by Rae, Rachel
We sat in silence, him watching the game on the screen, and I watching the floor wishing it would swallow me up, because I felt so awkward, and at the same time, I felt comfortable.
I was sure they had some medication for the way my mind was jumping in a thousand different directions.
Van broke the awkwardness by standing up and heading for the other room. “I'm getting another one. You sure you don’t want one?” he asked and he looked so kind.
“You sure you don’t have any Moscato D'Asti and frozen berries back there?”
“Moscato di whata?” he laughed confused.
“It's a wine. Never mind.” I chuckled.
When he came back, we talked for what seemed like hours about nothing in particular.
“Can I ask why you guys named the band Ripping Pages?”
“Yeah, we get that a lot, actually. It just means starting over. Ripping the page from the book of your life, and moving on.”
“I like that,” I smiled.
He was so easy to talk to, but something still hung in the air between us but it was a little more muted since he hadn't touched me again. Usually, I felt out of my element when talking to guys, especially drop-dead gorgeous ones. But for some reason, talking to this famous rock star in his home was natural and effortless.
After a while, we sat in comfortable silence watching the game, pretty close together and suddenly, the door burst open and in walked one of the ultimate bitches from downstairs.
She was already half undressed as she sauntered through the threshold in her black mini skirt sans shirt and bra. She was absolutely stunning. Even topless, not a flaw showed. She strolled in with her perfect long, crimson hair with her uber-perky boobs and her tanned skin. Her body was bangin'. Bitch.
“Van, baby, I have missed you. I need you to fuck me so good, baby. I feel like it's been forever.” She stopped in her tracks as soon as she spotted Van and I sitting side by side. He looked at me with an expression of annoyance and embarrassment. Before either of them could say anything, I grabbed my clutch and ran out of the room, but not before I heard Van call my name and the whore in the doorway say, “Ok, baby, now that we've let the trash out, come do that thing with your tongue...”
As I ran down the stairs and through the swarm of people to the elevator, I felt like throwing up. Here I was falling for the charms of some guy I didn’t know a single thing about, except the one thing that should have made me stay the hell away. He was a famous rock star. Sex was his hobby. Girls were his game.
Gosh, when did I become an idiot?
Hadn’t I learned enough from the James fiasco?
I pressed the button for the elevator, grateful that it opened immediately, and pressed the button for the lobby. When I got out onto the street, I could feel the tears pricking my eyes. I really shouldn’t give a shit, but I did. I had been seriously broken, and I wasn’t even healed completely from it, and here I was stupidly letting my guard down and being blindsided by this douchebag with a girlfriend. No more. I came here for a reason and it wasn’t to be swooned out of my clothes by some famous rock star who would only see me as another notch in his belt.
I hopped in a waiting cab and the minute I got home, I checked my email and saw one from the theater. Rehearsals started in a few weeks.
After Sloan's party, I had the next few days off from the cafe'. Tatum had asked me what happened and why I had left early, and I just told her I was tired. She gave me the look that meant she didn’t believe me, but she kept her mouth shut anyway—which was odd, especially for Tatum.
The theater had sent over the script for the play. Wicked. My absolute favorite play ever. I was also told I would be the understudy for Glenda. That was exciting. I didn’t think I’d be the understudy for a main part so that was amazing. I read every line and learned every song, even parts that weren’t mine. I wanted to be totally prepared for anything.
One night during the time I spent preparing, I was playing around on the internet and stupidly decided to Google Van. Not knowing much about him had me curious. All sorts of things popped up. One of the first images that came up was of him and the slut from the party. I hovered over it and clicked the link. It was a story on Van and his new fling, Jade. Ugh, I still couldn’t believe he sat there straight up flirting with me, and he had a girlfriend. I clicked on another link and then another. There were tons of images and stories about Van and the band. Many, many images were of Van with several, and I do mean several, women. A lot of them were models and A-list celebrities with perfect bodies and faces. Go figure. One link I clicked on took me to a blog about all the women Van had bedded. And boy, were there a lot, and some very, very recent. As recent as the day of the party. A vision of Van's rumpled bed and condom wrappers popped into my head. Disgusted, I closed my laptop. Now that I couldn’t think about rehearsing the rest of the night, I put in my headphones and turned on my iPhone and some old school Toni Braxton. Mom and I used to jam in the car to that, and it always helped me feel better.
