One More Kiss (Affair Without End Book 2) (11 page)

“Chrissie would be lucky to have you in her life. I am lucky to have you in my life.”

I let go of his hand and step back. “But I’m not in your life, Jack. I’m something you do every few weeks in a hotel room. This legal problem with Walter means we should keep it that way. You’ve got enough to deal with as it is. You don’t need to add me to an already complicated and contentious situation.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

I meet his heated blue stare. “It means until this issue with Walter is resolved love me. Fuck me. Then go home and focus on keeping your daughter. It’s what I expect. It’s what I want. It’s what you should do. It’s the smart move if Walter is taking you to court over custody of Chrissie.”

Silence. It’s so heavy it feels like an anchor has been dropped on me, smothering me. I can’t meet the look in his eyes, or his expression, for more than a few moments. I shift my gaze away from him.

“Let me deal with Walter,” he exclaims firmly. “He’s not part of the decisions we make in our life.”

“If he’s preparing to go to court, how do you know he hasn’t had private investigators digging around in your shit, watching and snatching pictures? How do you know he doesn’t already know about me and hasn’t dug around in my past? Jack! There is some pretty awful stuff there he can use against you if this ever gets to court.”

“I won’t let him drag you into court, Linda.”

“You can’t stop it! He’ll use me against you if he ever finds out about me. Be reasonable, Jack.”

“I’m not leaving you behind,” he says stubbornly.

“And I’m not going with you.”

I stare at him, trapped in a storm of warring emotions: his needs, my needs, what I want to do, the right thing to do, and my frustration over his unwilling to see truth.

I say it simply, “I won’t do this. I won’t do something that may harm your little girl. Not even for you.”

He shakes his head. “This is wrong, Linda. This is fucked up.”

I scramble from the bed then, and go to him, stopping near, but not touching him.

“Maybe. But if that’s what it is today, that’s what it is today, and we deal with it how it is. Chrissie has got to come first with you, always. I understand that. I want that. I want you to let me give that to you.”

His eyes soften. He eases me into him slowly, exquisitely surrounding me with his arms. “How did I get so lucky to find you,” he breathes, his lips in my hair.

“I found you. Remember?”

His chest shakes with soundless laughter against my cheek. It is a surprisingly unsettling thing, but I don’t know why. He steps back from me. Too soon. He checks his watch.

“I won’t be late.”

He doesn’t look at me. I feel his sadness and my own sadness. I smile. “Have fun. Focus on your girl. It is all going to be OK.”

