Grace can see that what he says disturbs him.
He takes a deep breath. “A kid should never have to suffer like that, ya know. I mean, it wasn’t just a couple of times, Grace. It was almost every time I saw him, he’d be beat up.”
Jaden takes the seat next to Grace on the wicker couch. The chirping of crickets fills in the silent moments in their conversation.
“There were even a couple times that Ian didn’t show up for school. I found out later it was because he was in the hospital. Ya know, he fell down the stairs or some bullshit story like that.”
Grace lets out a small gasp. “The hospital? Oh my gosh. He never said it was that bad,” she says, lowering her head so that her gaze falls on the porch.
“From the time I met him until the time I left Massachusetts, it was like that.”
“Why didn’t anyone ever call the police or something?” Grace cries out.
“Ha, that’s funny! Ian’s uncle, his dad’s brother, was the chief of police, Grace. The few times that Ian tried to call the police, he was put into juvie. You gotta understand, it’s not like it is in a big city like this. If you’re from the wrong side of the fence they don’t give a shit about what goes on in your life,” Jaden says, as he shakes his head slowly. “That’s why I got the hell outta that place, man.”
Grace cannot believe what she hears. She knew that Ian’s father was abusive but never considered that Ian may have been hospitalized due to the abuse he suffered.
“The Ian that moved here with you is definitely not the same kid that I left behind back home. You have made such a positive impact on his life, Grace,” Jaden says, as he lays his hand on top of Grace’s.
Grace looks up at Jaden, tears forming in her eyes.
“Not positive enough,” she says, as she glances down at the porch again.
“He’ll beat this shit, Grace,” Jaden says, as he caresses her arm tenderly. “This is not your fault. This is L.A. I can’t tell you how many people, friends and band mates, I have seen go down this path.” Jaden lifts Grace’s chin up so that he can look into her eyes. “It happened to me, too,” he says, sounding ashamed.
Grace looks at him in disbelief.
“When I first came here I didn’t live in this house. I lived in a studio apartment with my girlfriend from back home. I was actually intending to marry her. She got heavy into the shit and so did I. It’s all around you. Everywhere you go people are offering to get you high, or I know it sounds lame, but pressuring you to get high with them. My girl was a lot like you,” he says, with a kind smile. “She was so innocent when we first moved here. She started using before I even entertained the idea of tryin’ the stuff. Once she started using, she changed. It was like she was a totally different person. Drugs change who a person truly is, Grace. She became a lying, manipulative whore. I can’t even count on my fingers all the dudes she slept with to get drugs or money after she spent every dime we had. She overdosed and that is when I knew I had to stop.” Jaden looks distraught as he finishes his story. “I could see that I had changed too, and I was not cool with the guy I was becoming. So I came to live with Gramps and got my act together.”
“Did she die?” Grace asks, hesitantly.
“No. Mandy is clean now,” he says, smiling. “Thank the Lord. She moved back with her parents and she’s in college. She’s studying to be a veterinarian. So you see, there’s hope.”
There is so much information being shoved through Grace’s mind. Her brain is on overload.
“I thought Ian told you that I was an addict.”
Grace shakes her head, as she looks at Jaden, wide-eyed.
“He’ll beat this, Grace, and he’ll do it for you.”
“I don’t want him to do it for me, Jaden. I want him to do it for himself.”
Jaden grabs Grace’s hand and gives it a tight, comforting squeeze. He stares into her soul with his deep brown eyes. Talking to him, being able to be honest with her feelings, provides her with more comfort than she thinks he realizes.
“He’s a lucky guy,” Jaden says, as he lifts his hand up to her face and brushes his thumb over her cheek.
Something different is radiating from him, something she has never felt from him before.
“What?”
“You’re just so special,” Jaden says, shaking his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe he would risk fucking things up with you.”
“I’m nothing special.” She sighs. “But what we have is special and I can’t believe he would risk it either.”
