Ashton's POV

By the time I find my dad's hotel room most of my anger has subsided. But that's only because when I charged out of Calum's room, I had no idea where to go. So I stormed down to the lobby and talked to the receptionist to find out where my dad's room was. It took way longer than I would have liked because the receptionist was suspicious of me and kept asking what business I had with 'Mr. Irwin'. After shoving my driver's license in her face and watching her expression morph into apologetic realization when it clicked in her head that I am 'Mr. Irwin's' son, she gave me his room number.

At least the time spent with the receptionist aided in fueling my overall annoyance and irritation. However, I'm more than sure that the moment I see my dad's face, the anger will arise and Hell will break loose within me.

My fingers twitch at my side as I stand outside my dad's hotel room door. I raise my fist to knock, but it falls back to my side when the door knob jiggles from the other side. I jolt back when the door swings open and lower my guard when I see that it's not my dad standing in the doorway. However, it doesn't make it any better that the person standing in front of me is my kid's other grandfather.

"Ashton," Elijah says, his eyebrows rising and a curve in his lips forming as he rolls down the cuffed sleeves of his navy button-up shirt. Even though there is a small distance between us, I internally cringe at the stench of distilled spirits spilling from his mouth. "Didn't mean you scare you, son," he says. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Not long, sir," I say, withholding the urge to call him out on calling me 'son' again. "Were you talking with my dad?"

"Yeah, we were just catching up," he says, keeping the door slightly ajar behind him. "It's funny because it's as though time hasn't passed since the last time I saw him, and that was years ago. But he's still the same ol' pain in the ass Nolan." He chuckles to himself. "So how have you liked your stay here so far?"

"It's been great," I say, disguising the adversities and overall shittiness of my life with a grade A fake smile. "Thank you for booking this hotel for us. It's a little extravagant for my taste but my friends and I really appreciate you going above and beyond for us. I wish there was some way to repay you for all of this."

Elijah waves his hand dismissively. "It's really no trouble," he says. "But if it's really eating at you, why don't come over for dinner while you're here to compensate? If you have some free time, that is. I know my wife misses you and would love to see you. You can even bring your friends."

No. Absolutely not. I don't want to step foot in Natalie's old house. I'd rather dive off a cliff onto a bed of pointed rocks than accept his invitation.

"He'd love to go," my father's unmistakable voice says, pushing Elijah out from the doorway and greeting me with anything less of a smile and the un-styled natural curls on his head. "Let's shoot for Tuesday evening."

I knew getting angry with him again wouldn't take long. All he has to do is open his mouth and my resentment towards him naturally unveils.

"Tuesday could work," Elijah says, walking backwards down the hallway and almost tripping over his feet as he continues to talk to us. "I'll call you with the details tomorrow. It was good seeing you, Ashton."

"Uh, sir?" I say. "You're not driving are you?"

"God, no," he says, reaching the elevator. "My wife would kill me if I did. I've got a cab waiting for me outside. Try not to be at each other's throats while I'm gone," he jokes, slipping inside the elevator and waving goodbye as the chrome doors slide shut.

If only he knew.

Dad silently slips back into his room, leaving the door open as invitation. I roll my eyes when I walk inside behind him. The interior of the suite is fucking ridiculous in size. He may as well unpack for good because he could actually live here. The bedroom is sectioned off from the living area, which is about the size of mine and Emmie's room. The dark-stained wood details of the furniture and rich plum and gold décor give it more of a regal vibe than our modernesque room. The drawn curtains reveal the postcard-perfect view of the Sydney Harbour that's makes ours look like an amateur snapshot. The cream and gold duvet on the bed looks like it hasn't even been touched, but the same can't be said for the mini bar next to the mounted plasma TV. Small half-empty liquor bottles and water line the edge of the bar counter, as though my dad and Elijah were catching up while sampling the assortment of alcohol.

I shut the door behind me with my foot. "That wasn't you decision to make, Dad," I say through gritted teeth. "You don't know what plans I have, so you shouldn't have said anything."

"You also don't know how much Elijah and I are paying to have you and your friends stay here," Dad backfires. "Show a little appreciation."

"I do appreciate it," I say. "What I don't appreciate is you making decisions for me and trying to control my life like I'm some sort of puppet."

"It's one dinner, Ashton. It's not going to kill you."

"You're missing the point," I mumble, shaking my head. "I'm not here to argue with you about dinner."

He turns his back to me and walks towards the mini bar. "What are you here for then?" he asks, cleaning up what I assume to be the aftermath of his and Elijah's drinking session. "It's not every day I get the pleasure of seeing my son knocking at my door."

I roll my eyes. "I saw Natalie," I say.

