Roxy (Pandemic Sorrow #3) (9 page)

I shrugged, knowing damn well the words that were about to explode from her mouth.

"She said that you, my sister, were with Jag-mother-fucking-Steele. Jag Steele! Are you kidding me right now? How in the hell did that happen, and why in the fuck didn't you call me? You know I love him. That is betrayal.” Layla shook her head, a sincere look of hurt falling over her face. “Betrayal on a level I can't even begin to explain to you. And don’t you try to deny it, because she snapped a picture on her phone and texted it to me!"

Her foot was shaking as she stared at me. I had no idea what to say. Everything had happened so fast, I hadn't had time to think about what I would do if someone actually
recognized
me with him, much less that it would be my sister, who was teetering on the verge of a psychotic obsession with the man.

"I ran into him the other night at Dick's."

Her nose scrunched up. "Dick's? What the hell was
he
doing
there
? What were
you
doing there…Oh, Roxy, stop doing that to yourself. It only makes it worse. It won’t make you feel any better about Sean." She shook her head, and I guess that's when she caught the sight of the bags piled up by my far wall. "Chanel? Oh. My. God. He
bought
you things? From
Chanel
?" Hopping up, she darted over to the bags, digging through them and gasping. "Please tell me you screwed him?"

"What? No!" I feigned disgust at the idea of it, even though I would have, had he only let me.

Layla released a disappointed sigh. "I can’t believe this. I can't even live
vicariously
through you." She folded the shirt she had bunched up in her hands and tossed it back into the bag. “This is real? You went out with my favorite celebrity. Although I want to kill you, I guess I can’t.” A devious smirk washed across her face and she wiggled her eyebrows at me. “Want to know why?”

My mind was still processing the fact that I had already gotten myself into a pile of shit. I was not suited, prepared, or mentally stable enough to be hurdled into the lifestyle that accompanied Jag, but I already felt hooked, trapped by my attraction to him, by my fascination and morbid curiosity of who he really was deep down.

“God only knows with you, Layla.”

She giggled and pulled her feet up on the couch as a proud grin formed on her face. “I fucked his brother!”

“What? You…Stone?” I felt my brow furrow. “You fucked Stone Steele?”

Totally confused on how, not really why, but how and when that had happened, I held my head and massaged my temples. “What?” I said again.

She nodded slowly and reassuringly, a glaze coating her eyes as she reminisced about it.

“When?”

“Last night. At a party I went to with Mallory.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Layla.”

“God, he is so hot. Best sex ever. Hands down. Unbelievable.” She popped the gum she had in her mouth, still smiling, and her eyes lighting up even more when she gloated, “And he has a huge cock. I bet that shit runs in the family, you should definitely check on that stat, Rox.” Another giddy, girlish giggle floated from her throat.

Although I was tempted to announce that I had already discovered just how well-endowed Jag was, I kept my mouth shut. “Yeah, okay. I’ll be sure to do that at some point.”

“What are the chances that both of us hooked up with Pandemic Sorrow? That is pretty amazing!”

I snarled my lip. “Uh, statistically speaking, it’s not that impressive. There’s been plenty of girls over the years that can claim that. And I’m not exactly ‘hooking up’ with him.”

Layla continued to rummage through my bags, pulling out things and gushing over them. The moment she found the receipt, her mouth dropped. “Holy fucking shit! Roxy, six-
thousand
dollars?” she screeched. Her bulging eyes darted up to mine. “Six-thousand-motherfucking-dollars?” Cupping her mouth with her hand, she muttered out a garbled, “He…likes you.”

Her hand fell from her face and her brow wrinkled. “He
likes
you!”

I shook my head, trying to downplay her revelation; but really, I was just trying to convince myself she was being ridiculous, because why would someone like him
like
someone like me. I was just entertaining to him, something a little different.

Someone like him? Since when did Jag Steele become a “someone like him”? Oh, this is bad.

