by Alisa Mullen
“Do you think you might be able to make it to Boston sometime soon?” I asked him on the short boat ride back.
“I want to. Would you have me for a few days? Am I allowed back into the lair of Julia Delaney?” He smirked at me and I gave him the stink eye.
“I would love it if you came to visit,” I assured him. We kissed softly and that seemed to break the compounded ice that the morning had produced.
FIFTEEN
We took a cab to Fifth Avenue because I was in desperate need of new jeans. We decided on Saks and when we entered, Brennan went one way and I went the other. It was amusing and eye opening that we were comfortable enough to be independently together. I didn’t like shopping big stores but the rocker clothes were staples of the outfits that showcased my image on stage and in front of media. After forty five minutes or so, I had acquired a couple pairs of awesome jeans and some rocking designer shirts for the upcoming tour.
Shit, I thought. I had an upcoming tour without the possibility of seeing Brennan.
In that moment, I was anxious to see him. Knowing I soon wouldn’t even talk to him on the phone, I felt compelled to go to him and suck up every minute we had together. I combed through the expansive men’s area and found him trying on a dark brown bomber jacket that Saks should have specifically asked him to model for their catalog.
“What do you think?” Brennan asked skeptically when he looked up to find me with my mouth agape. Did he think I hated it? Was my look not expressing how darn right sexy he was in that jacket?
“I think I want to fuck you in the dressing room,” I laughed.
Brennan actually turned a slight shade of pink. He shook his head at me and gave me a disdainful look. “You and I don’t fuck, Julia. We make love. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
So he was annoyed and grumpy about how I perceived our relationship. Interesting but not crucial. It didn’t matter if I called it fucking or making love because either way, he would go home to his wife and I would hit the road. Couldn’t he feel the end of our time together speeding up like a train that was just about to make its abrupt stop?
I felt it. I heard the damn train’s whistles loud and clear.
“So you like it?” he muttered as he pulled it off and checked the label. Damn, he was in a crap ass mood. We went from playfulness to quiet to irritation. The emotional roller coaster was making us both sick.
“If you don’t buy that jacket, I will never make love to you again,” I sassed him, trying to help him feel some sun rays of positivity. Wow, I did truly care about what Brennan felt. It was a first for me to actually want to see a man happy. So weird.
“Sold.” He retorted. Good, he’s back.
He pulled on a grey looking pea coat that closely resembled mine. God damn. I was going to rigorously have my way with him tonight and tomorrow morning. I yawned, remembering we didn’t sleep a single minute the night before. That made me smile. It was a fucking fantastic feeling.
“So where are the dressing rooms in the men’s department?” I asked as I started looking for the signs hanging from the ceiling.
“Really? This one, too?”
“Absolutely. Please. You must get them both.” I begged. “Are you getting hungry? Should we do room service tonight or go out?”
“Let’s do one more dinner out and then we can do room service for breakfast. Or... I could just eat you for breakfast,” he smoothly said as he took my hands and wrapped them underneath the pea coat and around his waist. It... he smelled so delicious. The sexy new coat overwhelmed my senses and I about crawled up his body. I wanted in.
Brennan insisted on paying for our purchases while I hung back and pouted. I made all of this money and yet the guy had to be chivalrous. I was playing a part though. Secretly, it was absolutely foreign to me for a man to pay for everything so I quietly thanked him with a kiss. He beamed at me as he pulled his beanie back on to brave the cold once more.
With bags in hand, Brennan and I made our way back to the hotel. I collapsed on the couch and shucked off everything I could with the remaining energy I had. Brennan finished pulling off the rest as I gave him a deliriously happy smile. He gave one right back at me while he undressed down to his boxer briefs and crawled behind me to spoon. Spooning was awesome. Wait. Did I just think that?
“I agree,” Brennan confirmed. No, I didn’t just think that. I said it out loud to another person. Who was I and what happened to ‘just sex’ Jules? We fell asleep almost immediately to the late afternoon sounds of Manhattan.
