Good evening!

The crew walked out at noon, and by one o’clock, Wilford was in the conference room listening to someone act like his entire life was over because he’d refused to raise wages. Wilford was done. He was barely listening, even as the insults began to fly his way. Nichola fielded every last one of them, baffling the men on the screen as she took the union’s side on the matter.

“We did try to warn you,” she said. “Multiple times. This has been coming for a long time, but you looked the other way. This could have been prevented before the idea even formed.”

Then, something exploded outside. Without even thinking, Wilford got up. Explosions were more interesting than this crap.

“Does he ever stay for these?” one of the men on the TV asked.

Wilford left the room just in time to hear Nichola say no. She wasn’t exactly lying, and it shouldn’t have been new information.

Several people were already crowded at the front door, craning to look out toward the street. Joining them, Wilford could just make out a large plume of black smoke down the road. His curiosity fully getting the better of him, Wilford stepped through the crowd and walked outside. As he neared the sidewalk, he could see a big, black WEZL van crashed into a fire hydrant about twenty feet away from a burning car, while a man ran in circles and jumped up and down with a jerry can.

“Madness! The entire city!” he shouted. “You can’t escape it! We all need to form a new society before this one crumbles!”

Wilford recognised that voice. It was impossible not to. He walked up to a small crowd that had formed closer by in the middle of the intersection, where two old men on a scooter watched. The older man in front shouted at Ron Otterman to make sense, while his friend behind him casually and lazily lined up a shot with his pistol.

“What is going on?” Wilford asked.

“Ron Otterman has lost his fucking mind,” the man with the gun said. “Think I should shoot it?”

His older friend turned back to see what was happening. “No, you fucking idiot! We’re too close!” He immediately started to back up his scooter away from the taco truck that had been left abandoned in the intersection, pools of gasoline spreading out from under it.

Otterman raged and threw the empty jerry can, replacing it with his lighter. Some of the vehicular crowd began to speed off, but Otterman didn’t light the gasoline. Instead, he looked up in his rantings.

“You know all about it, Warfstache! I know you do! You wouldn’t be here right now if you didn’t!”

He threw his lighter into the gasoline on the street and ran, disappearing behind the exploding taco truck. The old men followed Otterman, taking a wide arc around the explosion, but he was already gone. As the smoke settled into another tall column, Wilford could see the van had disappeared as well. Wherever Otterman had gone, he was sure to crop back up again shortly. The freelancers on the internet would be following him in no time.

This location wasn’t an accident. WEZL wasn’t based in Vinewood. Otterman had come out here to make a point, and Wilford had a good idea about what. Otterman followed Wilford’s school of journalism, reporting on the more sinister topics while making them outlandish and stupid enough for people to watch and spread like fringe fake news. He wasn’t a stupid man. He knew something, and he wanted Wilford to know about it. The ball was in his court now, but he had to be careful. Alliances were still being drawn, and Otterman could have been on anyone’s side.

For now, Wilford put it on the back burner and returned to the studio. The crowd at the front door had already broken up and got back to work, leaving Wilford with little excuse to continue to linger. He returned to the meeting, sitting back down as if nothing had happened.

“What was that?” Nichola asked.

“Ron Otterman has lost his fucking mind,” Wilford said, going right on along with the narrative that had already been painted.

Nichola looked surprised for a moment, and then took advantage of the TV men’s wrong-footedness at the situation and barreled ahead with her demands for the future.

“Otterman?” one of the TV men said, cutting her off and ignoring her completely.

WEZL was a CBN syndicate. Sure enough, a phone somewhere on the other side of the TV screen rang, and the conference was cut short. Wilford picked up the remote to turn off the TV, and nodded for Nichola to follow him out of the building. She did, both of them getting into Wilford’s car. He had no particular destination in mind, pulling out into traffic and giving Otterman’s disaster a wide berth.

“He knows something,” Wilford said. “I don’t know what, but something.”

Nichola nodded, turning in her seat to look at the burning taco truck as it fell into the distance. “You sure it’s not just Ron being… Ron?” she asked.

Wilford thought about it for a few seconds. “No, he knows something,” he decided. His phone rang as he drove, and he spared a second to glance at his watch to see who it was. Unsurprisingly, it was Mark for the eighth time that day. “Fuck you,” he said as he cancelled the call by tapping his watch.

“The… ex again?” Nichola guessed.

Wilford answered by rolling his eyes. “I still owe him a couple of black eyes,” he said. Fighting other people’s battles wasn’t normally something he went out of his way to do, but this one felt necessary. But this was not the time. He sighed and shook his head. “So, the network’s clearly pissed. How’s your stuff going?”

“I was hoping to have a little more time,” Nichola said. “We have the space, but it’s not ready for anything. I didn’t want to launch to coincide with the strike, but I thought it would have been better if we could launch just before. If we also took a hit, it would deflect attention from us.”

Wilford nodded. He’d tried to stay as ignorant of the strike as possible, just to cover his own ass, but now it was all out in the open. “When are you looking at?” he asked.

“Mid-August, I think,” Nichola said. “What about you? Any progress?”

“I need to follow up with Ramon, but he’s never around, and between her and the kid and I don’t even have time to take a piss, much less wait around for him to show back up.” He didn’t want to complain, but he hadn’t had a moment’s peace since Celine and Mark had their explosive breakup.

“Maybe Ron losing his mind will get the press looking elsewhere,” Nichola said. Wilford hoped she was right, and suspected she was. Otterman had made an absolute spectacle, even if it was obvious bait, but the idiot had mentioned Wilford by name and opened up the chance for it to backfire.

Wilford’s phone rang again, and again he cancelled the call. Mark did not deserve his attention, and he wasn’t going to get it and live to tell about it.

“We’ll see,” he said.

After about an hour of driving around and discussing their plan in private, Wilford swung back by the studio to drop Nichola off at her car. With Vinewood closed for business indefinitely, he had no reason at all to stay there. He had other business to attend to from home, where nobody who mattered could overhear.

After chasing a couple of suspicious cars away from his gate, Wilford debated replacing it with a more obstructive option as he pulled into the garage. Inside, he found Michael and Celine downstairs playing with the enormous dollhouse, but he spared only the briefest greetings before heading upstairs. He walked into his office and closed the door behind him, hoping to convey that his business was private, and not to be disturbed. He didn’t think he had Otterman’s number, but he picked up his phone book and started looking through it anyway as he sat down. A few moments later, he surprised himself to find a number for Ron Otterman near the back, under W.

With WEZL being the CBN local syndicate, they’d crossed paths a dozen times or more since Wilford had moved to the west coast. He didn’t remember ever swapping numbers, but there was a lot he didn’t remember. Showing up to events high on three different things tended to have that effect.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed the number, surprised again when he got an answer from a live human being.

“Who is this? How did you get this number?” Otterman barked on the other end.

“You mind telling me why you felt the need to blow up my sidewalk today?” Wilford asked in turn.

“Warfstache. Good. I knew you were smart. And I know you’re up to something. I want to know what it is.” Wilford could hear the rumble of a diesel engine in the background. Otterman was probably still cruising around in his van somewhere.

“Nope,” Wilford said. “What makes you think I’m the kind of idiot to tell the press anything?” He leaned back in his seat, watching the dogs run around outside through the glass doors.

“Most people are. Never hurts to try,” Otterman said, a moment before he leaned on his horn. “I heard you adopted a kid. What the hell possessed you to do a thing like that?”

“Not for the press to know. You could ask me what I had for breakfast and get the same answer.” Wilford knew Otterman’s tactics worked, because he used them himself sometimes. He’d have probably tried the same thing if the situation was reversed.

“Damn, Warfstache. You’re doing something shady with the unions. You’re fucking another man’s wife. You’ve adopted a kid for some nefarious reason. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re a dangerous man.”

“Good thing you know better.” Otterman was, of course, right. But as long as he didn’t know what he was right about, Wilford was safe.

“So, what’d you have for breakfast?” Otterman asked.

Wilford shook his head. “Call me back when you lose your job,” he said, and hung up. He took a moment to just enjoy the silence of a room all to himself. With Vinewood ground to a halt, he no longer had an excuse to leave the house when he needed to. He already hated it. He got a few glorious minutes of solitude before it was all interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Yeah,” he called.

A moment later, Celine opened the door and stepped inside. As she neared the desk, Wilford sat up in his seat and swiveled the chair to face her. He hadn’t exactly intended to invite her into his lap, but she took it as an invitation all the same. He liked it, and he was annoyed that he liked it, and he was annoyed that he was annoyed. He wanted two things at once, and both were mutually exclusive.

“The news said they went ahead with the strike,” Celine said. She ran her fingers through his hair in a hopeless attempt to get it to do anything but stick in every direction at once.

“That they did,” Wilford said. He let his hand fall onto her thigh and linger there. “If the writers were anything to go off, I am unemployed for the next few months.”

Celine frowned. “I’ve invited Damien over tonight,” she said, taking the conversation down a new path. “He’s been wanting to talk for a while, and I can’t deal with him alone right now.”

This whole mess had put him into too many awkward situations at once. “All right,” Wilford said. There was no point in fighting it. A conversation with Damien had been in the cards for a while, and needed to happen. Wilford would have just rather it not happed the same day as everything else. “Do you know what time?” he asked.

“I think around seven,” Celine said. She continued to try to fix his hair. “And I’ve told him that we’ve been trapped inside, so he’s bringing dinner.”

Good. One less thing to worry about. Wilford decided to put an end to her fiddling, and wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her closer. This, he liked. It wasn’t even scary anymore. He just liked it.

“When was the last time you managed to get out?” he asked.

“I’ve snuck out to see a few clients here and there,” Celine said. “I went with Andy a few days ago to take Mikey to the zoo.”

“You two spoil that kid,” Wilford said. It was starting to become a problem, and one they’d have to address soon.

“Well, he’s napping right now,” Celine said. She kissed him and slid off his lap, holding onto his hand. Wilford did not miss the hint and got up to follow her to the bedroom. She hadn’t been so blatant in weeks, and he was curious to see what she had planned. It probably wouldn’t be anything he could handle, but he was curious all the same.

She walked into the bedroom and fell back onto the bed in a lazy sprawl, leaving plenty of room for Wilford to join her. He chose not to sprawl, but went down on his side, leaning on one elbow so he could look at Celine. She was clearly up to something, and he had a pretty good idea of what. But they’d done this dance before. He knew the steps, but he still could not bring himself to act. He could see Celine turning something over in her mind, but she held onto her secrets.

When she put a hand on the back of his neck to get him to kiss her, he did. This much, he had learned to do without completely freezing up. But it couldn’t last. He sat back up again, long enough to unhook his rubber bands and toss them vaguely toward the night stand.

Much better.

This time Celine sat up to meet him, and he thought he was good to go until she was on top of him, straddling his hips.

He didn’t panic. He’d been getting better at that too. But it was like he’d suddenly forgotten what he was supposed to do. And she was going to stop what she was doing if he didn’t figure it out. Then her hands were on the sides of his neck and she was kissing him again and that was good. He wasn’t really sure where to put his own hands, but they awkwardly landed on Celine’s hips. Then she was moving on top of him, and any grip on reality he’d managed to regain disappeared again. He didn’t know and couldn’t see what she was doing, and didn’t even notice that one of her hands had disappeared from his neck until he felt her messing with his belt. He froze again, and she stopped again. He didn’t want her to stop but he didn’t know what he did want either. He tried moving one hand down from her hip to her thigh, trying to regain some semblance of control. It didn’t last long. Everything happened so quickly after that, and he could barely keep up. And then a line was crossed that couldn’t be uncrossed, and at once he wanted to flee, and couldn’t understand why he ever wanted to. The way she moved on top of him, and he couldn’t tell if she was trying to be quiet for his sake, or to not wake the kid, and he was pretty sure he’d forgotten how to breathe.

Everything was over entirely too fast, and Wilford was starting to fully comprehend what exactly had just happened as she was still taking her time. Then she stilled and gave him a shaky smile, and kissed him again before he could decide if he should flee or not.

Part of him thought he should, but he didn’t want to. He wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and just stayed there for as long as he could. It wasn’t long enough. Everything felt too hot and too close, and it was only a few moments before he needed to do something.

He shook his head and Celine moved off of him, sliding over to sit on the bed beside him.

“Will?” she said carefully.

He took a moment to just breathe. He wanted to say something. Felt he should say something, but had no idea what to say.

“Why don’t you go take a shower,” Celine suggested. “And I’ll clean up for Damien.”

Wilford nodded. A shower sounded like an excellent idea.



Wilford should not have had to get the security company to chase away trespassers before letting a guest onto his property, and yet here he was, doing exactly that. Damien seemed hesitant to make his way up to the house, even after being given the all clear, but he made it up eventually.

He’d even made good on his promise to bring dinner. Or at least he brought things that could be turned into dinner. And then he pulled the beer out of one of the bags and offered to help, and any lingering tension that was still hanging over the visit vanished. At first, Damien didn’t seem to be there to talk about anything at all. Instead, Wilford and Damien hung out by the pool, drinking beer and cooking burgers on the grill. Whether Celine wanted to give them time to talk, or didn’t want to deal with Damien, she spent most of her time playing with Michael inside, and then playing with Michael in the pool.

“She seems happier,” Damien said abruptly.

Wilford glanced up from his beer, realising Damien was watching the other two splash around at the shallow end of the pool.

“Between you and me, I think we’re all going a little stir-crazy,” Wilford said.

“I bet. She hasn’t spent a full day at home in years,” Damien said. He turned back to look at Wilford, suddenly serious. “How long has this been going on?”

Wilford thought about it. He wasn’t sure at first how he should answer, or if he even should, but there really was no point in lying about any of it. It was all out in the open for everyone to see. All the relevant parties knew about it, even if they couldn’t accept it. Which meant he had to think about the correct answer.

“Not long. Some time around the end of February I think,” he said. Maybe not long, but a hell of a lot longer than Wilford was used to.

He didn’t like the look on Damien’s face. It was something deep in thought, and surprised all at once. “While she was seeing the other guy?” he asked.

“Other guy?” Wilford asked. How had Celine possibly had the time?

Damien hesitated for a moment. “Someone else had started paying her bills in April,” he said, keeping his voice low so only Wilford could hear.

This was a surprise to him, until he put the details together. “Oh, no. No, no. Only an idiot would do something like that under his own name. Not for him to know, by the way. Let him think whatever he wants. I don’t care. If it comes out in court, it comes out in court. But I’d like to avoid it getting out at all.” He knew he could trust Damien on this, because this scandal had a good way of getting back to him.

“You?” Damien asked. He nodded, slowly taking it in. “I’ll be honest, I’m glad to hear it. I thought…” He shook his head, obviously not wanting to voice what he thought.

“You thought your sister was testing out her options?” Wilford asked plainly. Damien actually looked ashamed. “Would you blame her if she was? I don’t know how much I believe that was the first time she got smacked around like that. I’d sure as hell be looking for money and security if it were me.”

Damien looked even more ashamed. “She wouldn’t have… I’d have known.”

“Would you?” Wilford asked. His watch started to vibrate, and it only took a glance to look at it and decide to decline the call.

Damien didn’t have an answer. Instead he picked up the spatula and opened the grill, suddenly busying himself with preparing dinner. Wilford stepped back and let him.

“All right,” Damien said after a moment, arranging the buns on the top rack to toast. “I obviously didn’t know my sister’s husband as well as I thought I did. I might as well get to know her boyfriend a little better. Call my office, and we’ll arrange to go out for lunch.” He looked back over at Celine and Michael, now joining forces to splash the dogs.

Damien obviously wanted to talk a little more freely, without Celine overhearing directly. She’d been avoiding him, and probably for a good reason.

“All right,” Wilford agreed easily. “Not like I got anything else to do for the next few months.”

The tension between them eased a little. With nothing between them left to say, Wilford decided to get a plate ready for himself and Michael, and start the grueling task of getting the kid out of the water.



Ramon still hadn’t shown back up, and it was making Wilford antsy. He didn’t need to follow up, necessarily, but habit dictated that he should. Even if it was to make sure he hadn’t gone and got bitten by any bugs or caught a cold while he was in town.

His speedster friend wasn’t exactly ideal, but when Barry showed up in the bar, Wilford hoped to get him to at least confirm that Ramon was still breathing somewhere. Which he did, in a backwards sort of way. Right before he superhero sucker punched Wilford right in the face, undoing over a year pain and tedium. Celine, of course, went into hysterics again, but this time there was no arguing about going to the ER. Wilford went, when he knew damn well he could have reset and be done with it.

