Silence filled the cab, and Nik bit down on his knuckle, something he used to do when he was thinking. “Something on your mind?” she asked.
He turned in the seat to face her. “Yeah, I’ve got a question I really need to ask, but I know you’re going to get mad at me as soon as I ask it.”
“Why on earth would I get mad?”
Nik reached for her left hand, and turned it over in his palm, tracing her life line with his fingertips.
“Why would you get mad? Come on . . . we both know you’re still sixty percent pissed at me.”
“Sixty?”
“At least. I guess I just wondered why nobody has put a ring on this?” he said, running his finger along her ring finger. He sighed and looked at her, lines between his brows. “I thought it wouldn’t bother me, not knowing, but the truth is, I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking about it. Was there someone else? Is there? I mean, I know I’ve been a shit in the past, but I’m not that guy now. If there’s somebody else, I’ll try my fucking hardest to be happy for you.”
Jenny looked down at the way he was drawing imaginary circles on her palm like he had a thousand times before. Stuff was unresolved between them, and it bothered her that she didn’t know how it would go if she put herself out there enough to try to resolve them with Nik, but she wouldn’t lie to him, ever.
“I wouldn’t have kissed you if there was, so, no, there is no one else right now.”
Nik linked her fingers with his. “Was there ever, after us?”
His hand felt so familiar, and the car began to close in on her. “I dated, had a couple of relationships that went beyond dating into longer term, but nothing ever came of them.”
“Why was that?” Nik asked.
Jenny tugged her hand away and moved closer to the door. “You don’t need to know.”
“Do you think there’ll ever be a time when I’m not saying I’m sorry to you? Because I’m happy to say it for as long as you need me too, but I just . . . fuck. I just want us back how we were because it was the happiest time of my life, and I fucked it up.” Nik flopped his head back against the seat.
Her heart squeezed at his words. “Mine too,” she said softly.
She wondered if just that tiny piece of common ground between them could provide enough foundation for something more.
* * *
It wasn’t going as he’d expected, but he was relieved she was seated opposite him. At some basic level she trusted him, or she would never have gone with him.
They’d boarded the private jet he’d hired, and Jenny had eaten the light early brunch and sipped on half a glass of champagne in relative silence. He hadn’t wanted her to be hungry, and their lunch reservation at Jean-Georges, the three-Michelin-star restaurant on Central Park West, wasn’t until one thirty. She played with the stem of the champagne glass, and he wondered if she realized that the cut crystal cast her in a shower of prisms when it caught the light.
He picked up his sparkling water, grateful that she hadn’t asked why he hadn’t joined her in a glass of bubbly. He wasn’t ready to explain that yet.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, looking up to catch him looking at her.
“Should I get the pilot to turn the plane around?” he said, half teasing, half terrified, that that was exactly what she was going to suggest.
For the first time since they’d been reunited, she smiled directly at him. Not because of something somebody else had said. But just for him. “We’ve been through so much together, and it’s going to be impossible to just ignore each other, given the time you spend at the home. So for the sake of the boys we could call a truce. Be friends, maybe. I’m not going to pretend I understand why you did what you did, but at some point, I’m going to have to believe you that you didn’t mean to break me in two, and it was a long time ago. So . . .”
The thought of the pain he’d caused her ripped through him, but he wasn’t sure he could be what she wanted and stay sane. “Friends?” he asked. But he didn’t want to be friends. He wanted her to smile at him just like she was now, only naked, lying beneath him, or above him, or any fucking way that made her happy. Discreetly he fidgeted in his seat as his dick grew harder.
“Friends.” Her smile faltered, like a TV picture with a bad reception. “It’s all I’ve got right now, Nik,” she added softly.
He’d make it work. Every moment she spent with him was a golden opportunity to convince her to invest in them, to build something more.
“I can live with that. For now.”
“For now?”
Yeah. For now. While he began to build something out of the rubble of their past. “A guy can live in hope, but I’ll always respect your wishes.”
“Good,” she said, and looked out of the window.
