♪♫••═════ PART TWO~CHAPTER : 31 ═════••♬ ♭
“Fuck!” The explicative carried through the hallway.
Shifting on the couch, I looked up from Tristan's tiny fingers tapping out answers on screen to a spelling game on Jack's Ipad, to see Reed storming out of the music room.
The band, and Emmagesty, and a couple of other guys I had seen at the drop party, had been holed up in the room for a couple of hours.
“Oh..sorry TJ...” Reed apologized for his curse while cutting through the den to the kitchen. The fridge opened and closed, and he continued on to the hallway bathroom.
The rest of that room began to slowly empty, the people spilling into the hall and out the front door, and once it was down to only Jack, Reed, Liz and Chris, they all grabbed their favored drinks and threw themselves down on the couch.
“So, it's day three,” Chris made the observation, and I deduced that he was counting down to the day of departure. “The usual?” With that inquiry, his gaze encompassed the rest of the group but particularly landed on Jack in some sort of speculative challenge.
“I don't know...” Jack hedged. He was relaxed on a piece of the sectional at a right angle to me, and just our feet touched.
“I knew it!” Chris suddenly livened up with a gleeful shout. “Pay up!”
“In your dreams, loser.” Jack's retort rebounded without so much as a blink.
Because the curiosity was killing me, I watched the debacle with a casualness I did not feel.
“No way, Stone. You would not let up last year when it was me. You gave me hell-o. Hello.” Chris dwindled down fast when he glanced at Tristan. “Just admit and pay up dude.”
“I said 'I don't know.' Not no.”
“Mariss is not letting you go.” Reed actually cackled as he sided with Chris.
At my name, I swung my gaze around again, and Liz's intent look drew my eyes. When I blinked curiously, the other woman moved her chin and lashes in a nod and a wink.
“Uh guys? I'm right here.” I joked to cover the irritation simmering beneath the surface.
During the last few nights, the guys had been running through a few different sets each afternoon at Chris' huge home studio. Having tagged along each time, I had begun to feel comfortable around them, and had formed the beginnings of a friendship with Liz and Chris' wife.
“This is the night we all go out. Let loose before the tour.” Chris supplied the answer and again some cryptic tone in his words hung in the air.
“Oh.” I tried to keep disappointment from coating my words. As the tour grew closer, I wanted Jack to myself every second possible. Which had been almost impossible, except for bedtime. The last few mornings, I had even quit sneaking to my own room, wanting every possible minute with Jack, even if he was sleeping. “Well I'm not going to stop him if that is what you are going on about. It's tradition right? Breaking that is just asking for trouble on tour.”
“I like how this girl thinks!” Reed declared, but Chris curved an evil grin.
“So you are going then, Stone?”
Jack was decidedly uncomfortable, but tipped his beer and seemed to shrug. “I'm down with it if Mariss goes.”
“You would go, Mariss?” Chris asked, and they all seemed too delighted with the idea, especially Liz.
***
“Thanks for coming!” Liz beamed as Reed parked. As a group, we had arrived in the SUV. “Sometimes it sucks being the only girl in the band. You're a good sport to do this.”
I shot a smile of fake enthusiasm although my motives in coming had not been to keep Liz company. My intentions fell somewhere between not holding Jack back and sticking like glue to him while in this place.
'Cherry Pie'
I took in the gaudy neon sign and the equally gaudy club name flashing above the door of our destination. Embarrassment flooded my cheeks when we walked under it and through the heavy door. Jack pulled me close, and despite his bandmates complaints, steered us to a table not so close to the stage.
I ignored the young woman, who clad only in a G-string, was gyrating around a pole to the beat of “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails. Jack's hand settled comfortingly on my bare leg, and he ignored the stage as they talked.
The drinks kept coming, and the guys grew rowdier. By the second hour, they were recognized, and free drinks began floating over with frequency--as well as a slew of topless women wanting autographs and pictures.
I silently seethed through more than one picture with Jack and a near bare-assed girl. Unlike the other guys, he was turning down free lap dances, however, he had transformed into full Jack Stone persona.
When one girl squeezed her tits to the side of his face, while leaning across to get a tip from Reed, and Jack, with one of his smirks turned his head from her ample breast, I scooted from the table.
Pasting a smile, I requested of the margaritas I was drinking, “Order me another, guys, will you?” In the restroom, I closed in a stall and wished myself back at the house with Tristan and Dax.
Is this how Jack would act with groupies on this next tour? But I knew without a doubt the answer.
As Jack Stone, wild ways and the love of women was part of his reputation. It was his job as much as it had once been my job at the casino to dangle across the table and flirt every hundred-dollar chip from even the oldest geezers.
The restroom door squeaked open, and the music was louder for a moment before subduing again.
“Marissa?” Liz hollered and rapped on my locked stall in passing. “Are we having fun yet, girlfriend?”
