The Man You Need (Love on Tour #4) (8 page)

“I don’t really have one.”

“Nonsense. Everyone has a type.”

“No, Princess. I don’t think that’s true. Just because you have a specific set of qualities you look for in a man before throwing yourself at him, doesn’t mean we all do.”

I could have been pissed off. After all, he’d just insulted me, kind of. But I wasn’t. The way I annoyed Jack was a clue that maybe he didn’t find me attractive. And this was good.

“Whatever, look down at the crowd and pick out three girls you think are smoking hot.”

He harrumphed, but then he obeyed. I watched as he peered down at the thousands of people below us, his eyes roaming over them.

“Okay, I’ve got three.” He said after a few minutes.

“Show me,” I leaned closer to him and looked down.

“The girl in the blue sweatshirt,” he pointed with his finger, “standing next to the column there, is the first one.”

She was short, well-endowed, and had long, straight brown hair. She was also wearing glasses.

“And do you see the Latino girl over by the back wall. She’s standing with like five massive dudes.”

I spotted her right away. I’d already been checking out the guys she was with. She was also short, had bleached blonde hair that fell in contrast to her bronze skin in soft waves down her back. She was thin and petite. But unlike the girl in the sweatshirt, she was wearing a halter top and short shorts.

“And that one is definitely the hottest girl in the crowd,” he said, moving his finger to the massive group of people near the stage. “The tall Black girl that looks like she just walked out of a
Vanity Fair
shoot.”

I spotted her right away, too. She was tall, and had a thick head of beautiful braided hair. But I wouldn’t consider her model quality. She was a pretty big girl, lots of soft curves, and muscle. She looked like she could kick my ass.

“Seriously? There is absolutely no pattern in that.”

He shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t have a type. I just know what I like.”

I chewed on my lip. This was harder than I’d expected. I needed to know if I was Jack’s type. He wasn’t making this easy. So I just asked, “What about me?”

Jack looked carefully at my face. “Why? Are you coming on to me?” He tried to make it sound like a joke, but he looked a little nervous.

“Hell no! I kinda wanted to make sure that, you know, you wouldn’t ever come on to
me
. Because, Jack, you are not my type.”

He laughed. “You worried I’m going to get all crushy on you, Stac?”

“I don’t need that shit,” I said lightly. “I’ve already got Baby and Lisa’s brother getting all weird on me. And he’s showing up tomorrow. I am not looking forward to that.”

“Don’t worry, Princess. You’re safe with me.”

9

“Hide me,” I said to Jack, as I ran into Sean’s green room.

“What?”

“Sean’s on stage and I’m stuck out there with Brad.”

“What’s wrong with Brad?”

I rolled my eyes and plopped down on the couch. Jack had been messing around with one of Sean’s guitars, putting a new string on it or something. He turned and leaned against the counter opposite me.

“I told you. He has a thing for me.”

Baby’s little brother had flown out to meet up with us in Tampa. He’d be traveling with us as we hit Orlando, then he’d fly back to San Francisco when we got to Miami. It was going to be a long three days.

“And now he’s hitting on me.”

“Wait, let me get this straight. For the first time, ever, you want me to actually rescue you from a guy?”

“Get over it. Yeah, I do.”

“Huh.”

“Ugh, can’t you just be cooperative?”

“You don’t like him?”

“I like him just fine, but I am
so
not interested in him romantically. First of all, he’s a tech geek and that is so–”

“Not your type, I know.”

“Also, I am not going down this crazy ‘all the siblings in the Roberts family marry all the siblings in the Rushton family’ hole. It’s already weird enough.”

“I see. So, why don’t you just tell him you’re not interested?”

“Because I don’t work that way.”

“What?”

“I don’t reject guys. I’m not good at it.”

“You told me, flat out, yesterday that you weren’t interested in me.”

“That’s different. You weren’t hitting on me. And besides, you’re my friend.”

“And Brad’s not?”

“I don’t know, Jack. Honestly, in the time his sisters have been married to my brothers I haven’t had as many frank conversations with him as I have with you in the last couple weeks. Come on, quit grilling me and help me out here.”

“So, what do you normally do if you’re not interested in a guy?”

“I blow them off, or avoid them. Avoidance, that’s my thing,” I admitted.

“Or, you could just have an honest conversation with him and tell him you aren’t interested.”

I had always done this with men. I didn’t know how to look them in the eye and just say ‘no.’ It was why… Tears sprang to my eyes. Oh, shit. I let out a huge sob. Oh, God. I couldn’t stop it.

