Romance: North: (Hot New Adult Bad Boy Romance, Alpha Male Rock Star Rebel Romance) (Contemporary Mystery and Romantic Suspense Short Stories)

by Allen, Jade

  “Fuck that noise.” I looked up from my plate to meet Mary’s gaze. “I’m not like, going to do a program or some shit like that,” I said, waving the idea aside completely. “But I think that I should at least give this whole not using drugs thing a fair shot.”

  Mary laughed. “So what you’re saying is you’re not going to consciously be clean and sober, you’re just not going to use.”

  “Not for the foreseeable future.”

  Mary sighed. “I can’t…if you’re going to just go back to using again in a couple of weeks, or a month…or even six months…”

  I licked my lips. “I’m not asking you to commit to me for the rest of your life,” I said quickly. “But you’re—fuck, Mary, you’re goddamn amazing, don’t you know that?”

  “You’re not really in the best place to—”

  “Shut the fuck up,” I said, my voice absolutely dead level. “I know what I want. I want to stop using for a while and see how it feels. I want to get to know you better. I want to see if what we’ve got going between us is just two broken people or if we can be fucking better than that. Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”

  Mary pressed her lips together and I could see the thoughts flicking through her dark eyes as she considered what I was saying. “Okay,” she said after a minute, exhaling slowly. “If I’m honest with myself, yes, I do want to see where we can go with this.” She looked up and met my gaze. “But Alex… I can’t be with you if you’re going to use. You get that, right? And I swear to god if you start using and then lie to me about it because you don’t want to lose me…”

  “Want me to call Nick? He’ll tell you in a heartbeat if I backslide. He’d love to have an excuse to call you up and chat.” Mary frowned in confusion. “He still thinks you’re as hot as a fucking four-alarm fire.”

  “Ugh,” Mary said, rolling her eyes. “I will never in a million years understand how guys in a band can all have the hots for the same girl and not self-destruct over it.”

  “Because we don’t let it interfere. I’ll call Nick right now and have him give you his word that he will call you the minute he ever finds me using, if I haven’t told you first.”

  Mary took another deep breath and stared into my eyes, and I saw that knowing, penetrating look that I loved—but that also intimidated me, even after seeing her at her most vulnerable.

  “We’ll come up with ground rules,” she said finally. “I’m not going to be responsible for your sobriety. Let’s make that clear right off the bat.”

  “That’s fair.”

  “We’ll get you in with another counselor. I can’t be your counselor if I’m seeing you romantically.”

  “Whatever you want,” I said with a little grin.

  Mary frowned sharply. “No. You are going to act like a fucking adult and you are going to name your own terms and we are going to have a mature goddamned relationship, or I’m out right now, even if you are the best lay I’ve ever had.”

  I smirked. “I knew I’d get you to admit it.”

  ****

  A week had passed since the raid on Big J’s house, and as I walked into the rehearsal space the band had taken with help from the label, I felt nervous for the first time in years. It was a weird feeling; even though I was still dealing with odd kinds of numbness as time went by, certain things were way more overwhelming than they used to be. Normally, right up until my stint in rehab and my time with Mary, I’d have already had a buzz going on by the time I went in for rehearsal; as I walked into the building the band had taken, I was clean as a whistle.

  Mary and I had agreed that after I did thirty days of complete sobriety—starting over from the night when we’d both done coke that night of the raids—I would see if I could manage to drink alcohol. I’d never had a problem with managing my intake on that before, and Mary had admitted that most programs insisted on complete sobriety, but that she had seen a lot of users who didn’t seem to have a problem with alcohol. If I showed signs of trying to find a fix, though, I would have two choices: go sober again, completely, and stay that way, or end the relationship.

  “Yo! Looking good, North,” Jules said from a corner of the rehearsal room. Since the record label had put it out and around that we were working on new material for an album, the band and I had agreed that we might as well make the fiction into fact, now that Big J was behind bars. His bail had been set at three million; they’d managed to raid the rest of his houses the same night as they’d busted in on my meeting with him, and they’d rounded up so much of so many kinds of drugs that even at the most optimistic, he wasn’t going to be out this side of my eightieth birthday. If I lived that long.