The small bottles clink together as he gathers a few in one hand. "Did you?" he says. "How is she?"

"Well, she looks the same except now she has a mini-version of herself who also looks a bit like me."

He glances over his shoulder. "I take it you met Reina."

I hate how calm and casual he is. It's like nothing disturbs his Zen-like yet hostile attitude, and I just want to shove some of my suffering down his throat so that he can experience and know what it feels like. "How long have you known about her?" I ask.

"Since she was born, I suppose," he says with a shrug.

I take a step closer to him. "And you never thought to tell me?"

"Elijah and Natalie said Reina was Nathan's child. I didn't see the need to tell you about someone who wasn't affiliated with you."

I grip onto his shoulder and force him to turn to me. "Reina is my daughter," I exclaim. "Is that enough affiliation for you?"

His eyes narrow and he shrugs my hand off his shoulder. "What makes you say that?" he asks.

"I talked with Natalie last night. She came clean and told me that Reina is my child. Apparently she was pregnant before we broke up but wasn't too far along. All this time I had no idea but you did," I say, my voice rising with every word. "You never told me about her and I had to find out in the worst way possible."

Dad's cheeks hollow slightly as he clenches his jaw. He remains silent.

"You have a picture of Reina hanging on the wall in your office next to one of me, Lauren, and Harry," I say. "Why?"

Dad sets the glass bottles in his hand back onto the bar, ignoring one that almost topples over. "Come with me," he says, adjusting the sleeves of his solid charcoal suit jacket and steering towards the door. He holds the door open for me, and I eye him suspiciously before walking out.

I follow behind him as he guides me to the elevator, and we don't talk throughout the entire descent to the lobby. However, that doesn't stop me from shooting angry glares at him out of the corner of my eye.

"Where are we going?" I ask, trailing behind my dad as he steps off the elevator and towards the bar next to the restaurant where my friends and I ate at during our first night in Sydney.

He doesn't answer but instead, continues to walk forward.

We enter the dimly-lit bar and weave around the few occupied tables until reaching the counter where the bartender stands behind. Dad takes a seat on one of the wooden stools and beckons the bartender over.

"I'm not drinking," I say, leaving an empty stool between us when I sit down.

"Never said you had to," Dad says and turns to the bartender. "I'll have a Dewar's neat, and make it a double."

The hefty bartender takes Dad's credit card and quickly whips up his order, but first tends to the other patrons who were here before us. He places two short glasses in front of Dad and asks if I would like anything but I wave dismissively.

"What are we doing here?" I ask.

"The whiskey in my room isn't that great," Dad says, swirling the liquid in the glass around before sniffing the woody spirits and taking a short sip.

"You're unbelievable," I say, scooting back from the bar and rising from the stool. "I'm over here freaking out because I just found out that I'm a dad and you're more concerned with the quality of your whiskey?"

"Shut up and sit down, Ashton," Dad orders, taking a longer sip from his glass and hissing at the burn of the alcohol. "Do you want me to tell you what I know about Reina or not?"

The bar stool screeches against the flooring as I drag it back and sink down onto the seat.

"So Reina's really yours," he says, staring forward at the shelf full of varying types of alcohol. "I had a feeling she was."

I rest my crossed arms on the bar. "How?" I ask.

"She looks a lot like you when you were her age," he says. He slips his hand into his inner coat pocket and pulls out a black leather wallet that is probably three times the cost of my dilapidated one in my back pocket. He pulls out a small photo from behind his driver's license and hands it to me.

The edges of the photo are completely tattered and the bottom half is nearly faded, but the color remaining makes my skin crawl and chest hurt. Even though the image is of me standing in front of a generic pastel backdrop when I was a toddler, I can only see the uncanny resemblance between Reina and me. The loose, brown ringlets that bounced with every step she took match the mop of curls on my head when I was a kid. The craters in her cheeks are just as deep and defined as mine were. The array of greens, grays, and browns that encompass her irises are ten times more vibrant than mine in this scratched up photo. There's no denying Reina takes after me, and I hate that.

"Dad?" I say, rubbing my thumb against the corner of the photo. "How did you react when you found out you were a father?"

"The same as how I'm reacting to finding out that I'm a grandfather," he says, finishing off the first glass of whiskey and starting on the other. "When your mum showed me the test when she was pregnant with you, I poured myself a shot of whiskey. I was excited, don't get me wrong, but it was completely unplanned."

I scoff. "At least you were excited."

"I was more scared than anything else," he adds. "I made Anne take five more tests just to be sure. I even scheduled her first appointment with the obstetrician. It was more surreal when you were born. I was actually kicked out of the delivery room because I kept cracking jokes to lighten the mood. I was freaking out and that was the only way I knew how to calm myself down."