I went back to the cafe' on Wednesday after the party. I had the early morning shift. I was there to start my shift at four a.m. I was startled when I turned the corner to the cafe' finding there was someone waiting by the door. The place wasn’t really busy with customers until around six when the breakfast rush came in. I dug around in my purse until I had a hold on my mace. I was armed. But as I got closer to the door and the person came into light, I realized it was Van. Then I realized he was shit-faced drunk. Great.
“Sweetness?” he slurred looking so unbelievably sexy.
Jerk!
“Van? What the hell are you doing here?”
“I—I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
He started swaying and I grabbed him, making him sit down on the curb. I needed to get him home before he passed out cold. I hailed a cab, and I somehow pulled Van up and toward the open door to the backseat, his feet dragging along the cement. After getting him to lie down on the bench seat, I went to close the door and tell the cab driver where to take him, just as Van lifted his head to look at me. He looked miserable, and oh, so hot. “You're not coming with me?”
“No, I'm sorry, Van, You need to get some rest.” He laid his head back down on the dirty cab seat and passed out cold. I shook him but he didn’t wake up. I checked to make sure he was still breathing. He was.
Really? Annoyed, I opened the passenger door and sat next to the driver. I opened my text messages and gave him the address Tatum had texted me a few nights before.
Van made no sound but the occasional snore and moan while he was unconscious in the back.
A while later, we pulled up, and I tried unsuccessfully to wake Van.
The driver helped me walk him into the building, and the doorman assisted me to his Penthouse.
When the door opened, the area looked totally different from when I had last been there. Without tons of people filling the space, it actually looked like someone lived there, sort of. It was a bachelor pad/fuck palace, of course.
Along the far wall with the clock that looked out to the Manhattan skyline, sat a humongous plush gray C-shaped couch, and near the window sat two red Parsons Chairs with a table in the middle, and on top sat a few books. The doorman and I walked Van over to the couch and laid him down. The doorman left, leaving me alone with a sleeping Van. Where the hell was his girlfriend anyway? Shouldn’t she be here taking care of him? Or one of his other “ladies in waiting”?
I walked into the kitchen to see if I could find some crackers and water for him, as I was sure he was going to have a major hangover. I looked out the window that sat over the sink and contemplated whether I should just leave him or not. He was a rocker dude, so I'm sure he did this drinking and passing out thing quite frequently, but when I looked back over at him, he didn’t seem like the rocker I had seen on the web the other day. He looked so vulnerable. He laid there in dark distressed jeans and an untucked, and now wrinkled, dark blue button down shirt that was unbuttoned just a few
from the top. His hair hung in his eyes just a bit, and his full lips were parted a small amount while he slept. He looked so peaceful, and I felt my heart doing that stupid flipping thing it seemed to do whenever I saw him. I saw a bench near the end of the couch and I opened it and found some throw blankets. I laid one over Van, and he stirred and mumbled something, but then he was out again. I grabbed another one for myself, and then I headed to where I knew the bathroom was on the first floor from the other night. I grabbed a small trashcan from it and placed it on the floor next to where he slept on the couch. I shot a text to Tatum, and one to my boss that I couldn’t make it in today, and then I went all the way to the other end of the couch, and at some point, I passed out.
I woke up a several hours later to the sun shining brightly through the windows, only to find Van, still lying on the couch. Only, he wasn’t asleep. He was lying there staring up at the ceiling his hands on his head looking deep in thought.
