Beautiful Scars (10 page)

“What in the hell do you expect? She’s my best friend. Although, seriously, I was expecting to hear that she was freaked out over your inner-sex-fiend deal, but hell, she really got off on that. But you called her a fucking
whore
?”

Spinning around, he stalked up to her and poked his finger against her shoulder. “I did not. I was nervous as hell, and I said something about getting my money’s worth, but I
did
not call her a whore, nor do I think that.”

“That’s how you made her feel,” Shera said quietly. Shaking her head, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a card. “Here. She won’t want this. You can keep it. Maybe you’ll learn to pull your head out of your ass one of these days.”

“I’ve been trying to do that for thirty-eight years. I speak and dumb shit comes out of my mouth. The only time I can do things right is when I play music or sing,” he pointed out, looking down to see the white envelope she was holding out for him. “What’s this?”

“It’s a thank you note from the lady who took the money at the shelter where I help out a few times a month. Chaili wouldn’t take the money for the contract last night and she asked if I’d donate it someplace for her.”

Frowning, he stared at the card, his mind rolling back.
Can’t afford to lose that account…
Plus, other things. Her working when he’d come over to visit. Even at two or three in the morning, no matter how tired she seemed. “Doesn’t she kind of need the money? Isn’t that why she’s doing the companion thing?”

“She’s not
doing
the companion thing,” Shera said. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I made her sign the damn contract. She asked why you’d come by and I told her. She said she’d go out with you. She didn’t even want to do the contract, take the money, none of it.”

A sick feeling settled in his gut. Cold wrapped around his heart. “Why did she want to…?”

“Go out on a date with my big brother?” Shera asked sweetly. She just stared at him. “You used to be halfway smart about women. What in the hell happened? Did all the bad ones screw you up
that
much?”

“Aww. Shit.” Crumpling the card in his fist, he hurled it across the room. “I’ve got to go talk to her.”

“Not going to happen today. She’s not here. A friend of ours was going up to a cabin she has for a few days. Chaili has an open invite and decided to join her.”

“I thought she had a deadline.”

“She can work from anywhere, as long as she’s got Internet.” Shera shrugged. “She said she’d be back in a few days, but I know you…you’ll be gone before she gets back so you might as well just give it up.”

Like hell.

Chapter Six

Project finished.

It secured her a check that let Chaili pay the typical monthly bills, plus make another dent in the medical hell that was still eating her alive. Looking at the balances on those bills made her head ache. So she didn’t look. No reason to, anyway. She knew how much she owed. To the penny. And there were a lot of pennies.

Jumping Jack Pratt, the guy who’d just signed that check, had also given her an invitation to a “little get together” he was having that weekend. He’d winked and mentioned the word
contacts
.

Although the last thing she wanted to do was mingle, it couldn’t hurt to make a few contacts with a satisfied customer. And hey, if she was out there, trying to act all professional, then she wasn’t stuck in her apartment with a suitcase she still hadn’t unpacked, stuck there, thinking about last weekend, stuck there where she just might start to cry if she looked at any one spot too long, because damn it, she had little signs of him everywhere.

Every damned CD.

Pictures of her with him and Shera.

She needed to do something about this, she realized… Of course, she needed to go to the party, but—

“No. Now, before I change my mind,” she whispered. Grabbing a plastic crate, she dumped the CDs into it, pictures, everything that had anything to do with Marc. She had to cut this out of her, out of her heart, out of her soul, out of her life. It was going to be kind of like lancing a wound. It would hurt like hell, but she was already hurting. Once she did it and suffered through the initial pain, it would get better.

She kept pieces of Marc around her because it made it easier to pretend. She lost herself in fantasies, or just let herself think about him more than she should. Even though she knew it was foolishness.