He didn’t look out at the view once. There was nothing outside this goddamn airplane that could hold a candle to her.
When the plane finally landed in New York, they were hustled through security to a waiting limo. “You feel like a walk before we eat?” Nik asked as he watched Jenny stare wide-eyed out of the window. When she’d told him as they’d waited for their passports to be inspected that she’d never made it to New York, he realized just how many experiences he’d had without her.
“That sounds like a great idea. But is that possible with all the”—she gestured up and down his chest—”you know. Paparazzi and stuff.”
“Leave that to me,” he said. He instructed the driver to drop them at the Museum of Natural History entrance to Central Park. Jean-Georges was on the southwest corner of the park, so they could walk along the lake for a little while. As the limo came to a stop, Nik pulled a hair elastic, a beanie, and a pair of sunglasses from his jacket pockets. Quickly, he tied his hair back and tucked the length of it inside his jacket. Then he tugged on his beanie and sunglasses. “How do I look?”
The driver came around and opened Jenny’s door.
“Annoyingly perfect,” she said as she stepped out onto the sidewalk.
Nik grinned and followed her. Once he was alongside her, he reached for her hand.
Jenny looked down at what he’d done. “We agreed on friends, right?” she cautioned.
“Friends hold hands. Elliott and I do it all the time,” he said with a laugh.
She looked up at him, lips pursed, a squint in her eye. “Don’t get ideas.”
“Definitely not, babe.”
He led them into the park, which was wearing its fall colors with pride. Trees with leaves in shades of copper and rust stood tall next to trees holding on to the last burst of green. It was spectacular. Every time the band visited New York, he made sure he had the chance to run a 10K loop around it. It left him feeling more grounded, more connected to the earth beneath his feet.
“Sarah McLachlan had it right,” Jenny said. “You know, the way seeds know when to grow and how the leaves just know when to fall. Ordinary miracles and all that.”
If only she knew he felt the same way about her. Not the ordinary part, the miracle part. Until he’d seen her at the group home, his life had felt like a fucking sieve. He’d pour shit into it—work, ideas, women, lyrics—but they’d all seem to pour straight out, leaving him empty and unanchored. And watching Dred, and Jordan, and Elliott all find their happily-ever-afters had caused a weightlessness he hadn’t expected.
Not that he wasn’t happy for his brothers. He was. Happier than they’d ever know. And he wished the same for Lennon.
“What are you thinking?” she asked. Her cheeks turned pink. “Never mind. You don’t need to answer that.”
Keeping her hand in his, Nik placed his other hand on her cheek and ran the pad of his thumb across lips he desperately wanted to kiss again. Friday night had been nowhere near enough. “You want to know anything about me, touch any part of me, take anything of mine . . .”
Jenny’s eyes flared in response, even as that perfect mouth of hers dropped open. It would take nothing to lean forward and kiss her.
/> He pulled his hand away and led them down the other side of the hill, taking a moment to get himself under control. The lake came into view on their left, and the sun bounced off the ripples like diamonds. “I’ll tell you what I was thinking,” he said roughly. “I was thinking about how happy I am for Dred, Jordan, and Elliott that they found someone to love and to love them.”
“Tell me about them. Tell me who their partners are.”
As they walked, Nik filled her in on his bandmates.
“You got shot?” she shouted as he told her about Dred and Pixie’s story. “Holy shit, Nik. That’s not small. Are you okay now though?”
Nik laughed. “Yeah. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. It grazed me more than anything, only took ten stitches to close it back up.” He played down getting shot to save Dred’s daughter, Petal, and his now fiancée, Pixie, because he didn’t want Jenny worrying. “But Pixie, she completes Dred. And now she’s pregnant with their first child, although Lord only knows how Petal is going to deal with it.”
“She sounds like a handful.” Jenny wrapped her free hand around his arm like she always used to in a move so seamless he figured she hadn’t realized she’d done it. He certainly wasn’t going to point it out.
