Forgive Me (4 page)

“
He asked about you when we got here.” Mike said. He had always been more like one of the girls when it came to gossip.

I took a seat beside Carrie and smiled to Chad Blake, the lead singer in TAT.
“Hey Chad.”

He stood all six feet four of him. Chad was the sexy one of the group. Chad got most the attention as the lead singer, with swagger that no girl could ignore. I heard a small sigh from Carrie beside me and I knew they would be sneaking off somewhere. They were like teenagers non-stop. Shame and I had been like that once, Carrie had even said she wished she and Chad could be as strong as me and Shame
… how times have changed.

Once they found one another and let all the bad go, the bad found me and Shame and we lost one another.
“Don’t ‘hey Chad’ me. Get over here Cassa.”

His arms were open but he didn
’t wait for me to stand when he scooped me up in a hug. “I’m so sorry ‘bout Jerry Cass. I know how connected you two were.”

“
Thanks Chad.” I whispered and held him tight. Chad was no different from Cal or Noah and had bent backwards, sideways and upside down to make sure I was protected in the nightmare that was Corey. Hearing Chad say he understood my connection to Jerry made my heart ache. Chad understood broken because of his wife and the broken pieces he helped to mend.

“
Noah’s inside and I know he wants to see you.” Chad pulled back, his hands on my shoulders though so he could look me in the eyes. “Want me to text him and tell him you’re here? I know you don’t really want to head inside.”

“
That would be nice. Thanks Chad.” Noah had been there for me as well because of the friendship between Candey, Carrie and I but felt it was because he knew how low you fell when someone beat you down. He knew because just as he desperately tried to save his sister, he refused to let me fall down too. He always knew when I was in my own head and he fought to bring me back. All the hours doing my tattoo were therapeutic in a sense because Noah was a safe place for my thoughts. He had a way of breaking down bullshit and getting to the truth. He was my closest guy friend and I knew he was worried sick about me facing Shame tonight. I also knew he wanted to make sure I didn't face him alone.

“
Of course.” Chad kissed me on the cheek and pulled out his phone to send the text.

I looked to Carrie who was smiling at something behind her. I turned and saw Candey making her way toward the fire with Noah on her heels.

“
Cassa Stapleton get your hot ass over here.” Candey yelled over the crowed. I had a moment of panic, but a quick search around the yard showed no signs of Shamus. I went right to Candey and hugged her tight. “I didn’t see you get here and I swore you bailed on coming. I was ready to text stalk you brat!” She said with a smile and kissed me on the top of my head. “You doing okay?”

I knew she was asking about seeing Shamus and oddly that wasn
’t my biggest concern just then.

“
I just wish that I would have come here sooner yesterday.” The guilt would probably never go away and I would now have to live with that amongst other things.

“
It wouldn’t have changed a thing sweets.” Noah said consolingly and pulled me close. “How are you?” He asked and I knew there was more to the question than the obvious.

“
I’m okay.”

“
Any problems?” He asked knowing that Corey was going to be released any day from prison and after the threats he had made when he went in Noah was worried he would follow through. Next to Mikey and his constant worrying over my safety, Noah was just as obsessed over it. Corey hated Jerry James and my relationship with him. The news had been covering Jerry's death, both as a Seattle crabber and the father to Shamus James. If Corey knew of the death he hadn't made a point in letting me know.

“
No nothing. It’s been over two years and now with Jerry's death, if he wanted to get to me he could. Even from behind bars he could find a way, so I’m hoping he has let the anger die down and move on.”

“
Sweets all he’s had is two years to plan what he wants to do. Promise me you’re careful. No making appointments with new clients without Mikey or me being informed.”

“
You’ll be on tour Noah so you won’t be much help.”

His green eyes were just as brilliant as his sisters blue ones and they were boring down on Cassa now.
“Tour doesn't start for another six months. Don’t think I can’t help from far away when we are on tour Cassa. I have my ways.”

God Noah could be scary.