“Van? Are you all right?” I croaked. Oh yeah, sounding like a man at nine a.m. is seriously hot, Tinley. I cleared my throat.
He startled and looked over at me, sheepishly. “Yeah, I'm ok.” he sighed but made no move to get up. I suddenly felt very awkward and out of place, which seemed to happen to me a lot lately. Guess that was my cue to get the hell out. I started to rise and get ready to leave. He moved toward me and grabbed my hand and looked me straight in the eyes.
“I am so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to be all creepy stalker guy at your job in the middle of the night. Let alone a drunk off his ass creepy stalker guy.”
I looked at him, and I was stunned that he could recall that after how wasted he was.
“You remember that?” I asked.
“Yeah, unfortunately. I'm immune to the blacking out now. I've done it so much in the past.
“Tinley, I'm sorry I was such a loser ass last night. It's just that after Jade came bounding in the room, and you ran out… I didn’t get a chance to explain.”
I frowned and shook my head at him. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. You don’t even know me.”
“That’s just it, Tinley. I want to know you. I didn’t have your number, and I wasn’t going to be a loser and ask my little sister for it. I remembered you telling me about your job, and so for the past few days I've been acting like a total fucking dumbass trying to see you there. When I didn’t see you there for the third night in a row, I went to the bar down the street, and tons of Jack Daniels later, I was at the cafe again. I know what you saw the other night probably made me seem like a total douchebag. Jade, is not and has never been anything to me but an easy lay.”
I winced at his term and the images of his bedroom and knowing it was probably Jade that he had rumpled the sheets with.
He continued, “Err— sorry. I'm fucking up. See, that’s the thing, Tinley. Ever since I saw you in the park last week, I wanted to know you. And then when I caught you snooping around my house, I saw you. You were so cute and seriously sexy. The way you looked truly embarrassed and your pretty cheeks flushed with color. There was no heir about you. You had no ulterior motive. You're so real and so sweet. Perfectly genuine. Hell, you even admitted you didn’t listen to my music. From the moment your eyes locked on mine in that park, I knew you were different.”
I let out the breath I didn’t know I had been holding. Holy shit.
“Van, I—I’ve been through a lot this past year. I've been hurt so much. I'm not looking for some hookup or some friends with benefits thing. I don’t do that. I'm not looking to be with anyone either. After what I went through, I'm not sure I can take it again.”
“Believe me, Tinley. I don’t want to hurt you. I wouldn’t even be trying to talk you into this if I wanted to hurt you. I don’t do relationships. I usually don’t even like carrying on conversations with women, to be totally honest. They all just tell me what I want to hear. Not you. You are something else. I'm not expecting anything. I just want you to give me a chance. I want to know everything about you. Can you just let me try?”
He held my chin in his left hand and he looked so eager, so determined that for a moment, I forgot all about my father, and about James, and I wanted to know him, too. I wanted to see the Van that no one else got to see. The Van I saw a few nights ago before that slut ruined it. The one that wasn’t the lead singer of an uber-famous band.
“Ok,” I said, my words coming out a whispering tremble.
Before I knew what was happening, I felt his full lips ever so slightly brush against mine. He tenderly cupped my cheeks, and my lips parted as I let out a small sigh. He took that as an invitation. His warm tongue slid inside my mouth and entangled with mine gently for a while. A low groan escaped him at the same time a small moan escaped me. He withdrew a bit and pecked me slowly on the lips, sucking slightly on my bottom lip as he took a step back. It was a quick kiss, but it was the best kiss I'd ever had.
I felt a little dizzy, my eyes still closed, as he ran the back of his left hand down my cheek, then my eyes fluttered open. “Tinley?” he asked.
“Hmm,” I said still in a daze.
“Thank you for taking care of me, Sweetness.”
I looked up at him with a smile. “Anytime.”
