All That Jazz (Butler Cove #1)

by Natasha Boyd

  Mother fucking shit, sex was awful.

  Don’t get me wrong, the opening act was spectacular. All that kissing, that need, that building desire. But the main event? The main event was a damn nightmare.

  Joey pushed back into me.

  I gave up holding back and cried out, my teeth closing over his shoulder.

  Oh my God. How long would it last? This was diabolical. Wait. Okay, it was easing up. Okay this could be okay I guess. I mean it wasn’t that bad after the initial insertion. When I said not bad, I meant it didn’t feel that good either. It just kind of felt … wet.

  Maybe the earlier pain had flooded my body with pain killing chemicals and I was numb. Or the vodka was really doing its thing.

  Focus, Jazz.

  This was Joey. I ran my hands over his muscled shoulders and into his gorgeous hair. It was Joey. My heart fluttered, and my body arched into him. His lips found mine, and his tongue. God his tongue. Yes, okay. Okay, shit yes. This was good. This was amazing. We were so connected.

  The aching need inside me pulsed back to life. And this time the need was being met.

  Joey’s shoulders bunched, his hips thrust, his breathing rasped. His kisses were punishing and sexy as all hell.

  And, this felt really good. Actually, after a bumpy start, it was starting to be amazing.

  He opened his eyes and our gazes caught. I’d never noticed, but he had a small brown dot in those blue oceans. I moaned, rocking up to him, meeting his thrust. His body responded to mine, and his pace picked up. “Jazz,” he breathed the word against my mouth.

  “Oh holy shit!” I yelled. We had no protection. The realization slammed into me.

  Joey stilled, shuddered, and jerked away from my body. Breathing hard, his eyes squeezed tight and looking like the sexiest man on the face of planet earth, he erupted all over my stomach.

  “Oh my God.” The words were wrung from deep in his chest. He covered his eyes with his palm and collapsed next to me. “What the fuck did we just do?”

  “What every girl wants to hear,” I said sarcastically. “That was the perfect thing to say right after. And you don’t last very long, do you?”

  “Sorry, I just … Oh my God, we—”

  “Had unprotected sex.”

  He pulled his hand from his face. “Please tell me you’re on the pill?”

  I swallowed and shook my head, pain and dread flowing into my body like a tidal wave. Semen dripped off the side of my belly.

  “Oh, Jesus.” Joey jammed the heels of his palms against his eyes.

  “Pull it together, Joseph. You’re being a selfish prick right now.”

  He blew out a breath and shook his head. “Sorry. Shit. Are you okay?”

  “Fine. But I could really use a towel. There’s one in the galley.”

  He turned over and scooted down the bed and backed into the galley. He pulled on his boxers, then grabbed the dish towel that hung on a small hook and tossed it to me. I wiped my belly, around my side and pulled my shirt closed, fumbling with the buttons. Then I wiped the vinyl mattress cover. This was awkward, messy, and utterly heartbreaking. I felt empty and used and like my “kissing buddy” had turned into a complete stranger.

  He knew, I realized.

  He’d obviously figured it out that I had lied to him about sleeping with Chase.

  “Jazz,” Joey said quietly.

  I squeezed my lips together and looked up.

  He’d pulled on his shorts and t-shirt and looked like the last twenty minutes had never happened. Apart from the pained look in his dark blue eyes.

  “Don’t you dare say it,” I started, my jaw tight.

  “This was a mistake.”

  “A MISTAKE?” I pulled my shirt closed, but I still felt naked. “That’s what you call what we just did? A mistake is accidentally dropping a can of paint, losing your footing, accidentally slicing your finger while chopping carrots. They happen in milliseconds. That was the longest most conscious mistake I’ve ever experienced.”

  “Okay. But the point is the same. It shouldn’t have happened. And I can’t believe I forgot protection. I never forget protection with anyone I’m with.”

  My heart imploded at the thought of him with other girls. Outwardly, I winced. “Fuck you, Joseph.”

  “Look.” He blew out a breath. “Shit. I’m sorry. What I meant about the mistake was we should’ve kept things the way they were. I don’t want you reading more into this than there is.”

