I Love the 80s (24 page)

She poured herself a glass of water and gulped it down, imagining that she could feel it racing to soothe her poor, ravaged body. She put the glass down on the counter with a click, and when she turned back to the door, Tommy was lounging there, sleepy-eyed.

And also naked. Jenna’s gaze fell across that famously beautiful torso, then down towards his narrow hips. Then she remembered that she was sore, and jerked her attention back up to his face.

His dark hair stuck up at odd angles and his beard had
grown in during the night, leaving him with rough stubble she’d felt along the smooth skin of her thighs long before she’d noticed it with her eyes. He rubbed a hand over his face and then blinked at her, looking drowsy.

It was hard to look at him. It was harder still to look away. Everything, Jenna knew with a bone-deep conviction, was different now. Especially her.

‘Water?’ she asked, even as she was handing him a glass.

He took it without comment and drained it, then put it on the counter.

‘Why are you out of bed?’ he asked, his voice rough with sleep. He reached over and pulled on one of her dark curls, tugging it straight and then winding it around his finger.

‘I needed a drink,’ she said, fascinated to hear the huskiness of her own voice.

‘You look good in my shirt.’ He slid his free hand around her waist, then let it drift down to squeeze her butt. ‘Very good, in fact.’

‘You can’t possibly …’ She trailed off when he kissed her. The sweetness and electricity of it hit her again. She thought she might never be able to get enough of his taste. Of him. He pulled back, and laughed at her expression.

‘God, no, woman,’ he said. ‘What am I, a machine?’

‘I have some concerns about that, to be honest.’

‘Get back in bed,’ he growled at her. ‘It’s too early to be awake.’

Jenna let him lead her back to the futon, and felt her
heart clench when he wrapped her in his arms and settled back against the pillows, burying his face in her hair. She could hear the steady beat of his heart beneath her ear, and smell the salty-sweet scent that was uniquely his.

She had loved him long before she met him, and then even more once she’d grown to know him, and she had known full well that sleeping with him – what a ridiculous euphemism, after such a sleepless night – would change her. And maybe she was exhausted; maybe that was why she was trembly and on the verge of tears, but that didn’t alter the way she felt.

Tommy – alive and well – was a necessity. She got that now, in every possible way.

She would save him. She had to. No matter what saving him entailed.

Tommy didn’t think anyone was trying to kill him, because unlike Jenna, apparently, he knew that shit happened. People drove like idiots on New York City streets. Steel cages that weren’t supposed to hang from ceilings in the first place sometimes fell. And sometimes, people were required to jump out of the way of these things. That didn’t make an accident a plot.

Along those lines, there were accidents in set dressing rooms all the time. Fires, even. People were always forgetting cigarettes, or whatever else they happened to be smoking, and racing off to film something. Sometimes cigarettes – or whatever, Tommy wasn’t into the harder stuff these days but he didn’t cast stones – burned out in ashtrays, and other times, they caused larger problems.

Had Tommy been napping the way he’d claimed he was, rather than trying to convince the delectable Jenna to while away the time with him between boring video
takes in a far more interesting fashion, the fire in his dressing room might have caused some serious damage. But he hadn’t been napping, and he’d smelled the smoke long before it could do much more than singe the wall, and there was no harm done.

‘No harm done?’ Jenna hissed, when the crowd had dispersed, Richie had sauntered away with the fire extinguisher still dangling from his hand, and it was only the two of them in Tommy’s dressing room once more. ‘You could have been killed!
Again!
’

‘But I wasn’t.’ He closed the distance between them, ran his hands over her hair and nibbled his way along her neck. He loved the scent of her skin, something citrus and vanilla all at once, sharp and smooth. He loved how quickly her body melted against his, as if she couldn’t help herself. ‘Weren’t we doing something much more interesting?’ he asked. He slid a hand down and slipped it beneath the jacket she wore, seeking and finding the tight peak of her breast. ‘Like this?’

‘Be serious.’ She batted his hand away, and stepped back, that frown of hers clamped down between her eyes. He’d never had a woman frown so much around him. The models were afraid to change expressions too often because they might get lines – and, if he was fair, because they didn’t have the sort of thoughts that required a change of expression. Jenna, on the other hand, seemed hell-bent on lining her lovely face sooner rather than later.

‘I’ve never been more serious in my life,’ he assured her, and the crazy thing was that he wasn’t kidding. He
was focused on the sweet curve of her breast like he was a teenage boy and he thought it might be the only breast he’d ever see. Jenna Jenkins, it was turning out, was addictive.