It's hard to imagine my dad cracking any sort of joke. I don't remember much of what he was like when I was a child; I only remember things that he did, like sing a lullaby to me. I can't even remember a time when he smiled. He was always so calm and collected, even now.

"I don't think anyone is ready to have a kid," he says. "You have to live up to so many expectations. After Lauren and Harry were born, it was hard to spend time with you guys. I worked all the time so I was worried that I wasn't a good dad."

"Well, you definitely weren't a contender for Father of the Year," I mumble. "You had time to prepare yourself to have a kid. Reina was dropped like a bomb on me."

Several men cheer loudly at the football game being displayed on the TV that's mounted on the wall. At least they're filling the excitement that my dad and I seem to be void of.

"When I was told that Natalie had a child and was shown a picture of Reina, I was suspicious of whom the actual father was," Dad says. "I have never met Nathan in-person; I've only seen pictures of him with Reina, but the resemblance between the two was hardly visible. It wasn't my place to bring it into question, even if that child looked a lot like you. I figured that if she was yours, you wouldn't have moved from Sydney to Denver."

"I didn't know Reina existed before yesterday," I say. "I've missed two years of her life and I'm not as upset about it as I feel I should be. I had a life before Reina. I don't know what I have now. I can't just drop everything I have to parent a child that I have zero connection with. I don't want to leave Denver. I don't want to leave my friends. And I especially don't want to leave Emilia."

"Then drop Reina from your life," he says bluntly. "She doesn't know who you are. You're a stranger to her."

I stare at him, perplexed, and shake my head. "I honestly don't think I can do that. After you left Mum, I promised myself I would never turn into you and leave my future kids. If I just drop Reina from my life I'd be no different than you."

He shrugs. "Then I think you know what you have to do."

"You're shit at giving advice," I say.

"I didn't win Father of the Year for a reason. At least I'm trying to be more of a father now."

I shake my head and call the bartender over. When the man reaches us, I ask, "Can you get me shot of anything that will make me numb to the fact that I'm a baby daddy?"

"It's not often I get those kind of orders," the bartender says with a chuckle. "I'm sure I can whip something together." He grabs a few top-shelf liquors and skillfully mixes them together until they settle into a golden-brown gradient. "Good luck, man," he says, placing the shot glass in front of me.

Dad raises his half-empty glass of whiskey and says, "Welcome to fatherhood."

I reluctantly tap my glass against his before shooting the shot.

__

All but one person is left in the bar by the time Dad and I leave. I only had a few shots and I was tempted to have more but didn't want to have to deal with my three best friends questioning me if I showed up shitfaced. However, I'm probably going to be questioned either way because I'm a little more than tipsy from whatever the bartender made me. I should have eaten more, but then again, I didn't know I was going to be spending my evening drinking with my dad.

"You have a low tolerance," Dad says, walking a step behind me. He decided to take it upon himself to escort me back to Calum's room after I tripped getting into the elevator.

"Excuse me for not having as high a tolerance as you," I say, running my hand along the wall to keep my balance. "I don't drink much anymore."

"Anymore?" he says; his tone heightening, almost worried.

"Don't get all fatherly on me now," I say. "Don't worry about it. I was just in a bad place at the time, but I got help."

"From Emilia?"

I stop just outside Calum's room and turn to face him. "Did you actually call Emilia by her name?" I ask, bewildered.

His lips fall into a straight line and he pats my shoulder. "Get some rest, kid," he says. He starts to turn around but stops when the door across from Calum's opens.

Emilia steps backwards out of the room, clad in one of my shirts and a pair of yellow pajama shorts. She's carrying an empty black ice bucket under her arm while tightly gripping her wallet and room key in her hand. "What do you want if there's not any Cheetos?" Emmie asks from the doorway, unaware of my dad and me standing here.

"I'll settle for some Lays or Doritos," Julia shouts from inside my room. "Just make sure it's something good."

"You'll get whatever's there," Emmie says, chuckling. She closes the door and her lingering smile falls into shock when she catches a glimpse of us. She brings the ice bucket to her chest and hugs it. "Hi Mr. Irwin," she says.

"Emilia," Dad says, nodding in acknowledgement. "It's good to see you, but I should get back to my room. You two have a good night." He turns down the hallway and the palpable sense of apprehension doesn't ease until he steps into the elevator and the doors slide shut.

Emmie steps closer to me. "What were you doing with your dad?" she asks.

I lean against the wall of the hallway. "Talking, I guess," I say, scratching my head.

"You smell like a bar," she says, sniffing the air. "Have you been drinking?"

