A Summer To Remember (Seasons of Love & Lust Book 1) (9 page)

“You finally told him?” Talia said, entering the kitchen.

“Yes, I did.”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Jude snapped at Talia.

Her green eyes paled. “It wasn’t my place. I was with her during all the shit, Jude. You don’t know how fucked up she was after everything went down. I thought she handled the situation pretty well after the fact. I didn’t see anything wrong with her not wanting anyone to get close after Kevin betrayed her in the most awful of ways.”

“So you were fine with her fucking everything that moved and acting like a general whore?”

“She didn’t act like a whore, Jude. So she slept with a few guys. It wasn’t like she was sleeping with anyone who looked in her direction. I know of five intimate encounters she had with men…over the last two years. If that is a whore then what is a normal woman? Brandon was a bit much, but I seriously thought she was working out the last of what Kevin did to her and seeing him again in Southampton just brought it all back to her again.”

He walked over to me and grabbed me by the arms. “I would have been there for you, Jerri, you know that. The next time you keep a secret this huge from me, I will break your neck. You got it?”

My tears began to fall regardless whether I wanted them to or not. He slid his arms around my waist and pulled me to him while I sobbed on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I know I should have told you, but every time I wanted to, it was like a block of ice formed in my throat and I couldn’t tell you no matter how much I wanted to.”

He kissed my forehead. “Don’t let it happen again, okay?”

“I promise I won’t.”

We continued to hold each other and somehow, I knew everything would be all right in the end.

Chapter Ten

Sometimes the journey is just as wonderful as the destination, and this was definitely the situation when it came time for us to drive to Martha’s Vineyard. It was only two hundred and sixty miles but we stopped along the way a lot and since we were spread out in three vehicles, it was great.

At the last minute, Paul decided to take his Range Rover so it was him, Talia, and I in the Rover. Jude opted for his Cadillac Escalade; Autumn, Ashley, and Savannah all decided to ride with him. He and Paul’s investor buddy, Gerald Capshaw, whose father Kurt owned a major stake of CDG with James Davis and Clive Guttenberg, had a Porsche Cayenne Turbo and the other two guys who had decided to make the trip with us rode with Gerald.

Paul and I tried to act sociable with Talia and not too giddy or happy though it would have made no difference because she was armed with her one hundred and sixty gigabyte iPod and her Kindle Fire HD. When she wasn’t listening to music and reading, she was catching up on the season finales of
The Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy,
and the latest episodes of the sixth season of
True Blood
.

Morgan Page played in the background and as we drove down I-95 heading north, Paul set his right hand on my thigh. I was wearing a cute magenta sundress, which looked terrific on me. However, when I was in sitting, the skirt that ended just above the knee rode up my slim thighs.

“You have no idea how proud I am you told Jude the truth. It will make this whole long weekend much more pleasant. I can’t believe your courage and I admire what you have done.”

I set my left hand over his and turned toward him. He looked handsome yet manly in a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a fitted faded black Winter’s Regret t-shirt.

“It wasn’t that courageous. He was furious, and thought I was using you for some kind of smutty, illicit affair and you meant nothing to me. I couldn’t have him thinking that about us so I told him the truth. I didn’t care if he approved or not but I wanted him to know how much you mean to me and that you aren’t some conquest.”

“When we became friends way back when, the first words he said to me was he had a very attractive sister who would grow into a beauty one day and I was under no circumstances to touch you. He was protective of you and I could understand why. When you left for Vassar, you were a completely different person. There was such hope and promise in your eyes. I can’t lie to you, though …I never liked Kevin. I was actually hoping the distance would drive you two apart. However, he was persistent. I don’t know if it was because he was a money-grubbing bastard or if he just looked at you as the perfect trophy girlfriend by his side.”

“I don’t know what happened but when we met each other I felt like I was being swept under by something greater than me, you know? He was the first person I was attracted to besides you and I was overjoyed because I could feel something for someone else. It never once occurred to me that he might be using me.

“We saw each other a lot but it certainly wasn’t an every weekend type thing. I spent time with Talia and I also had Autumn and Savannah. They were such gems and I was so happy we met each another and were able to bond so quickly.”

Paul removed his hand from mine and placed it on the steering wheel again so he could concentrate on driving. “So in other words, Vassar wasn’t all bad even though one of the worst incidents of your life took place there?”

“Exactly. It’s kind of like that saying, ‘It was the best of times and the worst of times.’ Yes, some crappy stuff went down, but fortunately, it happened my last semester there so I will always remember college with fond memories.”

We were quiet for a while and just sat there listening to the stereo before Talia interrupted our thoughts with a screech.

“That is such bullshit!” she yelled.

I looked back at her. Her face had turned such a deep scarlet she was almost purple. “How you doing back there, music girl?”

“Not good. That last episode of
True Blood
was such a waste of my fucking time!” She snatched the earbuds out of her ears. “I swear to God, I’m so
through
with that show it’s not even funny. It keeps getting dumber and dumber.”

Talia began to dissect the latest episode for Paul’s and my benefit. I laughed out loud at her crazy gesticulations and the perfect imitation of Anna Paquin, a.k.a. Sookie Stackhouse’s voice.

“Relax, babe, it’s
only
a show,” I said after I’d finished giggling hysterically.

“It is not only a show. The first three seasons were brilliant, and the last three have been an exercise of supreme and utter masochism. I keep waiting for the show to get better and it doesn’t. I swear to God I am only watching
The Walking Dead
,
Sons of Anarchy
,
American Horror Show,
and
The Vampire Diaries
from now on out. I’ve had it. They have lost me as a fan forever.”