I managed a witty retort and flushed. Then, instead of washing up and leaving, I dallied at the vanity mirror with Liz, and refused the girl's dally on a pocket mirror.
“Does it bother you? Those hoes all over Jack?” With the treat on the mirror sorted out, Liz rolled up a hundred-dollar bill as she spoke.
“Why?” I warily shot back, my words unintentionally sharp. Chagrined, I toyed with my reflection's earring.
Unperturbed, Liz leaned to the wall mirror wiping at her nose. “Every boyfriend I have ever had could not handle it.”
I thought of the guys that must drool all over the only girl in the band, backstage, and during meet and greets.
“Yeah. It bothers me. But I will learn to handle it.” I truthfully answered and earned a smile from the other woman.
“Jack is happy. Happier than any of us have seen him, ever. He's not going to screw it up.”
Randi had said near the same thing. I hoped I could believe that. Because I was happier than I had ever been.
Liz stopped at the bar en route to the table, and I continued to the table even though my seat was no longer empty. Almost naked girls covered every space including the guys laps. Jack's lap was empty, and this is where I went, easing myself down.
Reflexively, Jacks hand smoothed up my thigh and stopped just beneath the shelter of my skirt.
I flinched when something icy touched my arm and glided around to the exposed skin of my back. Whipping around, I found a waitress. The girl grinned and held out the mixed drink in her hand. “Sorry. So sorry.” She blinked her eyes at Jack and I cuddled together, and with a provocative bend, set the drink on the table when I didn't reach for it. “Another complimentary for the lady with Jack Stone and,” handing the bottled beer directly into Jack's hands, she schmoozed, “for the legendary Jack Stone.”
“Mariss my honey, can you tip her?” Figuring out that he could not access his pocket, I shifted, reaching into it.
The young woman knelt eye level with my chest and publicly scoped it out while waiting. Finally, I pulled out enough random bills to tip as generously as Jack normally did. When I held the money out, the girl stood thrusting a hip at me.
Aware that every eye at the table was now on this transaction, I didn't let the bills flutter to the floor as I wanted to. Curving what I hoped was a sultry smile, I played along. When the tip joined the others, already tucked into the elastic of the G-string, the woman winked her thanks. Then, she kissed the tip of her finger and pressed it to my lips before sashaying away.
Reed whooped, and Chris and Liz wore huge grins. I was too embarrassed to check Jack's reaction. A half-minute later, when the others calmed down and resumed doing their own thing, Jack put his lips to my ear to whisper, “I think she liked you...Can we take her home?”
The amused undertone clearly made it a joke, yet as usual, I had let the dam crest until my emotions crashed over. The club had grown considerably more crowded, and tripping around the many feet, I barreled through to the exit.
Pushing open the door, I found a long line to get inside and several bouncer, security types roaming. Was this because word of Jackal inside had spread along the boulevard of clubs? Thankfully no paparazzi lay in wait, or if they were lurking somewhere in the crowded line, I didn't look.
Instinctively, I turned toward the car although I knew it was locked. I could not believe Jack would say something like that, even in jest. And I could not believe that again I had hit him, this time in front of his friends. Then, as if that were not enough, I had dumped the drink, delivered by the skank, into his lap.
Using the SUV as a wall between me and the club, I leaned against it and waited, knowing Jack would come, but I began to deflate into a worse mess when he didn’t.
In my mindless haste, my cellphone had been forgotten on the table inside, and now I was in a huge bind. There was no way I was going back inside. Yet, how would I call a taxi to take me home?
'Home.' In my current state of mind, I reevaluated the word. Home was a plane ride away, not a taxi ride.
The bright neon sign across the street was much more inviting. Pepe's Bar and Grill. As I correctly surmised, there were no topless women waiting the tables or the bar, and I easily borrowed a phone.
A half hour later, I was in a cab watching the city lights streak by. The house gate was another dilemma without my cell phone, but Dax buzzed the cab in, and left the front entrance open. He even ran outside and paid the cabby when I mumbled about going upstairs for money.
Thanking him, I refused his offer to talk, and watched him tapping into his phone, knowing he was ratting out my arrival to Jack. Upstairs, I checked on Tristan then fell on the guestroom bed.
I wanted to shower the nasty bar off of my skin, but an inexplicable fatigue overtook me. I wanted to forget the last four hours, but every ugly scene projected relentlessly in my mind.
“What are you doing in here?”
Disoriented, I roused from a doze. Jack stood in the bathroom doorway, obviously having walked through from Tristan's room.
“I knew that was a bad idea.” His voice came from over the bed when I turned away from him, and I stiffened when I felt the bed take his weight.
Stretching out behind me, he pulled me to him, and I relaxed into the arms of Jack Loren, yet was still too angry at Jack Stone to speak.
“Mariss, I love you. But I have to tell you. Don't ever hit me again.”