Jack crossed the room quickly and sat beside me on the couch. The crying got worse. I buried my face in my hands. I just couldn’t make it stop. Jack put his arm around me and pulled me to his chest. I heaved and sobbed. He waited quietly and rubbed gentle circles on my arm.

Finally, my body started to calm down, but the tears were still streaming out of my eyes. I sniffed, and that raw snot sound came back to my ears. I felt Jack lean over, but I didn’t look up at him. Then a tissue touched my hand. I grabbed it and pressed it to my face. Jack’s big hand slid under my thighs. He picked me up and set me gently on his lap. I buried my head in the crook of his neck. This felt so nice.

Jack stroked my hair with one hand and gently rubbed my back with the other. I took in a deep breath. He smelled so good that I took another.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice cracking.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said softly.

“I just randomly fell apart on you. It’s embarrassing.”

“We’re friends, right? You should never be embarrassed in front of your friends.”

I looked up at him. “We are friends, Jack.”

“Yes.” He wiped a tear away from my cheek with his thumb. “So, you can talk to me. What’s wrong, Stacey? Did Brad do something, say something, to upset you?”

“No, Brad didn’t do anything.”

Jack let out a breath.

“It’s me. It’s my fault. Everything is my fault.” My voice cracked, and I felt the tears rise again. “I don’t know how to tell a guy fuck off. And that’s why when that fucker asked me to go to his house… I didn’t just say ‘no, fuck off.’ I should have.”

“Stacey,” Jack said softly.

“I was sixteen, Jack, sixteen and stupid.” I couldn’t stop talking. It was insane. No one other than my family even knew about this. And I hadn’t ever just melted down out of the blue like this before. After fourteen years, it was just flooding out of me. “I went with him, and then… Then it wrecked everything. And maybe that’s why I’m such a fuck-up now.” I re-buried my face in his neck.

“Shhh,” Jack whispered. “I think I know what you’re talking about.”

“You do?” I sniffed.

“Yeah, I’m piecing things together now.”

“What things?”

“I told you I looked through everyone’s personal information, all that I could get my hands on.”

My head snapped up. “There was something about me?” I was shaking now.

He stroked my cheek. “Shhh. Not about you. About Sean. He tried to visit a guy in prison a few times and was turned away by the guards. Then the guy was killed by a cellmate and they questioned Sean about it.”

I nodded. “He didn’t know the cellmate at all. I swear. But they figured he might have been behind the attack. He wasn’t.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t. But I did look up what the guy Sean had been trying to see did.”

“Rape,” I said softly.

“You,” he whispered.

“Yeah, me. I was sixteen. He was twenty-four. He was flirting with me at this college party I shouldn’t have been at in the first place. I snuck out with my friend Janel to go. Anyway, he lived across the hall and he said he wanted to show me something. And I went.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, I know, a million shrinks have told me that.”

“It’s true. You need to believe it.”

“I am not still fucked up over this, Jack,” I said defiantly. “I’m fine. I’m not a victim anymore. I have a healthy sex life, and I’m great.”

“Stacey, you choose emotionally unavailable, and quite frankly, slutty men, on purpose. You can’t look a man in the eye and tell him you are not interested in him. You may be fine in some ways, but not in others. Just accept it.”

God, he was so demanding, so honest. We never talked about this in my family. I never talked about this to anyone who wasn’t paid to listen. And here I was with this guy and he was telling me the same things all the damn shrinks had said, but this time it was sinking in.

“Okay,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I ask you more about it?”

“Sure.”

I expected him to ask about the guy. Did he we have to go to trial? How many years did he get? Why did Sean go down to the prison to see him? I could answer those questions. No trial, thank God. Because Janel and some guy from the party had gone looking for me, and caught the fucker in the act, we had a good case. I was lucky really. So many rapes went unpunished because there were no witnesses other than the victim. And even sometimes when there was, it didn’t matter. The system was not set up to help the victims of rape, and it was an uphill battle to actually prosecute someone of it. I knew that. But I’d had witnesses and a sympathetic D.A. on my side, and because of that, the dickhead who did it had pled guilty to fourth degree sexual assault. He’d gotten eighteen months in jail. It was an insult and I knew it, but I was too relieved not to have to be a victim on trial that I tried not to get pissed about it.

Sean, on the other hand, had been livid. He’d gone down to the prison to try to get the opportunity to get the guy alone and kick his ass, but some crazy inmate had killed him over a pack of cigarettes before Sean ever got the chance.

