Weathering Jack Storm (Silver Strings G Series) (10 page)

Liz was drawing near, and inserted, “Of course’ it’s all money changing hands. But some publications have a longstanding agreement of level totals.” Shrugging, the vibrant girl cheerily declared, “I never understand. I just say what I’m told.”

Marissa gulped another drink. Dread spilled through her gut, seeping and soaking into the stamina she had built for this new life. Living in the public eye was something that, on many nights lately, she had lain awake considering–along with everything else that came with Jack. Now that the technicalities of that publicity were upon her, panic pervaded.

“Usually, you would be let off the hook with a zero or one,” Jack explained of the levels. “Especially at a casual party like this,”

“Yeah,” Liz inserted. “The wives are lucky. They hide them.”

Jack scowled darkly in response, and in good nature, the chatty bass player held her hands up in a surrendering pose before backing off.

Gathering his thoughts, Jack continued, “Somehow word has already gotten around about Tristan, and I’m not going to hide something that will eventually come to light. That would make it look like I was ashamed of it in the first place. Which I’m not.”

Her gaze slid from Jack’s face to the rest of the room. Liz was conversing with Chris. Reed returned with Emma on his heels.

Jack continued, “Of the eleven interviews tonight, you have been requested in three. Two of those, you just laugh when I say something funny.” Here, he raised his brows pulling a giggle from her even in this nervous state. “Or give short answers. They know not to ask you anything crazy if you are a ‘one.’ But ‘Musicians Muse’ wants you as a ‘three.’” He named a publication quickly gathering the prestige of ‘Rolling Stone Magazine.’ “And our manager thinks this exposure would be good to kick off the album–and wants me to ask you to do it.”

“Ask?” Emma sarcastically inserted from across the room. Like he had done to Liz, Jack glowered, but Emma held her ground. “Be straight with her. It’s more of an order.”

“He may think he owns us. But he damn sure doesn’t own her.” Jack’s dark eyes flashed, and his tone was hard.

Taking Marissa’s hand, he tugged her into the hall and then down the hall. Behind one side of a pair of double doors was a tiny bathroom and he pulled her in. The door softly clicked closed, and as she curiously examined the compact space, he turned away taking his, so eloquently called by Emma, ‘piss break.’

Sensing there was more to this interview discussion than briefing her of her part in it, she leaned against the wall. “What do you want me to do?”

Sidling up next to her, he rinsed his hands, dried them, and then raked them through his hair as he focused on his reflection.

“This is the last record with this company. Tonight is the last of a few publicity appearances for them.” For a few moments, he dropped his eyes into the pedestal sink, and then turned. “I don’t want a company to capitalize on the most important thing to ever happen in my life.” His dark eyes were stoic with business, and then melted with emotion. “Our life.” The acute business persona stole back mixing with the other expressions on his features. “I want you to insist on remaining at a one. Also, require that a disclosure be made up stopping me, or anyone involved with the band, from talking about you or Tristan. From even saying or implying your name in an interview unless you consent.”

“A disclosure against you?”

Jack went on quickly explaining how his hands were legally tied when it came to the record label. And, that she could legally tie them in a way that freed him, in this one way, from the company’s demands. Then, when they got ready, they could announce themselves as a family. Because they wanted to. Not because some entity wanted to capitalize on it.

“I thought you wanted to explain Tristan...”

“Before this became a publicity circus, yes. As it is, it’s out there already. I’m sure they will hit you up to be allowed questions. But this way, we can decide what we want to answer and when.”

“Fine.” she agreed. When she laid her hand on his hand, to both give and seek support, he pulled her into a hug.

“It won’t always be this crazy.”

“Okay.” She didn’t care. She would take whatever came with being with him.

His phone bleeped for the third time since their seclusion in the room. At last, he looked at it and then rammed it back into the clip. “Gotta get back. Get through this.”

Back in the music room, Jack went directly to Emma.

Marissa watched as they quietly spoke, and the publicist glared beyond him, at her. Obviously displeased, the woman gestured and rattled off something that could not be heard over the din of everyone else talking, and Liz’s spontaneous bass chords.