There wasn’t ever going to be a
them
. Ever. And she’d known that. Really. She’d never expected them to have a night, much less anything more. She’d screwed up by trying to grab for a chance to have a
real
memory of just them. Only them. Like a pretend
them
. If she hadn’t done that, she could have happily existed forever in her little make-believe world, but she’d done it and now she had to deal with the consequences.

The crate was overflowing as she pushed into Shera’s house. She dealt with the alarm and grabbed a piece of paper, jotted a note.

I’m clearing this stuff out. If you want the pictures, take them. I figured you could give the CDs and shit to the shelter. They probably need the music. Although maybe they can auction off the signed ones…I don’t know. Whatever you want to do with it. Was invited to a party @ J. Pratt’s house. Supposed to mingle, maybe make some more contacts for work. Later.

Without letting herself look back at the bits and pieces of a dead dream, she reset the alarm and left. She needed to change. Figure out what she had in her wardrobe that would work for a summer “get together” for a rich, arrogant, son-of-a-bitch.

Staring at the note, Marc called his sister. As soon as she came on the line, he demanded, “Who in the hell is J. Pratt?”

“Ah…Marc?”

“No. It’s the Easter Bunny. I heard you were good and I wanted to leave a present at your house. Hope you don’t mind I’m a few months late,” he said, staring at the crate in front of him. Normally, it made him feel damned weird to see shit in like in the house of somebody he knew.

But this wasn’t just his career.

He saw a stub from a show they’d all gone to see in high school. Springsteen. They’d snuck out, even though their folks would have killed them. Well, Marc and Shera’s mom would have. Chaili’s mom…she might have cared if she could have pulled herself out of a bottle.

A poster from his first tour.

A couple of T-shirts with the band’s logo on them.

There was a strip of pictures, the kind where you had to wedge yourself into a photo booth. He remembered that. They’d taken it up on the pier, right before everything took off.

She’d kept all of this.

“J. Pratt, sis,” he said as he lifted the crate.

“Hell, I don’t know. Probably Prattle Enterprises. That disc jockey guy who decided he’d start his own radio show after the station laid him off…? I
think
. And why are you asking?”

J. Pratt.

Disconnecting the phone, he headed to the front door. He only barely remembered to reset the alarm on his way out and he had to juggle to do it.

Yep. J. Pratt was a disc jockey. A search on his phone showed him that.

And down at the bottom of his website, he saw the discreet little line indicating who’d designed the guy’s site.

Glory Daze Designs.

He put the crate into his trunk, although that strip of pictures he slid into his shirt pocket. Once he was in the car, he called his assistant. “I need an address…a local disc jockey. J. Pratt.”

Ilona was quiet for a minute and then asked, “J. Pratt. As in Jumping Jack Pratt? Big radio hotshot?”

“Hell if I know. All I know is the guy is a disc jockey and I think he’s having a party today. I need to know where he lives.”

“He lives about a mile away from us. And yes, he’s a disc jockey. He’s also one of the biggest assholes known to man and yes…he’s having a party. I know this because he’s made sure to call the house about three times this week to invite Miguel.”

Miguel… Marc ran his tongue along his teeth. “So…what’s my favorite drummer up to?”

“Don’t, Marc. He’ll kick your ass if you even ask him. We can’t stand that guy.” Ilona snorted, her voice thick with disgust. “He can’t look at a woman without checking out her tits. He can’t talk to a woman without checking out her tits. The only reason he even invites us over there to check out my rack and grill us about you, anyway.”

“What do I have to do with your rack? I never even noticed you have one.”

“Gee, thanks.” Ilona sighed.

In the background, Marc heard Miguel’s voice. “Are you talking to Marc about your rack?”

“Now you’re going to get me in trouble,” Marc muttered.

“Relax. You’re more interested in my brains than my boobs. That’s a good thing. Hold on. If you’re serious, you can talk to your favorite drummer. But leave me out of it. Completely.”

Marc drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, staring off down the street. A car rolled by and he automatically turned his head, staring toward Shera’s house.

