Finally Heaven (Room 103 Book 4) (11 page)

I picked up a bread roll, picking at it and stalling further as I moved around the table just studying the various foods.

“Fucking ponce!” one of the men hissed with disgust.

“Yeah but fuck, I’d have never have thought it. Shit, the guy was always in the paper with some hot pussy on his arm, if it wasn’t splashed all over the front page, I would never have believed it.”

“Dirty bastard!” the first one spat out, the sinister tone in his voice making my body still. He seemed to radiate viciousness, just the way he spoke put me on alert. “It makes me wanna hurl knowing he’s sat somewhere in this room. Fuck, he’s probably eyeing me up right now!”

I turned my head, my dark glasses hiding my eyes from them. His friend nudged him, “Yeah, he might be imagining sliding under the table and grabbing your dick with his teeth!”

“What the fuck, you sick bastard!” He stood up, shivering and slapped his mate around the head before taking off, his mate scurrying after him.

I pulled off some more bread, popping it into my mouth as curiosity got the better of me and I grabbed the newspaper they had been looking at.

A funny choked sound caught in my throat when the contents of my stomach battled with the piece of bread I’d just swallowed. Luckily the bread won as I forced them both down.

I dropped into a chair as my eyes froze on the black and white picture spread across the front page. I wasn’t even aware that my head was shaking from side to side, my mouth wide open as tears ran down my hot cheeks.

“Are you okay, dear?” an elderly woman sat on the next table asked gently as she leaned in towards me. Her eyes dropped to see what I was staring at. “Oh dear, that poor boy. I expect they’ll cripple his career for this. He always seemed so nice to me, a bit of a rum ‘un. But he’s a boy and boys need their fun, eh?”

I stared at her, “I…”

“Oh those men are just homophobic, don’t you let them upset you.”

“I…”

I couldn’t form words. My heart rate had tripled as the world seemed to slow around me causing a conflict in my brain. I wondered if I was still drunk. How much had I consumed last night? It wasn’t making any sense.

However, when I witnessed Brent storm through the room, Julie hot on his tail, his furious eyes zeroing in on the room where they all were, I knew I wasn’t imagining anything. The picture on the front page of Daniel and Mr Mercedes kissing, unmistakeably naked under a thin sheet in bed was real. It was very fucking real.

JUST AS I was about to go after Zoe, the need to be near her overpowering, Brent stormed in the room. His enraged face snapped left and right as he hunted for someone. Me evidently, when his narrow eyes found me and darkened further.

Fuck, what now?

He froze for a moment, his expression softening guiltily before he pulled himself together. Every single hair rose on my body, alarm bells ringing in every lobe of my brain. Something was wrong, something very bad.

“Brent?”

His teeth sank into his bottom lip. My eyes lowered to the newspaper rolled up in his hand, then back up.

“Can you remember when I signed you all?” he asked curiously, pulling out a chair and seating himself opposite me, his eyes still very much on me as though asking me the question personally. “How I asked you to all be honest with me so the media couldn’t pull up all the bullshit surrounding your secrets and slaughter you?”

I closed my eyes slowly, my breathing becoming uncontrollable. It wasn’t what I knew to be on the front page that hurt, it was the knowledge of how it got there that was tearing me apart slowly from the inside.

“Please don’t do this here.” I whispered, holding his eyes, pleading with him not to do this in front of the guy’s. “Brent. Please.”

He shook his head sadly, his eyes watering but regret written all over him. “We do this here, Romeo, in front of your friends, because fuck! You’re gonna need every one of them.”

“Romeo?” Bulk moved across the room, coming to stand by my side.

My stomach twisted, nausea fighting for freedom. I couldn’t seem to breathe properly, my lungs struggling to cope with the violent way I was sucking air in.

“What the hell is going on?” Boss asked as E slid back into her seat and every single pair of eyes locked on me.

“I hope you’re strong enough for the backlash of this, Romeo,” Brent said quietly, “because shit, on top of the Penny scandal, the press are gonna rip you to fucking shreds.”

He threw the paper into the centre of the table, all eyes looking at it as it unrolled and the evidence of last night’s fun broke my heart.

Everyone leaned over to read it, each of them slowly seating themselves back down, a loud silence developing around me.

Fire heated my whole body, shame and self-disgust raging through me. I couldn’t lift my eyes from the paper; the black and white photograph of mine and Nick’s entwined bodies haunting me, the pleasure on my face horrifying. What had last night seemed too good to be true, had actually turned out too good to be true. His deception hurt, in fact it fucking crippled me. I had believed his lies, trusted his words that he wasn’t fucking me just for a story. What a fucking fool!

“And this causes a problem, how?” Bulk asked as he squeezed my shoulder.

I blinked, lifting my face and stared at him. His eyes were on Brent, confusion written across his features.

“He’s bisexual, not a fucking alien!” Boss snapped at Brent. “Why is this a problem?”

“Because no one knew, that’s why!” Brent argued.

“We knew, so what the hell does other people’s opinions matter?” E bit back. “Fuck them, this is Romeo’s preference. It’s not gonna suddenly stop his ability to play guitar, so I’m not sure what the issue is?”

“Wait?” I stuttered, “What? You know?”

She lifted a brow in disbelief. “Of course we know. Romeo,” She sighed, shaking her head slowly. “You really should stop drinking. You tell us all sorts when you’re pissed. Only problem is you can never remember the next day.” She leaned across to me and slipped her fingers through mine, giving me a smile. “We’ve been waiting years for you to tell us when you’re actually sober!”