He sat through being poked and prodded and X-rayed. He insisted everything that could be done at the moment be done. Wilford knew his insurance would cover a considerable deal, so he went out of his way to request specialists, duplicate tests, second opinions, and anything else he could think of. Then, he collected the bill and all his follow-up information, slipped off to the first door he could find that would allow him into Milliways, and left his note for Barry. As soon as he walked back through the door to his side, he opened his journal and opened his save from that morning.

He was not going to allow himself to go through the humiliation of a year of stuffing rubber bands into his mouth for nothing. Especially when he was less than a month away from getting all the hardware out finally.

The second time around, he chose to stay the hell home. He knew time didn’t repeat in the bar, but he still didn’t want to risk an encore. For all he knew, the bastard was stalking around for round two.

Instead, he stayed home with Michael while Celine managed to escape out to Blaine County for the day. Wilford hated how much he enjoyed a quiet day at home, with the dogs snoring and drooling all over the couch, and the kid happily colouring away on the table. He seemed to like to make up his own pictures, so along with his book, he had a small stack of paper from the printer spread out over the coffee table as well, while Wilford flipped through the news and cat napped.

When his phone rang, it startled him. He hadn’t remembered getting any calls the first time around. Then again, he’d spent most of his day without signal the first time around. He took his time fishing his phone from his pocket, and answered at once when he saw Tiffany’s name on his screen.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked. They hadn’t spoken since he handed her a cheque in a hotel lobby. She was getting on with her life, and he was quietly paying for it, and nothing ever needed to be said.

“I fucked up. I’m so sorry.” She sounded like she was about to cry.

Wilford sat up, not exactly sure he understood what was being said. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“I’m so sorry,” Tiffany repeated. “He was asking questions, and he had a badge.”

“Slow down and start over,” Wilford said. Something serious had happened. And he already knew it wasn’t good. “Who had a badge?”

He could hear Tiffany put the phone down, and make a noise that definitely sounded like she was crying, followed by several muffled voices in the background. When the phone was picked up again, it wasn’t Tiffany.

“Is this Wilfred? You’re the grandfather?” a strange woman on the other end asked.

Wilford shook his head. God, he hated that name even more than he hated his own. “Sure,” he said. “Do you know what’s going on?”

The woman sighed. “A man came by today. He told us that Tiffany’s daughter had escaped from prison, and he needed information. He had a badge. It looked real.”

Wilford already didn’t like where this was going. “What was said?” he asked.

“Tiffany told him about the little boy. She told him where he was, and that he was safe. He wanted specifics. We thought so they could, I don’t know. Investigate. She told him everything she knew. She even had a business card.”

The business card led to the studio. But it still had his name on it.

“About a half hour later, someone else came by, asking the same exact questions. We got confused, because, we’d just answered them. This guy said the other one wasn’t a cop, but they don’t know who he was.”

The only thing Tiffany didn’t know was the kid’s new name, but that hardly mattered when everything else had been handed over on a silver platter. Wilford took a long moment to just process everything, while Tiffany continued to cry and apologise in the background.

“When was this?” he asked.

“About an hour ago,” the woman said. “We were still trying to figure out if we needed to call you or not when the real cop showed up. The first one said not to. We thought that was weird, but maybe it was normal?”

“No. It’s not,” Wilford said. “Christ.” He tried to figure out what in the hell he was supposed to do now. “Call me immediately as soon as you hear anything else.”

“Absolutely,” the woman said. “I’m sorry. We both are.”

Wilford almost hung up, but thought better of it. “Leave the city. Tell the real cop you talked to. Don’t tell anyone else,” he said.

“Seriously?”

“Do it. Now.”

“Yeah. All right.”

Wilford hung up, and had to restrain himself from throwing the phone. It would not have been a productive activity.

“Michael. Come here,” he said, forcing himself to stay calm.

Michael looked up, and after a moment, got to his feet to head over. Wilford pulled him into his lap, automatically taking the crayon that was offered to him.

“Hey, you want to go do some running around with me?” he asked.

Michael thought about this proposal, and finally nodded. “Where?” he asked.

“I don’t know where, pal. We’ll figure that out.” Wilford said. “Go get your shoes.”

He let Michael slide down onto the floor, and unlocked his phone again, bringing up the number for the local security company. While Wilford helped Michael put on his shoes, he tried to iterate the importance of clearing the street of lurkers, permanently. With that taken care of, he took Michael down to the car so they could go visit the police station.

Wilford opened the door slowly, making sure they weren’t about to get tackled and make a bunch of noise as soon as they stepped inside. The coast was clear. The house was silent. Andy was asleep on the sofa, while some infomercial played endlessly on the television. Wilford had said by midnight. It was a little past that. Whoops.

He tapped on the wall, just loud enough to wake Andy. He sat with a start, slowing down when he spotted Wilford and Celine.

“Everything good?” Wilford asked, watching as Celine disappeared into the bedroom.

Andy nodded, already picking up his shoes from the front door. “Yeah. He went to bed real easy tonight. I’ll get out of your hair.”

Wilford nodded, letting Andy see himself out as he made his way to the bedroom. Celine stood in front of the dresser, taking her earrings out and dropping them into the bowl where Wilford kept his various important trinkets. Watching her, he sat down on the bed and kicked off his shoes. He had no idea what came next. He thought he knew what he wanted to come next, but after the disaster that was last time, Celine had kept her distance. She gave him time to work through his new medication and figure out what he wanted. He hated it. He hated the waiting and the pretending, and the complete inability to just be normal again, even if only in this one aspect.

He was done waiting. As soon as Celine turned around, Wilford reached forward and pulled her to the bed by her hips. She fell between his legs, laughing again and trying to muffle it. But it was too late. The door to the hall opened slowly and Michael shuffled inside.

“Daddy,” he said, with the most pathetically small voice Wilford had ever heard from him.

Billy had joked about this. Many times. Obviously, that made this his fault, and Wilford was going to have to punch him in the face at the next opportunity.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” Wilford asked, trying very hard to keep his voice calm.

“Tummy hurts,” Michael said.

The entire world paused for a moment. Then Celine awkwardly rolled over to the side so Wilford could sit up to deal with the issue. “Where?” he asked.

Michael pointed right at the middle of his belly. Trying not to sigh, Wilford got to his feet and picked the kid up. “You gonna puke?” he asked.

Michael shrugged. Super great. Wilford took him out to the kitchen. “How about some fizz? Think that’ll make it feel better?” he asked.

Michael shrugged again, and then nodded. Wilford opened the fridge to pull a can of ginger ale from the door, and paused to peek around the shelves. Little plastic cups with foil lids and single-wrapped cheese sticks were tucked away on the back of one of the shelves. Great. He let the door swing shut and grabbed a glass from one of the cupboards.

“You been eating something you shouldn’t?” he asked as he poured a small amount of soda into the glass.

“No,” Michael said quietly.

It wasn’t worth pressing the issue. He wasn’t going to learn not to without facing the consequences on his own. Wilford handed him the glass and let him drink. Just to be sure, he held his free hand against Michael’s head, but he didn’t feel warm. The odds were very strongly in favour of Michael discovering yoghurt and hiding the cup somewhere.

Once Michael was done sipping on his drink, Wilford put the soda can into the cup and picked both up. As he turned around, he found Celine watching curiously from the hall.

“Everything all right?” she asked.

Wilford rolled his eyes. “I think we’re in for a long night,” he said. “Looks like Mr Hot Shot found the snacks Andy keeps in the fridge.”

He watched Celine’s change from confused to understanding in a manner of seconds. “Oh,” she said.

Wilford stepped close to her, putting his hand on her waist and trying to decide what the hell he should do next. “I hate to ask for another rain cheque, but…” But what. He should have rented a hotel and made overnight arrangements.

Celine smiled and shook her head. “Do what you need to do,” she said. She lingered just a moment longer before stepping back into the bedroom. Assuming that meant she was heading home, Wilford turned his attention back to Michael.

“I think you need some overnight pants, don’t you?” he said. Michael grumbled, but he didn’t get a say in the matter. If he was going to sneak something out of the fridge, he got to deal with all of the consequences, uncomfortable puffy underwear included. He took Michael into the bathroom to swap his underwear out for a pair of the chunky overnight ones left over from when he was wetting the bed every night. Wilford wasn’t sure what good they’d do now, but it was better than nothing.

“Big bed,” Michael said as soon as Wilford picked him back up again.

“Oh, I see how it is.” Still, Wilford indulged him. If he was sick enough to be talking to Wilford again, he was sick enough to sleep in the big bed. Wilford pushed the bedroom door open enough to make sure Celine was decent before barging in, and found her not dressed to go home, but in a pair of his pyjamas and an old baseball shirt, lounging on the bed. A reflexive command to take it off was at sudden war with wanting to comment on how she looked in it, and he found himself saying nothing at all for far too long.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

Wilford quickly shook the fuzz out of his brain. “Yeah. He’s being needy tonight,” he said, stepping into the room and putting Michael down on the bed. He expected Michael to just roll right over and go to sleep, but he immediately crawled over to cuddle with Celine.

“Stealing my woman now too. Okay,” Wilford said, putting the rest of the soda down on the night stand.

Celine laughed and let Michael cuddle. “He’s going to break a lot of hearts,” she said.

“The absolute nerve,” Wilford said. He took his jacket off and tossed it vaguely toward the closet to be dealt with later, and walked into the en suite. He took a few moments to pull the rubber bands out of his mouth and take his teeth out so he could clean them in the morning. A blast of mouthwash for the ones that didn’t come out, and he was ready to figure out what to do with the rest of his night. Except he’d done it again, and now the pace of the evening had slowed enough to make him aware of everything he was doing. He had not brought a change of clothes in with him. He’d just have to man it up and be an adult about it.

He stepped back out, stopping in the doorway to watch as Celine showed Michael something on her phone. Whatever it was, the sound was vague and tinny, like it had been filmed in public somewhere. Either way, Michael couldn’t take his eyes off it.

Wilford wasn’t going to sleep in his clothes. That was certain, and he’d spent enough time stalling. He grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of pyjamas from his dresser and quickly changed, focusing on the act and ignoring the very real possibility that he was being watched. In the end, the world kept right on spinning and he was still breathing, so he joined the other two in bed. As he got settled, he craned to see what Celine was showing the kid. Michael was absolutely transfixed by a leopard playing with a giant cardboard box.

While Celine entertained Michael with animal videos, Wilford took the opportunity to check his messages. A few forwards from Nichola, scheduling reminders about guests. The ones he was most interested in were from Rosa. She had got the YouTube account set up, apparently circumventing some rules Wilford didn’t entirely understand to get it ready to go sooner. She and Jess had done all sorts of work on figuring out what specific rights the network held, and what rights Black Light held. Based on what he was reading, he owned more of his show than he realised, which meant he could fly the webcasting under his own banner sooner than he’d hoped. He sent back responses with instructions on how to go forward and locked down his phone. Michael was snoring quietly between the two of them, which made for a good escape opportunity. Nodding toward the door, Wilford slowly got up, careful not to jostle anything too much. Celine followed carefully, leaving Michael asleep in the big bed while they snuck out to the living room. Wilford sat down on the sofa, pulling Celine down next to him. As soon as she got cosied up beside him, Michael started crying from the other room.

---

Wilford was up early, having barely slept during the night. He was surprised Celine hadn’t given up and gone home, but now he left her in bed with Michael while he got up to cook for the dogs and get everything ready for the day. It was going to be a rough day. Nothing but irritating, out of touch old fuckers who only gave No for an answer.

Andy let himself through the front door as Wilford set the dogs’ chicken on the counter to cool.

“We had a pretty rough night,” Wilford warned. “He’s either picked up some stomach bug or got into your snacks. I’m not sure.”

Andy paused, looking vaguely around the room. “I haven’t noticed anything missing, but I’ll keep an eye out,” he said.

Wilford nodded. “Celine’s back there with him. She’ll probably take off as soon as she gets up though.” He checked his watch and put the dogs’ plates down on the floor on his way to pick up a folder from the kitchen table. “I’m in meetings all day, but I should be at the studio. If I’m not, I’ll let you know.”

“Is he running a fever?” Andy asked.

“Maybe. It didn’t seem like it last time I checked.”

Andy nodded again. “All right. Do you want me to bring him into town if it gets worse?”

Wilford thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, I should be able to get away to take him in if I need to.”

He was already running late. Wilford made sure he had everything and headed toward the door.

---

He hated meetings. Meetings were the worst. But at least this time Nichola had managed to make it a virtual meeting, so nobody had to waste their day driving all the way downtown. Instead, it meant the meeting had more time to drone on and on. When the door opened and the HR girl poked her head in, Wilford was glad for the interruption. He got up and slipped out of the room, hoping whatever she had for him to deal with would take a long time.

“There’s someone outside that wants to talk to you,” she said, clearly exasperated with something.

“Someone?” Wilford asked. “Not Andy?” Andy had a badge and everything. He shouldn’t have had a problem getting into the building.

“No,” she said slowly. “He says he’s your dad.”

Wilford wasn’t sure he heard correctly. “He what?”

“That’s what he says, but I was told your parents passed away. Do you want me to call the police?”

“Fuck,” Wilford hissed, shaking his head. This was Walter’s doing somehow. What the hell was he up to now. “No, I’ll deal with it,” he said, already walking toward the front of the building. Walter was going to be missing a face by the end of the day.

Everything Wilford had to say to him died on his tongue as he stepped into the lobby. Walter was not standing on the other side of the glass door. Because that would be too easy. No, it had to be his father, standing out there and roasting in the heat.

“Oh, what the fuck,” Wilford muttered. He could turn around and leave, continue the narrative he’d kept up since he was 18 years old. Make a point that would look fucking fantastic on the news when the old man died of heat stroke.

Wilford opened the door. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

Jun-su moved like he didn’t know what to do. Wilford stepped away before he could figure it out, waving him inside and out of the sun. He sure picked a hell of a day to show up, when Wilford had to absolutely be on his A-game. He wondered what the statue of limitations on abandonment was, but now was not the time to bring it up. Besides, he wanted to get some answers out of the old man before he chased him away.

He opened the door to his dressing room and walked in, assuming Jun-su would follow.

“You must be friends with the director,” Jun-su said as he stepped into the room. He looked around, gawking like a tourist.

“She’s all right,” Wilford said. He shut the door and started walking to his desk. “What are you doing here? I didn’t invite you.”

Jun-su stopped gawking and got serious. “I got your letter around Christmas time. Your mother doesn’t know about it. I thought it was a joke. Someone looking for money.”

Money. It’s what was on Wilford’s mind too. “Is that so?” With his back to his father, Wilford pulled his chequebook out of his inventory and started writing one out for $1000.

“I asked your brother if he knew anything. He told me you have a son?” Jun-su said, not quite asking, but not really stating either.

Wilford tore the cheque out of the the book and handed it over. “Michael. He’s three,” he said.

Jun-su took the cheque, but didn’t look at it. “Do you think that’s a good idea?” he asked.

Wilford couldn’t do this right now. It was too much stress, and he needed to be doing his job. “Did you?” he asked.

Jun-su didn’t have an answer. He looked down at the cheque instead. “What is this?” he asked.

“Repaying a debt.” Wilford didn’t know what to do with him. He just wanted to run screaming.

“You should use this on your son,” Jun-su said, trying to hand it back.

Did he somehow not know? Did Walter tell him nothing useful or relevant? Could he not fucking read? Wilford opened the door back to the hall. “We’ll survive,” he said. “I have to get back to my meeting. Stay… here. Whatever. I don’t care.”

Wilford left him there, gawping like a fish as the door closed between them. He wasn’t exactly eager to get back to the meeting, but anything was better than dealing with a man who thought he could just walk back into everything without a second of thought. As he opened the door, Nichola was continuing on as strongly as she’d been before he left.

“Currently CBN’s budget covers all operating costs, while Black Light covers the cost of production. Black Light would like to absorb all costs, as well as all employment rights currently covered by CBN, including the ability to subcontract employees and set our own wages.”

Wilford sat back and let Nichola do all the talking. The talk had been going nowhere for an hour straight, but it would have gone less than nowhere with with Wilford’s ‘fuck you’ negotiation tactics, and they both knew it. He was only there because it was his name on all the paperwork and his signature on the payroll cheques.

“CBN would still retain their market share and all distro rights. We just want better control over who’s on our set, and how they’re paid,” Nichola said, reiterating her point for the fifth time.