Jaden wipes a single tear from Grace’s cheek, continues to caress her with his thumb, and then leans into her face.
He gets right up to her lips before she pulls away and says, “What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
Grace backs away from Jaden, appalled. Jaden looks up at her, and she sees it, the way he is looking at her, that he wants her. Something in her gut tells her this. She can see the glossy look in his eyes. The artery in his neck pulses in time with his heart.
“Remember that new song you said you liked a while back?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says. She wants to get up and run to her room. Get as far away from his as she can, as fast as she can.
“The one you said was beautiful, and you asked who it was about?”
“Yeah,” she replies, fully expecting that Jaden will tell her it is about his ex-girlfriend Mandy.
It was a song about longing to touch and love. She tries to recall the lyrics.
Before she can, he softly says, “I wrote that about you.”
Grace is in shock. This cannot be happening. Jaden cannot feel this way about me. I’m Ian’s fiancée. She gets up without a word and runs up the stairs to her bedroom where Ian is sleeping peacefully.
Sitting on the porch, Jaden is frustrated with himself. He lies back on the wicker couch and takes a few deep breaths, struggling to calm himself. Normally he is cool, calm, and collected, especially when it comes to women. He knows he has a way with them.
Grace is the first girl to ever back away from an attempted kiss from him and it hurts his ego. Closing his eyes he thinks about the way her eyes looked as he leaned in close to her. Wide-eyed and confused, but there was something there behind her puzzlement, a barely hidden twinge of lust. How he wishes that she would have let him kiss her. Then he would know for sure if she reciprocates his feelings or not.
What the fuck am I thinking? I can’t do this to Ian. He is overcome with guilt. He knows that trying to kiss her is unacceptable. He should never have allowed himself to make the moves on the girl that Ian loves. They are like brothers, and he cares more for Ian than he does most people. Grace’s full, pink lips come into his thoughts and again the wish flies through his mind. Why didn’t she let me kiss her?
Jaden sits up and reaches for a pack of cigarettes that rests on the table next to him. The cigarette dangles from his slender fingers as he watches the smoke curl through the air. Shaking his head he puts the barely smoked cigarette out in the ashtray and then heads inside.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, Jaden reaches into his nightstand and pulls out a small phone book. The pages are tattered and filled to the edges with phone numbers. Even the spine has writing on it. He licks his finger and skims through the pages in a hurry, searching for just the right name and a smidgen of his confidence. “Ah there you are,” he says and puts his finger under a name in the book. He picks up the receiver on his phone and puts it on his shoulder and then to his ear. The phone rings three times and he becomes impatient and hangs up.
“Next,” he says, as he thumbs through the book again. “Oh yeah, Samantha. You should’ve been my first choice, sweetheart.” He picks up the phone again and dials the number. She picks up after one ring.
“Jaden?” She sounds almost too enthusiastic to be hearing from him.
“Hey.” He intentionally makes his voice smooth on her like soft butter, knowing that he has a way with women. “Wanna hook up?
”
“Are you kidding? Hell yeah I do!”
He laughs at her breathless response. “I’ll be there in thirty.”
For hours, Grace lies in bed with Ian, holding him and listening to his agonizing moans. She cannot take much more. Too much is happening at once. She is startled by Jaden’s voice calling her to come downstairs. Ugh! I don’t want to talk about what happened. She gets up off the bed and goes to the edge of the stairs. Standing by the front door, a single leopard print suitcase in her hand, is Michelle. Grace bolts down the stairs and attacks her with a huge hug. She is stunned to see her, but tremendously thankful, as well.
“Wha…what are you doing here?”
“Well,” Michelle says, as she sets her suitcase down. “Guess you’re not the only one in the family who James has decided to disown.”
Grace looks at Michelle, puzzled. “What happened?”
Michelle shrugs her shoulders and rolls her eyes.
Grace looks to Jaden, trying to gauge his reaction to her sister showing up on his doorstep in the middle of the night. She is thankful when he smiles then walks away to his room.
