Romance: North: (Hot New Adult Bad Boy Romance, Alpha Male Rock Star Rebel Romance) (Contemporary Mystery and Romantic Suspense Short Stories) (8 page)

****

“You know we’re eventually going to have to go to the precinct or wherever and actually give our statements,” Mary said as we picked over the remains of the brunch she’d put together.

“They said today; they didn’t say
what time
today.”

Mary rolled her eyes, shaking her head at me. “It’s true! And it’s not like they’ve called us to ask us to come in immediately.”

I’d had a few missed calls from some of the members of my band—one from Jules, one from Mark, and two from Dan; but I hadn’t even made the first attempt to call them back.

“So now you’re free,” Mary said. I heard something in her voice I didn’t like, though; I couldn’t say exactly what it was.

“Free?”

Mary looked down at her plate and started moving crumbs around into little constellations. She’d put a playlist on in the kitchen while she was cooking, and Franz Ferdinand came on; mournful melodic picking plucked at my ears, almost taking me out of the conversation, while Alex Kapranos’ voice crooned.
How can I tell you I was wrong? How can I tell you I was wrong? When I am the proudest man ever born…

I shook the song out of my head. “What do you mean, free?”

“I mean, you don’t have to go to rehab,” Mary said, her voice going sharp. “You can go back to everything you left behind. You can party it up.”

I bit my bottom lip. I couldn’t, in all honesty, say the thought hadn’t occurred to me. While we’d been showering together, it had filled my mind that I could go out and find a new source; surely someone was already jockeying to fill the void that Big J’s arrest made in the local drug scene. Nick probably already knew who might have product. The Miami culture scene hated a vacuum more than nature ever could.

“I could,” I said slowly. “But I’d have to leave you behind if I did that.”

Mary looked up sharply. “Yes, the hell you would. I’m not dating an addict, Alex North. Not an active one.”

I took a deep, shaky breath. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” I said, picking at the crust from my toast. “I’m not…I don’t think I want to…” I bit my bottom lip until I felt a sharp little jab of pain and then backed off. “I’m not saying that I’m going to be clean and sober forever.”

“Okay,” Mary said. I saw her open her mouth to say more and I raised a hand to silently ask her to hear me out.

“But for right now, it’s pretty easy to see that I wouldn’t have been on the hideout from J if it weren’t for the fact that I was flirting too much with that whole scene.” I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. “I think…I think I want to see how this goes.” I looked down at my plate again. I could see a little bit of yellow residue from the runny yolk that I hadn’t managed to sop up with toast. “The only thing I’m really sure of right now is that I want
you
.”

“North, this…there’s a reason that they tell people not to get into relationships until they’ve been sober for a certain period of time…”

“Fuck that noise.” I looked up from my plate to meet Mary’s gaze. “I’m not like, going to do a program or some shit like that,” I said, waving the idea aside completely. “But I think that I should at least give this whole not using drugs thing a fair shot.”

Mary laughed. “So what you’re saying is you’re not going to consciously be clean and sober, you’re just not going to use.”

“Not for the foreseeable future.”

Mary sighed. “I can’t…if you’re going to just go back to using again in a couple of weeks, or a month…or even six months…”

I licked my lips. “I’m not asking you to commit to me for the rest of your life,” I said quickly. “But you’re—fuck, Mary, you’re goddamn amazing, don’t you know that?”

“You’re not really in the best place to—”

“Shut the fuck up,” I said, my voice absolutely dead level. “I know what I want. I want to stop using for a while and see how it feels. I want to get to know you better. I want to see if what we’ve got going between us is just two broken people or if we can be fucking better than that. Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”

Mary pressed her lips together and I could see the thoughts flicking through her dark eyes as she considered what I was saying. “Okay,” she said after a minute, exhaling slowly. “If I’m honest with myself, yes, I do want to see where we can go with this.” She looked up and met my gaze. “But Alex… I can’t be with you if you’re going to use. You get that, right? And I swear to god if you start using and then lie to me about it because you don’t want to lose me…”

“Want me to call Nick? He’ll tell you in a heartbeat if I backslide. He’d love to have an excuse to call you up and chat.” Mary frowned in confusion. “He still thinks you’re as hot as a fucking four-alarm fire.”

“Ugh,” Mary said, rolling her eyes. “I will never in a million years understand how guys in a band can all have the hots for the same girl and not self-destruct over it.”

“Because we don’t let it interfere. I’ll call Nick right now and have him give you his word that he will call you the minute he ever finds me using, if I haven’t told you first.”

Mary took another deep breath and stared into my eyes, and I saw that knowing, penetrating look that I loved—but that also intimidated me, even after seeing her at her most vulnerable.

“We’ll come up with ground rules,” she said finally. “I’m not going to be responsible for your sobriety. Let’s make that clear right off the bat.”

“That’s fair.”

“We’ll get you in with another counselor. I can’t be your counselor if I’m seeing you romantically.”

“Whatever you want,” I said with a little grin.

