Leave Me Lonely (JB+AG)

Leave Me Lonely (60)

Ariana 

Thursday, January 19th

5:16 pm

There's a knock at the door which causes us to all stop playing with Lilia's toys and look up.

"Oh, Lilia, who's that?" I ask her. "Come on, let's go open the door." I stand up and begin walking to the door with her following right behind me.

"Should I like go in your room or something?" Justin asks me. 

I realize I had yet to tell Alex about Justin since it just wasn't something I had thought about.

"No, you can come sit on the couch and stare him down just in case he gets any ideas." I tell him, giggling.

I walk to open the door and Alex is standing there, an awkward smile on his face. 

"Hey, Ari. How you been?" He asks.

"I'm good. Come on in." 

Lilia was still making her way to the door since she wasn't exactly the fastest crawler, but as soon as she saw Alex, her eyes lit up.

"Da!" She yells.

"Hey, baby girl. You're getting so big, beautiful." Alex picks her up and hugs her as she kicks her feet and waves her arms.

He takes a second to hug and kiss her before noticing Justin sitting on the couch. 

"Ariana, who's this?" Alex immediately looks at me and I swear I see a flash of jealousy in his eyes.

"This is my boyfriend, Justin. Justin, this is Lilia's father, Alex."

"What's up, man?" Justin says, causing me to laugh under my breath. I swear he's such a mess.

"What happened to not having her around new people like this?" Alex ignores Justin's greeting, and continues looking at me.

"Well first of all, I said you couldn't have her around your "girlfriend" because she's dirty. If she was a normal human being who took care of herself and her spaces, it would be fine. Second of all, Justin's not new. It's been 2 months."

"That doesn't sound fair, Ariana. Why do you get to decide who she can be around?" 

"Maybe because she's with me way more than you and I'm the one taking care of her. You taking her every couple weekends does not earn you the right to say who she can be around. Also, I never take her to Justin, he comes here. Do you have any more questions?"

"Nah, it's bullshit but whatever. Where's her stuff?" Alex sighs and I roll my eyes, going to get the snacks and milk out of the fridge.

"Hey, man, chill out. None of that is necessary." Justin says, tensing up.

"You shut up, you're not involved in this." Alex says, looking down at Justin.

I mentally groan, not liking where this is going at all.

"Alright, dude." Justin stands up from the couch, and now it's his turn to look down at Alex. "Clearly you have a problem being respectful. What's your issue?" 

"Okay, let's calm down. Alex, you have 0 seconds to fix your attitude before you will not be taking my child with you anywhere." I step between both of them before anything can escalate any more than it already has.

"She's my child too, and you can't keep her from me. If we need to take this to court, I have no problem with that. You don't get to decide when and where I can bring my daughter." 

"Yeah, good luck with court trying to take a breastfeeding baby away from her mom when you don't even have a job or a place for her to live. Don't even say something like that, Alexander." I leave the room to grab Lilia's bag as I was 2 seconds away from deciding that this wasn't gonna happen.

When I return, Alex is talking to Lilia and Justin is still standing, staring him down. When I told him to do that, I was really just joking, I didn't think he would actually take it serious.

"I packed a bunch of outfits and her swimsuit in case you decide to go swimming. Bottles, milk, snacks and anything else you need is in the lunch bag. Make sure that goes in the fridge as soon as you get there. Otherwise, you're good."

I go with them outside, and Justin follows me, wanting to keep an eye on Alex before he left. While he transfers Lilia's carseat from my car to his, I give my baby plenty of hugs and kisses before buckling her in. 

"I'll see you Sunday, baby. Have fun with daddy, okay?" I tell her before shutting the door.

"Call me if you need anything. Bye." I walk back to my apartment before Alex can say anything because I was fed up with him at the moment.

"Well that was something." Justin says, picking his phone up from the couch.

I nod, watching him as he unlocks it to read the messages he received.

"The triplets aren't doing anything this weekend and they would love to go out with everybody. What are you thinking?" He says.

"We could probably go out to a club or something. I'll have to see if Tara is doing anything. Matter of fact, I'm gonna call her right now. I was supposed to be back at work yesterday, and as we clearly see, that did not happen." 

I grab my phone and dial Tara's number, hoping she was out of work by now.

"Heyyyy, Ari! Where have you been?" She immediately says when she picks up the phone.

"Don't kill me, I'm sorry. I wanted to spend a little extra time back home, but I'm back now. I was wondering if you and Joel were doing anything tomorrow night. Me and Justin were planning to go out with some of his friends and I would love if you guys came." 

"I would love to! I haven't been out in so long. But me and Joel broke up like 3 days ago so he won't be in attendance. About Justin's friends, are they cute?" 

"Oh my gosh, really? That sucks. But yeah they're pretty cute. They're actually triplets so they pretty much look the same." 

"I'm fine, really. He was just too much of a workaholic for the point of life I'm in right now. He was so serious all the time and never wanted to go out partying or anything, and you know that's practically a part of my life. We both came to an understanding so no hard feelings or anything. We hope to stay friends, though."

"Well, that's good. I'm sure the triplets would love you, bestie. You can come over tomorrow and we can get ready together."

"Sounds great, I can't wait. But, I'm cooking dinner so I gotta go. Love you!" 

"Love you too, bye!"

"That was an interesting conversation." Justin says from his spot on the couch.

For some weird reason, I had been standing up in front of him the whole phone call.

"Yeah, I'm excited for tomorrow. I need to get that Alex situation out of my head. I can't believe he would just bring up court like that, and over something so small, too. I never thought our relationship would get to that point. When he left, we were on such good terms, but he's changed since he's been gone. He was supposed to be going to his parents house in Arizona to get better, now he's living in a dirty excuse of an apartment with a dirty whore excuse of a woman. I never wanted that for him. I may not be mentally or physically attracted to him anymore, but he's the father of my child. I will always have some type of love for him, Justin."

"And you have good reason to. After he lost you, his head probably went out of control, Ari. He probably tried everything to replace you and Lily, but nothing can ever replace either of you. You're both beautiful, intelligent and kind. He just went in the wrong direction." Justin tells me, stroking my cheek.

I nod, leaning further into him on the couch.

"That's what I think happened. But it's whatever. All I care about is my daughter having a relationship with him, even if we don't have one. But anyways, what do you wanna do now?"

"Well, I have something that can take your mind off of it." Justin smirks, standing up and throwing me over his shoulder.