“What’s wrong with me?” she asked, hands snapping to her hips and eyes nailing him with a look of utter fury. “Why don’t you like me, Jay?”
“Who said I don’t like you?” Jay stood up, careful to keep enough space between them. He felt like he was in third grade, having this conversation.
Izzy took a few steps until her chest was pressed against him. “I mean, why don’t you want me?”
His breath was steady, but he was feeling anything but. He took her by the arms and gently pushed her back. He needed some distance. “Izzy, sleep it off. You don’t want to do this right now.” He started to walk by her, but she grabbed his arm.
“What if I do want to do this right now?” She raised her eyebrows, and in her inebriated state, it was almost comical. “Come on, Jay, play with me. I promise I won’t get all clingy and expect you to call me after. I just want…”
Jay stopped all reasonable thinking, as his blood had completely departed his brain and traveled to another part of his body. He grabbed her face and crushed his lips to hers, knocking the breath out of her. Her body felt tiny against his own, and that only made him harder. She leaned against him, letting him ravage her mouth and giving it back just as good. She tasted so good – dark and delicious – like rum and spearmint and something sweet and altogether indefinable that could only be Izzy.
His hands moved up into her hair, and he pulled out the sticks until it fell loosely down around her shoulders. He tilted his head, making the kiss even deeper; he couldn’t get close enough, fast enough; the distance he’d needed just moments before was long forgotten. He pulled her hips up against him, and she let out a soft moan. His brain was fighting a losing battle against his body. Somewhere, just out of his reach, was the voice of reason. There was something nagging at him, something he should pay attention to, but whatever it was, it was quickly eluding him. All he could think about was Izzy and the way she felt against him.
There was a ringing sound in the distance, barely penetrating Jay’s brain, since Izzy had just unbuttoned his jeans and now had her hands on his skin underneath his shirt. The ringing continued, becoming more and more persistent, until it was impossible to ignore. Jay reluctantly pulled away, trying to place the sound. The fog in his brain cleared as he watched his incessant phone vibrating on the coffee table, indicating he had messages.
Like a giant helium balloon that had been happily soaring into the sky and shot down suddenly, Jay deflated and drifted down to earth. He swore under his breath. Izzy still stood close to him, breathing heavily, but also aware that the air had changed.
“This is a bad idea. I’m sorry.” It was the lamest thing he’d ever said. Even he didn’t believe it. But the sensible side of him knew that it was true. He got carried away; it wouldn’t happen again.
“Are you kidding me?” Izzy was furious, and he couldn’t blame her.
“I’ll get you a blanket. You’re not driving anywhere tonight.” He disappeared down the hall, and emerged with a blanket, ducking just in time to miss getting hit in the head with his flying notebook.
“You’re an asshole, Jay Archer, you know that?”
He calmly picked up his notebook and looked at her. “Yes, I do know that.”
“Cooper’s right, you know. We need to sleep together to get this out of our system. Then we can go on to lead normal lives.”
Jay flew around the couch to where she was standing. He took her by the shoulders, spun her around so her back was to him, and started to walk her into her bedroom. Most of her stuff was still in there, though she hadn’t slept there in weeks. She melted into him a little and he realized what she thought, so he wrapped the blanket around her shoulders to let her know he wasn’t planning on joining her in bed. She turned around and tried to slap him, but he caught her arm before she made contact. She flailed and cursed at him – her vocabulary getting more and more colorful as she went on – and finally he just picked her up and dumped her unceremoniously on the couch, tossing the blanket over her.
He walked in his room and slammed the door shut, more shaken than he’d ever been. God, how stupid could he be? But if Izzy really thought that sleeping together would end this thing between them, then maybe he wasn’t the dumbest person in the room after all.
26
I woke up with a crick in my neck, and the mother of all headaches. I rubbed my eyes and stretched, looking around. Confusion over where I was led to absolute mortification, which quickly turned to a burning rage.
