Artificial Love (The Goodbye Trilogy #2) (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Emily

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous to tell Johnny what I was feeling about him tonight. It had to be done. I was clear minded and I knew what I had to do to keep myself from getting trampled on all over again. Johnny wasn’t a mid-level financial advisor for a law firm. He was a freaking rock star that probably knew how to take care of the female body better than I could.

We had said that we wanted to be with one another last night or more accurately, this morning. We had said we would take it slow because I was still married and he… well, I didn’t know why he wanted to go slow. All of that happened when we were on drugs, however, and now it felt like we were oceans apart in our intentions toward one another. Talking to my mother had made me rethink my promise to try a new relationship. Who in their right mind would want someone as badly screwed up as me? It was obvious that Johnny had rethought his idea of being with me after the little girl in the park.

I’d been living with Grace’s little pop up messages for years and often wondered if the two other girls had issues of their own. I kept it a secret exactly for the reasons Johnny had shown me when he left the apartment, disjointed and frazzled. I didn’t want to add anymore crazy to his life. I didn’t want to be another nuisance. I wanted to be strong and well, in all honesty, I wanted him. Yet another man broke my soul and I needed to go somewhere to start over.

I numbly sat down on the corner of the couch in the living room where I clasped my hands together and waited for Johnny to emerge from his bedroom. When he came into my vision, I gasped at the sight of his bare, beautifully tatted chest. I don’t know when he worked out but his six-pack was alive and well in Manhattan. My eyes wouldn’t move from the guitar tattoo stretched across his broad chest. I was transfixed on him. He was, well – he was a rock star and I suddenly felt like no one significant. Jealousy of all those girls that got to have him for just one night scorched my chest. I wanted to scream out in pain when I thought of the wall that Johnny had made into a shrine for Jules. I had never felt anything like this feeling before but it was so painful. I wanted to use every cuss word in the book to rid myself of it.

Johnny slowly sat down on the couch, closer to me than I thought he would. This was a talk that had purpose and meaning in it. It was the proverbial fork in the road of Johnny and Emily, temporary roommates and mushroom promising romantics.

“Who wants to go first?” he asked as he looked straight into my eyes. There was something in them that I hadn’t seen before. His expressions were exactly how I felt. I was confused, overwhelmed, wanton, and desperate to feel normal again, even if that meant I had to walk in on Michael screwing one hundred women.

“I called my mother while you were out,” I said after a long deep breath. “She’s wiring money to a bank account for me on Monday. My father and her are… well, they are being supportive of the divorce.”

“Are these the same parents that have always
liked
Michael and your
marriage
to
Michael
more than they ever liked you?” His tone was snippy but more curious. He was apprehensive. Should I have been apprehensive, too? My mother did adore Michael. Was this some ploy for us to get back together? No, she was truly worried about me, I thought to myself.

“She’s changed her tune, I suppose. She was very sincere in getting me money so I can go and start over again. So, in less than thirty six hours, I will be out of your hair and will head back to Boston to find what’s next for me.”

“You’re leaving,” he stated in a low grumble. Johnny turned his head and scowled, even though I could see it on his face. I tried to keep my look passive and untouchable since I didn’t want to show him that I believed he and I would have a relationship.

I didn’t answer. Silence stretched between us and for the first time ever, I wished I had a machine that could plug into someone’s brain and read me their thoughts.

“I found out my best friend is gay this afternoon.” Johnny threw himself into the couch and laid his head back, looking up to the ceiling. The palms of his hands dug into his eye sockets. I couldn’t help but reach out and put my hand on his bare bicep. Oh damn, he was so warm and soft. I wanted those arms around me, comforting me and loving me.

“Who? Dex?” I asked quietly.

When he nodded his head, he let out a strangled sound that resembled a cry.

“Are you upset? I mean obviously you are but are you against homosexuality?” I asked tentatively.

He whipped up his head - his eyes bore into me with unnerving fierceness.

“No, I am absolutely
not
against homosexuality. I have many, many friends who are in loving relationships with the same sex. However, I am pissed as fuck because the douche bag never thought to tell me that he was into guys. I mean, we have shared everything. Everything,” he drew out the word with gritted teeth. “You think that it would be nice to know before I stumble in on him and another guy sucking face.”

I put my hand over my mouth and tried not to smile. I wished that I had been a fly on the wall for that scene.  Johnny watched me with a sneer and as I started to crack in my demeanor, he let out a breath and a small grin flashed across his face as he rested his head back down on the back of the couch.

“I don’t want you to go, Emily,” he whispered.