Jack returned, and with his back to Emma flashed a smile. “So your level is a three for ‘Music Muse,’ and everything else we talked about is understood.”

For another half hour, Emma referred to an electronic tablet as she schooled answers to dozens of questions as if she were a teacher and the band members were students. Then, she handed each a sheath of papers.

As the others began scrawling what appeared to be multiple signatures, Emma began on Marissa. Like a drill Sargent, the woman did not let up until Marissa had memorized every word, of every answer, to every possible question.

A couple of times Jack sent Marissa a look from across the table as if gauging her endurance. When “Emmajesty” finally dismissed everyone, no one wasted anytime exiting first the room, then the house.

DAX AND TRISTAN HA
D
been joined in their nap session by Randi who lay stretched on the last empty length of the sectional.

Marissa sank to share a cushion with Tristan’s feet. With much chagrin, she realized that her son had been wearing his new PJ’s for almost a full day. The windows were quickly losing light.

Goodbyes echoed from the hall rousing the three of them, and Tristan’s sleepy eyes looked into hers.

“Momma, you’re back...”

“I missed you.” Touching her lips to his fine hair, she accessed his happy features and asked, “Want something to drink? Then we can get you dressed and–”

“Daddy said I didn’t have to get dressed today.”

“Really? Daddy said that?”

Nodding, he sat up rubbing his eyes. A large clock adorned one vast wall, and its wide stretched hands depicted the time as after six. It was an odd feeling to know the day, as Tristan and she normally knew it, was almost over. Yet here, tonight, it was barely beginning for her.

“Daddy said I could wear my pajamas all day, and then we could go swimming all day tomorrow.”

Having Jack make arbitrary decisions about Tristan was going to take some adjusting to. Even though these types of decisions were minor, and he had always consulted her concerning anything major, the loss of complete control felt odd.

Tristan trailed her to the kitchen where she searched for plastic cups by randomly opening cabinets. Jack had served Tristan with one both last night and this morning. The breakable glasses were logically located right next to the fridge. As she continued to look, Randi and Dax, both still heavy lidded from sleep, sauntered into the room.

“Looking for these?” Dax joked while waving a box of cookies.

“Yes!” Tristan enthused, clamoring to a chair in preparation for a snack.

“Actually, I was looking for plastic cups.” To Tristan, she admonished, “I thought you could have some supper before cookies.”

“There are no plastic cups here,” Randi spoke, and at the same time Dax produced the requested cup from a shelf beneath the island.

“They are down low so he can reach them,” Dax explained and looked so proud that Marissa knew he must have been the one to put them there.

“Since when are there plastic cups?” Randi wondered, then followed Dax’s gaze to Tristan and answered her own question. “Oh. Since someone became a daddy...”

Randi actually looked content at the thought of Jack with a family, and puzzling on the lingerina and Jack just couldn’t be any more confusing.

“Can’t I have one cookie now? Please Mom..ma?”

“You know what? Have three cookies. Have four! And I will be right back.”

Randi and Dax exchanged a look between themselves, but she felt no remorse for her outburst as she whipped around. Her intention was to search for Jack, but she turned smack into his hard chest.

Automatically, his arms wrapped her holding tight even after she regained balance. “Where’re you running off to?”

Safe in his embrace from all the weirdness of the day some of the pent-up stress dissipated, and she blew out a relaxed breath.

“Actually, I was going to ask if you had any ideas on Tristan’s supper.”

“Food sounds amazing. Order a pizza?”

“Oh yes!” Tristan exclaimed, and she turned in time to see him ball a fist and move his arm in a triumphant motion. “Pizza. Four times in a row.”

“You didn’t have pizza for breakfast,” she protested feeling guilty for so many pizzas even if they were nutritious.

“He did,” Jack replied, and their son solemnly nodded. “We ate the leftovers from last night. Then he had cereal too.”

“For desert. Because it’s sugar,” Tristan intoned of the frosted crispy flakes earlier splashed atop the table.

