Roxy (Pandemic Sorrow #3) (25 page)

Chapter 34

I know he’s not about to do this.

Jag had sat down in the sand on both knees. His eyes locked on mine while he dug around in his back pocket. The moment he pulled out that little blue box, my heart pounded. You’d think having a baby with someone, that the fact that we’d discussed that we would stay together forever may have lessened the shock, but it didn’t.

He opened the box, a deep grin setting over his face. “I want to marry you. I
need
you to marry me. I love you, and if I don’t have you I’m nothing. This is more than a promise to be with you, princess. This is a promise that I’ll be there for you. This is a promise that nothing will ever mean more to me than you do.”

He shifted on his knees to move a little closer to me. He shoved the box toward me. “There’s meaning in this ring.” Removing the ring from the box, he continued, “You see—”

“Jag, I—”

He shook his head and slid the ring over my finger. “Let me finish. As ridiculous and fucking sappy as this all sounds, just listen. I had this made for you because amethysts are supposed to aid in sobriety, and diamonds are supposed to absorb weaknesses and amplify strengths.” Lowering his head to look up at me, he traced his thumb over my jawline. “And that’s what you do. That’s what we do for each other.”

As much as we’d talked about being together, I had told him I wasn’t ready to go there. We had so much going on, I’d just wanted to wait until the baby had come and things had settled down a bit. I think I wanted to make sure he was ready. I wanted to make sure that decision was one he made because he really wanted it, not because of what had happened when he’d almost died.

Jag grabbed the sides of my face and pulled me to him. “You won’t ever let yourself be ready if you keep worrying. We’re about to have a baby. A
baby.
You’re stuck with me no matter what. I want the things neither of us ever had. We need to be a family, princess. Every moment of my life, each fucking mistake I made was all to bring me to you, because we fucking belong together. And if you tell me no, I’ll just ask you tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, until you finally get so tired of having me ask you, you’ll give in. And I’m pretty fucking amazing at getting what I want.”

All I could do was stare at the ring. Amethyst baguettes surrounded a very large diamond solitaire. It was elegant, beautiful—too much, of course. I shook my head, trying to find the right words to say.

“Stop,” Jag whispered. “You’re gonna marry me and you know it.”

Grinning, he leaned in and kissed me. “You gonna marry me, princess, huh? I swear I’m not a shattered fucking mess anymore. I’m just broken, just little chips here and there. Let me take care of you. Let me love you. Give me something to belong to, Rox. That’s all I need, is to belong to you.”

A small laugh escaped my lips. “Always so certain.”

He shrugged. “I gotta be.”

“I’m glad you are.”

He arched his brows at me. “But I’m not that certain to not hear you say it.”

“Yes. I’ll marry you, gladly, happily…”

Chapter 35

And for a while our lives were beautiful. We got married two months before the baby arrived. We managed a small ceremony in Savannah without the first paparazzi catching wind of it.

We’d bought a house in Long Beach, a very large house, which I had tried to talk Jag out of, but some things don’t change, and his desire to be eccentric wasn’t one to be calmed, even without the drugs.

On February 8
th
, we brought a beautiful, precious baby girl into the world. We named her Savannah after a fan who had given Jag a journal detailing her struggle with addiction, saying that Jag and his music was one of the few things that got her through that battle.

And for the first three months after she’d arrived, my life was filled with the most tender, sweetest moments ever.

Jag loved her, he was in awe of her, and he was a wonderful father and husband.

Two nights before Pandemic Sorrow’s international tour started, I woke up and didn’t feel the heat from Jag’s body against my back.

My first instinct was to panic.

Every day that drew closer to the tour date, I grew more anxious. Jag had done so well, but the way his life had been since he’d gotten out of rehab had been the most normal life he’d experienced in years.

It had just been us. No shows, no recordings, and he’d only had one interview.

Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I glanced at the clock, then at the baby monitor. I rose from the bed, stumbling toward the door while the cold floor sent chills up from the soles of my feet.

The light from the kitchen bounced down the hallway. Following the light, I came out into the open living room. I searched the room for him and noticed the porch light on and the sliding glass door cracked.

The closer I got, I could hear Jag singing.

Stepping onto the patio, I found him gently swinging Savannah. His finger traced over her forehead while he stared down at her. The lyrics to “Wild Horses” tenderly floated from his lips, and the sweetness of that moment made me fall even more in love with him.

Jag glanced up, a soft smile shaping his mouth. “You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he said and scooted over to let me sit.

“I had four hours straight, I feel like a new person. Not so much like a zombie.” I noticed the empty bottle sitting next to his leg. “Was she crying? I didn’t even hear her.”

“I was already awake. She’d barely started fussing.” His eyes fell back down to Savannah. “Sweet little princess.”

I laid my head on his shoulder and looked at Savannah. I didn’t want this life to be disrupted. I enjoyed it just being us, and after tomorrow that would be gone. I’d be lucky to get three hours of quality time with him, but more than anything I knew none of us were ready for that tour.