Annoyed for even letting the thought of Corey get to me, I ran my fingers through my hair and looked at Noah with my fake smile. “Look tonight isn’t about me or my crazy as fuck ex husband. It’s about Jerry and how amazing he was.”

“
Yeah well Jerry will come back from the dead and haunt my ass if I don’t look out for you so just humor me.” Noah chuckled unaffected by annoyance.

I just rolled my eyes looking to Candey for help.
“Kiss him or fuck him or something to keep his mind off me.”

“
She already did that.” Noah said with a smirk and then laughed when Candey slapped his chest and I cringed. Over the last year I saw and heard enough of them when Noah was in town to make me despise sex anymore.

“
Noah who’s this?” A female voice said from a distance. Candey rolled her eyes and shook her head annoyed. I froze and looked in the blue eyes of a woman I had never met.

“
Hi.” I said and extended my hand and tried not to cringe at the scowl the woman gave me immediately. I hated these fake bitches that swarmed my guys. I thought the local
fangirls
held the market on insanity but I was so wrong. Now that TAT was a world-wide recognized band and in the top one-hundred the
fangirls
are even more demented.

“
Hi.” She said as if she was confused by my greeting and possibly could be seeing as most
fangirls
had a seventh grade mentality. “Can I help you?” She asked Candey who was watching her like she was ready to attack at any second. The woman’s voice was cold and sneering like we were the ones crashing the party. Fuck her! Jerry was a dad to me and to my friends. We were family and this bitch was trash.

I was also stunned for a moment and tried to put two and two together. Who was she? I swore I had never met her before. “Hey Cassa come tell me about your shoot today.” Carrie called from behind me but it was the blondes face when she heard my name that made me stay.

“
You’re
Cassa?” She said my name with the enthusiasm of a child and their plaything. I was dead on when I prejudged the bitch. She was beyond catty and her tone made it clear. Too bad for her that I loved knocking catty bitches off their pedestal. I watched these guys suffer through their adolescence, I held their hands as parents died, babies were born, even the times in their lives that they were made victims. I had been there supporting them all along and this bitch thought she had the right to stare me and my girls down? Obviously she knew who I was, either by the guys talking about me or by Shame. It didn’t matter, what did is she thought she had the right to try and intimidate me. I would just teach her the same lesson I taught all the other
fangirls
over the years.

“
Is it your concern?” Candey asked, her tone just as snide as the Barbie bitch before me.

“
Well unlike you I have a reason for being here. My boyfriends dad died. Your just the
fangirl
that keeps Noah warm when he’s home.” She rolled her eyes at Candey before turning her glare on me, looking me up and down like she wanted to see if she measured up.

She didn’t. I had class and morals and I was his girl long before the whores came for him. Hearing this trash call Shame her boyfriend though, was like another knife in the gut and the Barbie doll before me knew she hit her mark.

I felt like she had kicked me in the chest, sadly I know how bad a boot to the sternum hurts so I had to give Barbie credit for making me feel like shit. Noah was watching my reaction and scoffed at Barbie Bitches words. “You wish Brittany. You’re the ass that Shame is tapping this week.” He shrugged his shoulders and planted a kiss on Candey so fierce that they both were breathless when they came up for air. “You’ll be dropped by the time he leaves Seattle. Candey though, Candey is always in my bed.”

No longer bothering with the rude blond who seemed annoyed to be there I tried to get away but the blond wasn’t done.

“
He may write songs about you but it’s my name he calls out when fucking me.”

I never backed down in the past. Corey always said it was my biggest problem and I needed to learn when to shut up and where my place was. The fact I could never bear a child is because I never learned to just shut the fuck up, I sure as fuck wasn
’t about to start now.

“
Let me guess, he calls out Sweetheart or Sugar, Baby or Beautiful?”

Brittany smiled.
“You bet your ass he does.”

