“I already apologized! I even offered to fix it.”
“Wow. So generous of you.”
“Yeah? And now you’re proving my point!”
“Fuck you. I think it’s time you go.”
She jumps to her feet, arms crossed. “Oh okay. Is this where we get the whiny child version of the boy genius?”
“You think because we fucked, you get access to everything about me?”
“No. I think because I care about you and want to understand you, you can open up and be honest with yourself. Heck, maybe that would be for the first time in your life!”
“What the hell do you know about my life?”
“I do this for a living, Jesse. I know a fraud when I see one.”
“Oh, I’m a fraud again now?”
“Worse. You’re your own assassin.” She quiets, anger melting from her face. “You’re the only person holding yourself back, Jesse Everett. How do you not see the magic inside you?”
Magic. She has no idea what demons do with magic. “You should probably get back to your real life. Thanks for the drink last night.”
I can’t read her expression as her gaze moves over me in the silence. “You think you’re protecting yourself by pushing people away. You know what you’re protecting? The darkness.”
My veins burn with self-preservation. “It’s not a birthmark,” I hiss.
“What isn’t?”
“This.” I lift my shirt and charge toward her.
She stands firm as her eyes lower to the mark on my ribs. “What is it?”
“You tell me. You’re the expert on all things Jesse Everett now, right?”
Fuck her for making this scar important.
“So go ahead. See the truth.”
“Stop it!”
“Come on, Mila. What is it?”
She bites her lip and shakes her head, tears gathering in her eyes. Good. She needs to see what I am so she can stop believing in what I’m not.
“Well? Skateboarding injury? Bar fight?”
“You know I don’t know.”
“What about these?” I’m the asshole who twists around to show her my lower back.
She pushes past me toward the door, and I grab her arm. “What’s wrong, babe? You don’t want to fix me anymore?”
“Get fucked,” she cries, shoving me away.
This time I let her go.
14: CANDLELIGHT
I don’t feel better when she’s gone. In fact, I’m cold. Filled with regret at her silhouette still pressed into my sheets. I sink beside it, staring at the remnants of the woman I can’t hate.
“Mila Taylor? What the hell, Jess?”
I look up as Parker bursts into my room.
“Not now, Park. Please.”
“She didn’t hurt you enough?”
“It’s not like that.”
“No? What are you punishing yourself for?”
I grunt and grab my hoodie.
“Where are you going?”
“For a run.”
“No, we’re talking about this.”
“Out of my way, Parker.”
He folds his arms and leans against the door. “How the hell did Mila Taylor end up in your bed last night?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No shit.”
“I can’t right now.”
He shakes his head. “No, this has gone on long enough. We’re dealing with it.”
“Dealing with what?”
“Everything! Where are we headed next, Jess? Where are you going? Grieving period is done, brother.”
“Whatever.” I reach past him, and he pushes me back.
“The guys and I have been talking.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. We’re taking the deal with Jonas.”
My heart slams against my ribs. “What?”
“You want to fuck around in a stupor, fine. But we’re getting back up.”
Fool me once.
Fool you twice, Parker.
“We played ‘Jonas’ for him. He thinks we can—”
“You what?”
Parker flinches but stands his ground. “He thinks it’s elite.”
“You had no right!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Fuck you!”
I shove past him and crash through the house to the exit.
Traitor. Promise-breaker.
FUCK!
My fingers clench my hair as I storm down the sidewalk.
“Watch it!”
“Hey!”
I don’t see the strangers.
TRAITOR. Fool me twice.
“Shut up, you little fucker!” Another black eye to explain away. Parker? Where’s Parker? Thump. Thump. It can’t be my body making that sound on the stairs. I feel nothing.
My cheeks are wet. I don’t remember crying. Didn’t think I was capable of it anymore. This is the shit that happens when you lose Natasha and the security she provides. I should have lied. I could have loved her. I need her. Isn’t that the same thing?
I pull out my phone with trembling hands. No answer. Try again. No answer.
Please, Tash. Just one more time!
“Why do you think you’re here? No one wants you!”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I scroll through my contacts and stop at the L’s. I hate working with Li but… Luke. My finger rests on Luke Craven.
Darkness. Ghosts of a living corpse on a shag carpet. His eyes are open. Why are his eyes open? Is he dead? 9-1-1… my father is dead!
I press Li instead.
∞∞∞
It’s dark when I wake up. Cold. My hands are frozen, and I’m afraid I’m stuck to the bench.
Li’s stuff is good—and overpriced. Plus, he has a minimum I don’t like but this was an emergency. I couldn’t go back to the house, so the bench on 14th became my retreat. Jesse Everett, another bum taking an outdoor winter nap.
I pull myself up, vision blurry, limbs stiff. I squint down at my phone to read the list of missed calls and messages.
Why does Parker still give a shit?