‘I would ask you if you had to go to the hospital before you would take this seriously,’ she continued, ignoring where his attention was focused and moving away from him to lean against the arm of the couch. ‘But you’ve already been to the hospital, and you don’t seem to care.’

‘Of course I care.’ He didn’t, actually. He would, however, pretend to care if it would make her happy. And he could tell she knew that. The furrow between her brows deepened.

‘If you took the energy you put into sex and put it into self-preservation—’ she began.

‘And where would that leave you?’ he interrupted her, unable to keep the smile from his lips. He stalked her across the room, grabbing her hand and tumbling them both lengthwise on the couch. ‘You act like you’re not enjoying yourself.’

‘And that can’t possibly be true.’ Her voice was heavy with sarcasm, but her eyes were shining. ‘Not with your immense skill.’

‘And yet,’ he pointed out, his mouth moving over her neck as he positioned himself in the cradle of her thighs, ‘I can’t help noticing that your heart is beating very, very fast. And you’re holding your breath.’

‘I can put my attraction to you aside to focus on other things,’ Jenna said primly.

He took her mouth with his, and moved suggestively against her, making them both sigh.

He thought he might die if he couldn’t get inside her.

Again.

‘Sure you can,’ he agreed, his voice rough with need. ‘But why would you want to?’

‘I thought you were anti-groupie,’ Nick threw across the conference table in Duncan’s office with no warning whatsoever.

There were any number of places Nick could have broached the topic of Jenna, and none of them would have been as inappropriate as an official band meeting. They were supposed to be talking about the new album and their press tour and upcoming concert dates. Not Tommy’s personal business. Granted,
he
had been amusing himself by wishing Jenna into the room rather than off at Video TV appeasing her boss, but that was his prerogative.

‘What?’ He made his voice as menacing a voice as possible, hoping Nick would take the hint.

Meanwhile, everyone else stopped staring off into space – the usual reaction to one of Duncan’s annoying speeches about band unity or whatever else he was obsessed about that week – and stared at Tommy instead.

Nick, the bastard, ignored Tommy’s tone. He even leaned in closer, putting his arms on the smooth table in front of him.

‘The secretary,’ he said, as if maybe Tommy was confused
as to his meaning. ‘Since when did you start banging your groupies? You used to be against it.’

‘You’re banging the secretary?’ Duncan’s pig eyes went all cunning, and he smoothed a hand over his shiny, gelled hair. ‘Interesting.’

‘The next person who uses the word “banging” in connection to Jenna is getting my foot up their ass,’ Tommy said conversationally, though the glare he sent around the table could have cut through steel. Richie raised his eyebrows and looked down, hiding a smirk. As he did not use the word ‘banging’, Tommy ignored it.

‘Jenna is a nice girl,’ Sebastian said, in evident disapproval. He drummed his fingers against the table, scowling. ‘Are you sure she can handle the full Tommy Seer experience?’

‘I’m not a carnival ride, Sebastian,’ Tommy snapped. Sebastian’s elegant brows rose.

‘She’s not your usual type, is she?’ he asked mildly. ‘I think she might have a thought or two in her head.’ He shook his head, managing to convey his disappointment in Tommy and support of Jenna. Tommy was unreasonably furious that Sebastian thought Jenna
needed
his support.

‘This is my business,’ Tommy gritted out, aware that Duncan was watching his every move like some fat predator. ‘Not band business.’

‘You don’t have a private life, asshole,’ Duncan threw in then, malice in his voice. ‘Unless I tell you otherwise.’

‘Which is one more reason I’m leaving,’ Tommy threw
back. He sensed more than saw his band mates shift in their seats, and ruthlessly thrust away the stab of guilt he felt. He didn’t understand why he was the only one to feel the desperation, the horror, that the idea of staying in the band raised. But he was tired of fighting about it.

‘Not quite yet, you’re not,’ Sebastian said, breaking the silence, his crisp accent calibrated to soothe. ‘And we all have a lot of work to do before then.’

Tommy could feel Duncan’s eyes on him from one side, but he turned to Nick instead.

‘What do you care anyway?’ he asked his oldest friend, hating the hard set to Nick’s jaw. Hating that he’d put it there.

‘What do I care that you’re breaking up our band?’ Nick asked, incredulously. ‘Are you insane?’

