by Marci Fawn
13
Jem
As we get back onto the ship and leave the gorgeous, picturesque Mediterranean island behind, I have the horrible sense that something is slipping away from me. Things with Nate just felt so perfect in that small slice of Heaven, and I’m petrified that real life is going to tear us apart all over again. Nate has tried to reassure me otherwise, but I’m terrified that he’s wrong. The fear that something is going to make him leave my life forever infects my thoughts, and I can’t stop it. We lost our way once, and we made it back to one another, but there’s no guarantee of that happening twice. In fact, if I lose him again, I have the feeling that it will be forever. I don’t know if we could keep trying at something that isn’t going to last.
His words flow over and over through my mind, and I pray that he’s right. “Trust me. Things are going to be amazing. Just you wait and see.” I know we’re perfect for one another, and we have plenty of love surrounding us. I want to believe that it’s enough, but I know how influential outside pressures can be.
I don’t even know how our parents are going to react to us being back together, never mind the rest of the world! Nate’s fan base is huge now, and pretty fierce when they need to be, so I’m going to have to prepare myself for an online onslaught at the very least.
Although, to be honest, that’ll be the least of my problems. That won’t be enough to ruin everything for me and Nate, at any rate.
As if to prove my point, Nate’s management team calls him into a meeting almost the second we step onto the ship, tearing him from my side. Instead of using this time to be sad, to allow my negativity to grow, I head back to my room to take a nice, self-indulgent shower. There’s no better feeling than being pampered, and I can’t think of any other way to achieve that right now. Sure, there’s a spa on board here somewhere, but I’d much rather be alone.
But as I near my room, a shadow looms—one I never wanted to see again. My entire body shakes with trepidation. When he entered rehab for drug addiction all those years ago, I thought I’d never have to see him again, so having him here is a terrible disappointment. Especially since he’s involved with Lola.
“Cole,” I mutter to myself, and my heart rate kicks up a notch. I fix my eyes on the ground, hoping to not even look at him, but it’s obvious that I’m never going to get away with it. He’s only here to see me. He was never one for beating around the bush.
“Well, well, well,” he says in his sleaziest voice, stepping far too close to me and invading my personal space in the intimidating way he does best. “Little Jem-me back with the sad young Nate, I see.” He gives me a grin—one that probably gets him laid a lot. He’s good-looking in a silver fox type of way, but I can’t see any of that. All I can see is the grotesque man that he really is. “How is that going for you?”
“What does it have to do with you?” I snap…or at least I try to. There’s an undeniable wobble there, though. How does he always manage to have this effect on me? I hate it. I hate him. I wish I could be far more powerful and commanding around him. It sucks that he makes me so weak.
“I would have thought that someone like you would prefer a man, not a boy.” He sneers, leaning his face close to mine. He’s more wrinkled now, his skin is more haggard, but the same old Cole is still there—the one who threatened to ruin my life, the one who’s infiltrated many of my nightmares.
“Someone like me?” My heart hammers so loudly against my rib cage that I’m certain he must be able to hear it. “What do you mean by that?”
“Someone so…seductive,” he whispers, causing a wave of nausea to wash over me. He’s revolting—old enough to be my father and making comments like that. I wish someone were around to hear him! If I’d been able to prepare for this, I could have recorded him somehow, had some evidence to keep him away from me in the future.
“Hey!” A sharp-sounding female voice rings out. I don’t instantly recognize it, but whoever it is sounds pissed off as hell. I want to glance up to see who interrupted Cole before he really terrified me, but I can’t without catching his eye. “Why don’t you just back off? Leave her alone, you psycho.”
“Oh, little Tonya Becker,” Cole replies, and I freeze in shock. Tonya? Does he really mean the Tonya I had a run-in with not so long ago? Is he serious? Is that who’s rescuing me right now? Why the hell would Tonya want to do anything to help me? She hates my guts. “Why don’t you mind your own business? You always were a jealous bitch.”