  “Has Mary got you on a cleanse?”

  “Asshole,” I muttered; then I grinned, “She’s got me on a cleanse all right; I sweat all my toxins out every night under a fucking down blanket.”

  The rest of the guys were almost done setting up, and I snagged one of Nick’s spare guitars while I waited for them to work out all of the sound. I wasn’t ready to admit it to Mary yet, but I’d already noticed, since I’d been clean for a week—not even any ‘buffering’ drugs in my system—that ideas were starting to flow. Melodies, little dribs and drabs of lyrics. Smiling to myself, I started picking out the meandering, musing melody of Silverchair’s “My Favorite Thing,” playing it to myself. None of the other guys in the band were even paying attention to me. Got my fever down/ and weighed it up/ And I know the sounds remaining/ won’t strain all the silt from my eyes…You’re my favorite thing/ You’re my favorite/ the one that I love, the one so I’d die for your love… I closed my eyes as I played, losing myself in my memory of the bright, shining strings, the darker undercurrent of the piano melody. Open my heart, won’t fall apart/ so don’t fall apart… As cheesy as it was, for the first time in the more than decade since I’d first heard the song, I could understand it completely.

  I couldn’t be sure that I could hold up my end of the relationship with Mary; I didn’t know what the future held. We had told the police what we suspected about her former boss, and even though she had told me that she couldn’t possibly be my full-time counselor, the label had insisted on paying her to be my “life coach” while the band worked on a new album. I hadn’t said it to her directly, but even though we’d only been together for a few weeks, I knew—knew deep down in the pit of my heart and in the depths of my soul—that I loved her.

  After rehearsal, I thought I would make good on the things I’d prayed, the things I’d thought on the night that we’d both been under threat of death; I would buy her flowers, and I would get her the biggest box of chocolate I could find, and I would tell her over and over again how much I loved her. It was the least I could do for the woman who had brought me kicking and screaming into real, true recovery.

  “Yo, North! Where’s your head at? We’re ready to go.” I shook off my thoughts and stood, bringing Nick’s guitar with me as I crossed the room.

  “Before we get started, I want to show you guys a new bit I’m working on.” I grinned to myself; I wouldn’t admit it in a million years, but I knew they’d know anyway.

  The song was about Mary.

  ********

  If you enjoyed reading this story, I’d be so appreciative if you could please leave a review. Even just a sentence or two would be a great help!

  Thanks so much for your support!

  xo – Jade

  ~BONUS STORY~

  Seduction On Eden Island

  There was blood everywhere. It coated the walls, the floor--there were even spurts on the ceiling. Rayne held a double-ended canoe paddle in both hands and braced herself; this was not in the brochure.

  Earlier…

  Rayne had woken groggily on the private jet; she had slung back far too many gins and her head ached. Twenty four hours ago, she had sat at her cubicle mopping smudged mascara, trying to explain to a group of disgruntled accountants why all the fridge contents had to be cleaned out the previous day.

&nb
sp; “There were intelligent life forms growing in that petri dish of yours. We had no other choice but to abide by OSHA regulations before new forms of sentient life became a real problem for us. You handle multi-million dollar accounts and can find a tax loop-hole in the eye of a needle; why can’t you keep an eye on the expiration dates of your food?”

  After another thirty minutes of discussing the implied freedoms of the communal fridge, Rayne lost her nerve and threw a fistful of snotty tissues at the group. “Could you please just get the fuck out of my cubicle and get back to work? If a gross fridge was my biggest problem today, I would be your all-singing-all-dancing kind of HR manager, but I’m not. Get out!”

