I freeze. “What?”
She swallows, her voice going hoarse. “You know how many different times Danny went after you and I sat on the other end of a silent phone line, scared as fuck that you were going to get him killed?” Neither of us can blink; our eyes locked together, lost in that time none of us like to remember. “When he dragged you back from that godforsaken motel in Idaho, you told me you were a curse, that you didn’t deserve to be anywhere near your friends. You were right.”
Goosebumps flare along with nausea all through my body. I believe her. Christ, honesty is written in every line of her and I’m going to be sick.
“Then, you were right. Now? Absolutely not,” she says. “You chose to be different, Jax, and I watched you bust your fucking ass to change for us. For him.” Her fingers clench so tight I hear her knuckles creak. “So I’m asking you again, what are you going to do about it? Because I don’t think I can watch you spend your whole life not being good enough for girls like Ava.”
My next breath sticks painfully in my lungs.
Could she be right? Maybe this time could be different. I’ve learned so much, worked so damn hard. Maybe this is just a glitch, not an addiction. If I study it closely enough and try hard enough, maybe I can design a system to fix me.
It has to be true. I can’t keep feeling like this, and I don’t know if there’s enough sex in the world to erase it. Especially not if Danny...
“Any chance you want a project to keep your mind off things?” I ask Kate. Something sharp flickers through my chest. It’s not hope; it’s more like desperation.
“God, yes.”
“Good,” I say. “Because I’m going to need your help. And a lot of glue.”
Chapter 13: Curtain Call
I nod at the passing roadies, my fingers beating out a rhythm against my jeans as I lean against the wall outside Ava’s dressing room. My limbs are blasting with energy despite my lack of sleep. I check the time again, trying to stifle my urge to grab an amp and start helping with the lift and tote. After a 3 a.m. trip to Walmart and about twenty gleeful minutes of breaking shit in the parking lot, Kate and I played arts and crafts until dawn. Then, once we got to the hotel, I skipped a nap in favor of getting my hair highlighted so the blond is more surfer than dishwater.
Maybe it’s stupid, but I need all the help I can get. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve tried to coax a girl into caring about me for longer than one night.
Danny passes on his way to our dressing room, and nods to me. I jerk my chin in return, my eyes sliding away from him before I complete the movement. I push off the wall, craning my neck to see if any dust or drywall settled onto the back of the button-down black shirt Kate chose because she said it made my eyes “pop.” A buzzing comes from my pocket. I jam my fingers in my haste to get it out, the curse dying on my lips when I see the name on the screen.
My pulse doubles, the artery in my neck pounding so hard I can barely swallow. Her number has shown up exactly twice since I got out of rehab. I swap hands and answer my phone with my left as my right slides into my pocket to grip my six-month chip. “Hi, Mom. How are you?”
“I’m well, thank you, Jackson. How is your concert tour?”
“Great,” I say automatically, glancing around. If I go back to our dressing room for privacy, I might miss Ava, and I’ve only got another twenty minutes to catch her before Jera and I are supposed to do a little jam session on YouTube for a popular songwriter’s channel.
The pause is only a heartbeat longer than polite before Mom says, “I was calling because I hoped I might count on your help with something.”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” My voice half-cracks and I feel suddenly like the scrawny pre-teen I used to be, back when Mom and I were still close.
She divorced my dad when I was a kid, and by the time I was ten, I was stepping into his place to help her host parties. She used to be proud of the way I could hold an adult conversation about politics before I hit junior high, though my grades were never quite high enough, my roles in school plays never important enough. Still, she always stuck with me, telling me I could do better, until the final, biggest disappointment. We didn’t talk much after I turned down the spot she wrangled for me at Dartmouth in favor of the community college admission I earned in Portland.
“Of course. What can I do?” I struggle to sound competent instead of puzzled. My skills these days aren’t something my mom’s social group exactly...prizes. Back when I worked at UPS, I made logistics coordinator younger than anyone ever had, but Mom preferred to tell people I worked in “imports and exports.”