Although I heard the despair in his words, I also heard his words for what they were, a threat, and that broke my silence. “Or what?”
His weight shifted when he sat up.
“I don't know what And I don't want to find out. It scares me. I mean the first time you hit me at your house, it was kind of hot. I knew I deserved it. Then the next time, it was still kind of hot but humiliating.”
My thoughts followed his from the day on the weight bench, to posing for pre drop party pictures.
“But tonight. Tonight, I know I said the wrong thing, but fuck that was embarrassing. Tonight, it was all I could do not to grab you as you...as you left and shake the hell out of you.” Behind me, I heard him stand, and I wondered if he was getting mad all over again. Just thinking of what had gone down in that bar tonight boiled my own blood all over again.
Rolling over, I opened my mouth to blast him with every thought that had passed through my mind all evening. About how inconsiderate and disrespectful he had been to me. About why he would act like a man whore with me sitting right next to him and right on him. I was having enough trouble with my likeability in the press without him dissing me. I was having enough trouble adjusting to life with him period, without him dissing me.
But he began to talk first. “I was freaking out wondering what you were doing and where you went, but just as afraid that if I caught up to you, I ...” Maybe in the shadows he was reading something on my face. Or maybe he was just realizing how he sounded, because he hurriedly assured, “I would never hit you, God no.” The he repeated, “I just wanted to grab you. I was just so mad, and that freaks me out. I never want to be that mad at you again.”
“I never want to be that hurt by you again,” I retorted, but I swallowed a lump in my throat looking at his misery.
Being hit by someone you loved was devastating. I knew that. My mind flashed to my childhood and teenage years, and a mother who could not control her temper. How much worse it would be to be hit by the love of your life... Of course Jack's actions had hit my physically just as hard... But it wasn't even the same. Was it?
Some of my anger dissipated and hesitantly, I stumbled with the words. “You just become a different person sometimes. I'm trying not to be jealous of other women. Because I know that is part of this...But you just seemed to be enjoying it so much...”
“I'm sorry for tonight Mariss. I'm so sorry. Please come to bed.”
His shadowy form exited into the hall, and I lay staring at the ceiling in the aftermath. Finally, I followed. The bedroom was dark, and I padded in leaving the door open behind me.
“Come're...” He whispered when I slipped into bed, and he pulled me tight. “I'm so sorry Mariss.”
“I'm sorry for hitting you. All those times.” It was easy to be forthcoming with my own apology with his warmth and scent enveloping me. When he squeezed me in a python grip and I felt his breath in my hair, I relaxed even more and added, “I overreacted. Because you seemed to be liking it.”
Immediately, I felt stupid to keep harping the last point. Of course he had liked it. He was a guy. The primal male allurement is what had made my knees weak on our first meeting, and had kept me captivated since.
One of his hands stoked through my hair in answer. Then, ever so quietly he admitted, “I'm an idiot sometimes. You're right.” Burrowing closer to him, I enjoyed Jack Loren talking shit about Jack Stone. “I was trying to get out of a bet.”
I pushed back in surprise. “Bet? Is that what Chris was going on about before we left?”
“Whenever one of us drops out of the scene for good because of pu—a woman, we pay up. Twenty grand. And the others go to Vegas on it.”
“Twenty thousand dollars...” It wasn't a question. I drew the words out as an unreality.
“Apiece.” Jack was not bothered. “So sixty total. It's not the money. I just hate to lose. And I hate to give it to those jackasses when I could spend it on you and Tristan.”
Seeing the amount money thrown around still bothered me, even when I was the recipient. I knew firsthand how many families needed that money for food, for life and death matters, not booze, cars, houses, and whatever frivolity their heart desired.
But Jack was generous, in tipping, in the amount of the charity checks Emma had passed around for the band member signatures the day of the drop party. So I kept quiet. The last thing I wanted to do was insult his way of living since it was now mine. But I made a resolution to look into charities as well as individual cases similar to Tristan's.
Unable to get the double D's plastered to Jack's face out of me head, I took up another issue. “Is that what goes down on tour? What happened tonight?”
“Not if you don't want it to.” His quiet answer was quick, as if he had been waiting for this avenue of conversation. “I will make sure I am nowhere around the T and A....except yours...” His hand settled farther down my waist but possibly respectful of our fight did not slide intimately to my backside.
How I wanted to hold him to that impossible vow that I knew he could only break. He was Jack Stone. Groupies got backstage. Even with the best intentions to keep that promise, there would be times that he would have to literally run or lock himself away somewhere.
“It's fine.” I spoke against his chest. ”Just don't ever do it in front of me again, okay? And don't ever cheat on me, Jack. Not even a little.”
Now he pulled back to look into my eyes. Although I half expected him to ask what 'a little' meant, he obviously understood, and I shook away the image of some groupie on her knees in front of him.
“I would never, Mariss. I swear to you that.”
♪♫••══════════════════════════••♬ ♭
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