Off Her Rockers (Loving All Wrong #3.5) (18 page)

After collecting my receipt, I headed out, wondering if I should have called Mel. I’d had two glasses of champagne earlier, but I felt as sober as a saint. Possibly because of the burger and milkshake.

Pretty positive I was sober enough to drive. As my Louboutins click-clacked into the parking lot, I wondered how Xena and Danni got home. Danni had ridden with me to the club, and Xena must’ve had someone drop her there because she didn’t own a car. She had a morbid and irrational fear of driving so she didn’t drive, ever.

As I neared my car, I pressed the unlock button on the key fob and the taillights flashed in harmony with the arrogant unlocking sound.

“Davi’s absence hurt you so bad back then that you forgot what it’s like to screw one man at a time?” came a familiar voice from out of the shadows, full of sneer and bitterness.

Shoulders going up in defense, I stopped walking, heart ricocheting in my chest.

That voice. It had spoken to me many, many times. In light and in darkness. Under the sheets and under the showerhead. In whispers and in growls of pleasure. In moments of fear and in moments of complete bliss. But
never
had it spoken to me with utter disgust dripping from each word.

I sucked in a deep, fortifying breath, and, as if no one had spoken, I continued to eat up the distance to my car, albeit little faster this time.

When I arrived at my car, however, I realized that opening the driver’s door meant I’d be facing the direction of the talking shadow.

Don’t look across there
, I warned myself.
Just duck your head, dip into the convertible, and speed it out of there
.
Whatever you do, do not loo
—

I looked.

And there he was. Tall and beautiful and magnificent and…drunk. Partially shadowed by the darkness, he was leaning against someone’s Jeep with a Grey Goose in one hand, the other hanging loose at his side.

In a white liquor-stained T-shirt and dusty biker boots, he looked as though he just rolled out of bed or something.
Drunk
.

“Thought—” He hiccupped. “Thought the reason you cheated on me was ‘cause you loved your Davi so much you just couldn’t help it. Thought it was ‘cause of history and the kid and all that shit. But—”
Hiccup
. “…see now that it wasn’t. Just another fame-hungry whore tryna hit all the big names.”

Ignore him. Ignore him. He’s drunk. He doesn’t mean it.

I opened the car door.

“On to sucking black dicks so fast, eh? Mine wasn’t big enough for you?”

Black dicks? He had to be talking about Dustin. How did he know about Dustin? Had he been inside the club? Dressed like that, he couldn’t have been.

“Go home, Xavi.”

I ducked into my car. Before I could even start the engine, he was at the passenger side of my car and wrenching the door open.

Crouching down at the open door, he took a huge swig from his bottle of Grey Goose. “You ever give a shit about me, whore?”

“What are you even doing here?” I snapped, growing irritated. More at myself than at him. “What is it with you rock stars and stalking?”

“
Alina O’Haraaaa
,” he slurred, laughing a little to himself as he rocked forward onto his knees, keeping his forearms on the passenger seat. “Always thinking everything’s about her.” He raised his unfocused eyes, and I assumed he was trying to find my face, but they landed somewhere between my ear and the headrest. “
No.
Nope. Don’t stalk filthy, cheating whores. Sis called me to come get her.”

“So, where is she?”

“Took”—hiccup—“her home.”

Just how long had it been since Xena and Danni left? “And then you drove back here, like
this
?”

Leaning further into the car, he lowered his head on the car seat, and his eyes fluttered closed. “What’d you care?”

I retrieved my cell from my purse. “You do realize you just admitted to stalking me, right? You had no reason to come back here.”

Locating Jess’s number, I tapped out a quick text:

@Golden Starz Elite.

Ur prize is blind-drunk drooling on my leather seats.

Plz come fetch him.

“
No,”
he insisted.
“Not stalk. Just watching to see if you’d let him take you out in the parking lot to suck him off. What he’s famous for, you know that? Getting head in parking lots.”

He was one to talk. Dustin Latimore was no match for him in the man-whoring department.

“That’s still stalking,” I pointed out, rubbing the sudden heaviness from my eyes. The night’s exertion was starting to wear on me. I needed sleep.

“Smells like you,” he murmured to the leather. “This seat. Smells like you. Like my shirt you always wear and…and I…never…wash.”

I was too low on energy and strength to sort through his incoherent babbling. I just… couldn’t. I couldn’t stand the sight or smell of him there, knowing I couldn’t touch or kiss or hold him because he was no longer mine. Knowing
we no longer were.
Just having him that close hurt. Deep into the soul of my soul.

I just wanted him
gone
.

“Can I stay in it?” he slurred at the seat. “Can I stay in your smell?”

When he didn’t get a response from me, he sluggishly raised his head. Wild, darting gray eyes searched for my face. They settled somewhere near the left of my head. He had to be seeing two or three of me.

“Can I?” he prodded.

Fighting back the lava-pooling burn behind my eyes, I bit down on my bottom lip until I tasted blood. Fighting. Fighting.

I fixed my blurred vision on him. I could see one of him. I would
always
see one him. There would always be one Xavier Xander. No one could ever compare. My Samson. “Yes. You can.”

A droopy smile crawled onto his face, and his eyes closed down again before he hugged the car seat with all his might and laid his head on it again.

In just second, snores filled the car.

I watched him. Several times I reached out to touch his face, only to pull back at the last minute.

Never since we’ve been together had I seen him so vulnerable. The Xavier I knew was a man in control of all things. A voice not to be argued with. Strength never to be competed with. A force to reckoned. He was
man
. Primal. Smart. Calculated.

