Inside of You (Jessa & Paxton #2) (6 page)

“We’re not talking about me,” I tell him, grabbing the whisky out of his hand.

“That was pretty much it. I was staying at her place and doing her drugs, but I was living my own life, doing my own thing, coming and going when I wanted, fucking whoever I wanted.” He stops, like that’s the end of the story.

“Get to the part where you fell in love with her.”

“That ain’t part of this story.”

I roll my eyes at him but don’t say anything
because I’m not interested in having a conversation with him.

He takes a big, annoyed breath before carrying on. “When I left Chaos she came with me along with Billy, Louis and Elijah and they were all I had. Life was pretty fucking shitty at that point. Vincent was on some psychotic mission to take me down after we all left his band. I was depressed about Gabriel. I had officially become a high school dropout in order to avoid the Dixon’s and Glencoe altogether.”

My heart is pounding now, thinking about everything P
axton went through. Am I am being dramatic and selfish, making him rehash all this shit? I’m about to tell him to stop, but he starts talking again. 

“Then we started Polly and things got intense with her. She needed all kinds of shit and words from me that I didn’t care if I gave her or not, so I played along with her game. Where I went she went. When I didn’t want her around it meant fighting and hearing her yell for days. When I would try to get with another girl it was suddenly a problem. I was in a seriously dramatic relationship and I had no idea how I got there. If I looked the wrong way or said the wrong word it was
suddenly cause for a major meltdown and threats of suicide. It wasn’t worth my energy to put up a fight and eventually, when my sanity started to come unhinged, she was one of the only people I trusted. Which was the wrong fucking call on my part, but my head was fucked up and I let myself become her puppet. Life was pretty much out of my hands at that point. So that was it. That was us.

“When I decided I didn’t want to do it any more – play music- she decided that she was moving on but failed to tell me that. So when I came home to her place and found her fucking Vincent
, our relationship suddenly became a bigger deal than it really was. She was gone, but so was the place I was staying, the life that she had made mine. I had already given up the band and I wasn’t in a good place with the guys. So yeah, I was in the gutter and I started using heavier than I ever had.

“If it wasn’t for
Vi things would have gone downhill a lot faster than they actually did. She was all I had for those few months but even with her I couldn’t see a way out of my life. I was supposed to be in Venice, but I was living in this cock-sucking town. I was mourning the loss of the music and feeling like there was nowhere to go. I knew that without any way to support myself, I was gonna have to go home to Rachel.

“
When I overdosed, what happened between Stella and I became blown way out of proportion. According to her, and anyone that would listen to her, I was so heartbroken I tried to kill myself because I couldn’t live without her. And that’s it. That’s all I got. It’s not worth talking about, but there you fucking go.”

“How lon
g were you with her?” I ask him. I don’t know if I want to keep making him talk about this, but I know in my heart that what happened between them was so much more substantial than what he’s telling me and I don’t want to have this conversation again. I want to get it over with now. 

“Umm, I don’t fucking know, there wasn’t really a start day.”

“How long from the point when you moved in with her to the point when you found her fucking Vincent?” Paxton winces at my words so I know it still hurts – what she did to him.

“Jesus, Jessa, let me co
nsult my diary from fucking 2009.”

“So, three years?”

“Sure,” he says. He’s trying to blow past all of this and that fact is making it fucking obvious that it’s still part of him

“But you
never loved her? You never cared about her?” If he says no, I’m going to snap because I’m not that stupid.

“I don’t think you are really grasping what was going on with me at that point in my life. Gabriel and the only good things in my life had just been taken from me.
I left my house when I was fifteen and my fucking mom probably didn’t even realize I was gone because the few times I did show back up there they acted like I didn’t exist. Literally. I walked into that house and they didn’t even look at me and when I would try to speak to her she just looked right through me like I wasn’t even fucking there. So in my life where I was kept like a slave, locked in rooms, I was suddenly invisible.

“
So I already had all of that awesome shit going on for me, and then I met Billy and literally in that same week I was up on stage at places like The Cellar. I know you want me to tell you that I was deeply in love with her, that she was my everything, that I couldn’t exist without her, but the reality is that the only reason I even gave a shit when things ended between us was because she fucking knew how deep Vincent was digging to take me down. She knew he was the fucking enemy and she went to his side. She was just one more person in this world full of people who said they loved me but never really did. So I hate to have to lay it on you like this, but she didn’t really factor into my life all that much. I mean fuck, if there was one thing I had had in my life it was women and she was just another one. In that department I wasn’t some stupid fifteen year old kid. I had been around that block more than a few times and with women that were older, sexier, and a hell of a lot better than that one.

