Rebel Rockstar (32 page)

R
iver isn’t with us
. He’s standing right beside me but it’s like he’s not there – he doesn’t know I know, I think, and I’m not going to tell him. I wonder when he leaves. I can’t ask. But even as my heart constricts, I’m happy.

I’m with him. If not for forever, for now.

I stand beside him but from a distance, watching him move from where he is in the kitchen. He starts at one side of the room and ends at a cabinet, opening it and grabbing a box of cereal he must’ve chose when we went to that market.

“I can’t believe you chose familiar food when we could experience Greece,” I say. But as soon as I say it, it’s a reminder to the both of us that he can’t experience it anymore because he’s leaving. I’m leaving too… Tomorrow. But I could stay longer, if I wanted.

He can’t.

“And I can’t believe you insisted on not letting me cook,” he says, moving closer to me with a sad grin on his face. He raises his hands up in the air like he’s under arrest, feigning helplessness. “So here we are.”

“The food she made was lovely.” I think about it. It was simple, some type of pasta dish with veggies. She was trying out a recipe she’d gotten from a man at market, someone Thomas knew. They’re going to end up together, I just know it.

“Does that bother you? Sabrina and Thomas, I mean.”

He pours his cereal into a bowl and stares at me in confusion for a second as he eats.

“Why would it?” Another spoonful goes in his mouth. I don’t know why I can’t quit watching. I should already be over him – we’re over now. This game of pretending as if we aren’t over tomorrow.

“I don’t know. I know you hate him,” I say. I need to back out of this conversation. If I’m not careful, he’s going to know I eavesdropped and he’s going to know exactly what’s going on.

I guess I’m a lucky girl because he just shrugs at me. He finishes his food quickly – how can he eat that much and still stay so muscular?

He sticks the bowl in the sink, giving it a quick rinse off before leaving it there. He turns his head to me, smiling, and he moves past me out the door through the kitchen.

“Final stop in Santorini, better hurry up so we’re not late!”

His words aren’t happy, and his forced tone betrays them. I nod after him, realizing he can’t see me a few seconds too late. I watch him go out the door, scavenging through the cabinets myself and grabbing a granola bar or two to bring along for Dawn and I.

It’s our last day.

It’s going to be a long one.

* * *

“
W
hat do
you want to do, sunrise?” River picks Dawn up in his arms, calling her by that new nickname she loves so much. It’s perfect for her and I love and hate that he calls her it. He loves her so much, and she loves him… It’s going to break everyone’s heart when he goes.

I bite back the thought, bile rising in my throat. I hear Dawn reply that she wants to go look at the little villages she saw past town, and I smile. My daughter is so simple, in the kindest way. She doesn’t know adult pain, or greed, any of the things that are causing us issues right now. And she’s so unaware of all of it.

I make my way from the porch where I’ve been standing over to both of them, and they wave as I walk. Sabrina’s decided to stay home to get some of the stuff packed up before our flight tomorrow, but I know exactly why she chose to stay – her leg has gotten so much better than it was at the start of the trip, and she has a man around.

She’s a dominant woman – the type of fun she likes to have involves riding.

I look down at my feet away from my daughter and… River. I don’t know what to call him. I’m just thinking about what it would be like to have him above me again, and I cringe inside, not knowing why I still feel this way even through the pain.

River looks at me and he’s about to open his mouth to say something, but I’m a lot better at interrupting him and speaking faster than I was when I was seventeen.

“Let’s go see the little houses,” I say, and I smile down at Dawn as I take her hand. I can’t pick her up without hurting myself anymore – my back was sore the other day from it, and it makes me sad.

I look up to the feeling of River’s eyes on me, a feeling that always leaves my skin covered with goose bumps – in a good way – and tingling. I smile up at him, too, then, and he takes my hand. Less hesitantly than I was expecting.

“Oh,” I say. I’m not sure where the word decided to come out of my lips. I’ve lost a lot of control of what comes in and out of my mouth these days.

“That’s right,” he responds, and this time the smile he gives me isn’t so tight, and I feel a bit of the suffocation in my chest starting to loosen. Dawn completes the moment, her little hand grabbing onto River’s and dragging us towards the road on our way to other roads made of cobblestone. We’re not taking the car today.

We’re going to look at the little houses.

* * *

D
awn finds
a beautiful white rose she decides to keep for herself. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I’m pretty sure roses like that don’t grow in Santorini – at least not naturally – so I let her believe that it came from the sidewalk where she found it.

