“Now that’s what I like to see,” Jaden says, his drink still in his hand, the glass close to his lips. “So, I hear this next band is pretty good. They’re the reason we came here,” he says, then takes another long sip of his drink.
“That last band was crap.”
Jaden nods and laughs loudly. “They were pretty awful! Thank God we only had to hear the last song!”
The two of them laugh and dive into their drinks.
Four drinks later, Grace’s inhibitions drop drastically, as she and Jaden enjoy the band on the stage from their booth. With her eyes closed, Grace does a slight dance in her seat and moves her woozy head to the rhythm of the music.
Suddenly, she opens her eyes and scans the crowd. “Let’s go dance,” she says, as she slides out of the booth. “Come on.” She grabs Jaden’s wrist and tugs.
“Ah, shit, okay,” he gives a light protest.
Grace places one arm on each of Jaden’s shoulders and swings her hips from side to side, matching the slow beat of the heavy ballad the band plays. Jaden puts a hand on each of her hips and they move to the music. The effects of the alcohol hit Grace hard. She throws her head back and her long blonde hair falls past the middle of her back. As her head rocks, she slips away, letting the alcohol and music embrace her.
As she dances to the music, her arms delicately draped over Jaden’s shoulders, she makes eye contact with a handsome man in jeans and a black button-down shirt that clings to his muscular frame. After a flirtatious smile between her and the stranger, he walks over to Jaden and taps him on the shoulder.
Jaden turns around, his voice loud and harsh. “Yeah? Can I help you?”
“I was wondering if I can cut in?”
Jaden turns back to Grace and she nods signaling that everything is okay.
“Hi,” the man says to her, a huge grin spreading across his face.
“Hi, yourself,” she says, her words slurred.
Jaden, having had one too many drinks, stares down the man like a vicious dog ready to attack.
Grace knows he would do anything for her, but also knows he hates dancing. “Go take a break, Jaden,” she says.
Jaden stares at her for a moment, speechless, and then walks back toward their booth.
“What’s your name beautiful?” asks the guy, as he puts his hands on Grace’s hips.
“Grace.”
He leans into her face with his ear. “I missed that.”
“Grace.”
“Perfect name for an angel.”
Grace laughs at his stupid attempt at a pickup line, but keeps dancing with him because it feels good to feel wanted. Maybe this guy can help me keep my mind off Ian.
~ ~ ~
Ian walks into the overcrowded club, ready to drink his life away. He pushes his way to the bar and waits for the bartender to finish taking an order before he places his.
After getting his drink, he turns and leans against the bar and focuses on the band. Not bad, he thinks, as he closes his eyes and lets the music infuse his soul, along with the drink he downs. Turning to the side, he calls out to the bartender, “Another, please.” She smiles and gives him a wink. She rushes him over another drink, before continuing a conversation with another customer.
The band finishes their set and the crowd clears, most of them heading toward him and the bar. Grace’s laughter fills the air and Ian’s heart plummets. He blinks, shocked that she stands only a few feet away from him when he thought she was home in Paris. A strange man holding her hand twirls her around. It takes him only a few moments to process the scene, even with the cloud of intoxication floating around in his mind. As much as he does not want to watch the man touching Grace, Ian cannot tear his eyes away. Words escape him when he tries to call to her. He attempts to go to her, but his feet will not move. Putting two and two together, he now knows why Grace texted him what she did last night.
Right as his feet finally let him move, someone grabs him by his elbow. “Emma?”
“You shouldn’t be here. You’re drinking too much,” Emma says, lifting the empty glass from the bar top. “What are you doing?”
Ian turns to look for Grace, but cannot see her through the growing crowd in front of the stage. Emma pulls his arm again. As he turns to tell her to let go, he catches a glimpse of Jaden walking out of the club with a girl under each of his arms. His head spins, as he frantically searches for Grace.
“Ian, let’s get you home,” Emma shouts.