Knowing that Tristan was, in all likelihood, repeating something witty ‘Daddy’ had said, her eyes went to Jack who was setting up the coffee maker.

“And speaking of sugar,” Jack turned, his dark gaze both twinkling and parental as it went to their son, “I hope you are not eating cookies before real food...”

“Momma said I could.”

“Okay then. As long as you asked.”

Marissa felt her mouth drop open as her son smugly finished the cookie in his hand, and both Dax and Randi hid their giggles.

Choose your battles
...She had read the phrase once in a parenting magazine, and now she took it to heart deciding to stay silent. Technically, it was true. She had told him to have four cookies! Crossing the room, she snatched a couple of cookies to tide her empty stomach over until ‘real food’ arrived.

Jack was intent on the screen of his phone, and he requested input as he poked an order into the app.

“Pepperoni and jalapeno,” Tristan sang out his usual order, and without looking up, Jack just shook his head with a silent smile having already experienced that unusual order from his four-year old.

“Thomas will be here in a half hour,” Randi reminded of the stylist then arranged with Dax to use the shower in his room.

The pizza arrived, and Marissa got Tristan settled. Dax sat at the table with him, and both she and Jack stood at the bar eating. She was so ravenous that she was barely chewing. Jack seemed to be preoccupied vaguely staring out the glass doors in between snippets of conversation with her and Dax.

“I should get a shower.” Ignoring Rusty’s hopeful look, Marissa wisely tossed her crusts into the trash bin.

“Your stuff is upstairs,” Dax informed around a mouthful of his order.

With a murmur of thanks, she headed to the second floor and found her bedroom empty. Continuing to the end of the hall, she pushed open Jack’s bedroom door. Sure enough, her purchases were on the unmade bed.

Opening the dress box, she checked for wrinkles. Finding it fine, she hesitated over where to take a shower. With her mind made up, she carefully laid the dress out flat on the bed then pushed closed first the bedroom door and next the bathroom door.

Like last night, she paused stunned for a minute by the beauty of the huge bathroom. Taking a towel from the chrome rack, she hung it on a hook next to the glass doors, and began to let her clothes fall to the floor.

Stepping into the massive shower, she contemplated the chrome panel set into the tile. A tiny digital screen read ‘READY.’ Instead of twisting the manual lever, as she had the previous night, she moved away from the showerheads. Tentatively, she pressed a button and the digit ‘one’ appeared. This was not much different from a microwave. The numeral one was blinking and hoping her presumptions were close to correct, she pressed ‘start.’

The harsh blare of metal music assaulted her ears, yet the blue light streaming through the shower spray captivated her eyes. Putting a hand out, she found the water a pleasant temperature, but the music was not pleasing at all.

Pressing the first button again made the screen blink, and another push brought a flashing two. She hit enter, and leaped back when cool water doused her body. The music had not stopped, but the light show was now red.

The panicked push of buttons never gave her an option without Jack’s music preference. When she couldn’t seem to turn the shower off altogether, she resigned to a fate of screamo music and went back to the first setting which would at least be warm.

Opening her eyes after a long relaxing minute beneath the spray, she realized her next mistake in choosing Jack’s shower.

Her eyes scanned over male shampoos and shower gels, and she knew she would come out of this shower smelling of mint and spices instead of vanilla and berries.

Pooling gel into a washrag, she began to bathe, but affixed startled eyes through the glass when one of the double doors opened. Relaxing when she saw Jack, she continued soaping up and watched, wary but interested, as his clothes joined hers on the floor.

His usual smirk evolved into an outright grin, and she knew he realized that she was trapped into the music selection. The shower was much larger than the one at her house, but Jack crowding it took her breath away just the same.

“Thought I’d find you here,” he rumbled close to her ear as she easily surrendered the plush rag to him.

“Why? Because I said I was going to shower?” She yelled over the music and curved a taunting smile watching as his hair begin to plaster to his head and down his neck and shoulders.

“Ha, Mariss. So funny.”

