Absolutely Unforgivable (24 page)

I didn’t hear the tapping at the door so when I didn’t respond Billy burst into the bathroom to make sure I was okay. I wasn’t. I was sitting in the shower, cowering in the corner, sobbing uncontrollably. He jumped in after me, clothes and all, and turned off the water and then lifted me up and into the bedroom, ordering Vin to avert his eyes and get us some towels and Mindy.

I did my best to stop crying as Billy wrapped a large towel around my body. I was so out of it, I hadn’t even realized he had seen me naked. I don’t know how much he had seen but under any other circumstances I would have probably died in horror. But today that wasn’t the case. Today I didn’t care. Today it was all I could do to keep it together.

Mindy and Bree came in just as he got the towel wrapped around my body. Mindy hurried Billy out of the room so they could get me dressed. I apologized for being such a mess and assured them I still wanted to go shopping. Maybe getting out of the house would make me feel better.

Darla and Starla said they would meet us there, while Bree and Mindy were going to ride with me and Vin. Of course he wasn’t going to let us out of the house without him and I didn’t mind this time. I felt safe with him near me. What once irritated me now felt soothing and reassuring.

We all picked various versions of a 1960s go-go dancer costumes for the first night. For the second night we would be wearing Lycra metallic silver miniskirts with matching knee high boots. The shirts were a mixture of white with some silvery shimmer mixed into the fabric. Darla and Starla decided to get some metallic silver boy shorts instead of the miniskirts that the rest of us were going to wear. They wanted to set themselves apart.

When we got back home I had a visitor. It was Jeromy’s mother Debbie. She had come by the house to check on me after seeing the story on the news. Until then I had been really good about Jeromy being out of town but having a piece of him standing right in front of me was too much and the tears dripped down my cheeks.

She put her arm around me. “Stacy dear,” she whispered softly. “It’s going to be alright. I know Jeromy misses you too. I know he loves you so much and he would never want to know he made you this upset.”

“I thought Jeromy loved me. But lately I just don’t know,” I said to her as she rocked me back and forth in her arms lovingly.

“Look around you. Don’t you think with all the money Jeromy makes he could more than afford a place for you two to live on your own?”

“I guess,” I sniffled.

“He brought you here to Billy’s house because he loves you and he wanted to make sure you would be well taken care of while he was away. His job will take him away from time to time and this was his way of making sure you were going to be alright while he was gone.”

I hadn’t really thought about it that way before. But she was right. He did make a lot of money. I didn’t exactly know how much but more than enough to secure us a nice place to live on our own had he wanted to.

I began to perk up and she hugged me again. “Now let me see that beautiful smile of yours; you know like the one I saw on TV last night.”

“Oh God. I had almost forgotten about that,” I laughed. “I hated posing for those pictures but I felt like I had to.”

“I understand. That was very sweet of you. Especially considering everything else going on around you at the time.”

I shuddered at the memory of the pools of blood upstairs.

Vin came up and hugged Debbie. He had also known her as a child. She was in awe at how much he had grown. They talked back and forth, catching up on what they had been up to over the years, and he introduced Debbie to his friends Devin and Rocco.

“I hope you boys are taking good care of my little Stacy.”

“Absolutely, ma’am,” Devin respectfully answered.

Seeing that I was in their capable hands, Debbie made her way back home and left me to get ready for tonight's show.

But before she left, I had asked her to please not tell Jeromy about what had taken place at the house. I was fine now and I didn’t want him to worry about me. There was no point in him rushing home. It was all over. After all, he was out of town right now and there was probably no way he would even hear of the story. He didn’t typically have a habit of perusing news of the local crime beat so unless someone specifically talked to him about it, he would not find out on his own.

She agreed that was mostly likely for the best to not worry him while he was away and said she wouldn’t tell him. But in return I had to promise to come to her house for lunch tomorrow. I agreed but reminded her I had to take along Vin.

She smiled and patted his stomach. “Good. I was wondering how much food it took to fill that boy up. Guess tomorrow we’ll find out.” Billy walked her to her car and I made my way to the bedroom to get ready.

The next afternoon when Vin and I arrived at Debbie’s house, we were both surprised by the feast she had laid out for us. Food was everywhere. There were little plates of perfectly cut squares of cheese, tiny little sandwiches with the crust cut off, bite sized burgers and an assortment of fruits. My favorite was the pastel colored deviled eggs. They were absolutely scrumptious. I’m not sure but I think there was just a hint of dill in there. Debbie had really outdone herself. It was all just so good. Vin filled his plate with food and then walked into the living room to give Debbie and I some privacy.

Debbie had set out some photo albums of when Jeromy was in high school. The more I browsed through the pages, the more I began to realize how often Billy was pictured with him. Not just at school functions either. He was even in family photos, like at Christmas and Thanksgiving. There really wasn’t a picture of Jeromy and his family where Billy wasn’t present.

I was starting to wonder about that when Debbie spoke. “I think it was their sophomore year when Billy’s parents died and he came to live with us. We took him in and raised him like he was our own and have loved him just as dearly ever since. I guess the boys were both about fifteen at the time.”

I knew that Jeromy and Billy had been close, but this was different. They weren’t just great friends, they were like real brothers.

“How did his parents die? Billy seems still really torn up about it, like it was somehow his fault.”

She paused for a moment as if she was remembering that fateful event and then she shook her head. “It really wasn’t his fault. It was just a horrible accident. Billy had gotten into a fight at school and broke his arm. The hospital called his parents who were out of town at the time. They took the next flight so they could be with their son. They loved him dearly. He was their whole world.”