He stares at me and exhales very slowly. “Then why the fuck do I feel like nothing is ever going to be OK again?”

~~~

I’m alone in a hotel room yet again. Only this time there is something frantic in me. The room looks the same, the world is the same, but the second the door closed behind Jack internally I am different.

I can’t shake the way Jack looked at me right before he left. Can he sense that when I leave this time I’m planning to leave for good? Does he know we are over?

I struggle to push that thought from my mind. I don’t want my last hours consumed by how I know it will feel leaving him. We have one full day left together, and I want it to be happy. I don’t want us to feel like this. I stare down at my hands. I don’t want
me
to feel like this.

I stare through the window. The sun is still shining brightly. Christ, it’s only 2:30 in the afternoon. I’m not waiting in the room for him this time. Not today. I can’t be in here alone another minute.

I pull on a white bikini and a little sheer black cover-up, grab a towel from the bathroom, my sunglasses, and head for the door. The hallways is crowded and the hotel very noisy. As I make my way toward the elevator, I wonder how I didn’t notice that before. It feels like the wall are ready to burst from the activity and sound.

I hit the button for the rooftop pool, ease my sunglass down to the end of nose, and then start twisting my curls into a tight coil. I knot them atop of my head. I check my effort in a mirror hanging just outside the elevator entrance. Not very stylish, but who gives a fuck.

The metal doors open, I step in and hit the rooftop button. When the doors open again, sunshine and music crash into my already overly agitated nerve-tips. Fuck, it’s packed. I pick my way through the laughing, drinking throng of sun-worshiping humanity, trying to ignore the not so sly heated stares of more than a few men.

I adjust my bikini bottom. More stares. Fuck you, I’m taken. Only I’m not, not in the true context. And in two days, not even in my context. I shake my head. Stop thinking, Linda, and find a lounge chair.

“Linda! Over here! Linda.”

I hear my name called in an irritatingly familiar voice and turn. I rapidly scan people. Oh Crap, Candy Sierra. The Deborah Harry clone. Yep, that’s her; string bikini, top too small, tits too large and platinum blond hair. Groupie from hell. Fuck, what’s she doing here?

I force a smile. “Hey, Candy. It’s been a while hasn’t it?”

“Forever. Trish and I were just talking about you. And then pouf. There you are. Isn’t that amazing?”

I smile. I like her roommate Trish, though Candy is a limit dose only type of acquaintance.  “So how’s Trish? Is she here?”

“Everyone is here,” Candy says in an ecstatic way. “The party has been going on three days.”

My eyes round. Everyone? Icy pricks of alarm shoot through my veins.

“Who’s booked here at the hotel, Candy?”

She stares. Surprised. “All of them. Jackson Parker was at The Forum Friday night. They’re all booked here. Band. Road crew. Like, everyone.  Every girl we know is in this building somewhere. Who are you staying here with?”

I flush. She’s so blunt. And she also has the biggest mouth in Southern California. The lie flows effortlessly from my lips, “No one. I’m just pool hopping.”

The man lying next to her in the lounger opens his eyes. “What’s pool hopping? Sounds fun. If it’s a game why don’t you show me?”

His suggestive tone and the way his eyes scan my body leaves little room to misinterpret his meaning. I have to forcibly restrain myself from a making a face at him.

Candy makes a face for me. “God, you are such a pervert, Mike. It’s not a sex game. It’s crashing a pool at a hotel so you can get a tan. Just ignore him, Linda. He’s nobody. Now get up, you asshole. Let Linda sit down.”

I make a motion with my hand for Mike not to move. “No. It’s all right. I’m just going to leave. It’s too crowded here.”

Shit
. With everything going on in Jack’s life, now was not the time for him to put us in a room in a hotel with the rest of the tour entourage. What if someone had seen us together? In spite of what Jack says, I’d be target rich dirt for Walter to use in court. It’s a small miracle that no one has seen us. Not his people, or the tabloids, or even one of my fucked up friends from the old days, like Candy.

Before I can get away, Candy has my arm and is pulling me down beside her.

“Oh no you don’t,” Candy says. “I want to know what’s up with you. No one has seen you for months.”

I shrug. “I’ve just been finishing school and trying to find a job.”

“Boy, everyone misses you, Linda. I saw Rob last week. He asked about you.”

Oh great. Now it’s time for ex-boyfriend chatter.

“How’s he doing?” I ask.

“Fine I guess. Still living in Venice Beach. Still doing nothing. Still has his band. Still Rob.”

She laughs.
Still Rob
isn’t funny to me.

“I saw JD Taylor backstage at The Forum, Friday. He asked about you.”

I feel sick, like I’m going to vomit.

Candy’s eyes brighten. “He’s two floor down. Staying here if you want to find him. I’m pretty sure he’d rather have you than what he has got going on now.”

She laughs, stretching with the feline grace of a predator who knows how to attract prey. I stare at her. Was I ever like her? I must have been. We lived the same lifestyle before I met Jack. Moved in the same circles. But it doesn’t seem possible that I was ever like her. It’s not something that feels real or a part of me. I know it was, but it wasn’t me.

My emotions clog in my throat, nearly strangling me. I stand up. “I’ve got to run, Candy.”

She sits up. “Why are you cutting out? It’s early. Hang for a while.”

“I can’t. I’ve got to go.”

I’m hyperventilating by the time I reach the elevator. I push the button and wait anxiously for the doors to open. I just spent ten minutes chatting with a bleached-blond version of my
former self
and I didn’t fucking like it. Not one bit.

~~~

After an unspectacular dinner alone in the room, I click on the TV and curl on the couch to wait for Jack. Even though my favorite nighttime drama is working very hard to claim my focus, I can’t stop thinking.  The last three days have been intense: flash arguments; laughter; fierce fucking; tender lovemaking; personal highpoints; and separate low points. There are times we are together it feels like the entire universe speeds up so we can sandwich into our precious hours more living than other couples do in a lifetime. We love. We fight. We laugh. We fuck. Jack is my best friend, the one person I can always count on, the one person willing to be only a friend in those times when I only need a friend. I never expected to have this kind of a relationship with a man. To have him be both my lover and my friend.