But she wasn’t laughing and neither was he. Draping the washcloth over one of the showerheads, he soaped up his hands, and her eyes fell closed as she enjoyed the slip and slide of his fingers on her skin.

“Can we turn it off?” she begged when the sound compromised her complete enjoyment of the moment. “Or at least down?”

His arm stretched to a panel that she had not noticed, way higher up on the wall, and the blissful sound of only water followed. He gave her a rundown on the functioning of the automated system, but was quickly back to his soapy task.

“Tristan still eating?” She wasn’t yet used to not having to worry where he was every second. As much as she trusted Jack, she didn’t know how responsible Dax was.

“No. He’s playing guitar for Randi.” He had moved behind her, and spoke into her neck while his hands skimmed down her sides.

“Jack...” She couldn’t believe she was going to say what she was about to. Never, even in the years of being engaged to her ex, had this happened. Then again, never had she been sexed up so many times in a week. And certainly not by anyone so–

Even as she thought in terms of size, it was there firm against the small of her back as Jack crowded her to the wall.

With those decorated arms braced on either side of her body, and his breath hotter than the steam of the shower against her face, extreme deja vu overtook the moment.

This was how Tristan had been added to their life.

As if sensing the turn of her thoughts, possibly experiencing the same deja vu, he made the husky assurance, “I brought a condom.”

If only her problem could be solved that easy.

“I can’t. I’m—I’m sore. Real sore.” The whispered admission spilled past her reluctant lips.

His hands stilled, then one quickly retreated from its intimate local, and she swallowed her disappointment. Easing up slightly, he still maintained his close stance, keeping her against him and the wall, and she miserably stared at the tile and grout.

“Damn, Mariss. I’m sorry honey. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I am. Telling you. It wasn’t like this till today.”

“I’m sorry honey...” He repeated the apology and sounded so miserable that she almost regretted telling him. “I just can’t seem to stay off you. But I will.” His arms curved around her waist holding her back against him. Then, his voice changed, going from soft and gentle, to soft and seductive. “Want me to kiss it better?”

Her insides fluttered and flamed, the afflicted area suddenly throbbing.

“Did Thomas get here yet? I should hurry if he is here.”

“Thomas?” Jack sounded a touch suspicious.

“The stylist.” Immediately, she regretted the sarcasm that coated her answer. For a moment, she had forgotten that Jack was a part of the world of stylists. He had even once mentioned the one that prepped the band for photos.

“Thomas can wait while I do my part to get you ready for tonight.”

“And how is this–” By now, he had turned her to him and dropped to kissing it better level, and she sucked in a gasp at the first touch of his tongue. “...going to get me ready for tonight?”

He took his time with this intimate ‘kiss’ before answering. Her fingers dug into his shoulder, her eyes helplessly on the top of his dark head. Brushing his lips against her, he whispered, “If you get nervous, just think of this.”

Thinking of this was sure to get her flustered, but she wasn’t going to argue the point. Unlike the shower at her house, the water in this one never turned cold. With the warmth continuing to wash over her, along with physical heat waves, she leaned against him after collapsing on his lap.

His lap that she was quickly becoming aware of... Finally, able to think, she moved her lips against his neck and her hand down offering, “Let me–”

When her fingers closed around him, he groaned and carefully eased off the tiled seat from under her to stand before her. “All yours,” and almost before his whisper was done, he was done.

Her limbs were like Jell-O as they stepped out of the tiled stall. Ignoring the towel on the hook, he passed over another. Touching her face to it, she raised her eyes in a surprised query.

“What?” His smile was sweet, enjoying the aftermath between them.

“How is it so warm?”

“Hmm? Oh the towel? Heated towel rack. It comes on when the shower does.”

“What if you’re already hot?” She followed him into the bedroom.

“Too bad I guess.” His smirk did all the usual things to her insides, and warmed her heart as much as the sweet smile that had preceded it.

Jack plucked an iPad from his side table and fell face down on the bed careful to keep his distance from her dress. Raising his head just enough and just long enough to see, he pressed at the buttons. Music pounded at a subdued decibel from an iPod tower in the corner of the room.