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Post by Brandon Finn on Aug 25, 2015 1:06:26 GMT
Brandon had spent the entire day pacing. It had started in his office, with the thin carpet under his feet becoming thinner with every pass that he took. He had paused to take a sea in his office chair every now and then, but he couldn't think when he sat still. And he needed to think, he needed to be sure that he had a plan, that he knew what his game plan was and how he was going to handle the situation. He had glanced over at his phone half a dozen times as though it had been its fault for putting him in this place. He had sighed heavily and plopped down in his chair one last time to replay the entire conversation.
It had been Alayna - one of the absolute last people he had ever expected to hear from again. After a heated argument over whether or not he was ever going to seriously follow through on his proposal to her, she had given up and left. Brandon hadn't actually expected her to leave - unlike the other two women before her he was convinced that he was going to try and make this time work, whether or not there was a large part of him telling him that it was still a mistake. Maybe, he had justified to himself, there was still someone out there who was better for him. Right for him, even. Maybe he had already found that person and let her go. But his heart had never be in it, not the way that she probably deserved, not the way that she certainly expected.
When she left he was surprised by the relief that he felt. Exhilarated, really. While it made him feel like an awful person for a moment, he had gotten over it more quickly than he might have anticipated. Though maybe it hadn't been that surprising at all considerign the fact that he had so quickly and fully fallen back in love with Amber.
But now there was a wrench in that situation too.
He paced outside of Amber's apartment, trying to figure out what he was going to say to her. Trying to figure out what he was going to do. Deciding that he couldn't wait any longer, he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before knocking on her door.
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Post by Amber Jacobs on Aug 25, 2015 1:29:00 GMT
To say that Amber's day had been long and exhausting was an understatement. She'd been working late due to additional pressure at the office, she and Cassidy had eaten take out in the office and spent a good portion of the night there. She was so eager to take her shoes off and change out of her work clothes into something more comfortable when she got back to the apartment. Wielding a bottle of wine that she'd promised Cassidy for all of her hard work and assistance over the past few turbulent days at the office, Amber and Cassidy were trying their best to talk about anything but work, but were failing miserably.
When Brandon knocked on her door, she padded over to the door barefoot. Taking the chain off the door, she was surprised to find Brandon on the other side. However, he did have a habit of dropping in unannounced if she had spent a day or so away from the Penthouse due to work. She smiled brightly up at him. "Hi," she greeted him, pushing up on her toes to kiss him softly. "Cassidy and I just opened some wine and were venting about work," she admitted sheepishly. It took her a beat to look up at his expression though and realize that something was wrong. She'd found that, despite ten years apart and his best efforts, she could read him easily. She thought that might just be because she'd spent so many years paying attention. "What's wrong?"
"Is that Brandon?" Cassidy called from the couch. "Hi Brandon!"
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Post by Brandon Finn on Aug 25, 2015 12:38:10 GMT
He had practiced it a thousand times but nothing had felt right, nothing seemed to make any of it more real, and none of it made it seem okay. Brandon was glad that she understood his mannerisms enough to save him from having to pretend like nothing was wrong, like there was nothing that hadn't been weighing on him since the phone call this morning. He had smiled softly at Cassidy's greeting but he was having a hard time getting the words out.
"Alayna called this morning. She -" he cut himself off, trying to prepare himself for the reality of saying the words out loud, for the impact that he was afraid to see hit Amber so unsuspectingly. It had been so out of the blue that she had bothered to call in the first place. The timing of the situation seemed odd, but her justification had made a little bit of sense, he figured. At least after he had given himself the day to try and figure it all out. "She had a kid." He announced finally. "And it might be mine."
The timing of it had fit at least. She had been out of his life now for a little more than a year, just long enough for her to have had a baby and to realize that there was a lot more to that arrangement than she originally thought. When she had broken the news to him on the phone she had mentioned that it had been a perfect storm of reasons to tell him about it finally. Her fear that he and Amber were going to follow down the path that Alayna had hoped that they someday would have made her think that if she ever needed support for the kid, then now, before any children he and Amber had, would be the time to tell him. She had said that said that being a Finn came with certain privileges, ones that she didn't want her kid to miss out on.