“What’s this about your favorite drummer? I’m the only drummer who’s ever been dumb enough to work with your dumb ass,” Miguel said, his voice amused. “And why were you talking about my girl’s boobs?”

“She was talking about them. Not me. I heard you were invited to a party.”

Miguel’s sneer was evident in his voice. “Jumping Jackhole’s thing? Not my idea of a party. All he does is kiss ass and wheedle.”

“We deal with that on a daily basis.”

“Not when we’re on break.” Miguel muttered under his breath and finally asked, “What’s up, buddy?”

“I need to go to that party.”

“And you want me to take you. You got any idea how annoying that fucker is?”

Another car drove by and this one slowed down, took a longer look. Marc could feel the guy’s gaze resting on him, despite the fact that Marc had his head turned, a pair of sunglasses on and a hat. Shit. Time to go. Starting the car, he tossed the phone down and switched it to speaker. He hated headsets. “I don’t care about the DJ. There’s a…” He blew out a breath and tried to figure out what to say. His closest friends had developed this insane protective streak over him and although part of him understood, he wasn’t some idiot kid.

Okay, so he did idiot stuff, but that was his own problem.

And this wasn’t idiot stuff.

This was Chaili.

He’d been waiting a week to finally talk to her and he knew she was home, because the sweet Mrs. Hornby across the way had promised to call as soon as she saw Chaili’s car. Because of course, Marc’s sister wasn’t telling him a damn thing. But Mrs. Hornby had. It was just Marc’s dumb luck he’d been down in his gym, without his phone, when she’d called, and by the time he’d emerged an hour later and then showered and made the drive to her place…Chaili was gone.

But he also knew sometimes Chaili left notes for Shera in the house, an old habit. And hot damn, he’d found the note, along with the bits and pieces of their life together…bits and pieces she was throwing away.

It made him hurt to see it and he couldn’t even explain why. Had he fucked up that bad?

He’d spent the whole damn week rehearsing what he’d say to her, but then he’d seen the evidence that maybe it wouldn’t matter… No. He wasn’t going to think that way. It would matter. It had to, because he was thinking maybe the reason he always felt that vague emptiness inside him, why no woman seemed to click with him, was because she wasn’t the right one.

Chaili had always felt right.

Always.

And he wasn’t going to let her cut him out just because he was an absolute fuckhead from time to time.

“There’s a woman there. Don’t go freaking out—this isn’t Selene, it’s not Lily or anybody else like them. I’ve known her most of my life and this…shit.” Did he tell him it was Chaili? Miguel knew her…and Marc didn’t know if that would make things better or worse. Okay. So he didn’t tell his friend. Yet. He’d figure it out soon. “It doesn’t matter. She’s going to be there, I think, and I need to see her.”

For a long moment, Miguel said nothing. Then finally, he sighed and said, “Okay, man. Pick me up. But don’t be surprised when that bloodsucking tick attaches himself to your ass.”

Chapter Seven

Jumping Jack Pratt was one of her biggest accounts.

Next to the website she designed and maintained for
Escortè
, this was her
biggest
account and Chaili kept that in mind as she felt his gaze crawling over her.
Waste of time, pal.

The top she wore had a draped neck, fitting her lean torso and camouflaging the fact that she’d never be filling out a bikini the right way again. Well, she’d never really filled one out very well to begin with, but now?

That didn’t keep Jumping Jack from trying to sneak a peek. He angled in a little closer under the pretense of whispering in her ear. “Would you like me to introduce you around?”

“I’ve got it, thanks,” she said easily. “I don’t want to look like I’m trying to hog the host’s attention.”

He didn’t get the point. Most of the women there were ignoring him. Apparently, he’d worn out his welcome at their elbow. Suppressing a sigh, she headed over to the punch bowl and refilled her glass, wondered how much longer she should bother trying to stay. She wasn’t making contacts here. She wasn’t doing anything but getting annoyed and—