A few hours later, I woke up to a hand slowly circling my stomach and going lower down into my panties. I let out an exhilarated sigh and hummed.
“Hi,” I whispered.
“Hi,” he softly said.
The rest of our communication involved hands and legs and circles and moans. He treated me like the dessert we had had the night before and I loved every moment of it. When we had regulated our breathing, I asked the first thought that came to my mind. I had zero filter with Brennan and I knew it would probably get me in deep.
“Do you and Amelia want children?” I inquired. I asked so casually that I even surprised myself. Everything about our situation was so surreal. I didn’t know why I wasn’t jumping up and down and whining for him to pick me.
Brennan stilled his lazy hand movement and I believed he began to hold his breath. I waited a while before I turned towards him for an answer.
“Bren? Kids?” I asked.
“I want children,” he deadpanned.
“Ha! That wasn’t my question and you know it,” I teased.
“Julia, I don’t want to talk about Amelia. Not when I am with you. Do I want kids? Yes. Does she? I think so. But we are far from that happening. Very, very far.” His last words spoke volumes but I didn’t dare to ask why. He said he didn’t want to talk about her so I let it go. If I were Amelia, I never would have asked for an open relationship and I certainly would want his children. Again, another revelation. It was time to admit it. I was in love with Brennan. It killed me.
“Let’s get ready for dinner,” Brennan suggested. “I want to take you to this awesome Polish restaurant in Brooklyn.”
“Alright but won’t that be weird? I mean, you and your wife live there. What if you run into people you know?” I asked cautiously.
Brennan shrugged and started to pull us both up. He slapped my ass and told me to get moving. I kissed him one more time before finding my new clothes and making myself look hot just in case we did run into someone. Maybe even one someone.
Just as we were about to open the door, I heard Brennan’s phone buzz from his jeans’ pocket. I looked down at it and waited for him to pull it out to answer. He didn’t move but opened the door for me, briefly kissing my temple as I walked through. The buzzing started again as we walked down the hall to the elevator. I stopped, leaned up against the wall, and crossed my arms.
“You need to answer your phone?” I asked.
“You haven’t answered your phone so I won’t answer mine,” he retorted.
“I didn’t turn mine back on. You did,” I faintly accused him.
“Well, I meant to turn mine off after I checked my messages for work,” he snapped back, looking more uncomfortable as we continued to banter about his phone buzzing. Just as I started to say that he didn’t subconsciously ask for Amelia to call, the buzzing started again and he groaned. I was officially put off. He wanted to talk to her. This was turning into a fucking nightmare. Maybe one night, this situation would replace my age old nightmare about Grace.
He grabbed it out of his pocket and pushed a button.
“What?” he barked into the phone. I heard a female’s voice through the other end. It was so damn quiet in the hall and I felt like I was a voyeur looking in on his phone call.
“Baby, slow down,” Brennan said in a gentle voice. I sucked in my breath at the mention of him calling the woman his baby. I was his baby. Wasn’t I?
“Ok,” he said and
started to pace up and down the hall, while I stood there like a fucking afterthought.
“So where are you now?” he asked with concern. He flashed his eyes over to me, as I bit my lip from yelling out that he should have never ever answered the phone. Or maybe I bit my lip to discourage the sob that my body needed to release. The shakes were coming back and I didn’t want him to see. This was all wrong.
“Ok,” he barked into the phone. “Yes, yes!”
He was leaving me. He was leaving me to go to her. His wife. I came all the way to New York City for him and now... I looked like the biggest fucking dumbass this side of the earth. He punched the off button and looked at me with resolve. Brennan shoved his hands into his pockets and then took them out again. I watched him do that and run his fingers through his hair several times.
“I guess we aren’t going out for dinner?” I asked, inspecting a cuticle so that I appeared unfazed by the change in events.
“Julia. I am so, so sorry,” he emphasized as he came over to crowd my space. I held up my hands so he didn’t come any closer.
