Cherry Beats

by Vicki James

  “I thought you were the chick who didn’t want to hold him back,” Dicky whispered in my ear, forcing me to spin around to him quickly. His brow was raised, but other than the accusatory nature of that, he looked amused. “I’m beginning to think you’re the chick who doesn’t actually have a fucking clue what she wants at all.”

  “I know what I want,” I assured him.

  He raised his chin and looked over me towards the band. “No going back now.”

  “Wouldn’t want to.”

  Dicky’s shoulders relaxed, and he released a sigh. “We move to Berlin after this.”

  “I know.” I nodded, swallowing the awkward lump in my throat.

  “Come and see me before we leave. You’re going to need representation.”

  “I don’t want—”

  “If you matter to him, you matter to the band now. We’ll make sure everything gets taken care of.” And just like that, Dicky walked away, following the path Julia had taken, leaving me standing there alone.

  There were so many people around, but I only needed one, and when his arms wrapped around me from behind and he rested his chin on my shoulder, I couldn’t help but sink back into him, close my eyes and smile.

  He loves me.

  I curled my arms around his and tilted my head to the side to allow him access to my neck. He littered delicate kisses there, the kind that make your whole body sing with promises of what’s to come next time you’re alone together. We both knew that the next time would be the most special of all because we’d finally said those three words.

  “You’re so fucking sweaty,” I whispered through a smile, watching people passing us by with knowing smiles on their faces.

  He buried his face deeper into my neck, making growling noises that turned my knees to jelly. “Don’t worry. I’ll shower before I fuck you.” He swayed me in his arms, and I closed my eyes to enjoy the moment, soaking him in.

  When I let my eyes flutter open again, I exhaled quickly, seeing something that made my heart skip a beat.

  Trey.

  He was milling through the crowd wearing a black denim jacket, dark jeans, and a white T-shirt—so much more relaxed than when I’d seen him suited and booted at the bar with Molly, but his face was unmistakable. The anger he brought to life in the pits of my stomach made me want to run and rugby tackle him to the floor.

  Presley froze, feeling me tense in his grip. “What’s wrong?”

  I followed Trey as he moved through the crowd of people—his gaze drifting around him.

  Squeezing Presley’s arms, I leaned closer, never taking my eyes from Trey.

  “You see that guy over there in the black denim jacket?”

  Presley took a moment to study the crowd, his chin rising. “The good-looking dude?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded once, my nostrils flaring. “That’s the guy who tried to get information from Molly about you and me. His name is Trey, and shit, Presley, he works for Janey Dominic.”

  “Are you sure that’s him?”

  “One hundred percent. What the hell is he doing here?

  “Attending his own funeral. I’m gonna kill him.”

  “No!” I hissed, gripping him tighter and turning in his arms. “If you react, he’ll drag your name through the mud. They’re counting on one of us losing our tempers.”

  “Like I give a fuck.”

  “You should.” I reached up, pinching Presley’s chin between my finger and thumb and forcing him to look down at me. “You’ve already been arrested once, you idiot. Don’t give them exclusive access to the second time.” I tried to look to the side to see Trey again, but he was nowhere in sight, and that only made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. “Shit, he’s gone.”

  “Stay here.” Presley pressed a soft kiss to the top of my head before he pulled away from me.

  “Wait.” I grabbed his arm, holding him in place. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  He smiled, flashing his handsome at me to wear me down—the kind of handsome you couldn’t say no to. “I just took my girlfriend on stage in front of nearly seven thousand people and told her I loved her. I think my stupid is all used up for one night.”

  Girlfriend.

  Holy shit. That sounded so hot knowing that the girlfriend was me.

  “Trust me, Cherry.”

  Presley disappeared into the crowd, taking the same route Dicky and Julia had taken only minutes before. The realisation that he was going to them instead of taking matters into his own hands had me relaxing a little. Only a little.

  A woman dressed in a white shirt and black tie walked closer towards me with a tray in her hand, several glasses of neat whiskey and ice sitting on top of it. I grabbed one carefully and offered her a thank you, only to be met with narrowed eyes and a fake smile that told me she did not like me for some reason.

  I didn’t have to make too many guesses to figure out what that reason could be.

  Pushing my red hair out of my eyes, I threw the contents of the tumbler down my throat. The burn wasn’t sweet; it was a hard, deep fire that made me want to cough it all back up until the very moment it hit my chest.

  “And so it begins,” I whispered to myself, having no other option but to stand there waiting for Presley’s return.

  He lied to me.

  He wasn’t ‘right back’.

  It took twenty minutes of me standing there, smiling at people I didn’t know, and receiving a few questioning glances before he eventually returned, looking a lot less carefree than he had when he left my side.

  Presley’s face was pale. His brows pinched together as he drew closer to me, grabbed my arm and leaned in.

  “We need to get out of here.”

  “What’s happened?” I moved closer to him. “Presley, what’s wrong?”

  “We need to get out of here,” he repeated.

  “Is it Trey?”

  “He’s been taken care of. Security are escorting him out as we speak.”

