Jenny turned to look at him. “I haven’t been here for years, Nik.” She got out of the car and waited for him as he got out and popped the trunk. “Do you remember how we’d bring subs and chips to—”
He lifted the Subway bag and showed it to her. “Six-inch sweet onion teriyaki on Italian. Tomatoes, cucumber, onion, green pepper. Sweet onion sauce and extra mayo.”
When she smiled at him, it lit up her face. “You remembered. Let me guess, twelve-inch on oat with tuna, bacon, and every topping known to man.”
Then he grinned. “Naturally.” He passed two blankets to her. “Can you carry those while I get the rest of this?” He grabbed the backpack he’d filled with treats. He’d learned quickly. The large arrangement of flowers had been too much he realized now, but he’d seen the way she’d smelled the forget-me-nots he’d picked. And despite enjoying herself, she’d scolded him for being too extravagant with the limo and trip to New York. While he wanted to shower her with everything she’d missed out on once he’d made it, all she wanted were the small personal things. He was happy to woo her with whatever made her happy. And from the smile on her face, takeout from Subway was just that.
They found a bench near the waterfront, where they could hear the water lapping, even if they couldn’t see very far. It was a clear night, and the moon reflected off the surface of the lake. Nik put everything he carried onto the ground and took the blankets from her, placing one on the bench. “Sit,” he offered.
She did as asked, and he placed the other blanket over her knees. “I feel like I’m ninety years old,” she said.
“Better to be looking ninety than telling me you want to leave because you’re cold. Which you would do. Often.” And yet she’d always dressed as if the temperature didn’t bother her. So much so that he’d gotten into the habit of wearing an extra long-sleeve Henley when they were younger because she’d inevitably ask him for his hoodie.
“Fair point,” she agreed. “I’ve missed your hoodies.” The voice was so quiet, he almost missed it.
Nik crouched down in front of her. “Hey.” He took both of her hands in his and kissed her knuckles. “This is the tough shit we need to get through. The hurt. The loss. Process it together and see what we’re left with.” He ran his finger down her cheek. “When I got back from the tour and I saw the pile of hoodies you’d stolen over the years sitting folded on the end of our bed, I lost my shit.” He rested his forehead on her knees and breathed deeply until he felt her fingers in his hair. “I couldn’t believe what I’d thrown away, how stupid I’d been.”
“Outside of us actually breaking up, this is the worst it’s ever going to be between us, right? As we try to make something from the pieces of us?” she asked, her voice filled with so much uncertainty that he couldn’t bear it.
He looked up at her and saw the hope in her eyes. “I hope so.”
* * *
She needed a moment to calm the roller coaster in her stomach and watched as Nik stood and opened the backpack. He pulled out a camping lamp, two bottles of water, and a large bag of all-dressed chips.
“You know, I once tried to explain all-dressed chips to a student from the States who was in my course in Ottawa. The idea of combining barbecue, sour cream and onion, ketchup, and salt and vinegar flavoring had her completely baffled. I remember buying a bag for her to try, and she was still confused.”
Nik popped the bag open and offered one to her. “Thankfully you can get ’em in the U.S. now, or we’d be taking boxes of them on tour with us.”
She tried not to flinch at the word “tour.” Tours were a part of his life, and she was going to have to get her head around that if she wanted to be friends. Thankfully, Nik didn’t notice, and eventually, after opening the water bottles and offering her one, he sat down next to her on the bench and unwrapped their subs.
They ate in a silence that wasn’t uncomfortable, even after the moment they’d shared. The water lapped at the shore, and the occasionally runner or dog walker would pass them and take in their impromptu picnic. When she’d finished her sub, she crumpled up the wrapper and tucked it back in the plastic bag the subs had come in. Nik did the same.
“Has it lived up to your expectations?” she asked. “Fame?”
Nik draped his arm over the back of the bench and looked up at the stars for a moment before turning to face her. “I think my relationship with what I do has changed over the years. When we first got those instruments from Maisey, it was all about having fun. Now, it’s a fucking machine. I’m a shareholder in three different companies. One for our tours. One for our merchandise. And one for our music. Up until last year, we’d been worked like a dog by Sam, the manager I told you about, the one who shot me. Now the guys are settling down, and I think we all want a bit more balance. Obviously from a financial perspective it’s been incredible . . .”
“But?” she asked.
Nik threaded his fingers through her hair. “I don’t know. I’ve felt restless this year. The music hasn’t been coming to me quite the way it did. I feel like something is missing. The spark, if you know what I mean.” He studied her face.
Jenny nodded. “I know what you mean. I felt that same kind of restlessness in Ottawa.”
“Can I ask you something, Jenny? How did you find out? I mean, it’s haunting me. It makes me sick to my stomach to think back to that moment. A part of me just wants to ignore what happened, but it will always hang between us.”
Her throat went tight and she took a sip of water to try to wet it.
This is the worst it’s ever going to be. This is the worst it’s ever going to be.