Jack didn’t ask me any of those questions. Instead he asked, “Did you get pregnant or get a disease from this asshole?”

I was taken aback. “No.”

“My mom wasn’t so lucky.”

My eyes grew wide. I could feel my jaw drop.

“She was sixteen, too. And he was rich, White, and the star of the high school wrestling team. He was a senior with a full-ride scholarship to Indiana State waiting for him. She was a shy Black girl from a middle-class family. No one believed her. Not the cops, not the school administrators. She was harassed by students and parents alike. So my grandparents moved right out of there. They sold their bakery and moved to Detroit. They decided together, the three of them, to keep me. My grandpa opened a new bakery in Hamtramck. My mom finished school. My grandma took care of me. But I wasn’t the only thing he left her with. He also gave her HPV. She died of cervical cancer when I was five.”

I threw my arms around Jack’s neck. “Oh my God, Jack. I’m so sorry.”

“See, now, why would you be sorry? Again, you have no fault, just like my mom didn’t.”

“What a terrible fucking story,” I said, more tears slipping out my eyes. “Nobody cared about her. At least the D.A. believed me.”

“My grandparents cared about her. I cared about her,” he said softly.

I sniffed. “Are your grandparents… Are they okay?”

“They’re fine. I can’t say they ever got over her death. But they loved the shit out of me. And they were extremely relieved when they discovered that she hadn’t passed the disease on to me during childbirth. I was a happy, healthy kid. They clung to that to get them through the tough times. It’s just the three of us now. That’s my whole family.” Jack took my chin between his thumb and forefinger and pulled my face up so I had to look him in the eye. “Would you like to meet them when we get to Detroit?”

I nodded. “Very much.”

Jack kissed my forehead. “Okay, we’ll have dinner with them.”

“Jack, I feel like an ass for having a meltdown on you.”

“It’s not a big deal, Stacey.”

“I’ve never told anyone about that, not even my friends. Only my family ever knew. I have no idea why I…”

“Well, I guess that makes me your first real friend, then.”

I looked up at him. “That sounds really pathetic. I have my first real friend at the age of thirty?”

He grinned. “Yeah, but it’s me. How much better could it get?”

I smiled at him and kissed his cheek. “Right now. I am so happy I met you, Jack.”

“Just right now?”

“I wasn’t so sure when you were standing in my brother’s kitchen wearing slacks.”

He chuckled.

“Or when you were sitting in that room watching like a creepy voyeur when I was trying to get my groove on with Alonso.”

“I wasn’t so glad I’d met you at that moment either, Princess.”

****

I pounded on the door to Jack’s hotel room. When he finally answered, I shoved my way inside and slammed the door behind me. It wasn’t until I was already in the room that I looked at him. My breath caught. He was wearing only a pair of shorts and a tight white tank top. His chest was broad and muscular, his arms shapely and firm, and his long runner’s legs were full of power and grace.

I tried to pull myself together, to focus on the task at hand. “I need your help.”

“Okay…?”

“I just told Brad that you and I are dating.”

“What? Why the hell would you do that?”

“Because I have to find a way to maintain a good relationship with him. He’s my sisters-in-law’s brother. I am stuck with this guy forever.”

“Well, honesty might be a good place to start.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed and looked up at him. “It’s not that simple. I can’t just tell him I’m not interested. He’ll get all weird around me.”

Jack sat down next to me. “So the plan is to have a fake boyfriend?”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, let’s overlook the fact that it is completely immature. How would you pull that off? Are you going to tell your whole family that we’re dating?”

“I guess I’d have to, yeah. Don’t worry, we’ll fake break up after a while.”

“Okay, look, I think this is stupid beyond belief, but I might actually agree to it if, and only if, you tell Sean about it.”

“What?”

Jack grinned.

“You think it’s a way out, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.”

I stood up and pointed my finger at him. “Okay, if Sean is cool, you’ll do it? For the next three days you’ll pretend to be my boyfriend until we get to Miami?”

“Sure.”

“Great.” I marched out of his room and down the hall to Sean’s.

Sean answered the door and looked at me quizzically. “You alright?”

“I’m fine.” I barged my way into his room.

Baby was just shutting the door to the bedroom at the far end of the suite. “Hey, Stac. Henry just went down. Finally.” She walked to Sean and stood beside him. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good. I, um, have something to tell you about.”

“Okay,” Sean said slowly.

“So, Brad’s been hitting on me.”

Baby groaned. “I’m sorry, Stacey.”

“Well, look, I needed a way to let him down easy, you know. So I told him that I was dating Jack.”