Weathering Jack Storm

by Lisa Gillis

  “I don’t know...,” Jack hedged. He was relaxed on a piece of the sectional at a right angle to her, and just their feet touched.

  “I knew it!” Chris suddenly livened up with a gleeful shout, “Pay up!”

  “In your dreams, loser.” Jack’s retort rebounded without so much as a blink.

  The curiosity was killing her, and Marissa watched the debacle with a casualness she did not feel.

  “No way, Storm. You would not let up last year when it was me. You gave me hell-o. Hello.” Chris dwindled down fast when he glanced at Tristan. “Just admit, dude, and pay up.”

  “I said, ‘I don’t know.’ Not no.”

  “Mariss is not letting you go.” Reed actually cackled as he sided with Chris.

  At her name, she swung her gaze around again, and Liz’s intent look drew her eyes. When Marissa curiously blinked, the other woman moved her chin and lashes in a nod and a wink.

  “Uh guys? I’m right here...,” she joked to cover the exasperation simmering beneath the surface.

  During the last few nights, the band had been running through a few different sets each afternoon at Chris’ huge home studio. Having tagged along each time, Marissa had begun to feel comfortable around them, and had formed the beginnings of a friendship with Liz and also Chris’ wife.

  “This is the night we all go out. Let loose before the tour,” Chris supplied the answer, and again some cryptic tone in his words hung in the air.

  “Oh.” Marissa tried to keep disappointment from coating her words.

  As the tour grew closer, she wanted Jack to herself every second possible. This had been almost impossible, except for bedtime. The last few mornings, she had even quit sneaking to her own room, wanting every possible minute with Jack, even if he was sleeping.

  “Well I’m not going to stop him if that is what you are going on about. It’s tradition, right? Breaking that is just asking for trouble on tour.”

  “I like how this girl thinks!” Reed declared, but Chris curved an evil grin.

  “So you are going then, Storm?”

  Jack was decidedly uncomfortable, but tipped his beer and seemed to shrug. “I’m down with it if Marissa goes.”

  “You would go Mariss?” Chris asked, and they all seemed too delighted with the idea, especially Liz.

  ♪♫¨♫♪

  “Thanks for coming!” Liz beamed as Reed parked. As a group, they had arrived in the SUV. “Sometimes it sucks being the only girl in the band. You’re a good sport to do this.”

  Marissa shot a smile of fake enthusiasm although her motives in coming had not been to keep Liz company. Her intentions fell somewhere between not holding Jack back and sticking like glue to him while in this place.

  ‘Cherry Pie’

  Marissa took in the gaudy neon sign and the equally gaudy club name flashing above the door of their destination. Embarrassment flooded her cheeks when they walked under it and through the heavy door. Jack pulled her close, and despite his bandmates complaints, steered them to a table not so close to the stage.

  Marissa ignored the young woman who, clad only in a G-string, was gyrating around a pole to a seductive rock beat. Jack’s hand settled comfortingly on her bare leg, and he only threw a casual look at the stage now and then.

  The drinks kept coming, and the guys grew rowdier. By the second hour, they were recognized, and free drinks began floating over with frequency–as well as a slew of topless women wanting autographs and pictures.

  Marissa silently seethed through more than one picture with Jack and a near bare-assed girl. Unlike the others, he was turning down free lap dances, however, he had transformed into full Jack Storm persona.

  When one girl squeezed her tits to the side of his face, while leaning across to get a tip from Reed, and Jack with one of his smirks pushed her ample breast aside, Marissa scooted from the table.

  Pasting a smile, she requested of the margaritas she was drinking, “Order me another, guys, will you?” In the restroom, she closed in a stall and wished herself back at the house with Tristan and Dax.

  Is this how Jack would act with groupies on this next tour? But she knew without a doubt the answer.

  As Jack Storm, wild ways and the love of women was part of his reputation. It was his job as much as it had once been her job at the casino to dangle across the table and flirt every hundred-dollar chip from even the oldest geezers.