“No, Layla. He just has a shit ton of money. That six-thousand dollars is probably not any different than you buying a homeless guy some cheap sandwich.”

“Whatever. I’m so jealous of you right now.”

She continued to ramble on about Jag and Stone, about how ironic this all was, about fate and how none of this would have happened had I not been such a bitch to him at the meet and greet all those weeks ago.

My brain couldn’t keep up with her incessant chatter because all I could think about was Jag. Moments after Layla had finally fallen silent, my phone chimed.

Leaning over to the side table, I picked it up and read the text. I had yet to save his number in my phone because I wasn’t ready to do that—saving someone’s number shows some level of commitment—but I recognized the first three numbers.

Are you a witch or something? Because I’m pretty sure you’ve possessed me. I can’t stop thinking about you, princess.

That text did nothing to help me. It makes it seem a lot less destructive when the person you’re obsessing over is obsessing over you too.

Chapter 11

I didn’t do too great of a job of ignoring his calls. And I never returned any of the things he bought me.

The very next day, there I was, with him again, even though I knew I shouldn’t be. I’d come to the conclusion that it was safe because it would go nowhere: He’d go back on tour and then forget about me. I enjoyed being around him, and more than anything, he had me intrigued. What would it hurt to hang around a bit longer?

He made me shaky inside and sweaty outside. I struggled to not trip over my words at times, but none of that was because of
who
he was; it was all because I liked him. The first few times I’d met him I was a cold bitch, and now, after spending days with him I had become a blubbering idiot when I was around him. I felt I was starting to resemble those dumb fans…at least that’s how I felt on the inside.

No, that couldn’t have been what I resembled because I turned into a blubbering idiot because I liked him. To me, he wasn’t a rock star. Actually, that side of him didn’t even seem real anymore. He was just a guy that I liked way too much. It felt good to like someone, and at the same time it absolutely terrified me.

Two days and two dates later, Jag called me again.

Thirty minutes later, he picked me up, and I didn’t even ask where we were going. I didn’t care. I just liked being with him. As fucked up as it may sound, I felt safe with him.

“You don’t care where we’re going?” he asked, turning off the interstate.

“Nope.”

“Hmm, that’s dangerous,” he growled. I could literally take you anywhere…wanna go to Paris?”

I glanced over at him, and he wasn’t joking.

“Serious. I can take you. Wanna go?”

“Uh, no.”

“Oh, come on. It’s fun. Beautiful city, plus I still haven’t spent as much time in the Louvre as I want.”

The Louvre? Are you serious? Who is this guy?

I snickered and adjusted in the seat. “The Louvre? You, Mr. Rock God, like art?”

He glared at me over the rim of his shades. “Yeah. I
make
art for a living; of course I like art…
and
—are you ready for this?—I also like
history. Shocking, right? I have a fucking brain, who knew?”

I felt heat paint its way across my cheeks. I shouldn’t have reacted like I was surprised. “I didn’t say you were stupid, I—”

Jag took a sharp left-hand turn, forcing me to slide across the smooth leather seat. “You didn’t have to. It’s what people think. I’m an addict, I’m famous and good-looking, which means I
must
be an idiot.”

He did have feelings, and his intelligence was evidently a sore topic. “Maybe next week we can go to Paris,” I said. But right now, where are we going?”

“Next week, huh? So, this isn’t just a one-night stand for you then?”

My cheeks flushed even more; by now I’m sure they were candy-apple red. I didn’t know what to say because I didn’t want to seem stupid. I didn’t want him to think I naively expected this to go anywhere. Honestly, I didn’t know what the hell to think about any of it.

Jag parked the car, got out, and opened my door.

I looked around and smiled. “The beach? Well, isn’t this a
normal
place to bring a girl?”

He shrugged and took my hand into his, softly stroking the inside of my palm with his thumb. “I like normal every once and a while.”

We walked out onto the sand and down to the coast. The sticky air whipped my hair around, and the sound of the waves crashing onto the shoreline made my body relax.