‘No.’ Tommy refused to talk about breaking up the band any more. ‘About Jenna.’

‘I don’t give a shit about Jenna, brother,’ Nick said with a short, angry laugh. ‘But I am fascinated that you’ve become such a fucking hypocrite all of a sudden.’

Tommy felt himself smirk. ‘I don’t think it’s
all of a sudden
,’ he drawled. ‘I’m pretty sure I’ve been astoundingly hypocritical for years now.’

Richie let out a guffaw at that, and Sebastian’s lips twitched into a smile. Nick only glared for a moment, before shaking his head.

‘I guess you got me there,’ he muttered. Not quite smiling.

It didn’t really solve anything, but it smoothed the
moment over well enough. Duncan continued braying on about appearances and tour dates, and eventually the meeting was over.

Tommy caught up with Nick at the elevators.

‘What the hell was that?’ he demanded. ‘Why are you riding me?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Nick grunted, barely sparing Tommy a glance.

‘Like hell you don’t.’ Tommy ordered himself to modify the aggressive tone. Nick was a brawler. He heard aggression and responded with more of his own. ‘The last time you gave a shit about my personal life we were sixteen years old.’

‘Yeah, and the reason I cared was because you stole Ursula Freitag from me,’ Nick retorted, turning on him with anger written across his face. ‘Kind of like now, when you’re destroying my livelihood and all you care about is fucking some secretary.’

‘That’s not all I care about,’ Tommy said stiffly, and opted not to punch his best friend in the face for discussing Jenna like that.

‘Then what do you care about, Tommy?’ Nick asked in a hiss. He stepped closer. ‘You never even asked what
we
want in all of this.’

‘I have to get out,’ Tommy said, with a helpless shrug.
Or die,
he thought, but did not say. They were men. There was only so much drama allowed.

‘I get that.’ Nick shook his head. His mouth twisted. ‘And whatever you want, we’ll all fall over ourselves to
make sure it happens. Because you’re Tommy Seer. You’re the fucking legend.’

Tommy hated the bleakness in Nick’s expression, but he didn’t know what to do to change it. Because he couldn’t fix it and also save himself. He had to choose.

Still.

‘Nick—’

‘Hey! Assholes!’ Richie’s voice – which he hardly used, much less raised – made both of them turn back towards Duncan’s office. Richie was running down the corridor, his face bright. ‘Duncan just got the call – “Misery Loves Company” is the top of the charts! We hit number one the first week out!’

Nick didn’t look at Tommy, he just brushed past him and headed for the conference room – as if Tommy was already gone. It made Tommy feel worse than anything that had been said. He followed Nick more slowly, clapping Richie on the back.

Inside the conference room, Duncan was popping champagne and oozing that fake bonhomie that usually made Tommy’s skin crawl.

‘Congratulations,’ Duncan said when he drew close, handing Tommy a glass of champagne even while he aimed another of his nasty glares his way. ‘The world goes to hell in a hand basket, but you know how to go out on top, don’t you?’

It was not until he was out on the street that Tommy let himself breathe easy again. How was he going to make it
through an entire world tour if things were already this bad and they had yet to play a single gig? Not for the first time, it occurred to him that he could have made all this easier on himself if he’d kept his plans secret. Gone on the tour, kept everyone happy, and then just up and quit when it was done.

But no, he’d tried to be a stand-up guy for once. He’d tried to do the right thing and let everyone prepare themselves. He wasn’t sure he’d be inspired to try such a radical notion again, that was for sure. Screw the right thing.

The October night was dark and cold, and Tommy pulled the collar of his bomber jacket up to protect his neck from the chill. He loved New York. Pull a hat over his hair and keep his head down, and he could be anyone. Just another guy on the street, minding his own business. Of absolutely no interest to the millions of others doing the same.

The anonymity thrilled him.

He was aware of the shift – the irony of it. He’d have given anything at eighteen to be
known
. That was all he’d wanted. The music, sure, but he’d wanted adoration. He’d wanted people to know his name. He’d been so sure that he was better than the place he came from, and he’d wanted to prove it. He’d have given anything and everything – and he had. The worst part was, he hadn’t even cared what he was leaving behind. His mother, his kid sisters, his extended family. He’d shaken the chains of his childhood off without a backward glance, and that was that. Little Tommy Searcy of the shittiest part of Buffalo
disappeared, and a few years later, Tommy Seer rose to take his place.