River catches my attention with some waving – no shouting, I notice, which is what catches my attention the most. I look at him, and turn Dawn’s back to him as I realize he’s asking me to. There’s a flower cart ahead of us, spilling flowers out everywhere. He’s helping the man pick them up, and I’m pretty sure Dawn finding this particular white rose wasn’t intentional…

Although I know River, so maybe he did actually knock over a cart just to see smiles on our faces. Either way, it’s working.

I keep walking away from him down to a little café we saw earlier and had intended to get dinner at.

It’s late now, and they’re starting to close, but they have that late night menu where you can only order specific things for a small price. I’ve always wanted to go to a place like this, but I wonder if Dawn should be out this late.

She assures me that she’s not that tired, and we order food. I pick something I want out for River, intending on us splitting both of our meals. Dawn gets something that I think might be a twist on macaroni, and it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.

What does surprise me are the small flowers River hides behind my ear when he comes up to the table. He sits beside me, and we eat, laughing, smiling, and just being happy. This is what happiness looks and feels like – a little girl and a strong man, who I need more than I’ve ever needed anything.

It’s easier tonight. He is so easy to love and it’s easy to bond with him, to have fun, even if it’s our last day together.

The walk back to the villa is tougher.

But once we’re inside, it’s the hardest I’ve ever been. We’re up on top of the stairs before I collapse in his arms, my tears spilling out onto his chest. This isn’t the first time I’ve cried on him, but it’s the first time it’s been about him.

And he knows it.

He doesn’t apologize. He just holds me, whispering in my hair.

“I have something to show you.”

And he takes my hand and we walk the short distance back to our bedroom – somewhere I thought I’d lie alone for the rest of these nights. I was so, so fortunately wrong.

He tells me to stay and I do, wondering if I should put my hands over my eyes and cover my sight. But I don’t.

He kneels down under the bed, pulling out his luggage. I notice that most of his clothing has been hung up in my closet, too, so I wonder what’s in there.

Until he pulls it out.

“These are for you two,” he says, his voice steadier than either of us could possibly feel.

“Dawn deserves a father, Faith… Even if it’s not me.”

His voice breaks and it kills me inside. I know what this is. The envelopes, the SD cards. There’s videos on them, he explains.

He’s recorded all of them the past few days, and it explains all those times he’d seemed distant and I thought he was mad at me. He was just busy, making sure that she was okay, that we were okay – “even when I’m not there.”

I break out in tears again. He sets it down on the bed and goes to me, and we’re moving towards each other, and falling in each other’s arms.

His mouth is on my mouth and my hands are on his skin. We touch, our hands roaming each other’s bodies like we’ll never be able to touch each other again.

“River,” I kiss his throat, his shoulders. I tug at his shirt and pull it away from him as he tries to touch me, kissing his chest. His hands take away my clothes and his hands go to my hips, looking for a way into my panties as he touches me. I burn a slow fire I’ve felt before, and I need to take advantage of everything I can before this is extinguished.

I fall to my knees, opening the fly of his pants. He’s hard for me, and I look up at him before looking down again, and I kiss the tip of his cock. My hands go to his hips and I pull his pants the rest of the way down; he’s always touched me, always done what I’ve wanted him to do, but tonight I want to show him I love him.

I kiss his cock again, looking up at him as I take the head in my mouth. I suck it lightly, taking in more and more of him, sucking deeply –

His hands go in my hair, pulling at it as he groans. He spasms and comes in my mouth, and I swallow all of it, wanting to keep something inside of me. He picks me up in his arms and carries me to the bed, and I move to move the gifts he’s left me –

He does it first, and then he’s placing me down on the bed and cuddling in next to me. We both want more, but not enough to ask for it.

For now, this is enough.

Our love is enough.

It has to be.

F
aith’s hair
sprawls out along my arms and tickles me awake. It’s so easy to fall asleep with her next to me, but so hard to stay asleep with the way her body curls up to mine.

She’s so soft and warm – I want to protect her, to make her feel as safe with me as it does here. She’s made a cocoon of the blankets, and it’s silly. I move a blanket up over her shoulder, careful to keep her comfortable but careful not to wake her as I stand.

Last night was the last night.

I need to go. Or else Thomas will leak those pictures. It has nothing to do with me – it has everything to do with Faith, though. If those were out there, her life would be ruined. I couldn’t care less about my career. I want to stay with her.

And I will. I will be with her.

But for now, I have to go. I have a flight to catch.

I pull my things from the hangers I left them on, throwing them into my suitcase without a care. I’m careful to leave the one hoodie I know Faith loves.

