What To Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection Part Two (15 page)

The next morning I woke with an aching feeling in the pit of my stomach. I reached to my side and touched the cold bed. Jack was gone. I laid still, listening for signs that he was still there, but my heart knew the answer before my brain caught up with it. After an hour of allowing my mind to pretend that Jack had only gone out for breakfast for us and was coming back, I dragged myself out of bed. The only thing I had to wear was my evening gown from the night before, so I found Jack’s tuxedo shirt from the night before and put it on. It hung to my knees and I stupidly allowed my senses to take in Jack’s smell as I closed my eyes.

I walked through the penthouse. It was all unfamiliar from the night before, except the kitchen. I knew there was no note, but I allowed myself to look for one so that I wouldn’t spend the next month beating myself up that there could have been one that I missed. It was almost 11 o’clock on Sunday morning and even I couldn’t convince myself that Jack had ran out for pressing business.

I snooped around for a little bit, amazed at the expanse of the place that he lived. There were three bedrooms and five bathrooms. Why would one man possibly need five bathrooms? The master bath off of his bedroom was larger than my apartment and had a view of Times Square. I remembered that Jack’s friend Tyler had commented that Jack was wealthy, but I couldn’t have comprehended the magnitude of that statement at the time.

I searched in his closet for something to wear, dreading the thought of doing the walk of shame through the hotel in my evening gown on a Sunday morning. I decided on his tuxedo shirt and a pair of black compression shorts to make my escape. Luckily I had packed flip flops in my purse, knowing it might take me a few blocks to find an available cab in Times Square after my performance.

I didn’t have a problem hailing a cab right in front of the hotel and I even made it out without too many odd looks. Walking around Times Square in a man’s tuxedo shirt and compression shorts, while holding an evening gown, didn’t even raise any eyebrows compared to the really crazy looking people out there.

M
y days off were usually Sunday and Monday, so I had two full days for my pity party. I spent the balance of Sunday going over the last twenty-four hours in my head. Monday morning I was convinced that Jack was my destiny and I needed to find him, needed to confront him and make him see the light. By Monday evening I had decided that he was a bipolar sexual deviant and if he ever tried to come near me again I would get a restraining order. Needless to say, I was confused and distraught and I was left with no choice but to fess up to Sienna and seek counseling.

All it took was one simple text.
Had a bad night Saturday night … saw Jack, slept with him, he disappeared again
. She was at my door in less than half an hour with a bottle of tequila, two quarts of Ben and Jerry’s, and her guitar.

“Spill, babe, and start from the beginning. We have all night.” Sienna grabbed two shot glasses from the kitchen, which were, incidentally, also the housewarming gift that she gave me when I moved to New York last month. She plopped herself down on the couch, cracked open the tequila, poured us shots, and I started at the beginning.

As I told my tale, I added in bits and pieces about Jack’s relationship with his dad that I had learned on our trip to Hawaii. By the time I was done, and we had analyzed everything that had transpired, we were both convinced that Jack’s dad had known who I was somehow and was using me in some sort of demented game he was playing.

There truly was no better friend in life than Sienna. She was pissed at anyone who didn’t adore me, and hated anyone who screwed with me, without question. I found it interesting that my best friend knew more about my relationship with Jack, that had transpired over an eight day period, than she did about my relationship with Michael, which had lingered over seven years. Why did I share so much about Jack with her, yet I’d never felt the need to talk about Michael, even after a fight?

I started to wonder why my eight day relationship meant so much more to me than my seven year relationship with the man that I had planned to marry. Had I ever really loved Michael, or was he just my safe place? As I rewound time in my head I realized that Michael had never taken my breath away. He’d never made my heart beat out of my chest so loud that I thought the whole world could hear it. And he’d certainly never made my body quiver uncontrollably with just a kiss. Jack did, and the realization tore my heart out.

T
he week went by slowly and each day I walked into the Heston it got harder. The hotel reminded me of Jack and what we’d had together. What I had lost, again. Luckily, Lyle didn’t find out what had happened backstage after the conference. Or at least he didn’t mention it to me if he had heard. He did, however, tell me that Mr. Heston’s office had called to tell him that I did a great job and that Mr. Heston was very satisfied. I really didn’t care what Mr. Heston thought, but I was grateful his call seemed to make Lyle happy, which meant he left me alone all week.

Friday night the hotel club was extra busy and the band convinced me to stay an extra hour past the end of my normal shift to keep the crowd partying. I was drained from the long week without contact from Jack, but agreed to stay anyway. I was becoming good friends with the guys in the band and we seemed to have found our stride together. The drummer, Travis, and I had even had lunch together twice, and when we were working he established himself as my resident bodyguard.