“I know when you talk to
Vi and the guys, they tell you that the things that took me down were the band, the drugs, the drinking and Stella, but that ain’t the truth. I had been doing most of that shit – getting drunk, getting high, having sex, partying with grown men- since I was a kid. Yeah, the band shit was eye opening and made me see that humanity as a whole is selfish and evil. And yeah, I was doing heavier drugs than I ever did in Venice, and no, I never had any kind of long term relationship before Stella. But it wasn’t the shit that they could see that broke me, it was everything else – all the shit I kept from them, everything with Gabriel and Rachel, and the fact that for the first time in my life I felt absolutely alone. I had no one.  So you can listen to all the things that have been said and unsaid by the people here. And you can make up your own shit in your own head. But what I’m telling you now is the only truth. And I don’t want to say it again. If you can’t get past this stupid bullshit I don’t know what to say to you, kid.”

“Shit,” I mutter, because Paxton’s words are true and I knew that. I’m the one
person he tells all of this to, that he tells the important things to and… yeah, in the grand scheme of things, she probably didn’t mean all that much to him and I shouldn’t have doubted him. Not with what I know. I crawl across the bed and into his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m stupid.”

“Whatever. I’m done.”

“You could have just told me all of that. I told you before, I didn’t want to be walking into your past unprepared again after what I went through at Rachel’s. You could have just told me that, for instance, when Vi told me your ex-girlfriend broke your heart, she was wrong. Or when your mom told me you overdosed because of your ex-girlfriend you could have explained why that wasn’t the truth.”

“I thought you knew me better than that,” he mutters through his irritation.

“Okay, Pax… whatever. I’m sure if there was some mysterious man from my past that everyone around me told you I had been in love with and who broke my heart and who I hurt myself over… a man who you had to watch put his hands on me and listen to telling me that he misses me…. a man that I refused to talk to you about, that you would just let it go.”

“Fuck no, I wouldn’t.”

“What?” I ask with mock disappointment, “I thought you knew me better than that. Obviously, I didn’t really care about him. You should have known that.”

“Okay, I get it
smartass. Can we move on now?”

“Sure. Why don’t you t
ell me about the older, sexier, better girls that you’ve been screwing since you were thirteen?” I say, laughing.

Paxton pulls me on top of him. He’s smiling now. “Yea
h, let’s talk about that. You want to hear about the twenty year old that took my virginity?”

“I was kidding, Pax. No
. God, I don’t want to hear about that.”

“You should have seen her, beso.
Jesus, the tits on that woman.”

“Paxton, shut the hell
up,” I tell him, moving my hands around his neck, ready to strangle him.

“Come on, beso, I want to tell you about her.”

“Are you serious?”

“Nah,” he says, removing my hands from his neck and rolling me over onto my back, pinning my arms above my head. “I don’t even remember it I was so drunk. I lost it with my next door neighbor, she was fourteen. My cousin and her best friend were in the room with us.”

“You asshole,” I tell him, moving my legs around his waist.

“
The thing is, beso, who I slept with before you came along, and who you slept with before me… none of that shit matters because this thing that we’ve got going on… it’s not the same. This,” he pauses to raise his eyebrows at me, “is not something we have ever had or will ever have without each other. So all those sorry fuckers in our past… they’re forgotten. They’re nothing. They were never anything.”

I
suck in a long, heavy breath because he’s so right and that truth is overwhelming sometimes. “We were never us until we had each other,” I tell him.

“Exactly. Nothing started until us.”

“All that other shit is non-existent.”

“Like it never fucking happened.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, removing one of my hands that he has pinned so I can reach out to touch his lips. “That I’m such a jealous bitch.”

“Woman, I swear to g
od, I didn’t think you had it in you. It’s good to see you on your toes; thinking someone could take me from you. You never give me that. I mean, fuck, I’m a psychotic lunatic every time a guy looks your way, but I got groupies showing me their tits and you don’t flinch. I like it. I like that you don’t want me with anyone but you.”

“You’re so blind, Pax. I flinch all day, every day. I hear women telling you they love you every time we go out in public. It’s not cool.”

