by Hannah Ford
“Painful?” Sander asked. “Painful for whom?”
“For everyone,” Jake said, still looking at him.
Suddenly, Courtney began laughing hysterically. She was shaking her head and laughing so hard that it became awkward listening to her.
“Is something funny?” Raven asked her, feeling like she truly wanted to slap the girl’s obnoxious face.
“This has to be a joke. Jake, please tell me you’re putting us on right now.”
“It’s not a joke,” he replied evenly.
“Look, whatever’s going on with you,” Sander told him, “all you need to do is ask for my help. We can take care of this, Jake. We’ve always been good to you, haven’t we?”
“You’ve been fine, Sander.”
Sander’s smile faded for the first time. “I hope I don’t need to explain to you that we’ve got an ironclad contract, Jake. You’re a smart man.”
“I’m not continuing the tour. I can’t do it anymore.”
Courtney was staring at him now, and the good-natured pretense had drained from her expression. She looked more like some kind of feral dog, her nostrils flared, eyes wide with a desperate expression of need and fear and mistrust.
“I want to show you something,” she said in a low voice, taking out her cell phone and quickly hitting the touch screen. She walked close to where Jake was standing, and handed her phone to him.
Jake took it, a puzzled expression crossing his features. “I see it,” he told her.
“That’s our video—the one of us singing together. Do you see how many views it has?” she asked.
He nodded, shrugging. “So?”
“So,” she said, “it’s got almost two hundred million views.” She leaned close to him and began touching her cell phone as he held it.
Raven hated how she was brushing her bare arm against Jake’s arm, her beautiful hair grazing Jake’s shoulder. He was giving her a sidelong glance, and Raven wondered if he was perhaps remembering how stunningly pretty and seductive Courtney Taylor was in the flesh.
Was he thinking how she might look out of those clothes, laid out on his bed? Raven tried to shake off her fear and insecurities.
Jake loves me.
“Now what am I supposed to be seeing?” Jake asked, a bit of impatience creeping into his voice.
“That’s your most recent music video from your solo album,” she replied. “Look at how many views it has, Jake.”
He frowned. “Eighty three million.”
“Not even half of what we got together, with some silly little video that was shot by an amateur.”
Raven felt herself grimace, since Courtney was referring to her. She’d been the one to shoot that video. She was the one that Courtney was calling an “amateur” dismissively. But Raven kept her mouth shut for the moment.
Jake handed Courtney back her phone. “I’m not sure I get the point,” he said.
“The point should be obvious,” Sander told him.
“The point is that you and I are a great team,” Courtney said. “Don’t you see the potential of this tour? For both of us?”
Jake shook his head. “It’s not about that.”
“Then what is it about?” she said. “Do you think you’re too big to fall, Jake? Are you really as arrogant as everyone’s saying you are?”
“If you thought you were going to come here and change my mind by showing me some YouTube videos, you were mistaken.”
“I’m trying to help you avoid making the biggest mistake of your life,” she said. “You and I can go back out on tour tomorrow and sell out every venue in the country, in the world. We can make it fun again, Jake. My new single is blowing up all over Europe and Japan—“
“You’re going to have a wonderful career,” Jake told her softly. “But I don’t want that kind of career anymore.”
She threw up her hands. “There’s no talking sense to him! He doesn’t realize that he needs me way more than I need him.”
Raven couldn’t keep quiet anymore. “How many views does your last video have on its own, Courtney?”
Courtney spun and glared at her. “You should know better than to involve yourself in the business of successful people who actually create art, who actually do things.”
“It’s a simple question,” Raven said.
“And you’re simply not worth my time,” Courtney said. “I’m putting you on ignore.” She turned back to Jake.
Raven took out her own cell phone and looked up the video herself. “You’ve got two million views on your latest video, Courtney. Correct me if I’m wrong, but two million is way less than eighty-three million. Like, Jake could probably film himself eating a hamburger and get more views than your latest single did.”
“Fuck you,” Courtney said, turning to face her again. “You dumb skank, you have no idea what you’re doing here. You think you’re helping him? Do you actually believe this is all going to work out and you and Jake are going to live happily ever after?”
Raven smiled sweetly, even though inside she was furious and a little afraid. “That’s exactly what I think, Court.”
Shortening her name seemed to enrage Courtney all the more. She pointed a long, witchlike finger at Raven. “You must be stupider than I ever gave you credit for. Jake’s not going to want anything or anyone to remind him of the mess he’s made of his life. And after he hits rock bottom and loses his fortune and career and everything he worked so hard to build—the very last thing he’s going to want to do is see your face everyday. The face of the woman who caused his entire life to fall apart.”
Raven felt herself taking a step backwards, as the effect of Courtney’s words had been as physical as they’d been emotional.
Or maybe it was that she’d never felt such a furnace blast of hate coming at her all at once like that.
Sander took Courtney’s arm gently and whispered something in her ear.
Courtney wrenched away from him. “I won’t calm down. Sometimes people need to hear the truth.”