Jay. That son of a bitch. Getting me all worked up into a gooey mess, then throwing the proverbial bucket of ice water in my face.
I threw off the blanket, which had gotten all twisted around my legs during my fitful night of sleep, and got up to go confront that spiteful rotten little tease. But the apartment was empty.
I fumbled through the bathroom cabinet for some aspirin, gulped down a tall glass of water, then jumped in the shower. When I got out, Jay still wasn’t home. So, I did what any normal jilted girl would do in my situation; I went for a little snoop.
I knew it was all sorts of wrong to read his notebooks; private words that weren’t meant to be seen by mine or anyone else’s eyes. But I risked eternal damnation of my evil soul in order to find out what in the hell was in that man’s head. I had to know.
I started with the book on his nightstand. It was the same one he’d had with him on the couch last night when I’d barged in like a crazy person, interrupting his otherwise peaceful evening. Flipping to the last page, I half hoped to read something about me – about what had happened last night – but there was nothing. There were some sketches of random things, some looked more like doodles he’d drawn while his mind was elsewhere. And there were lyrics, tons of lyrics, some beautiful and some tormented. But there were no journal entries or thoughts or confessions.
I tossed that one aside; I was on a mission now. Looking under his bed, I pulled out a stack of notebooks, all spiral bound, all different sizes and all with writing on every single page. I found a few entries with dates, glanced over them, until I found one entry from a few weeks ago that made my pulse beat double time, and my hands grow clammy.
Cooper’s guilt is eating at me. I’ve tried to talk to him about it, tried to tell him he can just stop feeling responsible already, but he denies it every time. This has gone on for too long. I did what any friend would do, and I would do it again if I had to relive it all. My brief stint in rehab was a small price to pay. He thinks my time there really messed with my head, but the truth is, I was messed up long before that. I think in some twisted way it was the reason he tricked me into singing that song, and it’s why he’s pushing me into this whole recording thing. I’ll play along because it eases his guilt, and because I think Izzy deserves to have her talent heard, but I hate every minute of it.
I heard a key in the door and shoved the pile of notebooks back out of sight. I made it to the living room just as Jay let himself in, laden with coffee and a bakery bag.
He looked up when he saw me standing there and gestured toward the kitchen. I followed silently and sat down, one leg curled underneath me. I was wearing one of his sweatshirts. The sleeves were frayed and pushed up on my arms, and the bottom fell almost to the hemline of my skirt, which I wore sans the tights.
“Nice shirt,” he mumbled around a mouthful of donut.
We ate and drank coffee in silence. It was uncomfortable, yet comforting at the same time, sitting with him in such a domestic setting. But I was still angry with him, and now I wanted answers about what I had just read.
“What is it that you did for Cooper that makes him feel guilty?” I asked, slicing through the silence like a ginsu knife through a tomato.
He stopped chewing. “What?”
“Cooper. What did he do that has him eaten up with guilt?”
“You were reading my notebooks,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
I nodded. “Are you mad?”
He hesitated, took a long swig of coffee, th
en looked right at me. “No.”
“Can you tell me what happened then?”
Jay stood up and put his hands on the counter, his back to me. For a moment I didn’t think he would answer me, but then he turned and started talking.
“It has to do with the night I got arrested. Cooper asked me to go with him to this field. He was supposed to meet these guys that were going to buy off the rest of his stash. He’d been dealing dope for a while, but he’d had a few close calls, and his contact was pushing for him to take on more. He wanted out.”
He paused long enough for me to ask a question, but I had a lot of questions, and I didn’t want him to leave out any of the story. I sat quietly and let him continue.
“We waited at the field for two hours, but they never showed. We sat in the car, drinking beers and getting stupid. I saw the cop cars from a distance, and I only had a second to react. Cooper had dozed off in the driver’s seat…”
“Wait, Cooper was driving that night?”