I limp along the sidewalk, grabbing lamp posts and tree trunks as necessary. 12th, 10th, 8th. Thanks to Li, I’m even enough to face them again. If they want to work with the devil, they have my blessing. Just, they’re not using my song. Parker and Reece can write their own shit. Hell, they can keep the band name. What do I care?
My scalp is sore from the pressure of my fists earlier. I notice the half-moons of nail marks in my palms too. At least I don’t cut. I tried that line on a caseworker after she confronted me about one of my meltdowns. Got me put on even more restrictions. It never occurred to me to mention the basement.
My steps are little more than a shuffle by the time I reach the house. Even so, I hesitate. The numbness feels damn good. I’m granite from the inside out.
A monument to wasted talent.
I see my bronze image in the Fucked It All Up exhibit of the Hall of Fame. There’s Jesse Everett, shit-faced and sprawled out on a park bench. Parker would be pissed that I find this funny.
I’m more messed up than I thought when I try to open the door. My hand won’t move. Nothing does and my smile fades into gasps for air. It’s… black. Dark. Pain in my head. My shoulder. And…
∞∞∞
Jesse?
My name is somewhere in the distance. A brush of sensation on my hand. I’m flying. In water. Why is there water? No, I’m floating. No. Sinking. A tub? I force my eyes open and squint into an unfamiliar face. Wait.
Unexpected.
“You’re awake. Thank god!”
“Where’s Parker?” I mumble.
“In the kitchen. I’ll go get him.”
“No.” I scrub at my eyes and manage a full view. “I thought you left.”
“I did. Got some stuff from my place in Manhattan and came back.”
“Why?”
“Is that not obvious?”
“How is it obvious? You should be
anywhere but here.”
“Yes, well, I do believe we’ve established you and I have very different perspectives.”
I try for a smile but my lips don’t cooperate. I settle on clenching my fists in the water. “What happened?”
“We found you unconscious on the porch.”
“How long ago?”
“About ten minutes.”
Explains why I’m shaking. I look down at my body beneath a rippling wall. Pale. Stiff.
“Mild hypothermia, probably,” she says, scooping a cup of water over my shoulders. I flinch. It feels like lava. “You’re shivering again which is a good sign.”
“How’d you get stuck with bath duty?”
“I volunteered.”
Our eyes meet. It would be a sweet moment if I wasn’t shaking so hard. I suck in a breath and grip the edge of the tub. Stop. Shaking. Stop, you idiot. Just—
She loosens my hand and smooths it in hers.
“It’s okay.”
“What’s okay?”
“Everything.”
I let out a dry laugh.
“I’m going to add more warm water. Try to relax.”
She reaches over and runs the faucet.
“Sure you weren’t just trying to get me naked?”
“Well, I suppose I was more eager about that than your brother.”
I crack a smile at that. God, I hurt. Everywhere pins and fire ripping through frozen capillaries.
“You’ll feel better soon,” she says softly. “This might not though.” Her fingers brush the right side of my face. “You must have cracked your head on the door when you collapsed.”
“You going to post about this tomorrow?”
A legit question. I don’t know why she looks hurt.
“No.”
“Did you ever do the redemption post you promised?”
She sighs. “No. And I can’t now, can I?” Her expression says it all as it moves over me. “I care about you, Jesse, but I can’t vouch for you right now. This”—she waves her hand over the tub—“is not talent I can promote.”
“So why did you come back?”
I’ve never seen a person look so conflicted. “Because I can’t let go of who you could be.”
∞∞∞
I feel human again. Warm blood pumping through my brain. Air filtering through my lungs with a steady cadence. My room is safe, normal—except for one thing.
“You brought a suitcase?” I ask Mila, who cuddles closer to me under the blankets on my bed.
“I told you I went back for my things. I don’t have to go back to the flat for ten days. I thought I’d take a holiday in Philadelphia.”
What? Strange, confusing woman.
Am I actually… happy?
I slide my arm around her, and she settles into me. It feels natural for my fingers to run through silky black hair. “What was it like growing up with George Conway as a father?”
Her body shivers with a chuckle. “Very different to growing up with Jonas Everett, apparently.”
“Careful now,” I say with a poke. She grins up at me, and I plant a kiss on her nose.
“Seriously though. It’s a difficult question to answer. Who wants to be the poor little rich girl? But he wasn’t around much. My life was nannies and airports and George Conway’s life. I was the daughter at awards shows, dinners, parties... I was never myself.”
“And your mother?”
“Lily Hennessy. I almost never saw her until she retired from modeling when I was twelve. Even then, she was gone a lot. That’s how I discovered food.”
“Traveling so much?”
“Cooking for myself. I used to help our chef. It was nice to have a constant. You know what I mean?” She quiets at my smirk. “Don’t you believe me?”
“Oh I believe you. It’s just funny how our lives were the same and also polar opposites.”
“Tell me about it.”
“About what?”
“Your childhood.” She lets out a breath at my reaction. Her hand slides up my chest, pressing into suddenly tense muscle.