I nodded knowingly. “I knew that Shamus very well and all he means when saying that is that you mean so little to him he can’t be bothered to remember your name.” Seeing the fury in the
fangirls
eyes gave me a sense of peace I hadn’t had in years. The hoots and hollers from my friends only spurred me on. “And when he fucked me, repeatedly for years, he always got my name right. You are nothing more than a notch on a very used, very worn out bedpost.” With that I began making my way back to Carrie and Chad refusing to acknowledge how much I hated knowing he brought such trash home for his dads funeral. Then my ego reared its ugly head.

Fuck why didn’t I bring a date!?

Before I could bail to sit beside Carrie and Chad who looked to be
‘discussing’ something about Brittany, I heard my name that voice that still haunted even my very best dreams.

So have you got the guts?
Been wondering if your heart's still open and if so I wanna know what time it shuts
Simmer down and pucker up
I'm sorry to interrupt. It's just I'm constantly on the cusp of trying to kiss you
I don't know if you feel the same as I do
But we could be together if you wanted to

Arctic Monkeys

Chapter Four

Cassa

“
I can’t believe it.” He said his voice still like a whisper reeling my mind back to when that voice made me come on command.

I regained my composure before I faced Shamus standing next to Mike and Roni. He was still the most beautiful specimen of man I had ever seen even though he had changed. His once long brown hair was now gone, almost completely shaved close to his head. Both ears were gauged now. He stood tall, taller than my memory could recall. But his gray eyes were what I always remembered, gun metal gray, dark and haunting.

“
Hey Shame.” I finally said when the cat let go of my tongue. I couldn’t help but notice that everyone stopped what they were doing to watch our two year separation end. He stepped towards me, wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling my small body against his giant one.

God he still made me melt and he smelled like I remembered. Shame was basic still. Even with his new career making him a millionaire before he was thirty, he used
AXE
deodorant and body spray at 3.99 a pop.

He smelled divine.

I love
AXE
!

I didn’t want to make a spectacle of myself, but I couldn’t help it. I breathed him in, locking the feel of him, the smell of him in that dark and secret place inside I went to when the memory of Corey was too much. I had missed him so much that I cursed my memory for the bad version I had clung too. I did Shamus no justice at all. I had missed him so much that it rushed the pain of losing him and all I endured throughout the last few year’s right back to the surface.

“
Jesus Sassy you look the same.” He used his nickname for me and it melted me to even hope he remembered me as his Sassy. He pulled back from me all too soon and it was crushing to lose the feel of him.

His eyes stayed on me though, taking in the sight of the changes I had made since he ripped me to shreds. He cupped my face in his hands and I gasped in hope and shock wanting his mouth on mine then and there. Forget the past let
’s focus on kissing Shame one last time.

Hope is a foolish bitch. I was desperate for his touch, even more so for his kiss but he stood there before me like fantasy made real and watched in astonishment as my tears fell.

I don’t know why I let my emotions get away with me, but it’s him and I know it. I was helpless when in his presence and even after all this time and a pit of endless secrets between us, I still loved him with everything inside of me. My tears were because he wasn’t mine anymore and a world where Shamus James wasn’t mine was a world I hated.

I fought to regain my composure because regardless of my love for him, he was still the man who wrecked me and moved on to something that resembled a woman, though I was pretty sure ‘Brittany’ was a succubus hell bent on stealing his soul. “Sorry I am just so taken back by his death and then seeing you….” I paused not sure what to say.

“
Yeah this isn’t where I imagined seeing you again.” He stepped back and let me go. I had to fight the urge to moan in his absence and ask if he actually thought of seeing me again one day. “I talked to him yesterday morning and he said I needed to come home. I knew by his voice why...” He trailed off his gray eyes full of sorrow. Shame was a master at hiding his emotion too. I had always thought I was blessed because he never hid it from me. I saw the ugliest sides of Shamus when he was sad, he loved and trusted me with those sides of him. He was hiding from me now though and even though I too was hiding, it still broke my heart. “Then he called me last night after he... yeah so I came right after.”