  The restroom door squeaked open, and the music was louder for a moment before subduing again.

  “Marissa?” Liz hollered and rapped on the locked stall in passing. “Are we having fun yet, girlfriend?”

  Marissa managed a witty retort and flushed. Instead of washing up and leaving, she dallied at the vanity mirror with Liz, and refused the girl’s dally on a pocket mirror.

  “Does it bother you? Those hoes all over Jack?” With the treat on the mirror sorted out, Liz rolled up a hundred-dollar bill as she spoke.

  “Why?” Marissa warily shot back, her words unintentionally sharp. Chagrined, she toyed with her reflection’s earring.

  Unperturbed, Liz bent to the mirror wiping at her nose. “Every boyfriend I have ever had could not handle it.”

  Marissa thought of the guys that must drool all over the only girl in the band, backstage, and during meet and greets.

  “Yeah. It bothers me. But I will learn to handle it.” Marissa truthfully answered and earned a smile from the other woman.

  “Jack is happy. Happier than any of us have seen him, ever. He’s not going to screw it up.”

  Randi had said near the same thing. Marissa hoped she could believe that. Because she was happier than she had ever been.

  Liz stopped at the bar en route to the table, and Marissa continued to the table even though her seat was no longer empty. Almost naked girls covered every space including the guys’ laps. Jack’s lap was empty, and this is where she went, easing herself down.

  Reflexively, Jacks hand smoothed up her thigh and stopped just beneath the shelter of her skirt.

  She flinched when something icy touched her arm and glided around to the exposed skin of her back. Whipping around, she found a waitress.

  The girl grinned and held out the mixed drink in her hand. “Sorry. So sorry.” She blinked her eyes at Marissa and Jack cuddled together, and with a provocative bend, set the drink on the table when Marissa didn’t reach for it. “Another complimentary for the lady with Jack Storm and,” handing the bottled beer directly into Jack’s hands, she schmoozed, “for the legendary Jack Storm.”

  “Mariss my honey, can you tip her?” Figuring out that he could not access his pocket, she shifted, reaching into it.

  The young woman knelt eye level with Marissa’s chest and publicly scoped it out while waiting. Finally, Marissa pulled out enough random bills to tip as generously as Jack normally did. When she held the money out, the girl stood thrusting a hip at her.

  Aware that every eye at the table was now on this transaction, Marissa didn’t let the bills flutter to the floor as she wanted to. Curving what she hoped was a sultry smile, she played along. When the tip joined the others, already tucked into the elastic of the G-string, the woman winked her thanks. Then, she kissed the tip of her finger and pressed it to Marissa’s cheek before sashaying away.

  Reed whooped, and Chris and Liz wore huge grins. Marissa was too embarrassed to check Jack’s reaction. A half-minute later, when the others calmed down and resumed doing their own thing, Jack put his lips to her ear to whisper, “I think she liked you...Can we take her home?”

  The amused undertone clearly made it a joke, yet she had let the dam crest until her emotions crashed over. The club had grown considerably more crowded, and tripping around the many feet, she barreled through to the exit.

  Pushing open the door, she found a long line to get inside and several bouncers and security types roaming. Was this because word of Jackal inside had spread along the boulevard of clubs? Thankfully no paparazzi lay in wait, or if they were lurking somewhe
re in the crowded line, she didn’t look.

  Instinctively, she turned toward the car although she knew it was locked. She could not believe Jack would say something like that even in jest. And she could not believe that again she had hit him–this time in front of his friends. Then, as if that were not enough, she had dumped the drink delivered by the skank into his lap.

  Using the SUV as a wall between her and the club, she leaned against it and waited, knowing Jack would come, but she began to deflate into a worse mess when he didn’t.

  In her mindless haste, her cellphone had been forgotten on the table inside, and now, she was in a huge bind. There was no way she was going back inside that place. Yet, how would she call a taxi to take her home?

  ‘Home.’ In her current state of mind, she reevaluated the word. Home was a plane ride away, not a taxi ride.

