good props. Vicky, with her golden hair and big green eyes, was my mother’s choice of accessory. She used to dress her up and make sure she was seen, just so the paparazzi would get shots of them and talk about their fashion choices.

It was a similar thing with me and my father. Sure, we didn’t make the cover of tabloids with our fashion choices, but that wasn’t the point, was it? The Connor family was a brand and that was it.

Our best memories were the ones where we wouldn’t see our parents for months when they had location shoots. It wouldn’t be the same for Aiden. That was the whole point.

The third day, it was a very long day. Between trying to find a new PR firm to shooting extra scenes for the movie, I was swamped. Add in an argument with Adeline about Aiden, and another argument with the studio about my contract…and my day was completely fucked.

It was early morning when I made it home. Despite having been awake for more than thirty-six hours, I made sure to spend some time with Aiden before Dan drove him to his school.

The third day, I didn’t see Lucy Meyer’s smiling face.

The fourth day, when I came home, I found them sleeping on opposite sides of the same couch as Simba rolled around with Nala on the screen.

I stopped myself from going to their side and just watched them quietly.

Aiden was sleeping with his mouth wide open as always, his hands under his head. He murmured something and then softly kicked Lucy’s legs as he struggled to turn to his other side. My gaze strayed, and I found myself watching Lucy’s face. She was curled into herself, her knees tucked in. Her shoulder-length hair was tied up in a bun, giving me a clear view of her face. I could see a hint of her shoulder through the small opening of her T-shirt. She looked so innocent, the complete opposite of her usual loud self. If I hadn’t been listening in on Aiden and her, I don’t think I would’ve felt safe leaving him with her, but since I knew exactly how they spent their days through Dan, I was okay with my hasty decision.

The door behind me opened and closed, and Lucy stirred. I kept my eyes on her, waiting for her to wake up and accuse me of something, but other than the initial twitch of her shoulders, she stayed still.

“They’re down already?” Dan asked, coming to stand next to me.

“Looks like it.”

“She is good with him,” he said in a soft tone as he kept his eyes on the duo. “She is teaching him how to sing with her friend, and he is teaching them how to act. He is quite demanding, too.”

“Sounds like you had fun listening in on them.”

“Right,” he said shortly, and I smiled at his tone.

“She is a handful,” I commented, having trouble keeping my eyes away from her.

Dan grunted, so I forced myself to glance at him. I noticed his eyes were on Lucy, too.

I cleared my throat and headed toward the kitchen. After a second of hesitation, Dan followed me.

I opened the fridge to get some water.

“Everything looks okay. No one was waiting around tonight.”

“That’s good. They are on Adeline more than me.”

“How did your talk with her go? You think you’ll be able to convince her without going to court?”

Sighing, I leaned into the fridge. “You want something to drink?” I asked, taking out a bottle of water.

“I’ll skip.”

“No, she isn’t taking me seriously. I don’t know what she’s playing at, but it’s not gonna be as easy as we thought. I’d thought she’d be all over it since he is the reason she asked for a divorce in the first place, but maybe that wasn’t it at all. I have no idea what’s going on in that mind of hers.”

“Maybe she needs time. Maybe she is worried about what the public will think of her if she doesn’t fight for the custody of her son,” Dan suggested, casually leaning against the doorway.

“Maybe,” I said. I took a few sips of water. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe she’ll come around.”

God knew what the public thought of her, what her friends said behind her back mattered very much for Adeline. She wouldn’t be able to explain Aiden’s sudden absence from her life.

“Don’t worry, she will. Besides, it would be hard on Aiden if he just saw her over the weekends.”

“I want him with me, Dan,” I said, meeting his eyes. Dan was one of the very few people who knew almost everything about the Connor family, all the good and the bad.

“I know you do, boss, but these things take time. Let her be for a while. Let’s see what she’ll do now that she is free from all that was holding her back.”

Adeline’s words, not his.

I nodded and stayed silent.

Dan straightened and looked over his shoulder into the living room. “If you have everything under control here, I’ll leave.”