Travis Toomey didn’t look like a typical hotel club band drummer. He had long dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, a goatee, and what could only be described as dark brown almond-shaped bedroom eyes. His arms were covered in tattoos and he was physically enormous. He towered above most people with his six foot six frame and shoulders that spanned the width of two regular-sized men. When I first saw him sitting behind the drums, I remember thinking that he made the full-size drum kit look like he was playing a children’s set. His handsome face was marred by a deep scar going the length from just beneath his eye to his chin. He looked like he just gotten out of jail and had ridden to the bar on his motorcycle to find a woman, club her over the head, and drag her out the back door, unconscious. He looked the epitome of the phrase
dark and dangerous
.

But the truth of the matter was that Travis rode a bicycle to work and was married to Tom, a man he had been with for more than ten years. He didn’t care what people thought and I was pretty sure he liked people to think that he was a rough and tumble badass. It worked for me because I had seemingly become a magnet for drunk single men who thought I would be sufficiently impressed by their slurring pick-up lines. Travis always kept an eye out for me and would come to my rescue by putting his arm around my shoulder and calling me babe. Every man quietly disappeared with his tail between his legs within thirty seconds of Travis’s appearance.

Travis also always walked me outside and waited until I was safely in a cab before leaving. Friday night there were extra crazies out in the city at one in the morning, so I was grateful that Travis was such a good friend. He kissed me gently on the cheek before I folded into the cab and he gave a sour warning to the driver to take good care of “his woman.”

An hour later I was drifting off to sleep when I was startled back to consciousness by a loud banging at my door. It wasn’t a normal knock. Before I even made it three steps from my bed, the person on the other side of the door was pounding my door again furiously. Thoughts ran through my head: there was a fire in my building, or a neighbor was being attacked and needed help.

I opened the door a crack and left the chain on for safety. I probably should have asked who it was first, but I was reacting to the anxious knocking at the door and wasn’t thinking. My pounding heart stopped dead when I saw Jack standing there, his forehead pressed to the doorjamb, which was holding him up. I wasn’t afraid of him physically, but I didn’t release the chain either.

His beautiful green eyes were bloodshot when they locked on me. “Can I come in?”

I could smell the liquor on his breath as he spoke and his words were slightly slurred. A pause and then, “Please.”

I looked into his eyes and saw sadness and pain. I nodded my head and released the safety chain. He walked in slowly, never taking his eyes off of me. We stood there for a moment, facing each other, just looking and watching each other’s reactions. His hand slowly reached for my hip and I took a step backwards. He flinched at my reaction and balled his hands into tight fists at his sides.

“Is that why you are here? A middle of the night booty call?” I was becoming more and more pissed off each second.

“No.” His voice was defensive, but he dropped his head in shame.

“So why are you here then?”

His eyes lifted from the floor to find mine. “I don’t know. I just couldn’t keep away.”

Jack’s words touched me and I let my guard slip slightly. My words were no longer bitter, but I still needed to know more. “Why did you leave and not come back last weekend?”

He visibly flinched again at my question. I watched as he thought and his eyes filled with emotion. “Because I’m a fucking horrible man and you deserve better.”

For me, alcohol was my truth serum, and I hoped it was the same for Jack. “Why are you a horrible man?”

He looked tortured and conflicted and I couldn’t bear it any longer. I reached out my hand to him to provide comfort. I saw relief flood his eyes. He took my hand and held it, waiting for me to allow him something more. “I have no idea how to have a relationship.” A long pause. “I hate my father for who he is, but I’m just like him.”

I couldn’t bear anymore. I needed to take away his pain, even after all the pain he had caused me. I closed the space between us and laid my head to his chest, wrapping my arms around his waist tightly. His arms wrapped around me, engulfing me into his pain. I listened with my ear at his chest as his racing heartbeat slowed and he clung to me tightly.

We stayed that way for a long time. My emotions were running wild, but I felt more alive than I had that whole week. I pulled back to look at his face, and I could tell he was reluctant to loosen his grip. His face was full of concern. “Would you like to stay and talk in the morning?”

Jack didn’t respond with words; instead he pulled me back into his arms and wrapped me inside of his hold even tighter. I brought him to my bedroom and sat him on the edge of the bed. I reached down and removed his shoes. He watched me hesitantly, making no move to touch me. He was afraid of overstepping his place for fear I would change my mind.

“Do you want to take off your pants?”

He looked at me and shook his head no, but reached for me as he lay back on the bed and positioned me with my head on his chest, his arms wrapped around me so tightly I couldn’t move if I wanted to. But I didn’t want to move. I hated to admit it, but there was nowhere else I would have rather been.

The next morning Jack was still sleeping when I woke up. His sleep only slightly loosened his hold on me and I had to pry myself from his arms in order to get up. He stirred when I snuck out of bed, but eventually he settled back into sleep. Nature was calling, and I needed an extra large cup of coffee and two aspirin for my pounding headache.