But while it all made a certain bit of sense, he was having a hard time believing it, a hard time just wrapping his head around the concept. "I need to talk to Riley about it to see what sort of legality there is in these sort of situations, and I'm going to get it tested, but I just ... I told you that this time was going to be different and I thought I owed it to you to not keep a secret this big."
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Post by Amber Jacobs on Aug 25, 2015 13:45:26 GMT
Amber stared at Brandon for a moment as she tried to absorb what Brandon was telling her. Holding up her index finger she drained what was left of her wine glass and then walked further into her living room. “Cassidy.”
“Did he just say that he-“
“Cassidy, could I have the room, please?” Amber waited for a moment while her assistant scrambled to get off of the couch and retreat to the bedroom that she’d been living in before turning to Brandon. “How did this happen?” she asked sharply. “I mean, I know where children come from,” she added blandly, she’d just never really thought about Brandon and his ex fiancée (any of them) taking the steps necessary to procreate. There went that bubble she’d been living in.
“And not ‘it,’” she pointed out. “You said ‘get it tested.’ But you should say he or she, especially if you’re talking about your own kid. But even if they’re not, it’s just…” she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why is this just something that you’re hearing about now?” she asked, brow furrowing. “I mean, I know desperate woman. You’d think that if you were dumping her, that her first play when she found out would have been to tell you that she was pregnant.”
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Post by Brandon Finn on Aug 25, 2015 13:58:46 GMT
Brandon frowned. He had been expecting a certain bit of confusion and possibly even anger, but he hadn't realized that he had never given her the story of how his relationship with Alayna had ended. And truthfully, there was a lot of what Amber had countered with that he felt deserved an explanation that he didn't really want to give. Having shut the door behind him he followed Amber into the living room, fighting the urge to begin pacing again.
"She left, actually. Something about being tired of waiting for me to figure out whether or not I actually wanted to be engaged to her - but that's not the point. The point is that she said that she didn't want the kid to miss out on..." He trailed off, realizing that her justification for calling him seemed much less logical when he said it out loud. "Her fear was that I was taking my relationship with you seriously and that any potential children that we ever had would overshadow this one. She figured that she needed to make her play for the money and the prestige of it all now."
He wanted to kill Alayna for having put him in this place - he wanted to throw a bunch of money at her and make the whole thing go away. That's why he needed Riley Nicholls' help. There was no use in skirting around the legalities of the situation when he could make it go away permanently, with no loopholes. "But - I'm not convinced that it's mine. It's just ... the timing of it is off."
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Post by Amber Jacobs on Aug 25, 2015 14:25:50 GMT
Amber stared at Brandon for a moment. “So you proposed to her, she left, but now she’s got a kid and…” She let out a dry humorless laugh before she frowned and shook her head. “Of course she’s here because you and I were starting to get more serious, because why on earth should we get to relax and just be fucking happy before someone else comes along to try to screw with us?!” she exclaimed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Now, let’s ignore the fact that I think it’s a little disgusting that she’s bringing this child that may or may not be yours around so that she can reap all of the benefits of having you as the father. There’s a kid now, that might be yours.” She let that information sink in for a moment before looking away. “I don’t know what I need more right now, air or a strong drink.”
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Post by Brandon Finn on Aug 25, 2015 15:26:14 GMT
Brandon sighed in exasperation, running his hand through his hair. His gut reaction had been to request a very strong drink but at the moment he didn't think that this entire exchange was really about him and what he wanted. He knew that if it came down to it, if there was some bizarre chance that this kid was his, that he would do the right thing. The right thing being to provide the financial support that Alayna was looking for, the kind of support that would ensure that the situation was silenced and pushed away. Amber had a valid point - they always seemed to find themselves on the cusp of becoming a normal couple right when things went south.
"Are you okay?" he asked softly, unsure of what it was that she was the most upset about - the kid or the fact that this was the only of his former fiancees that he hadn't ended things with.
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Post by Amber Jacobs on Aug 25, 2015 15:55:41 GMT
Amber shrugged a shoulder up, crossing her arms in front of her and staring down at the floor for a moment. “I just thought that it would be different,” she muttered. “If you had asked me ten years ago, I would have told you that I always figured that if you were going to propose to someone who thought you had commitment issues, if I were going to get married – it would be us. You know? And I’m willing to take responsibility for that because I left.”