“Ms Stevens,” one of the men on the television said. There were three of them, with their $1000 suits and spray-on tans looking worn down, but not in the right way. “If we do this for you, we have to do this for everybody, and that’s bad for the network.

Nichola sighed and glanced up at the other side of the table, behind the camera. “Then let’s go back to the pay scheme we talked about,” she said. “Our average single subcontracted employee has three hundred dollars left at the end of the month. These people work in Vinewood, and they still—”

“Ms Stevens,” the exec said again. “You’re not hearing us. If we raise your salaries, we have to raise them for everybody, and that hurts the network.”

Wilford couldn’t remain silent any longer. “You’re telling me Centennial Broadcasting — worth sixty billion — can’t afford salary adjustments for cost of living?” he asked.

“If your employees can’t pay their bills, then maybe they need to learn to budget,” the irritating man on the television said.

The execs weren’t aware of the other three in the room with Wilford and Nichola. They sat quietly, taking notes on everything being said. Billy was amongst the three, along with two reps from his union. Wilford was done with small dreams for the network. They were all complicit. Every single one of them. This was no longer about Jay Norris. It was about an evilness that had been allowed to run unchecked for far too long. He was going to take down the entire industry, and that started with letting these people sit in on their argument so they heard firsthand what was happening.

While Nichola launched into a tirade at them, the door behind Wilford opened again. He turned around, seeing one of the girls from HR beckoning him out to the hall. Without a word of excuse, he got up to see what he was needed for this time. Along with the girl, Andy was out in the hall, holding onto a very fussy Michael. Wilford checked his watch. It was only noon.

“What’s up?” he asked, taking Michael. As soon as Michael was in Wilford’s arms, he quieted down and buried his face in Wilford’s shirt.

“He hasn’t stopped crying all day,” Andy said. He looked exhausted. “He didn’t eat breakfast, and he threw up as soon as I gave him lunch, so I figured I’d bring him in.”

Wilford nodded. “All right.” He craned to look down at Michael, but he couldn’t see much from the awkward angle. “He probably picked something up around here. I’ll try stay home tomorrow.”

Andy nodded. “All right. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume that’s the case.”

Wilford hoisted Michael up a little higher and took him back into the conference room. Nichola was still ranting at their employers, not giving them any time at all to even try to speak. Wilford ignored the one-sided argument and tried to get Michael settled. He was already whining again, and didn’t seem to want to be calmed down. Hoping it might help, Wilford pulled a box of animal crackers from his inventory and tried to convince Michael to take it.

“Come on, man. What’s the deal?” he asked as Michael shook his head.

“Is this necessary?” one of the men on the TV asked over Nichola.

Wilford ignored him, letting Nichola continue on her tirade. He got Michael to take the cracker, and take a bite, which seemed like an abnormally large victory.

For about twenty seconds. That feeling went away as soon as his shirt was covered in child puke.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Wilford said, getting up awkwardly as Michael’s fussing turned to full-blown crying again. Damn the meeting. Wilford took Michael to the men’s room, struggling to figure out how to juggle the kid and get cleaned up at the same moment. His dilemma was a short one though, thanks to Billy following him in. Wilford immediately handed the kid over and took off his shirt and threw it into the sink under running water.

“He’s burning up,” Billy said.

Wilford shook the water off his hands and felt Michael’s forehead. He hadn’t been that warm the night before, but it was definitely a problem now.

“Where’s the nearest urgent care?” he asked.

“Uh. Mount Zonah?” Billy guessed.

Wilford looked at his shirt in the sink. It wasn’t going home with him in that state. “Get that to laundry,” he said, taking Michael back. “Tell Nick I had to get out of here.”

Billy nodded. “Yeah. Go. I’m on it.”

Wilford rushed back to his dressing room, having forgotten all about Jun-su until he stepped inside and found the man sitting awkwardly on the sofa still holding the cheque in both hands. Michael was still crying, and Wilford didn’t want to put him down and risk making it worse somehow. Unfortunately there was only one option left.

“Here. Hold him,” he said, dropping the kid in Jun-su’s lap. He let his father continue to do an impression of a goldfish while he pulled a wardrobe shirt off the rack in the corner and put it on.

“Are they going to be angry about that?” Jun-su asked.

Wilford was done playing this game. “It’s my fucking show,” he said, all the patience for this stupid situation evaporated. He buttoned enough of the shirt to be decent and picked Michael up again. “Fuck, you might as well come with. Or don’t. I don’t care.”

He could go the the moon for all Wilford cared. But he wasn’t exactly surprised when Jun-su awkwardly got up to follow him out of the building and to the parking lot. Whether or not he heard, Jun-su didn’t quite seem to grasp exactly what Wilford had said on their way out until he got to his car and unlocked it. He just stood there, still gawping as Wilford strapped the kid into his seat. Michael fussed the entire time, not wanting to be tied up in all those straps. Wilford couldn’t blame him.

“Get in the damn car,” Wilford said as he closed the back door and opened the front. Finally Jun-su reacted and opened the door as well. He looked around the car, holding himself like he was afraid to touch anything, lest he break it.

“What’s wrong with him?” he asked, turning to look at Michael in the back.

“Don’t know. I’m not a doctor,” Wilford said. He might have been able to cope with the situation better if he hadn’t been risking his entire company all day. He might have been able to cope with the situation better if Jun-su hadn’t picked that exact day to show up in Los Santos. He tried to ignore all of it and pulled out of his spot and headed toward the street.

“What are you doing here?” he asked again, feeling like he never really got an answer.

“I told you. I got your letter,” Jun-su said.

“That’s not an answer. You didn’t have to come here, five months later.” Walter was still going to lose his face over this, if it meant Wilford had to hunt him down to do it.

Jun-su didn’t answer right away. For a long moment, the only sound in the car was Michael’s low whining from the back seat. “Your brother was worried about the boy,” he said finally.

Wilford squeezed the steering wheel, if only to keep from throwing a punch. “My brother, the pathological shit-stirrer, was worried?” he asked. He breathed very slowly, keeping his glare on the road ahead of him. He could see his father squirm awkwardly in his seat, but he didn’t care. Let him be scared. He was never scared before, when he was bigger than Wilford. It was a different story now. Wilford wished he could enjoy it. Instead, he tilted his rear view mirror to see into the back seat. He was worried Michael might puke again in his seat, but it didn’t seem like he was going to, but he was clearly uncomfortable.

“Shout about it, pal,” Wilford said. “Tell me all about it.”

Michael didn’t shout. He just kept right on whining quietly to himself. Wilford ignored his father for the rest of the drive, focusing instead on getting to Mt Zonah, and trying to distract Michael from himself. Once they were there, he found a spot near the urgent car building and parked as quickly as he could, barely paying attention to the lines on the pavement.

“Come on, pal,” Wilford said as he freed Michael from his seat. He looked up to see Jun-su awkwardly getting out of the car, still looking like a lost goldfish. “Let’s go see what’s wrong.” Whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t yoghurt. He threw a glare at his father as he walked past, into the reception.

Still having nothing better to do, Jun-su followed him in, saying nothing as Wilford got them checked in. Apparently the way to beat the waiting list was to come in with a screaming toddler who was running a fever and reeking of vomit. Wilford had barely given his insurance information before a nurse rushed out to see them to an exam room. Again, Jun-su followed, and Wilford didn’t have the energy to tell him to leave.

“When did this start?” the nurse asked, sitting Wilford down in a chair so he could hold Michael while she checked him.

Wilford shrugged and shook his head. “Last night,” he said. “I didn’t get home until after midnight.” He remembered something suddenly. Something Andy had said. “The nanny said he went to bed easier than normal. We try to get him to bed between nine and ten, so before then I guess.”

The nurse was already taking his temperature and giving him a quick check. “What other symptoms?” she asked.

“He got up right after I got home, with a stomach ache,” Wilford said, watching whatever she was doing. “He can’t have dairy. I thought he’d got into something from the fridge, so I gave him a little bit of ginger ale and took him back to my room. Don’t know when the fever started. Nanny said he puked after lunch, and then I tried to feed him some crackers and he did it again.”

The nurse nodded and typed something into the computer. “A doctor will be right in,” she said, rushing out.

With Michael still fussing in his lap, Wilford bounced him up and down, hoping it might calm him. It didn’t.

“You’re a fucking jinx,” he said stiffly.

Jun-su had nothing to say.

The nurse wasn’t wrong about about the doctor. The door opened again, and an older woman stepped in, crouching down in front of Wilford.

“Hey, Michael. How are we feeling?” she asked, pulling her stethoscope from around her neck.

Michael’s only response was more fussing. Wilford shook his head. “He’s got a delay,” he said. “Talking’s not his thing.”

The doctor nodded and pulled the computer cart closer so she could read it. “This started last night?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Wilford said. He watched as the doctor checked over Michael as well. When she pressed her fingers against his stomach, his whining turned into screaming. She frowned and checked the notes again. “Let’s get him into an ultrasound,” she said slowly.

“Why?” Wilford asked. He thought it was some kind of awful flu. He’d never had an ultrasound for a flu.

The doctor looked straight at him, and he did not like the look on her face. “To rule out appendicitis.”

“He’s three!” Wilford said.

The doctor nodded and stood up. “It’s rare, but it can happen this young,” she said. “We’ll get him in right away.”

Twenty minutes later, Wilford was in the parking lot inhaling his second cigarette and trying to get Nichola to answer her phone. She was probably still in that damn meeting. He gave up, angry that he couldn’t slap his phone shut, instead having to angrily tap a button on the screen to end the call. Jun-su stood awkwardly against a wall in the shade, watching the whole thing. He hadn’t said anything since they’d first walked into the building. He needed to leave. Wilford pulled up Google and tried to look up Walter, but he couldn’t find a single search result. No matter how many pages deep he went, he couldn’t find a single page that actually had to do with his brother, and not himself.

Suddenly, he remembered something. Abe had said something weird months earlier, when Wilford was trying to find anyone else who’d want to talk the kid. He tried searching for Walter Jung, and found his brother on the first result. He owned a farm out in Flint County, and had a public phone number listed right on his site. For some reason, Wilford was still surprised when Walter answered.

“Come get this fucking jinx out of my face,” he demanded. He threw his cigarette butt onto the pavement, and pulled a third one out of the pack. It was almost empty.

“What?” Walter asked, sounding just as uselessly confused as ever.

“Mount Zonah. You sent him here. You come pick him up,” Wilford said.

He could hear Walter demanding more information as he hung up. Maybe if he was in enough of a panic, he’d actually do what he was told. Wilford took a deep drag from his cigarette, trying to just calm down. It wasn’t working, but he tried to pretend it was.

When he finished with that cigarette, he held his phone up again and scrolled through his contacts to find Celine’s number. He wasn’t supposed to call. It was too dangerous, but he didn’t want to text. It didn’t feel right.

He called her. He half expected the phone to ring out to voice mail, but she picked up right away.

“You’re lucky. I’m not home,” Celine said. “How’s Mikey?”

Now that Wilford had her on the line, he couldn’t think of a single word to say. He looked back at his father and shook his head. “In the fucking ER,” he said. “We’re at Mount Zonah.”

“Oh my god, what? What’s wrong?”

Wilford didn’t even know where to start.

---

Wilford didn’t know why he was so nervous when he saw the doctor walk outside. He stood up quickly, throwing his cigarette to the ground.

“Good news,” the doctor said in a tone that didn’t sound fake. “Everything went well. They’re just starting to bring him around, and will take him back up to your room in a few minutes.”

Wilford nodded. He didn’t know what the procedure for this was. “Can we go up there?” he asked.

“Of course,” the doctor said. “You’ll probably beat him up there.”

“Good. Uh. Thank you,” Wilford said, still feeling lost. He turned to Celine, vaguely aware of the doctor going back inside. He leaned his head against her shoulder, just taking a moment to breathe for the first time all day. After a moment, he stood up straight and started to head back inside.

“Don’t fucking come near me again,” he said to Jun-su. “Don’t ever come back here.”

He shouldn’t have listened to Walter. He should never have sent that letter.

Celine tugged on his hand, and Wilford followed. As they walked through the halls, Celine pulled out her phone and frowned at the screen. “God, he’s already calling me,” she said. She stuffed her phone back into her purse and kept walking.

“Should you go home?” Wilford asked. He didn’t want her to, but she was spending a dangerous amount of time with him as it was.

“Probably,” she said. “But I don’t want to.”

They walked together to the elevator, taking it up to the sixth floor. Wilford could barely remember the way, even with all the signs on the walls, but they eventually found the right room and slipped inside. It was still empty, so they both sat down on the bench beneath the window.

“Babe, I hate to say it,” Celine said. “But you reek.”

Wilford laughed weakly. “Like you’ve never been puked on,” he said.

Celine took both his hands in her and smiled at him. “I don’t think I want to be.”

“I got some bad news for you if you plan on hanging around,” Wilford said.

The door opened and a couple of nurses angled a bed into the room. Wilford watched, not sure if he was meant to get up or not.

“He’ll probably be out for a little bit,” one of the nurses said. “The surgeon will be up soon to talk to you.”

Wilford nodded. “Right,” he said. He didn’t know why he was still nervous, but he hated it.

They wanted to keep him overnight, which meant Wilford was staying overnight. Nichola had come and gone, bringing him and Celine dinner along with his medication. She didn’t stay long, giving Wilford the feeling she didn’t want to be in the way. He let her leave without saying as much, still trying to figure out why he couldn’t get his head on straight.

Celine stayed with him. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t question it. When Michael was awake for brief moments, he wasn’t fussy. That was good. That finally made Wilford start to feel better. The kid obviously wasn’t feeling well, even with whatever drugs they were giving him, but not constantly crying was a definite improvement. He still didn’t want to eat anything, but Wilford didn’t remember having much of an appetite after the last time he’d been in the hospital either.

By mid morning, everyone seemed happy enough with how things had gone that they were sending him home. As soon as Celine heard that, she started to put herself together.

“I’m going to go home and pick some things up,” she said. “I’ll meet you at your place.” She kissed him on the forehead and left, giving Wilford some time alone he hadn’t realised he’d wanted.

Running into Cisco at the bar today was a stroke of luck. A guest cancellation left an enormous hole in the schedule, sending various teams out scrambling to fill it. And that leaves Wilford with absolutely nothing to do but stare at the walls or find some new way to get into trouble.

It's probably easier to just stick with the trouble he's already made.

When he opens the door from the bar, its to his dressing room. Vintage framed movie posters on blue walls, black leather sofa and a glass coffee table that are smudged and drawn all over by sticky little hands. A sleeping dog sprawled out right in the middle of the room, as if he wants to be stepped on.

Somewhere, in the distance, someone is screaming about something. It's probably not important.

Wilford held an ice pack to the back of his head, barely listening to the noise in the room. Brain fuzz had given way to headaches, making getting through the day an entirely new sort of irritating. Nichola had brought Michael back home on her way in from the city, and apparently being home again zapped him full of all sorts of energy.

“No, sweetie. Daddy’s not feeling good,” she said.

Wilford barely opened his eyes to see her coaxing Michael over toward the sofa with her.

“Why?” Michael asked.

“Because,” Nichola said, obviously trying to find a few extra seconds to figure out what she was going to say. “Sometimes the medicine you need to take for one part of your body will hurt another part.”

“Why?” Michael asked.

“I don’t know,” Nichola said. “But Daddy’s medicine makes him sick right now, so we have to be nice.”

“Oh.” Wilford watched Michael wander back toward him, stopping to peer cautiously over the side of his chair.

“You sure you’re going to be all right?” Nichola asked.

Wilford nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he said.

“When are you coming back?” Nichola asked.

“Aiming for tomorrow.” He wasn’t sure if he’d make it, but maybe if he started getting up and forcing himself to get things done, he’d adjust faster. Wilford glanced over at Michael and handed the ice pack to him. “Go put that in the sink,” he said.

Michael eagerly took it and trotted off toward the kitchen. He tossed the ice pack where he’d been told, and returned. Rather than waiting for an invitation, he climbed up into Wilford’s lap. As he squirmed around, Wilford watched the light from the big, bay windows play off his hair. He sat up just enough to look at a better angle, and reached out to hold a bit of michael’s sloppy, grown-out mohawk against the light.

“His hair’s blue,” he said, seeing it for the first time.

“Really?” Nichola asked. “Think he gets that from his dad?”

“Must be,” Wilford said. “Probably from being out in all that sun. Remember that guy that made me shave and dye my hair because he didn’t like the colour under the lights? Who was that?”

