“Bullshit,” she fired back.
I widened my eyes. “Jillian, watch your mouth. Simon?”
A sheepish grin spread across her face. She shrugged. “Sorry.”
Realizing I had next to no chance of resisting her incessant questioning, I relented and spent the next few minutes updating her about my drama with the Grid Girls.
“Wow,” Jillian began. “It sounds like those two are really insane.”
I nodded. “If there ever was such a thing as an understatement, that’s it.”
Jillian laughed. In fact, I was just about to tell her what they’d called me in Miami just before I left, but suddenly, my cell phone started to ring. I’d left it on the dining room table during dinner. After exiting the kitchen, I walked towards it and picked it up, flipping it over to see who it was.
The display flashed, ‘Unlisted’ across it.
“Who is it?” Jillian asked, without turning around to face me.
I shrugged. “Don’t know.”
Yet almost as soon as I said that, I remembered I was supposed to receive a call from team management about the schedule in Los Angeles.
“Oh, right. I think it’s about tomorrow. The team,” I said, swiping the phone on and raising it to my ear.
“Hello?”
A strangely familiar male voice replied.
“Well, well.”
A knot formed in my stomach. Silence fell over the line. I tightened my grip on the phone. “Who is this?”
“You know God damn well who this is, Ava.”
I felt my eyes widen in their sockets. Pulling the phone away from my ear, I stared at it in disbelief. Jillian noticed my sudden silence and turned around towards me.
Her forehead creased with wrinkles of concern. “Who is it? Ava, is everything okay?”
“It… It can’t be.”
With my mouth hanging open, I stared at her and slowly returned the phone to the side of my head. “Gene?”
After a ragged exhale, I received the horrible confirmation. “You were expecting someone else?”
AVA
Gene Philo.
Simon’s sperm donor, aka, Deadbeat dad and weasel like none other. I hadn’t heard a peep from him since he found out my sister was pregnant.
And now, all of a sudden, he’s back?
“How did you get my number, Gene?” I asked, biting my lip.
Jillian raised her hands to her mouth before lowering them a fraction. “Gene?” she mouthed. “Are you serious?”
I nodded and just then, he began to speak.
“Shut up, Ava,” he growled. “Don’t worry about it. I didn’t call you so you could ask me a bunch of fucking questions.”
“Fuck you!” I exclaimed, before slapping my hand over my mouth.
Gene’s signature hyena-like laugh echoed in my ear. “I see you haven’t changed one bit, Ava.”
I removed my hand from my lips. “Why are you calling me? What do you want?”
“I already told you to shut up. Just like your sister, you Walters women… You don’t listen to a God damn word.”
Shaking my head, I exited the kitchen as fast as I could, almost jogging as I ran down the hall to my bedroom.
Gene continued to talk.
“You’re looking as pretty as ever, I see.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
He ignored me.
After closing my bedroom door, I sat down on the mattress, hanging my feet over the side. Trembling, I leaned forward and dropped my head into my hand.
“What the hell do you want, Gene?” I hissed.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll get to that. But first, how’s my son?”
The fingers on my free hand began to curl into the shape of a fist. “Simon is not your son, you bastard. You lost that privilege a long time ago.”
Gene cackled once more. “Not according to the state. So, Ava, you can sit over there and pretend all you want, but the fact is Simon is my boy.”
I exhaled, barely restraining myself from unleashing a torrent of obscenity at him. “Either tell me what you want, or I’m hanging up on you right now.”
“Oh, sis, it hurts when you talk to me like that,” he began. “Now here I went and gave you a compliment, telling you how pretty you looked, and you didn’t even thank me.”
A long, silent exhale passed between my lips. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh don’t you?” he replied, the sound of his voice taking on an accusatory tone. “Maybe you need a little reminder…”
I sat upright and squeezed the phone tight between my fingers, but before I could reply, he continued.
“The Formula One race, this past weekend in Miami, I saw you there kissing your boyfriend.”
Baffled, I shook my head, trying to understand. “Kissing who? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t give me that, Ava. I saw the winner, Dyson Vix, pull you to his side after the race and kiss you.”
I scoffed. “Gene, you moron, Dyson is not my boyfriend. All I can tell you is that you’re wrong about what you think you saw. There is nothing going on between us. And anyway, even if there was, what the hell business is it of yours?”
Gene sputtered a chuckle. “Oh, it’s my business all right. And if you don’t listen carefully, and do exactly as I say, you can forget about seeing your nephew ever again.”
I bolted into a standing position. “Don’t you threaten me. I have no idea what you’re getting at, but if you think you are taking Simon away from me, think again.”
“Oh, I won’t be the one taking him. The state will do it for me. After all, that’s the law, you know.”
I pinched my lower lip between my teeth. Pacing back and forth across my bedroom, I knew Gene was right. Even after all these years, I still only had temporary custody of Simon. At any point, Gene could come back into the picture and take him from me. There was nothing I could do about it. Still, he’d never shown any desire to do it before, and I couldn’t understand why he would all of a sudden.
“Listen to me, Gene,” I began, clenching my jaw. “I know that you don’t want to have anything to do with Simon. So why don’t you just tell me what the hell you want.”
Gene remained silent for a moment and then, at last, revealed the true reason for his phone call. “Hmm, I’d say about a half a million dollars oughta cover it.”
“A half a million dollars!” I exclaimed. “How in hell am I supposed to get that kind of money? And why would I give to you, anyway?”
“Because if you don’t, Ava, I can promise you that Simon will be out of your life within the month.”
I froze in place, struggling to wrap my mind around what he was saying. “Are you… blackmailing me?”
“Blackmail is such a nasty word, isn’t it? I’d like to think of it more as a friendly sales transaction. You pay me five hundred thousand dollars and you get to keep Simon.”
“I don’t have five hundred thousand dollars, you piece of shit.”
“I know you don’t. But your pretty-boy racing boyfriend sure does.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Gene, I already told you. Dyson Vix is not my boyfriend. Even if he was, I would never ask him to give you a single penny.”
Gene ignored me. “It’s funny, you know. I mean in an ironic way. You going out with a race car driver after what happened to your little sister.”
“You’re an asshole, Gene. Why are you bringing her into this?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Because of how she died?”
My underarms soaked through my shirt. I struggled to understand his nonsensical rambling. “Street racing and Formula One aren’t anything alike. But why would I expect someone as stupid as you to understand that, Gene?”
Gene fell silent. “Here’s how this is gonna go, Ava, so pay attention. You have one month from today to come up with the money. You can expect more calls from me with instructions on exactly where and when…”