She took a deep breath and shook her head. “And even though this isn’t anyone’s fault, and it’s not like you and I have ever really talked about…I guess part of me just thought that if you were going to have a kid, it would be with me.”
Frowning, she looked up at him. “So, if the kid is yours, what happens next? With you and her and you and me.”
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Post by Brandon Finn on Aug 25, 2015 16:11:26 GMT
He wasn't stupid enough to think that she never would have expected some sort of commitment eventually. She was probably the only person that he could see himself actually spending the rest of his life with, but after making stupid irrational decisions over the past ten years, he had come to terms with the fact that he needed to take things more slowly. Amber had deserved to have all of the stops pulled out from her, and she had deserved to have as much of a normal relationship as he could give her. He didn't want their first real date to be their last and so he had try to prove to her that he wasn't the same guy that threw a ring out to someone as an anchor to keep him grounded in the life he was living. He knew that if he gave a ring to her, he wanted it to mean something - he wanted there to be follow-through and he wanted it to be the last time that he gave a ring to someone. It was just proving to be a lot more difficult to be as normal as he had hoped.
Amber obviously had expectations of their future, expectations that he hadn't bothered to stop and think about, and now he was afraid that he might have inadvertently ruined it all.
"That's a big 'if'," he nodded. "I've spent all day thinking about all of the different ways this could play out... and I have to do the right thing, right? I mean, if this kid is mine, then I'm going to support it financially. But I haven't really thought past that." He had spent more time trying to figure out what this was all going to mean for himself and Amber that he hadn't stopped to think about whether he wanted a relationship with the kid. The truth was that he didn't. Or at least he didn't think that he did. "I don't want things to change between us, but I understand if it's too much to handle."
He still couldn't process the possibility that it could be his kid. It didn't seem real.
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Post by Amber Jacobs on Aug 25, 2015 16:45:14 GMT
Amber leaned against the arm of her sofa, chewing on her lip thoughtfully. “Brandon,” she started gently. “I think that if the test results come back positive and you’re the father, things change. ” she took a breath. “But it doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere,” she told him with a nod. “No matter what happens, no matter how you decide to deal with it, as long as you want me as part of it, I’m here.” She glanced away before walking over to the bar and pouring herself another glass of wine. “I’m not bad with kids, I haven’t broken a bone on Cooper’s yet.” But the idea of Brandon having a kid that belonged to him and another woman made her chest physically ache. She’d never thought about it too intensely before, thinking that it would be something that would come up in conversation later – but now she had to pause and ask herself what exactly she wanted in terms of kids of her own.
She took a long sip of wine and nodded. “You were right when you said it was stupid of us to try and pretend like ten years didn’t happen, that we didn’t have a lot to catch up on. We do. If you can deal with the fact that sometimes my nights are considerably more boring than they used to be, I can find a way to deal with the fact that you might have a child with another woman,” she chuckled, trying to make light of it for a moment when meanwhile the very idea made her feel a little numb.
“How are you doing?” she asked suddenly. “I mean you asked if I was okay but…this is happening to you. Are you okay?”
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Post by Brandon Finn on Aug 25, 2015 16:56:58 GMT
He shook his head, refusing to admit to her or himself that there was any possibility that this kid could ever be his. He understood the mechanics of the situation, he even thought that he understood her desperation, but Brandon was having a difficult time imagining a life where he would have been so stupid to wind up here. The timing was just off - it just didn't make any sense to him why she would have waited to tell him. In fact, he might have been a little upset that she waited so long to say something, that she waited for him to be at a good place in his life to suddenly drop this kind of bombshell. "No, I'm not okay. I'm not okay with playing into her game or taking responsibility for something that I didn't even know about until ten hours ago. I'm not okay with pretending like this isn't fucking with my head in ways that I can't even begin to describe - and I'm not okay that this throws a wrench into everything that I've worked so hard to accomplish with you. I told you - promised you - that I was making a conscious effort to not be the asshole that did things like this. And right now all I can think about is the question of how much money she wants for this whole thing to go away."
Brandon needed a drink, a very large drink. "If I could go back and change everything, then I would."