“Courtney,” Jake said, his voice calm and deep and powerful. It seemed to cut through the tension in the room and stop everyone in their tracks.
It was as if a king had listened to pleading and arguments and was now about to pronounce his judgment.
Courtney and Sander turned their heads and looked to Jake, both of them meek and quiet, waiting for him to continue.
Jake’s eyes were cold and detached, but there was a powerful emotion beneath his cool exterior. “I can appreciate that you came here to make a last ditch effort to save the tour. And because I’m the one who pulled out, I can accept your anger and even your disgust.” He paused for a long moment and looked at Courtney with eyes that made her tantrum look like nothing more than a child throwing toys out of its crib. Jake’s eyes had that thousand yard stare quality that showed he’d been through more in his life than she could possibly fathom.
“What I can’t accept,” Jake continued in a slow, low voice, “is the disrespect you’ve shown the woman I love.”
“Listen, Jake—“ Sander began, trying to lighten the mood.
“Sander,” Jake said, glaring at him momentarily. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
The man seemed to shrink six inches as he shut his mouth.
Courtney crossed her arms protectively over her chest. “I’m trying to help you, Jake.”
“You go on now and have that great career, Courtney,” Jake said, almost a whisper. “But I’m going to give you a little piece of advice, since you were so kind as to give me the benefit of your years of wisdom. I think maybe you should remember that all those people you stepped on while you climbed your way to the top, you’re going to meet when you come down again, and it’s not going to be pretty.”
“Maybe you should take your own advice,” she retorted, but the fire had gone out of her voice and her confidence was shaken.
“Get out of my room,” he said. “The tour isn’t happening.”
They turned and star
ted to leave together. Sander Edwards looked over his shoulder as he opened the hotel room door. “You’re going to be in an awful lot of trouble, Jake. You’ll honor that contract one way or the other.”
“Do what you have to do,” Jake told him.
And then they were gone.
When the door clicked shut, the room fell eerily silent. Raven hugged herself momentarily, feeling like a bug that had been splattered across a car windshield.
Jake looked at her. “You okay?”
She nodded somberly. “I think so.”
He gave her a little comforting smile, walking towards her. “Don’t let Courtney’s trash talk get to you. She’s a little entitled brat who didn’t get her way.”
“But maybe she’s right,” Raven said. “If everything goes completely wrong, and if this is some horrible mistake, you might end up somehow believing that it’s my fault.”
“Why would it be your fault?”
“I don’t know.”
He took her hand in his. “Raven, I was the one who said I didn’t want to keep touring. You don’t carry any responsibility for my choice in the matter.”
Raven looked at him, the love in his eyes nearly overwhelming her. He’d stood up for her, and she couldn’t doubt him. But then, some little nagging doubt persisted. “Are you sure I didn’t have anything to do with it? You said that there wouldn’t be any room for us or for me on tour. It seemed to factor into your decision.”
Jake let go of her hand and sighed deeply, rolling his eyes skyward. “Okay, so maybe it factored in. But it’s not your fault and it never will be.”
She looked down at the floor, searching uncertainly. “Someday you might start to resent me,” she whispered. “You might think that I’m cursed—“
Jake laughed. “I’m not superstitious.”
“I just don’t want to lose you over this,” she admitted, finally.
“You can’t lose me,” he said. “Because I found you, and I’m going to hold onto you for the rest of my life.”
* * *
That night, they drank Long Island Iced Tea drinks that Jake made himself at the hotel room bar, and then played strip poker. By the end of the game, Raven was in bra and panties and Jake was in his boxers, and Jake couldn’t keep his hands off her.
He made slow, passionate love to her on the floor, and she could feel playing cards pressing into her back as Jake’s body weight sunk onto her.
He slid his cock in and out of her wetness, kissing her mouth as he ran his hands through her hair, and then he turned her over onto her stomach and fucked her from behind. Her hands grabbed the carpet as Jake’s huge shaft split her in the middle, and she cried out from the pleasure of it, drunk on Long Island Iced Tea and Jake’s sex and everything that her life had become.
After that, they slunk into bed, sweaty and naked and half asleep. Intertwined in the big bed, Raven kissed Jake’s chest, down his stomach and then took his soft cock into her mouth, sucking until he was rock hard again.
In the darkness, she licked and sucked him until he exploded in her mouth, and she swallowed every last bit of it, and Jake threw his head back on the pillow, sighing with ease as his entire body relaxed.
They slept together closely, and she could hear the steady thud of his heartbeat in the night, drumming against his ribcage as she laid her head on his chest.
Snuggling as close as she could get, Raven didn’t want this time to ever come to an end.
I love him so much, she thought.
I’ve never loved or been loved this way.
Not even her own parents had ever loved her so completely, nor could she say that she’d loved them back as completely as what she felt for this man she’d only known for a short time.
And yet, here she was—after everything she’d been through in her life—all the heartbreak and suffering and thoughts of ending it all.