  The bright neon sign across the street was much more inviting. Pepe’s Bar and Grill. As she correctly surmised, there were no topless women waiting the tables or the bar, and she easily borrowed a phone.

  A half hour later, she was in a cab watching the city lights streak by. The house gate was another dilemma without her cell phone, but Dax buzzed the cab in, and left the front entrance open. He even ran outside and paid the cabby when she mumbled about going upstairs for money.

  Thanking him, she refused his offer to talk, and watched him tapping into his phone, knowing he was ratting out her arrival to Jack. Upstairs, she checked on Tristan then fell on the guestroom bed.

  She wanted to shower the nasty bar off of her skin, but an inexplicable fatigue overtook her. She wanted to forget the last four hours, but every ugly scene projected relentlessly in her mind.

  She wanted to go home. Even if it meant leaving Jack. She was so tired of her ecstatic heart exploding with love and then suddenly shattering with hate. Closing her eyes, she dwelled on those thoughts.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Disoriented, she roused from a doze. Jack stood in the bathroom doorway, obviously having walked through from Tristan’s room.

  “I knew that was a bad idea.” His voice came from over the bed when she turned away from him, and she stiffened when she felt the bed take his weight.

  Stretching out behind her, he pulled her to him, and she relaxed into the arms of Jack Loren, yet was still too angry with Jack Storm to speak.

  “Mariss, I love you. But I have to tell you. Don’t ever hit me again.”

  Although she heard the despair in his words, she also heard his words for what they were. A threat. And that broke her silence. “Or what?”

  His weight shifted when he sat up.

  “I don’t know what. I don’t want to find out. It scares me.” The tone of his words sounded as tormented as the thoughts that had plagued her to sleep. “I mean the first time you hit me at your house, it was kind of hot. I knew I deserved it. Then the next time, it was still kind of hot, but humiliating.”

  Her thoughts followed his from the day on the weight bench at her house, to posing for pre drop party pictures at this house.

  “But tonight. Tonight, I know I said the wrong thing, but fuck that was embarrassing. Tonight, it was all I could do not to grab you as you as you left and shake the hell out of you.” Behind her, she heard him stand, and she wondered if he was getting mad all over again. Just thinking of what had gone down in that bar tonight boiled her own blood all over again.

  Rolling over, she opened her mouth to blast him with every afflicting thought in her mind all evening. About how inconsiderate and disrespectful he had been to her. About why he would act like a man whore with her sitting right next to him and right on him. She was having enough trouble with her likeability in the press without him dissing her. She was having enough trouble adjusting to life with him period, without him dissing her.

  But he began to talk first. “I was freaking out wondering what you were doing and where you went, but just as afraid that if I caught up to you, I...” Maybe in the shadows he was reading something on her face. Or maybe he was just realizing how he sounded, because he hurriedly assured, “I would never hit you, you know that, right?” The he repeated, “I just wanted to grab you. I was just so mad. And that freaks me out. I never want to be that mad at you again.”

  “I never want to be that hurt by you again,” she retorted but swallowed a lump in her throat when seeing his misery.

  Being hit by someone you loved was devastating. She knew that. Her mind flashed to her childhood and teenage years, and a mother who could not control her temper. How much worse to be hit by the love of your life... Of course, Jack’s actions had hit her physically just as hard... Yet, it wasn’t even the same. Was it?

  Some of her anger dissipated, and hesitantly, she stumbled with her words. “You just become a different person sometimes. I’m trying not to be jealous of other women. Because I know that is part of this...But you just seemed to be enjoying it so much...”

  “I’m sorry for tonight Mariss. I’m so sorry. Please. Just come to bed.”

  His eyes were shadowy pools as he stared down, then his shadowy form exited into the hall, and she lay staring at the ceiling in the aftermath. Finally, she followed. The bedroom was dark, and she padded in leaving the door open behind her.

  “Come’re...” he whispered when she slipped into bed, and he pulled her tight. “I’m so sorry Mariss.”