“I wasn’t joking the other day when I said the cover of People magazine. In the Loblaws at Queens Quay. I didn’t believe it at first. Thought it was just a stupid mistake.” She laughed sadly, remembering how her friend Steph had raised an eyebrow at the cover while Jenny had blown it off as the press always making things look way more salacious then they actually were. “Anyway, something made me pick it up off the shelf and flick to the story. My hands shook when I saw the images.” Kind of like they were now. She buried them under the blanket, suddenly feeling chilled to the bone.
“Jenny, I’m sorry, I should never have—”
“No,” she said, finding her strength. “I need to say it all, Nik.” Well, not all. She’d never tell Nik how she’d tried his phone, how Lennon had answered it for him. Tears began to burn her eyes, but she was determined to not cry. Not again. “You’d been pretty radio silent for a few days or so, and it so wasn’t like you. And the People thing was all speculative and grainy. So, I sat at home, in our bed, wearing the T-shirt you always let me sleep in when you were away, and did some web searching of my own. I thought if I could reassure myself it was a one-time thing, I might be able to get past it. But then I read her story, her full version of events. I knew it was over.”
Nik put his arm around her and pulled her close, pressing kisses to her temple. He shouldn’t be the one to comfort her, but she couldn’t imagine being this close to anybody else.
“Ellen was the first person to knock at the door the next morning. When she stepped inside, she noticed the suitcase. She tried to talk me out of leaving, asked me to go and stay with her and Maisey for a little while so that we could figure things out. Ever on your side, she said that even though the photos were so incriminating, I should give you a chance to let you explain. But I couldn’t, Nik. I couldn’t listen to you try to justify it. I knew you’d convince me it was okay, that we could figure it out.” The tears finally fell. “But I knew we couldn’t. I sensed it. I knew you’d outgrown me. You were restless.”
“No. No. That wasn’t it at all. God, Jenny, you were the only thing keeping me together. When I lost you, I lost my anchor. Fuck.” Nik stood up and paced over to the water then paced back again. “I don’t even know where to begin.” He sat down on the bench but faced her completely.
She could see the pain in his eyes, recognized it because it matched her own.
“Somewhere along the way I lost track of what was important. Shit, I lost myself.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I was what, twenty-two, nearly twenty-three maybe? So much shit had happened I felt like I was forty. I spent all that time making sure the band was taken care of. Jordan got out of care but he, well, he struggled with job interviews. And Dred, he was all about the music and never thought about the practicalities of it not making any money. Elliott was . . . his record held him back. And Lennon was unpredictable. At first, all I cared about was that we all made it out of care, that we all had somewhere to stay and sleep. But then it carried on. I’d been the parent—I still am—of the group for so fucking long. And until we found Sam, our first manager at a gig, I had been managing all the gigs and bookings. You remember how that was, right?”
Jenny ran her fingers beneath her eyes to catch the tears that had spilled over. “I knew you were busy, but I honestly thought it was what you wanted, what you had been working for all those years.”
Nik sighed and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I thought it was too. But I was fed up of being the sensible one. I was fed up of always trying to do the right thing.” He said it all in past tense, even though so much of it still rang true. “And I can’t even make sense of it all now because in some ways, I still feel the same. Hell, I still act the same. Taking care of shit. I mean . . . fuck. My dad just wanted me to be more. More than he was. Happier than he was. Have more than he did. And I felt this sense of responsibility after everything my grandparents had gone through to make those sacrifices add up to something without feeling like a fucking outsider.”
“So, what happened? I mean, how did you go from saying goodbye to me in the shower that morning to sleeping with . . . ?” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Before I left, a whole bunch of bills came in for the house. Rent. Electric. Gas. And we had no money. Your part-time job only paid so much of your tuition, and you needed money to live while I was away. The label hadn’t paid us much for our first album, and we hadn’t seen royalties. Elliott, Jordan, and Lennon were out of work. Dred was part-time in a record store, but only after I’d told him we were broke. We were swimming in debt, and I didn’t know how to fix it, short of refusing to do the tour without seeing money. Everyone thinks once you sign a deal, you’ve made it, but so much is out-of-pocket expense.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Jenny asked. “I had no idea things were so tight for us.”
“What was the point of worrying everyone? Elliott and Lennon were trying to get work, but it was hard to find work that allowed us to tour. Not everybody was as good as Leo was to me. Anyway, despite the fact we were already getting a lot of press, the tour was a basic launch tour. Too many cities, no rest breaks, tight living quarters. Jordan and Lennon had gotten into a fight on the bus before we’d even pulled into the venue in Boston. Trying to separate them, I ended up with a black eye. And when we walked inside, the setup was all wrong. While I was trying to fix it, the guys had helped themselves to a beer at the bar without bothering to lock up the van. So two of our guitars were stolen out of the back. I went off on the guys because . . . for fuck’s sake, why couldn’t any of them get off their asses and help? We needed to fix the setup, we needed to call the police to report the guitars stolen, and we needed to replace at least one of the guitars to be able to perform. And it wasn’t just that night, Jenny. It had been like that for most of the gigs. I’d do all the work, and they’d show up on stage to perform. So, I told them to fuck off. That I wasn’t performing. That I wasn’t figuring it out. And I left the bar.”
Nik removed his arm from around her and rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. She could see the tension in his shoulders, could hear him curse silently under his breath.
