2025-01-27 19:14:56“I serviced the car just yesterday. It took all my savings and you see, I have two kids in college. One is going to be a medical doctor in two years.”
Weston can notice the grin on the cabman's face as he speaks about his kids.“You must be proud of them,” Weston says.“The two of them are annoying most of the time but parenthood is a journey that never ends once you take a step into the journey, so, I can only cope with whatever they do,” the cabman says.Weston bites on his lower lip. He doesn't even know what his daughter is up to.“The last time I visited the two of them in college, I couldn't stop grinning as they introduced me to their friends,” the cabman adds.“Um…I have a question…this is an example; just an example,” Weston says.“Go ahead.”“I have a friend and that friend of mine has a daughter and his daughter tells him to his face that she hates him. I was just wondering, do you think a kid
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Weston feels a stab in his heart. He feels it scattering into pieces as he remembers his daughter's words: my new dad bought me a limited edition bag…He takes a step backward and turns to the cabman. “I'm sorry, I have to go.”Ivy's husband's laughter stops Weston from taking his first step forward. The laughter cut real deep. So deep because…because like hell, his daughter now loves this man. His daughter is probably going to live with this man for the rest of her childhood days and in the future, the only father his daughter will recognize is this damn man. And he? He'd be the bad father who left his daughter for another man to care for. “As expected, you're a coward with some crazy nerves,” Ivy's husband says. “Follow me. We've got a lot to discuss.” Weston reaches into his pocket to get a stick of cigarette. His hand touches the bubble gums he has there instead. He grabs one of them and tears the wrapper. He throws it in his mouth. It doesn
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Weston's face colours. He looks around to be sure no one has been looking in their direction. “What?” “On the night of the wedding, I…okay…this is going to be awkward.” He clears his throat. “Ivy told me the only reason she agreed to get married to me was because Jace…you know Jace right? He’s my cousin. So, she said the only reason why she agreed to marry me was because Jace already explained everything to me.”“Explain what?” “I swear, Weston, I thought Jace was joking when he said Ivy was one of his regular chicks but that I should get married to her so he can get some money from her family.” Oddly, the first thing that comes to Weston's mind is to chuckle, which he does. He chuckles and takes a sip from his Americano. “Why are you telling me this? It's supposed to be a family secret,” Weston says.“It's crazy! How can I get married to someone and watch her fuck my cousin?”“Hey, they could just be kidding,” West
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“Why? He wouldn't mind—”“He invited me there as his partner,” Weston says. “Is he…” Lorette gasps and covers her mouth with her palm.Weston nods. “So you can't come with me.” “This is your closet?” Lorette asks, already going to it. “Yeah. Why?” “Don't tell me you're going to see him with that damn flannel.” She drops a few shirts on the bed.“Does it matter? I don't think I remember anything Jose or Santiago wears even though we are close,” Weston protests. “This is different, Mr Weston.” “Seems you know a lot of men like him.”“If I don't, why am I a bad girl?”Weston chuckles. She finally picks a white shirt and white crazy jeans for him. “I'll turn my back to you. You can quickly change.”“Why not leave the room?” Weston asks, already taking off his flannel.“It's more awkward standing at the front of your door than turning my back to you.”
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Weston smiles to himself as she leaves. Been a long while since he flirted with girls. And he'd never have believed it if anyone said Lorette was such a good flirt. He glances at the time. “Fuck me!” He cusses. It's eight-thirty already. The drive to the venue of the party will take at least thirty minutes. He slips into his sneakers, grabs his phone, locks the door and rushes out of the room. Ten minutes later, Weston is at the gate. He's panting as he looks around for a cab. There is no cab in sight. Just as he is about to search for one on his phone, a red Ferrari pulls by his side. He is moving away so the car can drive past him when he hears his name. “Weston,” the voice is very familiar and it belongs to no other than Coben. Weston bites on his lower lip. He can do this but God help him so Coben won't loose some fucking teeth if he makes any attempt to kiss him tonight. He slowly walks closer to the car.
