Rush (Pandemic Sorrow #2) (12 page)

Chapter 18

The next day I’d gone up to the studio to sign some posters for the upcoming tour’s VIP packages. By the time I’d scrawled my name over two hundred items, my hand was throbbing. I slid the last laminated poster across to Jules with a little too much force, and it flew to the floor.

She bent over and picked it up, smirking when she laid it on top of the other posters. “Enjoy yourself the other night?”

I shook my hand out. “What?”

“Get a good blow job out of it, at least?”

Leaning back in the chair, I raised my hands over my head to stretch. “Probably a better blow job than you gave out to that dipshit you were with.”

She snorted. “Why’s he gotta be a dipshit?”

“Did you look at him? He looked like a dipshit. He had on bootcut jeans, for fuck’s sake, Jules. Did he have one of those gold rope chains on too? What’s his day job, a bank teller?” I taunted.

Her eyes narrowed, and she angrily crossed her arms over her chest. “He’s a lawyer.”

“Of course he is.” I rose from the chair and tossed the Sharpie down on the desk. “Good for you, Jules. Good for you.”

“Better than a hooker.” Her eyes narrowed on me again. No smile. No sass. Just a cold stare of pure hate.

I walked backward toward the door, shrugging one shoulder at her. “I just need someone that can fuck. Hooker sounds about spot on to me.”

Jules shook her head and laughed. “I wouldn’t put that past you. Fucking a prostitute wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”

I swallowed, and a twinge of guilt rippled through me. The fact she had just said that like it was so dirty pretty much made me feel like a piece of shit, but I just smiled and laughed right back.

“Yeah, pussy’s pussy.” I ran my hand over the top of my head and attempted to change the subject. “So, London, that’s the first stop, right?”

“Yeah,” she muttered as she stacked the posters neatly together. “Ten months of absolute hell with you guys. Can’t wait. It’ll be interesting to see how Jag handles it.”

“He’ll last three weeks, tops.”

Jules pushed the items on her desk to the side and clasped her hands together. “Have you even seen him since you guys have been back? I haven’t.”

“Yeah, just when he’s trying to get some drugs, though.” I waved my hand through the air. “That Roxy chick has got him shoved so far up her ass, I worry she’s gonna get sepsis or some shit. He’s trying to fake being sober for her.”

Scratching her head, Jules stared off into space, letting that register for a minute before making eye contact with me again. “Huh, well, he’s faked sobriety for fans before, shouldn’t surprise you.”

“He’s good at faking shit, that’s for sure.” I turned and made my way to the door. I should’ve kept my mouth shut, but it was too good of an opportunity for me to be a complete smart-ass jerk. “And
you’re
good at
fucking
shit. Me, Ronan, that lawyer vaginal smear…” I jumped my feet apart and pretending to be riding a bull. “Keep on straddling cock, Jules. Pretty soon you can be made an honorary member of Pandemic Sorrow. You just gotta reach the one-thousandth customer served mark. We’ll give you a certificate and everything.”

A smart-ass smirk spread over her face and she laughed. “Absolutely. I’ll be sure to have you ranked, you know, to help knock your narcissistic dick down a few pegs. Rock god or not, cock is cock, and some are just better than others.” She shot an innocent, tight-lipped grin at me and batted her eyes.

I reached for the door but stopped. “I just don’t get it.” I shook my head with my back still turned to her. “You aren’t a slut, but you keep fucking with me.”

“I’m not fucking with—”

“No, you are.” I turned and methodically took steps toward her, and with each step the control she managed to maintain over her face slipped a little.

“You’re fucking with me right now.” My pulse pounded in my throat and my palms quickly become damp. “What is it, Jules? Do you just need me to ignore every other girl, hoping you’ll come around? You want me to do an interview and tell everyone I want you?”

She didn’t say a word. She just sat there, staring at me in shock.