“Oh,” Nichola said, scrunching up her face as she tried to remember. “God, yeah. It was right after we left CBN, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, what was his name?” Wilford couldn’t remember. He hadn’t been worth enough for Wilford to bother putting his name into memory.

“Carmichael?” Nichola guessed. “No, Carlisle!”

“Yeah, him. God, I hated that douchebag.” But there was nothing like a string of awful bosses to give a person the drive to become their own boss.

“What’s douchebag?” Michael asked. Nichola tried not to laugh.

“My old boss,” Wilford said simply.

“Oh.”

“You have fun hanging out with Tim?” Wilford asked Michael, since he seemed talkative enough to actually engage.

“Yeh,” Michael said.

“What’d you do?”

Michael looked around the room. “Uhm.”

So much for engaging. “Uhm’s not an answer. What’d you do?” Wilford asked again.

Michael continued to look around the room, and Wilford shifted to pull his phone from his pocket.

“Went to… the park,” Michael said finally. “And beach.”

“Oh yeah? Did they take you to the sea lions?” Wilford asked.

“Uhm…” Michael shrugged dramatically. Wilford tried not to shake his head.

He pulled up Google on his phone and ran a few quick searches. He had no idea what the rules were for these things, or which programs were required and which ones were optional. Annoyingly, it took him several iterations of the same search, changing wording to get a straight answer.

“What’s wrong?” Nichola asked.

“I don’t think he’s going to be ready for school this year,” he said.

“Have you been looking at anywhere?” Nichola asked.

Wilford finally found his answer, buried in a recommended search. He had until the kid was six before he needed to enroll him anywhere.

“Few places,” he said. “Maybe next year. You want to stay home with me anyway, don’t you, pal?”

Michael nodded. “Yeh.”

“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” Nichola said. “Bill and Sharon started Tim as soon as they could so they could get out of daycare fees. You don’t need that. There’s no reason to rush him.”

“What?” Wilford asked, trying to remember if he’d heard that. Billy was his best friend. He felt like he should have heard that, but it didn’t sound even a little bit familiar. “How much were they paying?”

“I think it was about thousand a month,” Nichola said.

It was the first Wilford had heard of it. He hadn’t been responsible for Billy’s salary at the time, but the man had another kid on the way in a few months. San Andreas’ rates couldn’t possibly be much lower than they’d been in DC. Wilford pulled up his calculator and ran a few numbers, and didn’t like what he saw. No wonder Nichola had been so strongly against taking his story public.

“We need to have a budget meeting,” he said. Technically he still didn’t have ultimate control over wages — the network still controlled that — but Wilford could twist a few arms. “I need to get my head back on straight.”

They needed to get away from the network. Wilford had the capital to do it, but they needed the infrastructure in place first. And that started with focusing on his damn blog like he was serious about it.

“Clear up Rosa’s schedule for me too. At least a week. Shuffle whoever you need to to make it happen.”

Nichola nodded. “Are you sure you’re ready to be jumping back in like this?” she asked.

“Nope,” Wilford said. “But it needs to be done.”

---

Wilford liked Sundays as a matter of course. Most people took it off anyway, which meant the studio was quiet enough for him to get some work done. Sundays that were also a holiday meant that only a few people ever came in. It gave Wilford time to read over everything he’d missed over the last few weeks while nursing a headache he was determined to chase off. A few aspirin and an ice pack were just about doing it.

Buried in the stack of reports was something from next door.

Looks like fun. Seems up your alley

—Jack

Wilford opened the envelope and found a proposal from ULS, with their sports division header on top and a web url printed at the bottom. Not something that had been sent out directly, but something Jackson had found, or been directed to.

He hadn’t been wrong though. Wilford was intrigued. He flipped through the pages, only skimming the program’s intentions and goals. Simple stuff that didn’t need much information — college kids looking for some work experience. The due date to sign up was at the end of the month, so why not. Wilford wrote his name and information on the top of the sheet before getting up and taking it out to the bulletin board. He didn’t think anyone else would sign up, but it was there all the same. He’d leave it up for a few days and then send it back in.

He’d have to dig his gear out of the garage. He’d kept most of it, but he didn’t think anything would fit him, and the damn dog ate his bat.

Wilford had done this once before. He remembered bits and pieces, but it was years ago. Back then, Wilford was running on twenty minutes of sleep a night, supplemented by caffeine and cocaine to keep him going. He’d managed to do a pretty good job at convincing himself that none of it was real, but he’d never completely forgotten it. It was one of those dark little thoughts he never liked to think about, but it always hung around all the same.

He’s always known his world is different. And there’s always been an explanation for that. He just never thought about it. He held onto that tiny bit of information because his mind refused to forget it, keeping it locked away behind everything else.

But it was there. And it needed to be dealt with. Wilford was older now; sober and better equipped to deal with earth-shattering information. He was going to do this properly. No destroyed hotel rooms, no coke-fuelled rampages. Just a cup of coffee, a nicotine patch, and a notepad. Proper journalism shit this time.

Starting was easy. Cisco had recognised the city, but nobody else at the bar had (or at least, they hadn’t admitted it, which was just important). Cisco had immediately clammed up after, suggesting others may have also recognised the city, but hadn’t said anything out of some sort of social etiquette. Wilford didn’t remember much about the last time someone had ruined his day with information he didn’t want to hear, but he was willing to bet that there was a pretty good chance that he hadn’t quite been the first person to react poorly.

His first search took him nowhere unexpected. A few glossy maps with poor detail and even worse accuracy, plots that sounded downright pedestrian (people tended to be afraid of Wilford and where he’s from; he had to keep reminding himself that squishy people probably didn’t see things the same way). As dull as most of it sounded, there were some morsels of truth. Jay Norris’ head exploding at a keynote address got a solid week of air time, but nobody ever figured out who it was. And yet, Wilford had a list of names right in front of him. He wrote them down, citing every date and detail he could get from the basic amount of text.

He hadn’t got nearly this far last time. He’d found just enough to confirm what Jim had said, and then promptly lost his damn mind. But now he was curious, because he did remember something else Jim had said. Wilford was tempted to look him up there in the bar’s library, but decided he’d rather do something else. He’d been gone for too long anyway, and wanted to try to get a shower in before the kid woke back up.

---

Michael De Santa didn’t exist. Not before 2013, anyway. Neither did his wife or two children. They’d all materialised out of thin air. On the surface, dates were there; birth certificates and job and school histories, but those things didn’t exist either. Signatures by people who didn’t exist, schools and businesses that didn’t exist. Shell entities run by people whose job it was to give fake references and confirmations for people sneaking their way back into society.

Hacking local databases was one thing; Wilford rarely thought twice before doing it. But only a grade A moron would try to get into FIB systems on home wifi with a personal laptop. But there were more things he could try, because the book had more names. Names like Michael Townley, and wouldn’t you know, the man died in 2013. Every single name Wilford searched gave positive hits somewhere. He sent every single page of it to his printer.

But he wasn’t done yet. There was more to deal with, because all those years ago, Jim had said something else. Something that only remained a vague idea, but which Wilford couldn’t help but search. Jim Moriarty turned up fuck all, beyond half a dozen people on LifeInvader. James Moriarty wasn’t much better. Then Wilford tried searching for Sherlock Holmes, on the basis that it was kind of a weird name that wasn’t likely to be shared by dozens of people trying to be internet-popular. Which was indeed the case. This time, he got bad blog posts and impossible-to-read news clippings of some celebrity cop or something from the 1800s. A page about cults and eldritch horrors caught Wilford’s attention. While this particular Sherlock Holmes never did cross paths with any eldritch horrors, he did seem to travel all over hell and creation to find the cultists. Including some Swiss asylum, where another familiar name finally popped up. It was a trail Wilford had to follow, and couldn’t help laughing at. He sent all this to the printer as well.

---

As soon as he was through the front doors, Wilford rushed down the hall and let himself into Nichola’s office. Wilford glanced around it, and then over his shoulder.

“I got something big,” he said, once he was sure nobody was close enough to hear.

“How big?” Nichola already seemed intrigued.

Wilford stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He handed Nichola a folder full of pages he’d spent most of the night highlighting and referencing. “I know who killed Jay Norris,” he said.

Nichola immediately opened the folder and started flipping through. “What? How?”

“I got a really weird tip. I looked into it, and it scans,” Wilford said. He wasn’t even sure why he was showing her this. It wasn’t their beat.

“Who’s able to keep a secret this big for that long?” Nichola asked, flipping through the pages from reference to reference. “We talking about secret government here?”

Wilford shook his head. “More like it voids the fuck our of our contracts,” he said.

It stopped Nichola in her tracks. She stared at him for a few moments before pointing up at the ceiling. Wilford only nodded in return.

“Where’d you get this tip?” Nichola demanded.

“Here’s the weird part: Fucking robot kid,” Wilford said.

“From Milliways? Nichola asked, slapping the folder shut again. “He’s not from here.”

“No,” Wilford agreed. “But he knows shit about us. Don’t fucking ask me how, because you’d hate the answer.” Wilford still hated the answer, but while reading over everything he’d printed out, all he could see was profit. He could start up his own network with this information.

“But he knew who killed Jay Norris?” Nichola asked.

Wilford nodded.

“Shit.” Nichola hissed. She looked frantically around her office for a moment before grabbing Wilford by the hand and pulling him out to the hall. Wilford immediately started following her. There were spies everywhere. Nothing ever stayed a secret once it reached the studio, so they had to find somewhere else to discuss this horrible thing Wilford had stumbled across. They didn’t even talk about it once they got into Nichola’s car. It was too heavy to deal with while trying to dodge traffic. They didn’t say a word about what was in Wilford’s folder until they were inside Nichola’s apartment, where she immediately spread everything out on the dining table.

“Can we use robot kid as a source?” Nichola asked.

“Probably not, but I can ask,” Wilford said. He’d probably have to bribe him, and even then Wilford expected Cisco to laugh in his face.

“What exactly did he say, and how much is your own work?” Nichola asked.

Wilford thought about the conversation, struggling to frame it in a way that wouldn’t crush Nichola. “He didn’t say much, actually,” he said finally. “A lot of places don’t have Los Santos on their maps, but he’d heard of it before. When he dropped a name, I figured it was worth looking into.”

Nichola paused for a moment. “Is he connected?”

Wilford quickly shook his head. “No, he’s never been here, I don’t think. He might have been involved on his own world. This was industrial assassination; not some personal vendetta.”

Nichola read over the pages silently, looking around the spread as if trying to see it all at once. “The FCC would dissolve the network,” she said breathlessly.

Wilford nodded. They could run the story and lose everything, or stay silent and miss out on the biggest scandal of the century. “Would you be able to keep this place?” he asked.

Nichola didn’t answer right away, but eventually nodded. “I could probably get by for about a year. Sharon’s due in like, three months though. They’d be eating through their savings a lot faster.”

Wilford nodded. It would be about fifty people out of a job and likely blackballed. As cutthroat as the industry was, turncoats weren’t treated kindly. Wilford would have to turn things around within the quarter if he wanted to run this story.

“Let’s build it,” Nichola said finally. “Keep working on it, but keep it close. Let Bill and Sharon get their head above water, and we’ll figure out what we’d want to do after. You can live off your savings. The rest of us can’t.”

Wilford nodded. He’d sworn to himself when he started this company that he was never going to throw the workforce under the bus. He needed loyalty more than he needed immediate gains. Loyalty here would mean not starting from zero. If he played his cards right, it wouldn’t be starting over; it would simply be moving house.

“I’ll keep digging,” he agreed. “We can’t not run this. It’s too big.”

“It’s a fucking game changer,” Nichola said. “We’re going to need all the immunity we can get, so we’re doing it right. That means sharing this.”

“Sharing is how you get scooped,” Wilford pointed out. This was his story. Like hell was he sharing.

“Not sharing is how you get killed, or go to prison,” Nichola pointed out. “That might have been an acceptable risk for you last year, but you can’t be reckless anymore. I’m not going to take that risk, and neither is Billy. We need to do it right, for everyone.”

They couldn’t ignore this story. It had to run. But it was never going to happen without everyone onboard. Wilford was alone, because Nichola was right. The best case scenario in the whole disaster was everyone losing their jobs.

“How long?” Wilford asked finally.

Nichola thought for a few seconds. “One year,” she said. “We’ll run it next year. That’ll give you at least six months to build a rock solid case before we take it to the feds.”

Wilford knew he was right, but so was Nichola, again. The dots were all connected, but there could be more evidence to solidify the narrative. Six months suddenly didn’t seem like enough time to do that without revealing the bigger truth. Destroying a network, or an industry was one thing. He wasn’t quite ready for world-wide chaos.

“A year,” he said, looking over the papers again. “I’ll need to draw up some expenses.”

“Do that,” Nichola said. “As soon as possible.”

Wilford suddenly had a lot of work to do.

His phone was ringing. Why was his phone ringing? Wilford realised he was still in his jeans, and is phone was in his pocket. He managed to dig his phone out without moving too much. It was his lawyer. His lawyer was calling him. Why was his lawyer calling him?

Wilford hit the green button, and then the speaker button. “Yep?” he said.

“Were you asleep?” Steve asked.

“Yep.” Wilford yawned.

Steve laughed. It must have been later than Wilford realised. “Okay, well. Everything’s been filed. Come out today so we can discuss what comes next.”

Wilford tapped his phone a few times, until he could get the clock to show up for him. It was after 9am. Not terribly late, but a lot later than he usually slept in, even since his surgery.

“Yep,” he said again. He hung up and went back to sleep.

That creepy butler was handing out his cocaine cocktails by the time Wilford stumbled out of the room he’d passed out in. He at least had everything he’d come with this time, and didn’t seem to have picked up any additional injuries along the way. Trying to avoid getting blackout drunk seemed to help with that, for some reason.

He didn’t stay to wait for everyone else to drag themselves out of bed. If Steve wanted to talk to him in person, the topic of the day was probably court dates. Wilford needed to get into Vinewood. He made sure he was put together and snuck out the front door, assuming nobody would care or notice that he’d snuck out early. Damien, it seemed, was on the same path. Or trying to be. He stood beside his car, looking at it, and then turning a baffled expression to the sky. Wilford looked up as well, and could see why Damien was baffled. Someone managed to throw a stone lion onto Damien’s car. Presumably from the roof, but it was one hell of a throw to have hit the bullseye as perfectly as it did. It looked like other stone lions on the property, so it probably hadn’t come from a random fly-over during the night. The entire roof of Damien’s car was caved in, the windshield shattered, and the crumpled hood was almost certainly hiding serious engine damage.

The two of them studied the damage in a confused silence. The more Wilford looked at it, the less sense it made.

“Hop in,” Wilford said finally. “I’m heading that way today.”

“You’re going to set on hangover day?” Damien asked, following Wilford over to his car.

“Gotta see my lawyer.” Wilford unlocked the car so they could both get in. For a moment, Damien seemed like he had a question, until he glanced into the back seat.

“Oh. About the kid?” he asked.

Wilford started the car and made his way down the winding driveway to the road. “Yeah, I need to get his name changed. Which is a whole other can of worms.”

In less than six months, he’d gone from demanding paternity tests to petitioning for adoption. What the hell had his life become?

“The whole thing, or just his last name?” Damien asked.

“Just his last name. His first name’s common enough, and there’s no point in confusing him all over again,” Wilford said. He rolled down his window a lit a cigarette.

“Yeah, that’s probably best. My mom remarried when I was about two, and I never understood why my name wasn’t the same as everyone else’s.” Damien took a cigarette as Wilford offered the pack. “But then Celine got married, and our names were all different.”

Wilford almost didn’t catch exactly what Damien had said. “She’s your sister?” he asked. “That how you know Mark?”

“No, I knew Mark first. I wasn’t exactly expecting them to start dating after he got divorced.” Damien rolled his window down as well, trading cigarette smoke for more wildfire smoke in the car.

“You’re not divorced, are you?” Wilford asked.

Damien laughed. “No, I’ve managed to dodge that bullet. And the pre-requisite.”

“I think that’s the right idea,” Wilford said. Almost everyone he knew was scrambling to get married, or trying to find a way to stop being married. It all seemed like a lot of hassle to him.

“I know she likes to keep things professional, but has Celine said anything to you?” Damien asked suddenly.

“About what?” She’d said a lot of stuff about a lot of things to him.

Damien didn’t answer right away. He took a deep breath, and shook his head. “She… They’ve both changed. You wouldn’t know that, obviously, but… I see something in both of them that wasn’t there before. It’s not my place, but I worry.”