“She’s eighteen months old and has us all wrapped around her little finger. Jordan especially. You know, he says Lexi saved him, but I think Petal held him together until the two of them could meet. And if Petal hadn’t been teething, Jordan wouldn’t have taken her for a walk on Christmas Day, and wouldn’t have seen Lexi dance.”
“So, Lexi’s the ballerina, right?”
“Yeah. Honestly, if I never go to the fucking ballet again it will be too soon, but everything we do has to be planned around her opening nights. And we all have to go or else Jordan is a miserable ass for a couple of weeks.”
The sound of Jenny’s laugh shot through him as they stepped out of the park onto Central Park West and the restaurant came into view. “I’m thrilled to hear he’s . . . I don’t know . . . it always seemed to me that he was never really living. The way he used to stay up in that attic for hours, even in winter. I’m happy he has moved on with his life.”
“So has Elliott, with Kendalee and Daniel, who you met. You’d really like Kendalee. She’s this sweet - on - the - outside - but - with - a - core - of - steel kinda woman. The way she advocates for care for Daniel is freaking fierce. She’s the kind of mom I guess we all dreamed about.”
He stopped them by the steps to the restaurant. “Lennon is still Lennon. I honestly don’t know where shit leads for him.”
“And what about you?” Jenny’s cheeks turned a light pink. “You asked me. Has there been anybody for you in the past? I mean, I’ve seen the news about the videos and stuff, but I wondered if . . .”
“Sit,” he said, nudging her onto the stone steps, holding her hand while she sat. Then he joined her. “You know what happened to me before care.” Nik wondered how he’d ever managed seven months on the street at such a young age, but being on the receiving end of his foster mother’s brutal rages had seemed so much worse than wondering how to stay dry at night. “I guess I’ve always had impulse-control issues. Think about it. Shit. Our sex life was . . .” He lowered his head into his hands, feeling remorse for the demands he’d constantly put on her and her body, even though she’d seemed to want them as much as he had. “I was the wrong kid to hand the winning lottery ticket to. The more successful we became, the more of everything I wanted. And I was too blind to see it at first. The first few years after that tour, after I realized you weren’t coming back, I threw myself into the whole scene, on a crash course to joining the twenty-seven club, and was stupid enough to record half of it.”
“What’s the twenty-seven club?” Jenny asked.
“All those musicians who died at twenty-seven. Jimmy Hendrix. Janis Joplin. Kurt Cobain. Amy Winehouse.”
Jenny gasped. “Was it really that bad?”
Nik sighed. “Yeah. Probably worse than whatever it is you’re imagining.”
Silence fell between them. Jenny wrapped her hands around his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. People hurried past on the pavement and horns blared as traffic battled through the construction, but they were in their own little bubble.
“What changed?”
“I nearly killed myself,” he said gruffly before biting his lower lip hard to stop anything resembling emotion from bubbling over.
“Oh, Nik.” She pressed her forehead to his shoulder, and he kissed the top of her head. It was a simple gesture, something a friend might do, but he savored every moment. The way her hair smelled of apples, the way she gripped his bicep a fraction more tightly. “What happened?”
He shook off the melancholy. “Listen, Jenny. I meant what I said in the park. I’m an open book to you. There hasn’t been anybody else, not even a short-term relationship that is worth mentioning. All of those videos are over five years old, and there are no more for anyone to find. I realized I’d fucked up one time too many and it was time to stop. Has there been more casual sex than is healthy? Yes. Am I proud of myself? No. Do I wish I had some other story about the man I’ve been? Fuck, yes. You want all the ugly details, I’ll tell you every single one of them right here. But I really wanted today to be special.”
When Jenny finally looked up at him, her eyes were rimmed with unshed tears.
“Don’t cry, babe. I’m not worth it, and I get that I’ve probably caused you more tears than you should ever have had to shed. I’m not avoiding answering, but can we postpone it? To tonight on the flight home or something?”
Jenny slipped her hands from around his arm and swiped her fingers under her eyes as she nodded. “I may need to freshen up before we sit down.”