  Reading more into it? Joey had been as addicted to me as I was to him. Of course I read more into it.

  “I like you,” he went on. “I consider you a really good friend. We’re friends, right?”

  I realized my mouth was hanging open as I listened to his garbage. “Friends?” I managed.

  “Yeah.”

  “Just friends?”

  “Well, I mean—”

  “You’ve had your tongue down my throat every chance you get, and your penis just met my vagina. And we’re just friends?”

  At least he had the wherewithal to look sheepish when I pointed out his stupidity.

  “Get the fuck off my boat, Joseph.”

  “Jazz—”

  “Just go.” I fumbled for my panties. I was sore between my legs. It was a tiny thing in comparison to the huge gaping hole in my sternum.

  He didn’t make any move to leave, his face a myriad of confused emotions.

  “Go away!” I screamed, and then stared blankly at him while my heart exploded into a million tiny pieces.

  And then he did.

  THE VODKA WAS long gone. I’d burned through all my dad’s vinyl looking for something appropriately suicidal. I’d played Miles Davis, and no, Someday My Prince would not fucking Come, Branford Marsalis’ “Mo Better Blues” weren’t blue enough, and finally I settled on “A Love Supreme” by John Coltrane. It wasn’t low-key because he wrote the four track in the middle of a heroin addiction. But that seemed kind of fitting for the moment. I’d been addicted to Joey. And I’d gone against all reason and judgment to get a bigger, better hit of him. A hit of oblivion to try and avoid thoughts of my dad.

  My dad.

  I grabbed a stack of postcards and took them into the berth with me. The whole place felt compromised by Joey being here. But I lay down, trying not to think about what we’d done here.

  I scanned through the postcards one by one. I looked at the pictures. I couldn’t bring myself to read the words. That was too much. One day I would. I’d read through all of them all over again and really appreciate them. And I suddenly realized how grateful I was for the gift my father gave me. He wrote to me every month from the day he left. I’d felt more connected to him than even my own mother, even though I lived with her and never saw him.

  I knew I could tell my father anything. And I had. I’d told him my hopes, my fears, my plans, my failures, my mess-ups, my embarrassments.

  What I’d just done with Joey flashed through my mind, and I wished I could share that with him too. Even though I knew I wouldn’t have. What father would want to know that shit?

  One day, I would arrange all these postcards in chronological order. Rows and rows. And I would track his movements around the world with a big world map. Maybe I would even follow in his footsteps. Maybe when I got to all these places I would understand the compulsion that kept him going and kept him away from me. It would all make sense when I put it together.

  The boat rocked gently. I couldn’t feel anything anymore. My emotions had drained away. I was empty. I knew the entire day—the news and what I’d done—would hit me hard tomorrow morning and for bonus points, I’d be hung over too.

  I fell asleep as the player hissed, and clicked, and turned endlessly, having reached the end of available revolutions on the record.

  MY EYES SNAPPED open and I cringed at the blinding light. Even through the murky windows the sun was strong. Something had woken me. I’d lurched across the berth in my sleep, and there’d been a sound. A loud sound. Now, I
heard voices shouting. My head throbbed and my mouth tasted like a pigeon vomit.

  Thanks, vodka.

  I slept with Joey last night. Oh my holy shit.

  My dad. Oh my God. My dad. As soon as I thought about it, a cavern opened up inside me. An emptiness and a nothingness like nothing I’d ever felt before was at the center of every feeling. It was sucking everything, every part of me, in on itself.

  My body curled up.

  Grief?

  Was this grief?

  The shouts got louder. The boat lurched.

  I groaned and clutched my head. I couldn’t clutch the empty pain inside my gut. Curling into a ball, I covered my head with my hands.

  Daddy.

  Daddy, this was a dream.

  Please, Daddy.

  You’re coming home.

  I know you’re coming home.