  “I’m sorry for hitting you. All those times.” It was easy to be forthcoming with her own apology with his warmth and scent enveloping her. When he squeezed her in a python grip and his breath stirred her hair, she relaxed even more and added, “I overreacted. Because you seemed to be liking it.”

  Immediately, she felt stupid to keep harping the last point. Of course he had liked it. He was a man. The primal male allurement is what had made her knees weak on their first meeting, and had kept her captivated since.

  One of his hands stoked through her hair in answer. Then, ever so quietly, he admitted, “I’m an idiot sometimes. You’re right.” Burrowing closer to him, she enjoyed Jack Loren talking shit about Jack Storm. “I didn’t even want to go. It was a stupid bet.”

  Now she pushed back in surprise. “Bet? Is that what Chris was going on about before we left?”

  “Whenever one of us drops out of the scene for good because of—a woman, we pay up. Twenty grand. And the others go to Vegas on it.”

  “Twenty thousand dollars...” It wasn’t a question. She drew the words out as an unreality.

  “Apiece.” Jack was unbothered. “So sixty total. It’s not the money. I just hate to lose. And I hate to give it to those jackasses when I could spend it on you and Tristan.”

  Seeing the amount money thrown around still disturbed her, even when she was the recipient. She knew firsthand how many families needed that money for food, for life and death matters, not booze, cars, houses, and whatever frivolity their heart desired.

  Jack was generous, in tipping, in the amount of the charity checks Emma had passed around for the band member signatures the day of the drop party. So she kept quiet. The last thing she wanted to do was insult his way of living since it was now hers. However, she made a resolution to look into charities as well as individual cases especially those similar to Tristan’s.

  Instead, unable to get the double D’s plastered to Jack’s face out of her head, she took up another issue. “Is that what goes down on tour? What happened tonight?”

  “Not if you don’t want it to.” His quiet answer was quick, as if he had been waiting for this avenue of conversation. “I will make sure I am nowhere around the T and A...except yours...” His hand settled farther down her waist but possibly respectful of their fight did not slide intimately to her backside.

  How she wanted to hold him to that impossible vow. A promise that she knew he could only break. He was Jack Storm. Groupies got backstage. Even with the best intentions to keep that promise, there would be times that he would have to literally run or lock himself away somewhere.

 
; “It’s fine.” She spoke against his chest. “Just don’t ever do it in front of me again. And—don’t ever cheat on me, Jack. Not even a little.”

  He pulled back to look into her eyes. Although she half expected him to ask what ‘a little’ meant, he obviously understood, and she exterminated the image of some groupie on her knees in front of him.

  “I would never, Mariss. I swear to you that.”

  CHAPTER 31

  “WE ROLL OUT IN twenty minutes? Just double checking,” Dax asked from entry hall. One of Jack’s bags hung on his shoulder, and Jack’s laptop case was in his hand.

  Jack flashed a grin and cut his eyes from her to his assistant. “Oh I know what you are doing. And it’s not double checking.” At this, Dax actually ducked his head in humility, and Jack went on, “Yes, twenty minutes. Go get gas or something. ”

  “What was he doing?” Marissa wondered from her perch at the bottom of the stairs. For almost an hour, she had watched them load the car. The previous evening, a crew had arrived, loading, and leaving with the gear that was going with him.

  Jack dropped to the stair beside her and played with her hair. “It was a subtle reminder to get started if we are having one last time for the road.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes dropped to their feet, absently comparing the size of his against hers. She and Jack had been up all night ‘saying good-bye.’

  Tender. Desperate. Whimsical. Passionate. Their last sex before he went on the road had been expressed a half a dozen different ways.

  Pressing her thumb and forefinger to the corners of her eyes, she closed them as she leaned her head on his shoulder and whispered, “This is so hard.”

  “I know honey. Believe me, I know...”

  His face dropped to her hair, and when his arm wrapped her waist, she dropped one of hers hooking his jean encased thigh. His breathing became ragged with emotion, and when he moved his head in a slight nuzzle, her lips pressed to the soft cotton of his tee shirt.