Nik stood and offered her his hand. “I can’t promise the process of being friends is going to be easy. You’re going to ask me questions that I’m going to hate answering with words you are going to hate hearing.”
“Just don’t lie to me, Nik. My heart still isn’t fully recovered from the last time.”
He kissed her forehead. “I won’t. I promise.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Jenny looked at the trembling lip on eleven-year-old Harry and his more stoic older brother, thirteen-year-old Thomas. The home wouldn’t normally take someone as young as Harry, but they had two beds available, and the young boy had gone from screaming fits to convulsions at the thought of being separated from his brother. Which was why she’d spent the morning setting up a temporary bed so the two of them could share a room until they’d had a chance to work with Harry enough to get him comfortable going to his own bed.
The clothes would need burning by the looks of them, and by the state of the boys’ hair, they were going to need to endure one more traumatic event by having it cropped incredibly short. She could see the lice crawling from where she stood, and they wouldn’t even be able to begin to get a lice comb through the matting. Then, as quickly as she could, she’d plan an opportunity for them to see their four sisters. The two middle girls had gone to a different group home, and the four-year-old twins had been found a temporary foster home. It hurt her heart to see families separated like that, but at short notice it was all the city could manage.
“Simon is going to help you boys get cleaned up and give you some clean clothes while I go make you some food,” she said softly. “You must be very hungry. Would you like a small snack now to tide you over?”
Her heart broke as Harry looked to Thomas for permission.
“Yes,” Thomas said.
There would be a time to work on manners, on remembering his please and thank-yous, but this wasn’t it. Not after they’d been held at gunpoint by their own father because their mother had tried to leave. Not after they’d witnessed their father lose control and kill their mom in cold blood in the kitchen and then attempt—and fail—to kill himself. Jenny prayed he would recover so he could face the full extent of the charges. Men who plotted and committed murder belonge
d behind bars—like her father.
After she’d gotten the boys an apple and a cookie, she met Maisey, Ellen’s social worker wife, and led her into the kitchen. “I’m so glad you were assigned to their case, Maisey. They need a strong advocate like you.”
Maisey’s short black bob swung as she pulled out a stool on one side of the island and sat down. The woman didn’t look a day over forty, despite being close to her mid-fifties. “I was thinking the same thing about you. You have quite the record of working with troubled boys.”
“I learned from the best. I saw what you and Ellen created for the boys here.” Jenny plated some cookies and poured Maisey some coffee the way she liked it.
“I think we all do the best we can, right? . . . Outside of the home, how are you settling in?”
Jenny took a bite of cookie and looked out of the window briefly before turning back to Maisey. She didn’t really know how to answer. “Fine, I guess. I mean, being here is great, and the apartment is brighter than I expected.”
Maisey took a cookie from the plate and looked around the kitchen conspiratorially. “I know it’s none of my business, Jenny, but I heard from Jordan that Nik flew you to New York on Sunday. And while I love that boy like he is my own, I have never been able to condone the way he treated you back then. Are you okay?”
Warmth filled Jenny, something that had been missing from her life for way too long. When she’d made the decision to return, she hadn’t been sure what kind of reception she’d receive, but Ellen and Maisey had shown exactly how compassionate they were by welcoming her back as if she’d never been away. “We’re working on being friends,” she answered carefully. It was the truth. After their meaningful conversation outside the restaurant, they’d gone on to eat a wonderful meal that had included scallops with caramelized cauliflower and spice-crusted venison. They’d kept the conversation light. He’d shared funny stories from Preload’s ascent to their position as metal rock royalty, including a time he’d gotten locked in the bathroom of the tour bus and had missed the first two songs before the driver had returned and heard him banging. The roadie who’d stepped in for Nik had thoroughly enjoyed his ten and a half minutes of fame. She’d told him about how naïve she’d been about what being a social worker would be like, and how it had taken the first four years to actually adjust to the reality of the job. She’d shared her frustrations at the bureaucracy of it, and her ideas for how it could be improved.
Nikan Rebuilt--A steamy, emotional rockstar romance Page 8