Jag pulled me closer to him and placed his arm around my hip. “So, what’s your favorite color?”

“Glitter.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Glitter’s not a color.”

“Sure it is. It’s not clear, it’s iridescent. It’s got all the colors.”

“Okay, well, besides glitter, what’s your favorite color?”

“Grey.”

He snorted, stopping mid-stride to look at me. “Grey? Really?”

Nodding, I said, “Yep. It’s the color of storm clouds. I love storms. I love rain because it washes all the dirt away. It doesn’t give nature a choice, it just cleanses.”

That comment took him a second to digest; I could tell by the way he studied me and the slight curl that caught one corner of his mouth that my words had impressed him.

“Grey. Okay…what’s your favorite food?”

“Greek.”

“Favorite book?”

“Frankenstein.”

“Favorite animal?”

“I don’t know. A black and white marmoset monkey.”

“That’s specific…” He chuckled, and immediately went on to ask, “What about your favorite thing anyone’s ever done for you?”

I stopped. That was a random, odd question. “What?”

Jag brushed the hair from his face and pushed his shades on top of his head. His eyes gleamed and he grinned. “What’s the most amazing thing anyone’s ever done or said to you?”

“I don’t…know.”

I thought, my mind sorted through my memories and fell on one of Sean talking to me when I was sixteen. My boyfriend had broken up with me because his parents didn’t approve of his dating a girl from “the wrong side of the tracks.” But then again, what parent would really be excited about their son dating the daughter of a meth-head and dealer? During our break-up, the guy had told me that I just wasn’t the kind of person he could associate with. Sean was livid, I could see it in his eyes, but he stayed calm and promised me that I’d be something more than what we’d come from one day.

I looked down at my feet slowly sinking in the sand and tried not to choke up as I said, “The most amazing thing anyone has ever done was believe in me and tell me I was better than what I’d come from.”

In that moment Jag’s eyes softened. Tilting his head to the side, he gently swept his fingers across my jaw and nodded. “You are. You
are
unlike anyone I’ve ever met. You’re…I don’t even have a word for what you are. But people like you,” his eyes narrowed farther, “are one in a million and I’m damn lucky you put me in my place at that meet and greet.”

That nearly knocked the breath out of me.

Without hesitation, Jag grabbed onto me and we resumed walking down the beach.

“I like it here because most people don’t pay me any attention. Anyone seems small standing next to the ocean, and I like that.” He drew in a breath, and then squeezed my hip. “So, your turn. Ask me questions.”

“The same ones?”

He shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

“Favorite color?”

“Red.”

“Why?”

Arching both brows at me, he said, “You ready to have your mind fucked a little?”

If he only knew how fucked my mind already was.
“Mind fuck away.”

“It reminds me of blood and bleeding means you’re feeling; it means you’re hurt and that eventually the pain will stop or you’ll be numb. And that’s all I want.”

Ouch. He’s damaged. Really damaged.

“So you got why grey’s my color, then.” We walked for a few moments, neither saying a word, both just staring down at our feet as we trudged through the cold, wet sand.

“Umm…” I paused, trying to remember the questions he’d randomly fired at me. “Favorite food?”

“Thai. And I mean Thai in Thailand. That shit is an orgasm for your mouth.”

“Favorite book?” I fully expected
Hustler
or
Playboy
, but instead, he shocked me.

“
The Picture of Dorian Grey
by Oscar Wilde.”

“What?” Realizing how stunned I sounded, I tried to recover. “I love that book too. Crazy.”

Jag cut his eyes at me, letting me know I didn’t cover up my shock too well. “Yeah, it’s a great book. Scandalous back then, almost corrupt. It always interested me.” He laughed. “What, did you expect me to say the May 2012 issue of
Playboy
?”

“No,” I said, defending myself too quickly. “I just never thought the two of us would have so much in common.”

“Okay, Roxy. It’s okay. I’m not that guy everyone thinks I am—well, at least not for the most part. The whole god-of-sex thing, you can keep on believing that, because
that
is true.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes and nudge him with my shoulder. “Okay, so what was next? What’s your favorite animal?”

