“We are off topic. This is not about Sammy. This meeting is about Jackson, you, and that sex tape.”
I shake my head. He still thinks I’m just some money hungry, cleat chaser and nothing will change that.
“Tell everybody it was me. Tell them I hid cameras around the apartment to get money. Jackson’s career is more important than I am.”
“You didn’t do it, Maggie. I know you didn’t,” he says solemnly.
“I know that and you know that, Jackson, but nobody else does; and unless somebody comes forward, we’ll probably never know who did it. It’s easier this way.”
“No, I won’t have you take the fall for this,” he sighs, wrapping his hand around mine, squeezing gently. I press my lips together, trying to blink back the tears, but it’s too late - they fall anyway.
“I don’t matter Jackson, don’t you see that? I never did and I never will. Even if we say that we don’t know who did this, I still come off looking like some groupie whore. It’s better if we just lie and say I did it all. You’ll come out looking good and it won’t blow back on the team or the franchise,” I say sadly, hating the truth behind my words. The room is silent and before anybody can say another word, Nick stands up, clearing his throat.
“Thank you, Maggie. We appreciate your sacrifice,” he pauses. Just when I think he’s going to tell me that it’s unnecessary, he smiles, “and we’ll compensate you properly for it.”
“I don’t want your fucking money,” I say, as I stand. “I never wanted money. I only wanted my husband to love me; and when he didn’t, and he died, I thought I would have a second chance at finding somebody who would. Then I did. I found him, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because somebody fucked it all up and I’ll never know how good it would have been to feel that love for more than a few moments.” I turn and leave.
I leave the men stunned into silence, Jackson included. Then I do what I do best.
I run.
I shouldn’t have told him that I loved him. I shouldn’t have admitted it in front of a room of suits, but I couldn’t not tell him. I suck in a deep, ragged breath as I wave down a cab. I go to Jackson’s apartment, but it is only to pack my things. This, what we had, it’s over now. No way could he be with me, not after the tape and not after that horrendous meeting. I know I have done the right thing, even if it has obliterated my already fragile heart.
“What are you doing?” Adam asks as I throw clothes into a bag. A plastic bag - how fucking typical and how hilarious, a white trash bag for the white trash girl that I am.
“Going home,” I admit.
“You’re leaving him? He didn’t do it, Maggie, he wouldn’t,” Adam chews on his bottom lip and looks oddly riddled with guilt. For a moment I wonder if he would do it, if he could do it, for money to pay back his Bookie. I shake that thought away. No way, would he do that to his own brother.
“I don’t have a choice, Adam. Jackson’s career is much more important than I am in the grand scheme of things. I look like some fame-whore just by being with him. Add that tape and it proves that perception. I would rather die than see him hurt. He could lose his contract over this and that would kill him. So, I am going to take myself and my broken heart and leave, so that he can lives his dreams.” Adam gulps and looks at his shoes.
“You’re going to be making decisions for me then?” Jackson asks, leaning against the bedroom door. He obviously heard everything I just said.
“You can’t control this, Jackson. The public is eating this up and it won’t be going away. The team doesn’t want publicity like this. They want you visiting children’s hospitals and hosting training camps for little leaguers; they do not want one of their starting players as a star in a sex tape.”
“What about what I want?”
“It doesn’t matter. Your contract is your focus. Everything else should be secondary,” I whisper, hating every word.
“Maybe that’s the way Sammy thought, but that’s not the man I am, Marguerite. You are my priority and your well-being comes before anything and everything else,” he says. I shake my head, despising his sweet words.
Why can’t he just be an asshole?
“Jackson, you will not ruin your career for me,” I cry out.
“No, I won’t. This tape will not ruin me. You leaving me, however, will ruin my fucking life,” he roars.
I sink down to my knees, holding my face in my palms as I begin to sob. Jackson’s strong arms wrap around me as his lips touch my ear.
“Why won’t you make this easy for me, Jackson?” I hiccup.