I couldn’t help but laugh. I hastily grabbed her face and slammed my lips over hers. My fingers brushed through her hair, and I let a deep groan wash into her mouth just as the edge of my tongue grazed across her teeth. Without warning, I pulled away and, still holding her face in both my hands, I stared at her. “You fuck with me, I’ll fuck with you.” I released her and made my way back to the door. “And when I finish fucking with your head, you won’t know your pussy from your ass.”

*****

Jag had been ignoring all of us. He was so into that damn girl, it was ridiculous. Every time we went over to practice she was there, and the one time she wasn’t in the fucking studio ogling him with those lovesick eyes of hers, Jag was ramming every damn narcotic he could down his throat. Roxy had his balls in her mouth, humming on them…she’d forced a world-renowned addict into hiding, degrading him to sneaking that shit behind her back. And that pissed me off.

They didn’t belong together. I knew when we went on tour he’d fuck up and cheat on her, get high as fuck and pull some stunt that would end up on E! Jag thought he loved her, that was obvious, because he’d let her de-masculinize him. He was fragile and whenever this shit ended, I was afraid it would just send him into another bout of depression like he’d gone through months ago when he’d overdosed. To me, this chick was a trigger finger.

And the day I finally laid that out to him, he got pissed—well, maybe it was the fact that I saw her standing in the hallway behind him and mentioned that she had been a bet—but, really, why get so pissed about that?

I sat in his driveway in my car, fuming because he’d just kicked me out, but more pissed because I saw self-destruction if he stayed with that girl and continued to hide his addiction from her.

I banged my fists over the steering wheel and pulled out of his driveway.

It wasn’t just the fact that he was selling out that was driving me crazy, it was the fact that he was breaking the fucking rules. And Jules wouldn’t.

We weren’t supposed to get involved with people, unless it would benefit us. That was part of the rules, part of our fucking contract.

I could still hear the serious tone James had maintained after we’d gone platinum. He sat us each down in his office, and I sat there staring out through the ceiling to floor window that overlooked a crowded, grey concrete mess of buildings.

“You’ve gone platinum. You’ve made it. The fans love you guys, hell, everyone loves you guys. And now all you got to do is go by the rules.” He laughed. “Keep yourself in the spotlight. Be crazy, be unpredictable. Fuck fans—” He nodded and honed in on Jag. “Fuck fans like you are a goddamn god of sex.” He looked at each of us individually. “You
have
to fuck your fans. That shit makes you popular. Fuck anybody you want, except you can’t fuck anyone from the label. Not the receptionists, not the interns, no one. Any other girl in the free world, you can do whatever nasty shit you want to with. Basically,” he said, the sly grin melting from his face and his brow furrowing as he warned us, “don’t really fuck with it unless it puts you in the spotlight.”

“If you’re gonna fight, you better beat the guy’s ass, or let him beat yours. If you’re gonna get arrested, it better be for something better than a damn DUI. And you should
never
get in a real relationship, and for God’s sake, under no circumstances can you date a ‘normal’ girl. Exceptions to the dating rule are: models, actresses, singers…that’s it. And they need to be big. And it better bring attention, the minute it stops making headlines you dump her ass—after you get ‘caught’ fucking around on her. Got it, guys?”

He pushed himself from his sleek, industrial desk and continued without giving us a chance to protest. “You’re fucking rock stars. There is no such thing as a personal life anymore. Each breath you take affects the band, and a pussy-whipped pushover can’t be a rock god. Drugs, sex, rock n’ roll; that’s your life, so don’t fuck it up!”

Fuck it, if Jag didn’t have to stick to the fucking rules, neither did I. I’d obsessed about Jules for six years. I’d never been so close, yet so far fucking removed from a woman as I was her. It was a waste to spend my life tearing through women like a cheap roll of toilet tissue. I deserved just as much as anyone else to be with the one person I wanted, whether she would end up being “the one” or a fucking nightmare. I had to know. “What if” wasn’t good enough for Jag, and it sure as hell wasn’t good enough for me.

Flipping down my glove compartment, I fished around and grabbed a bottle of Xanax. I dumped out a pill and swallowed it.