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He opens the door and gets out of the car before Coben can think of opening it for him. At the door, a man bows while Weston and Coben go in. There are a few people in the bar, the blue light in the place conceals their faces. Coben walks over to one of the tables. He whispers something in a guy's ear, Weston can't tell what it was because of the loud rap song in the place. The man points at another man. Coben soon comes back to Weston. “Let's go,” Coben raises his voice to be heard above the sound of the rap song.They both go to the man that the first man pointed at. He gets up as soon as they get there. He pulls Coben in a hug. “Who's this?” Weston hears the guy asks Coben.“You don't have to know,” Weston hears Coben snap. “Of course…” The man licks his lips, his eyes seeming to tear off the clothes on Weston's body. The guy pulls away from Coben and leads them further into the bar
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Coben stops walking. He looks at Weston and for the first time since he's known Coben, Weston notices pure anger on his face. “I tried, man. I fucking tried but I couldn't. That's why I'll keep building my courage. Keep killing as many cowards as I can so I can get the courage to clear off everything that represents my ol' man.”Weston wants to ask Coben what his father did to him to make him want to kill him so badly but he doesn't. It doesn't really look like a great time to ask more questions. And, he already knows everything he wants to know.“You know…” Coben walks closer to Weston. Weston can feel Coben's breath on him now. He tries as much as possible not to walk backward. The last thing on his mind is to piss Coben up and end up as an instrument of building Coben's courage. “I have never told anyone all these things I told you. So…if I ever hear it from anyone, I know who to come looking for.”“I won't tell nobody,” We
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Weston bites harder on his lower lip. He watches as Coben cries and more than anything, he can't wait to find out all that made Coben become this type of guy. “I'm sorry,” Coben says again. “We're cool. Really. As I was saying, I fell in love with you and started checking on you and when I found out about your boyfriend, I needed to be sure you're like me, so, yeah, that was why I did that. I cried a lot that night after doing that shit but I couldn't tell you how sorry I was. I'm really sorry.”Coben wipes his face after some more minutes of crying. He pours himself some drink and down it. “You want to know?” Coben asks.“Huh?”“I'm sure you want to know how those things made me react like that.” “Oh, no. If you are not ready to tell me, please don't,” Weston says even though he can't wait for Coben to spill out the story.“Don't be scared of me. I don't kill those I love and you know I love you.”
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Weston bites on his lower lip. Yeah, Coben is some bad guy but knowing why he's doing all these crazy stuff, Weston doesn't know why but he feels like he might be able to help Coben out of it. It doesn't look like Coben is enjoying any of this stuff he's doing. He looks around the place. The party seems to have gotten more crazy. Two seats away from them, two guys are straddling each other. Weston quickly takes his eyes off them. Just as he stands up to drag Coben out of the place, a guy, the same guy who they saw in the bar outside comes over to him. “Is he drunk?” The guy asks.“I guess. I don't really remember the way out, can you help?” “What a waste.” The guy makes a tsk tsk noise. “Brought some cutie and got drunk.” He looks at Weston. “There is a backdoor.” Together, they help Coben out of the room. Weston almost wishes he were not able to see all the crazy stuff going on in the room as they go out of the place.
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“I have now,” Weston drops the picture frame on the sofa and carries Hannah in arms. “How is that? Did they disappear and come back?” She asks. “Daddy, how do people become people? I have not seen anyone jump down from the sky. Are there places where people go to pick babies? Daddy…answer me…” she whines as he carries her in the car. “Which of them should I answer first?” “When I grow up, can I become an actor? I will be on the screen. Will you watch my movies?” “Of course. Why won't I?” About two hours later when Weston drives to his parents house, Hannah is sleeping in the back seat probably tired of rambling for hours. He smiles as he parks the park and wakes her. “Have we arrived?” She asks, looking at him sleepily. Weston nods. “Big pop and lala are waiting to see you.” He helps her get out of the car and holds her hand. He's barely climbed the first step leading to the house when his mother rushes
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Later that evening, Weston is in the sitting room, watching Lorette and Hannah have one of their long funny conversations as they prepare for a visit to his parents. “When I grow older, I want to be a museum tour guide,” Hannah says. “Didn't you say you want to be a make-up artist some minutes ago?” Lorette asks as he helps her into her shoes. “I can do that as a side job. When I don't have clients in the shop, I'll quickly go to the museum,” Hannah says. “What about the online cooking tutorials? How are you going to have time for that?” “Oh…that? Daddy, I can shoot videos at midnight, right?” Weston frowns. “When are you going to sleep then?” “I can sleep for two hours.” “Two hours?” Weston asks in horror. “Yes. I am going to shoot the cooking tutorial videos for like two hours. Another two hours, I'll use it to shoot videos for my dance clas
