Weathering Jack Storm (Silver Strings G Series) (27 page)

‘Jackie, every day brings you closer.’

‘Heh, 2 nites, can’t wait...’

‘Jackie, could you have your guard unhand me?’

‘You make it home ok sweetheart?’

‘Great night, total agreement. Hey the next few weeks will be crazy no time for texts…’

And that was the end of Kelly

The text messages were addictive and before she knew it she had passed hours cyber eavesdropping through various phone numbers.

“Knock, knock…” Dax’s voice caused her to drop the most current lit screen. She was mortified, but he grinned as he looked around at the clutter. “The hoarder room.”

“I know this looks weird,” she stammered, “but a drawer full of phones was bizarre and before I knew it—”

“No need to explain. I’ve used them for late night reading myself. Don’t know why he doesn’t just toss them. Probably, because one had your number in it,” he quirked a grin.

“You mean he would use these phones for, his…” She couldn’t say hookups. But of course, it made sense that he would be stalked to death by random women if he gave them his lifetime listing.

Yet, he had always used the same number with her. That is when it hit her. She had been given his original number from the first hookup. Not some toss away when done fake, phone number.

“Does he ever use these again?” She could not stop the question and, as they spoke, Dax was pecking through one, grinning at whatever he was reading.

“Nah. Actually they were cluttering the downstairs room and when I took over the downstairs room, I threw them in here.”

Tossing the phone he was perusing back with the others, he said, “Oh, I came up ‘cause you weren’t answering text or anything. Jack is trying to get through.”

Elated, she jumped up, not yet used to the routines of after show calls, then guardedly turned back. “Can you not tell him I found his secret harlot phone stash?”

“Secret harlot phone stash safe with me.” A gesture of boy scout or other honor type motion went to his brow.

Marissa was the one who spilled her own beans, unable to keep from ribbing him over the many women whose text breakups had ended with, ‘I’m going to be really busy…’

“I got bored,” he defended. “Besides, you always had my real number…coulda used it at any time…”

When she grew quiet, he apologized. “I’m sorry, Mariss. I just meant you were different from the beginning. I knew I never wanted to throw a phone with your number away…Get Dax to throw those things out. I can’t believe they are still around…”

“They made for good reading.”

“You didn’t!”

“I shouldn’t have.” Suddenly, she was ashamed. “I can’t believe I snooped like that…”

“It’s not snooping. Everything in the house is yours, Mariss, my honey. Just toss them when you are done with your fun.”

“Haha.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The suspicion in his drawl was extensive.

“Just that sometimes there was too much detail. Like I say, I shouldn’t have snooped.”

“Mariss? Take a shower for me…”

“What a subject change. I must have missed that text. What was her name?”

“Her name was not important. Cause every time I thought of her, I thought of how beautiful she was, all wet in the shower. So beautiful, I lost my sanity.” Through the iPad screen his eyes were dark, mysterious. “And on the bus at the most random times, I wanted to call her, see if she would take a shower for me. But, as much as I wanted that, I didn’t want her mad at me if that wasn’t her thing, you know?”

If they had a phone sex relationship before she began to grow in girth, would it have changed the four they had missed years as a family?

“So I would think of her long wet hair, how it kind of splayed over your tits…” His vague pronouns began to merge with her specifically. “…how the water streamed down her body into rivers that met…I remember how you were shaved, so beautiful and before I could kiss it again, cause I had never gotten enough of my lips against you in that bed…you dropped to your knees.”

Unconsciously, her fingers skipped ahead, remembering him on his knees…but his thoughts had jumped on ahead…

“Mariss, I remember thinking I had to be hurting you, and I asked you…”

He had licked her ear while asking. She could still remember pressing closer into the millimeter he had eased away.

“Since all you can do is throw the iPad at me, I’m going to risk that question that I did not ever have the guts to ask…”

“It won’t mess up the iPad to be in a steamy room?”

“Guess we will see…”

♪♫¨♫♪

Marissa took Dax up on his offer and late the next morning  coasted down the canyon road. Gradually, she was learning her way around their section of Los Angeles.

For some reason after that shower, Jack had been recollecting his stay at her house a
nd the chicken gumbo he loved came into the conversation.

Pulling into a parking lot, she secured her car, and walked inside a grocery store for the first time in almost a month. Guiding the cart up and down aisles, she enjoyed pricing and picking through the cereals for the favorites she and Tristan might have forgotten about. Although she had come in for gumbo ingredients, she wound up in the checkout line with a buggy full.

Jack phoned while she was swiping the credit card he had given her, and as she accepted the call, she sent an apologetic look to the cashier who was bagging the last of her items.

“Hey you!” It was going to be all she could do to keep the meal a secret since he had picked this opportune time to call.

“Mariss, my honey, what’s up?”

The attendant began to wheel the buggy out. With a smile of thanks, she kept a few paces ahead to lead the way to her car while telling Jack she was doing some shopping.

“Shopping huh?” he teased, warm intimacy infusing his words. “Thought you and Randi did that a few days ago?”

“Well I’m shopping again,” Looking ahead, she gauged the distance to the car, and that is when she saw the long snoot of a camera.

“Guess I am going to have to come home before you get too bored, or I may be too broke to fly home.”

Ironically, their faces always stayed hidden as they captured the faces of their targets. The signature shoulder bag hung down one arm and rested on his hip.

Paparazzi.

Here, at the grocery store! How would word have even gotten out? And why were they so interested in having a photo of her, minus Jack?