She let out a soft sigh and continued. “They said it was mechanical failure caused by a bolt of lightning that hit one of the engines. It took a few weeks but they were finally able to recover most of the bodies, including Mr. and Mrs. Snow. Billy always blamed himself for that accident, thinking that if he hadn’t been in that fight and landed himself in the hospital they wouldn’t have been on that plane. Despite my best efforts to persuade him otherwise, sharing with him the word of the Lord and that it was just their time, there was just no convincing him otherwise.”

I was consumed by grief for Billy’s tragedy. My stomach twisted into knots just thinking about it. I had known that his parents had died, but I had no idea how bad it really was and how it has torn at him his entire life, while he blamed himself for what had taken place.

“Billy stayed with us until after graduation. Then he was eighteen and able to access his inheritance which included some money in a trust and quite a few houses around town that his parents owned and rented out. Everyone thought he would move back into his childhood home but he didn’t. He said it was too painful, too many ghosts. So my husband and I helped him go through all of the different houses he now owned until he found one he liked and that’s the place in the Woodlands. He’s been there ever since.”

I took a deep breath and tried my best to hold back the tears that I felt now forming in my eyes. Debbie rubbed my shoulder lovingly. “Now, now. I didn’t mean to make you cry. You dry those pretty eyes of yours and start eating some of this food before Vin devours it all.”

I couldn’t help but laugh as I looked up and seen Vin had returned for his third plate.

“I can’t help it. It’s all just so good,” he said as he popped a bite-sized pizza puff in his mouth and made his way back to the living room. He was right. Jeromy’s mom was an amazing cook.

After we finished with lunch I looked through more of her photo albums of Jeromy and Billy growing up. Jeromy looked much different than he did now. He was a lot skinnier and had a boyish look about him, vastly different from the manly man that he had grown up to be. He’s now far more muscular with a firmer jaw and broader shoulders. Billy, however, wasn’t hard to recognize. He looked exactly the same at seventeen as he did now at twenty-six, only his hairstyle was different and he didn’t have any facial hair back then.

Debbie started to box up all of the extra food she had made and that Vin hadn’t eaten so he could take it home with him. It was getting late and we needed to get back to the house to get ready for the show tonight.

When we arrived at Rowdy’s, Vin and I made our way towards the stage where Billy had been helping set up their equipment. When we got closer I realized he was standing there without a shirt. The way the light hit his skin had me mesmerized and I stopped walking. My knees were jelly as I stood there looking at his bare chest. I couldn’t take my eyes off of that hard, muscled flesh. I stopped so abruptly Vin almost crashed right into me. He glanced up to see what had me so captivated and then let out a low grunt.

Right after, I felt someone push up against me and then heard a loud thud. I felt more hands on me. I was frightened and I turned around to bury my body in Vin’s protective arms. He lifted me up and carried me to a room in the back. As he put me down on a chair, he started in on Devin and Rocco. He was pissed. You didn’t really hear Vin speak often, let alone raise his voice, so it startled me.

“It took you two about six seconds to get to her. Get your head out of your asses and do your job. When she’s in a room and other people are close enough to touch her then you failed.”

Trista came in next, makeup bag in hand. “Let’s look at you,” she said as she started to touch up my makeup. “It was just some stupid drunks fighting, but not to worry, the bouncer kicked them out.”

Billy came in the room and lifted my chin up to look in my eyes. “You gonna be okay to go on, Babe?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry. I just got scared. I didn’t know who was touching me.”

Billy pulled back and then glanced at the others in the room with stark impatience. At that moment I could see the Rock Star Billy turn on. It was a very different Billy than he was when we were at home. “Trista, finish her hair and makeup. Vin, after that, get her on stage,” he commanded.

Brick walked in and threw a shirt to Billy and as he pulled it down over his head I found myself incapable of removing my eyes from his flexed stomach muscles. The shirt had
Rowdy’s
written across his chest.

“Get your shit together, people, we have a show to do,” Billy snapped as he walked out of the room and back to the stage.

Trista, and to some extent the rest of the band had always treated Billy like a delicate genius, fragile and irreparably broken. But that wasn’t the Billy I knew. He wasn’t some weak, hypersensitive musician. He was strong and together, at least on the outside and with me. Especially now seeing him large and in charge like that, caused a chill to run up my spine. It was so arousing.

Caught up in Billy’s strength, I forgot about the earlier incident and with my hair and makeup finished, I walked out of the back room and took the stage.

When we got home Billy was back to his sweet, attentive self and held me tightly in his arms until I fell asleep. The next morning I woke up to breakfast in bed. I admit Rock Star Billy was sexy but this is the Billy I liked most. I loved how he doted on me. But then again, who wouldn’t? He was an impossibly gorgeous man who was so sweet and sensitive.

When we lay in bed together, I could see the look of contentment in his eyes. It warmed my heart. He had suffered enough in his life. He deserved peace and I loved that the peace he found was while holding me in his arms.

The rest of the time while Jeromy was away things went pretty smoothly. There were no more incidents or attacks, and the more time passed the more I was able to put the thought of that horrible day out of my mind.

After two long weeks I couldn’t wait to see Jeromy. I missed him so much so I decided to meet him at the airport. Vin drove and walked me to the designated gate and stood just behind me while we waiting for Jeromy to deboard the plane. Vin saw him first and said, “Oh shit”. He then grabbed my arm firmly and started to pull me away. I tried my best to resist him; I wanted to see Jeromy and I didn’t understand why he was trying to make me leave.

I turned to see if Jeromy had gotten off of the plane yet and saw him walking down the runway carrying a blonde woman on his back. He had a huge smile on his face, laughing like he used to do with me, something I hadn’t seen in such a long time. She was a beautiful girl, with long straight blonde hair. She had a tiny little face, with high, well-defined cheekbones. She had a cute little perky nose and a mouth full of really white teeth.