Chapter 36

Jag sat our bags down and I adjusted Savannah in my arms. He reached over, taking the diaper bag from my shoulder just as Jules walked over and peered down at her. “Oh, my God. She just gets cuter every time I see her.” She swatted at Jag. “How the hell did
you
make something so fucking cute?”

“Like there was a choice,” he said, digging through the diaper bag for a blanket.

Jules rubbed over Savannah’s bare toes. “Well, this will definitely be a different experience. Jag, his wife, and his baby, all on tour with us.”

She shot a smirk over to Stone. “I guess all the group sex in the tour bus is nixed from now on for you poor fuckers, huh?” She paused, then cleared her throat. “And I better not catch any of you screwing around with the nanny. She’s on the clock as long as she’s with us, and we are not paying her to divvy out blow jobs or bend over a chair for any of you. Got that?”

Stone and Pax nodded, mumbling to themselves as they piled their bags together.

Rush stretched, slapping his hand across the back of Jag’s head. “Fucking it all up for the single guys.”

“Shut up, Rush.”

Pax looked completely unamused with the new rules that had been set without his approval. “So, Jag gets to fuck as much as he wants just because he’s married. And we all have to take it somewhere else? What about you two?” He pointed at Rush and Jules. “You two gonna fuck in the bus too, just because you’re all monogamous and shit? That’s fucked up. Like a baby would know anyway.” He shot a glare at me. “My dick hates you.”

Jag narrowed his gaze on Pax and ran his tongue over his lips. “Don’t even fucking joke with her like that. Got it? I will throat punch you the next time you are the slightest bit disrespectful to her.”

Pax rolled his eyes and plopped down on the chair in the corner of the room. “Yeah, dude. Got it.”

Jag took Savannah from me, wrapping the end of the blanket over her feet.

“That’s still so weird, and awkward looking,” Pax groaned, a look of confusion settling on his face. “Jag has a kid. And the mom lets him touch her. It makes me nervous.”

I wrinkled my brow at him.

Pax shrugged. “Look, I’m just saying it’s weird.”

“Okay, okay. We’ve got to get this fucked-up Partridge family show on the road,” Jules said, opening the door to the hallway. She pointed out to the hall and Jag handed the baby back over to me.

After all the guys had filed out, her eyes found me and the corners of her lips flipped up. “You sure you up for this? It’s a lot of travel, and a lot of shit. What you saw when you came down for that one night in Charleston—well, honey, you didn’t really see anything. Jag and Rush may have calmed their shit down, but none of the rest of them have, and now we have the opening act, which I’m afraid may be on the same level of disgusting as Pandemic Sorrow was.”

She paused, then shook her head. “You’re gonna get pissed, annoyed, and be tempted to beat the piss out of
at least
one of them before this shit is over. Not to mention, it
doesn’t
matter that he’s married, Jag is still a rock star. Women are still gonna try to fuck him, flirt with him—maybe even more now that he’s spoken for—and all that shit is part of his job to entertain them.” Sighing, she tickled the bottom of Savannah’s feet. “I mean, he’s still gonna have to
act
like Jag Steele, which means he’s gonna have to flirt, a little. You sure you can handle that?”

The look she gave me was one of concern, worry, and apology.

I’d be lying if I said that comment didn’t piss me off.
His job is to flirt with women?
My hand patted over Savannah’s back. “I guess I don’t have a choice but to handle it, do I?”

Her face softened, her hand coming to rest on my shoulder. “You seriously are brave, honey. Most women can’t handle that. It’s hard to keep up a relationship in this business. And I really hope that the two of you can make this work. The cards are stacked against you, just don’t let them win.”

She sighed, tickled Savannah’s toes again, then walked out the door.

I hated being reminded that our relationship was anything but normal.

Not only was I married to a recovering addict, I was married to a
famous
recovering addict that was a sex symbol.

I had to share him with more women than I wanted to think about. And it wasn’t that I thought Jag would cheat on me, because I really didn’t. I just couldn’t stand the idea of another woman
thinking
she could take what was mine.

He had to reciprocate fans flirtatiousness, and that meant that some of them would think he wanted them. Some of them would think our marriage was meaningless because he had just laughed at their ridiculous offer to suck his dick. Unlike normal relationships, I was going to have to look at tabloids in the check-out line and read the headlines that my husband was allegedly cheating on me.

I walked toward the door, eying the posters of Pandemic Sorrow plastered all over the room. I stopped to study the one right by the exit. It was a black and white still of Jag on his knees, stage light aimed on him. The camera had caught him mid-thrust as he shoved his leather- clad-dick out to the sea of hands reaching for him. He was sweaty, eyeliner rimmed around his eyes, black polish on his hands that were gripping the mic.

That
was my husband.

And it still didn’t seem real to me.