“
Where were you?” I asked trying to keep my voice level and hide the fact that I knew where he was, what Jerry had said...hide the fact I was there for such an intensely personal moment between him and his father. He may not know how close Jer and I were, but he knew I was there when he took his last breath. I was holding one hand and Jerry had his phone in the other, saying goodby to his son and it felt a million miles away.

“
London. The band was heading to San Francisco today so we could unwind from the tour and meet with the label before we headed home to decompress. I swear to God Sass, he waited for me to be close-" he paused then afraid to say the truth. “Before he did it. We have our tour starting in Seattle like normal at the beginning of spring so he knew I would be home for a while.” He rubbed his hands over his closely shaved head before he turned. He was hiding like always more afraid of showing emotion than he was of the emotion himself. Even now his father was dead and he couldn’t show his pain.

“
Probably. He was smarter than most gave him credit for.” I looked at Shame, my Shame and saw the pain he was fighting to hide. He was so closed off when it came to emotion. If it were just us would he let it out? He had in the past and I couldn’t help but wish that he still trusted me that much. “I don’t know if anyone told you Shame but see I-“ I was cut off by that bitch Brittany that almost got her ass kicked by Candey. Clearly she wasn’t done annoying people yet. I had dealt with
fangirls
from when Shamus was just a local act, I had no idea the level of crazy I would be dealing with now.

“
Shamus
please
tell me people are not going to be here night.” Her voice was whiny and she seemed like a spoiled little girl the way she pouted. Her bottom lip was actually protruding like a child.

But that wasn’t as appalling as Shamus’s reaction to her.

“
Oh that lip.” He whined back and leaned in to kiss her now dramatic pouting bottom lip. I actually felt my stomach turn at the sight, gagging at the overly cutesie gesture. Some may say it was jealousy but it was his voice and his action. “Give me a minute Brit.” He said the words against her lips and I wanted to weep.

My memories of Shame were crowded by whispers of ‘
I love you’ or ‘I need you’
all spoken against my lips. I had always thought of it as his trademark when he showed me that slight emotion. It was special even if it seemed mundane. He would whisper against my lips knowing I would tremble. It was ours.

I guess I was wrong and it was just another piece of Shamus James I didn’t know existed. What a fool I was, he had been with girls before me. I was no different than ‘
Brit’

I wanted to slap Brit
….and yes I know I am being a catty bitch, but like Carrie always said “
At least I’m woman enough to admit it.”

Shamus then slapped her ass causing her to scream with laughter that was fitting to the person it came from. She was cheap. Jealous or not I was sticking to that assumption.

“
Dad would have loved her.” Shamus said with a smile as he watched her walk away. I called bullshit. I knew the truth. Jerry couldn’t stand the bimbo’s he brought home. He had never told me in detail, not sober anyway. He usually tried to spare my feelings. Jerry knew how much I still loved and pined for Shamus and Jerry willingly never told me about Shamus and his conquests. But when he was drunk enough he would let the stories spill out. I could
taste
the bitterness of those memories.

“
Your dad would have hated her.” I said under my breath but Shamus caught it.

His eyes drew in like two slits of hate and he looked at me with contempt for the first time in my life.
“You would know.” His velvet voice laced with anger and maybe even hurt. In that moment I was certain he knew how close I was to Jerry. “Don’t look so shocked Sass. I knew the minute I showed my face after being gone for the first year. He told me everything.” He tipped a beer that I didn’t even know he had and looked away.

He had known all along.... it made sense now why he begged Noah and Chad to send me to Jerry in his final hour. He had known.
“I wanted to tell you. After you left…” I trailed off when I noticed he wasn’t even looking at me.

“
You knew before I knew that he was dying.” He kept his eyes trained on the bonfire to the left of us, looking anywhere but at me. “You knew his liver was failing and you knew he was dying, he trusted you more than he did me." He was covetous of the relationship between me and Jerry, I felt it as he spoke. Shamus and Jerry never saw eye to eye but after Shamus left I assumed they had made their peace. Here and now, Shamus didn’t seem bothered by the death of his father and more angry that I was.