Wilford shook his head. He almost answered that neither of them had ever said anything, but that wasn’t exactly correct. “I’ve seen her get real pissed off at him a few times. I always figured it was regular relationship shit.”

Damien nodded. “She’s not the biggest fan of Mark’s parties. That much is true.”

“You’d think with that kind of fuck-you money, he could rent a place for the weekend,” Wilford said. He may have been single, but that didn’t mean he didn’t understand that it wasn’t that hard to keep your woman happy.

“He’s done two movies in the last six years. I don’t think he has as much money as he lets on.” Damien sounded like he was sharing gossip he shouldn’t have been sharing. But if Wilford had bothered to pay attention to anything that went on in the industry, he’d have probably been able to figure out as much for himself.

“I was wondering why she charged,” Wilford realised suddenly. “I thought it was a hobby until we started talking.”

“It used to be.”

There was a lot more going on in that house than Wilford had ever even considered thinking about. A lot of things started to make a little more sense. They’d probably combined assets, and now Celine needed to build herself a way out. Mark had little good to say about her, but his relationship with Damien kept him from pulling the plug and becoming the bad guy. It was up to Celine to walk out, and psychics in Vinewood were a dime a dozen. She probably couldn’t keep her head above water long enough to even think about court fees.

“What are you going to do about your car?” Wilford asked, changing the subject.

Damien sighed and rolled his eyes. “Hire a crane,” he said.

That was probably a good place to start.

---

He didn’t like having people in his space. First there were all the landscapers over the summer. Then the house was swarming with contractors. And now a woman with a judgemental makeup was standing in the middle of the room, watching Michael grind crackers into the carpet.

“He’s autistic?” she asked, checking the screen on her small tablet.

“They don’t think so,” Wilford said. “He’s just delayed.”

She nodded and crouched down onto the floor next to Michael. “What have you got there?” she asked.

Michael looked up at offered her a dinosaur. Its mouth was full of ground-up cracker. “Ba ba ba ba,” he said.

“Oh, he was hungry, wasn’t he?” the social worker asked. She took the dinosaur and turned it over in her hands a few times before handing it back. “He’s scary.”

Michael continued to babble on, apparently not having any more words he wanted to say. Apparently content with whatever interaction just occurred between them, the social worker stood back up and nodded.

“With situations like this, most of the process is just a formality,” she said. She checked her tablet again, and then looked around the room. “I don’t think we need to go much farther here. You’re going through your lawyer, right?”

Wilford nodded. “Yeah. Seemed the best way to do it.”

The social worker nodded. “Then someone will be in contact with him soon. You’ll hear from us through him.”

“How soon?” Wilford asked.

She shrugged. “I couldn’t say. We expedite kinship cases, but you’re not the first one in the queue.”

Wilford wasn’t even a little bit surprised. “I figured as much,” he said. “Anything else you guys need from me?”

“Not today,” the social worker said. “The next step is paperwork and your hearing. You’ll get a call when we’re ready for that.”

Wilford showed her out, glad to have her out of his space. It was a constant, never-ending stream of people in his space lately. Getting everything over and done with would be a goddamn blessing.

---

Finding weird things in the car was becoming just another fact of life. Usually the weird things were something one of the dogs had snuck in, or something the kid had suck in, and it all stayed more or less contained to the back seat. Finding something in the front seat that didn’t belong to him was less expected. Finding the Mayor of Los Santos’ wallet under the front seat was even less expected.

Wilford resisted the urge to snoop for about three seconds, but being a professional snoop practically made it his responsibility to see what Damien kept in it. It was surprisingly boring. Driving license, a few business cards with old area codes — numbers to his city office, then; not his personal line — cash and credit cards. No clutter or old receipts. Absolutely nothing that could be used against him. Damien was either the only politician who was clean as a whistle, or more likely, he made a habit out of losing his wallet and took precautions by keeping it as empty as possible. If nothing else, that made him the only smart politician in town.

Not having any direct way of getting in touch with Damien, Wilford was left with a few less-than-stellar choices. He could call the offices downtown, and deal with that mess, or he could take it out to Banham Canyon. Downtown traffic was always an awful idea. At least the drive out to the canyon was pleasant.

“You want to go on a drive, pal?” He asked as he pulled out his phone to check the traffic.

“Yeh.” Michael was always ready to go for a drive. Sometimes getting him into that damn car seat was a struggle and a half, but once he was strapped in with nowhere else to go, anything probably sounded good.

Wilford plugged his phone into the car’s stereo and pulled out of the parking lot. Downtown Vinewood traffic wasn't much better than downtown Los Santos, but at least this way he only had to do it once, and soon enough they were on the freeway headed out of the city. Michael had picked up a new game for himself that involved pointing out all the cars they saw on the roads, jabbing his finger against the window and shouting each time. As they left town, cars became less and less plentiful, sparking indignation as he started to run out of cars to shout at.

“Hey,” Wilford called back at him. “None of that.”

“No!” Michael shouted back.

“Yeah, yeah,” Wilford grumbled. Everything was becoming ’No.’ Apparently it was supposed to be a sign of progress. It was irritating was what it was.

Eventually he got off the main road and onto the winding private drive that led to Mark’s place. Damien’s crushed car was no longer parked out front, giving Wilford plenty of space to get close. The garage had been left open, with Mark’s Patriot conspicuously absent. Still, Wilford parked next to the little sports car out front and got out to free Michael before he started to mutiny. Once inside, he could let the kid run around for a few minutes before strapping him back in for the ride home. Wilford carried him to the front door, startled by it flying open before he could even reach for the bell.

“Christ,” he said, trying not to fall backwards down the steps. There was plenty of room behind him before that happened, but everything always felt more precarious when he was carrying the kid around.

Celine took a moment to look at the two of them with confusion. Cutting to the chase since he could sense something unwelcoming around the place, Wilford pulled Damien’s wallet out of his inventory and handed it over.

“He left that in my car,” he said.

Celine looked at it and sighed. “Oh, thank god,” she said. She turned back toward the still-opened door. “Benjamin! We found it!” she shouted, closing the door on his response. She shoved Damien’s wallet into her purse and grabbed Wilford by the arm, awkwardly spinning him around.

“Take me somewhere,” she demanded. There was a hard edge to her voice that Wilford had never heard before, and didn’t dare question. Curious enough to comply, he walked with her back to the car. Before he even got to the back seat to open the door, Michael slid from fussy to full nuclear meltdown without warning. He tried to fling himself onto the ground, kicking and swinging his fists like his life was in danger.

“No. Let’s not,” Wilford said, not really sure how to handle the situation. “Come on.”

“I’m sorry,” Celine said, sighing. “I project. I’m not the best at keeping it under control.”

Between Michael screaming, and the oddness of what Celine was saying, it took Wilford a long moment to realise what she actually meant.

“Oh,” he said suddenly. Yeah, the kid was definitely pissed about something. The situation hadn’t got any easier to deal with, but it definitely made more sense. “I thought he’s just mad at all the driving.”

“He might be. But I probably didn’t help.” She opened the passenger door and let herself into Wilford’s car, leaving him to figure out how to progress.

“Come on, pal. You want to go get dinner? You’re probably hungry aren’t you?” Wilford asked, twisting around to open the door without dropping the kid onto the pavement.

Michael didn’t stop crying, but he did nod. The idea of dinner calmed him down enough that Wilford was able to get him strapped into his seat before he could start fighting again.

“I’m sorry,” Celine said as Wilford got behind the wheel. “I just can’t be in this house right now.”

Wilford wasn’t sure what that had to do with him. Glancing around as he started the car, he realised Mark’s Patriot wasn’t the only car missing. “Where’s your Banshee?” he asked, turning on the radio hoping the music would help settle the kid down.

Celine made a sound that wasn’t quite a grumble, but close. “Rear-ended,” she said. “In my own driveway.”

It was definitely time to get the hell out of there. Wilford didn’t know where they were going, so he pulled out of the driveway and turned to head back into town.

“What the hell is this?” Celine asked suddenly, picking up his phone from its dash mount to see what was playing through the speakers.

“Jazzotron,” Wilford said. He didn’t expect her to understand that word, and judging by the scrunched up look on her face, he was right.

“What?” she asked. She quickly shook her head and tried to unlock the phone, only to be thwarted by the password. “Get me the map,” she said, handing it back over.

Wilford held the phone up to his face long enough for it to recognise him and unlock, before passing it right back. Celine tapped at his phone for a few seconds, and put it back in its mount with the GPS pointing to Pacific Bluffs. It wasn’t quite ‘in town,’ but it was more or less in the right direction for the time being.

“I like this place,” Celine said. “It’s next to a little park on the beach.”

Wilford glanced into the mirror, ignoring Michael’s diminishing protests about being strapped back into his seat. “Sounds like a good idea,” he said. “So what’s going on?”

Asking was risking another meltdown, but it was his experience that married women didn’t often throw themselves into the first functional car they saw. They also didn’t tend to make that grumbly noise Celine made again.

“Mark…” she started, before shaking her head. She tried again several times before finally finding the words she wanted to say. “He knows I project. And he knows I can’t control it very well. So when he wants an excuse to be mad at me, he does shit to piss me off so that he can get pissed off and walk out guilt-free.”

It wasn’t exactly what Wilford was expecting. “What’d he do?”

“He rear-ended my car.”

“Seriously?” Wilford felt no loyalty toward the man one way or another; he threw good parties, and had extended a standing invitation to them. But that kind of thing was just low. “When’d he do that?”

“Last night,” Celine said. “After his agent dropped his ass.”

Wilford tried to follow that precise line of thought. He’d definitely engaged in petty vandalism while pissed off. But basic self-preservation generally meant directing the consequences away from yourself, rather than loading the gun and pointing it right at your own face.

“Your brother said he’d been out of work for a while,” he said, easily connecting the two.

“Out of work. And when he does work, it bombs. There’s good money and good work on the B-list, but he won’t take it until the bank starts making threatening calls.” Celine shook her head and took a deep breath. She glanced to the back seat, and then leaned back in her own seat and closed her eyes for a moment. Whatever she was doing, Michael was definitely picking up on it. That, or he’d just run out of crying energy.

“I’d kill for the B-list,” Wilford said. “I don’t know what list I’m on, but if the B-list can afford a castle in the Canyon, it can’t be that bad.”

Celine laughed, an ironic, mirthless sound. “Could you tell him that?”

“Yeah, sure,” Wilford said. He had no intention of doing any such thing.

“Sorry. You’re his friend. You probably don’t want to hear this,” Celine said. She flipped down the visor and fiddled with the mirror so she could refresh her lipstick.

Wilford thought about that. He certainly didn’t consider Mark a friend. He liked Mark well enough, but he hardly knew the guy. “I don’t think he’s said more than two full sentences to me since my teeth wound up in your pool,” he realised aloud.

“Oh.” Celine hung on that for a moment. “You’re always at the house. I thought…”

“He invites me,” Wilford pointed out. “Any excuse to get away from Legos and the Super Pals is a good one.”

Celine laughed, almost bitterly. “I wish I knew what that was like,” she said. “I wanted kids. He already has two I’ve never met, and he doesn’t want any more. And that’s that.”

“You’ve never met your own stepkids?” Wilford asked. Granted, he’d never met his own biological child, but somehow that didn’t seem as odd.

“I don’t think Mark’s talked to them since I’ve known him.” Celine did not sound amused about this. For some reason, Wilford found himself wondering if this was a universal thing she detested, or if Mark made it a special case.

Wilford wanted to ask why she hadn’t walked out on the marriage yet, but it didn’t seem like the best question to be asking his psychic while they sped down the highway.

“Same mother?” he asked instead.

Celine nodded. “His first wife, yeah.”

Which meant unless they were twins, he’d been there when at least one of them was born. It wasn’t an area Wilford had many opinions on, but even he knew what a deadbeat dad was.

“You want this one for the week?” Wilford asked, nodding back toward Michael. The kid had calmed down again finally, and was watching the world pass by out the window.

“It almost sounds like you're trying to get rid of him,” Celine said.

“He’s a nightmare. Complete pain in the ass,” Wilford said. He shrugged. “But so was I, so I’m probably not allowed to complain.”

“You’re allowed to complain a little bit,” Celine said with an absolutely wicked smile.

Mark was a fucking idiot to drive this woman away. Granting her request and letting her into his car was the biggest mistake Wilford had made in a very long time, and he already knew it. He didn’t have to do a damn thing more than he already had to fuck everything up. She’d spent twenty minutes complaining about her husband — a man who was supposed to be Wilford’s friend — and he couldn’t find a single reason to disagree with her.

He’d fucked up the second he talked to her outside of one of the parties.

“So what kind of psychic are you, anyway?” he asked, realising he was several months too late with the question.

“I’m a medium,” she said. “I can’t read minds or solve crimes, unless someone’s spirit can tell me something. It comes with emotional telepathy I could really do without.”

Wilford nodded, having a pretty good guess at why she might find something like that unpleasant. “Sounds to me like you two don’t like each other much,” he said, knowing just how stupid it was before he finished the sentence.

“I hate him,” Celine said plainly. “And he knows it. And I was dumb enough, and star-struck enough to sign a pre-nup.”

“What do you mean?” Wilford asked. “What was in it?”

“I can’t leave him,” Celine says. “If I do, he gets everything.”

“Even the money you make?” Wilford asked. Well, that sure as hell couldn’t be right.

“Even my business.” She took a deep breath, glancing into the back seat again. She was obviously trying to keep everything to herself until they could get out of the car and put some distance away from the kid.

Wilford shook his head. “I don’t think that’s legal. I’ll hook you up with my lawyer. He can probably nullify it for you in an afternoon.”

“I’ve talked to lawyers,” Celine said.

“You’ve talked to Vinewood lawyers. They got loyalty, and it ain’t to you. I’ve got the kind of lawyer that has to fight off those fuckers when I say something one of their clients or their cults doesn’t like,” Wilford says.

“I keep forgetting you’re one of the bad guys,” Celine said.

“What? You think I’d rather be playing by the rules?” Wilford asked. “The only reason I’m not a super villain is I didn’t have the grades in science for it.”

“Maybe I should try it some time,” Celine said. It was impossible to ignore the way she grinned at him. With a grin like that, she didn’t need anything else at all to be a super villain.

Wilford turned off the Great Ocean Highway toward the ocean itself. There was a little line of houses and quaint little restaurants up against the beach, flying bright flags shaped like birds and fish. It was the sort of town the locals went to go to be tourists, where everything was just fake enough to be comfortable, but real enough to be familiar.

“Never been out here before,” he said, checking building numbers against the address Celine had punched into his phone. It was somewhere close, so he slowed down to keep from missing it.

“We used to come out here every weekend,” Celine said. “One time Damien found this little raft that probably belonged to somebody, and started paddling around this little river with it. He had a blast, until the tide started going out.”

“Did he drown?” Wilford asked. He wished he could have been there to see that disaster.

“He said he managed to paddle back a few miles down shore,” Celine said. “I think there’s a respawn point somewhere I’ve never been able to find.”

Wilford laughed. He found the right place, and pulled off into a parking space. “I’ll have to ask him about it,” he said. “I like the faces he makes when things don’t go his way.”

Celine laughed and shook her head. “You really are one of the bad guys.”

Wilford glanced at her as he was grabbing his phone, just long enough to wink before he got out of the car. He shouldn’t have done that. Maybe he could escape it by trying to wrangle the kid out of his seat and into the little diner.

“Come on, pal,” he said. “You hungry?”

Michael nodded, and started to whine. He was worse than hungry. He was also tired and bored, and probably needed to get inside before he had an accident. As he unhooked Michael from his seat, Wilford reached down to pick up the backpack from the floor, just in case a pair of clean briefs were required. He got smacked in the side of his face for his troubles, but he probably deserved it, fucking with their routine like this.

With a good grip on Michael and the bag, Wilford stood up to close the doors and lock up the car. Getting bossed around by a toddler had done absolutely nothing to discourage any attention. If anything, Celine only seemed further encouraged. It would have been very easy to put her off the path. Instead, he bounced Michael in his arms for a few moments, giving ht e kid his full attention as he tried to calm him down. He let Celine lead the way in, hoping that with Mark’s complete lack of a career, they’d be able to avoid causing any more trouble for themselves. At least not being dragged out to red carpet events meant she wasn’t as likely to get recognised outside of the city.