“Let go of me!” He yanks his elbow away from her. “Fuck off, Emma! I’m sick of your shit!”
Ian turns to check on Grace, who has now disappeared. His heart sinks as his eyes dart around the club searching for her. Where did she go? His heart beats so rapidly in his chest that it hurts.
“She left, asshole!” Emma’s voice coming from behind him makes him sick to his stomach.
He turns and glares at her. Pain, like a knife slicing him, runs through his chest.
“She went with that guy. It doesn’t look like she gives two shits about you. Let’s just go home. You’re totally drunk.”
“Did you follow me here?”
“I wanted to make sure you didn’t drive home.”
“I never drive drunk.” Ian places his face into his hands, then lifts his head and glares at Emma, as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. “When did you talk to Grace?”
Emma crosses her arms over her chest. “Are you seeing her again?”
“Answer the fucking question!”
“She came to the condo yesterday.”
Ian takes Emma by the shoulders and leans in close to her face. “What the fuck did you say to her?”
“I told her the truth. I told her about our baby. I told her to stay the hell away from you.”
He lets her go, his mouth open, his heart pounding. No, no, no, he thinks, as he shakes his throbbing head. Grace is in L.A and she knows about the baby! Oh fuck! What am I going to do? “You need to get out of my life,” he tells Emma. “Out of my place. Tonight. If you’re not out by the time I get home, I’m calling the cops and I’ll have you physically taken out.”
“You can’t do this.”
“I can and I will. You’ve fucked with me for the last time. Get away from me.”
“Ian, please.”
Ignoring her, Ian walks into the crowd, hoping that Emma lied when she said Grace went home with that man. When he cannot find her, he runs out to the parking lot looking for any trace. Grace is nowhere, but he has a very good idea of where she went.
“Open the fucking door, Jaden,” Ian screams, slamming his fist into the front door of Jaden’s home. “I know she’s here.”
He puts his ear to the door and listens, then looks at the windows. All the lights are off and he did not hear any movement inside the house.
Lifting his leg, he kicks at the door with the heel of his boot until it opens. Everything is still and dark. “Grace?” He runs into the sitting room, the dining room, the kitchen, and then up the stairs. “Grace?”
He pauses before he opens the door that leads to the room he and Grace used to share. The room looks just the way he left it when he moved out. Nothing is out of place. His heart hurts as it pounds against the walls of his chest. He checks all the rooms upstairs until he finds Grace’s suitcase in Michelle’s old room.
Sitting on the bed, he tries to catch his breath. After a few deep breaths, filled with the scent of Grace, he breaks down, unable to hold in his anguish. Ian lies down on the bed and lets his pain out. All the fear, all the pain, the chaos, the self-doubt, the heartache, pours out of him.
When he hears Jaden cursing downstairs, Ian does not know how much time has passed since he fell asleep. He pops out of the bed and rushes downstairs.
Jaden kneels and picks up pieces of the broken front door then he turns to look at Ian. “What the fuck, dude?”
“Where is she?”
“She’s not here, obviously.”
Ian pulls Jaden off the ground by h
is vest. “Where the fuck is she?”
Jaden pulls his vest out of Ian’s hand and shoves him away. “Are you drunk? What are you doing here? Look what you did to my door, man.”
“I’m not asking you again.”
“I have no clue where she is. She left with someone she met.”
Ian rakes his hand through his hair and sits on the stairs. The room spins and vomit fills the back of his throat.
“Want some coffee?”
“Don’t talk to me like we’re fucking friends.” Ian takes a deep breath, rises to his feet, and walks out the door without another word.
In his car, he rests his head on the steering wheel before he decides to go back to the club and see if Grace might have gone back there.
Chapter 12
Grace’s head pounds with sharp painful throbs pulsing in her temples. A physical heaviness takes over her chest as if a ton of bricks is sitting right on top of her. Where am I?