He smiles at me and sits up, running his fingers under the bottom of my shirt. “I like it when you put my clothes on.”

“
Oh my god, I know exactly what you are going to say next,” I tell him laughing.

“Oh yea
h? Well then just do it so I don’t have to say it.”

I reach down and pull his t-shirt off me.

“Yeah… way better when you take my clothes off,” he says, running his hands over my breasts.

“You just couldn’t resist.”

“It was such a good line, beso.”

“You’re full of good lines.”

“They’re all true.”

“I know they are. I love you, Pax.”

“Everyone does,” he tells me.

“Jesus, that’s the truth,” I mutter.

“So you’re lucky, beso, because you… are the only one I love.”

“Holy shit Pax, you’re on a roll. You should take your hands off my tits and pick up your guitar. This shit is golden – platinum, actually.”

“If there is one thing I love more than making music with my guitar, it’s making sweet music with you,” he tells me in a deliberately sexy voice.

“Jesus, you have to shut up,” I tell him through my laughter.

“Put something in my mouth then, kid, and make me.”

“Hmmm, where to start…” I muse, pulling his mouth down to mine.

Chapter 5 - Paxton

It’s mornings like this when I gotta get up before Jessa and leave her arms that I’m opposed to this new life we’re living. The one where I gotta do shit beyond be with her. And after last night’s run in with Stella, I want to leave her less than ever.

That was a fucking trip, watching that bitch walk through the door. I guess I should have expected it. Word got back to wherever she’s been creeping around that the band is back together and she wants back in. I almost want to talk to her just to hear what that sorry motherfucker Vincent is up to. I’m guessing shit ain’t going so stellar for him seeing how she’s trying to crawl back into my arms. Which is why she’s here. I know her game too well. She’s a climber and whatever small steps I’ve taken performing a few gigs apparently
puts me above wherever Vincent is and I shouldn’t give a shit but if that asshole is suffering then, yeah… it makes me smile.

I just hope she gets the hell out of town like yesterday because I don’t like what her,
in my space, does to Jessa. But she’s not a quitter. She will keep showing her face until she finds some other fool to leach onto.  But hell, Jess knows it all now. There is nothing left to tell.
Fucking strange
. I’ve never told everything to anyone. But then again it’s strange that she wouldn’t know every sordid detail of my past. I’m not planning on letting her go ever so she’s gonna cross paths with everything eventually.

I look down at her washed in the pale sunlight coming into our room. This I like. This I love – watching her sleep. Especially after a night like the one we had. I wore her out un
til she passed out on my chest. Her lips are red and puffy from all the work they did. Her hair is a knotted, frantic mess. But she still looks like an angel in her peaceful sleep. An angel that’s been doing all kinds of naughty things.
Shit.
I tear my eyes away from her ‘cause I gotta get out of bed. It’s eleven o’clock and I gotta meet the guys at our rehearsal space.

I pull my jeans
on and head out to the kitchen to make some coffee. Vi’s at the counter working on a crossword puzzle and the coffee pot is full. “I love you, Vi,” I tell her as I grab a mug and fill it up.

“It’s about time one of you came out of that room. I’ve been sitting here since eight o’clock just waiting to make sure that you were both gonna walk out of there happy. Can you believe that bitch is back in town?”

“Yeah, I can,” I tell her, taking a seat by her at the counter.

“You’re right. Of course she’s back. I knew there was something bad about putting Polly back together. She’s like a bloodhound sniffing out opportunity. I really hate that girl, Pax.”

“I’m with you, Vi.”

“How did Jessa handle it?”

“Not so well thanks to people like you telling her Stella broke my heart. Her over active imagination was inventing all kinds of stupid shit.”

Violet gives me a tight smile before saying, “It was a little intense Pax – your little reunion with her.”

I shake my head at that. “Is this a female thing? Seeing shit that don’t exist?”

“All I’m saying is I don’t blame her. But I mean
, it was mostly Stella with her, ‘I missed you’ and ‘don’t make me go’.”

“Mostly?” I ask. Which I shouldn’t do. I already had this convo with the only person who matters as far as Stella’s concerned. I mean,
Vi matters too where Stella’s concerned seeing how she was dating Vincent when he was fucking Stella.

“Yea
h, mostly. You were a little too wrapped up in her.”

“I don’t know what the hell that means but I’m gonna assume it means slightly shocked and completely disturbed.”

