Pairing: Kevin and Joey
Words: melodious; dagger; domestic; crime


Things you don't want to think about.  The sound of the fan
overhead when you first heard the news, and even that couldn't move
the stolid Florida air.  Not a melodious sound, just a steady
tick-tick-tick-tick.  Your girlfriend told you she was pregnant,
and your life was over for the first time.

The period of restructuring.  Making not thinking about it into a
fine art.  Moving on.  Living in denial of what was happening to
you, and having sex with other people.  Lots of sex.  Men and
women, and Kevin and the Backstreet thing is not the worst mistake
you ever made, but only because this is worse.

Then you have a daughter, and you love her, but a child is mostly
an inconvenience who you don't see very often, much like the
pregnant girlfriend was.  Unwanted.  It's worse during those times
when you're off tour and Kelly leaves Brianna with you, and you
have to deal with the reality of having a daughter.  Bri's the
sweetest thing, usually happy, rarely sick, and willing to eat
almost everything.  She's also in love with her daddy and wants to
be with you 24 hours a day.  She'll crawl out her bed and get in
yours at night.  You wake up to the sound of her whining next to
the bed, "Up, up," more nights than not, and you always wake up,
roll over and pull her up onto the bed, because it's easier to give
in than to get up and put her back in her own bed.  She kicks
though, and sleeps on top of you, and gets up at dawn and wants to
be played with.

The Blue's Clues song.  Steve sounding cheery about the arrival of
the mail.  Brianna loves that show.  During the day, the stuff she
likes to do is something you can fake an interest in for about a
half an hour at most and then you want to plop her in front of the
TV and hide.  Steve is your new best friend, and you've never met
him.

But the show's only a half hour long, and the tapes only an hour,
and Bri always finds you.  She doesn't like being alone.  "Daddy,
daddy, daddy," until you look up and pay attention to her to get
her to stop.  "Daddy, daddy, daddy," and the first time she ever
said "I love you."

An inconvenience, and you know you're a lousy parent for thinking
of her that way.  You're supposed to be the domestic type, a family
kind of guy -- it goes with the Italian image, and your parents are
great at it.  But you still get tired of having a kid, don't love
it and her like you know you should, don't treat her as well as you
wish you could.  It's easy to know how a good parent acts.  It's
easy to want to do those things.  It's hard to do them, to enjoy
the attention span and the babble and the incomprehensible games
and the complete lack of adult interaction, because your friends
are grown-ups, single grown-ups with lives and interests
incompatible with a small child.  Drinking and casual sex, and
things you used to do, and still want to, and shutting the door on
your best friend when he shows up drunk at your house one night is
the right thing, but hard.  The look on his face.

This.  Today.  A manila envelope of crisp white papers with simple
words even you can understand.  Sole custody.  Signing away your
child.

Kelly's voice, shrill but reasonable.  "You never wanted her
anyway, Joey.  This is the best thing for her.  It's not like I
don't want you to see you her.  You can see her as much as you
want.  But my life's in New York, and you're here.  I can't fly to
Florida every time Bri needs a check-up, and your life... you
hardly get to see her anyway with your schedule."

You close your eyes, and you sign, because you never wanted a
child, and she's just an inconvenience to you.  You've always been
a bad parent, and Kelly's right.  This is best for Bri.

The dagger in your heart when you try to explain to your daughter
that she's going to live with just mommy now, and how Bri looks up
at you with big brown eyes and says, "But I love you.  I *need*
you."

You can't think about any of these things, because you start
bawling when you do, despite that you're a man.

She's nothing you ever wanted, and your life is easier without her. 
You can see your friends again, not treat them like it's a crime to
drink and party and be themselves.  You can do whatever you want,
and no one kicks you in your sleep, and you don't have the
Teletubbies songs stuck in your head all day long.

Better this way, but your life is over for the second time, and you
start making plans to move to New York.