I left Van's house shortly after our kiss. I felt as if I were in a movie or in one of my books. I literally had spoken to the guy for one night before this, and now we were going to try to get to know each other? Now that I wasn’t in a trance from the smells of soap and man and Van, reality started to set in. Van Whitaker, from what I had now had heard from his own mouth, and had seen online thanks to tons of women wishing for their fifteen minutes of fame, didn't date. He didn’t do romance, he fucked like a rock star and then sent you on your way.
What the hell was I thinking?
Sure, he would probably be great in the beginning until the new wore off and things got difficult. Then he would realize that he was Van, rock god, and he could have any woman he wanted, so why try to make it work with this dumb girl. Then he would leave. Like everyone else. I decided right then that I couldn’t be that stupid girl who was always falling for delicious men only to have it bite her in the ass time and time again. The cab that Van had called for me and paid for, even though I pleaded for him to let me pay my own way but he had insisted, pulled up in front of my apartment. As I got out, my cell phone pinged an alert for a new text message. I looked down to see Van's name on the screen, I opened it up and couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face. ‘Thanks again, Sweetness. Can I see you Friday night?’
My wit came back and so did my determination to not be the next dense female on the “Women in Van's Pants” (yes, that was really the name... clever right?) blog. I deleted the text and his contact information from my phone. I had other things to focus on.
Over the next two days, I received voicemails and emails from Van asking me what happened and where was I. I deleted them all, and continued to read over the script and the songs, line by line, until I couldn’t see straight any longer. It was around seven p.m. on Sunday night when there came a knock on our door. Tatum had been out of town for a few days on a photo shoot for a swimsuit magazine, so I had the apartment all to myself. I felt bad not calling or texting Van back and just straight up ignoring him. I would not be that girl, though. I couldn’t. I walked over to the door. Now, this was New York City, and I knew better than to just open it without checking. We didn’t have a peephole, so I just stood there like a weirdo just waiting for them to leave or say something. This wasn't Texas where we had guns to protect us, so if I wasn’t expecting someone, I wasn’t answering the door. The knocking ceased, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Then there came a huge boom on the door. And it didn’t stop. It became more and more persistent.
“Tatum, baby, open up,” a deep sinister voice came from the other side. He pounded harder and harder. With every connection of his fist on the door, I jumped. My breathing was labored, and my heart was pounding.
“TATUM!!! Open the FUCKING DO
OR!!!!” He was twisting the locked handle, and it sounded like he was slamming his body up against it trying to break it down. I grabbed my phone to call the police when I heard Frank, the building's superintendent, come to the door. “What the hell are you doing? Get your ass out of here before I call the police.” It sounded like Frank had a bit of a struggle with the stalker but soon it was quiet in the hall. I stood there clutching my phone in my hand, scared to death. A soft knock on the door startled me. “Ms. Jennings? Ms. Michaels? It's Frank. Are you in there?”
“Y-yes, Frank,” I stuttered, my voice shaking. I walked to the door and stopped. “It's ok, Ms. Michaels. That asshole is gone.”
My hands still trembling, I undid the locks and opened the door slightly to see a disheveled Frank. He was such a kind man. He was kind of portly, about mid-fifties with a touch of gray hair surrounding his temples, and he always wore a white cowboy hat. He was so polite and would always strike up a conversation when you saw him. He was from Louisiana, so our southern roots connected us. He was like a father figure to me. Always making sure that Tatum and I were all right. He smiled when he saw me still clutching my phone. “Are you all right, Ms. Michaels?” I breathed a sigh of relief. “Now, Mr. Frank, how many times do I have to tell you to call me, Tinley? Yes, sir, I'm ok. Tatum is out of town in Florida for a shoot.”
“Well, darlin', I really think you ought to stay somewhere else for tonight in case that crazy comes back. I was just about to call the police, but he fought my grip and ran away.” His thick-swamp accent sometimes made it hard to understand him.
“Yes, sir, I think you're right. Thank you, Mr. Frank.”