I’ve hated you for over twenty years. You ruined my life, and now I’m going to ruin yours

[cottoncandypink]

Watching the neighbours’ daily self-destruction over a cup of coffee was becoming something of a morning ritual. The windows in the front room looked right over the wall and into their kitchen. Wilford couldn’t tell what they were fighting about this time, but they were definitely going to regret that smashed glass stovetop. They’d probably be fighting about that all week.

Wilford had slept for an irritating amount of time the day before, and was now struggling to be awake when he wanted to be. God, he hoped whatever Celine had done had worked, because if he had to do that again, he wasn’t sure which was worse. He realised she hadn’t taken her ring back, either. It was annoying and always in the way, but if she hadn’t asked for it back, it was probably still important. He’d keep it until the next time he saw her.

Behind him, Buster and Bailey were whining for their breakfast, but Wilford made them wait, just like every morning, until he finished his coffee. If the neighbours hadn’t shot each other by then, they probably weren’t going to. And indeed, they didn’t, so Wilford walked over to the kitchen to find breakfast for the three of them. He rarely ate breakfast at home, but the show was off the air until the cops were positive nobody in the studio was responsible for Kevin’s death, so he found himself once again with more spare time than he was used to. First, he started with the dogs, if for no other reason than to shut them up. He pulled out an egg for each of them, tossing one of them down to Buster. He still hadn’t mastered that skill, and probably never would. The egg exploded on the side of his face as he snapped in the wrong direction.

“Are you sure you’re not blind?” Wilford asked.

Buster had no answer. He was too busy with his egg, and trying not to get tackled by a puppy that was already bigger than he was. With the second egg set aside, Wilford took some chicken out of the fridge and tossed it into a frying pan. While it sizzled away, he diced up a couple of carrots and tossed them in as well. With that going, he poured another cup of coffee and headed over to glance back at the neighbours, but they’d already left, so he went back to the dogs. The chicken cooked quickly, and got diced and portioned out onto two plates. He cracked the remaining egg onto one of them, tossing the shell into a bowl by the sink. Since Bailey seemed afraid of eggshells, she got hers ground up with the food processor and dusted over her breakfast. Wilford left them to it and started making his own breakfast. Bacon, eggs, and toast, and one more top-up on his coffee. He took his denture out as he sat down at his chair by the TV, because it still hurt more to eat with it than without it. By the time he got used to the damn thing, it would be time to get the permanent replacement in. The dogs had both inhaled their food and were already begging at his feet before he even took his first bite, but he ignored them, turned on the TV to the news, and continued to enjoy his morning. He could almost get used to this, if not for the circumstances surrounding everything. He’d been spending a lot more time at the gym, or at his restaurant, or just trying to see what normal people did with their lives. It was a little boring, that part, but the unexpected side effect of sleep coming a little easier actually made the boring points kind of nice. After over twenty years of never having a full, un-drugged night of sleep, the novelty of getting that back hadn’t quite worn off just yet.

It was a quiet, peaceful morning, watching a massive police chase down the highway. If it was bad enough to make it to the news, the person being chased must have really fucked up, but the reporters had long passed that part of the story by the time Wilford found it, and were fully engaged in the spectacle. The guy had skills, and he kept it up at high speeds for almost an hour before missing a corner and flying off into the sea. With that over, Wilford got up to kick the dogs out and clean up. Maybe he’d go to the gym. He’d go back to the boxing club as soon as he was cleared for it, but for now he spent his time with the treadmill and weights. He put his teeth back where they belonged, and cleaned up just well enough to be seen in public when his phone chimed that someone was at the gate. He wanted to ignore it, but maybe it probably the damn cops again.

It was not the police. It was a woman he’d never seen before, demanding that he open his gate and let her in.

“Who in the fuck are you, and what are you doing here?” he asked, walking to the front of the house to look out the kitchen window. Sure enough, there was some blonde standing out on the other side of his massive gate, next to a big, red SUV. That didn’t bode well.

“Tiffany. Benson. And you’re on the house tour, dumbass,” she said. That rang a tiny little bell from somewhere too. A tiny, scary little bell.

“What?” Wilford leaned closer to the window. “Make more sense.” It looked like a rental car. Either he had some stalker from out of town, or someone local was trying to cover their tracks. More curious than cautious, he walked out the door and down the stairs to the driveway, leaving the gate very much closed.

“Who in the fuck are you?” he shouted, hanging up his phone.

The woman — Tiffany — stepped out of her car and walked up to the gate. “My lawyer said if I could find you, I have every right to make my demands.”

“Demand what?” Wilford asked. This was already stupid. Tiffany opened the back door of the SUV and pulled out a little kid. Wilford watched her heft the boy onto her hip, and laughed at the stunt she was trying to pull.