Jay nodded and kept going. “He’d been in trouble before. He already had a record, and he had drunk way more than me. I knew if they caught him, he’d be toast. And I knew he’d break his mother’s heart.”
“So you took the blame? You just let everyone think that the drugs were yours, and Cooper let you?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Jay said defensively. “He wanted to come forward later, after I spent the night in jail. But I talked him out of it.”
I shook my head, trying to process. Jay was silent for a long time, deep in thought. He leaned back against the counter, his arms across his chest. Then he blew out a long breath and looked up at the ceiling and back at me.
“That’s not it,” he said, his voice measured.
“What else?” I was afraid to hear the answer.
“There were pills. A lot of pills; a whole shitload. I don’t even know what they were, but I’m guessing some pretty expensive stuff by the way he was trying to hide them from me. They fell out of his jacket when he fell asleep and I managed to tuck them under the seat before the cops got there. I don’t know how they didn’t find them, but they didn’t. When Cooper got his car back, I looked for them but they were gone.”
“So you think the cops found them and never reported it?”
Jay shook his head. “That’s what I thought at first, but I think that’s only because I’ve watched too much Law and Order or something. I actually wanted to believe that; that some officer on the force was dirty enough to steal the pills and try and sell them himself. It’s better than the alternative.”
“You think Cooper found them?”
Jay sighed. “When I got back from rehab, I felt like Cooper was different somehow. It didn’t take me too long to realize it was because he was strung out.”
“I know he drinks a lot, way more than he should, but Jay…”
“Izzy, he has a problem.”
I shook my head, not wanting to believe it. “No. No, you’re mistaken. Cooper is just all twisted up about Trisha, for some unknown reason. He isn’t… he wouldn’t… I would know if he was in trouble.”
“He doesn’t want you to know. He made me promise that I wouldn’t tell you. He made promises to me, too. He said he’d stop, he said he’d get help, he said all sorts of things.”
Jay ran his hand down his cheek, and I felt something stir inside me. It was completely inappropriate to be thinking of Jay naked right now. I didn’t know if it was this tender, loyal friendship side of Jay that I was seeing that turned me on. Or if it was just that I wanted to ignore all he’d just said about Cooper. Denial was my friend.
So I compartmentalized my thoughts of Cooper for the moment. Right now my need to kiss Jay was all that I could concentrate on. I was sober and coherent, and there was nothing between us but a measly kitchen table.
I stood and walked to where he was standing. He eyed me warily. I smiled. He didn’t smile back. I wasn’t deterred.
Standing on my toes I reached up and ran my hand down his stubbly cheek like I’d seen him do a million times. Then I leaned in and bit his bottom lip lightly. I waited for a response. He stood like a statue, arms to his side, hands resting on the counter behind him. I nipped him again, harder this time.
“Izzy, stop.” His voice was firm, but it wasn’t convincing.
“No,” I whispered against his ear. My teeth grazed his earlobe for good measure, and I felt him shudder.
Now he had no excuses. I wasn’t drunk, we were alone, and there was no hiding the fact that he wanted me bad. And the feeling was mutual.
My lips moved over his, but still he made no effort to join in. Now the challenge was just fueling my need to feel his hands on me. I ran my hands through his dark, wavy hair, my fingernails scraping lightly along his scalp. I kissed his neck, feeling him swallow, and I could see the way he clenched his teeth, just trying to resist. But he was losing the battle.
I took a half step back and looked up at him. I knew my eyes were dilated, and that he could see how turned on I was. His own eyes were hooded, half-closed, but I could still see the green just underneath his lashes.
I put my hand over his heart, my eyes still fixed on his. “Jay,” I said softly, my tone a mix between sultry and pleading.
We stood like that for a good long while. The kitchen was silent except for the sound of an old battery clock on the wall, and the air was teeming with sexual tension. I knew what I wanted to do, but I waited a heartbeat longer to see if he would break first.
He didn’t disappoint me.