“Beautiful, I love you. I will not let you leave me over something that we had zero control over. I will not allow you to run,” he whispers against my ear. I hear the bedroom door close, signaling the fact that we are now alone. Jackson picks me up and carries me to the bed, his hips between my thighs and his face hovering above mine.
“Let me go, Jackson, let me go so you can live a happy life.”
“You crazy, fucking woman. My life wouldn’t be happy without you - it would be fucking torture,” he hisses right before his mouth slams down on mine.
IT IS DARK, BUT I have no clue what time it is. Jackson and I spent hours in each other’s arms last night. As good as it was, I can’t help feeling the guilt that washes over me. Now, as he snores lightly next to me in bed, he seems so content.
I wonder how content he will be if the team doesn’t renew his contract?
How content will he be when his career is over and he has nothing else to do?
Will he regret it?
Will regret me?
I don’t want him to regret anything about his life, not the way I have. I couldn’t bare it if he hated me one day.
Slowly and quietly, I slide off of the bed and dress in a pair of leggings and an oversized sweatshirt, tucking my feet into a pair of canvas flat shoes. My hair is a hot mess of tangled sex hair, but I don’t have time to brush it. If I go into his bathroom and see all of our combined things mingled together on the counter, I’ll cry and it will wake him up. If I wake him up, I’ll stay. Then one day, when he hates me, I’ll hate myself, as well.
“You’re leaving him? After all of that shit he spewed?” Adam asks as I tiptoe my way from the bedroom, a beer dangling from his fingers.
“I will ruin his career if I stay,” I admit, looking into eyes that look too much like Jackson’s.
“It will ruin him if you go.”
“There is no happy ended to this, Adam. Damned if I do and damned if I don’t,” I admit tears shining in my eyes.
“Fuck,” he curses, his eyes pinching closed. “I didn’t know he really loved you, like loves you, Maggie.”
“Well, we haven’t known each other long but we’ve been through some stuff. I guess emotions and feelings have been rushed.”
“Like a fucking speed rail. Had I known Maggie… had I known he really loved you and you him, things would have been different. I would have done things differently,” he says, confusing me. I lick my dry lips and look at him, really look at him.
Adam looks like shit. His eyes are dark, and he’s drunk and gaunt. His skin has an ashy appearance and his hands are shaking as he looks at me with pure agony marring his usually good looking features. How has he gone from looking tired and just a bit thin to this ghost of a man - in just a few days? I don’t understand him either; he’s talking in riddles and he isn’t making any sense.
“I don’t know what you could have done, Adam, but what’s done is done. There’s nothing I can do to change the fact that somebody violated our privacy and publicly humiliated me. The only thing I can do is leave. That is the only way to try and save Jackson’s career. I’ll do whatever I can to make him happy.”
“You make him happy, Maggie,” Adam urges, standing up and taking a wobbly step toward me.
“I wouldn’t be enough, Adam; not for the rest of his life. I could never be enough to keep him happy, to make up for the fact that his career is over. I woul
dn’t want him to give up his dream because of me. I’m not worth it.” I turn and leave unable to listen to another word. Unable to continue to admit that I know my worth and I’m not worthy of the demise of Jackson’s life.
My apartment is cold, damp, and full of the ghosts of my past. I hate it here. I slowly I make my way toward the bedroom and look around. The furniture has been changed, but I still see Sammy in every corner. It makes me so fucking angry.
I lie down in my bed and roll over to my side as I look around the room I haven’t seen in months. My eye catches a box at the top of his closet and I stomp over and climb up my stool, grabbing the box of Sammy’s crap that I threw up here after his death. I won’t be sleeping tonight and this box has been haunting me, I won’t let it haunt me anymore. I rip the tape off of the lid and dump the contents down in the middle of the floor.
There isn’t anything expensive in here, just a few journals and knickknacks. I’ve sold or donated all of his expensive items, except for his World Series rings. I’m not sure why I kept them, but I couldn’t give them away. I pick up one of the journals and notice the date. It is dated about one year after we were married. I crack open the book to the middle and gasp when my eyes scan over his messy script.