I had only seen him in that environment a handful of times, four to be exact. Three times at concerts before he even knew who I was, and once as his girlfriend.

I lived with him.

I saw him without the eyeliner, without the jewelry. I woke up to him with his hair all over the place, I walked in on him pissing on a daily basis…over the months since his overdose, or suicide attempt, whatever it was, this rock god thing had become surreal to me.

It seemed like that was another person. And honestly, it kind of was. That rock god in the poster was blitzed out of his mind. And the guy I was married to had been sober for a year.

And even a year later, I knew sobriety was a daily struggle for him. At least once a week he talked to me about wanting to take something, swearing to me that he wouldn’t. He promised he was just trying to purge that want from himself by talking about it.

Sobriety was hard for him, and that was the main reason I was going on tour with a three month old in tow. It wasn’t ideal by any means, but I couldn’t let him try to face those demons alone. I was terrified that this tour was going to push him to the brink of relapse, and I couldn’t allow that to happen.

I made my way out, down the hallway, and to the back of the building where the bus was parked. Jag was leaned against the outside, picking at his cuticles. When he saw me, he started laughing.

“What?” I asked, suspiciously arching a brow at him.

“Ah, nothing, princess. Just funny to me that she’s going on her first tour.” He shook his head. “She’s never gonna know what normal is, poor thing.”

“Oh, you got that right, for sure.”

He walked me to the stairs of the bus. “Be careful not to trip, okay?”

I stepped up into the bus, the sleek black interior lit up by iridescent lights on the ceiling. “This makes me a horrible mother, doesn’t it? Carting a baby all over the world to rock shows?”

Jag took Savannah from me, securing her in the car seat strapped down on one of the dark grey leather seats. Smiling, he said, “Nope. It makes you one hell of an amazing fucking wife.”

Stone came out from the back. His lips curled up into a devious smirk. “Man, thank you. Just
thank
you. Both of you.” He plopped down on the seat, brushing his hand over the top of the car seat.

Jag straightened up and furrowed his brow. “What the hell are you thanking me for?”

Stone let out a deep, sex-glazed laugh. “Have you seen the new nanny? Holy shit. She is fucking hot! Are those tits real?”

I rolled my eyes and brushed past him to put my bag out of the way. “No girl is safe around you guys, are they?”

“Hey, I can’t help that I have a dick and it has needs. I appreciate beautiful women.” He turned to Jag. “We can’t let Rush fuck with her. He’ll mess with her head, and then half-way through the tour you’ll have to hire another nanny.”

Jag glared around him at me to see if I was listening. I shook my head and continued sorting through the bag. “Rush better not fuck with her!”

“Oh, come on now.” Stone shrugged. “You know he’ll fuck with anyone’s head that he can. He may be with Jules, but he can’t help but be a dick. It’s who he is deep down inside, Rox.”

Jag agreed, “It’s true, but I’m not helping you out. Although she did say you were her favorite, you know since I’m no longer available and all.”

Loud footsteps clamored up the stairs, and Rush bellowed out a loud yell. “Bitches better get their pussies ready. Pandemic Sorrow is about to hit the road. Woo-hoo!”

Immediately, Jag and I shushed him.

“You got to be quiet or you’ll wake her up!” I scolded, pointing at the sleeping baby.

Rush tossed his hand ups and slid against the wall. “Okay. Sorry, fuck.” He looked around the bus and his shoulders dropped. “Ah, hell, who am I kidding? We’re two men down and Pax is a lazy fuck. We’re as good as classic rock now.”

Pax came tromping up the stairs, not getting all the way inside the bus before he laid into Jag. “When we get to Europe I’m really gonna need you guys to get your own bus. This is not the life I’m accustomed to—at all.”

Rush pushed off from the wall. “For old time’s sake, you know, just to make this feel like the start of a legitimate tour and all, I feel I should say, my dicks thirsty for pussy!” He snickered, glancing at Jules and wiggling his eyebrows. “This tour is gonna be epic. Especially since your worn out dick is out of commission, Jag.” Another quick burst of laughter came rumbling from his chest. “A year ago I would have had a list, determined to go on a scavenger hunt for each kind of girl I planned to fuck. But now, I’m a changed man. This tour I’ve made up a list of all the places I’m gonna defile Jules. First stop on the Tour De One Pussy, London Bridge!” He humped the air, waving one arm around like he had a lasso. “Really looking forward to fucking that off of my list.”

Jules walked up, her face wrinkled in disgust just as Rush had finished his sentence. Her eyes darted over to me, and she nodded. “See. We haven’t even left the studio, and I already have one I’m needing to slap the piss out of.” She smacked him, and he jumped back, rubbing his hand over his stinging chest.

“Sit the hell down and shut up!” Jules ordered.

Stone and Jag laughed and I let out a sigh as I took a seat. This was going to be my life for the next ten months. At this rate I was afraid Savannah’s first word would either be “fuck” or “pussy”.