“Fuck off,” she spits, to which Cole laughs nastily—but luckily it seems to do the trick. A few seconds later his unbearable presence moves away. As his footsteps retreat, I look up quickly, but all I can see is the mass of black hair walking away from me.
That really was Tonya—how strange!
I wander aimlessly into my room, my mind whirring at a million miles an hour. It just makes no sense that the woman who hates me most in the world, who is desperate to get her hands on my boyfriend, would stop Cole from making me uncomfortable. Of course, I’m grateful she showed up before things really got ugly, but I still can’t work out why. I feel like I’m missing something obvious, something important. It’s driving me crazy.
Nate comes by my room an hour or so later to find me still a trembling mess. I can’t quite recover from being left alone with Cole—and I’m still stuck as to why Tonya helped me. When Nate asks me what’s wrong, I almost spill the secret I’ve kept for years…but I stop myself at the last second, afraid he’ll see me in a different light. There’s a reason I’ve kept this to myself, a good one, and I don’t intend to go back on it now.
“I saw Cole again today, and he was being a dick.” I leave the most important part of the story out. “He shook me up a little, but then, weirdly, Tonya defended me and he left me alone.”
“Hmmm…that is weird,” he agrees. “But maybe it’s okay. Maybe it means she wants to make amends, or be friends with you.” There’s such a hopefulness to his tone that I can’t bear to crush his optimism.
“Yeah,” I agree, knowing it isn’t true. Nate has no idea about the complexities of female friendships, and there’s no point in trying to explain it now. Women don’t just help their enemies for no reason, and there’s no way she would have suddenly decided that she wants to be my friend! To me it’s completely obvious, but men don’t understand underlying meanings. “So how did your meeting go?” I change the subject quickly, wanting to talk about anything else in the world.
“Well, it was okay, but Paul is insisting…”
As he tells me all about his day and the way his management team wants to progress his career, a tingly sensation overcomes me. He looks more than a little stressed about all the work that’s ahead of him, and an idea begins to form in my mind of how I can help him to relieve the stress.
Nate has always managed to distract me from the bad things in my life. He has a way of making me feel good about myself when I need him the most, and I find myself wanting to do the same for him. Whenever I used to fantasize about him when we were together before (and even when we were apart), I always imagined myself giving him the most amazing oral sex he’d ever had. But since I didn’t fully know what I was doing, I didn’t ever take it there.
Now that we’ve actually had sex, and I feel a little more confident in my sexuality, I have no idea what’s still holding me back.
Nothing.
In fact, I want to give it a try.
Nate loves me, so I’m sure he’ll guide me if I go wrong. I don’t think a little stumbling will be enough for him to toss me aside anymore, anyway.
No, it’ll be fine. I’m going to do it.
I suck in a few deep breaths and prepare myself before leaning forward and placing my lips on his, allowing all the passion I feel to flow through me as we kiss. I slide my hand down his sculpted, muscular body, growing increasingly excited at the prospect of what’s to come. He doesn’t seem to realize where I’m going with this, not at first, not until I slowly unbuckle his pants.
/> As I free his thick, throbbing erection from his jeans he groans loudly in anticipation, and knowing that I turned him on so much makes me want to take things to the next level even more. I wrap my hand around him and slide it up and down, feeling every inch of his cock. Then I shoot him a quick glance to tell him how much I desire him…and slip to the floor between his legs.
I wrap my lips around him.
At first my movements are jerky and nervous, but I quickly learn that he likes me to move my head at a rhythmic pace while flicking my tongue all over him. I experiment, taking him in farther and farther, right to the back of my throat, until he becomes a crumbling mess under the power of my mouth.
“Oh, God,” he moans loudly. “Fuck, Jem. You’re gonna kill me here.”