“Julia,” he started. I shook my head in anger and disgust that cloaked over my whole body.
“I am not your baby, Brennan,” I said so slowly that a two year old would be able to understand. “She is your baby. But I suppose you didn’t notice that you just called her that?”
“Fucking wait a minute, okay? Amelia is sick. She needs me to go to the store.” Brennan scrunches his face as he thinks.
”Oh! We can just stop on the way to dinner. It’ll only delay us ten minutes, at most… ” he surmised.
“Fuck that! Go home, Brennan. Take care of your wife. This was a mistake. A big fucking huge monumental fuck up. I have no idea what the hell I was thinking. You’re married and I... ” Damn myself for not being able to finish that sentence. I had the word permanently etched into my brain. I am the slut.
“Julia, listen. I didn’t want to talk about her because she and I are taking a break. I wanted this time just to be about us. I don’t know why she is calling me. I mean, she does have other people she can call but she sounds scared. I feel like I should just check. I honestly didn’t mean to call her baby,” he noted with a look that said he was being serious. But the truth was he did call her baby. That word was etched in his brain. For her.
“A break?” I asked. “What does that even mean?”
“Uh,” he groaned as he cursed under his breath. “She has been fucking my friend and he wasn’t on our safe list. Our ground rules were broken. I can’t... I don’t trust her and besides I can’t even look at any woman, including my fucking wife! You have ruined me. Even for her, the one I thought was forever. And it is so fucking confusing, Julia.”
My mouth dropped open in shock. I didn’t know what to say. He was separated from his wife? Amelia slept with an unapproved person. He didn’t trust her. He wanted only me and yet, he was running, no sprinting to help her now?
I couldn’t get involved. I didn’t want any part of their fucked up relationship. The more rules a relationship had, the more ridiculously confusing it was. Words were just words until you saw those words in action.
Right now, Brennan’s actions said, “I’m sorry Jules. I want to fuck you all night long, but I need to go take care of the love of my life, who happens to be my wife.”
I turned and walked back down to my door. I pulled the key card out of my back pocket and slipped it through the metal lock. I barely heard him calling my name as I continued to curse myself over and over again. When the door slammed shut behind me, I went to the bar and poured myself three shots of tequila and I took them one right after another.
I wondered who would come rescue me if I got sick. Oh, right.
No one.
SIXTEEN
I was officially the drunken door mat for men. I thought about creating a personal ad on craigslist, in case there were men out there that needed a woman to walk on. Brennan never came back to the room that night, or maybe he did and the loud music I blared while dancing to tequila, answered his knock. I switched on my cell phone and there it was. He had called or texted every ten minutes, begging me not to leave the city. A text came through as I was deleting my voicemails.
Brennan: Julia. Please. I haven’t slept. You can’t push me away. Please open your door.
I furrowed my brows and reread the text. Open the door? Open what door?
Me: What door?
Ten seconds later, as I watched my phone screen, there was a hard knocking on the suite door so loud, it had to be waking up the rest of the hotel guests. I threw off my covers and ran to the door.
I opened it and grabbed his jacket to pull him through the door.
“What the hell are you doing? You will wake up the entire hotel, if you haven’t already,” I scowled as I bore my eyes into his red, puffy ones. Had he... been crying?
“Brennan? What is wrong?” I asked, feeling a bit taken back by his visually emotional state.
“I left you. I have ached to hold you for months but the minute Amelia called, I left you to be with her. And after all of that? It was a fucking test,” his voice started to grow in volume.
I shook my head in confusion. “I am not understanding, Brennan. What is a fucking test?”
“She pretended to be sick to see if I would leave you,” he said slowly and with ultimate disgust. “We have never played games. She is playing games.”
“Brennan. You are supposed to go to her. She is your wife,” I said adamantly. “I may not know all of the rules of an open relationship, but I am pretty sure that your marriage always comes first. I knew what I was doing when I came to see you. I wanted you. I mean, I want you but now... I also feel... I mean, I have never felt more dirty or filthy than I do right now.”