Maggs knows something is wrong with me, I can see it in her eyes. I can’t bring myself to kiss her and I know it bothers her. I love her and I couldn’t imagine my life without her, but she’s so naïve and sweet, I can’t expose her to my true self. I would hurt her and change her. I don’t want to change her.
I wish that she was enough for me. I wish that I could change, because I would. For her, I would do just about anything.
I hope that one day I am man enough to tell her exactly what I crave - what I need. The guilt I feel for sharing my body with all those other women consumes me and I find it difficult not to resent Maggs. It has zero to do with her and everything to do with me, but I can’t help the anger that arises every time I betray her beautiful trust.
The words are enough to send me over the edge and I spend the rest of the evening and early morning crying. How selfish of him. How completely and utterly selfish of him to keep a piece of himself that big from me. I was never enough for Sammy and he wasn’t ever going to allow me to be enough for him either.
Suddenly, it hits me.
Am I doing this to Jackson?
Am I Jackson’s Sammy?
I walked out on him because I didn’t think I was enough for him, no matter how many times he has said that I was. I am rejecting him to protect him, which is exactly what Sammy did to me.
I have turned myself into Sammy and in doing that I have been hurting Jackson the same way Sammy hurt me for all those years. I close my eyes letting the epiphany sink in.
I will not be Sammy.
I will not make decisions for the person I care for.
I stand on weak, shaky legs and I run to my apartment door, throwing it open without abandon, only to run smack into a hard body.
Jackson.
“You left me,” he rasps.
I throw myself into his arms and I kiss him. I kiss his lips, I lick his jaw. I suck on his neck, and I tug on his earlobe with my teeth, causing his body to bow. I faintly hear the door close behind him as my body lands on the sofa in the living room.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” I chant over and over between kisses.
“Don’t you ever fucking walk out on me while I’m asleep, again,” Jackson grinds out, his hard length pressing into my thigh.
The, before I know it, Jackson is sitting up. He grabs me by the waist turning me over his knees, my ass in the air. I squirm in his hold, knowing exactly what he’s going to try and do.
He’s going to spank me.
I feel my leggings and panties being pulled down over my hips to the middle of my thighs. I cry out when I feel the sting from his hand land on my flesh.
“You made me so fucking angry, Maggie,” he rumbles through his clenched jaw. His hand gently rubs the sting on my ass before he lifts it up and slaps me, half an inch lower.
“Jackson,” I breathe as his warm hand massages the globe of my ass. My nipples pebble when his hand slaps down on my other cheek.
“Stop trying to run from me, Marguerite. Leaving won’t change a goddamned thing. I’ll still love you and I won’t be happy without you at my side,” he growls. I arch my back crying out when his hand lands hard on my ass again.
“Okay,” I whimper as tears fall from my eyes.
“Will you try and save me again, Maggie? Will you leave me in some stupid assed attempt to save me if this shit blows up any bigger than it already is?” TWACK. My whole body vibrates, stings, and sings as his hand lands hard on the back of my upper thigh.
“No, Jackson, I’ll never leave you again. I swear,” I say through my tears.
Jackson’s hand lands on the other side of my upper thigh one last time and then he lifts my hips so that my knees are pressing into the sofa and my ass is high in the air.
I cry out in pleasure when Jackson’s tongue swipes through my center, before he sucks my clit deep into his mouth, nipping it slightly with his teeth. I can hear clothes shuffling and, when his heavy jeans fall to the floor, I sigh in relief, trying to spread my legs farther for him. I’m immobile between the width of the sofa and my leggings. Jackson must notice because I hear him chuckle behind me.
“Do you need me, babe?” he asks. I whine, deep in my throat, as tears of frustration continue to fall from my eyes.
“Don’t ever leave me again, Maggie. It would fucking kill me if you left me over something this fucking stupid.” His warm hand is firmly massaging the globes of my ass as his hard cock slides between the folds of my pussy.
“It isn’t stupid, Jackson. Your career isn’t stupid,” I grumble in frustration.