“Hey? I’m kidding. You know that,” Jack sweetly ventured when she remained quiet for too long.

“Marissa!” The faceless stranger spoke. “Hi. A smile would be great.”

From thousands of cellular jumps away, Jack continued, “Buy whatever you want. As long as you buy something sexy for me.”

“Just one shot,” the voice behind the camera persisted.

“No, I’m sorry not this time,” she politely parroted one of Jack’s lines and put her head down.

“Mariss, honey, is someone there? What’s going on?”

“One second for one shot, Marissa. That’s all.”

Shaking her head, she dropped her chin letting her hair fall in front of her face and tried not to slow her steps.

“Sir, could you leave the premises?” The skinny kid had moved from behind her cart of groceries to step front of her and made a valiant stand.

Her car was a few car bumpers away, and that is when she saw the other paps blocking her way.

“You never say a thing to any of us. We are just trying to do a job. Do you think you are too good for us?”

The tone quickly became hostile, and when she tried to step around, one of them would step the same direction.

“Mariss, honey, is Dax there to handle that?” Jack’s voice sounded as desperate as she felt.

“Marissa give me some of that southern hospitality, girl!”

“Please, I just want to get to my car...,” she spoke to the asphalt.

“I’ll go for security...” The skinny teen abandoned her cart and ran for the store.

“Mariss! Honey, listen to me. Turn around walk away from your car,” Jack instructed. “That’s what he is after. A picture of you with the car. Don’t give it to the asshole.”

“Okay,” she finally spoke to Jack and was surprised at how much her voice shook.

“Hey! Word is you hit Jack when you caught him at a titty bar!”

Appalled, she looked up and blinked while wondering why the camera even flashed in the brightness of the day.

“Walk away, Mariss. Go back in a store, honey.”

“Okay.”

“How did your little boy break his arm!”

“What did that fucker just say?!” Never had she heard Jack’s voi
ce so steely, and she had no doubt the antagonizing stalker would be lying flat on the ground, camera smashed, had Jack been with her. “Stay on the phone with me. I’m going to fix this shit right now.”

♪♫¨♫♪

Sitting on the vanity while Tristan took his shower, Marissa studied the photo Dax sent to her phone. A picture of her propped against her car to one side of the plates, the red sunglasses glinting in the sun, and a wide smile staring directly into the camera.

A complimentary photo had been sent around to each of the tabloids making any picture of her hiding her face to get to her car virtually worthless for the time being.

Jack had explained to her that with the new laws it was as illegal to harass or be intrusive while getting a picture, although that rarely stopped unethical paparazzi. Jack had the supermarket send Emma the security camera footage and declared war on that particular guy.

The worst part of the afternoon had been the news that he didn’t have forty-eight hours to spend at home. Three radio shows and a charity event had been added into the band’s already tight schedule.

After Tristan’s shower and snack, she put him to bed and waited anxiously for Jack’s Skype.

“Are you okay?” Through the screen, he looked showered but tired as he expressed his concern.

“Yeah. How was the show?”

“It went great.” She watched with surprise as he lit a cigarette, never having seen him smoke. Lying back on the hotel bed, he began to bitch about not coming home as planned. “I’m sick of this shit, Mariss.” His attention lay vaguely on the ceiling and not the screen. “It’s not enough the shows are practically back to back, but once we are on the road, they cram all this extra shit in. And, I can’t even tell anyone to go to hell because what I do affects the others.” He spoke of the rest of the band. When he turned his head to the screen, her heart ached at the sadness and frustration in his eyes.

“Well if you are up early enough in the morning, give us a call. You can watch Tristan’s therapy.” She changed the subject hoping to see him happier. “Jack, he is walking! He walked perfect steps earlier today from the pool to the house. He gets tired fast. But the PT said once it gets to this point, things really speed up.”

After jubilantly exclaiming over the news, he sat on the side of the bed eying her from the device. “I’m coming home.”

“What?”

“Not for a whole day like we planned, but after tomorrow night’s show, I will be there.”

She habitually took the iPad into their son’s room. Jack had admitted a few nights ago to watching Tristan cam on his app and had joked that he was going to put a cam in by the bed so he could ‘sleep next to her.’

Tonight, upon coming back to the bedroom, she closed the door, set the iPad on its dock and gazed into his eyes.

“Jack?” She unbuttoned the top few buttons, enough to free the first two curves he wanted to view. She put her hands to them in all the ways he couldn’t and leaned closer.

“So beautiful Mariss my honey. I miss you so much...keep going...”

Jack had been spoiled with a strip show almost every night. For that matter, so had she, and her words stuck as his hands went to his briefs.

He was bare now, and to distract him from wanting her in a similar state, she stepped up the game using her hands in the way of a push up bra. “I love the way it feels when you put it right here...”

As she continued to play, her heart slammed, and her insides heated, as she imagined his hands instead of hers, or his hands covering hers. “When you slide it against them....”

She substituted the dirtier words came when she saw that he was already as into it as she was, and a few minutes later, the plan had worked. Jack remained none the wiser to his surprise and she could hardly wait until seeing him in person to see his reaction.

♪♫¨♫♪

Humming along to one of his songs, she prepared the surprise gumbo two a.m. supper. It was warming on the stove when he called to say he was leaving the airport.

Pinning her hair up, she took a quick shower so that she wouldn’t smell of food then pulled on a new black lacey cami set and fence net thigh highs. Over the outfit, she tied a full-length silky robe also in black.