He halfheartedly tries to pull me away, as if he wants to move on to sex, but this isn’t about that for me. It excites me just to watch the power I have over him, and I’m not ready for it to end. In fact, the way he’s filling my mouth up, and the way he’s sweating and trembling with pleasure, is satisfying me in a way that not even an orgasm could at the moment.
Nate swears violently and tugs on my hair as he loses control, and soon my mouth is filled with his sweet, salty passion. I swallow it down quickly.
“I love you,” he gasps, gripping on to me tightly. “I really love you so much.” He wraps me in his arms like he never wants to let me go, which makes me smile brightly. “You’re absolutely amazing.”
“I love you, too,” I reply quietly. “I always have, and I always will.” I glance up at him, but his eyes are still half shut in pleasure. There are so many things I want to tell him in this moment, but I push them to one side, allowing him to enjoy the bliss for a few moments longer, before life gets crazy all over again.
14
Nate
By the time the morning rolls around, it’s clear that Jem has overexerted herself over the last few days. She’s come down with a terrible cold. Her immune system is pretty fragile, and it takes her down every time she pushes herself too hard. Where everyone else would just feel a little under the weather, Jem ends up with a horrendous cold that she just can’t seem to shake.
Under the instructions of the ship’s PR team and her management, she has to be quarantined in her room to get the bed rest she so desperately needs. Her voice needs to rest before her next concert, and for the sake of her wellbeing, she needs a whole lot of sleep. I’m glad for her to have the undisturbed time alone, but I detest not being able to see her. I know that I need to protect myself from getting sick too—for the sake of my own career—but that doesn’t make it any easier.
I’ve begged Paul to let me check in on her a couple of times, but he’s refused. Apparently she had round-the-clock care on offer so there’s nothing I can do, but I can’t stop myself from going crazy.
In the end, I decide that I need to head to the bar for a few hours, just to distract myself, but I don’t want to go there alone. Being by myself won’t do me any favors, so I ask Lola to join me. She’s also a little lost without her best friend to talk to, and she’s the closest thing I have to a friend myself on this whole damn ship. Sure, we haven’t spent a lot of one-on-one time with each other, but that doesn’t matter. We’ll have a lot to talk about, at any rate.
I knock on her bedroom door and invite her to join me for a drink. The way her face lights up in excitement proves to me just how lonely she is.
“I’ll just go and get changed—” she starts, but I shake my head.
“You look fine.” She looks down at her sweatpants and t-shirt in disgust, but it isn’t like we’re going anywhere amazing—it’s only the quieter bar on the ship where customers don’t tend to go anyway. “You don’t need to dress up for me.” I laugh, but she doesn’t join in.
“Okay,” she eventually agrees, but she doesn’t look quite as happy with me.
I try to make conversation as we walk along to the bar, but I only get quick, one-word answers. I start to think that something must be bothering Lola, that she must have some issue she’s been trying to deal with alone. I wonder how I can help her. I want to. I’d love for our friendship to run deeper, but it’s hard for me. I may have spent a lot of time around women, but I’ve never been bothered about getting them to open up to me.
Luckily, by the time we reach the bar, her dark mood seems to have lifted ever so slightly, and she starts speaking to me again. “How long do you think Jem will be sick for?” she asks inquisitively. “It already feels like she’s been out of action forever.”
I suddenly feel a pang of guilt for taking up so much of Jem’s time. Before we started hooking up again, she was with Lola a lot, and the poor girl must be feeling a little abandoned. I make a vow to myself that we’ll start doing things more often as a group. I don’t want to be responsible for a damaged friendship.
“Shouldn’t be too long,” I say, trying to reassure her. “She’s a fighter, that one. Now, what do you want to drink?” I lean on the bar, examining the whiskey choices while she muses. I like something old and refined, something that’ll slide smoothly down my throat, burning but in a nice way. I haven’t touched alcohol in a while, and I’m surprisingly excited to be having a real drink again. As long as I don’t go wild, as long as I behave, there’s no way Paul will find out.
