The Man You Need (Love on Tour #4) (16 page)

“I see.”

“The audition isn’t for about a week after you get back. So we’ll have time to go through everything when you get home.”

Home. Was Malibu my home? Was New York? Where was my home? I glanced at Jack. He looked so perfect, lying on the bed, his chest bare, the sheets pooled around his waist. Lately, my home had been in Jack’s arms. But that wasn’t where I could stay. That was the fantasy world, not real life. And real life had just reared its ugly head.

“Stacey? Aren’t you excited about this?”

“Of course. You did great, little brother. Thank you. We’ll, um, go over the details when I get back in a few days.”

A few days. It was all that was left of my perfect little imagination land. We were headed to Seattle in the morning. We’d do the show the next day, then hit San Francisco. Then we had the L.A. show, and after that, that very night, we’d drive back to Malibu, and it would all be over. And where would Jack go? On another tour?

“Okay, well, enjoy the rest of the tour. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye, Sam.”

I hung up the phone and turned to Jack.

“What was that all about?”

“He got me an audition.”

“Yeah? In L.A.?”

I nodded.

“That’s great, Princess!” He pulled me down on the bed and flush against his chest. “TV?”

“Yeah, a pilot, I guess.”

“What’s the part?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s wrong?”

“What are you going to do when we get back to L.A.?”

He brushed a bit of hair away from my face. “I don’t have another tour lined up right now. I got an offer, but I turned it down. I think I’m gonna take a little time.”

“Hmmm. Like go back to Detroit?” I was nervous, nervous as hell. But, I couldn’t really decide exactly what I was nervous about.

“No. I’m moving Grandma and Grandpa to the L.A. area. So I’m going to need to find them a place. And me, too, I guess.”

“So, you’re staying in California?”

“I am.” He kissed me gently on the lips. “So, I’ll get to see more of you.”

“Hmmmm.” What was this I was feeling?

“Do you want that?”

I did. I wanted it bad. I was struggling to imagine what it would be like not to see Jack. It was a painful thought. But what would we be like in the real world together? Would our parting only be accelerated by reality? What would happen when he went back to his stuffed shirt life of organization and professionalism and I went back to being Crazy Stacey? He didn’t even like Crazy Stacey. But there would be no staving her off.

“I’m a little scared,” I told him.

“Why?”

“I… I’m in love with you.” Holy shit! Where did that come from?

Jack stared at me. The hand that had been playing with my hair stilled. He was like a statue. And I started to shake. What the fuck had I just said? It was true. I’d known it for a while now. But I refused to articulate it in my brain, let alone say it aloud. Except now, both things had happened at exactly the same moment.

Jack let out a long slow breath. He kissed me again, softly, tenderly. My lips didn’t move. I was frozen. He pulled back and looked into my eyes.

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that.”

“Yeah?”

My shaking grew more intense and Jack could feel it. He pulled me tight to his chest and stroked my back. “Hey. Calm down, okay.”

I nodded into his chest and tried to breathe.

“I know you’re freaking out right now. But we’re going to do this together, Stacey. And it’s going to be okay.”

I sniffed, trying to fight back tears. Jack had not said it back. What was I going to do if he didn’t say it back?

“My world got turned upside down when I met you,” he said softly. “I never wanted to settle down, stay in one place, have one person I came home to every night. I didn’t think that life was for me. But you changed all that. I want that now. I want to come home to
you
every night. I want to have a house and pool and a dog.”

“A dog?” I whispered.

“Yeah, a big dog. A manly dog. And maybe… Maybe even a kid. I don’t know. It’s all a bit much. I was sitting in Hayden Valley the other day watching the bison roam around and thinking about how much my perspective has changed. I was thinking that I’ve spent a decade insisting that my life won’t be the rosy snow globe my grandmother always wanted me to have. But in the span of a few weeks, it’s all twisted around. I couldn’t imagine that life because I’d never met the person I wanted to share it with.” Jack pulled me away from his chest and looked into my eyes. “You are that person, Stacey. I love you. And I want to be with you.”

