~Demi's POV~
"So, Bailey, how did you become a part of Demi's family?" Joe questions.
I resist the urge to get up and slap him for asking such an invasive question. He never was one to beat around the bush and clearly nothing has changed. Knowing that his question is difficult to answer, I intertwine my fingers with Bailey's and gently knead circles into her skin. I can both hear and feel her take a deep breath.
"She adopted me after giving me up," She responds, causing me to almost cringe.
I guess she doesn't like beating around the bush either. The tension filled silence seems to drown me. Although everyone, except for Jordan of course, knows the truth, they remain silent with flabbergasted expressions, probably judging me. I could cleanly and swiftly slice the tension with a freaking thumbtack if I wanted to. With no explanation, Nick abrubtly rises to his feet and heads upstairs.
"Your bathroom's upstairs, right?" I question, desperate for an excuse to follow him.
Dani nods. I release Bailey's hand and flash her a fake smile before heading upstairs. I follow him into Kevin's music room, gently shutting the door behind me. I find Nick sitting on the piano bench, his fingertips grazing the ivory keys.
"Why'd you follow me up here, Demi?" He inquires without looking up to face me.
His tone is perculiar for him. It's a hoarse, dry, and slightly gritty sound, but I can still hear the cold hatred and slight drip of sarcasm. It pains me to hear him, known for being carefree and happy, speaking in such a guarded, harsh, and exhausted sounding tone.
"I don't know," I answer truthfully, advancing towards him.
"That's your answer for everything, isn't it?"
" I don't..." I stop myself with a shake of my head. "I guess so," I sigh, feeling slightly annoyed, especially at the fact that I have no idea where this conversation is leading.
"Why are you lying to our daughter?" He wonders, causing my breathing to hitch.
"I'm not lying to her," I state as convincingly as possible.
"Just like you're not lying to me right now?" he snorts. "Who does she even think her own father is, Demetria?" He inquires with a slightly elevated tone, finally meeting my gaze.
I wince at the use of my full name, knowing that he only uses it when he's truly pissed off at me; right now, pissed off would be an understatement.
"Who?" He repeats when I remain silent.
"I'm not sure," I whisper, bowing my head slightly as shame and guilt overcome me.
"Don't even try to pull the self-pity card now. This is all your fault," he spats.
Even though I know he's right, I still feel a need to defend myself. Anger swirls in the pit of my stomach, but more so towards myself than to him.
"My fault? Are you forgetting that it takes two to tango, Nick? Because I sure as hell don't recall you ever telling me 'no'."
"You're the one who threw yourself at me."
I laugh with no humor.
"Don't flatter yourself," I smirk, even though he's right. "You could've just resisted."
"You knew I was in love with you, and you, being the manipulative bitch that you are, used that to your advantage."
"You make me sound like a whore."
"You said it, not me."
Without thinking and without hesitation, I veer my arm back and collide my palm as hard as I possibly can with his cheek. The sudden force of the slap causes him to crane his neck to the side, his fingers slipping and pressing the piano keys. I stand in silence, slightly shocked by my actions, as he clenches his jaw, his eyes ablaze with pent up anger that I know is directed towards me. An annoying twinge of guilt ticks within me.
"I probably deserved that," he admits in a sharp tone, his jaw remaining clenched.
"Take it as a tip to never call another woman a whore," I smirk, hesitantly grazing my fingertips underneath his jawline, tilting his head to examine his cheek.
"At least I didn't punch you," I snort.
"True. But I'm pretty sure your talon like nails nearly gouged my eye out."
Despite the situation, I can't help but laugh.
"Same old, Lovato," he chuckles.
"Same old, Jonas."
"Is that a good or bad thing?" he peers at me curiously as I let my hand slowly return to my side.
"Definitely a good thing," I flash him a small, toothless smile.
His gaze flickers from my eyes to my lips, and I find myself looking at him the same way. I ignore the little voice in the back of my mind telling me that I'd be making a big mistake. He catiously leans forward, offering me plenty of time to back away or even to slap him again if desired. Instead, I meet him halfway. Our lips move in sync warily, as if we're unsure of the other's reaction, as if the other is as fragile as glass. His hands grip my hips, guiding me to the piano bench. I trace his lower lip with my tongue. He opens his mouth, allowing our tongues to dance together. That pestering voice in the back of my mind grows louder and louder, screaming at me to stop what I'm doing, to stop cheating on my husband. Another voice, though, is screaming at me to never let him, the one person who has always stuck by my side and who always has been able to make me happy regardless of the situation, go. I wish I could freeze time in this moment or go back in time and tell myself that I should follow my heart and be with Nick. A gasp causes my stomach to uneasily flip as Nick and I quickly separate. Taking a deep breath, I turn around to face the person who is affected the most by this situation and yet doesn't even realize it.
~
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~Bailey's POV~
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"When I said I ship 'Nemi', I didn't mean jump him at the first chance given."
I'm amazing in awkward social situations, right? Demi narrows her eyes at me. That's the expression that I'm used to seeing, not the one where she's sucking face with Nick fucking Jonas!
"You weren't eavesdropping, were you?" Demi interrogates.
"Do I look like a criminal mastermind in disguise? I heard the piano key. I wanted to make sure there wasn't a serial killer or something," I answer, rocking back and forth on my heels. "Now I'm kind of wishing I had left you two with the serial killer."