“Where did you go?”
He looked at her from the corner of his eye. “I feel ill at the thought of telling you all this. It’s really fucking painful.”
Her stomach agreed. She felt sick and placed her water down on the floor. “Not knowing has driven me crazy over the years, because I have quite the imagination. It would be better to know the truth now than to spend the rest of my life wondering.”
Silence fell between the two of them, but she knew Nik well enough to know he was just collecting his thoughts.
“I walked to this hole-in-the-wall bar in Boston and took a seat in the corner. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. So, I ordered a beer. Then another one. Then another one. And I swear, I kept thinking I should just hop on a plane and come back to you . . . God, I can’t do this, Jenny. I thought I could.”
Pain ripped through her at the agony in his voice. “Remember what you said to me,” she said. “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. Well, I hate this too, Nik. But you owe me the truth.”
His shoulders sagged and he shook his head as he looked down at the floor. “It was . . . I . . . fuck.” Nik turned in his seat and looked at her. He swallowed deeply and took a deep breath.
“A brunette in a Red Sox jersey two sizes too tight came up to me and we got to talking. And she didn’t know who I was. And she asked nothing of me. She didn’t need me to pay rent, to fix shit, to organize stuff. Told me her apartment was just across the street and her roommate was studying late, and I saw an out. For one night, I could be me for the sake of being me. But you know what the irony was? For a couple of hours I felt free, but when it was over, I felt fucking worse. I felt like a shit. I missed the gig, all the problems I had before were still there, and, fuck, I couldn’t face you. I looked down at my phone and saw that I’d missed your call. And I knew I’d fucked everything up because I knew I’d have to tell you. That you deserved to know.”
Jenny sobbed. She couldn’t help herself. She cried for herself, reliving the pain of that decision, and she cried for Nik, who’d been so overwhelmed.
Nik looked at her, tears streaking his own face. “I tried to get home that day. I was at the airport, trying to figure out how the fuck I was going to afford the airfare home, when Sam, our manager, called me up, reaming me a new one. Told me the label was furious that I’d been a no-show. We’d been in negotiation with them for two more albums and they threatened to pull the contracts if we were unreliable. All because of me, the most reliable one of the fucking bunch. I told him I needed to get to you before the media did, that I wanted to tell you face-to-face.”
“So, you went back to the band?”
“I had no choice, it was everything to us, and the best shot we had at getting away from being broke all the time. But I knew I was going to lose you if I didn’t get to you first. I picked up my phone a thousand times, but you deserved better than a phone call. And I couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t going to end up with you walking away from me. I had no idea she was going to go to the press to make a few bucks once she found out who I was. Look. If I could take it all back, Jenny, if I could have stayed with you that day instead of getting on the damn tour bus, I would do it in a heartbeat. I believe it with everything that I am when I say I’m certain we would’ve been happier, that I would’ve been happier. The idea of walking home from a construction job that left me fulfilled, picking a bunch of wildflowers just so I could see the smile on your face when I walked through the door, and falling asleep with you every night . . . well, it haunts me during the day and keeps me awake at night.”
Silently, she reached for her purse and pulled out two tissues. One for her and one for him. “If I’d known what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have let you go. I wish you’d felt as though you could have shared the pressure you were under with me.”
Nik wiped his eyes, and then took her tissue to wipe her face. He held her chin with such gentleness, his red-rimmed dark eyes fixed on her. “I’m sorry, Jenny. Truly, from the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to worry you. You’d alr
eady been through so much.”
“So where do we go from here?” she asked quietly, scared of the answer.
“That’s up to you, sweetheart. I’m yours, Jenny, I always have been. The question is, are you still mine?”
CHAPTER SIX
Dear Max,
Jenny looked down at the blue ink on the creamy white notepaper, picked it up, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it into the trash. She reached for the tea she’d brewed in her favorite mug and looked around her apartment for inspiration, but there was none to be found.
To Max,
Better. Less personal. And less aggressive than the names she really wanted to call him. Murderer. Sociopath. Predator.
Jenny tapped her pen between her teeth. What came next? She caught sight of the small picture she had of her and her mom. Memories came flooding back, of him urging her mom to drink the vile liquid that had poisoned her. Frantically, she began to write.
I have no intention of coming to see you and ask that you never contact me again. The seventeen years have been nowhere near long enough to deal with the trauma you caused. You grinned as Mom’s heart stopped, you asshole. I have no interest in seeing you or having any kind of relationship with you. Please respect my wishes.
Jenny
There. Short but sweet.
Before she could change her mind, she slipped the paper into the envelope she’d already addressed and placed a stamp on.
She’d mail it to him on her way to work. Tonight, she’d celebrate sending it by picking up takeout and a bottle of Zinfandel on the way home.
As she pulled on her coat, she thought about the conversation she’d had with Nik the previous evening. After their heartfelt talk, it had felt as though someone had sucked all the air out of her. Nik was right—talking about that night was the bottom. While nothing could make up for the fact that he’d cheated on her, knowing the context helped her process it.
Nikan Rebuilt--A steamy, emotional rockstar romance Page 10