“Vodka and orange juice, please.” Lola says it with a serious expression on her face. “After the week I’ve had, I really need it.” I completely blow past that part, not even bothering to ask her about her crappy week. Instead I focus on the fact that she’s underage and definitely cannot drink booze.
“You can have an orange juice,” I say, trying not to sound too much like her dad. “I can’t in good conscience get you anything else.”
She gives me a desperate look, one that’s trying to tell me something, but I refuse to listen. I can’t let myself be swayed. After the trouble I’ve gotten into myself over booze, I don’t want to have any involvement in anyone else heading down a self-destructive path. And I know for a fact that there will be hell to pay if I’m caught buying a minor alcohol.
“You don’t understand,” she whines, but it’s too late. I’ve already ordered her soft drink from the bartender. I need to stand firm on this one. I just hope she understands.
I choose a seat in a booth near the bar, and Lola slides in on the same side. A weird tension hangs in the air between us, one that’s nothing like the awkwardness from before. I have no idea where it came from. It’s strange—it isn’t like she’s mad at me. It’s as if she’s feeling something that I don’t quite understand yet.
“Are you okay?” I ask her sincerely. “Do you want to talk about your crappy week?” She recoils in on herself, which sparks something within me. There’s something serious here, and I need to find out what. I’m going to have to find a way to get her to speak to me, even if that isn’t my strongest suit. “You can trust me, you know. I won’t tell anyone if it’s just that you need to talk…”
“No,” she snaps quickly. “I mean, thank you for being so nice, but I can’t. I just…I can’t.”
“Okay.” I nod, seeing that it’s useless now. She’s already shut down. I’ll have to try and find another way to get her to open up. While Jem isn’t available, I feel responsible for her. She’s already like my little sister, and without her best friend around, I’m the only one who can help her, and I intend to take that responsibility seriously. “So what do you want to talk about?”
“I…I don’t know.” She flutters her eyes up at me, giving me an indecipherable look. “I’m just really confused at the moment. I feel like a mess. It’s just…it’s a little weird.”
“Trust me, I understand.” I nod gravely. “I’ve spent my whole life feeling like a mess. All over the place.” I take a quick sip of my whiskey, feeling myself loosen up as it slides down my throat. “You’ve probably heard enough about me to know that much.”
“Mindy Hall?” she asks, proving that she has at least read that about me in the
media. When I send her a lopsided smile, she continues. “What was that about? I never understood how someone like you could end up acting that way. She could have destroyed your career. All for…you know, one night of fun.”
“I know.” I sigh deeply, my mind flickering over all of my regrets. “I just…I guess I’ve been on a self-destructive path for a while now, and this really isn’t the best industry for a meltdown like that. There’s too much temptation everywhere, and too many people wanting you to fail.”
“I’m just finding that out for myself now.” Lola’s sadness is contagious. “All I want to do is sing. It’s the stuff that comes with it that I can’t stand.” She pauses for a moment, looking at her hands. “You’re the only person who seems to really understand me. Even Jem doesn’t get it quite as much as you. She doesn’t seem to have felt the kind of self-destructive feelings that we have…”
“Like I said, she’s a tough cookie.” I make a weak joke, but Lola doesn’t even crack a smile.
I wrap my arms around the young girl, wishing I could offer her some words of comfort, but since I’m not exactly a role model when it comes to behavior, I have nothing to offer her. She leans in closer to me, almost inhaling as she does, and the next thing I know our noses are touching.
Then she’s pressing her lips up against mine.
After the initial split second of shock, I shove her right off me. “What the hell are you doing?” I whisper sharply, glancing around to see if anyone saw us. Luckily, everyone else is too involved in their own conversations to notice the potentially life-wrecking thing that just happened over here. “What are you playing at?”
“I…I don’t know. I’m just so—” She’s starting to cry, but my anger is too much to subside so easily. “I’m so messed up, and we have so much in common, and you were being so nice to me…”