“Let’s go in here,” Grace says, motioning Michelle into the next room.
Michelle and Grace walk to the living room and sit together on the couch.
“What happened?”
“I borrowed $200 from his wallet and he found out before I could pay him back.”
“He kicked you out for $200?” Grace finds this unbelievable.
“That and we’ve kinda been fighting lately.”
Grace studies Michelle and realizes that she looks older than the last time she saw her. Reaching out she touches her soft, dark curls. “What have you been fighting about?”
“He’s an ass clown! He never lets me do anything. I’m constantly having to sneak behind his back, and he’s constantly catching me. How the hell did you sneak around for so long without getting caught?”
Grace takes in a deep breath. The old familiar feeling of guilt for lying to James washes over her. “He was always gone. It was pretty easy.”
“Well, he’s hardly ever gone now that he’s managing the truck company. So he’s always up my ass.”
“He’s just trying to keep you safe.”
Michelle huffs and rolls her eyes.
“I still can’t believe he kicked you out for $200, but Michelle, you should know better than to steal from James!”
“He was being a tight-ass with money, and I needed a new dress for a dance,” she says, with no remorse.
“Still, Missy, that’s your brother. It’s wrong.”
“Look if you’re going to just lecture me, I can go somewhere else,” Michelle says, as she stands.
Grace grabs her arm and pulls her back onto the couch. “There’s no way in hell I’m letting you out on the streets of L.A. by yourself!” Grace snaps. “Just let me go talk to Jaden. It’s his house and I can’t just let you move in without asking him first,” she says, as she gets up. “And you need to call James and let him know you’re safe.”
Grace knocks on Jaden’s door. It’s not exactly what she wants to do, but she knows she has no other choice.
“Come on in.”
Jaden’s room is filled with smoke, his music is playing faintly, and he has incense burning on his dresser.
“You don’t have to ask me,” he says, as he puffs out rings of smoke. “She can move in.”
“Thank you, Jaden,” she says, softly, not really wanting to even be in the same room with him due to it feeling so awkward.
She turns to leave the room, and he stops her with his voice. “Grace. I’m sorry about earlier. It won’t happen again.”
She nods and leaves the room without another word.
Michelle is sitting on the couch reluctantly sending James a text.
“You can move in,” Grace says, as she sits next to her.
Michelle closes her phone and smiles. Grace watches as her face falls into a frown.
“You wanna talk about it?” asks Michelle, as she takes Grace’s hand. Michelle always knows when there is something wrong with her. Grace has kept this part of her life a secret from Michelle because she did not want to worry her or take the chance that she would tell James.
“Maybe later. But tonight, I can’t deal with anymore talking,” Grace says.
She gives Michelle a tour of the old home and then tells Michelle to choose a room. Michelle, of course, chooses the largest out of the two.
“Sweet digs!” Michelle says, as she sets her suitcase down.
“Jaden just repainted it and put down new floors,” Grace says, as she walks to the center of the room. The room is large, has wood floors that match the rest of the home, and a white brass twin bed situated against a slanted wall. Otherwise the room is empty.
Michelle looks doubtful. “Was this his grandfather’s room?” she asks, eerily.
“No. Jaden turned that into a library of sorts. All of our books, sheet music, my art supplies, and easels are in there now.”
“Whew, not to be rude, but I don’t think I could stay in a room where someone died!”
“It’s okay, Missy. I get it. Don’t worry.”
Grace kisses her little sister on the forehead and waves goodnight to her.
Moments later she crawls into bed with Ian. He does not seem to be sweating as much as he was earlier and this gives her some relief. Today has been too much. The weight of the day collapses on her as she quietly sobs. Ian rolls over and looks at her as she tries to cover up the fact that she is crying.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he whispers as he brushes her hair behind her ear. “I’m so very sorry!”