Silence found us in the room again and it stayed like that for a long while.

“Johnny, you know more about me than anyone else in this entire world. I know nothing about you. I know you have a big heart and when you love, you love hard. But It didn’t go unnoticed that when that little girl approached us today, things went…well, sour,” I resolvedly said as I turned to look him in his eyes.

“I don’t belong in your world, no matter what clothes you dress me in. Slow relationship or not, you know we won’t last – not with your schedule and certainly not with my…issues.”

“So you’re just going to walk out of my life and not even give this a chance? I’m sorry I left but, Em that shit with Grace creeped me out. That was until she left me a message of my own,” Johnny admitted.

I gasped and wild-eyed, I covered my mouth again with horror. “I am so, so sorry,” I painfully admitted with tears coming to my eyes.

Johnny shook his head violently. “It doesn’t matter. She is trying to tell us something. You
and
me. She might be pulling the same ole shit with you but this is all new to me. I’m not going to fight it. I will embrace it because I need to know what she wants, what she knows that I don’t. I need to know, Em.”

“What Johnny? What did she…what do you need to know?” I asked with a tremble in my voice. A dozen things came to my mind. The lies, the cheating, the shame I lived with every day as I let everyone step, jump, trample on me for their own vanity, their own success.

“She wants me to kiss you.” Johnny didn’t look at me. I looked at his profile stunned.

“Why?” I whispered.

“She’s telling us to stop psycho analyzing everything in our lives and love one another. I believe that is where you and I will find peace. I think she might be right, too,” he admitted as he slowly looked up.

“I haven’t felt more safe and secure than when I’m in your arms,” Johnny continued. “I have never been so scared on tour and just tonight when I thought you left without telling me. I don’t know what that means but it is not like any emotion I have ever felt before. Fuck figuring it all out and fuck waiting for your divorce to go through. Consent. Allow me to love you when I feel desperate that you will leave at any moment. Let me be with you. Let us be
one
.”

“We are going to listen to a ghost?” I asked stunned, a little incredulous.

Johnny shrugged. “No. I ache for you, Emmy. I ache something big but you scare the living hell out of me and maybe… I think I scare you, too. I can only imagine why. Tonight, you are just Emily. Tonight, I am just Johnny. Two people interested in seeing if we fit sexually because it’s so damn obvious that I would tell you anything you wanted to know. You have my head and my intellect. Let me have your body.”

My breath hitched – multiple times. How was I supposed to answer that?

“You aren’t allowed to think about it and no, this doesn’t constitute a casual hookup, rocker style. I think I have proven that I would be happy just being your friend. A very good friend,” he smirked. 

Johnny held his hand out to me. I could see the worry, the apprehension in his expression as he coaxed me to go to him. Without another thought, I put my hand into his. He led me to his bed, where he carefully and methodically undressed me. I felt like a little child, being prepared for a bath with how much care he put into stripping me of my clothes. In the dim light, he took my mouth – soft and warm. He teased my breasts and fluttered his fingers across my chest, down to my belly, to where only Michael had been for so many years.

Johnny made sweet love to me all night – neither of us sleeping because if we slipped into unconsciousness, we might not feel the same on the flip side.

Naturally, as everything was with Johnny, that didn’t happen. The flip side became the biggest roller coaster and the most intoxicatingly horrific period of my life.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Johnny

Just like I had begged and promised, Emily got on the tour bus hand intertwined with mine. I saw Dex and gave him a nod. He looked panicked, like I was going to ‘out’ him. His sexual relations were none of my business and I had too much shit to deal with of my own. Emily needed out of her marriage, I needed to focus on the music, and every other thought was only about making Emmy happy. She deserved happiness. From everything I had learned about her in such a short time, she was one of those people that always did the good for others and never got anything in return.

I surprised her with flowers in the back bedroom on the bus where I always slept no matter what. Since Jules left, I felt it was mine and now I supposed it would be ours for the next two weeks.

Her face lit up and yes, warm fucking fuzziness overtook my stomach at her reaction. Score one. That night we would play in Providence to a sold out show, but I would make sure that Emmy had all the perks of being with the band and definitely not as a groupie. She fit the part well, too – with her leather jacket, high heels, and tight, red skinny jeans. Who knew under all those prissy clothes was a walking sex goddess ready to light the rock world on fire?

As we set up the instruments and prepared for our show, she was nervous. I hooked her up with a couple shots of tequila to chill out, told her to enjoy the noise, kissed her senseless, and got up on stage to play the fucking worst show we ever had.