Once inside, Wilford headed off to find the men’s room while Celine picked a table. As soon as he put Michael down on the floor, the kid rushed off to the nearest stall. And immediately started crying when he couldn’t unzip his own pants.

“Hang on a second,” Wilford said tiredly, just glad that the urgency meant there wasn’t likely to be an emergency change of wardrobe in their future. On the list of things Wilford did not see in his future six months earlier, helping a toddler pee without falling into the toilet or getting it on the ceiling was at the top of that list. And yet here he was.

With that crisis averted, Wilford got him cleaned up in the sink and released him to the wild so he could move around a little bit before he had to sit right back down. The diner wasn’t that big, but still they found themselves a bit lost somehow.

“Will!” Celine called.

Wilford looked over toward her voice, finding her a step ahead of him. There was an open patio at the back of the old, converted house, with a few stairs leading down to the beach and a nearby playground. It was all the encouragement Michael needed. He ran outside, tumbled down the stairs into the sand, and got back up as if he hadn’t even noticed. There were seagulls out in on the beach, picking up whatever scraps were out there, and Michael immediately ran straight toward them.

“Hey!” Wilford shouted after him. “Get closer!”

Michael looked up at Wilford for about a second before running after the birds again.

“Let him play,” Celine said. “He deserves it. I really pissed him off back there.”

Wilford nodded vaguely and sat down, not taking his attention off of Michael.

“Mark said he’s adopted?” Celine asked.

“In the process,” Wilford said, paying less attention to her than she probably wanted.

“You sure got that moving fast. I’ve seen it take years for some people,” Celine said, also watching Michael play with the birds.

“They speed it up when it’s family,” Wilford said. Michael wasn’t going any closer to the surf, but he was still a little too far out for comfort.

“Family?” Celine asked.

Wilford nodded, looking back at Celine for just a moment. He didn’t like this nervous feeling the kid seemed to constantly give him, and he wished it would go away. “He’s my grandson.”

There was that absolute look of confusion Wilford was getting so used to seeing. “Oh my god, I’m sorry,” she said, laughing nervously now. “I thought… he doesn’t speak English…” She covered her mouth with one hand, as if to stop herself from going any further.

Wilford shook his head at returned his attention to the kid. “I’d be offended if this were the first time I heard that,” he said. He looked up again to find an older woman trying not to butt in on a conversation she clearly regretted walking in on.

“Hi,” she said awkwardly, putting a couple of menus down on the table. “I’ll give you two a few minutes,” she said before scurrying away. Wilford watched her go and picked up the menu with a shrug.

Celine still had her had over her mouth, looking everywhere, like she wasn’t sure where she wanted to look. Eventually, she settled on the menu, reading it far too intently for someone who came here often enough to know the address.

“So. Your grandson?” she asked. “That’s…”

“My daughter,” Wilford said, cutting straight to the chase. “She’s in prison. I was the teenage fuck-up.”

He picked up the menu and scanned over it, finding it entirely predictable. Pasta with sauces he couldn’t eat, chowders he couldn’t eat. Some fried stuff he probably already ate too much of. It was just as boring as the fare his neighbours in Del Perro were pushing.

“I had no idea,” Celine said, distracted enough from her menu to actually look at him again.

“We haven’t been very open about it.” He put his menu down and looked back out at the beach again. The birds seemed to know where the food was, barely moving out of the way even as Michael charged at them. Whatever scraps they were digging out of the sand were clearly more important. “It took about two seconds for it to get out that I suddenly had a little kid, but that’s all anyone got with it before it got boring. Once we get his name changed, it should make it a little easier to keep him hidden.”

Celine seemed confused for a moment. “Wouldn’t she be able…” she cut herself off as a visible thought crossed her mind. “Oh. She doesn’t know you?”

She clearly wasn’t very pleased to hear this. Wilford wasn’t sure why that bothered him. “I found out about her the day he showed up at my front door.” He shook his head and shrugged. “I guess it’s a testament to how much her mother hates me that nobody came forward when I was starting to make some money.”

“How old were you?” Celine asked.

“Fourteen.”

She nodded. “Oh, yeah. She definitely hates you,” she agreed.

Whatever Wilford was about to say next vanished from his thoughts in an instant. Michael started screaming bloody murder, finally scattering the seagulls. Wilford jumped to his feet and ran down to the beach, acutely aware of the rising panic he couldn’t clamp down. Michael dropped down into the sand, screaming and flailing his hand. All of the worst thoughts managed to get chased away then. It was small, and difficult to see as it was flung through the air at half the speed of sound, but impossible to miss all the same.

“Oh, you pissed him off,” Wilford said as he crouched down and grabbed the kid’s arm to keep him still. The tiny crab held onto Michael’s finger with a tiny, clawed death grip. As Michael screamed, Wilford managed to annoy it enough into letting go and scurrying away into the dry sand. With Michael still crying, Wilford picked him up and took him back to the table. As Wilford got him settled into the seat next to him, the awkward waitress returned. Wilford still had no idea what he wanted to order.

---

The dogs knew not to jump, but even with them firmly on the ground, Wilford had to fight not to fall over or wake the kid up.

“Get away,” he scolded, trying to push through them toward the stairs. But he wasn’t actually who they were excited to see. He was simply in the way, and as soon as he got past them, they both crowded around Celine as she tried to follow Wilford in from the garage. Wilford was about to scold them again, but Celine was quick to undermine him by crouching down to give them both excited scratchings. Letting that scene play out, Wilford carried the kid up the stairs and carefully dropped him off in his bed. Once he got the kid settled, he turned to leave, only to find Celine already waiting for him in the door.

“This wasn’t here last time, was it?” she asked quietly.

Wilford shook his head and guided her out, shutting the door behind him, not quite letting it latch. “No, it’s all new.” He kicked his shoes off at the landing and headed out toward the kitchen.

“Most people just move,” Celine pointed out. “Or at least move their office out to the garage.” She followed his lead in taking off her shoes before walking through the rest of the house.

“I make too much money to work out of my garage,” Wilford said plainly. He grabbed a few beers from the back of the fridge, and paused. “Do you want a glass?” he asked.

Celine looked up from examining his record collection. “No, the bottle’s fine,” she said.

Nodding, Wilford popped the caps on the bottles and brought them out to the coffee table. He sat down on the sofa, watching as Celine picked an album and carefully put it on the turntable. Like most people who took liberties with his vinyl, she picked Glenn Miller. Unlike most people, she picked one of the jazz albums, starting on the B-side.

“You didn’t go for the big band?” he asked.

Celine shook her head. “It’s a little late for swing.”

She wasn’t wrong. Wilford watched her curiously as she made her way over to the sofa. She sat entirely too close to be proper. She picked up her beer and leaned back lazily into the cushions, being about as subtle as a brick. She was there to make some mistakes, and the only thing stopping it from happening was Wilford being a complete wreck. He didn’t think he could make a move if he had to. He was once again paralysed by his own stupid fear, and he hated himself for it. Before Celine could see any of it he leaned back as well, shifting into the corner to face her a little better, and took a drink of his beer.

“What happens if he leaves you?” he asked.

Celine shook her head. “You want to know the power he had over me?” she asked. “It was never stipulated.”

Wilford mulled that over for a moment. “I’ll talk to my lawyer,” he said eventually. “He’ll have some kind of magic trick up his sleeve.”

“I want a divorce,” she said plainly. “I want it to be messy, and I want it to hurt, and I want it to be humiliating. I want him to feel as stupid as he me feel.”

Wilford nodded and tapped on his watch to check the time. It was still early enough that if he really wanted to, he could make a few calls and kick things off right then and there. But he didn’t want to. There were easier, less-precise and more obvious ways, so he just nodded instead. He didn’t know if she was doing this on purpose, or if he was just bored and stir-crazy enough to see something that wasn’t there. He’d been so focused on the kid, and before that getting his own ducks in a row for so long that he hadn’t taken the time to just play and have fun for far too long. And Celine was handing him the opportunity on a silver platter. He let his eyes wander completely unprofessionally for the first time since he’d met her. He’d looked, and he’d seen, but he’d never taken a moment to just appreciate until that moment as she spilled her sadistic desires on his sofa.

Finally, he nodded. “How bad do you want it to hurt?” he asked.

Celine moved toward him, leaning against him and getting close enough for him to see the red in her hair under the light. He hated it. He wanted to jump up and get away, but there was another part of him that he usually managed to keep clamped down. The part of him that still craved this.

“I want him to wish he was dead,” Celine said. She was dead serious. How the hell could Wilford pass that up? He hadn’t indulged this hobby outside of work in far too long.

She got even closer, pressing her body against his, holding her beer at an awkward angle that kept her weight even heavier against him. She leaned in to kiss him, and Wilford didn’t stop it. Worse, he was already hard, like some fucking pathetic teenager. Worse still, he was too goddamn terrified to do a damn thing about it. He was still stunned he’d let things go as far as they had. He was starting to wonder how far he’d let things go before he flew into a full-blown panic. But the Universe wasn’t that cruel; or perhaps not that kind. Juts when he thought he might get brave enough to find out, the unmistakable sound of his barely-verbal toddler waking up from a nightmare filled the back of the house. Wilford had never experienced such a confusing collection of emotions before. He was relieved to have an escape route. But he surprised himself by also being annoyed. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, hoping whatever was bothering Michael would work itself out.

“Dada!” he whined from his bed.

It was clearly not going to work itself out. Celine sat back up, letting Wilford get to his feet to go see what the problem was. Wilford found him sitting up in bed, crying and unmistakably wet.

“Oh, jeez, pal,” Wilford said, already resigned to what came next. He picked up the kid, not even caring for a second about his shirt. Whatever the nightmare had been, it must have been a real doozy to get him crying as loud as he was.

“Hey, man. You’re cool,” Wilford said, taking him into the bathroom to get him cleaned up. “Let’s take a bath. You’ll feel better.”

As he started to get Michael’s dirty beach clothes off, he looked up to see Celine watching from the doorway.

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not used to being around kids.”

It took a few seconds for Wilford to realise what she was talking about. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “We do this a few times a week. We’re working on getting used to sleeping in his own bed, but he’s not a fan.”

“Oh.” Celine nodded. She stood in the doorway for a few moments longer. “I’ll call a car.”

Wilford looked up, surprised she was already leaving. It should have been ideal. “No, stay. This’ll take ten minutes,” he said. He’d had the perfect opportunity to escape without any awkward excuses, and he’d just told her to stay. What the hell was wrong with him?

“Are you sure?” Celine asked.

“Yeah. Just hang out.” Why couldn’t he stop talking? As soon as Celine left to go make herself at home, Wilford shook his head and cursed himself under his breath. Somewhere along the line he’d lost all his self-preservation skills. That was not going to end well for anybody.

He put that problem aside for later and quickly worked on getting Michael in the bath and cleaned up. The absurd collection of squeaky rubber ducks provided a good distraction from whatever had scared the kid this time, and soon enough he was just tired instead of tired and grumpy. He got Michael dressed and parked him out on the recliner with Buster. It gave him just enough time to strip the bed down to the plastic cover and change into a clean shirt before Michael started getting upset again. As soon as Wilford returned to the front room, Michael settled back down and cuddled up with the dog. Just being in the same room was enough for him, but it also created a unique solution to a stupid problem.

Wilford returned to the sofa, feeling more tired than he had just twenty minutes earlier. Celine wasted no time in cosying up again, this time more relaxed and with less intent. This… this was safe. It wasn’t completely comfortable, but it wasn’t scary enough either to distract him from how much he’d starved himself of even this level of intimacy. He thought he could stay like this for a long time. And he was tried enough to just enjoy it in silence until Celine finally had something to say.

“So this is parenthood, huh?” she asked.

Wilford snorted. “This is the easy stuff,” he said.

Celine nodded strangely. “I’m not surprised,” she said.

“What do you mean?” He tried to lean and bend away to look at her properly, but they were too close.

“There’s a darkness around him,” she said plainly. “I don’t think it’s his, but he’s carrying it.”

Wilford thought about it. He hadn’t considered it like that before. “Yeah there is,” he agreed. “But we’re working on it.”

“Be careful,” she said. She reached for his hand, turning it around to look at the ring she’d given him ages ago. He still wore it because he felt like now more than ever, he needed all the protection he could get. “It can be dangerous if you pick up too much of it.”

This wasn’t a revelation. The potential for everything to go catastrophically wrong was always in some dark corner of Wilford’s mind. “I’m trying not to,” he said.

Celine seemed content with that answer. She rested her head against his shoulder, freeing him to move his arm from between them and over her waist. It was entirely too comfortable to be safe. But that threshold had already been crossed and left far behind. She’d dangled that temptation in front of him, and he was not a strong enough man to ignore it. He might go down in flames with the rest of them, but the broken part of his brain that made all his decisions wanted to be let out to play, and it was too late to stop it. She wanted him to ruin someone’s life, and that was exactly what he was going to do.

---

The sun was in his face. That was the first thing that he noticed wen he woke up. Second was the record player hissing through the 7.1 system.

Third was that he was not alone on the sofa. Celine had never called a car. She was still there, half leaning against him, half on top of him, holding his hair up and letting it fall. Confused and startled, Wilford tried to sit up. He was too old to pass out on the sofa with someone else, and every bone in his back protested trying to move.

“Is that red or purple?” Celine asked, holding up his hair again.

Wilford realised she was holding it up in the light. “Kind of in between,” he said. He yanwed, tried to stretch again, and gave up. “I used to bleach it in school and it would turn this weird orange colour if I did it too much.”

“I’ve been thinking about lightening mine out,” Celine said.

It was Wilford’s turn to reach out and play with her hair. The angle was completely wrong for him to get the light to play off the colours properly, but he could still see the red tones she had under the black. “You’d look good with red hair,” he said.

“Maybe I will,” she said. She grinned at him, and then glanced over at his watch. She tilted her head one way, and tried to twist his wrist the other, and then her eyes went wide. “I really need to call a car,” she said, getting up suddenly.

Wilford checked the time, quickly realising why she was panicking. It was past eight already. She’d definitely have been missed. He sat up, watching her pick up her bag from where she’d left it by the stereo and dig through it for her phone.

“Shit,” she hissed, scrolling through what looked like a considerable amount of messages even from where Wilford sat across the room.

“How bad?” he asked.

“Triple digits,” she said, tapping furiously at the screen for a few moments before she shoved it back into her bag.

Wilford already knew what was coming next, even if it wasn’t immediate. But this was a familiar feeling that he didn’t miss. The hectic morning after when mistakes feel more like mistakes. Celine stuck around long enough to give Wilford a chaste kiss before collecting her shoes and heading downstairs. It would take a while for any car to get up there to pick her up, but Wilford knew she wasn’t going downstairs to wait. She was going downstairs to sound like she was alone. Figuring he’d help her out, Wilford got up to turn off the stereo. As he stood there, looking at the stack of records they’d gone through the night before, he picked up his phone from the dock and scrolled through his contacts. Finding the right one, he sent a simple text message.

Damage control

A rampage outside the restaurant was nothing inherently new. It happened. It happened everywhere. Most people went on with their lives, and forgot about it the next morning. But of course, it would happen outside Wilford’s restaurant, two days before he was supposed to film some stupid show he didn’t want to film, and kill someone who didn’t belong in this world to begin with. Of. Fucking. Course.

He could deal with that later. Or just never go back to the bar. Maybe he could send Nichola as a spy to figure out if this is something they’d consider a hanging offence.

First, he needed to deal with his shoulder. Something was very, very wrong in his shoulder, which meant a long wait in an emergency room with a little boy who wanted to be anywhere but an emergency room. Eventually, he was seen, his shoulder was put back together how it belonged, and he was given yet another prescription he didn’t want. He still had some percocets left over from his surgery. He’d take those instead.

It was late by the time they got home. Getting Michael ready for bed with one arm in a sling wasn’t the easiest task in the world, but Wilford was willing to put up with the hassle in exchange for the added layer of protection between his mattress and the bed-wetting child. And his bed was exactly where Wilford wanted to sleep. He was in too much pain and too exhausted to want to crash anywhere else.

