Weathering Jack Storm (Silver Strings G Series) (23 page)

“In six weeks,” Tristan grumbled, but it was an exhausted grumble, and his eyes closed. “It will be six weeks until I can ride the board again.”

“We are going to have a lot of fun in the next six weeks buddy. You will probably not even think of your skimboard until we get back.”

“The tour?” Tristan opened his eyes long enough to ask, and the sleepy gaze found his dad’s face.

“Yeah,” Jack smiled. “The tour. We will be going to lots of cool places, sometimes on a giant bus, sometimes on a plane–”

“I don’t want to go without Momma.”

“Momma’s going,” Jack assured.

Marissa nodded, but Tristan didn’t look her way. Her odd feeling, concerning the direction of the conversation, was justified when he replied to his father, “The lady said she couldn’t.”

Jack’s bewildered eyes stayed on his son’s face as the next seconds passed. Marissa now understood, but did not know how to proceed with the explanation. Finally, Jack’s brown gaze moved to meet her eyes. Wariness was quickly seeping into his look replacing the confusion.

“What’s he talking about?”

Marissa swallowed a gulp and pressed a kiss to Tristan. “Night, night. I will be back in a few minutes.”

Jack understood and followed. Marissa went downstairs, through the kitchen, the poolside seeming right for this discussion. She understood the draw of the water to Jack. Before moving, she had often sought the ocean for deep thought since it was right outside any exit of her job on a casino boat.

Dragging the door open, she stepped out, and Jack impatiently questioned again, “What the hell was Tristan talking about?”

The television was still on, only the current channel was now a satellite music station instead of Tristan Cam. The song, thumping through the speakers, sounded slightly hollow as it bounced over the water.

“He is just confused. He thought –”

Shadowy silhouettes in the water halted her words, and her heart thumped in ‘super creeped out’ mode. Dax called out, “I’m sorry. Really sorry. Thought you went to bed. Give us a second and we are out of here.”

The two indiscernible shadows parted, and just before Marissa turned away, she noticed two glasses and a wine bottle at the edge of the pool.

Dax and Randi? Maybe?

Marissa went back inside the house intent on returning upstairs, but in the kitchen, Jack caught her arm, and she burst out the explanation. “Emma says that Randi’s likability is higher and suggested that I not be seen on tour.”

Incredulously, his eyes widened ever so slightly, then dropped thoughtfully. They glinted with the same expression as when Tristan had opened this subject. “And you didn’t tell me this because...?”

“Because she is just doing her job. And I thought it would create some mess that you don’t need stirred up right before a tour.”

“Can this day get any worse?” Jack shoved his fingers through his hair and pivoted to pull open the fridge.

“Don’t say that. You are just inviting worse.”

Unappreciative of the comment, he glared as he popped the tab on a beer. “I am so tired of this shit. This micromanaging bullshit. From a freaking label. From people I thought were friends. From my freaking family.”

“I’m not trying to micromanage you. I just thought you didn’t need the stress–”

“Mariss my honey, I’m not talking about you. I’m talking to you.” The digital clock on the stove read three twenty-three, but Jack paced the kitchen. “I will get this sorted out. You are not hiding in some hotel room on tour.”

Marissa refrained from telling him that if Emma had her way, she wouldn’t be going on tour. “I just want to do whatever you need me to do. I didn’t come out here to get in the way of your career.”

“Fuck the career. I don’t want it if it doesn’t come with you. And that doesn’t mean hiding you in the freaking house like Chris’ wife. He’s single. You know that right? Not married. She doesn’t exist.”

Jack was getting worked up, and she stared at her bare feet wanting as much to lay her tired head on a pillow, as she did to hear him out, to let him purge his turbulent feelings.

She had already noticed that Chris and his wife were affectionately close and obviously in love when together. But, as Jack said, the woman was never publicly around.

“I screwed up everything when I switched labels. It’s just that with my dad’s label, everything seemed about him. If he showed up to anything, it seemed like all the attention shifted to him. Even every interview, or article that was about my music had to make mention of him. I was never so glad to get picked up by JDS.”

That explained the Loren’s not being at the drop party, and Jack being on a different label than the one his family owned.

“The label put this whole band together and invited me into it. So, I reinvented myself as someone besides Matt Loren’s kid. It was great. Somehow, the connection was rarely made, and I was me, just me. When I met you, things with this label still seemed good. Then somehow, after I signed on again for another three record deal it all went to crap. Once this tour is done, I’m changing labels. To my parent’s.”

She nodded, having heard it from him before they came to LA and from others over the last few days.

“My parents have wanted to teach me the business. Now with Tristan, with a family, it just seems logical to do this and get out of the touring part. I will only do event shows if they are some place we all want to go. That’s of course if the new stuff is even noticed enough to be invited to a line up.”

“It will be,” she assured and truly believed.

“I’m thinking about the new identity being Jax with an X.”

“I like it.”

“Beau Jax.”

“Beau?”

“A play on my mom’s maiden name, Breaux.”

Marissa literally bit the side of her tongue to keep from commenting, but in a few short weeks, Jack already seemed to know her better than anyone did.

“You don’t like it.”

With a shrug, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and looked longingly at the clock again. However, he was finally opening up to her, and she wasn’t about to prematurely end this closeness.

“Mariss? When we do this, would you want to learn the business too?”

Flutters of excitement became a breezy outlook. A career. No longer watching Jack from the sidelines, but being a part of the game. “Yeah. I would.”

“Cool.” With a flip of a switch on the wall next to him, the room darkened. “Let’s go to bed Mariss. I have some kind of promo shoot tomorrow.”