  Relief flooded me. “Thank God.”

  “We need to go, Tess.”

  I gasped, letting my thoughts get carried away with me. “Shit. Is it Janey? Is she here?”

  “Worse.” Presley ground his teeth together and set his jaw tight, the muscles twitching as he looked down at my lips and studied them for a moment. “A thousand times worse. My fucking mother is here.”

  “Your… mum?”

  The very mum Uncle Dex had told me about. The one Presley had barely mentioned in any of the time we’d been together, other than to say she was as selfish as he thought he could be.

  “I’m guessing Dicky let her through.”

  “Does he know you don’t want her here?”

  “The woman is relentless when she wants something, Tess. It doesn’t matter what I want. Olivia can be very persuasive.” Presley huffed out a humourless laugh, taking a second to close his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose before he released a groan. “Of all the nights for her to show up.”

  “Hey,” I said in a hushed voice. “It’s fine. I’m here. We don’t have to go anywhere. You don’t have to run from her or hide. How bad can she really be?”

  “You have no idea.” He glanced behind him like he was trying to stay hidden, before he looked back at me. “If we stay here, she’ll ruin this night for us.”

  “You just marched me on stage and told me you loved me in front of nearly seven thousand people, remember? Nothing can ruin this night for us now. Not even—”

  “So, you’re Little Red-Riding-On-The-Coattails-Of-My-Famous-Son? I’ll be honest, Presley, I expected more,” Olivia said, annunciating every word with perfect precision.

  Turning slowly, I found myself staring into the familiar, sparkly blue eyes of a well-dressed woman with curly blonde hair. Her brows were high as she stared at me with disdain. Her ruby red mouth held a fiery pit of venomous words waiting to be set free from her pinched lips.

  I gave her my full attention.

  Bright, white, crisp blouse unbuttone
d to her chest.

  Tight blue jeans that somehow looked expensive, pulling her slender curves in at all the right places.

  Nude-patent stilettos that made me wince for her poor toes.

  She was stunning, and she didn’t look a day over forty, which was impossible given how old her son was.

  “And you are?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Here at just the right time, by the looks of things,” she answered snootily, her perfect little button nose a slender version of Presley’s. She was the female version of him in every way, apart from the attitude. “Presley? Can we take this to your dressing room?”

  “Do we have a choice?” Presley sighed heavily, throwing a casual arm around my shoulder and pulling me to him. As much as I appreciated his protectiveness, I also wanted to show them both that I could stand strong on my own.

  Peeling his arm off me, I entwined my fingers with his and dropped our joined hands between us, looking back at Olivia West like the true picture of unity.

  I caught sight of Julia rushing towards us, her usual mask of cool gone the moment she realised Olivia was standing in front of Presley.

  “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Presley,” Olivia told her son, a delicate smile delivering more contempt than it should have been capable of.

  “When you’re around, Mum, it always ends up being the hard way. Let’s cut the shit and get this over with.”

  “Splendid.” She smiled sweetly.

  Julia reached us just as Olivia turned around, and she looked at me apologetically. That told me all I needed to know. Whatever this was, it was about to get rough.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  We’d barely made it into the dressing room when Olivia turned on her heels—her movements so precise and smooth, a little knot of envy wound its way through me.

  “You’ve been ignoring my calls,” she said, matter-of-factly.

  “Have I?” Presley sighed, walking over to the collection of drinks laid out for him. “Hadn’t realised.”

  “The fifty missed calls weren’t enough?”

  “I tend to block nuisance calls.”

  Dicky, Julia, Olivia, and I watched as Presley twisted the cap off a miniature Jack Daniels, tossed it to the side, and drained the whiskey in one hit.

  “Still drinking, I see,” Olivia said with a judgmental tone.

  Presley spun around, the empty bottle still wedged between his fingers. “Still breathing, I see.”

  “How dare you?” she hissed. “Today, of all days.”

  “What do you want, Mum?” he asked, turning back to the drinks in front of him, his hand hovering over a few before he went to the back and picked up a bottle of Budweiser from the cooler. He twisted the top off and dropped it on the table before he turned back to her and rested his arse on the edge.

  “Have you forgotten what day it is?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then you know why I’m here.”

  “Still nope.” He took a slow sip of his beer, never taking his eyes off his mother when he lowered it back down. “You’ve never been interested in all the years before. Can’t understand why you would be now.”

  Olivia looked my way briefly. Her cheeks flaming before she turned back to her son and took a few steps forward. “Can we do this in private?”

  Presley pressed his lips together and offered her a flat smile as he shook his head.

  “Jesus Christ, Presley, you’re just like your father. Stubborn and reckless and—”

  “If you’re trying to insult me,” he interrupted, “I should warn you that accusing me of being like my old man is the highest compliment you could give.”

  “You want to throw your life away like he did?”

  Presley’s face fell, the smile slipping free and fading away like a ghost. “Be careful with your next words, Mum.”

  “Why? Because the truth hurts?”

  “Because I’m not about to get into this with you on the anniversary of my father’s death.”