Dex was off one beat in nearly every song. Ethan kept looking back at Dex, never knowing what his queue was, and I was so pissed by the third song,  I basically told them to fuck off by throwing in guitar solos that seemed to appease the audience. Lord knew the reviews would be shit the next day. He also knew we were going to have our asses handed to us by our tour manager. Techies were quick to say it wasn’t their fault two minutes after we left the stage – the first show we didn’t do an encore for.

Instead, I went backstage, signed two people’s shirts, grabbed Emily, and took her back to the bus to crawl into her. I didn’t want to think about the rift between the band members. I didn’t want to think about the band going downhill.

No matter – it all was and Emily was right there to keep me upright. I found myself falling asleep before one am, an unheard of hour for me, just because sleep forced the thoughts out.

I felt Emily shift out of my hold at one point during the night. I couldn’t move, too fatigued by the day, the people on the bus, and for the first time, I just wanted to block it all out. I listened to Emily as she made her way to the bathroom. I heard talking coming from the front of the bus that was taking us to Pennsylvania. Dex and Ethan were either talking music or about me because, at one point, I heard someone say they were sick of it. Yeah, join the club. I was sick of it all, too.

I woke up the next morning feeling fully rested. I stretched my arms out.

“Ouch,” Emily moaned. She covered the right side of her face and I immediately jumped up to tower over her.

“Baby, did I just punch you in the face?” I asked, horrified.

“Yeah. That wasn’t very nice of you, Johnny,” she answered as her eyes peered up at me. Slowly she turned from assaulted to blissed. “I like it when you’re on top.”

Her face turned crimson red.

“I am so sorry,” I emphasized as I started to put small kisses all over her face. She was so fucking adorable. Her giggle made me laugh and my laugh made her giggle more. I found her warm skin and we both inhaled quickly.

“Oh Johnny, it’s on!”

Emmy, quick and fucking gorgeous, straddled me as she rid her body of her T-shirt and panties. She kissed me long and deep. We clung to each other as the bus continued its way to nowhere. Nothing mattered as she and I hung on to one another, knowing that we were going somewhere.

Her eyes pierced mine as she and I became one, slowly rocking to the sounds and movements of the bumps in the highway.

Her small smile after we pleasured each other was one of awe and satiation. I watched her watching me.

“They care about you,” Emily whispered.

“Who does?”

“Dex and Ethan. Dex told me about everything last night and Ethan? God, that man is going through so much right now - it makes my life look golden.”

I propped my head up on my hand and peered down at her. “Did you stay up and talk with the rock stars, groupie?”

She swatted my arm, causing my head to fall back to the pillow.

“I’m serious, Johnny. You need to talk to Dex and you have to get over whatever shit is going on with you and Ethan.”

My eyes grew wide as I took in what she had said. “Did you say shit?”

Her brows furrowed as she tried to remember. “No, I don’t swear. I said stuff or something.”

“No way!” I exclaimed. “Ms. Emmy Nice Shoes said shit!”

“Well, okay fine. Get your shit together, Johnny. This band needs you. You are the glue and everyone knows it. Don’t you think they wonder what the hell you’re doing shacked up back here with a married woman?”

Her grin was mischievous and awesome. The road liked Emily. Since I had met her, I had never seen her look so free. Here I was thinking that I was sick of feeling so free but it might just be fun to watch Emily find her wings while on the rocker road.

“So Dex…is gay?” I asked, looking up into her eyes. I wanted to stay cuddled in the bed with her, just like this, until they handed me my guitar.

She nodded her head gently and smiled. “He’s in love, Johnny. He has been for a while now. You have to talk to him. Oh and Ethan, God, the shit going on with his family? No wonder you guys sounded so off last night. None of you actually know each other. How does that even happen?”

We were quiet for a while.

“I honestly don’t know,” I muttered but I did. I was the one no one wanted to approach and fuck if I have given a shit about anyone but myself since, well…forever.

I looked over at Emily who still had a faint smile on her face.

“You make me want to fix it. I want to fix the band, I want to fix my ignorant self, and I want to glue you right in the middle of my life. But for now, I will glue you between my legs. Super glue, that is,” I said with a mischievous smile. “Thank you for talking to them. I promise I will do what I can to make it all work out.”

Her giggles couldn’t have sounded any more perfect.

“That sounds good, Johnny. That sounds real nice.”  She rolled over and kissed me soundly.

“Nice, huh?” I said after I pulled my lips from hers. I felt my wicked smile.

“Nice,” she replied and pulled me back down for more love making. I was so totally in love and fuck if that didn’t scare the shit right out of me.