  There was another loud shout—a male voice close by. My bed tilted and I rolled. Oh shit. I opened my eyes. This was not a dream. There was water. Coming in down one side of the ladder I could see through the galley. My equilibrium told me we were leaning dangerously sideways. Thinking of the mast and the center of gravity of the hull, my heart exploded into a hurricane of fearful pounding. The boat was sinking. I was already moving. As I got upright, my head wanted to roll in pain off my neck but I shook it off, adrenaline surging through my veins.

  A stack of postcards were floating in an inch of water, the ink bleeding all over the pace. A large guttural cry sounded and it was me. I made that sound.

  I forgot trying to get to safety and tried to grab at the cards.

  “There’s someone in there,” a male voice shouted in a desperate tone.

  Before I could even think, I was in two feet of water. Everything was sideways. I was standing barefoot on the wood veneer sliding panel door that hid my cowgirl boot shoe box. The magazines holding my fathers pictures. Oh God. The magnitude of everything was too much. I watched in slow motion as the pile of vinyls slid off a shelf that was no longer a shelf hitting the water with a thud like a boulder.

  The water gushed in. The boat was flipping.

  I didn’t want to move. I could hear shouts getting frantic. And I watched as every memory I had of my father, every interaction, my entire relationship with him was swimming and sinking around me. I thought perhaps I should go with them.

  Everything around me blurred, and I realized I was crying. Finally. I was crying. A face appeared in the drastically reduced opening.

  A man.

  He was yelling something at me.

  I tried to engage my brain.

  “We have to wait for the exit to submerge before you swim out okay?”

  I stared at him.

  “Okay?” he yelled.

  I nodded.

  Then the opening was closed off and the space filled so fast I could hardly take a moment to breathe. But somehow I did. I grabbed a final breath, sank and grabbed the hands in front of me. Salt stung my eyes. The water was cool but not cold. I let the hands pull me up and kicked to aid them. We were free of the boat. We popped above the surface and I spluttered, brushing the hair off my face and blinking against the burning salt.

  Woody was in the water with me.

  A big cheer sounded.

  I looked around me, treading water, turning round and around. My father’s boat was gone. I let out a huge sob.

  A boat I didn’t recognize bobbed nearby. A few men in preppy looking clothes and Nantucket red shorts, some on cell phones looking shell-shocked, were on board. There was a huge scratch on the hull of the big white boat. They’d hit my dad’s boat.

  I turned my head and saw Harry’s boat too. He’d thrown a life ring and was pulling us in. We were moving through the water.

  WOODY GOT ME onto the boat and they got me ashore. My body was shuddering. I was so cold. Even with the blankets around me. The EMT’s from the North End Fire Station looked me over. I was dehydrated, and they immediately stuck a drip into my arm. I didn’t even feel the needle as it went in. Big surprise as I was legit hungover and saltwater-logged. From my spot on an outside bench at Woody’s, I saw Sheriff Graves arresting one of the people on the other boat. Apparently they’d been drinking. Boating While Intoxicated carried a pretty harsh fine in our area.

  My mother miraculously appeared from wherever she’d been. Perhaps Woody had called her. I wanted to want her. I wanted to need my parent. But the pain inside me seemed to have sprouted barbed needles that extended around me like a porcupine, and I couldn’t let her near me.

  Woody called Keri Ann, and before long I was in bed in my own room. I’d had a hot cup of herbal tea and she was reading Warriors of Erath to me out loud. I was surprised to find myself there, actually. The whole morning was a blur.

  “I’ve lost it all,” I interrupted her. “All my dad’s things. Everything.”

  She laid the book down and squeezed my hand. I was grateful she didn’t try to say it was okay. Because it wasn’t. And she didn’t even know everything. What else I’d lost.

  “I just found out last night after you left that he died,” I whispered.

  Her eyes grew wide and filled with water as her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God.” Her voice caught. “I’m so sorry.”

  And then my best friend in the whole world crawled into bed with me. And she held me as I cried.

  To give her credit, Keri Ann handled it like a pro. She had never really seen me cry in all the years we’d been friends.

  If I hadn’t lost him before, that day I truly lost my father in every way. Every memory. Every piece of him in the way I knew him.

  Apart from one postcard from Cape Town and an old Leica camera.