And I’m tempted to put it on her – she’s shivering in her sleep and that blanket isn’t enough. But I don’t want to wake her up…

That’s half a lie. Half of me wants her to wake up, to tell me not to leave her, and for her to beg me to stay. If she does that, there’s no way I’ll go. I’ll stay with her and we’ll be happy and…

All of the torment we’ve been through these past few days would be for nothing and Thomas would leak those photos of us on the beach. I clench my jaw, tensing. I have to get back to the States. Much as I don’t want to, I have to get back to my career.

I place the hoodie over her arms as lightly as I can. I’m about to press my lips to hers for a quick kiss, but I stop myself before I even feel her breath on mine. That’d wake her up, surely. There’s no way I can do it.

Fuck.

There’s no way I can leave… I can’t be the bad boxer who doesn’t give a fuck about anyone again. I don’t even have the desire to destroy myself, anymore. I need to be here.

For Faith. And for Dawn. And…

Shit.

I shake my head, trying to get rid of the thoughts that live in my head like demons. Then I descend the stairs, knowing that no amount of head shaking will get rid of the pain I feel – in my heart, and in my head. Everything about this is wrong.

I’m outside the house and already starting on the road when I turn around to stare at the window to the room we sleep – slept – in. Tearing my eyes away from it, I leave. It’s still dark out, and the light of the world fits my mood just fine.

Goddamnit.

C
hecking
into the airport is an entirely different experience than first checking into it when I was first checking in with Faith. This isn’t even the same airport that I’d crashed into with Faith and beat up Jason, then went with her to Greece. Hell, this isn’t even the same airport we’d arrived in after we got off our cruise and the ship somehow managed to mix up Sabrina’s bag, and we’d all gone together to go grab it.

Still, I can’t help but look for similarities and imagine how Faith would look standing there. I can’t stop myself from thinking about what she would say or do in any situation, and how I would react, and where it would lead us…

Now isn’t the time to be thinking about this. Not many people know about what I have going on with Faith – well, they do. It’s all over the tabloids. Thing is, no one believes it.

I just have to be able to pass off the bad boy act I’ve had going for the past few years and everything will be the same as it was before.

I don’t want it to be the same. I want Faith. I wonder what advice she’d have about this. She’d either say one of two things –

Okay, no, she’d say one thing. It’s only the Faith in my imagination that’d beg me to stay with her. Faith would probably just tell me I need to go. Because I do.

And as I sit here in this uncomfortable plastic airport chair, I realize…

Faith let me go. She told me we wouldn’t work out because she’d heard everything Thomas said, and she understood.

I had told her I’d tell her in the morning what was going on, even though I’d never intended on it…

So I never told her.

And she never asked.

It never came up because she didn’t want to talk about it and make me feel worse, because she knew I would try to talk her out of it and maybe stay and make things worse and –

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck, I am a horrible person.

I’m about to beat the shit out of the chairs next to me when I hear a couple voices pipe up. There’s a few guys and maybe one or two girls. They look to be around my age and I scowl, wondering if they’re about to start shit with me or pick on me. That never happens to me, but it could with some tough guys trying to impress a woman, and I’m really not in the mood. But then their mumbling voices start making actual words and I’m hearing what they’re saying –

“Man, is that who I think it is?”

“Yeah, I think so. He does kind of look different – “

“ – I don’t know – “

Yeah, words, words, and more words. They’re probably debating whether the gossip they’ve heard about me is true. I’m not in the mood for it and I make eye contact with one of the little twats.

I hope he tries to hit me so I have a reason to take out some of my anger, even though I have a match coming up in the next few days and getting in a fight with some random civilian isn’t going to help my reputation any.

Like I give a fuck about my reputation anymore.

Not even anymore.

I never did.

I’m not even out of my seat when the guy drops his eyes and says something to his friends. A few of them scatter off, but the guy and another one walk up to me, asking for an autograph.

So they weren’t looking to start shit in the first place. One of them peels off their shirt while the other looks for a security guard, making sure no one sees them. It’s early, though, and the place is pretty empty. I don’t know why these guys are even here.

“Strict no shirt no service rule,” one of them explains.

I grunt, not caring enough to even nod. I give them a quick scribble that’s nowhere near clear enough to be my name. Not that it matters. I really hate being River Xavier.

But when the flight announces its arrival and calls for people to get on, it doesn’t matter who I am. I’m just another face in a mass of, well, a few, since there aren’t many people here, trying to get on a plane to get their 6:30 flight out of Santorini, Greece.

