Jax nodded simply and followed him outside and Luce laid her hand on my arm as the other guy’s came for a look at Evie.
I passed her to Romeo as Luce pulled me to the corner of the room, her eyes bright with anger. “What the hell are you doing E?”
I turned away from her wrath and shook my head. “Nothing is going on Luce.”
“Bullshit. I can even fucking smell him on you.”
I scoffed. “What are you, a fucking vampire?” I barked out bitterly but cringed when she heaved in a heavy breath.
“Don’t E. Just don’t take the fucking piss with me. Don’t you dare make fun of me! Who the hell was it picked you up when he left and never came back? Who rocked you to sleep night after night whilst you screamed for him? Who sat and took your resentment, took your heart-ache and took your rage?”
I nodded and sucked on my lips. “Sorry” I whispered and she grabbed my hand.
“I just don’t wanna see you go through all that again E, when he leaves. Because he will. He will turn and leave again and you will be the one left behind. You will be the one fighting the god damn whip. Not me!”
I knew she was right but her words cut into me, the truth in them hit me hard but I understood her resentment.
It had been her that had tried to drag me out of the darkness, each of her attempts failing and making her feel like a failure time and time again. And that is what had hurt her, her inability to help her best friend.
I nodded and side hugged her “I know. We both know…we just…” She placed her finger over my lips to silence me as her eyes showed me her pain. “End it E. End it now before it’s too damn painful” she urged and I sighed but nodded.
***
We all piled into Z Bar to celebrate Evie’s birth and it felt like visiting your granny; familiar, homely and comforting.
A huge round of applause erupted and chants of ‘Room 103’ and ‘E. E. E. E…” hit the rafters and shook the place.
Drinks were bought for us and lined up on the bar and as the night progressed we all slipped into a happy and relaxed mood.
Nobody treat us like huge celebrities. We were just the old Room 103 and that’s what we loved about the place.
After about an hour Rod, the manager, asked Room 103 if they’d do a couple of songs for old times’ sake.
I grinned when they agreed and Rod dragged their old instruments out of the store room and the place erupted when they saw it been set up.
I settled on a bar stool next to Mad as the guy’s clambered on the stage and took their places.
“Z Bar!” Jax shouted “God. It’s so good to be back folks.”
The crowd cheered and Jax looked around the room, a slight nostalgic expression on his face and then he took a hefty sigh. “I’ve missed you all, you know that right?”
Everyone cheered in acknowledgement.
“Gonna start with one of the old ones guys, one that means a lot to me because I once dedicated it to a girl. A girl, who took me as I am, took all my shit and my pain and made me hers. And now, once more I’m gonna dedicate this one to E. She oozes it boy’s, she makes me hard…she IS fuckin’ Allure” He winked at me with a cheeky grin.
I ignored Mad’s huff from beside me.
The band started to play as the mass of people screamed in approval at the song choice as Jax came in, his eyes on mine the whole way through and once again he finished it with the altered line.
“But me, I always say
Break it down boy, the Allure’s fucking E,
Just fucking E”
Everyone was up on their feet as Room 103 played a few more songs; a couple of their new big hits and a couple of old ones, rocking the room into orbit and I loved every minute, watching and rocking with the crowd.
As they finished their last song, Jax grinned at me and took the mic in hand.
“Who thinks we should get Eve fuckin’ Hudson up here?”
The room exploded into uproar as every head in the place turned to me and I suddenly found my small body being passed from person to person until I reached the stage.
I glowered playfully at him but smiled when he side huddled me and turned back to the crowd. “Any requests?” Jax smirked.
“Shocking Heaven” was yelled from every single mouth in the building.
Shit!!!
I shook my head at them and Jax frowned at me “Babe?”
I just shook my head again and took the mic from Jax.
“Sorry guys. Not tonight. Pick another” I told them.
After a round of ‘boo’s, they all shouted “Let me breathe”, this being my current single in the charts, it was fresh on their minds.
“Can’t. Room 103 don’t know the…”
The band surprised me when they began to play my song perfectly and I turned to them open mouthed.
Shrugging, I turned back to the room. “Guess they do” I grinned.
A huge cheer echoed through the room and I caught Jax’s face.
He was angry, no he was furious and I knew it was because I had declined to sing that song with him.
He’d get over it!
Boss started me in with a beat on the drums as the first verse was sung with just a throb on the drum and for the whole song I held Jax’s gaze.
Because, unbeknown to him, I had written this song for him.
“I’m stood here in the dark
Waiting for your call
Waiting for the pain to end
But you never even dare
Never even tried
Just left me in the dark
Alone and broken.”
The rest of the band came in now with the chorus and I could see the realisation sink into Jax as he read my eyes.
“So just leave and let me breathe
Just leave and let me breathe
Cos’ I aint giving it no more
Aint openin’ you the door
It’s locked and dead
To the very core
Right to my empty core.”