“Yeah, right. Why don’t you go find higher-profile?” he asked, shaking his head and already turning back to go inside and wait for the crazy to leave so he could go to the gym.

“He’s not yours, stupid. He’s your grandson,” Tiffany said.

Wilford stopped. That scary little bell was getting louder. “I’m sorry, what?” he asked, acutely aware that he was now providing the neighbourhood entertainment. “Who are you?”

“Tiffany,” she repeated. “We were fourteen.”

Oh. All of a sudden, that made a lot more sense than it should have. “Great. Why are you showing him to me? I don’t want a fucking grandson.”

“I don’t either,” Tiffany said.

Wilford stared at the two of them. Now fewer than four houses had direct line of sight of his driveway, and it was still early enough for most of them to be home. He sighed and buzzed the gate open.

“Get inside before I wind up on a tabloid stand,” he said, letting her in. The dogs were watching them from behind the gate leading to the back yard, so he rushed ahead to make sure they were locked out while Tiffany put the kid back in the car so she could pull it into the driveway. The last thing he needed was a lawsuit on top of this nightmare because one of his dogs knocked her over. Tiffany followed him inside, stopping just beyond the front door to shake her head and sigh.

“This is so unfair,” she said, looking around at the house. She put the kid down on the floor and immediately stepped away, letting him wander straight toward Wilford’s records. Luckily, he got distracted by one of the dogs’ toys.

Wilford didn’t care what was fair and unfair. He primed his coffee machine to pour him another cup. He was going to run out of packets at this rate. “I’ve seen enough of these stories to know that you can’t force custody on someone. And if he’s not mine, then he’s not yours. Where’s his parents?”

Tiffany followed him into the kitchen. “Your daughter is in prison, and his father was killed robbing a 24/7.”

Wilford hummed. “Wasn’t expecting that,” he admitted. “What’d the brat do?”

“Robbed a 24/7.”

Wilford wasn’t sure why that was funny. It wasn’t funny, really. He still laughed. “How do I know that’s my kid? If you are who you say you are, I was told you terminated.”

“Were you?” Tiffany asked bitterly. “That’s nice. That’s real nice, Wil. You always did get what you wanted.”

Wilford frowned at her. He didn’t know where she got that idea. “So, what? Your kid fucked up, and now it’s my responsibility?”

“Your kid too,” Tiffany said.

Wilford took a drink of his coffee and leaned against the counter, keeping a wary eye on the toddler in the other room. “Prove it.” The kid was going to pull all his records down. Wilford could feel it.

Tiffany rolled her eyes. It would probably be too much of a hassle, since his alleged brat was probably in DC somewhere, and wait times for these things being what they are.

Tiffany pulled out a large white envelope from her bag and handed it over to Wilford. Still unsure what was really going on, Wilford took it slowly and opened it. It was a DNA kit. “Seriously?” he asked.

“She’s in prison. I got Michael. I knew she was going to be a dick about it, but we don’t need her. They can test for grandparents too.” Wilford wasn’t sure how much he believed that. He picked up his phone to Google it, and then glared at it when it backed up what he was being told.

“Even if I do take this test, and the brat is mine, you still can’t do anything about it,” Wilford reminded her. “I don’t fucking want him, and I sure as hell don’t owe anything for him. And if what you’re saying is true, then I was lied to, nullified out of the entire arrangement.”

“No, you’re right. I can’t,” Tiffany admitted. “But I’m not keeping him. And that’s for goddamn sure. My parents disowned me because of what Linda did to them, so they’re sure as hell not going to take Michael. Brian’s parents live in some fucking crack den somewhere, so the options are you, or foster care. And I know you know as well as anybody what goes on there.”

“Not my problem,” Wilford said, dropping the envelope onto the counter. “You flew out here for nothing.”

“It is your problem, because I am sick of it being my problem. I never finished high school because of you. I had to change schools six times, because people kept finding out I was the girl with a baby at home. I lost my shitty cashier job at J-Mart because your psycho daughter had so many fucking court dates I missed too much work. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be a thirty-six year old grandmother working at Freckle Bitch’s?” She was screaming by this point, making Wilford wonder how much the neighbours could see what was going on. The kid on the floor behind her barely seemed to notice. He was too busy trying to bite the head off of Buster’s stuffed pig.

Wilford shook his head and took another drink of his coffee. “No, what’s it like?”

“It fucking sucks!” Tiffany screamed. “And you’re in fucking Vinewood, getting anything you want just handed to you. Because Wil always gets what he wants, even if it means leaving a trail of destruction behind him. You owe me. You owe him. He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”

“You were there too,” Wilford said.

“Not the point!”