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Post by Amber Jacobs on Aug 25, 2015 18:12:21 GMT
Amber listened to Brandon and took a breath, taking another long sip of her wine before placing the glass down and walking over to him. She placed her hands on his shoulder. “Brandon, something like this – I meant what I said, it’s no one’s fault. You were with her. As much as I want to pretend that none of it ever happened, we were both coming into this different than when we started when we were kids.” She tilted her head and shrugged, “This is nothing you saw coming or even knew about, and yeah – I think it’s a bit ridiculous that she waited this long to come around, but no matter what – what you decide, I’ll be on your side.”
“And the fact is, we can’t change anything. But we’ll deal with it,” she nodded. Part of her wanted to ask him if this was how he felt about Alayna’s child, or children in general. She’d noted that he typically felt a bit uncomfortable around Melanie whenever Cooper brought her around. Now that she was faced with the possibility that Brandon had a child with someone else and saw it as a problem that he wanted to make go away. So she had to ask herself if being a mother one day was important to her, or if it was something she could live without.
“We’ll be okay,” she nodded, dropping her hands from his shoulders and walking back to the couch.
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Post by Brandon Finn on Aug 25, 2015 18:28:05 GMT
The dozen or so times that he had run through this entire exchange in his head, he had hoped that it would have ended somewhere along these lines. He wanted Amber to take him by the hand, tell him that everything was going to be okay, and then continue to stand by him as he dealt with the situation and brushed it away. He wanted them to look back in five years and not even recall how they felt that day. But now that he heard her say that they would be fine, he didn't believe her.
"I don't believe you," he confessed. There was something that he felt like they were skirting around and he wasn't sure how best to approach it. "Does this change things for you? If, let's just pretend for a second, if it's my kid - are you going to want to stick around and pretend to be okay with all of it? I mean, where do you see us in five years? Do you see us having someone else's kid as part of the mix? Because I don't."
He wanted to know what their future was going to hold now, and what this was going to mean for them long-term.
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Post by Amber Jacobs on Aug 25, 2015 18:51:07 GMT
Amber’s gaze snapped back up to him for a moment. “It’s not ideal, no. I never entertained the possibility that one day you could have a kid with someone,” she admitted. “I don’t know where we are in five years, Brandon. We’ve never talked about it. I don’t know how you feel about getting married, I don’t know how you feel about having kids with me. All I know is that I came back and you want to be with me, that you honestly want to make it work and prove that we’re serious, right?”
“I’m not asking for more than that right now, Brandon. Do I want to wake up next to you every morning? Of course I do. Do I think that if we had a kid one day, I might actually be capable of not losing or poisoning him, yeah – actually, I might be pretty damn good at it. But it’s not a deal breaker if you don’t want that. I might be able to live without that part. But I already went ten years without you and all I know for sure is that was horrible. So no, maybe it’s not okay now. Maybe the idea that you possibly have a kid with someone else breaks my heart a little bit. But I love you and I’m not going anyway unless you tell me to,” she blurted out. “And even then you’d probably have to fight me on it!”
“God, do you really think – after everything – that I’d want to leave? If this kid is yours and you decide to have nothing to do with it, I may not agree, but I understand. And if you decided you did want to be involved, do you really think I wouldn’t love you enough to be willing to be a part of that – a part of you?”
“It’s not fine, it’s not easy, and it hurts, but I’ve had…” she glanced at the time. “About fifteen minutes to process all of this and even less time to discuss with you what we want five years down the line. So my only answer right now is it’s going to be fine. Because I’d like to think it can be.”
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Post by Brandon Finn on Aug 25, 2015 19:15:22 GMT
She made an incredibly valid point. They had never talked about it. With all of their talk about being adults now and how much their lives had changed and how much they were different now, they had never stopped to talk about what that meant for them in the future. Until now, it hadn’t bothered Brandon to just play it by ear, but with the realization that he might soon have no choice but to think long-term about his future, it made sense to make sure that she still wanted to be part of it.
“So what do you want, Amber? Let’s take this situation out of it and let’s just focus on you and me. What do you want? Do you want to get married again? Have kids?” The fact that she had
already been married once was something that he wasn't sure that he could ever be okay with, but he had been making strides to be okay with it, in much the same way that he assumed that she would try and be okay with this kid in his life - if it came to that. "Where are we in a year from now? Five years?"
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