She opens her eyes and looks down at her chest and laying on it is a large muscular arm. Wisps of memories flicker through her clouded mind of having sex with the guy, whose name she cannot recall. She tries to lift his arm off her, but it is so heavy and she is weak. Great, he has silk sheets.
She lifts his arm, this time getting it off her and quietly sits on the edge of his bed. The room spins and she throws her aching head into her hands. She looks at the floor and sees her clothes are scattered, along with his, all over the place. Ian’s face fills her mind as she bends down, gathers her clothes into her arms, and rushes out the bedroom door. In the hallway, she lets out a sigh and searches for a bathroom. She does not remember coming to the house and does not recognize anything she sees as she walks around. Finally, she finds the bathroom and rushes inside. She locks it behind her and falls against the door. Trying to calm herself, she takes in slow deep breaths. Grace freshens up and dresses.
Quietly, she sneaks out of the bathroom and toward where she thinks the front door will be. Her heart thuds in her chest. She does not want him to wake up. She does not want him to ask for her number or offer to take her home. She just wants out of his house. Luckily, her passed out one night stand does not wake as she turns the handle to his front door and steps out.
She reaches into her purse and pulls out her cell phone. Alerts on the screen show her that Ian has called over twenty times and texted more than that. Jaden has called her three times and sent a ‘What’s up’ text. Grace walks down the street as the sky glows a brilliant orange, deleting all of Ian’s texts and doing her best to ignore what they say. She stops at the corner and looks up at the street signs then dials a number on her phone.
“What the fuck time is it, Grace?” says Jaden, his voice sounding groggy.
“I don’t know. Maybe around six. Jaden, come get me.”
~ ~ ~
Early morning sunlight spills through the windshield of Jaden’s 1975 Ford F-150. Squinting, he searches the deserted suburban street for Grace, shielding his eyes from the bright light with his forearm. His mouth still tastes like the alcohol he drank and the women he sampled the night before. The breeze from his rolled down window sends the fragrant smell of flowers into his nose. He pulls his white tank top up to get a better whiff of the ladies’ scents still on it. His thoughts race back to the two women he ended up going home with last night after Grace told him she was taking off with Mr. Beefcake. While he had fun with them, he could not wait to leave their house. Of course, he had not imagined he would stumble on his broken down front door. Grace’s call soon interrupted the peace and quiet he longed for.
Finally, he spots her tall, slender figure walking up the sidewalk of the street he just cornered. Slowing the truck to a crawl, he pulls up next to Grace. “You look like hell.”
“Good morning to you, too.” She smiles.
Although her lips curve up on each side, there is something behind her eyes he cannot deny. He has only seen this distance, this frailty, one other time before. The night and following days after Ian cheated on her five years ago. For days after all the chaos, Grace stayed in bed refusing to eat anything more than a slice of toasted bread or peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Back then, Jaden thought Grace would never be the same again. He thought that the vibrant, loving, caring, and happy girl she was, when she first moved into his home with Ian, was lost forever.
As the years went by, Jaden noticed a significant change in Grace’s strength. She went from a girl a man could manipulate and smash to a woman who focused so heavily on her career in modeling and her passion for art that only casual, sexual affairs with men were all she allowed in her life. Grace built walls around herself, which seemed impenetrable.
Now, with her standing only a foot away from his truck, he sees her again. Broken, shattered to pieces, Grace. Nothing has ever hurt his heart as much as seeing her lost and suffering like this does.
Jaden stretches across the bench seats and pulls up on the lock. “Get in, Lindsey Lohan.” He laughs, hoping she will get the joke and find it funny.
“Ha ha,” she says, as she steps up and into the truck.
“Long night?” Jaden asks, patting down her tangled hair.
“I really don’t want to talk about it.”
Jaden nods, then turns his gaze to the road and shifts the truck into drive.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Grace stares at herself in the mirror on the back of the visor. She dips her finger into a circular container of pink lip gloss and glides it over her bottom lip, with her middle finger, smacking it against her top one.