I switch off the TV. I am suddenly consumed by anxiousness and doubt. I start to pace the room. What is the smart play? Who would have thought suddenly having good possibilities would make life so tough? I’ve always been a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants girl, living life as it came, no worries, no fear, keeping free of emotional entanglements and not letting anyone get entangled over me. I am completely out of my element.

I stare at the door to the hallway. It was fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants Linda who walked through that door three days ago. Today, I have so many decisions and tough choices to make, and it’s harder than I ever anticipated.

My eyes fix on the desk phone, and I am startled that the strongest impulse inside me is to call Sandy Harris and pass on taking the job. It doesn’t seem right to run off to the UK when Jack is going through a personal crisis and so much shit. But I don’t think me staying for him would be a good thing. I’d do it in a heartbeat if I thought there were even a slight possibility it would be good for him.

I go to the window and stare down at the street below. I call up the entire list of issues and force myself to look at them honestly. The job with Sandy Harris. Who would have ever thought I’d land that one? It’s too good of an opportunity to pass on. The graduate program. I never expected to be accepted into the program, any more than I expected to figure out a way to pay for it. And then, there is the problem with Walter. It is not going to go away by pretending it doesn’t exist. Jack needs to focus on his daughter and making that situation right. You’re only going to be an added complication there, Linda. Not a help. Step out now and be kind to you both. Today, more so than it was eight months ago, it is not just better to be the girl who walks away, it is also the better thing to do.

Be smart, Linda. Do what’s right for Jack. Do what’s right for you.

The door opens and I whirl to find Jack entering the suite.

“Hi beautiful. Did you manage to have a good rest of the day without me?”

The image he makes wrings my heart. He looks ragged and exhausted.

“No. I hated every minute of it,” I reply. Then, “How did it go? How was Chrissie?”

He gazes at me as if he can’t quite figure out what to say. After a long pause, he says, “It was stressful.”

My brows hitch up.
Stressful?
What could have possibly happen in a six hour outing with his daughter to cause him to return looking like this?

He sinks down on the couch and I settle on my knees beside him. It hasn’t escaped me that he hasn’t so much as touched me since his return. He is completely overwhelmed right now.

I stay beside him and say nothing.

Jack finally looks at me. “It’s only ten. Do you want to go out tonight?”

I arch a brow. “No. I want to hear what happened with your daughter.”

“Nothing happened. Nothing. Watched her lesson. We had dinner. I took her back to Walter’s.”

I frown. “Sounds like a lovely day. So what went wrong?”

He runs a hand through his hair as if frustrated with himself. “Nothing was wrong. It was all the same as always.” He sighs. “But you are right, Linda. Walter is not being vindictive. There is an issue and somehow I have not seen it.”

For once the strangeness of discussing Chrissie, a little girl I’ve never met, doesn’t consume me.

I cover his hand with mine. “Little girls are complicated. Sometimes it is hard to see what’s going on with them.”

His blue eyes settle on me. “She hardly talked to me, Linda. Nothing new. But tonight I saw something in her eyes I’ve never seen before and I don’t know when it happened or why it is there, but it scared the hell out of me.”

My heart stops. “It can’t be that bad, Jack. Whatever it is it will be OK. Little girls are emotional. They are also resilient.”

“She is angry. She is very sad.” A long pause. “She hates me, Linda. I could see it so clearly in her eyes tonight. My daughter hates me.”

“No, Jack. She does not hate you. I can guarantee that is not the case.”

His eyes are drenched with agonized emotion. “You did not see the way she stared at me.”

“I don’t have to,” I say firmly. “Angry perhaps. Hate you? Never. You are a good man and a good father. She doesn’t hate you.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I’m always right,” I counter.

Jack laughs, his tired body looking like a loose jelly mold.

I kiss his hands.

“Come to bed, Jack. It’s been a long day,” I whisper, staring up at him.