“That’s not what it means but I won’t push it. You just better keep her out of your life. You should have seen her after you took off… she was trying to work her charm on every guy in that room and Billy, of all people, was playing Mr. Nice Guy with her. You might want to check in with your boy because when the rest of us got the hell away from her, he hung back.”

“He’s not that stupid,” I mutter. The girl can do whatever she wants to, but if Billy ever went there with her it would be the end of anything I have with him. Betrayal, no doubt.

“Let’s hope not. Just, seriously Pax, don’t get caught up in her games.”

“You’re getting way too hopped up on nothing,
Vi. What the hell does she matter? Just stop talking about her, you know? Just shut the hell up, especially to my girl. She don’t need to be conversing with you about all or your psychotic takes on the situation.”

“Yea
h, Pax. Fine. I just… I know you’re just gonna flip on me but I have to say it – you found, like seriously, the best girl in the world and you guys are both a million times better now that you have each other. And I love her. And I love you. And you better not even look Stella’s way if she shows up again – which you know is going to happen. If anything ever comes between you and Jessa my heart will shatter. Honestly.”

“Mine too, Vi. Mine too. I can’t live without my bab
y and I will never let her go. So sit back and relax. I got this.”

“You think you do but it’s Stella, Pax. Don’t forget that. She is low down and dirty.”

“If Jess has too, she can handle her.”

“Handle who?” a groggy voice asks from behind me and I’m smiling already. I really didn’t want to
leave without telling her goodbye. I turn and see that Jessa’s back in my t-shirt which just barely covers her fine ass.

“
Vi thinks that Stella’s gonna fuck us up,” I say, going to her and wrapping her up in my arms.

“Who?” Jessa says with acting skills that could earn her some kind of award. I almost believe her.

“No one,” I tell her, pulling her red, puffy lips into mine. When I pull out of her mouth she stares at me severely, but says nothing.

Reluctantly, I let her go, grabbing a hold of her ass as she walks away from me. Nothing in this world would take me away from that girl. That – just that, her body in my hand, makes me want to fall to my knees. That girl’s got me like nothing ever will, which is fine. It’s fucking perfect because all that shit we spewed before, during and after sex is truth – there was nothing before us. We were nothing before each other and that is not something anyone could come between.

“I love you, beso,” I call out to her as I head to the bathroom to shower.

“Everyone does,” she tells me.

#

The guys and I have been playing all day and it seems like we’re finally getting somewhere so we’ll probably stick around here late into the night. I take out my phone to let Jess know.

Come to the warehouse. We’re going to be here late.

Please?

Please. Bring Vi if she’s around so we can keep Jimmy here.

Give us an hour.

Make it sooner. Love you B.

I put my ph
one away and look at Billy who’s tuning his bass. Jimmy and Louis ran down the street to get some beer and food and the room, with just the two of us here, is a little uncomfortable and I guess I probably know why. If he’s not talking it’s cause he’s feeling bad about something. I’m not good with the tension, so I ask him, “How’d your night go?”

“It was pretty interesting,” he mutters. “I hung back with Stella. I wanted to figure out what kind of shit she was planning on pulling. You want to hear about it?”

“All I want to know is when she’s planning on getting the hell out of here.”

“Not any time soon, man. You might be stuck with that situation for a while. Vincent is playing in a cover band,” he says, laughing
, and I can’t help but smile at that. He’s like Stella – his heart was never in it- just his ego. A cover band is where he belongs. “She was trying to play like she just came back for you and had no idea that you had started playing again. She was talking like you’re still rebounding from her. I didn’t want to talk about your girl, but she obviously saw her, so I got the third degree about that situation. I got the feeling that she didn’t really see Jessa as an obstacle. I don’t think she’s going to let this go anytime soon.”

“Just don’t go getting fr
iendly with her. Don’t be her way back into my life.”

“I’m not trying to be, but the girl’s been blowing up my phone all day.”

“Shit, Billy. Are you talking to her?”

“No, man, but she wants to talk to you. She’s not gonna lay off ‘till she gets what she wants.” Stella doesn’t have my new number so I guess Billy’s taking one for the team.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

“We’ll just keep shutting her down. Eventually she’ll go away,” he tells me, shaking his head. His eyes meet mine and he actually looks concerned. “That’s gotta be hard for you – seeing her again.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, man. I mean, last time you were in your apartment with her she was
, you know…”

“Fucking Vincent?
”

“Yeah, I mean, you guys were together for a long time. You were just a couple of fucked up little kids, but still, it’s gotta be hard.”