  TUESDAY MORNING AFTER the Memorial Day weekend, I dragged myself from my room and wandered into the kitchen.

  My mom was reading The Island Packet newspaper with a cup of coffee.

  “Mom,” I said, startled. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

  She looked up. Her eyes were stark and red rimmed. Next to her was my father’s camera. She’d unpacked the box when I’d told her to take it away.

  Swallowing, I went to the coffee maker.

  “I offered to travel with him, you know?”

  “Who?”

  “Your father. It wasn’t that I was holding him back. He had this idea we’d travel together. Sail around the world as soon as we could get a bigger boat. We’d be gypsies together. See every part of the world. But he deposited us back here, a place I thought I’d left behind forever. He had a brief moment of wanting to settle down, I guess, when I was pregnant with you. At first, he was so excited. Intrigued even. He’d get on his knees and press his face to my belly, talking to you. Singing to you. Playing jazz loud enough to be sure you heard it. But then he started taking these assignments. At first, because of the pregnancy, it was tough to be able to go. Then after you came, you were too young for some of the places. I argued you’d be fine. People in those places have babies, I’d tell him. They make do. We’ll handle it. Then the places became more dangerous. Of course he’d go. You and I, we’d stay. I worried so much. But it was like he became a junkie for those trips. After two to three weeks back here, he’d get restless again. He loved us Jazz. He loved me. He loved you. But he had a gypsy soul. He couldn’t live unless he was wild and free and testing every new boundary. Being in the most dangerous places and surviving.”

  My mom’s hands shook as she reached for her coffee. “He loved going to those places, taking the most dangerous and unfathomable pictures possible. He loved that more than he loved us. And that’s just the hard fucking truth, Jessica. He died doing what he loved doing best.”

  She finished her monologue and set her coffee cup down.

  “You don’t even know how he died. What if he wasn’t doing what he loved best?” My voice sounded strained to my ears.

  “I don’t know,” she agreed. “But I know your father. I know that whatever situation he was in that led to his death, he’d put himself there out of choic
e. He never made the safe choice. He always pushed the boundary. And if he could have picked a way to go, that’s the way he would have wanted it.”

  I sucked my lips between my teeth, willing my stinging eyes not to leak again. I couldn’t think about it anymore. Surely there were no tears left. My mind shifted to Joey as for a split second I found myself wanting to share this conversation with him. It was an evil twist of time that had made me confide in him about my father, share the boat, share my memories, and ugh, share my body. All in the weeks running up to me losing my father forever. Now memories of my dad would forever be mixed up with what I’d shared with Joey. I hated him for that. I hated them both for that.

  I added milk to my coffee and came and sat down opposite my remaining parent. At least she’d stuck around. Suddenly, I felt overwhelmingly sad for her, and for us. My damn father had been a complete dick. He’d made life plans with Mom, then bailed and left her to bring me up on her own. What about her plans and dreams? Memories of talking to Joey surfaced. What mattered to my mom?

  “So why aren’t you at work?” I asked.

  “Because I put in a transfer request to a new physician. Martin and I are no longer seeing each other.” She took a sip of coffee. “You can gloat,” she said.

  “Why would I want to gloat?” I asked.

  Mom shrugged. “You could say I told you so.”

  “Well, you’re not the only one to make poor choices. You could very well be a grandmother soon.”

  My mom went pale and set her coffee down.

  “On the night we lost Dad,” I went on. “I could have very well thrown my future away.”

  IN THE DAYS following sleeping with Joey and losing my father on the same night, my mom and I grew closer than we had ever been.

  And so when I got my period, she was the first person I told. But after ten days I hadn’t stopped bleeding.

  Mom took me to the gynecologist and held my hand while the doctor told me she’d given me a pregnancy test and it was positive.

  I had elevated pregnancy hormones, but with the bleeding like it was, my body was probably spontaneously aborting the fetus. The way the doctor spoke was all so clinical. I was grateful because I couldn’t feel anything anyway. Someone else inside my head took the news. It had been like this since a few days after everything happened. I couldn’t feel much of anything either good or bad.