Roxy (Pandemic Sorrow #3) (27 page)

“Just fuck!” Stone groaned, tossing his hands up to his head.

All the guys went out to wait for their cue, and I stayed behind, praying Jag would come out of that bathroom.

The door opened and Jules popped her head in. “He’s still in there, huh?”

I nodded.

“Shit,” she sighed and plopped down on the couch, burying her face in her hands.

I heard the water turn on, then seconds later Jag came out. His entire face was drenched in sweat, his hair clinging to his defined cheekbones. Using a hand towel, he wiped across his mouth. His eyes were wide and his hands clenched by his sides. He looked terrified, and for a moment I felt like he was silently pleading with me to help him. But I couldn’t.

I glanced at Jules, hoping she could do something to make his nerves better.

"Come on, Jag," she said, walking to him and taking him by the arm. "You'll be fine after this show. I promise. This is what you do. This is who you are."

He jerked free from her hold. "You have no idea who I am.
This
never was me." Grabbing his guitar, he shot a look over at me, forced a smile, then made his toward the stage.

Jules let go of another sigh while she watched him disappear into the dark corridor. "He'll be fine."

"You think you could do something about that other fucking band doing that shit?" I pointed to the overturned table and the coke sprinkled over the floor. "Jag can't be around that."

A scowl crept across her face. "Fucking shit! I told them before we started the tour that they couldn’t do that shit around him. Yeah, I’ll set them straight. Sorry, Roxy. I thought they had more damn sense than that.”

I stood in the doorway listening to the screaming crowd. The sound of the amps rang out, barely muffled by the cinder block walls. I waited. Stones guitar wailed and Pax’s drums rang out in even beats, and, just like I'd feared, Jag missed his cue.

My stomach knotted.

The guys continued to play, flawlessly covering up the mistake. When I heard Jag belt out the first few lyrics, relief washed over me. I made my way down the corridor to the side of the stage and watched him.

Jag’s head was bowed, his hair falling around his face as he sang into the microphone. His left foot gently tapped the stage in beat with Pax’s drums.

His arms looked rigid, stiff, like he was clutching to his mic in absolute fear. It wasn’t until the last part of the song that his head raised. I watched him scan over the crowd and then, when the climax of the song hit, he let go. The rock star I’d watched four years ago, and had at one point thought was completely untouchable, came out.

He
could
do this.

He could be Jag without the drugs, and the amount of anxiety that vanished at that moment was immeasurable.

Chapter 38

Three weeks of tours in the US, sixteen shows, and Jag was still throwing up before every single performance. Between the shows and his anxiety about performing, he was lucky to get three hours of sleep at night.

It had gotten so bad that he wouldn’t even go to the backstage area and hang out with the guys. He couldn’t handle it. He’d just sit with me in the designated “fuck and suck” room, waiting on Jules to come get him right when he had to go on.

Jag had told me countless times he wanted out of the industry. He swore he couldn’t keep doing this, and had actually called James, begging him to let him buy his way out of his contract. He’d even gone as far as compiling a list of other singers who could take his place in the band.

I felt helpless.

I wanted him to be happy, but even if he got out of the band, even if he left fame behind, that wouldn’t solve anything. He thought his problem was fame, and although that didn’t help anything, Jag’s problem was just addiction. Running away from fame, giving up on what he loved wouldn’t fix that.

If he left this all behind, I knew he would become depressed and that I would eventually lose him. Honestly, this tour was making me feel like with Jag it really was a losing battle. I had never seen addiction so engrained in someone, so much a part of them that they had a problem even identifying who they were.

After the show in New York we went directly to La Guardia and boarded a plane to London. The guys were exhausted; Jag hadn’t even washed off the eyeliner that had sweated down his face.

Eight hours on a plane with a four-month-old was pure torture. Savannah had screamed the majority of the time, much to the displeasure of the other first-class passengers.

Jag had dark circles underneath his eyes and he kept nodding off. He was completely exhausted, and only woke up when he could no longer block out the shrill screams.

“Savannah, baby, what is it?” I asked, trying to force the pacifier in her mouth.

“Oh, my
God
!” Jag sat up, wide awake. “Give her a bottle or something. Fuck!”

Glaring at him, I said, “I tried that, and changing her, and rocking her…”

He stood up, obviously annoyed when he loudly said, “I’m used to getting dirty looks on planes, but those looks were usually because of me publically groping and attempting to fuck the stewardesses.”

Everyone around us was staring. I decided to ignore that little outburst and tried to rock Savannah back to sleep.