“Oh fuck it.” He yanked me toward him and buried his face in my neck. Then just as his lips found mine and all sense of reason had left the both of us, the front door swung open. Cooper’s voice was like squealing brakes on a speeding train. “Honey, I’m home!” he yelled. We stepped apart just as he entered the kitchen.
“Hey kids!” It only took him about two seconds to assess the situation. “You finally did it, huh? That’s good news indeed. Congratulations!” Cooper patted Jay on the shoulder while pulling me into a giant bear hug. I swatted him away.
“No, you butthead. I slept on the couch.” I snatched a donut out of the bag on the table and shoved it in my mouth to disguise my quivering lips, and probably flaming face.
“Oh,” Cooper’s face fell. Then he instantly perked back up. “You finally moving back in?“
I kissed him on the cheek, glanced quickly over to Jay to see that he was absently cleaning the already spotless counter with a paper towel.
“Not today, buddy.”
“Why not?” he pouted, and if Jay hadn’t told me all he had, the look on Cooper’s face would have been comical. But when I looked at his face, really looked at him, I was struck with a dose of reality.
My friend was in big trouble. And I was terrified there was nothing I could do to help him.
27
I arrived at the studio only a half an hour late. I was surprised to see only Jay there. They had the space booked until later that afternoon, and Cooper had been hounding everyone about taking the recording sessions more seriously. My vocals were still not up to Cooper’s standards, and I had been informed that he was losing patience with my half-assed attitude. I had every intention of getting this over-with today, and now Cooper wasn’t even around.
“Where is the King of Studio Recording?” I asked Jay as I took off my sweater and pulled my hair back into a sloppy twist. It had been cool that morning when I’d left the house, but suddenly I felt way too warm.
“He’s with Trisha.” I watched Jay as he took in my outfit. I was wearing a faded denim miniskirt with a frayed hem, half-calf cowboy boots, and a pale pink t-shirt that pulled tight across my breasts and showcased my black, lacy bra nicely. It was quite a departure from my usual look, but I’d been in a funny mood this morning, and the country-girl meets Madonna thing was working for me.
Apparently it was working for Jay too. His eyes might as well have been hands for how in tune my body felt to him since the other d
ay in his kitchen.
“Well, that’s just perfect. I thought he said I had to get this shit recorded today, or he was going to ditch me altogether.” I had known Cooper was kidding at the time, but those had been his exact words to me.
“I’m gonna do it.” Jay turned away from me, and started messing with the knobs on the sound board.
“Whatever,” I tried to play it nonchalant like, but I was a nervous wreck inside. The whole reason I had wanted us to record our tracks separately was so that I didn’t have to look at Jay while I sang.
“Do you need to warm up?”
“Nope. I’m good. Let’s go.” I entered the recording room and put on the headphones. Jay’s voice in my ears made me jump.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he said. God, he sounded even more sexy that close to my head. I made a hand motion for him to start, and the song began.
I only got halfway into the first verse when Jay stopped. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Try it again. You’re flat.”
“Flat? I have perfect pitch, Jay. I’m not flat.”
“You are. Try it again,” he repeated.
I did, only to have him stop me mid-verse yet again. “What the hell? That was fine!”
“Yeah, it was fine, but it wasn’t half of what you’re capable of. Again.”
Now I was mad. Where the hell was Cooper? I didn’t want to do this stupid thing in the first place, but making me sing to Jay was torture.
We started and stopped two more times. I ripped off my head phones in frustration and glared at Jay through the glass. He met my stare with equal ferocity, then gestured for me to put my headphones back on. I did, but under duress.
“Izzy.”
“Yes, Jay,” I said sweetly.
“Have you watched the YouTube video at all?”
“I’ve been trying not to,” I said honestly. I’d seen clips of it, but it was hard for me to watch.
“Well, I’ve seen it. Many times. And if I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was watching a completely different person trying to sing right now, than the one in that video.”
The Duet Page 13