A part of me was thrilled. Jack loved me. I loved him. But I also knew that this was just part of the happy fantasyland. It was all going change when we got back to Malibu. I could see it in my head, playing out like a scene on stage. I would change back to who I’d been before I’d broken my damn arm and ended up surrounded constantly by family. I would revert to the person I’d been before Jack had walked into my life and made me feel comfortable in my own skin. And he would hate it. And he would leave me.

But I didn’t have time to linger on that image, because Jack started kissing me. Then he was pulling off my panties. Then he was making love to me, slow and soft. And all I could think about was the here and now, and Jack.

19

When I woke up the next morning, I felt like I had a hangover. The night before I had been literally drunk on emotions – love, passion, happiness, and fear. Sheer terror was what remained with me that morning, and it didn’t leave. It clung to me like a vice as we traveled to Seattle.

Jack kept asking me what was wrong. All day he asked. And each time I became more agitated. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I just knew that
something
was wrong, very wrong. With each spin of the wheels on the bus I was being dragged back to a reality I did not want to face, but one that was inevitable. I loved Jack. But the me that he loved was going to disappear. And where would that leave us?

By the time we reached the hotel, I was a giant, tangled mess. I felt like the fishing line Sean had pulled out of the Snake River a few days ago, inextricably bound up in itself. I had a hard time talking to anyone, and kept all my responses to just a few vague words.

I was glad when Jack pulled me into his arms as soon as we made it back to our room. His passion for me let me breathe for the first time all day.

“Are you alright?” he whispered into my ear.

I pulled his shirt off and ran my hands down his chest and over his stomach, until I reached the button on his shorts.

“Much better now,” I told him.

I had Jack completely naked and we were still by the door. Which suited me just fine. So I pushed him up against the wall and fell to my knees in front of him.

“Stac,” Jack breathed.

But whatever he was going to say was lost in a deep groan as I took him into my mouth. I played with him for a while, then I stood up and ripped off my own clothes. Jack helped me. He was as frantic as I was.

He tried to pull me over to the bed, but I pushed him back, then I whirled around so that I was up against the wall. I locked my hands together behind his neck and used my forearms to push down on his shoulders. He grabbed my ass and lifted me up.

We’d had the awkward diseases and birth control conversation a few days ago. We were both clean, I had an IUD, and so the condoms had gone by the wayside. As a result, I didn’t hesitate when I whispered in his ear, “Now, Jack, please.”

He didn’t argue. He just kissed me, hard, and shoved his way inside me. I groaned and arched my back. “More.”

Jack had never been so rough. He thrust inside me over and over. I encouraged him, moved with him, called out his name.

And then he came. “Shit.”

I sighed.

“You didn’t come.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” he growled.

I was still in his arms, my legs wrapped around his waist. He carried me over to the bed and laid me down. His hand traveled down my stomach and between my legs. His face was right up next to mine.

“Come on, Stacey. Relax.”

I didn’t want to relax. My head was a giant mess and I needed to sort things out. But then Jack was kissing me again, and his magic fingers were moving, and I couldn’t help myself. I was lost in his touch, his taste, his breath.

I shivered and wrenched my mouth away from his so I could cry out, “Jesus, Jack!”

I lay there for a minute, catching my breath and trying not to think. Jack was on his side next to me.

“I’m going to miss the novelty of hotel room sex. Maybe I’ll wait a while to get a place and just live in a hotel for a few weeks so we can keep doing this,” he mumbled into my neck.

“Hmmmm,” was my only response.

Jack pulled his face back and looked at me. “When’s your audition, anyway? I want to celebrate afterward. That might be a great night for a hotel room. A nice one, five stars.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

I turned toward him. My brain was still messed up, and my mouth just said whatever it wanted. “I don’t think I’m going to take the audition.”

“What? Why not?”