By morning, he got rid of the sling. He didn’t want it. It was just in the way. He put just enough energy into getting Michael cleaned up and dressed for the day, and getting everyone fed, and that was all he had left. He was tempted to call Andy in, even though he clearly wasn’t going anywhere, but he didn’t want Andy there while he was home. Wilford would take the lazy way out. He found some asinine cartoons, grabbed some of Michael’s smaller toys from downstairs, and collapsed into his chair to wallow in misery for the day. He lasted a whole hour before he had to get up to dig his pills out of his sock drawer. He could usually power through a lot things. Getting run over a few times and torn up from the inside was apparently not one of them. Maybe when he was in his 20s, but definitely not while he was looking down the barrel of 40. Eventually the percocets kicked in, and he didn’t feel quite like he was going to roll over and die. Not from the pain, at least. Maybe from the garbage playing on the TV. He had a new laptop he needed to set up anyway. This would be the perfect opportunity for it.

While Wilford copied the contents of his hard drive over to the new machine, Michael played quietly on the floor, force-feeding his stuffed animals crackers and smashing cars together, apparently enjoying his day off from having to pick out colours and match shapes. Wilford didn’t think a day off would hurt anything, and he thought that if he got down onto the floor, he might never be able to get himself back up. There were other things he could do later that might fill the gap, but he’d do that later, when it was time to start winding the kid down for the night. For now, he needed to get the new laptop set up so he could get back to work as quickly as possible.

“Da da.”

Wilford looked up, finding Michael looking very sad and holding one of his dolls. Her hair had been all tangled up in the wheels of one of his cars, and showed evidence of an attempt to pull them apart.

“You ran her over again, you maniac,” he said. “Give it here.”

Michael crouched down beside Wilford’s chair, watching intently as he tried to untangle the mess. “She’s a girl. You have to be nice to her, or she won’t want to hang out with you anymore,” he said, carefully rotating the wheels back and forth so he wouldn’t have to shave the damn thing bald. “Then how are you supposed to make all your bad choices?”

Eventually, he managed to untangle the doll’s hair from the car’s wheels, but she wasn’t in a very pretty state. Wilford put his laptop on the table and got up to grab a comb from the bathroom, along with one of his ortho bands. Michael followed him into the bathroom, and back out again to the chair, watching as Wilford combed out the doll’s hair as best he could, so he could fix her hair back up into the messiest braid ever.

“There,” he said, handing the doll back once her hair was fixed and tied up with the band. “Now be nice.”

Michael took the doll and trotted back off to his pile of mess in the middle of the floor.

---

Monday morning came, and Wilford still didn’t feel any better. Michael had managed to go the night without wetting the bed, so he skipped the part of the morning that involved getting the kid dressed for the day. Andy had two working hands and could do a better job at it. On his way out the door, he reminded Andy about the week’s arrangement, and left to face his doom.

Wilford had thought about running the restaurant as he always did, not showing up until the dinner rush. But that seemed dangerous. That was a lot of open time to go without some form of oversight against whatever these fuckers were pulling, so he put Mandy back on the helm and went straight to Del Perro. By the time he got there, the crew were already out in the parking lot setting up. Wilford walked right past them and through the door to make sure everything was good. Devon had taken down all the trees and angels, but the garlands and little white lights he left up looked good. Tasteful in a way that didn’t declare any affiliation. There were more breakfast diners than usual, but a sign out front warning people that a television crew would be filming seemed to act as more of a draw than a deterrent. As Wilford ducked into the kitchen to make sure everything was neat and tidy and running properly, he caught the first camera operator come through the front door, already filming their establishing shots. Already dreading the day, Wilford poured himself a glass of water and downed a few percocets so he could have a chance at getting through the day.

It didn’t take long for things to heat up. Damien Welsh showed up right on time, immediately snooping through the restaurant as if he were curious, and not looking for cobwebs or mould. Wilford went out to greet him, putting on his friendly TV face. He hated the man already, with his 90s frosted hair and black suit. Wilford had never watched any of the man’s shows in his life, but he didn’t look like the sort of person who spent any real amount of time in a kitchen. Wilford showed him around, answered his questions, and eventually led him to a table and gave him a menu. Welsh was going to be here to stir up shit and mock Wilford for not being able to handle it. If that was his goal, he wasn’t going to get a minute of airable footage. He left Welsh out there to do whatever it was he was going to do, and hid out in the kitchen so the servers could relay info to him. Another camera operator had followed him back, but he didn’t care. This pretentious fucker wasn’t going to win.

“He wants one of everything,” Ashley said, throwing her hands into the air as she came back to the kitchen. “One of fucking everything.”

It wasn’t a big menu, but it was still an outrageous order. Wilford checked his watch and shook his head. “You know how to cook?” he asked.

“A little?” Ashley said.

He nodded. “Good, you can help. Tina’s on the floor too, right?”

“Yeah.”

Wilford guided Ashely over to the line and got everything set up as well as he could without straining his shoulder. She could prep items without having to worry about burning anything, or undercooking it. “Sharp knife,” he said, showing her how to use the steel. He grabbed a carrot from the fridge, and showed her all she’d need to do. “Chop, matchsticks, dice, mince,” he said, showing her each in turn. “You don’t have to be perfect, but try to be quick.”

“Okay,” she said, taking the knife.

“Tina can take it all out as it’s done. But we have to be quick.”

With Wilford on one of the stoves and Ashely helping to prep, they got dishes out to Welsh quickly, but apparently it still wasn’t quick enough.

“He wants to know why you’re so understaffed that his server is helping cook?” Tina asked as she came back in for the next tray.

“Tell him most people don’t order thirty fucking items at nine in the morning,” Wilford said. “He sending anything back?”

“I think he’s about to, unless he has four stomachs,” Tina said, disappearing out to the dining room again.

Things only sped up from there, and it didn’t take long before word got out that Damien Welsh was filming there. Soon, the entire place was packed, inside, on the patio, and even out on the beach.

“We’re out of blankets,” Kim said, rushing over to Wilford where he watched from behind the bar. “We’ve never run out of blankets before. What do we do?”

Wilford looked at the crowd outside the door. That was a problem indeed. Not just because it’s all the camera crew were focused on. The registers had a basic spreadsheet app installed, so Wilford pulled that up and made himself a time table on it. He started it twenty minutes out, and expanded it in five minute increments. “How many?” he asked the first group in line.

“Four,” one of the guys said.

“Name and phone number?” he asked. After the man gave that information, Wilford asked for a seating preference. He entered everything into the table and nodded. “Someone will call you when your seat is ready, in about twenty minutes. If you’re not here within five minutes, it’ll go to the next person.”

He sent them on their way, taking the next few groups and doing the same, making three columns of reservations. Once he had the system in place, he handed it back over to Kim. “Highlight the ones you seat, give people with no preference the first available spot,” he said. “Be hard on people who can’t get here quickly.”

She nodded and took over the register again, only managing to clear out the crowd when wait times started to be quoted in hours and people turned around to go somewhere else.

Wilford barely had time to step away from the front when he noticed one of the other servers disappear into his office. He couldn’t see who she was, but it wasn’t going to mean anything good. He followed her back there, closing the door on the camera operator who tried to follow him in. It was Tina, with her face buried in her hands and trying not to cry.

“This asshole has sent back four plates after eating just about everything, and now he’s refusing to pay,” she said.

This was the kind of tom-fuckery Wilford had been expecting. “What table?” he asked.

“Twelve.”

Wilford nodded, and left Tina to get herself back together. Table twelve was a group of six, and right away Wilford could see who the trouble maker was. The way he sat, looking around the restaurant like he was owed something singled him out as the sort of person who either did this regularly, or had no problem being paid to do it now. Wilford’s money was on the latter.

“What’s the problem?” he asked, stepping right up to the man.

The man started to say something, but apparently had not been told who owned the restaurant. “Your little girl there thinks she can get me to pay for this crap,” he said.

“Yes, that is how it works,” Wilford said.

“But I sent it back,” the guy said. “I’m not paying for something I sent back.”

“You ate it,” Wilford said.

“Because it was in front of me. That doesn’t mean I liked it.”

Wilford shook his head. “Even my three year old knows that he doesn’t have to eat something he doesn’t like. In fact, he’s a fuck of a lot better than you are at it. If you’ve got the balls to make a girl cry, then you’ve got the balls to say you don’t like something.”

Wilford picked up the cheque and looked at it. “Or did you just suddenly realise that you don’t have a hundred and fifty bucks on you?” He looked around the table as everyone slowly started to pretend they weren’t in his party. “I guess they didn’t want to split it evenly like you thought they would?”

He handed the ticket back. “Pay it, and get the fuck out,” he said. He left the table so they could argue over the split amongst themselves.

He hated this whole thing. The thought that they’d be coming back tomorrow, and again on Wednesday, and through the week almost sent him into a rage. The restaurant was supposed to be a hobby, and these assholes had turned it into a circus. He was glad when they were finally able to shut everything down, but even then the cameras didn’t leave. Apparently they wanted to stay for the clean up. Exhausted and in more pain than he could handle, Wilford sat down at one of the tables to check all the messages he’d missed over the day. Ashley followed him over, offering him a glass of water before she started rubbing his shoulder.

“Ow,” he said, not quite wanting her to stop.

“I was almost surprised you came in today. You look like you’re done,” she said.

Wilford took another percocet. “If it weren’t for all this shit, I wouldn’t have,” he said. He flipped through his texts, Andy letting him know that Michael had been handed off to Billy, Billy letting him know that they’d got home fine. A few pictures and videos from Sharon of Michael and Tim playing together.

“He sure is a cutie,” Ashley said, watching the videos from over Wilford’s shoulders. “He starting to talk yet?”

“A little bit,” Wilford said. “Words here and there.” He noticed one of the camera operators getting close, and covered his phone. “Fuck off,” he said.

The camera operator stalled for a moment before finding something else to film.

“Think they got anything worth using?” Ashley asked.

Wilford half shrugged with his good shoulder, and looked over at where Welsh and Daniel-David were having a very quiet argument. “I don’t think so.”

Sure enough, Daniel-David made his way over a few moments later. “So, I know this isn’t the kind of show you’re used to,” he said. “We were kind of hoping for something a little more… typical of day to day operations.”

Wilford and Ashly both looked at him without a word.

“You know, without everyone being so on-guard and rushed about everything. We wanted to see how you’d normally handle things when the cameras weren’t here.”

“Rushed?” Wilford asked. “We have never in history had a four-hour waitlist. These kids were rushed because you brought half the fucking city out here. Now, I think you got more than enough for a half hour. Don’t you think?”

“It’s an hour,” Daniel-David said.

“Then you’ve got thirteen hours of bonus material for your website. You’re done.” He stared at Daniel-David until the man finally backed away, leaving Wilford and Ashley alone.

“Think they’ll come back tomorrow?” he asked, returning to his pile of messages.

“God, I hope not.”

Wilford hung around until everything was cleared up and the crew had gone, making sure the staff knew that he understood how much the day had sucked, and that everyone would be getting their bonuses for not playing along. By the time he got into the car he was exhausted, and he still had to head out to Mirror Park to pick up Michael. Before he could grab his phone to ask Billy to keep him overnight, someone called him instead. Wilford almost let it go to voicemail, but it was Daniel-David. Maybe giving him another stern talking to would make him feel better.

“You know, I think you’re right,” Daniel-David said almost at once. “We got everything we need. I don’t think we need to come back tomorrow.”

“Good,” Wilford said, hanging up before any more could be said. “Great.”

“I feel like I don’t really know you. I don’t even know where we stand.”

Wilford was liking Craig less and less by the day. For one, he’d chosen to ambush Wilford at the studio to have this discussion.

“I told you. I got a lot of shit going on right now,” Wilford said as he stacked up the folders to return to Billy.

“Yeah, I know. Your son comes first. I get that,” Craig said. “But right now. He’s not even here and you still can’t look at me.”

Wilford looked at him. “Right now isn’t a good time for me,” he said.

“What time? Right now, this second? Right now this week? This year?” Craig looked at him, obviously fishing for an answer that Wilford couldn’t give to him.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But I’m probably not the guy you’re looking for.”

Craig threw his arms up and shook his head. “Maybe not,” he agreed. “I mean, I’d like to be with someone who I feel like trusts me. I don’t even get that from you.”

Wilford shrugged. “I don’t trust anybody. You’re not special.”

“I thought I was supposed to be special,” Craig said. “Aren’t I?”

Wilford didn’t know him well enough. He thought that was supposed to be the entire point behind dating someone. But he’d been backed into a corner, and there was nothing he could say that would be the right response. “Fine. What do you want from me?” he asked.

This was going the same way it always did when he tried this. He couldn’t bring himself to get close enough to anyone for them to want to stick around and put up with his bullshit. Sometimes he could bargain and drag it on for a little longer though.

“What’s the story with you and Mikey’s mom?” Craig asked. “I don’t need the whole story, but I’d like something.”

“That’s what this is all about?” Wilford asked. Christ, people sucked. “He’s not mine. He’s my grandson.”

“Funny,” Craig said.

Wilford wasn’t laughing. He shook his head and went back to work.

“Wait, you’re serious?” Craig asked. “Is it some sort of Jack Nicholson thing? How old’s your daughter?”

“Twenty-four,” Wilford said, not looking back up from his computer.

“Wait. What?” The more questions Craig asked, the less he seemed to like the story. “Then…”

“That’s all you get,” Wilford said.

Craig got up and started walking toward the door. “That’s all I ever get.” He left, and Wilford finally felt like he could breathe. That went… better than last time. But he was better off. He wasn’t good at dating, or dealing with other people. Everyone he could find who was willing to put up with him wanted compensation he could not give. And with Craig out of the way, he’d have more time to focus on Michael and his blog project. Maybe he could actually get the damn thing written without having to hide away where nobody could find him.

Not that Craig walking out on him meant that he’d get much in the way of peace and quiet. He’d barely left when Nichola let herself in.

“He seemed upset,” she said, closing the door behind her.

Wilford hummed.

“Sorry,” Nichola said. She sat down on the other side of the desk and picked up the folders. “How many of these are slated for Friday?”

“Three.” There was an email from Daniel-David, reminding him about filming next week. Apparently nobody had gotten him out of that, but that was fine. He had a plan, and would lay the groundwork for it that evening.

“How’s your other project going?” Nichola asked as she flipped through one of the case files.

“Good,” Wilford said. “I got the interview with that Pierce guy formatted, I think. He had a lot of really good things to say that I want to get into deeper at one point.”

“For the show, or for the blog?”

Wilford shook his head. “Don’t know. I’ve got some things in mind, but I’m not sure how it’s going to go.”

“Oh?” Nichola put the folders back on his desk. “Should I be worried?”

“I’m thinking about writing a book,” Wilford said. “That’s trendy right now. I think if the blog does well, I can take what I cover on it, and I don’t know. Expand on it somehow. I’ve got twenty years of case notes at home. Put together a few exclusive things for the book, use the rest of the space to update what I’ve already done.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” Nichola agreed. “Do you have a draft yet?”

Wilford reached down to the floor and picked up his laptop, handing it over. “Password’s still the same.”

“What time are you leaving today?” Nichola asked, already getting into the laptop.

“Soon as Andy drops the kid off. I have to go out to Del Perro.”

“Oh right. When’s that other thing filming?”

Wilford watched her scrunch up her face and attack the trackpad. It really was time to replace that thing. “Starts Monday,” he said. “I don’t know how long he plans on hanging around for, but I’m hoping to waste an entire week if I can. Throw him all off schedule.”

“You’re mean,” Nichola said. “You’re real mean.”

Wilford laughed to himself. “I’m not mean. I’m spiteful.”

“You’re both.”

---

Michael always fell asleep during the long drive out to Del Perro. Not that Wilford could blame him. It was a drive he wouldn’t mind sleeping through either.

Off-season didn’t seem to mean a whole lot along the boardwalk, and if not for his reserved space, Wilford wouldn’t have been able to park within a mile of the restaurant. He pulled into his space and before he could even shut off the engine, he realised he’d been ambushed. He wondered if it was possible to just will one’s self to death. He tried, but was still annoyingly alive when Craig made it over to his door. Rather than do this in the car where Michael would wake up, Wilford stepped outside and shut the door.

“Jesus Christ, what now?” he asked tiredly.

“What now? Really?” Craig asked.

“Didn’t we already do this today?” He wanted to just grab the kid and walk inside, but that would probably take the fight inside with him. He knew he’d got off too easy that morning.

“Are we even dating?” Craig demanded.

“I thought so,” Wilford said. “I also thought we already broke up, but maybe I’m wrong on both counts.”

“And that doesn’t upset you?” Craig was getting uncomfortably close again.

“Nope.” Wilford stepped aside, putting him in front of Michael’s door. He didn’t think Craig was going to do anything that stupid, but he wasn’t going to wait around to put that to the test.

“Just like that? You’re fine with it?”