Out and away from everything I’ve ever loved.

* * *

A
s soon as
I’m back in the States, I’m swarmed by people. There’s so many people with so many cameras and so many reporters with questions. I almost forgot all about it.

Unfortunately, part of me remembers – it’s hard to forget people intruding your business like they belong in it and asking you questions you didn’t even consider asking yourself.

I try as hard as I can to ignore all of the questions, but some of them – almost all of them are – about Faith slip through. I turn my head to the sky instead of down, so these people won’t think I’m afraid of them. I could have them all crying back to their mothers if I wanted to, although that’d probably get me thrown in jail, but…

I’m not afraid of any of these fuckers and I won’t listen to any of them. Nor will I put up with their shit.

One of them – a scrawny guy in an awkward plaid shirt – stands in my way and tries to block my path, but I just throw my hand out like I’m about to shove him and he jumps out of the way immediately.

Good.

Autograph request.

Question.

Question.

Loaded statement.

It goes on and on, and Coach is by my side walking me through it – not for emotional benefit, but to make sure I don’t beat the shit out of anyone. I’m glad for it, because if he weren’t here with his hand on my arm and keeping me pressed forward, I probably would have hit someone by now.

We get to the car and the ride is bumpy, but surprisingly silent. Coach takes out a water bottle and offers it to me. I shrug and don’t take it and he throws it at my lap. I catch it before it hits my junk and I glare at him, but he talks first. People are getting better at interrupting me, especially when they have some form of authority over me.

“What the hell do you think you were doing?” Coach says. His voice isn’t mad at me, although the words he’s voicing say otherwise. I glance at him, waiting for him to say more. He doesn’t, so I guess it’s my turn to answer.

“I think I was doing something that was actually good for me, for once in my life,” my voice is flat too, although the words are edged. Two can play at that game.

“I get that,” he nods, and his voice goes softer. The words changed from would-be pissed to just… Coach. He’s supportive, like a father I hadn’t had, even when my father was the one who forced me into boxing to go and meet this man. It’s ironic, in a way.

“Is she that special?”

“More,” my voice catches and I pretend that I’m thirsty, opening the bottle he tossed to me and drinking from it. I’m suddenly grateful for it and know that that’s exactly the intention he had when he passed it to me, and he nods again. I’m not settling for water, though, and as soon as we get out of this limo, I’m searching for beer.

“You’ll see her again if you were meant to,” Coach says, and he claps my back again as if we’re back in the ring. Then it’s back to boxing talk. “So we’re going to get you into some training before the fight. You’ve gone soft.”

“I could never go soft,” I scowl at him.

“Your response is pretty much a yes, kid,” he says, and then he rolls down the window to check where we are. He knocks on the screen and tells the limo driver we’re here, and then we get out.

Back to my old gym. I exit the limo, and go through the doors, inhaling the familiar scent of trained violence and sweat.

And I know that Coach had the wrong concerns, because as soon as I’m in front of the bag with the gloves on my hands, I know I’m in my element.

* * *

T
here are
cheers and screams as I make my way up to the ring, but it’s quieter than usual. I’m getting ready to hit the man I’m fighting before round one is even called, and as soon as the whistle blows, my fist is on flesh.

Hit, hit.

My knuckles connect with his skin and I can feel them bleed even through the glove, that’s how hard I hit.

I hit him again as he tries to hit me back, and in my frenzy to jab him as much as I can he gets a cross in. I hit him, trying not to kick him, trying to remember that this is a boxing match and that there are rules to it, even if I just really want to fucking hurt someone.

Pent up frustration.

Hit.

Sweat dripping down my brow.

I throw him to the ground and beat him, my fists frantic in their attempt just to get out everything I’ve ever felt wronged by –

The match ends when the ref and a few men have to pull me off him at the end of round three.

I push them away, standing angrily and looking on as people cheer for me, my eyes probably full of hate. It spurs on the cheering more and I rip my gloves from my hands, tossing them over to the ring towards the crowd.

They reach for them, desperate to be the one to have the gloves River Xavier just won with.

I ignore it all, not the way I’d used to.

I’m too tired for any of it.

But no one in the crowd notices, and no one cares. I look over to the rows of people and smile over them, feeling a buzz from earlier. I was so angry I only just now realize I’m… I’m not drunk. Not yet. I gesture to some of the women I see – at least ones close to me – not ready to fall back into that bad boy gap I’d left open, but still wanting to lose myself in some women’s roles that needed filled…

I would get over Faith this way for now. At least for tonight, I could play pretend.