Mary frowned sharply. “No. You are going to act like a fucking adult and you are going to name your own terms and we are going to have a mature goddamned relationship, or I’m out right now, even if you are the best lay I’ve ever had.”

I smirked. “I knew I’d get you to admit it.”

****

A week had passed since the raid on Big J’s house, and as I walked into the rehearsal space the band had taken with help from the label, I felt nervous for the first time in years. It was a weird feeling; even though I was still dealing with odd kinds of numbness as time went by, certain things were way more overwhelming than they used to be. Normally, right up until my stint in rehab and my time with Mary, I’d have already had a buzz going on by the time I went in for rehearsal; as I walked into the building the band had taken, I was clean as a whistle.

Mary and I had agreed that after I did thirty days of complete sobriety—starting over from the night when we’d both done coke that night of the raids—I would see if I could manage to drink alcohol. I’d never had a problem with managing my intake on that before, and Mary had admitted that most programs insisted on complete sobriety, but that she had seen a lot of users who didn’t seem to have a problem with alcohol. If I showed signs of trying to find a fix, though, I would have two choices: go sober again, completely, and stay that way, or end the relationship.

“Yo! Looking good, North,” Jules said from a corner of the rehearsal room. Since the record label had put it out and around that we were working on new material for an album, the band and I had agreed that we might as well make the fiction into fact, now that Big J was behind bars. His bail had been set at three million; they’d managed to raid the rest of his houses the same night as they’d busted in on my meeting with him, and they’d rounded up so much of so many kinds of drugs that even at the most optimistic, he wasn’t going to be out this side of my eightieth birthday. If I lived that long.

“Has Mary got you on a cleanse?”

“Asshole,” I muttered; then I grinned, “She’s got me on a cleanse all right; I sweat all my toxins out every night under a fucking down blanket.”

The rest of the guys were almost done setting up, and I snagged one of Nick’s spare guitars while I waited for them to work out all of the sound. I wasn’t ready to admit it to Mary yet, but I’d already noticed, since I’d been clean for a week—not even any ‘buffering’ drugs in my system—that ideas were starting to flow. Melodies, little dribs and drabs of lyrics. Smiling to myself, I started picking out the meandering, musing melody of Silverchair’s “My Favorite Thing,” playing it to myself. None of the other guys in the band were even paying attention to me.
Got my fever down/ and weighed it up/ And I know the sounds remaining/ won’t strain all the silt from my eyes…You’re my favorite thing/ You’re my favorite/ the one that I love, the one so I’d die for your love…
I closed my eyes as I played, losing myself in my memory of the bright, shining strings, the darker undercurrent of the piano melody.
Open my heart, won’t fall apart/ so don’t fall apart…
As cheesy as it was, for the first time in the more than decade since I’d first heard the song, I could understand it completely.

I couldn’t be sure that I could hold up my end of the relationship with Mary; I didn’t know what the future held. We had told the police what we suspected about her former boss, and even though she had told me that she couldn’t possibly be my full-time counselor, the label had insisted on paying her to be my “life coach” while the band worked on a new album. I hadn’t said it to her directly, but even though we’d only been together for a few weeks, I knew—knew deep down in the pit of my heart and in the depths of my soul—that I loved her.

After rehearsal, I thought I would make good on the things I’d prayed, the things I’d thought on the night that we’d both been under threat of death; I would buy her flowers, and I would get her the biggest box of chocolate I could find, and I would tell her over and over again how much I loved her. It was the least I could do for the woman who had brought me kicking and screaming into real, true recovery.

“Yo, North! Where’s your head at? We’re ready to go.” I shook off my thoughts and stood, bringing Nick’s guitar with me as I crossed the room.

“Before we get started, I want to show you guys a new bit I’m working on.” I grinned to myself; I wouldn’t admit it in a million years, but I knew they’d know anyway.

The song was about Mary.

********

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Thanks so much for your support!

xo – Jade

~BONUS STORY~

Seduction On Eden Island

There was blood everywhere. It coated the walls, the floor--there were even spurts on the ceiling. Rayne held a double-ended canoe paddle in both hands and braced herself;
this was not in the brochure.

Earlier…

Rayne had woken groggily on the private jet; she had slung back far too many gins and her head ached.
Twenty four
hours ago, she had sat at her cubicle mopping smudged mascara, trying to explain to a group of disgruntled accountants why all the fridge contents had to be cleaned out the previous day.

“There were intelligent life forms growing in that petri dish of yours. We had no other choice but to abide by OSHA regulations before new forms of sentient life became a real problem for us. You handle multi-million dollar accounts and can find a tax loop-hole in the eye of a needle; why can’t you keep an eye on the expiration dates of your food?”

After another thirty minutes of discussing the implied freedoms of the communal fridge, Rayne lost her nerve and threw a fistful of snotty tissues at the group. “Could you please just get the fuck out of my cubicle and get back to work? If a gross fridge was my biggest problem today, I would be your all-singing-all-dancing kind of HR manager, but I’m not. Get out!”

