“Adam got you to eat…? When we were together, you wouldn’t even taste—”
“But we’re not together anymore, so it doesn’t matter. You want to tell me why you brought me in here?”
Between the slapping incident with Jake yesterday and the overreaching Brit today, I’ve reached my limit, and I’m not about to sit here and play twenty questions with a guy I knew once upon a forever ago. I have an interview—no a series of interviews—to get through, and at this point my inner bitch is more than happy to take over.
And you know what? Fuck him. He doesn’t get to stand there looking like a wounded Playgirl centerfold. I don’t owe him conversation or understanding.
“Ah, so that’s how it’s going to be? I get to play the role of the bad guy, and you get to be the snarky superstar.”
“You are the bad guy in the scenario, Jake.”
“And you slapped the shit out of me in front of God and country, Sin.” He drags fingers across his lips and jaw, unflinching, daring me to defend my actions.
When I saw him last night, every single feeling of betrayal and all the times I’d wondered why returned full force and I lashed out. At this point, I wish to God I’d done something different. Anything different. But what’s done is done.
Four years ago, I made a clean break. Left without the typical fanfare of yelling and crying and tears, and I never looked back. My feelings came out in lyrics and melodies, and like every other person with a broken heart, mine still beat. I put Jake somewhere in the back of my mind.
“Look this isn’t getting us anywhere. You called this powwow…”
“Stop, Sinclair… just stop! We haven’t been in the same space in four years. Four fucking years.” He runs a hand over his closely cropped hair and lets out a deep sigh. “Fuck, I just wanted… I just want…” His words peter out in a frustrated growl.
“Be careful, your privilege is starting to show.”
“That’s a low blow, Sin. You know I never cared about my privilege. Until this morning, I had no idea they offered you money. For me it was always about you. And I’m here, trying. I want to—”
“You want to what? Pick up where we left off?” A manic giggle escapes my mouth.
“Not where we left off, but I thought we could have a do-over.” His lips twitch with a half smile. That had been our thing when we dated, do-overs.
I couldn’t have said anything to that stupidity if I wanted to. Jake’s infidelity ripped my world apart, and he wants a do-over? When two people have shared as much as we have, how do you even begin to pretend like the past no longer influences the future?
“Let me ask you something,” he says with his head cocked to the side and eyes unblinking. “Did you ever love me? I mean were you ever in love with me?”
“Are you serious? How is this even a question?”
“How is it not one? I look at you, at everything you’ve accomplished, and I’m just so damn proud. When I saw you last night, it was like seeing you for the first time. You blew me away all over again.”
“And you expected me to what? Fall in your arms? Pretend my last memories of us weren’t tainted with images of you in the arms of another woman?” He pushes his weight off the door, stalking a few steps toward me.
“Honestly, I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t this. I know you Sin and you’re not cold or distant. Behind all this pissivity you know the truth. We could’ve made it work. When I said that I made a mistake, and I was still in love with you, I meant it.”
It would have never worked between us. No matter what Jake thinks. The writing had been on the wall for at least the last year of our relationship. Maybe longer, if I’m honest. We just didn’t know how to call it quits. Then he made the decision for the both us, and the rest is history.
“I didn’t want you to make a promise that you couldn’t keep.” Or one that I’d have to honor when he did. It was easier to walk away and pretend like he didn’t exist.
“Fuck you, I wouldn’t have kept it. How did you know I couldn’t keep it?”
“Because, if you had any integrity, you wouldn’t have destroyed my trust in the first place. Anyway, that’s not why we broke up.”
“Oh, so now we broke up? That’s funny. If memory serves, you snuck out of our house like a thief in the fucking night.”
“We weren’t right for each other, Jake. After all this time you have to know that.”
“No. No, no, no…” Jake shakes his head. “I don’t know shit. Explain how we weren’t right for each other? In what way was my love not right for you?” He lifted his hands in air quotes, his voice taking on a mocking tone.