He ran his hand over the back of his head. “Sorry, sorry. I’m tired. I’m just fucking tired. Let me try.”

Jag took her and walked the aisles. Patting her back, he sang to her. Everyone in first class directed their attention to him, whispering, smiling, amazed at the tenderness of the rocker dressed all in black.

After just one song, she’d fallen asleep and he sat down, cradling her.

“I guess she’s gotten used to that, huh?” he asked, smiling at me.

“Yeah, I would say she’s spoiled on that.”

I turned to say something else to him, but he’d already nodded off again, still holding her to his chest.

Although I was tired as hell, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to stare at the two of them.

Moments like that were priceless.

Moments like that were mine and no one else’s.

*****

We’d just settled into the hotel. Heather had gone out to pick up some diapers and other toiletries, and I had just put Savannah down.

I wanted to sleep, I needed to sleep, but I was jet lagged and my body wouldn’t cooperate.

Jag had been restless since we’d gotten in. Up and down, from room to room. He’d made and unmade the bed. Unpacked most of our clothes, set up the pack and play, and cleaned the already spotless spa-sized bathroom.

"I'm going out. I need to go out," he said, brushing my hair from my shoulder and kissing down my neck.

I groaned and ran my fingers through his messy hair, pulling him to me. "I don't want to do anything but lay right here. I'm exhausted." I bit down on my lip and eyed him. He was in nothing but some ripped jeans and looked so fucking sexy. I peered over to the pack and play and saw that Savannah was sleeping soundly. “You know what? I think we need some time to talk about how much we love each other. Physically talk.” I reached for the waist of his jeans, but he walked away. It was like he hadn’t even heard what I’d just said to him.

"I didn't say you had to go. I'm just gonna go out with the guys."

I turned and looked at him as he tugged a shirt from a hanger. He pulled the black V-neck over his head and sat down on the edge of the sofa to put on his shoes.

“What guys?”

“My guys and the guys from Asher’s band.”

I didn't want him to go out. I didn't trust him, especially not with the guys from that other band.

"You're going out? Really?"

He raised both eyebrows, a look of defiance on his face. "Yep." He tied his laces, stood up, and smoothed out the wrinkles in his shirt.

“I just said I wanted to fuck you…”

He glanced in the mirror and combed through his hair with his fingers.

I laughed, trying to control my breathing so he couldn't tell how angry I was getting. "Uh, you’re not going out!"

Jag tilted his head slightly, narrowing his eyes at me in the mirror, and thumbing over his piercings. "I didn't ask you if I could, princess. I said I was." He held his stare on me and wet his lips with his tongue. "It wasn't a question."

I sat up, clutching the throw pillow in my hands. My pulse was steadily throbbing in my neck.

He had never acted like this with me. He never denied me what I wanted. Since we’d been together, he had never gone anywhere without me, at least not when I was in the same city as him.

"And just where are you guys gonna go? Huh?"

"Shit, I don't know. Out."

"No," I stood up and walked toward him, my nostrils flaring with each breath, "You are not!"

I knew I sounded like a controlling, jealous bitch, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t jealousy making me act that way, it was the fear coursing its way through me.

He laughed and shook his head, running his hand up the back of his neck. "You don't fucking trust me, do you? You think I'm going to fuck around on you? Is that it? Or you think I'm gonna fuck up.” He paused, his eyes pulsing open momentarily. “Maybe you think I'm gonna do both?”

“Over the past month, you’ve told me countless times you just want one line. Just one drink. Something!” I wiped my hands down my face, trying to keep myself from tearing up. “And I get that, Jag. I get that you need to talk about it. But you know what’s fucked up, what really makes me worry that you don’t have control of this?”

He tossed his hands up and his lips laid straight across his face. “Nah, I don’t. I’ve not even had a fucking sip of alcohol. Fuck, Roxy. I haven’t even taken a damn Tylenol since I got out of rehab.”

“I woke up the other night to you buying drugs in your sleep—”

He froze. “What?” he asked, his brow wrinkled with confusion and fear.

“Yeah.” I swallowed back the lump forming in my throat. “You were talking in your sleep, to some guy named Twitch about getting some blow. You said, ‘Just don't tell Rox, okay, man? I just miss it. Just a little blow, you know?’” I sighed, my shoulders falling as I continued, “So I'm sorry if I have a little problem with my husband—who is a recovering addict that almost killed himself twice in the past year and a half—going out with his guys who go through drugs like they do women.” By this point I had balled my hands into fists and my voice was shaking.

Jag stood, silently staring through me as that statement sank in, and just like that, he shook his head, rolled his eyes at me, waving his hand through the air as though he felt I was being ridiculous.