“For a lot of reasons – I wish she would have stayed away. Just make this easy on me, man, and be on my side.”

“I’m always on your side. Don’t worry about it.”

I hear the heavy metal door open and I assume it’s the guys, but Billy mutters the words, “Oh shit,” under his breath.

I turn and see Stella walking across the room. “What the fuck?” I ask Billy.

“I didn’t think she’d show up here. Damn, that girl is persistent.”

“You told her we were here?”

“No, man. She’s tight with Jesse. She already knew.” Jesse is Jimmy’s friend who owns the place. Fucking figures – Stella seems to be tight with every guy in this city.

I look at her in her low slung
Dickies and her cutoff beater tank that exposes her entire torso down to her hip bones. Funny, how I can’t handle sending Jessa off in clothes that cover her entire body but I never had a problem with Stella’s perpetually exposed stomach. The look was hot then – it’s hot now- but it never got me worked up like Jessa’s body does. I turn away from her, shaking my head. She’s gonna be a problem.

Before she even makes her way across the room the door opens again and Louis and Jimmy are behind her. Louis is checking out her ass and Jimmy is scowling at her presence.

They all make their way over to us and I don’t even look at her. “What’s going on, Stella?” Louis says like she’s one of the crew and totally welcome to just stop on by whenever she feels like it.

“Not much. I was just hoping
Pax would be willing to talk to me now that his girl’s not around.” I don’t look at her or respond so she turns her attention to Jimmy. “I heard you’re part of the band now,” she says. I glance up and see her wrapping her arm around his shoulder. He recoils and removes her hand.

“Sorry,” she says
, laughing. “You’re with Vi now, huh? She probably doesn’t want me anywhere near her man.”

I can’t help but laugh at that epic understatement.

“I don’t want your leach hands on me,” Jimmy tells her, dropping the sacks of food on the coffee table and leaving the room completely. Good for him. I should probably follow, but I’m thinking I gotta shut this situation down quick.

“Jesus, he’s turned into a prick. She must have him on a tight leash. You
r girl too, huh Paxton? You’re on a leash too,” she says with a smile, turning her eyes on me.

I can’t help the spasms that jump in my body with her eyes on me. It’s like my entire past enters the room when she does and every horrific and stimulating thing from it wants to come out. I stare at her, trying to gauge my reaction. Trying to define the feelings that aren’t hate. They aren’t love, for damn sure. Just nostalgia. The fact is everything I went through, I went through with her. She was my bad memories, but also my good ones. “You’re the one that knows about leashes. I haven’t seen one since you exited my life.”

She takes a step closer to me – too close to me. “Seriously, Paxton. I really want to talk to you. Can I, just for a minute?” I hear Billy let out a loud breath and Louis clangs on his symbol, but they both walk out of the room.
Not what I need
.

“Seriously, Stella, there is nothing to talk about. You are not part of my life and all I want from you is a quick and permanent exit.”

“Paxton, I’m here now. We run in the same crowd and I don’t want it to be uncomfortable every time I see you.  Last time I was here it was the two of us. Three years of our lives, Pax. Why do I have to lose everything?”

“I don’t run in a crowd, Stella. It’s me and the guys and
Vi and Jessa. That’s it. Everyone else, including you, can fuck off. I’m not concerned.”

“So Jessa’s her name?” she says with sorrow in her voice.

I give her a tight smile and nod towards the door. “Get out of here, Stella.”

“Do you love her?”

“You don’t get to talk about her.”

“Sounds like a
no
,” she whispers. I look at her doll-like face… her big sad eyes. Her voice brings me back to those first years. Her voice was always so fragile and soft. Those eyes of hers made me want to save her. I could forgive her right now. Looking at her makes me want to forgive her and tell her I don’t want all of those years to mean nothing. But like my mom, Stella has two sides and as sweet and vulnerable as she can look and sound and be, it’s not her. It’s not who she is. She’s manipulative and charming and cares about one thing. Stella cares about Stella and I’m starting to learn that it’s the quality I hate most in people. Selfishness to the point of hurting anyone to get what they want. It’s an ugly fucking trait and Stella has it in abundance.