“It became pretty clear when I walked in on you naked in our bed with another woman.”
“YES, I CHEATED!” He throws hands up in the air.
I recoil as he takes off his suit jacket and throws it across the room. I’ve never seen Jake like this. His anger its own kind of animal, making his body twitch and move. “We know that, Sin. I’m an asshole, but you know what… so are you. Who moves out all their shit without even talking to the other person? Who does that, seriously?”
“Me, I do that.” I raise a hand in the air like I’m waiting a teacher to call on me. “Sorry, I didn’t read the rule book on how to end a relationship that was slowly suffocating me with its bullshit. I’m sorry, Jake. Is that what you needed to hear? Feel better now? But don’t you think it was better to quit while we were ahead instead of dragging it out, knowing that it could never last?”
“That it could never…” He points a stiff finger at me. “That right there is your problem in a nutshell.”
“Me, I have a problem?” I roll my eyes, curious to hear how his actions are my problem. This man is delusional.
“You’re one of the strongest women I’ve met, but you just quit. You wouldn’t even look me in the fucking eye and tell me you were leaving.” He glares up at the ceiling, jaw clenched, fingers templed in front of his mouth.
“I quit? So, you in bed with any other woman was putting in effort and devotion. But me walking out the door was the actual betrayal. Yeah, that makes total sense.”
“Now she wants to talk sense, ladies and gentlemen.” His eyes drop from the ceiling, pinning mine. “Let’s talk to the woman that threw away six fucking years. Six years,” he says in a pained whisper. “Six years gone for a rando piece of ass I never touched again.” He laces his fingers and squeezes them tight before releasing the tension and repeating the motion over and over.
“She wasn’t random. She was my roommate for two years. A person that I invited into our home, that we partied with, someone that I trusted. The fact that you went there left me little options.”
“And there is reason number three that you’re a coward. You don’t take risks.”
“The whole life I cultivated with you was a risk. And we see how that turned out.”
“No, Sin, the risk would’ve been staying with me, when everyone, especially the guys in your band told you to leave. The risk would’ve been trying to make it work.”
“That’s not fair. I couldn’t trust you anymore. So, if that makes me an asshole or a coward…”
“Did you even try, Sin? Did you ever ask why it happened? Do you know that I hated myself for being the type of man that could do that to you? That I hated myself for putting you in a position where leaving would be so easy.”
He stumbles back against the door, defeated. One hand wrapped tight around the knob like he’s fighting the urge to leave the room. His chin rests on his chest.
“What’s next for Sinclair James? We have these interviews, and you’ll be living at the hotel I work in for the next year. Where does all of this leave us? You can’t run away this time. Have to stay and face the music. Did you grow a backbone yet? Or are you going to slip away into the night again?”
“In all honesty, the only way you and I cross paths is if we’re trying. You’re the back of the house, and I’m the entertainment.”
&nb
sp; Jake looks up at me through dark lashes with a sad smile pulling at the corners of his beautiful mouth. “I know that I won’t be able to stay away from you. I guess I should let the team know that sooner rather than later we’ll need to start looking for your replacement.”
“If that’s a threat, let’s be clear. I’ve never backed out of a concert or missed a tour date. Ever.”
“Not a threat, sweetheart, but we’ve been down this road. With me, missing dates and running is what you do best. You hit a few potholes in the road, and instead of trying to navigate through it you duck and dodge and slink away.”
“You still don’t get it. Not everything is about you. I’m not in Las Vegas for you. I don’t care where you work or how you feel about where I work. Sin City has a contract with The Hotel, not Jacob Johnson.” Anger propels me to my feet. If he thinks I’m going to kowtow because of an empty threat, he doesn’t know me half as well as he thinks he does.
I pace the length of the king-size mattress, pushing my hands through the curls that lay against the nape of my neck. I force myself to choke air through the irritation tightening my lungs. By the time I get to the third inhale my chest no longer feels like it’s been enveloped in fire and brimstone.