"Are you always this sarcastic?" Nick inquires with an arched eyebrow.
"No," I reply, shaking my head. "I'm off on Sundays."
Demi rolls her eyes. You'd think she'd be use to my sarcasm by now.
"Now, Demi, would you care to explain why you were sucking the face off of a man who is not your husband? Or, Nick, would you like to enlighten me on why you were making out with a woman who wears a very large rock on her left hand?"
Demi heavily sighs, gracefully running her fingers through her hair. Nick anxiously shifts his gaze from her, to me, to the floor, and repeats over and over again.
"Take a seat, Bailey. I suppose you have the right to know the truth. I guess it's about time that I start being honest with you."
Demi gestures to an armchair in the corner of the room. No way in hell am I willingly going to allow myself to be cornered in this extremely awkward situation.
"Actually, I have to, uh, well I think, er.....my goldfish is drowning. Yeah, that's it, my goldfish is drowning....in the pool outside, and.....I-I-I, uh, I need to save it," I idiotically mutter, turning on my heels and trying to make a run for the door.
I hardly make it two freaking steps before two arms wrap around me. Nick steps into my line of vision, locking the door, my only escape route unless I want to run through one of the windows or dig a tunnel through one of the walls, and standing in front of it. Only when Nick is surely blocking the door does Demi release her grip on me. I frown at the predicament that I have gotten myself into, cursing my curiosity for getting the best of me. They say that curiosity killed the cat, right? Yeah, well, I'm starting to think that I may have been a cat in a previous life, probably one of those black cats with those wicked cool green eyes that everybody cowers away from in fear of being cursed with bad luck.
"Sit," Demi orders.
Or maybe I was a dog?
"Why?" I whine, stomping my foot like a immature toddler who throws a fit in Wal-Mart because she can't have a Nerf gun.....not that I know anything about that.
"Because I said so," Demi responds, causing me to roll my eyes.
"Great defence, Demi. You should have been a lawyer!"
She glares at me.
"Can I please go?" I groan, mentally shuddering at the politeness that the word 'please' implies.
"No."
"Please?" I beg, absolutely despising the word rolling off of my tongue.
"No!"
My eyes flicker to Nick.
"Hey, Nick...."
"I'm serious, Bay."
"Okay, okay, I'll be serious...."
I don't last three seconds before bursting into a fit of annoying giggles that soon turn into roaring laughter.
"I'm sorry!" I giggle. "But there's no way I can be serious when you're trying to act all strict and stern."
The two grown-ups glare at me.
"Tough crowd," I mutter.
Teenagers are the most misunderstood people on this planet. We're expected to behave like adults, yet we're treated like children. I don't know about you, but I call some serious bullshit! Being a teenager is so difficult! It's like a job occupation by itself, let alone having to deal with the stress of having annoying parents, or, in my case, an annoying celebrity mom. That's it, time to be a unicorn! Give me my horn thing, so I can go around stabbing people while pleading accident......or insanity....either should work.
"Bailey," Demi sighs yet again. "I get that all of this sarcasm and humor is a defense mechanism that you use to hide your emotions, right?"
I hesitantly nod, wondering how she could possibly know that.
"But you want answers, especially about your life, don't you?"
I keenly nod. I've been awaiting answers my whole life. Demi thinks for a moment, her nose scrunched up all cutely while doing so.
"Think of it like this: What's one thing that you can't survive without, but you can't see or feel?"
"WiFi."
"Air?" Nick hopefully gueses, earning a glare from Demi.
In my mind, we're both right, but WiFi is more important. And technically, you can feel air. I mean, you can feel wind, and wind's a form of air, right? Ugh, I've always been terrible at science.
"Love," Demi corrects, causing me to almost incredously snort. "Love keeps people together no matter what. When you were born, a lot of things were going on, and I had to make some excruciatingly difficult descisions, but I made them all based on what I thought was best for you. I had to listen to my heart."
I blink at her.
"But how did you know what 'dum-dum', 'dum-dum' meant?"
Of course I have to ruin the sappy moments. It's in my job description. I'm, like, the evil version of Cupid. Demi, to no surprise, deliberately ignores my remark.
"Love is like a magnet. We can't see or feel it, but it's there, and we have to trust it to bring us together."
"You sound like a monologue for one of those disgustingly sappy Hallmark movies," I comment. "I still don't see what this all has to do with you and Nick swapping spit."
She glances at Nick with a somewhat nervous expression. Why would she be nervous?
"Bay, Nick's your-"
"Mom!" Jordan yells.
"Shit," Demi hisses under her breath.
"Mom!" Jordan calls again, her footsteps thudding up the stairs. "Dad's calling," she informs when she finally locates us, waving Demi's lit up phone. "He's called several times, I think."
Demi walks towards Jordan, removing her phone from her daughter's grasp. With an eye-roll, she raises the phone to her ear.
"You called?" She wonders, sounding slightly annoyed.
Although the room's near silent, I can't manage to hear the other end of the conversation, especially with the excited squeals and whoops from the pool outside.
"We'll be home soon," She says in a sharp tone, ending the phone call without so much as a 'goodbye'. "We should be getting home," she tells Jordan and me.
Both of us girls nod, scurrying to Alena's room in silence to change out of our swimsuits. Why do I have a bad feeling churning in the pit of my stomach?
ns 15.158.61.8da2