He kisses her forehead and she can no longer contain herself. She breaks into heavy sobs and snuggles into his arms. He squeezes her tighter and kisses her forehead repeatedly.
“Guess who’s here,” she sniffles.
“Who?”
“Michelle.”
“What? Why?”
“James kicked her out. I’ll explain tomorrow. There’s just too much going on, Ian. I can’t take it.”
“I swear to you, baby, I’m going to make things right,” he says, as he kisses her trembling lips. Cupping her face in his hands, he kisses the tears that roll down her cheeks. She wants to believe him more than anything.
Chapter 16
Lying flat on the bed, Ian struggles to pull on his leather pants. Grace sits on the edge of the bed watching him get ready for his show, amused.
“Are you sure you’re up to this, babe?” she asks, feeling troubled.
“I really don’t have a choice. The whole band is counting on me. This is our biggest gig yet and if I puss out, they’re all screwed,” he says, as he pulls his Black Dog t-shirt over his head.
“I just don’t know,” she says, as she looks at him afraid. “What if—”
Ian rushes to her and puts his fingers over her lips, quieting her. “No, what ifs, babe. I’ll be okay. Besides, I’ll have my watch dog there to look after me,” he says, referring to Jaden.
With every emotion she has, Grace does not want Ian to do this show. He is so fresh from going through detox. What can I do though? She knows this is the biggest show they have ever played and there are even rumors of record company executives being there. She feels a bit more relieved about Ian going when Jaden walks into the bedroom. Looking him over, she cannot help but think, Wow! He looks amazing! Jaden’s long, black hair goes past his shoulders. He is wearing a black rayon shirt with oversized white roses on it and a tight pair of yellow leather pants.
“I like the nose ring,” Grace says, as she walks up to Jaden to untuck a part of his shirt from his pants.
He shakes his head up and down with a sly grin.
“Yeah, you like huh?” he asks, winking at her.
“Babe, can you help me with this belt?” Ian asks, waving her over.
Without hesitation she goes to him. “You, my love, are hot!” she says, as she kisses Ian on the chest.
“They’re going to need hoses to keep those groupies off you tonight,” she says, giggling.
She looks to Jaden, sending him a message with her eyes that she hopes he can read. Please watch over him.
After Ian and Jaden leave, Grace and Michelle watch a movie and eat buttery popcorn. When the movie is over they sit on Grace’s bed painting their nails as Grace finally spills the dirt on everything that has been going on since her and Ian moved to Los Angeles. She has been unusually secretive and sensitive about why she is upset, up until this point.
“So that’s why you had to drop out of college?”
“Well, with Ian not working, I had to get a job, plus he spent every dime we had getting high.”
She watches Michelle shake her head in frustration and disappointment. This is the exact reason she has been so reluctant to talk to her about it.
“And you let him go to this show alone?”
“Jaden is with him,” Grace says, confidently.
“Jaden seems nice and all, but really, this show is a big deal for him. You really think he wants to babysit Ian all night?”
Grace considers Michelle’s words, and suddenly her stomach drops. A horrible feeling overcomes her, even worse than the worry she had earlier in the evening.
“Sorry, sis. I didn’t mean to upset you, but I seriously think you should’ve gone.”
She does not want to doubt Ian’s word, but so far, he has been dishonest with her to the extreme. He stole all of her money for college, all the money they saved for their wedding, and quit his job, forcing her to quit school so that she could work full time to support them. She has lost her best friend Becca, who refuses to speak to her anymore, despite Ian being sober. On Grace’s last attempt at resolving their friendship, Becca told Grace she could not watch her let Ian destroy her.
Grace tries to quash her worry, but this is the first time he has been out to a club since he has been clean. He will be surrounded by temptation tonight, temptation that might be hard to ignore since he has only been clean for a few weeks. What was I thinking letting him go alone? She gets up from the bed and gets dressed in a hurry. It only takes her a matter of minutes before she is fully clothed.
The Falling of Love (The Falling Series Book 1) Page 20