Wilford shrugged. “Yeah.” There was a group of people standing on the ramp to the door, watching the scene play out in front of them. Great.

“Did I mean anything to you?” Craig was nearly shouting now, really giving the business suits the show they were after. Wilford knew he could shout back and scare him off, but it was a bad image for the restaurant.

“Not really,” he said. “You seemed like you might be fun, so I went along with it.”

“What fun? I got more action in middle school.”

“So did I,” Wilford said. He pointed a thumb at the car behind him. “Where do you think his mom came from?” If Craig wanted to know this story so badly, he could have it.

Craig had the audacity to look disgusted. “You know what, I don’t even want to know what’s wrong with you. I feel like I dodged a fucking bullet.”

“Probably,” Wilford agreed.

Craig shook his head and stomped off, hopefully to be gone for good. The suits were still standing on the ramp, watching everything. Disgusted with himself, Wilford turned and leaned against his car to just breathe for a while. He was never doing that again. He didn’t need anything from anyone else. He was perfectly fine being alone for the rest of his life. He just needed to learn that.

“Wilford?” a voice behind him said suddenly.

Whoever it was, Wilford didn’t want to deal with them. He shook his head and stood up, taking a moment to turn around to chase off whoever was bothering him now, but the words died on his tongue. He almost thought he was seeing things.

“Walt? What the hell are you doing here?” He realised that Walter was one of the suits standing on the ramp, though the others he was with had disappeared.

“A distributor brought me here for a meeting,” he said, pointing at the restaurant.

“What?” Wilford had no idea what Walter was talking about, which seemed about right. Not wanting to deal with any of this, he turned around and opened the back door.

“I know you live out here, but I didn’t think you’d be in this area,” Walter said. “Is this a popular meeting spot?”

“It’s mine,” Wilford said as he carefully unbuckled Michael from his seat, trying not to wake the kid up. If he was lucky, he could keep Michael asleep for another few hours.

“What?” Walter asked.

“I own it,” Wilford said. He swung the backpack around his shoulder before lifting Michael out of the chair. “I spent money from my bank account and bought the business.”

He turned around and closed the door, eager to get inside to his business so he could keep it from getting sabotaged by some dickless producer.

Whatever Walter was going to say seemed to be forgotten immediately. “Whose child is that?” he asked after a moment.

“Mine,” Wilford said.

Walter didn’t seem to know what to do with this information. “Yours? And your restaurant?”

“Yep. They’re both mine,” Wilford said. He started walking back toward the ramp, but Walter only followed him.

“You have a child?” he asked, leaning awkwardly to try to look at Michael’s face. “With who? Not that man you were fighting with?”

“No,” Wilford said. “Leave him alone. I don’t want him waking up.”

Walter stopped for just a moment, giving Wilford and even more confused look before rushing to catch up just in time for them to get to the door. The host shot them a confused look, but Wilford waved it off and continued back toward his office. “Employees only,” Wilford said, quickly stepping through the door and shutting it between them. Michael had managed to sleep through the whole ordeal, and mercifully stayed that way as Wilford got him settled on the little couch he’d managed to cram into the corner after he got rid of the shelves of paper records. He hoped his accountant was having a fun time with them. For a moment, Wilford wondered how long Walter would wait for him, but he suddenly changed his mind about trying to drive him off. Making sure that Michael was likely to stay asleep, Wilford opened the door again to find Walter still standing on the other side. Wilford nodded back toward the front door, leading Walter back out. He stopped briefly at the bar, flagging down Kate.

“I gotta step outside for a while. Keep an eye on the door,” he said, pointing toward his office.

Kate nodded and rushed back to work. Wilford led Walter back outside and around toward the patio. The wind was high enough that dining out on the beach didn’t seem too appealing to most of the diners, leaving it empty.

“What are you doing here, Walter?” Wilford asked, leaning against the rail.

“Business meeting,” he said. “I come into town for them during this time of year, since there’s not much to be done at home.”

“Why here?” Wilford asked. “Specifically. Also, where do you live?” Had he been nearby this entire time? Gross.

“I told you. He invited me here, in the name of pandering I’m sure,” Walter said, shrugging. “At least he got it right this time and didn’t take me out for Thai again.”

“Why are you in Los Santos?” Wilford demanded slowly. “You don’t fucking live out here, do you?”

“No, up in Flint County. Do you know what there is to do in Flint County in November?” He acted like he wasn’t walking all over Wilford’s things.

“I don’t care,” Wilford said. He wanted a cigarette worse than ever. He’d been kicking far too many habits lately, and felt like he might explode if he didn’t maintain at least this one. “But don’t ever come here again. Anywhere else in the city, fine. But not here. It’s mine.”

Walter nodded. “Of course.” Wilford remembered how easily Walter got scared around him, and tried to pull himself back a bit. He had questions for him that he probably wouldn’t answer if he started panicking.

“Is that really your son in there?” Walter asked suddenly.

“I’m working on making that happen,” Wilford said. “Which is what I wanted to talk to you about. Do you remember when I was fourteen, and I knocked some girl up?”

Walter seemed to think for a moment. “I think so. Didn’t her dad try to hit you with a tire iron?”

“Shit, I’d forgotten about that.” He’d come over to shout and make noise, and the next thing anyone knew, Wilford’s dad was trying to pull the two of them apart. “I thought if Mom didn’t kill me, he would.”

“What about it?” Walter asked.

“Do you know anything else about that?” Wilford asked. “What happened after?”

“The girl got an abortion and they all moved away, didn’t they?” Walter looked at him, not seeming very certain about his answer.

Wilford shook his head. “That’s what I was told too, but it’s not what happened,” he said. “She had the kid. Just found out a few months ago.”

Walter looked at Wilford, and then back toward the building. “That’s your grandson?” he asked.

Wilford nodded. “Yep.”

“What happened?” Walter asked.

“She’s even more fucked up than I am,” he said, trying not to laugh. “Doing twenty-five to life in some federal pen somewhere.”

Wilford could see Walter trying not to say something.

“Which brings me to the other thing,” Wilford said. “See, to keep the kid safe, I’m taking full custody. I needed my birth certificate for that, and I uh. I noticed something weird about it.”

“Oh?” Walter asked.

“The fuck happened in 1982?” Wilford asked.

Walter spent a long moment thinking. “What do you mean?”

“Why was my name changed?” Wilford wanted to know what else he didn’t know about himself.

“Oh.” Walter counted something out silently on his fingers. “I started school that year. None of the day care people could say my name, so I asked if I wanted to be called something else. I guess they decided to change yours at the same time.”

Wilford let that sink in for a moment.

“You chose Walter? Any name on the planet, and you wanted to be called Walter?” Wilford demanded. “Fuck you!”

“I thought it was a nice name,” Walter said, shrugging.

If Walter liked sounding like an old man, that was fine. But Wilford hadn’t been given much choice in that matter.

“Did you fucking pick mine out too?” he asked.

Walter thought some more. “Maybe I suggested it?” he asked.

Wilford had not expected the answer to his question to be rooted in such deep stupidity. “I fucking hate you,” he said bluntly.

Walter only shrugged. “I was five. Who listens to a five-year-old like that?” He looked back toward the building, either too stupid to figure out that Wilford was properly angry, or too stubborn to leave. “Do Mom and Dad know about him?” he asked.

“Why the fuck would they know?” Wilford demands. “I didn’t even know if they were still alive.”

“Seriously?” Walter asked.

“Yes, seriously. I haven’t seen or heard from them since I was seventeen,” Wilford said. “I kind of thought you were dead too.”

“Not for a lack of trying on your part,” Walter pointed out.

“I could try again,” Wilford pointed out. “Is that what you want?”

“No,” Walter said, shaking his head. Wilford hated him.

“No, they don’t know,” Wilford said, trying harder than he had ever tried to keep his cool. The last thing he needed to do was get himself into trouble.

“Are you going to tell them?” Walter asked.

“No, Walter,” Wilford said. “I’m not going to tell them anything, because they don’t need to know.” He shook his head and started to head back inside. “I got work to do. Get out of here before I call the cops on you for trespassing.”

He didn’t stick around to wait and see if Walter was going to leave. He just walked in, stopping to tell the first server he crossed paths with to start telling people there was a meeting after close. He let her go off to get on with his job and headed back to his office to make sure everything was running as it should. The books were balanced, Paul was on top of ordering, and the winter menu was performing as he’d hoped it would. When Michael woke up, Wilford ordered dinner for the both of them, distracting the kid with food and crayons so he could keep working. He wondered if the kid liked crayons because kids were supposed to like crayons, or if it was another little thing he’d started to copy from Wilford.

The two of them stayed back in the office all night, staying out of the way until he could hear the sounds of the place closing down. Wilford saved what he was working on and started shutting down as well so he could go meet with his staff. Hauling Michael out under one arm, Wilford stacked up their dishes and brought them out, handing them off to the first server he crossed paths with. Everyone started to halt whatever they were doing once they got to a stopping point, and one by one all filtered over to the table Wilford had picked out for the meeting.

“Quick one tonight, and then I’ll let you get back to what you were doing so you can get home,” he said. “We got a show filming in here, starting Monday. They’ll have releases with them, so if you don’t want to be on TV, don’t sign anything. I don’t care either way. What I do care about is what happens while they’re here. These guys are going to try to stir up shit for a good rating, but don’t let them. The more problems that those cameras see, the worse it’ll be for your paycheques when people stop coming in. They’ll lie to you, offer you money, or an audition somewhere. If you want an audition, I’ll get you one. You got it?”

He watched a few people nodding slowly.

“I’m serious. Anyone who goes along with the shit-stirring next week walks out the door and doesn’t come back. This is your asses on the line, here. Not mine.”

“What do we do if they try to set something up?” one of the servers asked.

“Ignore them. Tell them you’re busy. And you’re going to be. Shows filming places tend to draw a crowd. We’re going to be packed to summer levels here, and some of those folks will be paid shills here to make your day awful.” Wilford looked around the room, making sure he was understood. “If we can make it through next week without giving them anything to use against us, there’s a raise in it for everyone.”

Money was always the best motivator. Watching everyone nod again, Wilford knew he’d found the right amount of motivation.

“Great,” he said. “Finish up here and go home.”

He picked up Michael and took him back out to the car.

---

Even after spending all evening at the restaurant, Wilford still felt like he’d had more time to himself than he’d had all month. He was able to spread out his blog project and work on polishing it up to publish it, while Michael played with his Barbies and cars on the floor, babbling quietly to himself. Wilford wasn’t sure why he was doing it, but he suddenly felt compelled to grab his phone and get up.

“Michael, look at me,” he said. When Michael turned to look up at him, Wilford snapped a quick picture and sent it to one of the printers in his office. He walked in after it, stopping first to grab some letterhead and an envelope from the drawer. By then, the printer was done spitting out the photo. Wilford grabbed it from the printer and took everything back out to the sofa. He wasn’t even sure what he was doing when he picked up his pen.

Walt thinks you should know about him. His name’s Michael. Just turned three.

He couldn’t think of anything else worth including. They didn’t even deserve that much. He folded the paper, wrapping it around the 3x5 before sliding them both into the envelope. He had to find a hangul chart online and download a translation service to his browser, but it didn’t take long to find his folks’ address in Korea. He carefully copied it onto the envelope and sealed it up. He hadn’t tried to contact them since college. He dreaded to think what was going to happen this time.

Craig was sending him texts. Why was Craig sending him texts? Wilford had thought for certain that his panicked fleeing from the party was enough to put anyone off, but here was Craig, sending him texts.

Ignoring them was an option, but not a very smart one. Ignoring emails was one thing, but ignoring texts tended to lead to trouble for some reason. Goddamn social rules Wilford didn’t understand.

Are you free tonight?

There’s a new club in Vinewood.

My treat.

Wilford looked at the string of texts. What was he supposed to do with that? This was clearly an invitation to a date. Wilford hadn’t gone on a proper date in almost five years. It was easier to just pay someone to pretend. It was also getting more creepy and predatory with each passing year. And it was just one date? What could it hurt?

He could ask what time. And then use that as an excuse to decline.

---

He wasn’t sure why he’d brought Craig home. He didn’t want Craig in his house. Now he knew where Wilford lived. Worse, Craig saw that where Wilford lived was a complete war zone. Andy was keeping Michael downstairs, so as soon as they walked through the garage door, Wilford was ambushed by Michael and one of his dinosaurs. Before Michael could scare Craig off, Wilford picked him up.

“Any problems?” he asked, focusing on not letting Michael use the dinosaur to bash him in the face.

“Just that first half hour or so,” Andy said, getting up from where he was playing some colour game with Michael. “I think he’s starting to understand that you come back.”

Wilford nodded and took the dinosaur away, tossing it into the box with the rest of them. “He’s doing okay after that?” he asked.

Andy nodded. “Yeah, he’s doing great. He’s starting to pick up on shapes and colours. I think he’ll start catching up pretty soon.”

“So this is Michael?” Craig asked. “What’s the story with you and his mom?”

Wilford shook his head. “I’ll tell you later.”

He saw Andy off and took Michael upstairs, where the real disaster was. They’d already torn out the back wall, and would be getting to the stairs any day. Wilford couldn’t wait to get those replaced. It was what he was looking forward to most with this stupid project.

“All right, pipsqueak. Ready to help me make dinner?” Wilford asked, parking Michael on the counter.

He started making that noise again, which Wilford continued to take for a positive thing.

---

Between taking Michael everywhere for appointments, and Craig taking him everywhere else to try to get into his pants, Wilford barely had two minutes to himself anymore. He needed to set some better ground rules with Craig. He didn’t mind him coming over. In fact, he kind of liked having him around. But he was turning into the sort of guy who fell head-first into a relationship, rather than giving it time to breathe. There were a lot of things Wilford hadn’t realised he’d missed. He missed just hanging out with someone all night, sharing space. He missed being able to spend money on someone. He missed having someone to bitch at when his day didn’t go the way it was supposed to. But good god, the guy needed to back off a little bit. He was supposed to be coming over that evening. Wilford would lay everything out on the table then.

Until then, he had another problem. Michael’s doctors kept asking for information Wilford either didn’t have, or didn’t have the power to obtain. There was an easy way around that, but it was rather… permanent. It wasn’t what he wanted to do, but he’d already hired someone to knock out a wall to make room for the kid, so things had already become permanent.

He’d need his own documents to go forward, no doubt. He wasn’t sure what he’d need, but he decided to grab everything he had and go from there. Most of the important stuff was in the same folder it had been in when he’d grabbed it from his dad’s office as a kid. He pulled everything out of the folder to make sure he knew what he had, and stopped at his birth certificate. Wilford wasn’t sure when the last time he’d even looked at it was, but there was something wrong with it. Or at least, not right.

What in the hell was an ‘amended’ birth certificate? He stood in his office, staring at it for far too long before he thought to pull out his phone and look it up. According to Google, it meant he’d been adopted, but that definitely wasn’t right. He knew he wasn’t. It would have been used against him for that to have been true, either by his mother or by Walter.

He looked back at the paper again, and stuffed it back into its folder. It was one more thing to add to the list of shit he had to do when he went back to DC.

By the time Craig showed up, Wilford had completely forgotten about wanting to tell him to back off. He didn’t want Craig to back off suddenly. Noticing that on his birth certificate had thrown him into a strange mood that he didn’t know what to do with, and Craig provided a good distraction for that. Once he put the kid to bed, Wilford even let Craig get a little too close. He even thought he might be able to get into it, and then Craig tried to unbutton his jeans and Wilford was on his feet before he realised what he was doing.

“What?” Craig asked, sounding hurt.

“I—I can’t,” Wilford said, walking to the kitchen. “Not now.”

“He’s in the other room,” Craig said. “We can be quiet.”

Wilford shook his head and opened the fridge for a beer. “Not tonight,” he said.

He lingered in the kitchen a little too long before he got his nerve back to return to the sofa, but by then something had changed. Craig was keeping his distance a little too far, but Wilford could not bring himself to bridge the gap. Instead, he handed a beer over and tried not to scream at himself. Eventually Craig went home on an awkward note, promising to call later. Somehow Wilford wasn’t sure that he would.

---

It was three days before he heard from Craig again. He felt like he should say something, but Craig blundered right through an apology before Wilford could even come up with a plausible lie. Craig had made every wrong conclusion he could have possibly made, but Wilford let him keep them. It was easier than telling the truth, and if it got him to back off a bit, it was worth it. Maybe when he got back from DC, he’d be able to put some energy into making himself not be such a useless wreck of a human being.