She explains. Something about a fundraiser, a music theme, an auction. Her tiny Park Avenue world is exactly the same as it was when I left eight years ago.
“You want me to attend?” I blink at the opposite wall, already re-arranging schedules in my head. If I don’t sleep, and I shove the press off on Jera, I might be able to piece the flights together in the seventeen-hour turnaround between shows. Maybe. I should get a new tuxedo, though. Mine may be custom-tailored, but Mom would prefer something with more classic lines. If she’s finally ready to see me again, I don’t want anything to make her reconsider her decision.
“No, that won’t be necessary, Jackson. I’m sure you’re very busy.”
I turn away from the flow of foot traffic, staring at the wall as I clear my throat. “Right, of course not.”
“However, the organizers were very interested in your career, and they felt your autographed guitar would be a good choice for the centerpiece of the auction. Could you arrange for it to be shipped?”
“Yeah, no problem. Electric or acoustic?” If it’d thaw the phone lines between us, I’d mail her my left damned leg.
She hesitates. “Do you play both?”
“Uh, yeah, Mom, I play both.” I keep my voice low so no one will hear, and try not to fidget at the shrinking sensation in my chest. I don’t know how I had convinced myself she would have looked up our videos on YouTube, or downloaded a song or two off iTunes just out of curiosity. I mean, I get that rock shows aren’t a Chanel-suit kind of scene, but...I don’t know. I always just thought maybe she would.
“Well, whichever will be more recognizable from your concerts.”
I freeze with my hand half-way out of my pocket. “Wait, you want my guitar,” I clarify. “Not a guitar?”
“Yes, Jackson. That is what I said.” Delicate irritation colors her tone. She always hated having to repeat herself.
I press my free hand to the wall to be sure the hallway is still steady. My Les Paul is already on stage in its brand-new stand, the cushioning deep and safe against the layers of scratches on its backside. From the matte metal of the belt buckles I wear now, the big silver ones of my short cowboy phase in high school, the skull-adorned clasp of the riveted belt I wore when I first bought the thing freshman year. That was back when cash came easy, courtesy of my family’s money that never stopped flowing until the day I checked into rehab.
I’ve always been a saver—I’ve seen too many family friends lose their ass in the stock market to be anything else—but every time I’ve balanced my spreadsheets since then, the smaller numbers are a glaring reminder that I was the first Sterling to have to get professional help to manage my behavior. That hurts a hell of a lot more than the faint pinch of my perfectly adequate monthly budget. I push the thought away and focus on the first favor she’s asked me for since I left for college.
I hate saying no to her so much I almost give in, but...“Mom, we’re on tour. I sort of need my guitar.”
“Surely your career is successful enough it won’t be a strain to purchase another?” Her voice seems to recoil from its own words, irritated by the crass discussion of money. I feel all the ground I might have gained growing slippery beneath my feet.
“Could you auction something else? My car or something?” It’s a lease, but I could find a way to pay it off. Or at least I could have yesterday. The phone grows slick with sweat an
d I swap hands and scrub my palm down the leg of my jeans. I’ve been saving money for a down payment on a bigger condo, but it’s been a slow process. You can’t exactly take girls out to Chili’s when they’re expecting you to roll high like a real rock star, and you sure can’t take them home to a futon in a studio apartment. So I shelled out for travertine countertops and the river view, but that means I barely have room for a couch for my friends to crash on, and they all come in couples these days. I just wanted a guest room so they could stay over, but this morning that dream went up in smoke along with an e-receipt for a donation to Girls Kick Ass that I didn’t regret at all until right this second.
“A car would be off-theme,” Mom says. “This is important, Jackson. Chloe Robideaux is chairing this year, and you know how much I need her husband’s support if I want to secure the venue for my Toys for Tots benefit this Christmas.”
“Yeah, I know.” She’s done that one for over a decade. Ironic, considering all my toys were cleared out of our apartment on my fourth birthday, so I could concentrate on my lessons. Violin, dancing, golf, tennis, French, and Italian. Though not Spanish, which would have been actually useful.