“Jagger! You’re not going, are you?” I hadn’t realized I was yelling until I caught Savannah squirming out of the corner of my eye.

“Stop your fucking bitchin' before you wake Savannah up, would you? I'm going out. I'll see you when I get back. Okay?” He leaned down to kiss me, and I jerked away.

An angry groan rumbled up his throat, and I tensed, waiting on him to punch a wall, but he didn’t. He just turned and walked through the room to the foyer.

“Jag Steele! You better not leave me here,” my voice bounced from the tall ceiling.

He continued on his way toward the door. “You've got Heather. You're not alone.” He threw his hand up, rubbing his thumb over his wedding band. “See. I'm taken. Still got it on. Love you, princess.”

And then he slammed the door.

I was livid. But more than anything I felt sick to my stomach. It knotted up when I thought about him being out at a club. God only knew how much coke Pax or one of the guys in that other band would have on them, and all it would take was one time…and that would be it.

One hit and Jag would start that spiral, and I wasn't willing to keep going down it with him. I loved him, but I had given him that second chance. And if I gave him a third, it would turn into a fourth, then a fifth, and eventually into me staring at him lying in a casket.

I was angry at him, hurt that he had left even though he knew I didn’t want him to, and absolutely terrified of what shit he would get into.

I sat there fuming, worrying, and my thoughts were interrupted by a timid knock on the door, followed by Heather calling, “Hey, Mrs. Steele?”

I
hated
that she called me that.

“I’ve got the diapers and other things you needed. Mr. Steele just called and told me to come by and help with the baby.”

Grumbling, I got off the couch. “It’s Roxy and Jag, Heather. Don’t be so formal with us, for God’s sake. We are
not
formal, and you’re not that much younger than us.” I yanked the door open, and she almost fell into the foyer with two full paper bags from the market.

“Here.” I took one of the bags and made my way through to the kitchen.

“Are you okay?” She asked, setting the bag down and securing her blonde ponytail. “You look upset.”

Fuck, she was nosy. Nodding, I pulled the diapers from the bag. “Yeah, I’m just…I’m just tired.”

“Oh,” She stood, awkwardly staring at me like there was something she knew that I didn’t.

I nodded. “I’m fine. You can go back to your room, or go out, or go screw Stone…whatever you want to do.”

Her cheeks turned a deep pink. “Uh, well…” she giggled, “as much as I would like to go entertain your brother-in-law, I was told to stay here.”

“What?” I furrowed my brow and placed my hands on the cold granite countertop to steady myself.

She shrugged and tilted her head. “Mr.—” She caught herself and cleared her throat, then smiled. “Jag, he called me and told me I had to come stay
the night
over here.”

Slapping my hand over my hip, I glared at her. “Oh, really?”

“Yep. He said he was going to be out for the night and he wanted to make sure you had someone to help with the baby. You know, so you could get some good rest.” Her lipstick-stained lips curled and her eyes sparkled under the canned lighting. “He’s such a sweet guy—not at all like I thought he’d be, you know, like a cocky rock star or something. I’ve worked for some that are just complete asses, would never put their wife first—I’d kill to be you!”

“Uh-huh.” I nodded, chewing on the inside of my cheek and ignoring the rest of the babbling tirade about how great Jag was. The entire time she swooned, I fumed.

When she’d finished, I excused myself and went into the master bath.

At that moment part of me wished I hadn’t come on tour with him.

Ignorance is bliss, well, was bliss…I could just imagine how great being oblivious to all the dark, ugly things going on around me could be.
I really wish that I’d stayed my ass at home, in my comfortable Long Beach mansion, having play dates with some of those celebrity moms Jag keeps suggesting I hang out with. If I’d just done that, I could easily have pretended he was better. I could have gone on believing that this was something that would last, that addiction was just a fleeting memory that reared its nasty head every once and a while.

But I knew that night was the beginning of the end; I knew that this tour had just snagged a thread in him that would completely unravel everything, and would leave nothing but the memory of what he once was.

I couldn’t escape my fate. I had been born into a fucked-up world, and I couldn’t escape it.

****

I woke up to check on Savannah, and Jag wasn’t in the bed with me. There was an empty bottle on the nightstand by the pack and play so I figured he must have come back.

I wandered through the suite looking for him, praying he had just gone to sleep in the spare room, and that I wouldn’t walk out to find him leaned over lines of cocaine.

I went in every room in that hotel suite and never found him. By the time I walked out of the living room, I was furious.

I grabbed my phone and dialed his number. It was four in the morning, and there was no reason he should still be out.