  After threats of common assault were bantered about, Rayne’s director, Rod, stepped in and sent the grim accountants back to their floor. In a gush of bubbly snot and stinging black tears, Rayne revealed it all: her boyfriend of five years, Jason, had been photographed with another woman, an infamous socialite with a penchant for little dogs. Jason was a statistician; not exactly a sexy job, but he had boyish charm--and apparently wandering hands. The photo had been taken when they were sitting together, and from the torso up it looked fine, but the camera caught activities happening below the small table they sat at.

  Rayne had only become aware of this when the pixelated version flicked onto her TV screen as she was cooking dinner at home. Within moments, her phone had scuttled off the kitchen bench in the dance of the many silent vibrations. Her social media page had gone bonkers, too, with strangers and journalists trying to contact her. Jason never did come home--turned out he wasn’t at a statistics and budgetary meeting that day after all.

  Rayne was gently guided from the building by Rod and was told to consider an extended break until the media buzz died down. Floating past the newsstands filled with full-page reproductions of her boyfriend’s cheating--or, more likely, the unabashed shame of the socialite--Rayne ambled to the subway, pulled out a worn paperback from her bag and settled onto a bench to immerse herself into a story where the almost-fiancés weren’t caught out on national media cheating with pretty socialites.

  Several people had joined Rayne on her bench; one was a stylish woman with a glossy blonde bouffant, designer coat and black patent stilettos. The woman was flipping mindlessly through a thick glossy fashion magazine, paying only slight attention to the fashion spreads. A rush of air across the platform signaled the arrival of another train. The woman folded back several pages of her magazine and tucked it under arm as she hoisted her large leather tote and stepped into the crowd of commuters, disappearing among the throngs of beige trench coats and black jackets. Just as the train was pulling out the station, sucking another gush of air from the platform, Rayne felt a frantic fluttering at her side; a business card had lodged itself into the slats of the bench. Rayne picked it up and was surprised by the weight. It was made of a very luxurious bright white card stock but felt like it contained something heavier—almost as heavy as a credit card. Pressed cleanly into the card were crisp black letters in a take-no-prisoners serif font:

  YOUR PARADISE AWAITS…

  The other side just had a cryptic web address of letter and numbers. Rayne looked back to see the final train carriage disappear from view; the woman must’ve dropped this. Rayne tucked the card into her book and continued reading, deciding to check out the website once she was within Wi-Fi reach and see if she could drop the card off.

  Despite the lust and romance that sprinkled the pages of her favorite books, opening the door of her brownstone apartment brought Rayne back to her immediate future. Mentally exhausted, Rayne began to boil water for tea, getting out her favorite mug. Remembering the special business card tucked in her book, Rayne scrabbled around looking for it before booting up her laptop.

  Dropping onto the couch, Rayne turned the card over in her hand and carefully typed in the long URL, double-checking the letter and number sequence twice. Within a fraction of a second of pressing the enter button, Rayne’s screen went black. Of all the people in the world to type in a link to a virus…

  Then, the screen faded into white; a set of black letters materialized and faded in a gentle sequence:

  “Welcome to Eden. You have been selected to join us for an exclusive getaway. Disappear into a tropical island paradise. For your eyes only.”

  Oh crap.

  The screen changed to show expensive resort imagery with sweeping tropical landscapes. After one rotation through the images, a registration screen popped up demanding details. Rayne searched the static page looking for contact details, but there was nothing.

  I can register, but I’ll explain that it was a mistake and I’m looking for the right person.

  Rayne typed in her details and, after a moment of hesitation, pressed ‘submit’.

  Another screen popped up among a new gallery of resort images: “Thank you for registering. One of our resort team members will contact you shortly.”

  Rayne opened a new search window and typed in “Eden Resort,” only to get back tens of thousands of possible clues. She extended the search with “island paradise,” only to whittle a couple of thousand from the list. Before Rayne could contemplate another search term, her landline phone started ringing.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, is this Rayne Baker?” a bubbly woman’s voice echoed down the phone.

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “My name is Cassandra from Eden Resort. We just received your registration.”

  Wow, that was fast.