The click of heels jerks me back to the present, and I turn. Ava’s expression changes when she sees me, Dean nearly bumping into her when she stops immediately after rounding the corner. No wonder: the last time I saw her, she’d just kissed me and I was running away like the world’s biggest pussy.
Fortunately, it’s not hard to look chagrined with my mom’s disapproval blasting silently through my phone. I give Ava a hangdog half-smile, and move the phone a little so I can mouth, “I’m sorry.”
She bites her lip.
I hold up a finger, hoping she’ll agree to talk to me when I get off the phone. She nods, then hurries into her dressing room.
“I’ll send the guitar, Mom.” It’ll redline my credit card, but I bet I can find a used Les Paul Deluxe that’s the same color as mine. It might even max out two cards, if I assume Mom’s friends actually know their shit and realize I’ve got one of the 2005 Pete Townshend signature editions, the Bordeaux-red with Grover tuners. Only seventy-four others existed when I bought mine, and that was twelve years ago. God only knows how hard it’ll be to find one in decent condition today.
“I would appreciate that.” She pauses. “Are you doing all right? Traveling can be...taxing.”
My shoulders clench, and it sends pain barking through my ribs. Deliberately, I relax. “I’m clean, Mom. I’ve been working the program.”
“Good. That’s...” She clears her throat. “I do hope you’re being discrete. I understand the meetings in that program are somewhat less anonymous than they advertise. It wouldn’t do for anything unpleasant to leak to the press.”
My laugh bites at my throat. “Think that ship has sailed, Mom.”
“When you went to that program, for instance. The entire two months you were missing, reporters followed me to try to find which facility you were located at.” She makes a small noise of irritation. “If I had flown down there, I’m certain they would have been pushing their recorders through every open window at you.”
I turn so my back is to the passing roadies. Would she have come to family therapy, if it weren’t for the reporters? “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Mom. I’ll send the guitar as soon as I can get a replacement, okay?” A pang of loss rips through my fingers, like they already miss the frets. But what kind of selfish asshole can’t give up a guitar for his own mother? It’s just a guitar, and I owe her better than a crappy stand-in. What if she really did want to come to see me in rehab but she was trying to protect me from the press? She’s never been great at saying the things that are really important to her.
“I do appreciate your help,” she says. “Maybe we should discuss a visit, once your concert tour is over?”
“I’d uh—I’d like that.”
Ava’s door opens, and my pulse rockets into a panicky sprint.
“Hey, Mom, I have to get going, okay? I hope your fundraiser goes well.” I hang up and shove my phone back into my pocket, the case tapping against my six-month chip.
Ava emerges from the room. She opens her mouth to speak, then shifts gears when she sees my face. “Bad news?” she asks.
“Nope. Just me, being a shitty son.” The words pop out of my mouth before I think about how dickish that will sound. Fuck. I was supposed to be at my best when I saw her this time, not just off the phone with my mom for the first time in months. Dizziness shifts the hallway beneath my feet and I battle the urge to run. I need to close the curtain, take this one again from the top.
“Somehow I doubt that,” she says softly. I focus on her dark eyes, letting the emotional hangover from that phone call recede into the back of my mind. Ava lifts the object in her hands. It’s a cheap plastic bowl, and she holds it upside down, the hallway lights glittering off the shards of broken glass glued to the outside. “Any chance you know where this came from?”
Kate and I made dozens of the armored plastic bowls last night, and she made sure that one would be placed in Ava’s dressing room before we arrived at each venue for the rest of the tour. I hope like hell I read Ava right, and didn’t just plant several dozen unhappy reminders for her.
“Nobody gets to make your choices for you,” I say. She defended that right once with a plastic bowl. I just wanted to make sure she’d have a better weapon if anybody pushed it in the future.
For a moment, her expression doesn’t change, and I deflate a little more with each passing second. It was supposed to be romantic, an apology and a sentimental gesture to remind her of the secrets we’ve shared. Of the ways we understand each other that other people don’t seem to. But now I just feel like an asshole asking a girl out with a Walmart salad bowl covered in broken bottles instead of a bouquet of flowers.