His expression was painful as I hit the second verse and I caught the question in his eyes.
“I’m feeling all the pain
Hating the void you left
Longing for the fire you took
But you ripped it all away
Stole it away
Just gave me all the hate
Lonely and severed.”
He definitely knew now, and when I entered the chorus again, I could see his adams apple bobbing about manically as his chest heaved with his large gulps.
The last verse was once again just sang accompanied with the drum beat and I belted it out to him, burnt him with it, made him feel every inch of my pain.
“But now I’ve burnt the hurt
Brought my soul back to life
Closed my heart to your world
Cos’ that’s what you did
When you flew
Just flew and let me die
Empty and barren.”
Jax slammed the bar door as he left, stormed out as the room hit the roof in appreciation.
Boss eyed me suspiciously and Mad smirked happily.
But me? I broke all over again.
CHAPTER 41
The ringing in my ears was sending painful jolts through my poor addled brain.
It was still dark out and I was snuggled too comfortably to be ripped so annoyingly from my sleep.
It had been singing to me for about an hour on and off and I had been cursing the damn thing in my poor hung-over state.
Eventually relenting, my hand shot out in the dark to grab the offending item, before I was tempted to smash it with my fist, and answered without even opening my eyes.
Skill!
“E. Where the fuck are you?” Sed growled down the earpiece.
My eyebrows rose but my eyes remained as they were...glued shut.
“Home.” It was all my rubber mouth could manage to spit out. “Where the fuck is that?”
“Okay Sed. Has somet
hing pissed you off cos’ you really sound like it has?” I asked and was presented with a loud huff. I rolled my eyes, beneath my eyelids.
More skill.
“You kidding me E?” he barked. He really was in a mood. “After what you did?”
“Look Sed. I said I was sorry and really…I am. I shouldn’t have called…said what I did but I don’t know what you want me to say?”
He sighed loudly and paused before he continued. “I just thought…well, stupidly I thought we had a good thing going.” He said slowly and I cringed.
“We have Sed. It’s good but I think you’re thinking there’s more to it than what there is.”
Did that make sense? Because it didn’t to me.
His silence was loud and I grimaced again. “You still there?” I asked quietly.
“Yeah E. I’m always fucking here” he answered sarcastically.
“Christ Sed. I told you this when we jumped in. It was always just gonna be sex between us. You said that’s what you wanted, so…so we…dived. If I had known it was gonna be a problem for you, well I wouldn’t have…”
He was silent again and then the phone went dead.
Brilliant, just brilliant!
“You fuckin’ Sed Tyler?” Jax’s voice growled across the dark room and my eyes finally opened.
Pretty damn quickly!
“What the hell are you doing Jax?” I spluttered as my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I spotted him, sat in the corner of my bedroom, in the rocking chair I had bought when I had found out I was pregnant.
“Need to hear it babe?” he reiterated quietly.
I sighed heavily, really not wanting to do this now but I clenched my teeth and went for it. “Yes.”
I heard him suck air through his teeth. “You fucked him while you fucked me babe?”
I couldn’t decipher his mood through his words. He was very calm and I paused before I answered.
“No Jax.”
His eyes finally met mine as he flicked on the lamp beside him but I still couldn’t read him.
He rose from the chair and made his way across the room. His strides were heavy and slow and I bit my lip as he drew closer, his gaze fixed to me, sucking the breath right out of me with his intensity.
He stood beside me, peering down at me with a glint in his eye and his head cocked.
“No more babe. Stay the hell away from him” He demanded bluntly and my brows flew high.
“Excuse me?”
“Mine babe. You. Are. All. Fuckin’. Mine! Every, single, beautiful inch of you. He’s just…no babe.” he rumbled quietly as he shook his head firmly.
My arousal surged at his dominance but my anger rose with it and I glared at him.
“You fucked anybody else Jax?”
His eyes narrowed on me and he palmed the mattress, each one of his hands beside my head.
“Yeah. I fucked babe, but now I’m yours and we love, not fuck. So, now? No, I don’t fuck!”
“That’s not what I asked Jax and you know it” I stormed at him but of course he ignored me.
His knees now settled beside each of mine and he leant into me, his mouth resting on my neck.
“You give me all you got babe, and I’ll take it all. Devour every fuckin’ drop of you, every fragment and piece of you and then I’ll surrender everything I am. You hear me babe?”
His light kisses on my skin were driving me wild for him and he knew damn well what he was doing.
And he knew it would work.
“I hear ya’” I whispered as I slid my head to the side to give him better access to me.
He moaned low and sucked my flesh into his mouth, his teeth biting down as he claimed me, marked me dominantly as his hands rewarded my answer and worshipped my breasts.