“I think I’ll go back to New York,” I said. The feeling of self-destruction was growing in my belly and I couldn’t stop it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “There’s a great new play coming up and the casting director has a thing for me.”

He stared at me, and his eyebrows scrunched up.

“I won’t fuck him,” I said casually. “Maybe just a blowjob.” What the hell was I doing? I needed to stop myself, now.

“Hmmm.” Jack released me and got out of bed.

I sat up and looked at him. I knew I’d done it now. But the train had left the station. I was putting the nail in my own coffin. And apparently I could only think of clichés to describe what was happening.

“So that’s it?” he said, standing naked beside the bed and looking down at me. “You’re just going to go back to your shitty apartment in New York, blow some casting director and resume your fucking life?”

“I guess,” I shrugged.

“That’s what you want?”

I shrugged again.

“I don’t think it is.”

I watched as he pulled his boxers on.

“What do you think I want, Jack?” I hoped that he would tell me, because I didn’t have a fucking clue.

“I don’t think you know.”

He put on his jeans, and I knew he was slipping through my fingers. But I couldn’t hang on to him anymore. I couldn’t make myself do it.

“Maybe I don’t. But I do know what I don’t want.” The most horrific thing I could think of came out of my mouth just then. “I don’t want to get married and live in some nice house with a pool and a dog. I don’t want to make dinner for my husband’s clients and smile sweetly as I serve them spaghetti, then rush to put the kids to bed. I don’t want that!”

Jack stared at me, his gaze hard and cold. “And that’s me, right?” He threw on his shirt.

I was throwing back in his face all the sweet and wonderful things he’d said to me yesterday. It was horrible and rotten and I hated myself for it.

“Apparently.”

He sat on a chair and slipped on a pair of socks.

“Maybe the life I want with you is boring. But I’ll travel. I bet you’d like that?” He sneered. “I bet you’d like if I played sometimes, too.”

Then he reached over and grabbed his shoes. I stared at him while he put them on, watching his hands as he deftly tied the laces.

“Are you going to?” I asked softly.

He looked up at me and stood up. “Probably, I’ve had some offers since those few dates with Sean. I suppose that changes things, doesn’t it? Now, suddenly, you are looking at me in a different light, aren’t you?”

“Maybe.” I wasn’t really. Him playing guitar changed nothing. But he didn’t know that.

His face was hard, his jaw clenched. “Well, forget about it, Stacey. I’m no longer interested.”

“You’re not?”

“You claim that you love me. And maybe that’s even true. But you don’t want me for who I am. You want a wild life with a rocker. It’s what you’ve always wanted. That’s
not me
!”

He’d just pulled up a giant picture of the elephant in the room. He was judging me based on who I’d been the day he met me, who’d I’d be again a few days from now. And he was right to. After all, that’s how I was acting.

But I loved Jack, and as I watched him prepare to walk out on me, I started to get my sanity back. “But Jack…”

“Don’t,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “Don’t try to make this okay.”

“Can’t we just talk about this for a minute,” I pleaded. I could get my head straight in the next thirty seconds, couldn’t I?

Jack picked up his bag and threw the strap over his shoulder. “What’s there to talk about? I think you’ve made yourself clear. You want me only if I play the role you have picked out in your head. I gave you my heart last night and you just fucking stomped on it.”

“Just give me a minute, Jack.” I was reeling.

He took a deep breath. His chest shook. “Tell me right this minute, Stacey. Do you really want to be with me? Do you want all that shit I told you about last night?”

I stared at him, unable to speak.

“I didn’t think so.” He turned toward the door.

I could feel tears pricking at my eyes. “Don’t go,” I pleaded.

“Sorry, Princess. I’m crazy in love with you, but that’s not enough.” He opened the door.

I scrambled out of the bed and stumbled toward him. “Jack, wait.”

He looked at me for a moment. His gaze was like ice. “Have a nice life, Stacey.”

Then he walked out.