It took thirty minutes for those meds to kick in, so the fifteen minute drive to Jules’ condo gave my nerves plenty of time to kink up in my stomach, making me sweat a little. I parked in the deck, still uncertain if I would actually go through with it, and still attempting to figure out some ridiculous speech in my head.

Huffing, I slammed my door shut, clutching my keys in my fist as I straightened up and swallowed back that lump in my throat. I let my breath come out in short pants on the way up the stairs to try to get all the tension out. I couldn’t seem nervous. That wasn’t me. I had to be controlling, annoying…a complete and utter prick.

I stopped in front of the navy blue wooden door, blanking out as I stared at the silver numbers tacked to the front. I rolled my neck a few times and shook my arms out like I was getting ready for a fight, and then I slammed my fist over the door.

And waited.

Famous—I was famous, and you’d think that meant I couldn’t get nervous about a girl. It would seem that I had such an inflated ego that I thought I was too good to let someone get under my skin. But really, being famous was just a job. I was still the same guy I’d always been. Loud, annoying, and uncertain about most things. I was
just
a fucking person. I bled, I cried, I got sick, and rejection feels the same whether you’re a rock star or a clerk at a Chevron. It was my job to be a hard ass. And it was Jules’ job to stay the fuck away from me. Our jobs were like a repellant to us ever getting anywhere besides a screw here and a screw there, and that just wouldn’t do for me any longer.

She still hadn’t opened the door, and just when I figured this was an omen that I should just get the fuck out of there before I made an ass of myself—and consequently made my professional life a much bigger pain in the taint than it already was—I heard the chain slide from the lock.

Fuck.

Jules opened the door, her entire face scrunching up and her head jerking back when she found me on her stoop. “What the hell…” she trailed off, and then her eyes flew open and her jaw dropped.

“Oh, my God!” She grabbed the doorframe and her breathing seemed labored. “Something happened?” Her free hand slapped over her heart a few times. “What happened?”

I narrowed my eyes and shook my head. “No, what the hell?”

Her hand fell from the doorway and her shoulders relaxed. “Well, why the hell else would
you
show up at my house?” She realized what she’d just said, and inquisitively arched a brow. “
Why
are you here?”

I shifted my feet and grazed my hand over my chest, trying to calm the heartburn that was bubbling up in it. “Uh, I just…” I pointed inside. “Can I just come in?”

She shrugged and turned away from the door. She was wearing form-fitting, grey exercise pants, and my eyes instinctually locked onto her ass as she made her way to the couch and plopped down.

Drawing one leg up to her chest, she propped her elbow on her knee and placed her face in her palm. “So, care to tell me why you’re interrupting the nice break I’ve been granted from you group of jackasses?” Her fingers tapped lightly over her cheekbone.

My lips suddenly felt dry, so I wet them with the tip of my tongue, rolling the bar across the slick skin while I gathered my nerve. “You.”

“Excuse me?”

“You.” I shrugged. “I came here for you.”

Jules blinked a few times, and her eyes slowly narrowed before a puff of air escaped her nose.

“Oh, come on!” I tossed my hands up in the air. “Really? You
know
why I’m here.”

Her lips flattened across her face, pulling up on one side and accentuating that one dimple she had. “I really don’t have the slightest idea why you are.”

I took several steps toward her, and with each step, the color faded from her face a little more. “Jules, stop being so fucking …” I stopped myself because I really wanted to say “stupid,” but I knew if I called her stupid, that wouldn’t go over well. “Just stop. Stop acting like there’s not something there.”

I’d been to Jules’ house countless times, but this time I really looked around at it. It was modern, sleek, and almost all the décor was black and white and shiny. Nothing out of place, except for a bobblehead Yoda set on her bookshelf. I snickered when I saw it, because I’d given that to her three years ago when I found out she hated Star Wars with a dying passion. She had kept something I’d given her that she claimed she hated and displayed it among actual artwork.

She was damn good at lying, but that right there told me that what had happened between us was way more than sex.