He curved an arm around her. They kissed all the way up the stairs. They indulged in one last lingering kiss at the foot of the bed. They climbed into bed, on either side of Tristan. Each rested a hand on their son as they fell asleep.

“BEAU JAX?” OLIVIA’S SEMANTICS
of the word sounded as doubtful as Marissa’s own thoughts.

“Yeah...” Marissa hunched on the pool island, avoiding Tristan’s splashes, as she spoke into her phone.

The emergency room physician, thankfully, had handed out the waterproof cast cover, and she wondered if it were another California custom. Maybe no one from the state of beaches and backyard pools could be expected to avoid swimming.

After casually, but obviously interested when asking about Randi The PT had left a half hour ago.

“Are you sure you want me to send Bally?” Olivia asked. If you guys are going to be on tour in ten days, well, I think your pooch would be depressed in a strange house.

“Yeah.” Marissa sadly spoke, “The thing is, this cast is going to slow Tristan down. He and I will be sitting out the first couple of tour weeks.”

Liv sympathized, “Like the little guy hasn’t been through enough. I can’t believe he’s in a cast. And, oh, it makes me so mad that the evilmagesty will get her way!”

Marissa giggled at her friend’s modification of Emmajesty and explained, “It is so hard for him to use the other arm with the crutch, so he has been using no crutch. Which is great but he gets tired really fast.”

The therapist had stressed the importance of correctly walking so that the wrong muscles did not get stronger than the right ones. A lot of mobility would be forced by the tour, and Tristan was sure to grow tired and build the wrong muscles.

“I can hardly carry him anymore, and Jack won’t always be around to, and a wheelchair is not going to work.”

“Why not?” Olivia asked.

Marissa related the entire discussion between her and Jack. Since Jack grew up on the outer rings of the spotlight, his words carried a lot of weight when he explained that there were already photographers with itchy shutter fingers for Tristan, and they would just be itchier for wheelchair pictures.

Marissa knew it was best to join the tour late, but in some strange way, although that part of Jack’s life was terrifying, she had been looking forward to it. Just this morning, packages had arrived from an online shopping spree. She and Jack had sat in bed with his iPad, a few nights ago, ordering Tristan new clothes, shoes, and accessories, as well as the random thing or two for themselves.

She tried to feel okay that, for now, it was working out this way. However, Tristan fracturing his wrist was devastating in the tour equation.

Olivia commiserated with sympathetic words, and Marissa stared into the sunlight patterns in the water missing her friend.

The driveway was just on the other side of the tall privacy fence, and hearing the noisy purr of Jack’s car, she quickly said goodbye to Olivia.

“Daddy’s home!” Tristan bounced. “I...want... him... to come... swimming... with me!” Continuing to hop, he sang each word.

The beep of her phone had her squinting while trying to make out the text through the sun’s extreme glare on the screen.

J
ACK

Who is here?

Sent 4:42 PM

Confused, she texted back ‘no one,’ then inquired, ‘Except you right?’ A car door slammed. A little apprehensively, her eyes went to the fence.

J
ACK

Yes. But whose car is this?

Sent 4:43 PM

Attachment

The picture sent with his text was of a shiny, red sports car parked in the driveway space where Jack normally parked.

Silently annoyed at the way Dax seemed to have people over without any heads up, she was typing out another text denying any knowledge of any person on the premises when Jack stepped out of the house.

“No one is here that I know of.” Marissa abandoned the phone keypad and waded out of the water.

Jack was so still that she knew behind his dark shades he was perving every inch of her, and her stomach fluttered.

“Huh.” Moving forward through the portico, he stopped at the bar and pulled what looked like keys from the drawer. “I guess we should check it out.”

“It’s not Dax’s company?” Finally, Marissa let out the snarky question as she pulled on her cover-up.

“Dax was with me.”

When he reached her, he stooped long enough to plant a quick kiss on her lips. His hands slipped from her hips around for an intimate squeeze. “I need to hit that, Mariss.” Her body heated pleasurable in response to his words. “But first we need to find out who this car belongs to.”

Crossing to the fence, he twisted the key into a gate she had never noticed, and reaching up, he curved his fingers around the top to pull it open. The direct access from the pool area to the driveway was, no doubt, a convenience during parties.

As a group, they ventured through and to the driveway, with Jack carrying Tristan once the tile of the patio became a less smooth path. Coming out this way, instead of down the front steps, they came up on the backside of the vehicle, and seeing the license plate, she pulled up short.

M-A-R-R-I-S-S

The spelling was not what she had imagined anytime he spoke it, but it was beautiful when lettered in that way.

“Jack?”

He wore a delighted, pleased, and proud smirk. Before she twisted her head back to the car, he pulled a pair of sunglasses with very red rims from the top of his head.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Today’s special. Buy a car. Get free shades.”

His wrist playfully twitched as he drew her attention to the red sunshades, offering them to her with that beguiling look in his dark eyes. The look that had compelled her into so many things naughtier that an expensive fast red car–the car she had sworn she would never do...

Her breath was coming in quick gasps as she considered.

“Well, whose car is it?” Tristan impatiently inquired.

Accepting the shades, she gave the bright frames and the car a last look before hooking them on her face and throwing herself into Jack’s arms. His hand forked in her hair urging her up for a kiss, and she granted him a quick one before excitedly skipping away to admire the Bimmer. A paint finish, glossy enough to reflect her face, drew a careful fingertip, and ignoring her reflection in the tinted window, she pulled at the door handle.