“Jax…” I breathed heavily, but he rolled onto his side and regarded me with narrow eyes.
I knew what was coming so I scrambled out of bed before he asked.
His hand clamped around my forearm before I made it to a safe point.
Damn his reactions!
“Words babe. Need to hear ‘em” he stated as he pulled me back onto the bed.
Yeah! You need to bloody learn some!
“What about Jax?”
He snorted and glared at me “The song babe.”
I just shrugged and tried to escape again but he was adamant I was going nowhere. “Babe!” he practically growled.
I settled beside him and sighed “It’s just too…”
He laid still expectantly, his silence notifying me to continue as I tried to find the words to explain.
Rubbing my hands over my face I sighed again and looked at him hesitantly. “It just became…too hard to listen to…you know? When you went, it seemed to be playing everywhere I bloody went. The pub, the car, the TV even the god damn doctors played the chuffing thing and it…it hurt Jax. Every time I heard it. In the end my whole body related that song with pain and I can’t bear to…”
He nodded slowly as if my words had physically hurt him. “And every time I heard it, it made me happy E. Cos’ it was ours, just ours. Something of the two of us.” he said as he diverted his gaze to the dark window.
We were silent for a moment but then he turned to face me “It hurt babe.”
I frowned at him, unsure of what he was referring to. “Which part?” I asked hesitantly.
“When…when you forgot me.”
What the hell?
How fucking dare he!!
“What the hell are you on about Jax? I never forgot you…never! All the bloody time, you were there, but never here. Just…there. Fucking haunting me cos’ I couldn’t get the damn smell or feel of you out of me. Couldn’t get your face out of my head or the memory of how you used to feel inside me, loving me, kissing me…”
I bounced up, absolutely furious at him.
After two years of pausing life, just waiting for him to walk back through that door and he has the damn cheek to say I forgot him.
“It didn’t take you long to move on, did it babe?” he scoffed, his eyes full of anger and accusation.
I shook my head in bewilderment. “Jax, just tell what you are on about cos’ I think we’re both reading a different book here.”
He clambered off the bed and went to pick his phone up from the side table and after scrolling through it, obviously looking for something, he thrust it in my face.
I stared at the photo of me in David’s arms, and then looked back at Jax with a shrug “Yeah. David. And?”
He glared at me wide eyed and his jaw dropped. “Seven weeks after I left babe. I mean, Fuck E.”
Then it sank in.
“Is David the reason you never came back?” I asked quietly.
He turned his attention to the window before he answered. “Yeah babe. Hurt like fuck!”
I couldn’t speak.
Fucking unbelievable!
“You stupid fucking man!” I roared at him.
He span round and before my next breath I was pinned to the wall, his hard body pressed into me.
My anger swelled and my palm swiped his cheek with so much force, his head shot sideways. I ignored his growl because I couldn’t hear it for the pounding in my ears.
“He was my mother’s Macmillan nurse Jax!” I bellowed at him. “He was fucking comforting me when I found out that she wouldn’t survive surgery. That photo some dick sent you, was the day I knew my mother was going to die. You think I fucked him?”
I pushed my hands against his chest forcefully when he didn’t answer, needing to get him away from me. This was just too implausible and I was shocked to my bones as my whole mind couldn’t conceive what he had just divulged.
Holy bloody Hell!
“Two years of bloody heartache because you were too fucking stubborn to pick up a bloody phone and ask! JUST BLOODY ASK!!”
He stood silent and pale, just fucking staring at me.
“I don’t know what hurts the most Jax? The fact that you believed some…some
jealous person on a photo that doesn’t even suggest anything apart from a hug or the fact that you didn’t trust me.”
“Babe…” he choked out. His shock was just as immense as mine but I shook my head in disgust. “Just go Jax. I can’t even bear to look at you” I whispered.
The pain and remorse on his face was just a slight indication of how he felt, but at that moment I couldn’t give him the forgiveness he needed. “Get out” I repeated as I turned away from him.
The whole pain of the last two years just doubled; in fact it tripled because it could have been so easily avoided.
He hadn’t even tried to sort it out. That’s what hurt the most. A ten minute conversation on the phone could have saved our relationship but he had chosen to believe whoever, probably Fran, over the woman he was supposed to have loved.
“I asked you to leave” I said without turning.
“Babe, Fuck…” I could hear the desperation in his voice but I refused to cow down to it.
As soon as the door closed behind him, I let the tears flow.
CHAPTER 42
Aaron and I walked up the gravel driveway to our old home, hand in hand. The need to support each other was incredible and we both sucked in a huge breath before Aaron slipped the key into the hole.
When Mom had died, I walked out and never came back, just left everything as was. The same went for Aaron, but he had refused to enter even before her death.
“Ready E?” he said on a hefty sigh and I nodded. “Yeah. We need to do this.”
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