Weathering Jack Storm (Silver Strings G Series) (26 page)

“Whenever one of us drops out of the scene for good because of—a woman, we pay up. Twenty grand. And the others go to Vegas on it.”

“Twenty thousand dollars...” It wasn’t a question. She drew the words out as an unreality.

“Apiece.” Jack was unbothered. “So sixty total. It’s not the money. I just hate to lose. And I hate to give it to those jackasses when I could spend it on you and Tristan.”

Seeing the amount money thrown around still disturbed her, even when she was the recipient. She knew firsthand how many families needed that money for food, for life and death matters, not booze, cars, houses, and whatever frivolity their heart desired.

Jack was generous, in tipping, in the amount of the charity checks Emma had passed around for the band member signatures the day of the drop party. So she kept quiet. The last thing she wanted to do was insult his way of living since it was now hers. However, she made a resolution to look into charities as well as individual cases especially those similar to Tristan’s.

Instead, unable to get the double D’s plastered to Jack’s face out of her head, she took up another issue. “Is that what goes down on tour? What happened tonight?”

“Not if you don’t want it to.” His quiet answer was quick, as if he had been waiting for this avenue of conversation. “I will make sure I am nowhere around the T and A...except yours...” His hand settled farther down her waist but possibly respectful of their fight did not slide intimately to her backside.

How she wanted to hold him to that impossible vow. A promise that she knew he could only break. He was Jack Storm. Groupies got backstage. Even with the best intentions to keep that promise, there would be times that he would have to literally run or lock himself away somewhere.

“It’s fine.” She spoke against his chest. “Just don’t ever do it in front of me again. And—don’t ever cheat on me, Jack. Not even a little.”

He pulled back to look into her eyes. Although she half expected him to ask what ‘a little’ meant, he obviously understood, and she exterminated the image of some groupie on her knees in front of him.

“I would never, Mariss. I swear to you that.”

“
WE ROLL OUT IN
twenty minutes? Just double checking,” Dax asked from entry hall. One of Jack’s bags hung on his shoulder, and Jack’s laptop case was in his hand.

Jack flashed a grin and cut his eyes from her to his assistant. “Oh I know what you are doing. And it’s not double checking.” At this, Dax actually ducked his head in humility, and Jack went on, “Yes, twenty minutes. Go get gas or something. ”

“What was he doing?” Marissa wondered from her perch at the bottom of the stairs. For almost an hour, she had watched them load the car. The previous evening, a crew had arrived, loading, and leaving with the gear that was going with him.

Jack dropped to the stair beside her and played with her hair. “It was a subtle reminder to get started if we are having one last time for the road.”

“Oh.” Her eyes dropped to their feet, absently comparing the size of his against hers. She and Jack had been up all night ‘saying good-bye.’

Tender. Desperate. Whimsical. Passionate. Their last sex before he went on the road had been expressed a half a dozen different ways.

Pressing her thumb and forefinger to the corners of her eyes, she closed them as she leaned her head on his shoulder and whispered, “This is so hard.”

“I know honey. Believe me, I know...”

His face dropped to her hair, and when his arm wrapped her waist, she dropped one of hers hooking his jean encased thigh. His breathing became ragged with emotion, and when he moved his head in a slight nuzzle, her lips pressed to the soft cotton of his tee shirt.

“I’m going to go tell Tristan bye. I will be right back...”

Propping her elbows on her knees, she dropped her head summoning all her self-control not to cry. Jack was back in five minutes, and this time he hauled her into his lap as he sat down.

The kiss was gentle, desperate, wild, and sweet. On and on, until his phone beeped. Stiffening, he brushed his lips against hers and then crushed them to her one last time.

Her body immediately chilled without his warmth, and her ears cringed against the click of the door latch.

The house felt suddenly and sickeningly empty. For five minutes, she glumly stared at the door before weakly pulling herself up from the stairs. In a drunken like stagger, she trudged the hall, pausing to check on Tristan, where he was napping on the couch with Rusty, before continuing to the end.

The music room. Twisting the knob, she leaned against the door before pushing it open. With a flip of the light, she ignored the directors’ chairs, sliding instead to the floor with her back against the wall.

The wall opposite where she sat was her focus. The blank spots, where guitars always hung, stood out now that they were empty. Nine. He had taken nine total, and she occupied her brain by recalling practices and creating a game of placing which guitar was missing with which song it went with.

From the other room, she heard the lone beep of her phone and surged to her feet. Tristan looked up as she sprinted into the den, but sleepily went back to his show.

J
ACK

Missing you something awful

11:45 PM

♪♫¨♫♪

“He sent a text less than fifteen minutes after leaving,” Marissa made the confession to Olivia. The phone was on speaker and propped on the counter top, as she m
oved around the kitchen cooking cheese Quesadillas. “And he calls as soon as he wakes up, and we text all day. In fact, a couple of times, we talked all day since this part of the tour they are in the bus.”

Marissa turned to the stove hiding her smile of recollection. They had done way more than talk. They had Skyped through one dirty phone session as, on his end his bandmates slept, and on her end Tristan slept. Then, there were the innocent Skypes where the iPad sat on the counter top while they all ate breakfast or lunch together.

“And the guy Dax is there with you and Tristan?” Olivia brought Marissa out of her pleasant reverie.

“Sort of. He’s not around much.” As she replied, she tossed Dax’s Quesadillas on a plate and set them aside for when he raided the kitchen later. At first, Dax seemed surprised any time she cooked extra servings for him, but quickly accustomed to it, he began hopefully searching the fridge when he came in.