Instead of answering me, Jackson drives deep inside of my body, his fingers spreading my ass and digging into the raw skin.
“My career will be fine babe, but my heart would be shattered without you right here with me,” he whispers as he slowly slides out of my pussy, my ass still spread wide for him. I hear his humming behind me.
“Jackson!” I snap, irritated that he’s pulled out of my body. He chuckles before plunging back inside.
“You look so pretty like this, Marguerite… Your pretty pussy sucking me in deep, your ass red with my marks, and your gorgeous tight asshole in view.”
I shiver at his words as my skin prickles with heat. Sometimes he so dirty it drives me crazy. I love it.
“Please,” I whimper, my body needing the release, craving it.
“Okay, babe; anything for you, Maggie, fucking anything.”
One of his hands slips off of my ass and curves around my hip. I purr when two fingers press against my clit.
“God, you feel so good,” he whispers as his fingers separate around my lips, feeling where we are connected.
“I need more - please, Jackson, please I need more,” I cry out, my tears resurfacing as I sob into the sofa.
Jackson’s body twitches and his fingers move back to my clit, rubbing circles as he begins to take me harder. His thrusts quicken in speed and power behind me.
“Yes,” I cry, my orgasm rising to the surface.
I throw my head back with a scream. Jackson’s hand leaves my ass and grabs hold of my hair as he presses my body further into the sofa, his chest against my back and his lips at my ear.
“Scream for me, babe, fucking scream,” he growls, and I do. I scream as my body shakes with my orgasm, my neck pulled back and his sweat soaked body pressing against mine. It is so fucking perfect, I never want it to end.
A few moments later, I am wrapped in Jackson’s arms as he runs his hands up and down my back beneath my sweatshirt. His lips are above my head and I finally close my eyes, feeling sated and content.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe against his chest, apologizing again.
“This shit is going to get messier before it gets better. You hav
e to stick by me, we have to be in this together, or it will rip us apart. I need to know that you’re in this. I can’t be wondering if I’ll come home from a game to find you’ve take off on me again.”
I tip my head back and place my chin on his chest, my eyes searching his.
“I came here to save you from myself and I realized that I was being selfish. I was acting just like Sammy did with me - hiding, making decisions for you and not giving you the option to choose me or not choose me. I love you, Jackson, and I’m not going to run anymore. I will be by your side for as long as you want me.”
“Then you’ll be at my side forever,” he whispers, his hand cupping my cheek as his lips softly touch mine.
Together, we fall asleep half-dressed and in complete bliss. We love each other and I know that whatever happens with the sex tape, as long as we stay together, as long as we talk and we work out whatever comes our way, we will come out a stronger couple for it in the end. I can only hope that whoever took this footage is found.
The next morning, Jackson is on the phone with the police and informs me that we have to go back to his place to let them inside. They’re going to search the place, top to bottom, and see what they can find. Jackson and I were violated; since he is in the public eye, they are determined to find the bastard who did this. They’re even bringing in detectives and a forensic team.
“Let’s get out of here, I want to be there. I can’t get ahold of Adam so I don’t know if he’s there to let them in or not.” I nod, wondering where Adam is.
We arrive at the apartment to find it empty. Adam is gone, and so is the duffle bag he had in the corner that had been spilling over with his stuff. My brows pinch together in confusion. Jackson notices as well, walking around the kitchen, looking for something.
“No note, no nothing. He’s just gone.” He sounds as confused as I feel.
“Jackson…” I murmur.
“This looks really fucking bad, Maggie. This looks guilty.” He says exactly what I’m thinking. Before we can discuss anything else, the bell rings, announcing the police.
Later that night, I am lying on Jackson’s chest and running my fingers over his sculpted muscles. I look down at his hand, resting on his stomach, and I realize that I haven’t once seen his nails painted. When we were first married, Sammy told me about his trick that the catchers us. The pitcher can’t see their fingers very well from way out on the mound and many catchers have started painting their nails so that the pitcher can see the flash of color and read the call better. Sammy always painted his nails bright white.
Catching Maggie Page 18