“Bald eagle.”

“Very patriotic.”

He nodded.

“And,” I stopped to stare up at him. “What is the most amazing thing someone has ever done for you? What’s the best thing anyone has told you?”

His smile deepened and he turned to fully face me. All I could see was him, his hair whirling around in the breeze, and behind him the ocean. That moment was one that burned itself into my memory, one that I can recall like it were a picture stored deep inside my heart.

“Well, that’s two different questions, but both came from the same person.” He pressed a soft kiss to my lips, then pulled away and locked his eyes onto mine. “The most amazing thing anyone has ever done for me was make me feel real one night in some run-down dive bar, and my favorite thing anyone has ever told me was that they didn’t really like my music.” A nervous laugh rumbled from his chest. “You are the most amazing thing that has ever broken me.”

Again, this man had left me speechless, utterly surprised, and weak as hell.

*****

After spending hours on the beach just walking and talking, I was absolutely ruined. There were so many layers to him, there was such an interesting person inside hidden from everyone else. I knew I had become tangled up in him and that the only way out would be by getting hurt.

Jag drove me back to his house, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious what his home was like. Who wouldn’t be curious about a lifestyle most people never get a glimpse into except on television and MTV Cribs?

He pulled up to a gate, punched in a code, and then drove up a bricked drive to the front of a white stucco house.

He parked outside of the three-door garage, and we walked up the cobblestone sidewalk. The front was lined with impressive landscaping. Manicured trees, bushes, and enough flowers to look like a botanical garden. The lights shining on the front of the house nearly blinded me as I followed him to the front stoop. This house was ridiculous.

It was huge, it was flashy; it was definitely Jag.

“Don’t judge me, okay?” Jag grumbled as he jabbed his key into the lock and turned the key. The large rod iron door swung open, without a sound, and the lights automatically flickered on.

Everything was white. The foyer was white marble from floor to ceiling, with stairs curving up to the far right of the room.

My eyes darted everywhere, taking in pieces of art and furniture that had been staged, and I’m sure had never been intended to be used.

“I don’t even go up there.” He pointed to the second floor. “Kind of ridiculous, you know?”

I wrinkled my brow and followed him through the arched doorway that opened into his living room. “Well, what’s up there?”

“Rooms,” he said, tossing his keys on the counter.

Yeah. So I figured.

Everything was sleek, black and white, and absolutely spotless. The living room had each of Pandemic Sorrow’s album covers framed and hung on the far wall. To the side in a cubby were Grammys, MTV music awards, and other trophies of the band’s accomplishments.

I had never in my life been in a house like this. It looked like a page out of a magazine, and it in no way looked lived in.

“Damn, it’s so clean.”

I was now mortified that he had been in my house. I shook my head as I remembered the cobweb I kept neglecting to wipe out of the corner of the living room and figured he must think I was an absolute slob. Even if my apartment had of been cleaned by a professional cleaning service it would have still seemed dingy and poor compared to this spectacle.

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s not on me though. I have housekeepers. I’ll be right back.”

Of course you do. Housekeepers. Plural. Shit. He’s American pop-culture royalty.

I watched him disappear into a hallway and stood, jaw slightly hanging and staring around the room in absolute awe.

In the hallway were several abstract pieces of art, and in the middle of them the Salvador Dali quote “Only few people know the real me” had been painted in swirly letters.
He is absolutely alone. Just like me.
That wall was one he had to pass every day. Where it was painted, there was no way to avoid looking at it. It was like he needed a daily reminder that he wasn’t the guy people thought he was. I’d thought he took so much pride in being Jag Steele, but every minute I spent with him, the deeper I got with him, the more I realized he wasn’t comfortable in his own skin. And in that moment it struck me that his addiction wasn’t about the glitz and glamour, or about trying to be the epitome of a rock star; it was a way to cope with living a lie.