“Tell me about the lingerie shoot,” Olivia prompted.

Marissa grabbed the phone clicking the speaker off even though Tristan, who was in the den slamming out chords on his guitar, could not hear the conversation. “I went out to lunch with Randi and–”

“I still think that is weird,” Olivia interrupted.

Again, Marissa contemplated telling her best friend the truth of Jack and Randi’s relationship, but it felt like betraying Jack in some way, since he himself did not even know the truth. “Well I’m good with it. So anyway, over lunch, and you would not believe the salads at this place, I never thought I would eat sushi, but sushi salad is amazing–”

“O-M-G!” Olivia, who had not spoken in acronyms in years, busted out with one of her old favorites. “It’s not bad enough you are a California girl on the verge of modeling lingerie...you are becoming a sushi girl?”

In that moment, Marissa wished her friend was on Skype. How she had missed those blue eyes dancing in amusement as she hurled some insult. Falling right back into their pattern, Marissa dished it back to her.

“Shut up Liv! And I’m not modeling lingerie –”

“But you said–”

“Randi talked me into a shoot. But the pictures are for Jack’s eyes only.” Marissa went on to reiterate that the photos were strictly as a surprise for Jack’s upcoming birthday.

“Except Jack will probably go ballistic knowing someone else saw you like that long enough to take the pictures,” Olivia wisely pointed out.

“No. That is what is different about this. This photographer has set up an automatic studio.” Marissa defended and went on to explain.

The camera had a light on it. Red, yellow, green. It took a digital picture every three seconds. A screen on the wall in the room had a model prompting through suggested poses. In the end, the digital card was given to her to preview and to keep or delete the three hundred different pictures. The offer to have them professionally touched up and printed for a portfolio was there if she wanted.

“It is like an elite photo booth,” she finished with a joking comparison to the coin operated machines.

“That just sounds weird, Rissa. But the possibilities...Is that all you did was a lingerie shoot?” her friend goaded.

“Yes!” Marissa lied.

Olivia asked her to send one of the photos, but Marissa refused explaining that she wanted Jack to be the first to see. That was the truth because she had done so much more than strip to a beautiful undergarment set.

The pictures were in her cloud storage, and after ending the call with Olivia, she slid through them silently appraising herself. The pictures were as glamorous as any she had seen in print. The preparation and process had taken all day while Tristan had played with his cousins at Candace’s house. The morning had begun with an airbrush tan of a light natural shade, and her hair and nails had been done again, as well as–

“Mom, is lunch ready?”

“Yeah Mom. Is lunch ready?”

Marissa dropped the phone. Frantically, she snatched it up, clearing the sexy screen while sending Dax a grin of greeting. She was seven years older than he was, but this was the second time this week that his nearness had flustered her. If he felt some sort of sexual tension, he never let on, easily falling into little brother role.

Strolling off with his and Tristan’s food, he stopped long enough to set Tristan’s lunch up on the sofa table and then plopped on the couch himself.

It was okay to be attracted to someone else sometimes, she reminded herself. This was happening because Dax always looked hot right out of bed, and she had been almost a week with no Jack.

As if reading her mind, Dax called, “Jack’s coming in for a night tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah.” Marissa stood at the top of the step leading to the sunken den while munching her own Quesadilla.

“I am not doing much the next couple of days. I was thinking that Tristan and I would hang out some. If you have anywhere you need to go today, or tomorrow, go for it.” There had not been many opportunities yet to enjoy her newest shiny red toy. Even the other day Randi had picked her up.

♪♫¨♫♪

Sleep did not come easy these nights with Jack gone. That first night she had rolled around in her bed for an hour trying to get comfortable before falling asleep. The next night was much the same. She imagined Jack taking the stage as Tristan growled his own lyrics as he showered. She read his story then with a final kiss crossed through the bathroom to her guest room. Jerking the spread back, she stood for an indecisive moment before moving down the hall to the masters suite. After staring at the large empty bed, she turned, leaving the automatic lamp on and paused at the spare room across from her own and Tristan’s.

The room was mainly a junk room, with old amps, tower computers and other paraphernalia cluttering it. She had learned that prior to her in, Dax had occupied the room she now slept in, which to her relief, explained the clothing in the dresser. Out of boredom, she eyed this room’s dresser, and since the area was tighter, was able to sit on the foot of the bed and pull open a drawer.

No tee shirts or clothing was hidden away. Instead a mass of cell phones was crammed into the space. Dumbfounded, she observed the various models, some older flip tops. Slide pads. Newer cell tops. The last several years lay before her arrayed in dozens of the phones and in many cases their cords.

Curious, she selected a few and searched the room for random plugs. This was silly, and immensely invasive, but she began going through the first when there was barely enough power to turn it on. Female numbers far outweighed the guys and the texts. She couldn’t look away and the one liners became a blur.

‘Baby what are you wearing?’

‘Same thing you saw me in last’

‘I’m going to take a wild guess and assume that means nothing?’

‘Really, you have to guess, you don’t remember?’

‘Course I do. Just wanted you all feisty.’

‘Baby the next few weeks are going to be crazy busy, no time for texts…’

And that was the end of Shelia.

‘Girl, I just cracked a rib laughing so hard. Love talking to you.’

‘Love talking to you Jack Storm but mostly I love—’

Marissa jerked her gaze away. Yeah, she loved that herself…Next girl.

‘Want me to leave some passes at the Detroit show?’

‘For you and a girlfriend, just making that clear, unless your man wants to watch?’

Fresh irritation pricked toward Jack Storm and not the Jack Loren she loved.