This person, I didn’t know. Neither did I understand. He wanted Jess, he got Jess, and all of a sudden he was back to being a slutty drunkard? Was that the kind of life Jess influenced? Did a life of orgies and threesomes and exhibitionism require him being shitfaced all the time? If Jessica cared about him like Xena claimed she did, why would she encourage this?
How
could she allow this?

For nineteen minutes and forty-two seconds, I sat there, staring at a snoring Xavier, half his body inside the car hugging my car seat, half out, until two bright lights swung into the now almost-empty parking lot.

As car doors opened, I squinted, expecting to see Jessica, but instead there were two tall, masculine forms. Mark and Tex.

They jogged up to the passenger side where Xavier was kneeling. Mark mumbled a “hey”. Tex was silent.

Taking hold of their drunken band-mate from each side, they tried to drag him to his feet, which was no mean feat because Xavier was a big man.

Just when they almost got him to standing, he came to, swung his head from side to side to look at them both. “Wha—” He jerked forward, dipped his head and tried to find me in the car, but they’d already begun hauling him off.

“Come on, buddy,” Tex mumbled. “Let’s get you home.”

“No. She said I could stay,” I heard him telling them. “She said I could stay.”

While this was happening, I leaned over the console, reached out for the passenger door, and pulled it shut. Then I started the engine. Wanting to get out of there.

Just as I began reversing out of the parking space, Xavier broke free of his band-mates and ran up to my car. He kicked it so hard I winced. He kicked it again. Kicked the doors. Kicked the tires. Over and over.

“You lying
whore
!!” he barked at the car. “You said I could stay!”

Carefully, not wanting run over his toes, I swung the car around to face the exit, while he kicked and kicked the hell out of it, roaring, “You lying whore!
YOU LYING WHORE!!
Don’t go to him! Don’t go. Stay. STAY!!!!”

Once again, no easy feat, Mark and Tex got a hold of him, struggling to restrain him.

In my rearview mirror, as I drove off, I saw him break free and punch Mark in the face, before breaking into a sprint after my car.

I hit the gas and sped off. I kept on speeding until his white shirt was nothing more than a speck in the mirror.

Less than five minutes of speeding, I had to pull over, because I couldn’t see. Couldn’t see the white lines in the streets, couldn’t see the other cars around me. Nothing at all. I could see nothing at all through the blur of tears.

They came. Hot and heavy. Obstructing my vision. And though I tried, I couldn’t get them under control, couldn’t hold them long enough to drive.

It hurt. All of it. Seeing him. Being so near to him. His scent still lingering in my car. And knowing he wasn’t mine anymore. All of it
hurt
.

Turned out I couldn’t drive home after all. Not because I was drunk, but because I was blind. Blind by pain. Blind by mistakes. Blind by love.

Hands shaking, I picked up my cell and called Mel.

C
HAPTER
T
EN

A
TINY FINGER POKED MY CLOSED EYELID
. I smiled in my sleep. All too familiar with that poking. That poking used to be my alarm clock. An alarm clock I missed sorely.

Smile stretching across my lips, I blinked into focus bright blue eyes and a gummy, spitty grin. Laughing at me. “Awuvu akay?”

As I curled in to peck his button of a nose, my gaze collided with identical blue eyes, adult ones, staring at me, a touch of question and bewilderment swirling inside them.

To escape answering the question or clearing the confusion in those eyes, I rolled to my back and hauled my son on top of me. His chubby legs straddled me and he immediately began bouncing up and down on my stomach, screaming, “Awuvu! Awuvu!”

“You’re in my bed,” Davian pointed out the obvious, voice groggy.

I afforded a sheepish smile. “Yeah. Sorry. I missed him last night.”

After my encounter with Xavier last night and bawling myself into exhaustion, I’d had Mel take me to Davian’s place instead of mine. All I’d wanted after all that heart-twisting pain was to hug my son. The one thing I was
sure
of in this world. My blood, my heartbeat. I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to fall asleep unheld.

Dave was up swigging a beer and watching television when I’d gotten in, but Davian had been out cold in his room with Jacob sprawled on his chest. The sight had melted me, tugged warmly at my heart. Just the warmth I’d needed. Kicking off my heels, I’d climbed in, wrapped my trembling arms around them both, and fell instantly asleep.

“Don’t apologize,” he whispered. “I’ve dreamed this scene a million times.” He curled up to a sitting position and rubbed his eyes. “I only wish it was a lot realer than it appears…”

“Davi—”

“Nothing
at all
you say right now will change the fact that I’m mad in love with you, Ally.” He angrily swung his feet off the bed and to the ground, giving me his back. “The truth is the truth. I’m not gonna suppress it just because you don’t wanna hear it.”

“Awuvu akiy? Awuvu! Awuvu!”

Davian sighed, and his shoulders slumped with the gesture. “What on earth is he saying? He repeats that garble every time your name comes up or he sees a picture of you.”

I laughed, tickling Jacob’s belly. “We had a little chat, is all.”

Davian’s head turned, trying to look at me over his shoulder. “So ‘awuvu’ is some kind of top secret I’m not privy to?”

“Uh-huh,” I hummed. “Mother and son thing.”

Snorting, he stood and padded to the foot of the bed. “You wanna sort him out while I make breakfast or you wanna do breakfast?”

“I’ll deal with him.”

He nodded but didn’t move off, a touch of sadness in his blue depths as he watched us. “Is he usually so adaptable? I mean, he doesn’t fuss or cry or make me regret asking to keep him like I thought he would. He’s just…okay. With everything. Cool as a cucumber. Kinda reminds me of how you used to be.”