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Three days later, Weston knocks at the door of a hospital room before going in. The patient on the bed raises his head. He stares at Weston then at Hannah whom Weston is holding.“You're okay?” Weston asks before realizing it's the dumbest question to ask a person on a hospital bed. “Yes…?” Jose answers. Weston can't really tell if Jose is trying to play dumb too or he doesn't know what he's saying. “Hannah, meet Jose, he's one of the best friends that daddy has,” Weston tells his daughter. “And, Jose, this is my daughter.” Jose's mouth parts slightly. He closes it a few seconds later and smiles. “She…she looks young.” Weston chuckles. “Young? What's a five year old supposed to look like? Old?” “I…sorry. I mean. Shit. You have a sure way of taking me by surprise.” “You think so?” Weston strides to Jose's bed. He drops the fruit basket in his hand on the table. “Last time I checked, you did some
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“Hey, Santiago,” his godfather says once there is an answer at the other end. “How are you, sir?”“I…I'm sorry.” His godfather shut his eyes. “What the fuck did you do again? I already told you I got Weston and Lorette covered. I have Weston's kid with me, I'll use her to—” “That's not it,” his father cuts in quickly. “I…um…I told Weston about Dylan.” For a lot of seconds, there is silence at the other end. “Where are you?” Santiago's voice is unbelievably too calm for the revelation. “Home, of course.” “Let's talk face to face.” Then the line goes off. The phone falls from his godfather's hand. He runs his hand through his grey hair. “You have a kid?” “Am I supposed to answer that?” “If I knew you had a kid, I'd have abducted her and used her against you. I had no idea at all.”What? Is he out of his mind? His godfather raises his head and looks at Weston. “Once San
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Weston can tell from the look on her face that there is something more. He waits for her to tell him. “I stumbled in on San and his father arguing one day, San was kind of telling his father to keep shut if he doesn't want his ass in the pool.” Weston waits. He's sure she isn't just telling him just for telling sake. There must be something more. He waits a while longer, forcing his damn brain not to think his daughter is five and she's with fucking Santiago. “He hates it when people snitch on him,” Lorette adds. “Kind of…he…” she lets out a deep breath. “Sorry. I just…I had no idea I'd be telling this to anyone.” For some seconds, she stops to get her emotions back together. “Even if San tells me something as little as what he ate last night that nobody knows about, he doesn't want me to tell anyone. When…I think we were sixteen when I first realized it. He told me he was fooling around with a girl and I kind of jokingly told the girl to tak
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Weston stops the car and runs his hand through his hair. “I begged you, apologized to you, did all sorts of things but you still didn't agree to get married to me, so why do you keep asking about your daughter?” “When did you apologize to me?” There is silence at the other end before Ivy starts to talk. “Okay, since you want to hear it, I'mma tell you. If there is anything I regret, it's having Hannah. I thought you would dump me for some other women later if I didn't have a child for you since you don't really seem all that ready to get married to me. I needed something to assure me you're not going anywhere and getting pregnant seemed like the best deal.” Weston bites hard on his lower lip. “You must have figured this out but I stopped using contraceptives without telling you. But I'm starting to realize it's all stupid now. If I knew Hannah was going to be a burden to me, I wouldn't have gotten pregna
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With rage, he dials Santiago's number. “What the fuck do you think you're doing?” He shouts. “Hey, you wanna make me deaf or something?” “Whatever shit you're up to, you should know better than to involve my daughter.” “What can you do?” “Where the hell are you?” “Not so easy, bro. Not so easy. I need to spend some time playing with Hannah and getting to know her before we come to an agreement of what to do. Till then, stay anxious.” With that, the line goes off. Weston dials the number again, it doesn't ring. Obviously, Santiago blocked him. He dials another number. “Find out where that fucking bastard is.” “Alright, sir.” He dials his father's number. “I need to find out where Santiago is.” “Okay. Is everything okay?” “No but I don't have the
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Weston comes out of his car. It's been more than thirty minutes since the cop pulled him over but he's not responded to him since then. The other cars he pulled over before Weston's are long gone and the cop doesn't seem like he has anything he's doing at the moment. “Excuse me,” Weston calls the cop’s attention. The cop glances at Weston. “I'll attend to you soon, I'm quite busy.” “If you're not going to come check whatever it is that you want to check, I might as well start going. I didn't do anything wrong in the first place.” “You didn't do anything wrong?” The cop scoffs. “Was that how you were supposed to put on your seatbelt? Was that how you were supposed to fasten it?!” Weston frowns. “What?” Is there a certain way to fasten seat belts? “Come with me,” the cop says, already walking to Weston's car. They get to the car and t
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“Daddy was smiling in the picture Abigail gave to me. And, daddy only smiles when he is with people he likes.” Santiago chuckles again. “How old are you?” “I am five years old. How old are you?” “Me? I'm the same age as your father.” “Daddy is…um…twenty five. You're twenty five?!” She asks in surprise.Santiago nods. “Yeah. Why?”“Daddy said monsters are old, like five hundred years old. And Father Richard said only monsters kill people. Does that mean you're a young monster?” The smile dies off Santiago's face. “I'm not a fucking monster.”“‘Fucking’? What does that mean? Do you have a dictionary? I'll look up the meaning.” “I mean, I'm not a monster. That's the meaning.” He glances at Hannah to see her staring at him. The glasses on her face feel like some gadget she's using to scan his thoughts. “What…” he clears his throat. “You can't see without your glasses?” She sighs. “It's a lon