I’ve found my place, she thought, as Jake’s strong arms wrapped protectively around her shoulders and he shifted into her, not even knowing what he was doing. He was sleeping, and even then his instinct seemed to be to hold her close.
Raven stroked his skin, nuzzled into him, and finally slept.
* * *
The next morning, they woke up and Jake had room service bring up breakfast. They were both relatively quiet as they ate, but it was a comfortable silence between them. There was no need to force anything.
Occasionally, Jake would look at her and smile, and then he would sip his coffee and go back to watching Sports Center on ESPN.
Raven mostly stared out the large picture window as she ate dreamily, wondering how she could be where she was, with him, and be so happy. Nothing explained how she’d ended up there, and she didn’t want to think too much about it, because somehow that might change it.
Raven didn’t want anything to change.
After breakfast, she went and had a nice long bath, shaved her legs, soaked, and then got out, dressed, put on makeup and exited the bathroom.
When she came out, Jake was watching a video on his computer, sitting forward, a concerned look on his face.
On screen, there was a reporter at a news desk talking.
“It hasn’t been a very good month for superstar Jake Novak,” the reporter on screen said, shaking his head with a sorrowful look on his face. “From cancelled shows to making offensive and insulting comments about people suffering from depression, the besieged star seems to have only just gotten started when it comes to causing controversy. And now,” the reporter continued, his eyes widening with disbelief, “some of the people closest to Jake are finally starting to speak out. Today, Courtney Taylor spoke on the record.”
The clip switched to a shot of Courtney being interviewed by a reporter out on the street. A microphone was in her face. “Courtney, is there any truth to the reports that the tour with Jake Novak has been cancelled?”
Courtney licked her bight red lips. “There’s been so many rumors flying around, and it’s really been painful for all of us who are close to Jake to know the truth and not be able to talk about it.”
“And what, exactly, is the truth?”
The beautiful singer smiled sadly. “The truth is, Jake Novak has become a liability in the music world. Those of us who know and care about him have tried to urge him to make better choices, to get help, and to get away from the people that are currently enabling his bad habits. But I guess he just isn’t ready to change just yet. Instead, he’s cancelled the tour and left thousands of people out in the cold.”
“When was the last time you spoke to him?”
She shook her head. “I need to respect Jake’s privacy. I really care so much about him, and I hope he gets the help he needs soon, before things get even worse.” Suddenly, Courtney put her hand over her mouth, seemingly overcome with emotion, and shook her head. “I—I’m sorry. I really can’t talk about this anymore.” And then she walked away from the camera.
“Christ Almighty,” Jake growled. “I wonder if she plans to campaign for an Academy Award with that performance.”
Raven pulled on her lower lip, stomach churning. “I can’t believe that little monster. She’s a liar.”
The clip switched back to the news anchor at his desk. “And that’s not all,” he said, frowning lightly. “A statement from Jake Novak’s record label was released earlier today, that said, in part—Due to Mr. Novak’s unprofessional conduct and erratic behavior, we’ve been forced to sever ties and will no longer be promoting his latest album or sponsoring his world tour. We apologize to all the fans that have been affected by this unfortunate situation.”
The camera panned to an anchorwoman that had been sitting silently up until that point. “This is a really strange and confusing story,” she said.
“It is, Jessica,” her co-anchor said sadly.
“We’re going to have more on this in the coming days. Still no word from Jake Novak?”
The male anchor shook his head with a puzzled expression. “He’s been surp
risingly silent on all of the swirling rumors, such as the recent departure of his longtime manager.”
Jessica blinked in confusion. “I suppose the question is, what’s going on that all of these people from his inner circle are leaving all at once?”
“Well you know what they say about rats deserting a sinking ship, Jessica.”
“Now that is an unfortunate analogy, Mark.”
Jake shut the computer with a slam. “Fucking morons,” he said, standing up.
Raven was suddenly afraid. Was this it? Would he blame her now, with all of these stories coming out about him?
“Jake, I’m so sorry,” she said, not knowing what else to do.
His eyes were stony. “I know what’s going on here,” he muttered.
For a moment, she was certain he was saying it to her, as if she was the reason everything was happening. “What’s going on?” she asked, her voice quivering.
“This is a calculated attack on my reputation. My label’s going on the offensive, starting a PR war to chop me off at the knees.”
“We can fight back,” Raven said, her spine stiffening. “Let’s get an interview, something long—like an hour special—where you can give your side of things.”
But Jake just shook his head no. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“But why not? You can’t just let Courtney and the label trash you in the media. They’re lying. She made it sound like you’ve gone nuts.”
“Maybe I have,” he said, a glint in his eye.
“Jake, this is serious.”
“I know it’s serious,” he said, turning away from her and looking out the window. “But I’m done with that life, Raven. When I said I was finished, I didn’t just mean that I was finished with the tour. I’m finished with all the bullshit surrounding it—the interviews, the fancy awards shows, the dinners, sucking up to executives, making sure my public image is squeaky clean. I’m not doing it anymore.”