“It’s not something I like to talk about.”
“Clearly.” She traces a nail over my chin before climbing up to me. The kiss is gentle at first, then deepens. “I want to understand your music on an intimate level,” she whispers, tongue bearing witness in its search for mine. I flip her over and push her hands above her head. She gasps when I dig my hips into hers.
“How intimate?” I reach under her shirt to seek out soft curves.
“Fully intimate.”
“You want the case file version or the movie version?” My lips come down hard on her breast. Down, down to the now exposed skin of her stomach.
“Documentary version.”
“What rating?”
“18.”
“Is that like R?”
“No limits.”
“None?”
She moans as I find the spot that she likes.
“You sure you want to talk?”
She shakes her head. “I mean yes. I mean… ah!”
I’m not playing fair, but she doesn’t know what she’s asking. No one wants the unfiltered version of the Everett Story.
Her body arches against my mouth, fingers gripping my sheets.
“Not bright enough to see my scars... What scars, Jesse? The ones you showed me or something deeper?”
I ignore her. The words. The darkness.
“It’s all right… How is it… ah…” She jerks. “All right in the…” Again and again and again before sagging against the bed with a sigh. I’ve spent my life learning how to distract people for their own protection. Her content smile gives me hope that I’ve succeeded.
“In the candlelight. What’s the candlelight?” Her voice is still strained as she guides me up and pushes me to my back. She straddles me and locks my wrists at my sides. “Now talk.”
“Mila…”
“Talk. Tell me about the candlelight.” She taps my cheek. “And look at me when you do it.”
“So bossy.”
“I need you to see my reactions.”
My chest tightens at the compassion already on her face. I can’t do this. I know I can’t. It’s not like I haven’t tried before.
“The candlelight?” she insists.
My hypothermia must be lingering. I clench my trembling fists and try to free them. Mila presses her knees together.
“The candlelight, Jesse.”
Now I’m just pissed. Bad news for her when my filter goes down. “Yeah? The candlelight, okay. Here’s your Hallmark movie. I got labeled as a behavioral problem. Didn’t matter what I did, so I stopped giving a shit about the rules. They hated me because I was always one step ahead of them. They’d call me a smartass when they weren’t calling me a little fucker or some shit like that. The worst was the crying.” I huff a dry laugh. “God, they hated tears. Any kind of tears. If I cried when they…”
Her eyes are glossy, and I swallow. Guilt. Yeah, I still feel it. One of the few emotions I can’t block.
“When they what?”
“Let’s just—”
“When they what?”
I draw in a deep breath. “Beat me. If I cried, they’d throw me into the basement. Literally.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It’s a heavy silence. Her eyes trace my face, my chest, my hands. Anywhere they can reach. I hate what they’re saying.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know… There was no time down there.”
“Oh god. Jesse…”
“Minutes, hours, days—it was just darkness, and the more I cried, the longer it would last so…”
Fuck! It’s all right. It’s all right.
“It’s all right.” My eyes clench shut. “It’s all right.”
“In the candlelight.”
I nod and force myself to look at her again. “The darkness never went away though. It’s still here. All the fucking time, and I...”
> The weight in my chest is replaced by the soft pressure of arms. Mila buries her face in my neck.
“I found a lighter one day in the blackness. I felt it first, then… I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“As long as I could find one flicker, I’d be okay.”
My shoulder is warm and wet but I don’t know how to comfort her. I’ve never figured that part out which is why I do everything I can to protect others from it. Even Parker doesn’t know everything.
I start to sing softly.
“Another night in the candlelight
Not bright enough to see my scars, just enough to
Fight, Fight
Burn out
Fade out
Cry out against demon screams
Broken dreams
All that keeps me breathing in the dark
Hold tight tight
Just a spark.
Another night.
It’ll be all right.
in the candlelight.”
∞∞∞
I gasp awake, heart racing, blood pounding. My eyes dart from corner to corner of my room. Where are they? I know the demons are here. They—
I swing my legs to the floor, eyes clenched shut. Leaning forward, my fingers lock in my hair. I can block them. I can…
“Shut up, you little fucker!”
Blood. So much blood.
“Stop crying!”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“It’s all right. It’ll be all right.” Sweat breaks out over my body as I pound my fists against my head. “It’s all right. It’s…”
“Jesse?”
“Shut up, you little fucker!”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I shake my head and cover my ears. They’re so damn loud tonight!
I jump up and fumble through piles in search of my hoodie.
He’s dead! Why are his eyes open? Don’t look at me if you’re fucking dead!
Air rushes through my lungs in short, violent breaths. Where the fuck is it?
“Jesse, you okay?”
Here. My hands shake as I pull the bag from the pocket. Thank god for Li’s minimum.
I move to the door and stumble toward the bathroom.
Pain radiates up my arm. My wrist this time. Broken? Sprained? I cradle it as I inch back toward the wall. So cold tonight.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Limelight (NSB Book 4) Page 10