50 Shades of Drake 5 and 6

More Life: Chapter Ten

    "Yeah."

    "Hey, Aubrey."

    The voice immediately took him back to happier times. Aubrey froze where he stood onstage. New country, new tour stop. He raised an arm to the DJ and made a terminating gesture, indicating for him to cut the music. Then, he swiftly moved to the side of the stage. "Um...hi, Carlos. What's up?"

    "Shit," Carlos replied, and other voices could be heard in the background. Those voices grew fainter and fainter. He must also be moving away from any and all distractions.

    "I meant to call you back," Aubrey said lamely, rubbing at the back of his neck.

    "Of course you did." Carlos sighed. All joy was drained from his voice; he didn't even sound like himself. The old Carlos would have cracked some joke or flirted with Aubrey by now. "How...how are you doing? I know you're on tour and everything, which...I have to applaud you for, by the way. You're taking on a lot, so soon after..."

    Aubrey's shoulders grew taut. "Music is the only way I can function," he said, his voice just as tight as his shoulders. "It's the only way I can have a brief relief from thinking about..."

    "I get it, trust me." Carlos's voice lowered. 

    "How are you doing?" Aubrey asked him. "I've been meaning to check in with you. I really have."

    "And I've been meaning to check in with you sooner," Carlos said. "It was just too soon for me to have any reminder of it. As hot as you are, Mr. Graham, you are most definitely a reminder of Destiny. The two of you are just...attached in my mind, you know? So I needed time before I could reach out to you, and I'm sure the reason you haven't reached out to me is the same."

    "I...yeah." Aubrey lowered his eyes and stared at his sneakered feet. 

    "It's been tough. Like...really tough. We've all been through so much, that it didn't make sense for her life to end when and how it did. I'm still struggling to understand it. I probably never will understand it. Everything at the office is still running smoothly. Everyone is on their A game, trying to hold you down and man the ship while you're overseas. No one's slacking. I'm trying to find some sort of happiness or peace with what I'm doing but...I feel like I just don't understand anything anymore. The good guys are supposed to be the ones that win in the end, right? The good guys were us. So what happened shouldn't have happened, but it did and my brain can't quite resolve it. It just feels wrong, and that wrong feeling keeps bleeding into everything else. Everything feels wrong."

    "You're right. Everything does feel wrong. It's a feeling that I can't shake." Aubrey glanced towards the producer, who decided to field his own phone calls, since Aubrey was taking an unscheduled break from rehearsals. "Ever since I found out she was pregnant, I just haven't been able to latch onto any semblance of reality. Everything just feels-"

    "Surreal," Carlos finished for him.

    "Surreal, yeah," Aubrey echoed with a sad smile. Who would have thought, that out of all people, Carlos would be the person to fully understand where his head was at? His phone buzzed in his hand, and he glanced at it.

SOPHIE: Can we talk?

    With his brows furrowed, he sent a reply letting her know that it wasn't a good time.

SOPHIE: When is a better time?

    "Aubrey?" Carlos asked.

    "Yeah."

    "I asked if you know when you're returning to the office. No one knows."

SOPHIE: It's really important. You haven't been answering my calls.

AUBREY: I haven't answering ANYONE's calls. I'm touring.

    "It's okay if you don't know," Carlos went on.

    "I'm...sorry. Someone is texting and it's..." Aubrey ran a hand over the top of his head. "When am I returning to the office? Ah...I'm not sure at this point. I still meet with executives a few times a week via video conference." That was particularly hell on him, because of the time zone differences between his touring locations and the home offices. He made it work, though. 

SOPHIE: Since you refuse to have a simple conversation with me, I guess I'll just have to put it here. I'm pregnant.

    Aubrey stared down at his phone, his mouth forming a small "O" of surprise. All of the sounds of the arena staff and his own producer muted. Even Carlos's voice muted. Blood rushed to his face as he reread the sentence over and over again. Again, he imagined his poor Destiny, passed into the next life along with the son he would have had with her. 

AUBREY: How do you know it's mine?

SOPHIE: Pardon?

AUBREY: We were only together once. You and I both know your history, so...how do you know it's mine?

SOPHIE: It's yours, Drake.

    His heart pounded in his chest. He couldn't even hear Carlos calling his name over and over again. The stage lights suddenly seemed too bright, like overexposure in a photo. He shaded a hand over his eyes, then lowered that hand to cover his chest. The pounding in his chest concerned him. Don't be a dick to her, he told himself. You're being a dick right now and you chose to engage with her. You chose to entertain this. So stop being a dick. He stood there frozen. A notification popped up on his screen stating that the call with Carlos had ended, but he still stood there.

SOPHIE: Hello? I need to know what you're going to do.

    What I'm going to do? What can I do. This...can't happen. So many feelings overpowered him. The feeling of loss, the feeling of his own broken childhood, due to his father not living in the home. This is too much. This can't happen.

SOPHIE: Drake.

AUBREY: I want you to get an abortion.

    It was one of those text messages that you typed and sent without really considering it. You just sent it, because that's how you felt in the moment. As soon as your finger hit send, you knew that this shit would come back to bite you in the ass. Half of you cared and half of you didn't, because it was the realest thing you'd communicate with anyone today. He stared at the words he'd sent her. 

    She took a long time to respond. Who knew...she was probably shouting to her own ceiling the French rendition of "This guy has the AUDACITY."

    When his phone did finally give the buzzing indication that she'd responded, he took his time in checking it. He paced the entire front length of the stage, trying to shake off the dirty feeling of this conversation.

SOPHIE: I can't kill my baby simply to indulge you. Sorry. 

    Rage filled him - not just rage at her or this current situation, but rage for everything that had gone wrong in his life. 

AUBREY: Indulge me? Fuck you.

SOPHIE: What?

AUBREY: You know exactly what you're doing. You're trying to get money out of me. You trapped me on purpose.

    He was just talking shit now. Of course he knew that he had participated in intercourse with her. That fact was lost in the feelings of his rage and frustration, frustration that any God or higher being would allow the love of his life and child he was to have with her to die but allow this former pornstar to conceive with him. We didn't even fuck a handful of times and she gets pregnant just like that? The fuck? Sure, logic reminded him that it only took one time. But still. The unfairness of it all just birthed more anger. With all composure lost, he launched his phone across the stage, walked to the edge of the stage, sat down, and put his head in his hands.

    His producer whirled around. "Yoooooo!" he shouted out.

    Several staff members also turned their focus to Aubrey, to see what the commotion was about.

    Aubrey shook his head. The only thing he could do in this moment was cry.