“You are not... ” I cut him off by covering his mouth with my palm. He wasn’t one to talk. In my eyes, he was just as fucked up as me. That’s why I need to save us both and make him leave.
“I need you to leave now,” I husked out in my tequila hangover morning breath.
“I can’t. I need to be around you. I am not trying to hurt you. There is something between us and it has made me so unhappy these past months. I am so unhappy in my marriage. I think it is you, Julia. It has been you. Please. Just give me today. Just friends. You came all this way to see me and I fucked it up. Please. Just today and I turned off my phone,” he said as he pulled it from his pocket to show me.
My heart wasn’t in this anymore. I wanted to brood over my half ass life. Brennan wasn’t worth all of this misery. He was a married man who was too complicated, too beautiful, and he brought out shit in my past that continually reminded me of my poor choices. Brennan was one more poor choice. I smiled sadly at him when I thought that.
My phone chirped. I looked down at it and saw Johnny’s smiling face on my phone and a warm blanket wrapped around me as I looked at him. I clicked the button.
“Johnny?”
“Jules.” His voice was resolute. He knew where I was. He sounded mad but was trying not to show it. I was the only one who could call him on his bullshit.
“Yes, Johnny. I am in the city. Where are you?” I asked as I started to walk back to my bedroom to put on pants. Brennan was following me. I could feel him seething... or sulking. He was a wreck but I couldn’t find it in me to show him that I cared. When I turned to see how far into the room he was, he was leaning against the door jamb with a tight grip on it. Johnny and Brennan officially want to murder one another and I need the hair of the dog.
“Jules, have you looked outside your hotel this morning?” Johnny asked in his big brotherly voice that sometimes reminds me of Kent. Like right now actually.
“No, why would I?” I asked slowly.
“Um, maybe because you were sucking face with married douche at the Statue of Liberty on Madfame last night and the paparazzi followed you to your hotel?”
My breath stopped. I slowly dropped the cell phone on the bed and looked out the window. I not
iced television vans but it was the front side of the hotel. I could get out the back. Up until now, our disguises, pseudo names, lay low public appearances, and limited video/photo shoots kept us out of the limelight. But now? This was the official start of a game on field day.
This was a monumental fuck up. They had been waiting to pounce on me like ketchup on French fries and then splatter their assumed, but correct, opinions of me being the world’s biggest slut in the American rock scene today. Nick and Johnny protected my image. I practically made every guy swear on their lives. I took pictures of their dicks and kept them safe on a hard drive. I had not done this with Brennan. I hadn’t done anything “just sex” Jules did with him.
LSP was a popular up and coming solid rock band but as individual members of the bigger umbrella of the rock world, we had decided that we would never become independently famous over lies and drama in the rock celebrity scene. We limited our appearances. Everything was handled through our tour manager, Danielle, who reported back to our distant manager in LA. I had never even met the guy, Bob something or another, but I think Danielle received a ton of pressure from him. She protected us as like she would her children. She was damn good at it.
But now?
I had blown our image–my image–and Danielle might not like me so much anymore. That would hurt. LSP always stated in interviews that it was about the music when asked about relationships and everyday life. Always. But we were fooling ourselves, especially now that we were hitting it real big. We couldn’t walk around like other normal people and make out with married men in the airport waiting area. Those days of “Just Jules” were over. It made me despise the choice to follow my dreams of making it big. Shit would hit the fan and yes, our ratings would go up. But everyone who cared about the band’s image would be crawling up my ass, too.
I returned to the bed and picked up the phone to Johnny still talking.
“Echo at nine o’clock. I don’t want to wait that long to get you out of there though. Is he there right now?” he asked, venom spitting through the phone and poisoning my ear drum with every word. I nodded my head as I looked at Brennan. He had relaxed his stance. He walked to the window out of curiosity. If he had spent the night in the hotel hall, he had no idea either.