“You and your pop culture…jeez, how do you find the time to do anything? You work mad hours at the studio for musicians you hate and in your spare time, you catch up on shows and novels.”

“Hence the reason why I don’t have a love life,” she said. “Jesus Christ, Jerrica, if it wasn’t for the odd casual encounter here or there, I’d never get laid.”

“Uh-oh…what’s going on here?”

The look on her face said it all and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to know what she was going to tell me.

“Um…I kinda slept with Seth. It was great and all but we are keeping it casual.”

“Wait a minute. Seth Delvecchio of Winter’s Regret? Doesn’t he have like some perfect girlfriend or something? I thought you two were only friends?”

“Ex-friends, and yes, he does have a girlfriend which makes what I did that much worse. I am an awful human being, right? Giving in to my base desires because I can’t forget our puppy love at the age of ten when neither of us knew what the hell love was. We have nothing in common and he wasn’t even supposed to be in town. But one thing led to another and…now I feel like the world’s biggest skank. I thought a few episodes of my favorite shows would make me forget but they haven’t and I can’t or don’t want to forget and argh…I’m going mad.”

“You’re going mad? Talia, when we get to Martha’s Vineyard, you and I are going to sit down together—alone—and have a major talk.”

I turned back around and looked at Paul who glanced briefly at me and shrugged. “A bit like the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?”

“What are you talking about? I have never shoplifted dick in my life!” I exclaimed.

“Actually, you did. When you had that one night stand with what’s his name…it came out in the
New York Post
a few days later he has been dating that actress Christine Cooper. They’ve been seeing each other for six months and no one knew it but their closest friends.”

I felt like the one person in the room who was the last to get the joke. Except we weren’t in a room, we were in his Range Rover, and the thought made me sick to my stomach. No wonder he couldn’t face me after the fact. His leaving Jude’s and my place like his ass was on fire suddenly made perfect sense.

***

We arrived at Martha’s Vineyard late in the afternoon, but thanks to the large estate owned by Gerald Capshaw’s family in Edgartown, everything was prepared and the wait staff had a wonderful assortment of dishes they were preparing for us while we unpacked and went to our various rooms to refresh.

I washed my face and changed into a pair of jeans and a pale gray cashmere sweater while Paul took a shower.

“Are you sure you don’t want to join me?” he said seductively.

“I do that then we won’t make it to dinner on time and I really want to have that talk with Talia. Seth is nothing but bad news.”

The shower stopped and Paul stepped out, grabbing a towel to wrap around his narrow waist as he walked into the bedroom from the large en suite bathroom.

“How do you know so much about this guy anyway? He’s a rock star. Aren’t all rock stars man-whores and bad boys? You get involved and you know what to expect. You take your chances either way.”

“True, but Seth isn’t just any rock star and Talia has known him for a very long time. When he was up and coming, his band had a concert in Poughkeepsie. Talia dragged Autumn, Savannah, and me to the show and they were great. It was some little dive bar but the place was packed. “He pulled this shit where he and Talia went off and he fucked her then. She didn’t see or hear from him until she moved to L.A. after we graduated from Vassar and she was assigned to working on a song for their first album. He acted like nothing happened and it broke her heart. Although she says they are close and he does love her in his own way, every time they get together he treats her like complete and utter crap. I just don’t want her to get hurt.”

“You’re speaking from experience?”

“Yeah. That was our sophomore year all that shit happened with the concert in Poughkeepsie and guess who accompanied Talia to the abortion clinic? Our situations weren’t the same because her parents consider him poor white trash. He grew up in Boston to a first generation Catalan mother from Barcelona and a German-Irish-Italian father.”

I stepped into the bedroom to join Paul, who’d dried off and had begun to dress. “When Talia’s mother hit the jackpot and married up, do you really think she would have wanted her only daughter saddled down with a baby from some marginally known rocker with a cult following? Hell, they didn’t even have a contract at the time and there was no guarantee they would make the big time. She did what she had to do and I respected her for that.”

“Jesus, is there any girl you know that hasn’t had an abortion?”

“Savannah hasn’t. She was all about school and didn’t date much. Plus she was kind of known as a ‘tease’ in college so it’s not like she could go out with the cool guys or anything. It happens. I’m not saying we all did the right thing but it’s a reality. I don’t want you to judge any of us because we had to make some hard decisions. I’m still screwed up about it. Autumn pretends it didn’t happen, and Talia tortures herself with these one night encounters with the prick that got her into trouble in the first place. None of us did what we did and came out unscathed. It just doesn’t happen.”

Paul pulled me into an embrace. “I wasn’t judging. Frankly, I don’t have the right. I’m a guy and I can never know what it’s like for a woman who is faced with a decision that big to make. I know what yours did to you and I wish it wasn’t so prevalent—that’s all.”

I leaned forward and kissed his lips. It was supposed to be a quick peck but he turned it into something more when he held the back of my neck with his right hand and I felt his mouth open. His tongue snaked between my lips and I opened my mouth to receive it. Our passionate hug could have led us down a road neither of us was prepared for at the moment. My stomach rumbled from hunger at the same time his did and I realized we were both starving and needed something to eat as soon as possible.

He pulled away reluctantly. “Right. Food and friends…we better go downstairs before I never let you leave this bedroom…ever.”

“Is that a promise?” I teased.

“You bet your sweet ass it is.”

Paul took my hand into his and we left the bedroom together side by side.