  “Look, I’m glad you called because I actually think this invitation was for someone else.”

  “Was there a name on the card?”

  “No, just a web address.”

  The woman’s voice brightened, “In that case, it’s very much your card. This is part of a secret promotion Eden Resort is hosting prior to its official launch; I believe a few cards were distributed through random circulation."

  Smart PR move…

  Rayne could hear typing and clicking in the background. “You’re actually very lucky, Ms. Baker. I've just checked the reservation, and it seems that you have been assigned the Lotus Suite, one of the most expensive suites on the island. There’s yoga, massage and private dining included in your package, which… yes, you’re entitled to over $18,000 worth of value for a six day, seven night stay.”

  “I’m sorry, what? Did you say an $18,000 stay?”

  “Yes.” The disembodied voice was practically beaming down the phone.

  “Do I need to purchase anything for this?”

  The woman laughed, “No, not at all. It’s an exclusive invitation. A bit like what travel agents get to review resorts.”

  “So I am to review the resort in exchange for over $18,000 of value?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Rayne sat, astounded by the opportunity that landed in her lap. “So, when do I leave?”

  ****

  Rayne massaged her temples and smacked her lips together, desperate for a steward to provide her with a glass of water. She had been hauled out of bed at 4 am and taken by private car to a private airport where she had boarded...a private plane.

  There were two other guests on the plane, though none had yet to say hello. The first she met was a man with stiff, swept back blonde hair, a gingham shirt and beige slacks. Despite the ungodly hour, he seemed preened and ready for a midday outing. The Tommy Hilfiger wannabee deemed Rayne worthy of just a small nod before staring pointedly out his window.

  Okay, not to worry--he’s just one prick.

  The second guest had arrived as Rayne was just tipping back the final contents of a fresh mimosa: a stunning woman with a magenta pixie-cut. The woman was swimming in furs, constantly peering over her sunglasses.

  It was at this point that Rayne had to admit she felt underdressed. Her ensemble of dark-washed jeans, leather boots and layers of cotton jersey stood in another world. The magenta vixen had chosen to associate with the blonde bastard behind her.

 
The conversation between the two guests seemed to bubble along pleasantly enough, though they seemed to be discussing designer brands as though they were people. Then it dawned on Rayne that they actually did know the designers and they were talking about them.

  The magazine, the fashionable woman; the ease she had walking in stilettos, who was that woman who was supposed to have this card? I’ve made a grave mistake…

  Before Rayne could think of a surprise illness that would send her back home, there was an insistent tap on her shoulder. Turning, Rayne came face-to-face with the magenta pixie, a fixed smile emblazoned on her professionally made-up face.

  “Hi there, I don’t think we’ve met. My name’s Billie Toms,” she held out her hand.

  “Oh--hi, Billie. I’m Rayne Baker.”

  “You’re not of the Baker House Fashion family, are you?” Billie’s eyes widened.

  “No, I’m afraid not. I’m of the…” Rayne thought screw it “I belong to a prominent financial institute; unfortunately, my terms of agreement don’t allow me to mention the company’s name.” Where was this coming from?

  Billie nodded in understanding; Rayne had obviously passed some internal test.

  “So you’re here to review as well?”

  “You could say that. I’m sure there are some other members of my team who would like to come along with their wives and girlfriends--or both.” Rayne smiled conspiratorially.

  Billie smiled and sat back into her chair; the plane was readied for landing.

  ****

  Rayne exited the plane into a blast of warm humid air and a vague scent of coconut oil drifting across the tarmac. The plane sat on a heavy-duty runway that ended with a cluster of huge hangars. Makes sense, they would have had to maintain commutes for their construction and staff teams.

  The trio descended from the plane to be greeted by a slew of resort staff in freshly pressed linen uniforms and a tray of tropical cocktails. One by one, the guests were led to a brand new chauffeur-driven golf cart emblazoned with “Eden Resort” before they were whisked into the tropical forest that surrounded the landing strip.