"I had a couple shots," I admit. "Dad paid our tab. But I'm okay. They were a little strong, though."

"Come with me," she says. "I'm going down to the vending machines to fill this with snacks for me and Julia." She holds up the ice bucket and tosses her wallet and room key inside it. "I'll get you some water while we're there."

I thank her and reach out to entwine my fingers with hers as we walk down the hallway and round the corner. "Are you and Julia having a fun?" I ask.

She nods. "She's been trying to get me to put on a face mask for the last hour, but it smells like avocado and makes me want to eat guacamole."

I let out a breathy laugh. "I'm sure room service could get you some."

"I don't want to take advantage of Elijah's kindness."

Elijah could care less about us using his money. Hell, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't care if we ordered everything off the room service menu. "Speaking of Elijah," I start, "I saw him briefly. I told him thank you like you wanted me to. He also invited us to have dinner at his house on Tuesday. Dad accepted the offer for me without my consent."

"Nolan doesn't seem to have changed," Emmie mumbles. "Are you okay with that?"

"Not really, but then again, I'm not okay with a lot of things at the moment."

At the end of the hallway, we enter the open room where the ice and vending machines are. Despite the luxury of the hotel, the vending machines are no different than the cheap-looking ones we have back in DU's cafeteria. Although maybe that's because no one except for a couple of severely in debt college students would use a vending machine in a five-star hotel.

Emmie buys a bottle of water and opens it for me before scanning the snack vending machine. "I thought you were supposed to be in Calum's room tonight," she says, slipping a few coins into the machine.

"I was," I say. "The guys and I were talking and my dad was brought up so I went to go see him."

"What did you two talk about?" she asks, pressing a couple buttons and grabbing the bag of chips when it plummets down. She puts the bag into the ice bucket before inserting more coins into the vending machine.

I take a long swig of water before saying, "Reina. I'll tell you more about it later. I think I've talked about her more than enough for today."

Emmie hums and taps her finger against her chin until deciding on a pack of fruit snacks and punching in the letter and number on the keypad. The bucket slowly fills as she drops more snacks into it. She looks so cute. I wish I could spend the night with her. God knows I won't be getting any sleep tonight.

"I want to talk to you about a lot of things," I say, peeling off the water bottle's wrapper. "Not tonight, though. I think we both need some bonding time with our friends tonight. But tomorrow I want to talk."

She stalls when reaching into the machine to grab the last bag of chips, almost frozen. She glances towards me briefly before saying, "Okay," and tossing the chips into the bucket.

I instinctively reach for her hand when we exit the room and rub my thumb over her skin as her grip tightens around mine. She hugs the bucket close to her chest with her other arm and stares down at the regal red carpet as we stroll down the hallways back to our rooms. I resist the urge to steal her from Julia for the night and slip my hand away from hers.

"Will you go on a date with me tomorrow?" I ask, stepping towards the door to Calum's room.

A small smile adorns her face. "Did you finally come up with something 'awesome' for us to do?" she says.

"No," I say. "But I'm pretty good at thinking on my feet."

"I'd love to go," she says, a rose tint on her cheeks brightening her complexion. "Just as long as a lot of walking isn't involved because my feet are sore from walking the zoo today."

"No promises," I say with a smirk. "I love you."

She slides her room key through the slot on the door and the smile she was wearing just seconds ago has fallen some when she turns her head to me. Her eyes soften and she mouths 'I love you too' before slipping into the room, the door shutting quietly behind her.

My jaw slacks as I stare at the spot where she was standing. She didn't say it back. She didn't voice it. Maybe I'm just tired and didn't hear her. Yeah, that's probably it. But it doesn't explain the heavy pressure weighing down on my chest. I run my hand down my face and take a deep breath before unlocking Calum's door.

_______

A/N: Well that hurt to write. Like damn, my heart hurts. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Ash and his dad had somewhat of a bonding session. Probably not the healthiest was to bond but hey, they don't have a healthy relationship to begin with. What do you think is going on with Emmie? She was acting a bit strange. So many things are happening in this story all at once. After this chapter, there will be 5 days until the wedding so a lot is going to happen within that time frame so strap on your seatbelts because we're taking a ride on the feels train.

The Jet Black Heart music video was amazing! I love the diversity of it and my heart broke throughout the entire thing. It was truly inspirational and heartwarming and I am so proud of the boys. What are your thoughts on the video?

Also, if you guys didn't see, Paint You Wings is now being featured on the Wattpad Fanfiction page :)

Thank you all for all your support! You really don't know how much you guys mean to me. Please vote, comment, and share this story with your friends! –Rebecca xoxoxoxoxo