“Sure. I’ll call you later, but you don’t have to pick up Aiden tomorrow morning. I promised him I’d drop him off at his school. Then I have the meeting with the new PR firm.” I glanced at the clock on the wall: 11:00 PM. “Take the morning off if you want to. I’ll be on set after my meeting anyway.”

“I thought you were wrapping things up this week. Still shooting?”

“Yeah, Matthew—who was the director—wants to try a different ending and extend it with a few added scenes.”

“Okay, we’ll talk before I pick Aiden up,” Dan said, then paused at the mouth of the living room. “Do you need help carrying one of them to bed?” He lifted an eyebrow and waited for an answer. I had a guess at which one he was referring to, and I didn’t like it.

I threw the water bottle into the trashcan and walked to his side. They were still sound asleep.

“No. She’d probably make a scene and accuse us of assaulting her in her sleep.”

Dan chuckled. “True. True.” Turning his back to the view, he put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a serious look. “Be careful with her, Adam. She might be good with Aiden, but that doesn’t mean she’d be good with you.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Just warning you.”

“About what?” I asked, my voice hardening.

He lifted his hands up, palms out, and headed out after saying, “I see how you watch her. Just take it as advice from a friend, nothing more.”

I couldn’t be sure if he was warning me off because he was interested in the spitfire himself, or for a completely different reason. I shook it off and gathered Aiden in my arms as gently as possible.

His eyes fluttered open as I was tucking him into bed.

“Daddy?”

“Shhh,” I murmured, combing his hair back with my fingers.

His eyes barely open, he asked, “You won’t die yet, will you?”

The effects of Lion King…

“I won’t, little man. It’s time to go to sleep now.”

“Kay.” He nodded readily and pulled the covers up to his neck. “Lucy cried when Mufasa died, so I hugged her and told her it was all made up and she was being silly. I was right, wasn’t I?”

“She cried?”

“Uh-huh. Like really cried with tears and all, not fake cry like Penny from my class does. I hugged her and patted her back and made her laugh.”

“Good job, buddy,” I said, smiling. “Now, go back to sleep.”

“But I was right, wasn’t I? I did good?”

“You did good, Aiden.”

“Love you, Daddy.”

I pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Love you, too, Aiden.”

In seconds he was out.

As soon as I turned off the lights in Aiden’s room, my feet took me back to Lucy’s side.

So she cried for Mufasa…after all the times she told me how much she hated me, she had a heart after all.

I kneeled in front of her and waited for her to wake up and scream at me. When she didn’t, I surprised myself by reaching up and gently touching her exposed wrist. Maybe I did want her to wake up and scream at me. Maybe I did enjoy seeing that heat in her eyes, that flash of something I couldn’t exactly put a name on. My thoughts strayed to Adeline, how calm she was, how…soft, for lack of a better word. How much she had changed in just a few years…was I missing her? The old Adeline? Is that what this was?

Don’t get me wrong, Lucy looked soft in all the right places, but there was something about her that was solid. Real. For all her crazy, she was also normal, and I envied her for that freedom.

She knew who she was, and she had no problem showing herself to the world.

When she made a soft noise in her sleep, I got up, threw a thin blanket over her, and left her alone.

As much as I seemed to enjoy going head to head with her, I had to stop myself from getting close. Short or long, meaningful or meaningless—any kind of relationship with a fan was a bad idea, and Lucy Meyer was the worst kind of fan, the kind that wasn’t afraid to get in your face and force you to recognize her. My only focus was getting full custody of Aiden and giving him a new normal, and I had to remember that at all times. None of it mattered anyway; I’d find someone to look after Aiden while he spent his week with Adeline, and we wouldn’t see Lucy again.

I wasn’t looking for a quick lay—I’d had enough of those to last a lifetime—and I wasn’t looking for a relationship either. What I was looking for was my bed. I was tired and sleep-deprived. I needed to get at least a few hours of sleep in before another day started and we did all the same things all over again.