I stop pacing directly across from him. “Look, why are we even rehashing any of this? It’s all water under the bridge. Let’s just let it go and focus on a healthy professional relationship.”
“Professional relationship? Why’d you slap me, Sin? If you were the consummate professional, why after all these years did you let your anger put us all in a position that compromises the casino and future contracts with other artists?”
And there it is, my stupidity thrown back in my face. It feels like I’ve been sucker punched in the gut, and along with my ability to breathe, every word has disappeared from my vocabulary.
I see Jake’s lips moving, but nothing he’s saying can penetrate the white noise between my ears. For years I’ve fantasized about what I would say to him, how I would say it. How he’d be the one crawling down the hall crying this time. But I can’t seem to tap into the righteous anger that rooted me for the last four years and exploded to the surface last night. I don’t feel empowered or glamorous. I just feel tired, and I want this, whatever we’re doing, over.
“Jake, let’s just close this chapter and move forward, okay?”
“And what? Be friends? I can’t be your friend, Sin.” He takes a small step toward me, but jerks back against the door like it’s tethered to the wood by an invisible cord. “It’s taking everything in me right now to stay pressed to this door instead of being pressed against you. When I look at you, I want you. When I hear your voice, I crave us, and when you walk into a room. I want every fucking inch. Do you think we can ever be friends? Colleagues?”
The sad reality is no.
“Look,” he says, scrubbing hands up and down his face. “I didn’t bring you in here for this. But it needed to be done. You know? There is just so much between us.” He pushes off the door stretching his tall frame to full height and closes the space between us. His chest comes right up against mine, enveloping me in his scent. He places his hand against the back of my neck.
“I didn’t expect it to be so hard.”
I search his sad eyes and that heat that always lived in the quiet moments between us sparks to life, sending a jolt of recognition down my body.
“Jake, be serious. After everything, do you genuinely think we could’ve made it work?”
He leans forward until his lips are an inch from mine. “I don’t know, Sin, but I would’ve liked a chance to try.” Moist air moves across my lips with his words. We let the silence stretch between us, but the pain and resentment that’s been festering for four years overpower it. Time didn’t heal this wound, and we just pulled the scab off, causing it to bleed all over again
“Sin,” he whispers as his eyes search mine “If you don’t believe anything else… believe that I’m sorry.”
“Don’t. I never needed you to be sorry.” I try to push away, but his other arm comes around my back holding me in place.
“What… do you need?” He pushes air out of his lungs, his desperation blows across my face and singes the skin.
I close my eyes against his fixed stare. Willing my heart to accept what my head already knows. Jake is my brand of poison. But my heart, my stupid wanna-believe-in-happily-ever-afters heart has always wondered maybe. Maybe, I gave up too easy? Maybe, I’m the coward Jake is accusing me of being.
“Baby, look at me,” he pleads as his lips move softly over mine.
I can’t do it. I really, really want to, but… I can’t. I barely recovered from the last time. A little moan that escapes my mouth and my hand tightens on his chest pulling him closer instead of pushing him away.
“Open up your eyes,” he whispers, his voice breaking on the last word. “It’s me. Me. You know me. I’m the same guy that took you to your first bar, the one that gave you your first real kiss. Let me be that guy.”
“The guy I know. He left a long time ago, replaced by a punk-ass player that shattered us.” This time when I push back, he lets me go. “I broke my own heart, trying to understand you. When I walked in that house, our home, and saw you with another woman. It was the culmination of a thousand tiny fissures that finally split wide open. You,” I choke past the lump of emotion sitting in my throat. “Broke. Me.” I wipe my hand over my mouth, blinking back the swell of tears.
“You want me to remember that guy, the one that gave me my first kiss and took me to my first bar? That guy is dead. That guy would’ve never discarded me like a piece of trash. I look at you, and I see nothing but hurt and rage. And I don’t want to live there anymore.” My chest hurts with the effort not to fall apart in front of him, but somehow, I do it. I push all those emotions down and inject some steel into my spine. A long time ago I loved a boy, and as fun as it might be to reminisce, that boy carelessly broke my heart. End of story. We’re adults now. He’s stepped into shoes that ten years ago he swore he’d never fill, and I have a career doing what I love, and it’s enough for me.