She peeks up at me, the corners of her eyes lifting as they begin to glimmer with something like laughter. Something like...I’m not really sure, but I think it might be related to a smile.
I push my hands back into my pockets. “I was hoping you might not be averse to an invitation, though. Totally your choice.” I nod jokingly at the bowl. “But I’d be honored if you would join me for dinner tomorrow.”
Her lips twitch, and then a smile spreads across her gorgeous face. 100% definitely a smile. “Okay,” she says. “Though maybe I’d better be in charge of the dishware.”
Chapter 14: Regret
I pace across the thick carpet of my hotel suite, but it might as well be a matchbox for as little as the movement relieves the tension in my twanging muscles. The whites of my eyes flash in my peripheral vision as I pass the mirrored closet doors. I look like a fucking junkie.
The sheen of sweat slicking skin around blown pupils, panicky eyes. That edge of chaos, because you never know what I might be capable of.
It’s been two full days since I’ve had sex, and I know too well how dangerous that is. With everything going on with Danny, now isn’t the time to take a risk. It’s the time to stick with what I know will take the edge off enough that I can stay clean. This tuxedo, this date, this girl? Are the fuse-tipped definition of the unknown.
Everyone around me does this effortlessly: Danny never flicks a single eyelash toward making people like him, but everyone does. Jera’s so passionate and unabashedly herself that you can’t help but adore her. And Kate—even when she drops her wicked sense of humor and locks down into business mode, people see her organizer’s personality as efficient, whereas on me, it just comes off as neurotic.
This is so doomed to failure it’s irresponsible, because when Ava slaps me down, it’s going to send me skidding toward relapse. I hesitate, staring at the edge of my still-made hotel bed. Is this what my sponsor called self-sabotaging behavior? I swallow. Don’t follow your instincts, do the responsible thing. Except that if I call this off, I don’t want Ava to feel like it is her fault, or that she did anything wrong.
A knock sounds at my door, a
nd I flinch so hard my chest hurts. “Shit, pull it together.” It’s probably just one of the hotel staff with a question about the setup. I should have given them my cell phone number. Unfortunately, those digits have a way of making their way to the internet, and I don’t have time to change my number again right now.
I pick my jacket up to cover the sweat marks on my shirt and swing it on, tugging at my shirt sleeves to set them correctly before I open the door. The cufflinks I’m wearing tonight aren’t my family’s platinum set. They’re matte black replicas of tuning pegs, a gift from Jera. I don’t need the extra reminder of my mom’s disapproval unbalancing me tonight.
When I open the door, Danny is waiting in the hall, and the sight sends pain rocketing through my head, my ribs, my heart. I’ve sort of perfected not looking directly at him in the last three days. One flick of his hazel eyes over my face reminds me why. “Hey D, what’s up? I was just on my way out, but—”
He pushes inside, and I get a shoulder to the chest for my trouble when I don’t step aside quickly enough. My hand leaps to cradle my cracked ribs as I try to remember how to breathe without wanting to throw up all my teeth. By the time I can see again, Danny is all the way through my hotel room and out on the balcony, leaving the sliding door open behind him. I follow him outside and close the door, not sure what else to do. His black jeans are so faded they might as well be gray, his tee shirt coming apart at the shoulder seam so pale skin and a flash of ink peeks through.
He drops into a lounge chair, and the untied laces of his combat boots swing as he stretches out his legs and crosses his feet at the ankles. He doesn’t look at my tuxedo. I can’t tell if he doesn’t care why I’m dressed up, or if he didn’t notice. With Danny, either option is equally possible.
He doesn’t speak.
I push my hands into my pockets. I didn’t swap my six-month chip into these pants, and guilt itches under expensive fabric as I consider all the reasons I might have “forgotten.”
Insatiable (Sex, Love, and Rock & Roll Book 3) Page 14