He turns to look at her as she pulls a hairbrush from her tiny purse. “You’re like freakin’ Mary Poppins. What else ya got in there, an umbrella, a lamp, or maybe a puppy?”
Grace rolls her eyes and gives him another weak grin. At least I can get something that resembles a smile out of her, he thinks. She turns her head and quietly stares out the window.
“Did you sleep with him?” he asks.
She whips her head around and glares in his direction. “That’s none of your business, Jaden!”
“Sorry, just curious. Friend to friend?” He drives a few blocks before the eagerness to know about Grace’s night takes over again. “So…did you?”
“Jaden!” She laughs. “Jeez! Will you let up? Did you sleep with the two girls you had under your arms at the club?”
“We didn’t sleep at all.” He smirks.
She smiles again, and once more the broken Grace’s face from years ago, devours her expression like a mask.
“Are you going to be okay, sugar?”
“I’m perfectly fine. I had a great night with…” She pauses for a long moment, her eyes lifted to the top of her head.
“Oh shit, don’t tell me you don’t know his name!”
Grace squishes her lips up to the side, rolls her eyes, and sighs.
“Was he good at least?”
“He was okay. Took my mind off my troubles.”
“Same here, sugar. Who knew sex with strangers was the answer to all our problems.”
With another half-hearted smile, Grace turns to look out the window again.
“I need to tell you something.”
“Yeah?”
“Ian broke into my house last night looking for you.”
“What?” She turns, her eyes wide, tears pooling in her bottom lids.
“He broke down the front door. He knows you’re staying with me.”
Panic falls on Grace’s face. “I don’t want to see him, J. I can’t. I…I can’t see him. You have to tell him I went home. He’ll come back. He’ll come looking for me again.”
“Calm down, sugar.”
“No, I…I don’t want to see him ever again. Please tell him I went home. Tell him I went back to Paris. Tell him I told you I never want to see him again, please.”
More lies, Jaden thinks, but what can I do? She’s so upset. “I’ll tell him whatever you want me to.”
Grace wipes at the tears that streak down her face. “I just
can’t deal with him anymore. He shouldn’t be trying to find me. He’s going to be a father.”
Jaden nods.
The drive home only takes about fifteen minutes, and when they pull in the driveway, Grace jumps out of the truck only a second before Jaden shifts it into park.
As she runs toward the house, she throws her arm up, not turning to look at him. “Thanks, Jaden. I’m going to sleep. I’ll see you later.”
He watches her fly up the creaking, old stairs and through the squeaking screen door before he climbs out of the truck. Something in his gut screams at him to console her, even if she seems to be feigning happiness.
Ignoring his feelings, he walks into the house and down the hall to his bedroom. He dives into his bed and buries himself in a cluster of pillows. There’s a big shit storm coming my way, he thinks, as his eyelids grow heavy and close.
~ ~ ~
The moment Grace’s eyes open, images of Ian and Emma flood her mind. Before she left the club, she saw Emma holding onto Ian’s elbow. Knowing that he was going out and having fun with Emma made Grace sick. Seeing the two of them together only made her push Mr. Nameless into leaving as soon as they could.
The pit of her stomach is empty and her heart splinters into a million pieces. She closes her eyes and lets out a deep, long breath. Pain pounds in her temples, as she once again opens her eyes and looks for her cell phone on the nightstand. She picks it up and pushes the button to turn it on. 2:00 PM. Putting the phone back where she found it, she rubs her eyes and yawns.
Last night was just the distraction she needed to take her mind off the mess that her life has turned into in 48 hours. Grace pulls herself up and sits on the edge of the bed and her long blonde hair falls in her face. She leaves it there as she stares at the floor. Visions of Ian painfully dancing in her head. Her chest constricts and breathing becomes harder for her the more she thinks about him and all of his lies. I’m a complete fool. She stands and grabs her pajama shorts from the corner of the bed and slides them on.
The Falling of Grace (The Falling Series Book 2) Page 13