After threats of common assault were bantered about, Rayne’s director, Rod, stepped in and sent the grim accountants back to their floor. In a gush of bubbly snot and stinging black tears, Rayne revealed it all: her boyfriend of five years, Jason, had been photographed with another woman, an infamous socialite with a penchant for little dogs. Jason was a statistician; not exactly a sexy job, but he had boyish charm--and apparently wandering hands. The photo had been taken when they were sitting together, and from the torso up it looked fine, but the camera caught activities happening below the small table they sat at.

Rayne had only become aware of this when the pixelated version flicked onto her TV screen as she was cooking dinner at home. Within moments, her phone had scuttled off the kitchen bench in the dance of the many silent vibrations. Her social media page had gone bonkers, too, with strangers and journalists trying to contact her. Jason never did come home--
turned out he wasn’t at a statistics and budgetary meeting that day after all
.

Rayne was gently guided from the building by Rod and was told to consider an extended break until the media buzz died down. Floating past the newsstands filled with full-page reproductions of her boyfriend’s cheating--or, more likely, the unabashed shame of the socialite--Rayne ambled to the subway, pulled out a worn paperback from her bag and settled onto a bench to immerse herself into a story where the almost-fiancés weren’t caught out on national media cheating with pretty socialites.

Several people had joined Rayne on her bench; one was a stylish woman with a glossy blonde bouffant, designer coat and black patent stilettos. The woman was flipping mindlessly through a thick glossy fashion magazine, paying only slight attention to the fashion spreads. A rush of air across the platform signaled the arrival of another train. The woman folded back several pages of her magazine and tucked it under arm as she hoisted her large leather tote and stepped into the crowd of commuters, disappearing among the throngs of beige trench coats and black jackets. Just as the train was pulling out the station, sucking another gush of air from the platform, Rayne felt a frantic fluttering at her side; a business card had lodged itself into the slats of the bench. Rayne picked it up and was surprised by the weight. It was made of a very luxurious bright white card stock but felt like it contained something heavier—almost as heavy as a credit card. Pressed cleanly into the card were crisp black letters in a take-no-prisoners serif font:

YOUR PARADISE AWAITS…

The other side just had a cryptic web address of letter and numbers. Rayne looked back to see the final train carriage disappear from view;
the woman must’ve dropped this.
Rayne tucked the card into her book and continued reading, deciding to check out the website once she was within Wi-Fi reach and see if she could drop the card off.

Despite the lust and romance that sprinkled the pages of her favorite books, opening the door of her brownstone apartment brought Rayne back to her immediate future. Mentally exhausted, Rayne began to boil water for tea, getting out her favorite mug. Remembering the special business card tucked in her book, Rayne scrabbled around looking for it before booting up her laptop.

Dropping onto the couch, Rayne turned the card over in her hand and carefully typed in the long URL, double-checking the letter and number sequence twice. Within a fraction of a second of pressing the enter button, Rayne’s screen went black.
Of all the people in the world to type in a link to a virus…

Then, the screen faded into white; a set of black letters materialized and faded in a gentle sequence:

“Welcome to Eden. You have been selected to join us for an exclusive getaway. Disappear into a tropical island paradise. For your eyes only.”

Oh crap.

The screen changed to show expensive resort imagery with sweeping tropical landscapes. After one rotation through the images, a registration screen popped up demanding details. Rayne searched the static page looking for contact details, but there was nothing.

I can register, but I’ll explain that it was a mistake and I’m looking for the right person.

Rayne typed in her details and, after a moment of hesitation, pressed ‘submit’.

Another screen popped up among a new gallery of resort images: “Thank you for registering. One of our resort team members will contact you shortly.”

Rayne opened a new search window and typed in “Eden Resort,” only to get back tens of thousands of possible clues. She extended the search with “island paradise,” only to whittle a couple of thousand from the list. Before Rayne could contemplate another search term, her landline phone started ringing.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Rayne Baker?” a bubbly woman’s voice echoed down the phone.

“Yes, who is this?”

“My name is Cassandra from Eden Resort. We just received your registration.”

Wow, that was fast.

“Look, I’m glad you called because I actually think this invitation was for someone else.”

“Was there a name on the card?”

“No, just a web address.”

The woman’s voice brightened, “In that case, it’s very much your card. This is part of a secret promotion Eden Resort is hosting prior to its official launch; I believe a few cards were distributed through random circulation."

Smart PR move…

Rayne could hear typing and clicking in the background. “You’re actually very lucky, Ms. Baker. I've just checked the reservation, and it seems that you have been assigned the Lotus Suite, one of the most expensive suites on the island. There’s yoga, massage and private dining included in your package, which… yes, you’re entitled to over $18,000 worth of value for a six day, seven night stay.”

“I’m sorry,
wha
t? Did you say an
$18,000 stay
?”

“Yes.” The disembodied voice was practically beaming down the phone.

“Do I need to purchase anything for this?”

The woman laughed, “No, not at all. It’s an exclusive invitation. A bit like what travel agents get to review resorts.”

“So I am to review the resort in exchange for over $18,000 of value?”

“That’s the plan.”

Rayne sat, astounded by the opportunity that landed in her lap. “So, when do I leave?”