“And you don’t...”

“Don’t?” E pressed when I paused and cringed.

“Well... I don’t disgust you?”

Everyone chuckled. “Fuck Romeo,” Bulk laughed. “We have Boss for Christ’s sake, nothing disgusts us anymore.”

Boss glowered at Bulk then turned to me with his head tipped in puzzlement. “No, you don’t disgust us… where the fuck did you get that idea?”

“I dunno, I just thought.”

I looked around, coming to rest on Jen. My whole body seized up with her sorrowful eyes. “Oh fuck!” I shot upright quickly scanning the room. “Where is she?”

Jen shrugged. “I dunno, she just went for something to eat.”

Brent groaned, his fingers rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “She was sat at a table in the main area with an old woman.” I nodded but froze with his next words. “She was reading a paper.”

WHY WASN’T SHE answering the door? I’d tried to open it but it was locked and I’d been thumping on the thing for the last ten minutes. I pressed my ear to it but there was no noise from the inside.

“Ink?” My head dropped to rest on the door, my aching heart causing me to slide down it. The last thing I had wanted was to hurt her, that was the main reason I had kept it all secret. “Baby, please. Let me just explain.”

“Baby?” her voice suddenly screamed from the other side. “Baby? I’m far from your baby,
Romeo
!” Her drop of my real name shouldn’t have hurt me as much as it did, I’d been asking her for years to call me Romeo, and now when she was, I didn’t like it. It seemed too cold for our relationship, not that we really had one.

“Zoe, let me in. We need to talk.”

“Fuck - off!”

Jen grimaced, catching Zoe’s anger as she walked down the corridor towards me, making her way to her own room which was situated next to Zoe’s.

“You should have told her, Romeo,” she whispered when she reached me.

“I know, but this is the very reason I didn’t.”

She nodded, rubbing her hand up and down my arm. “I know.” She looked conflicted for a moment, then rummaged in her bag and pulled out a key card. A small devious smile curved her lips before she handed it to me and winked, walking away whistling faintly.

She turned as she opened her door, “Hurt her, and I’ll fucking kill you, but it’s time to sort yourselves out. Be honest with her now, she deserves that.”

I gave her a nod, totally agreeing with her. “Thank you.” She smiled and closed the door behind her.

The hallway was empty when I slipped inside quietly. The sound of her weeping broke me. I knew I loved her, I’d known it for a while, but I’d also known my life would drown her. She had Jakob to think about now and although the others coped with the life and raising children, I wasn’t sure I could do it. The fact that I craved men sexually, as well as Zoe, caused the conflict to deepen. It wasn’t as if Zoe didn’t turn me on, because she did, a lot, a hell of a lot; sex with her was and had always been amazing. But I wasn’t sure I could live a life without that part.

Yet listening to her sorrow, I knew it was time to put her first, to put my own needs aside and at least try. She deserved that. She deserved the fucking world if I could give it her. I just had to convince her now.

I moved down the hallway, stilling at the bathroom door that was slightly ajar. The sound of the shower was doing nothing to tame the volume of her sobs. Why did she have to be in the shower? I was now picturing her long bare legs, wet and creamy, her plump tits covered in soap, her hands sliding over her own skin as she washed herself.

I wasn’t there to fuck her, but now that’s all my body wanted, my dick already throbbing in need for her. Fucking shit!

Closing my eyes and taking a calming breath, I pushed the door open further.

“Turn it off and get out here,” I ordered. Her body jumped, the contours of her perfect body through the frosted glass doing nothing to calm the pain in my balls.

“What the fuck?” she hissed, opening the glass door and glaring at me.

Shit!

I clenched my fists, my poor balls shrivelling with agony at the sight of her nakedness. She wasn’t shy, she never had been. My eyes greedily roamed down over the expanse of her painted skin, the vivid colours she always chose a perfect complement to the paleness of her silky smooth skin. I noticed a new tat on her right hip bone, my eyes snapping up to hers when I read the quote from Romeo and Juliet.

‘Under loves heavy burden do I sink.’

She realised what I had seen and snatched the towel from over the top of the shower frame, wrapping it around her tightly. “Get out.”

“Shit, baby.”

“GET OUT!”

My cock hardened even more with her fury. She was always sexy when angered, it had been one of the reasons I’d always wound her up, knowing the make-up between us would be hot and hard.

Sighing, I pulled the chord hanging in the corner of the bathroom, switching off the shower. She glared at me as I casually strolled across the bathroom towards her refusing her an escape route. She tried though but I caught her as she tried to push past me, my arm circling her waist, pulling her against me, her back to my front.

“We are going to sit down, like adults, and talk,” I growled in her ear as she struggled against me.

“Why won’t you leave me alone?”

I laughed bitterly. “I can’t fucking win. You’ve been asking me to talk for three years, and now I’m ready, you’re not.”

“Why is this always on your terms?” She was livid, the heat in her eyes adding to the heat in my groin. “Why don’t you ever listen? It’s always you… ‘You’re not ready’, ‘you’re incapable of giving’, ‘you’re sorry’. Always excuses, well each of your excuses were lies!”

We were both breathing hard as I pulled her out of the bathroom and into the living area. She was angry. I was angry. And I had a feeling this wasn’t going to go as I’d hoped.

“Zoe listen to me!” I turned her in my arms until she faced me, my hands gripping the top of her arms as I tried to stop her from pushing me away.

“Was I just a decoy?” Her voice broke, her heart breaking before me.