Wilford wondered if she’d explode if she got any louder. She was certainly turning red.

“Does she really have it too?” he asked, going back to something Tiffany had said earlier.

“Have what too?” Tiffany asked. When Wilford didn’t answer, she covered her face, groaned, and walked away. She took a long moment with her back to him, just breathing. “Are you serious?” she asked. “You’re fucking kidding me. I hate you.”

“I’ve always wondered if it’s hereditary,” Wilford said. And he had genuinely wondered, or if he came by it some other way. His parents had always seemed painfully normal, for the time that he knew them. His brother too. Maybe they were just better at hiding it. Or maybe he just hadn’t noticed because he had his own shit to deal with.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She’d gone from screaming to sounding like she was trying not to cry in a remarkably short amount of time. “I am not going through that hell again. I can’t do court dates and social workers anymore.”

Wilford hadn’t thought she was serious about putting the kid into the system before, but he felt like she was this time. The kid couldn’t have even been three years old, and a mixed-race little mongrel like that wouldn’t last a week before he disappeared and wound up in someone’s satanic cult basement, or worse. If that got out, his credibility would go down the drain. He shook his head and picked up the envelope.

“You staying in town?” he asked, fishing out the consent form first.

“Yeah,” Tiffany said, still keeping her back to him. “No. I don’t know.”

Wilford pulled a pen from his inventory and signed the form. He gave the instructions a quick glance before pulling out the kit and getting a swab from inside his mouth.

“I’m not doing this if the kid’s not mine,” he said once he was done.

“She’s yours. Nobody wants to sleep with the girl who had a kid in the ninth grade,” Tiffany said.

Annoyingly, Wilford believed that. He sealed everything back up and dropped it onto the counter.

“I wouldn’t have flown all the way out here with a two-year-old if she wasn’t yours,” Tiffany said.

Wilford believed that as well. He was rapidly beginning to realise he was well and truly fucked. He pulled his phone out again and called his lawyer. Tiffany didn’t seem to have much else to say, so Wilford stepped outside onto the balcony to get some fresh air while he waited for an answer on the other end.

“Steve, I got a problem,” he said, pulling his cigarettes from his inventory and lighting up. “I got someone standing in my living room with a kid and a DNA test. Put her up in a hotel. Your name. I can’t have my name on this right now,” he said, sighing heavily. There was too much else going on right now, and the competition were already catching on.

“For fuck’s sake,” Steve said. He didn’t have to point out how fucked Wilford was right now. The long pause did it for him. “How long?”

“Until the test comes back.”

He already knew what the results were going to be, but he was hoping that maybe he’d be able to dodge a bullet. Or at the very least, she’d get caught up in a backlog and get fed up and go somewhere else.

“Why not just pay her off and send her packing?” Steve asked.

Wilford sighed and leaned against the rail. “She doesn’t want money. She doesn’t even want the kid.”

There was another long pause.

“She can’t make you take custody. You can say no and send her packing,” Steve said.

“I know.” Stories like this popped up once a month in Vinewood. Even if Wilford didn’t cover those kinds of stories, it was impossible to avoid the rumour mill. “Shut this shit down. I don’t want anyone even tweeting about this.”

Steve sighed. There was a shuffling on the other side, and what sounded like pages flipping. “Send her to my office. Alone. Don’t come with her if you want to avoid the tabloids.”

“No shit. Not a goddamn word anywhere,” Wilford agreed.

“I’ll do what I can, but it’s fucking Vinewood, man. You know what this place is like.” There was another pause and more shuffling and rustling around. “Now do me a favour and quit doing stupid shit for a while.”

“Gladly.” Wilford hung up the phone and went back inside. Tiffany had finally moved her brat away from Wilford’s records, and had put him on the sofa with a bag of crackers so he could drool all over everything. Somehow, that was even worse than the dog drool all over everything. Wilford walked right past them and into his office, pulling open drawers until he found the box full of various business cards. He fished through them, finally finding a stack for his lawyer.

“Go here,” he said, distracting Tiffany from her inspection of his television. She turned, still angry as ever.

“What’s this?” she asked. She looked down at the card and shook her head. “I’m not signing anything.”

“No. You’re going to stay in a hotel room, and taking him with you, and keeping your mouth shut until that comes back negative.”

Tiffany sighed and walked over to pick up her grandson. “You hear that, Michael? Your grandfather’s a brute. You better hope he’s not this mean when you move in.”

“Fuck off,” Wilford said, opening the front door. “Get the hell out of here.”

“I hate you,” Tiffany said plainly. “I’ve hated you for over twenty years. You ruined my life, and now I’m going to ruin yours.”

She walked out of the house, still shaking her head. Suddenly, Wilford didn’t feel much like going to the gym anymore.