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“Oh, fuck off!” he bursts. “You don’t get to tell me when or where to speak on the way I feel. You certainly didn’t give me the option when you made the choice to sleep with my daughter.”
Rudy's eyes widen as she looks at me like she’s just received the juiciest gossip she’s ever heard in her life. I feel so embarrassed and ashamed of myself right now in her presence, I'm sure my cheeks are redder than the chips in front of us. Never in a million years did I think I'd be here with Jeppie. But here we are.
“His daughter?” she asks. “Did you really do that?”
“Fucking right he did it. And she’s pregnant,” Jeppie continues. “And do you know what the worst of it all is? This has been going on for months and neither of them said a word to me.”
“That’s enough, Jeppie!” I quickly stand and lean over the table toward him. “This isn’t the time or place for this conversation. If you want to talk about this, we can talk about it in private. I don’t want this to become a fight, we’ve been drinking tonight.”
“What are you going to do about it, Marc?” He stands up and glares at me like I'm his sworn enemy. “Like I said before, you don’t get to tell me when to speak. You should have thought about that before you started screwing my daughter.”
Before I know it, I throw the hardest punch I've ever thrown before and it connects with his face, sending him landing backwards onto his chair. He stares up at me in disbelief and I immediately feel guilty. I can’t believe I hit him. My best friend of twenty years and I've landed the most deranged blow to his face.
I don’t expect him to let this go at all, and I'm right. When Jeppie regains his focus, he jumps up and lunges at me from across the table. We both go tumbling to the floor with him throwing insane punches to my face and midsection. Rudy's shouting at us both to cut it out, while the dealer scurries off to find security.
“Jeppie! Cool off!” I shout in between his blows. “This isn’t us! We shouldn't be fighting. We're brothers.”
“Fuck you!” he shouts, throwing more and more blows of fury. “You tore apart my family! My relationship with my daughter is ruined because of you!”
He’s getting the best of me right now and I don’t even try to fight him off. I deserve every hit he gives me. Every curse word, every insult. I take it all in, but my love for Felicia still stands. I hate that I've hurt him, betrayed his trust, but there’s nothing that will make me back away from the bed I made with her. I love her and she loves me. If it means the whole world turns their back on me for being with her, then so be it.
“Hey! Enough you two!”
I feel heavy hands pulling me away from Jeppie and his punches. Now that I'm out from under him, I see the full figures of two large security guards. One is dragging him away toward the door, and the other is carrying me in the same direction.
We'll probably never be able to come back here again after this. If it means Jeppie and I can get back to some sort of solid ground, I'm okay with that. I know we’ve just been in a fight, but I still consider him my brother.
“Get out of here, before we have to call the cops.”
One of the security guards speaks to us in a brotherly tone. We're regulars here; everyone knows us. I'm sure they’re giving us both a break here tonight, so I take it. Even though Jeppie is still raging and wanting to fight some more.
“Why’d you do it!?” he shouts. “Huh!? You could have any other woman. A woman your age and you chose my daughter? Why? Did you not think about the consequences behind all of this!? She's twenty years younger than you for Christ sakes!”
“Jep,” I pant, trying to catch my breath after the blows he landed to my gut. “I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry I hurt you and ruined our friendship, but I love your daughter. I wish you could see that.”
“Yeah, but I can’t! The damage is already done and now she’s pregnant with your child! Did you even think about Kyle in all of this!? The people you work with. The media? The press? You’re fucking right you made a huge mistake. This is something you can ever come back from.”
The guilt I feel is biting way harder than Jeppie’s punches. I feel sick, queasy, like I'm about to throw up all over the place. I didn’t stop to think about Kyle for one second. Jeppie either. The only thing I thought about was feeling good in the heat of the moment and falling in love with Felicia.
“She’s having my baby. I can’t change that. I won’t let the way you feel take me away from my responsibility to her or my child. If I could turn back the hands of time and do things differently, trust me, I would. But I can’t. We're here now.”
The seriousness on Jeppie’s face makes me worry he’ll never speak to me again in life. I start to wonder if this is something I can truly live with. Am I honestly ready to lose my best friend forever? Will he ever be able to see me as someone he once cared about again? I can’t make this go away, so either way we’ll have to be a part of each other's lives because I know there’s no way he’ll ever abandon his daughter for good.
“Jep, I can’t apologize enough for what I've done to our friendship. I won’t say I regret it either, because I really do love Felicia. This all came out of nowhere. It was like a bullet to the heart that I never saw coming. Am I happy that I've ruined our friendship? Hell no. But I am happy that Felicia and I found each other, and I plan to spend the rest of my life proving it to her.”
Chapter Twenty-One - Felicia
I left the house last night when Marc went to play poker. I got myself a nice suite high in the sky to clear my mind. I ordered a lot of room service too. My appetite has picked up a lot over the past few months and although the food has been amazing, it’s nothing like my dad's.
I miss my dad. I miss hearing his cheesy stories about work. His cooking. Listening to him watch his favorite TV shows and trying to get me interested in them too. I miss everything about him. It sucks that he hasn’t answered any of my calls. I know he’s angry with me for what I've done behind his back, but he’s still my father.
Marc has tried to call me over a dozen times between last night and this morning, but I haven’t answered him. I'm not in the mood to talk about whatever it is he wants to talk about right now. I’ve been such an emotional wreck the past couple of months, I just need some time to myself.
Marc has been so helpful and comforting during all of this. At first, he was nervous and worried about having a new baby, but he quickly turned it around since he knows how nervous I am about all of this. I'm scared. Especially without my dad being in my corner. This will be my first child, he has to be here with me. I know that I'll have Marc here every step of the way, but I also need my dad.
Every night I've prayed that my dad comes around and forgives us for this, but it doesn't look too promising. My mom has already turned her back on me years ago, I don’t know what I'll ever do if my father never speaks to me again.
Speaking of my mom, I’ve finally decide to go and pay her a visit. My hotel room isn't too far from where she’s living with her husband and their children now, so I'm going to stop by and try to gain some closure from her. I'm sure it'll be like pulling teeth but now that I’ll soon have a child of my own, I want to know why she left.