  My eyes widened, and a shiver ran through my body as I stared at Presley.

  Today was the anniversary of his dad’s death, and he hadn’t mentioned it once. He’d chosen that day of significance to throw our relationship in front of the world by declaring his love for me. I had no idea what any of it meant, and I didn’t have time to overthink it. Olivia and Presley were locked in a tense staring battle that made the whole room turn cold.

  “I should go,” I found myself whispering without intention, and I quickly turned away.

  “Go? You shouldn’t even be here,” Olivia cackled.

  Turning back slowly, I raised a brow at her and held her gaze. “Excuse me?”

  “Today of all days should have remained about Jimmy. But no. You two have to throw yourselves in front of the entire press to make a circus out of his anniversary.”

  “I assure you; I had no idea about any of that,” I told her as calmly as I could manage.

  “Really? The woman who my son is apparently in love with doesn’t know the significance of today? The day that moulded Presley into who and what he is. The day that changed the course of his life. The day that—”

  “Time to leave,” Presley said, pushing himself off the table and marching over to Olivia. He grabbed her arm and tried to turn her, but for someone wearing heels, she was rooted in place, unmoving as she stared up at her son.

  “You know you always told me that the biggest mistake your dad ever made was loving me.”

  Presley stared down at her, his strong jaw ticking and his nostrils flared.

  “Make sure you don’t become the very thing you pitied all those years ago.”

  “Goodbye, Mum.”

  Julia was soon behind Olivia, guiding her towards the door with as little physical force as possible—a gentle word here and a nudge of encouragement there. Olivia’s eyes were trained on me as she made her way to the door, and it was only when she reached it that she dug her heels in again and leaned forward.

  “West men love hard, but they do it through blind eyes, sweetheart. They don’t always see what’s best for you—only them. Presley is Jimmy’s double. He’ll get what he wants, and make you feel like it was your idea the whole time, and you won’t be able to get out of it until it’s too late. Then he’ll have the nerve to call you the selfish one for finally saying no. Don’t come crying to me when you’re turned into the bad guy for wanting to breathe on your own.”

  Then she was gone, leaving me staring at the door she’d walked through, her words rattling around in my mind, along with all the new questions I had.

  At some point, I realised we were alone again.

  Dicky had followed Julia and Olivia, and Presley was preoccupied at the mini bar that was giving him whatever escape he needed.

  Me?

  I was a frozen mess of mixed emotions.

  There were so many things to process.

  The ‘I love yous’ Presley had declared.

  Seeing his mum. Hearing about his dad.

  Realising that I’d fallen in love with a man I barely even knew.

  “What are you thinking?” Presley eventually asked me, and I looked up from the floor, taking him in with new eyes. His arms were folded over his chest, and he had a bottle swinging in his hand under his bicep. With his hair tucked behind one ear, his eyes solely on me, any woman would have been mad to say they were thinking of anything other than him.

  I guess I was mad after all.

  “I’m thinking there’s so much we don’t know about one another, and yet the two of us have somehow got swept up in this… thing… where I’m in a different country, surrounded by people I don’t know, and you’re throwing your reputation under the bus by declaring your love to me to thousands of people in a faceless crowd.”

  “That’s a lot of thinking.” He uncurled his arms and took another drink, this time draining the bottle before he tossed it to the side, hitting the bin perfectly without even looking. “Want a drink?”
>
  “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  “I’m trying not to think right now. It sounds like you’re doing enough of that for both of us.”

  “Presley…”

  He turned away and walked back to the line of alcohol sitting pretty, waiting for him to destroy it.

  “You know, one thing I always hated about my mother was her ability to turn a crowd her way with just a few words, while my father had to work his fucking arse off to get someone to listen to him.” He opened another bottle, his back still to me as he took a drink. “The poor guy gave her his everything and she just…” Presley shrugged and laughed humourlessly. “She played the victim so damn well. Do you know what they call that in this day and age, Cherry?”

  “A narcissist.”

  “Bingo. And do you know what narcissists are extremely good at?” Presley turned back, his eyes glazed with sadness as he rested his arse on the table again and crossed his ankles. “They’re good at selling their lie.”

  “What is her lie, Presley?”

  “That my father suffocated her with his love until she was miserable. That she had no choice but to be with him. He was too relentless. He didn’t give her any freedom.” I watched him growing more and more frustrated. “She can’t bear to tell anyone the truth—that she was so selfish—she wanted it all. Nothing he ever did was enough for her, and she made him feel like half a man when he couldn’t provide the life she’d always dreamed of. Love wasn’t enough for Olivia. No. She needed more. She needed material things, lavish gifts, the fairy tale. The adventure. But she needed Dad, too. So, instead of going out there and making a life for herself off of her own back, she made him feel like shit for not being able to pull through with all the promises he’d apparently made to her when they first fell in love.”

  I closed the gap between us, feeling the heat of Presley’s innocent stare as I reached out to grab his free hand.

  “It sounds like our parents have a lot in common.”

  “No shit,” he muttered.

  “I’m sorry you miss your dad so much,” I offered with all the sincerity I possessed.