“I don’t want anything from you, Jake. Not your friendship or professional guidance,” I whisper.
Our eyes clash across the sea of space that in distance is only a few feet, but in time and heartache is a chasm worthy of the Grand Canyon.
“You don’t get to be here anymore. That’s the point.”
He turns his back to me, his steps echoing on the wooden floor.
I follow behind, relief and confusion battling for dominance in my head.
“Okay, Sin. I hear you. I’ll do these interviews for my company because the CEO is demanding I play a role in fixing last night’s catastrophe.” He doesn’t turn back around, but I can see him struggling with the need to say something else. His shoulders are tense high around his ears, and his hands shake as he reaches for the doorknob.
The hinges on the door squeak when he opens it and relief floods my system. The victory is bittersweet as I watch him step just over the threshold.
Ten Years Ago
Jake
I love Friday nights during football season. In Vegas, the weather is still warm, but it’s not the scorching heat of summer. Every time I go to a game, I regret not taking the scholarship UCLA football team offered, but that’s not what we do in my family. Like a good son, I stayed home, enrolled in the University Of Nevada, Las Vegas. Johnson’s thrive on academic prowess, not physical aptitude. I hung up my high school cleats and chose to double major in business management and accounting.
My parents are ostentatious, and wealthy, and overbearing, and impossible. Looking at them it’s easy to forget my great-grandfather was a gambler, a whore-monger, and a drunkard. In spite of his vices he had an aptitude with numbers and the luck of the draw. His brilliance with the cards set his family up for life, but it also created an inflated sense of importance. My family didn’t build this city. We weren’t pioneers or inventors. We swindled t
he land from better men, and for the last eighty or so years we’ve been trying to prove Vegas is as much our as it ever was theirs.
So here I am. I caught the tail end of the game and decided to hit the after party hosted by Kappa Delta Psi. UNLV doesn’t have the best football team, but it does have the best parties. Players and students from both teams convened on the Kappa house. People are everywhere, all over the backyard and filling every square inch of space inside the house. There is trash talking and drinking. Bodies grinding together to the hard-base rhythms of A Milli by Lil Wayne coming from large speakers.
I take a sip of beer from a red Solo cup, not really paying attention to the people gathered around me. I’m pretty sure only one or two actually like me but the rest? They know who my family is in this city, and they hang around hoping to reap some of the benefits, or at the very least, get a comp at Le Cinq, the Parisian concept hotel my father carefully cultivated into Vegas’ new destination spot. Yeah, not happening.
The beer I’m drinking is room temperature and tastes like piss, but it’s doing the job. My head buzzes from the alcohol. The pressure to be perfect, to succeed, and to assume the role of my father starts to dissipate. I down the remaining beer in one gulp and crush the plastic in the palm of my hand. I’m about to amble off to get a refill when I get a sharp elbow to my ribs.
“That’s her,” Evan, one of the guys from my econ class, drunkenly slurs into my ear.
I follow his gaze, and there she is—Sinclair James. She walks by me and I can’t take my eyes off her. Her normally natural curly hair is straight tonight and hangs in soft waves down the center of her back. I want to tangle my hands in it. Mess up the perfectly place strands. I wonder what it would take to make her sweat. Make those straight strands revert back to springy corkscrew curls.
She’s in a white crop top with large black letters that read RUN DMC. When she walks, the edge of her shirt plays peekaboo with the bottom of her red bra, and below that top is nothing but skin. Smooth, deep brown, flawless skin with a red jewel in her navel that twinkles in the light with each step she takes. I want to lick and kiss and bite her belly, watch the taut skin ripple as her muscles tighten under my touch.
Exquisitely Broken (A Sin City Tale Book 1) Page 7