"Would it have been so hard to pick up a phone?"

Was. He. Serious?

“
What was I supposed to do Shamus hmmm?” I asked sarcastically. “Call the fan hotline?” I stepped closer fine to let him have it. “The truth is Shamus, he didn’t want you to know. He said you were busy putting the new album together and that if you left it would put it behind.” I watched his face, it didn’t change but his eyes did, they went from anger and hate to pain and anguish at my words. I felt my anger deflate at his pain. “He talked to you on Monday. You told him you were wrapping up on Tuesday, it’s Thursday Shame. He did what he wanted and tried to avoid hurting you or your falling behind in the process. He knew he was dying soon so he did it on his terms.”

I hated that he was angry and hurt, but I refused to forget that he chose to leave me. Wanting this little reunion to be over with, I nervously rubbed my hands on my jeans and looked to my friends, my family who would comfort me when this was over with.
“I am real proud of you Shame, so was Jerry. More than he ever let you know.” I look at the raging fire because looking at him hurts. “My number is on the fridge. Call me if you need anything. I’ll be by tomorrow to gather some things I left here on the real bad nights.”

I didn
’t wait for a reply, but I set my pace as I walked away from him this time because I refused to run from him. He left me behind and I needed to look like it hadn’t fazed me in the least. I made her way to Carrie and Chad refusing to look at Mikey who's guilty look told me he obviously told Shame I was there. Damn traitorous brother he was.

It didn't matter. I said my piece, said I was sorry and did it all with my mask in place.

*

Shamus

I felt my chest burning. I didn't want to be a dick to my Sassy but seeing her, like every wet dream over the last two years come to life just pissed me off. I had shattered myself by leaving her behind all because I was young a dumb enough to listen to an old man who was drunk and like usual mad at me.

She showed up alone tonight and I had brought Brit, or was it Beth? Regardless I brought the
fangirl
because I wasn't going to face the woman who all others would be compared to alone. I end up looking like a giant douche because she showed up without the hubby.

I was going to have the last word here, not her. If my last word was a cheap
fangirl
then so be it. Payback was a bitch. Cassa had killed me just a few short months after I left she was married to another man. Her bed wasn't even cold by the time she had a new man in it. I don't know why she wanted to be close to my dad, or why her new man wasn't here. Maybe it was her way of slapping me in the face for leaving.

If I'm honest with myself, then I'm man enough to admit that I am glad he had Cassa and that she had been at his side when his body stopped fighting. But in the end, Cassa still didn't know the half of it. She had been played by the old man just like he was. Maybe it was my dad playing her and not the other way around. He was the one that scared me off taking my girl with me. He was the one fighting me that night before we were supposed to leave.

She didn't know that I had to leave, had to leave her behind. TAT had no guarantee's of success and Sass was in school ready with a year left to graduate. We both had dreams and mine was in Hollywood making TAT a success and hers was always in Gig, happy and free. I had always planned on giving her time before coming home and explaining why I left. I had bought the ring she deserved, it had her name all over it and I bought it the minute we went platinum. Two days later I found out she was married and that fucking ring went over the Gig Harbor bridge, tossed without thought or concern and enough bitterness to fuel me to this moment. I had a
fangirl
in my bed every night there after... and she had a husband.

Fuck that. Fuck the man she replaced me with. Fuck my old man too.

“
Go home to your husband Sass.” I called after her. Within seconds the entire party went dead quiet and nothing but the crack and pop of the fire filled the night. Cassa had stopped walking, her back still to me. Chad and Noah both looked like they would kill me if they could get to me but it was Cal who broke the silence.

“
Fuck, Shame just stop man.” Cal made his way to my side ass I watched literally all my friends step to Cassa's side.

Fucking traitors. All of them.