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Was hard to figure out where Zakk was going with all this, though the gist seemed to be that Tattered Angel was a mess. So, was he breaking up with Tripp so he could focus on fixing the mess with his band? He’d hate it, but he’d understand it. Damnit all, Tripp really didn’t want that to be happening right now. Only, Zakk stopped talking and Winter started, his brother meeting his gaze with one filled with unhappiness.
“I’m not okay,” Winter told him. “I um, there might be some things on the dirt sheets the next time you see them.”
Groaning, Tripp rolled his eyes at the potential publicity nightmare his brother might have sparked off with his antics, again. Couldn’t they go a solid two years without Winter kicking off some kind of shitstorm. “What kinds of things?”
Sighing heavily, Winter tugged at the two long, skinny braids running down the left side of his head, always a little longer than the rest of his hair. “There is the distinct possibility that you’re gonna be an uncle in a few months.”
“Are you…fuckin’ serious!” Tripp growled, the pain secondary to the chaos a baby mama groupie would bring into their lives. “Condoms were invented…for a fuckin’ reason.”
“And not foolproof, especially not when the sex is rough. I wasn’t the only guy she was fuckin’, so, we’re gonna DNA when the kid comes and if I am, then we’ll figure it out.”
“Child support is going to…have a field day with you,” Tripp grumbled, coughing and grimacing at the raspiness lingering in his throat. He was grateful when his brother finally relinquished the cup to him so he could have all the water he could swallow. It might be the only thing keeping him from running down the list of reasons it was a horrible idea for his brother to try figuring anything out involving a stuffed penguin let alone an actual, living, breathing child who would be helpless and utterly dependent on the icon of irresponsibility Winter was known to be.
“She’s got her own money.”
“Then she…must not…know who you are.”
“She knows exactly who I am and what I do, she’s a musician too.”
“A musician, but on your level…” Tripp paused to cough and sip a little bit more water, but at least his throat no longer felt like the desert in June. “I doubt that.”
“Then you’d be wrong, considering, it’s Tish.”
All Tripp could do was stare at his brother like he’d grown a second head, which looked to be exactly what Zakk was doing on the other side of him.
“All she wants is for me to be in the kid’s life if it turns out I’m the father,” Winter continued like he hadn’t just dropped a bombshell of a revelation for them to process. “And I’m good with that.”
“And what, get a mini-guitar and teach him to shred…before he’s in kindergarten?” Tripp remarked.
Winter shrugged and brushed at a non-existent speck of something on his jeans. “Why not, if he wants to learn?”
How was he so calm? Didn’t he realize there would be expectations? That a time would come when he’d have to unselfishly sacrifice something he wanted to do for someplace he needed to be for the kid?
Tripp rubbed the space between his eyes and felt his stomach clench, already feeling the stress of something they weren’t even sure was happening yet. How many times would Winter ask him to stand in, to cover and pretend he was his brother so Winter could run off and have fun? A kid was a lifetime commitment, or at the very least, eighteen years of school shit. That was eighteen years of Tripp making sure Winter didn’t come off as an irresponsible shit, ‘cause the dirt sheets would love that more than the festival of words they’d have when word got around that he had a kid. Though it sounded like it already had.
“If you don’t know you’re the dad, how is it in the dirt sheets already?”
Tripp could have kissed Zakk for asking the question Tripp was so desperate for an answer to.
“Oh, that’s not what they’re gossiping about,” Winter said. “But we can hold off on explainingthatpart of the mess until he’s feeling better.”
“And yet you’d tell me you might be the father of Tish’s kid?” Tripp grumbled, taking a moment to make sure he understood exactly what was happening here. “What the hell could be more intense than that?”
“Just trust that it is, and you should wait,” Winter said.
“Have I told you lately that I hate you sometimes?”
“Nearly every single day for the past three years,” Winter said, but it was his tone, more than anything that gave Tripp pause.
There was no humor in Winter’s tone, nor did he follow up the words with banter about whatever it was he felt Tripp needed to fix about himself. He just sat there, with eyes that looked hollow and sad, picking at red and ragged cuticles, which might have been infected in places.
“You wanna lay off your brother so we can talk to you about the spa?” Zakk asked.
“That better not be a codename for rehab center,” Tripp replied.
“Why? You got something you need to get off your chest, or are the ulcers the only secret?” Zakk asked, staring until Tripp looked away. “We’re talking about an actual health spa. It was in a mess of brochures from the Rocktoberfest trip. I kept it because it looked interesting.”
Considering Winter was nodding in agreement, Tripp decided that the best thing he could do was hear this thing out.
