Bad Boy Rock Star (16 page)

I woke up in a dark room with everything totally still.
I had no idea what time it was but I figured it was the middle of the night. I felt for my phone so I could check the time. I had a feeling like I'd forgotten about something awful. It clawed around in my belly like a frightened animal, scratching and seething. I tried to remember.

Angie.
She'd been so mad.

I switched on my phone to check for messages.

Nothing.

She must’ve been really mad. Angie checked her phone like every two minutes. She never missed a call. And it was 2am. She wouldn't be calling back any time soon. I felt a bit better and wide awake. I didn't want to get up and disturb Jack, who must be sleeping on the couch again, or Eric, so I stared at the ceiling, trying to figure things out.

If I'd stayed at school, I'd be starting exams
that week. That really freaked me out. I'd learnt more in the last few weeks than I ever had at uni but it wasn't the kind of stuff that helped you pass exams. I hadn't heard from Tom for ages either. Maybe he'd heard the rumours about dad or he was too busy studying for his law exams to even notice I wasn't there. I hadn't thought about him either. He'd been my boyfriend for four years but it was like he'd been a pretend boyfriend. I’d never felt that thrill when he kissed me. I'd not even known that kind of thrill was possible. Tom's kisses had the flavour of merging our companies together. A taste of business partnerships and financial transactions. Jack's kisses, on the other hand, were like jumping on the back of a motorbike and heading out to somewhere unknown with the wind whipping through your hair. I'd seen that on a movie too, because I'd never been on a motorbike. Maybe I could buy one. Maybe that was the new me.

I needed a drink of water.
I really needed a drink. I thought there would be one by my bed but there wasn't. If Jack wanted to play nurse, he could've brought me one. Even housekeepers knew how to do that. But then they leave and don't hold you or stroke your hair.

I tried to curl up and go back to sleep but all I could think of was having a cold glass of water.
My throat felt so dry. If I didn't get out of bed and hydrate myself, I'd never get to sleep.

I tiptoed downstairs
, not wanting to wake Jack. He slept on the couch, snoring a little. He'd breathe in a huge breath then, when he exhaled, he made this funny little half-snore, half-snort sound. He lay, half-turned towards the back of the couch and his hair had flopped onto his face but wavered with each breath out. It looked so funny. Then I realised I was watching him sleep like some creepy creep.

His toes stuck out the bottom of the blanket.
Even though the room was warm, I felt bad for those toes.  He had long toes, just like his fingers and the little one slightly twisted. I'd just tuck them in under the blanket.

I tiptoed around the couch
, making sure not to wake him, and reached over to pull down the blanket, when I knocked the remote control off the coffee table. It crashed onto the floor causing a huge echo through the still apartment.

Jack jumped off the couch and sprang at me.
He grabbed my arm, all pent up energy about to unfurl. Pain shot up through my shoulder.

"Jack! Don't."

I stumbled backwards trying to untwist my arm and lessen the pain. I choked back screams, not wanting to startle him, but my pulse raced like crazy, the banging of my heart pounding my body.

He advanced towards me, his fingers squeezing tighter around my arm, bending it back.
If he twisted it any more, it might snap. Who was this guy? Not the same person who'd held me so gently earlier.

I froze, not able to react.

"Jack, Jack," I pleaded, but this wasn't Jack.

His fist flew at me. I screamed.

That seemed to bring him to his senses.

He dropped his arm
before the punch connected and let go of me.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked.
I couldn't see his face clearly in the dim light but his voice sounded shaky.

"I…
I need some water."

"Oh, okay.
I just thought… never mind." He sat down on the edge of the couch, his head in his hands. I wondered what was going on. He ran his fingers through his hair then reached over and lit up a cigarette.  In the glow of the cigarette, his eyes looked haunted.

"Are you okay?"
I sat down beside him and tried to put my arm around him but he twisted away from me.

I waited but he didn't answer.
He didn't react at all. It was as if he hadn't heard me or had forgotten I was there.  The need to cough tickled at my throat but I suppressed it, not wanting to disturb him.

Eventually
, I stood up and got a glass of water then went back to bed. I felt so useless, as if I should be doing something to help, but I had no idea what.  Jack obviously wanted to close himself off from me, from everyone, and unless he let me in, I could do nothing.

I could hear him move around downstairs.
He'd come so close to hitting me. Well not me. I don't think he had any idea who I was; it was someone else he saw in the dark. There was a lot I didn't know about Jack Colt, dark places that maybe I didn't want to know.

I checked my phone again and there were still no messages.
Not that I expected one in the middle of the night. I lay awake for a long time, wondering what my life had become.

The next morning, Eric woke me up with a cup of herbal tea.

"This will make you feel better," he said.

"Is it some wacky Asian medicine?"
I sniffed the cup just in case it had some weird shit in it.

He wrinkled his forehead and then shook his head.
"It's not Asian. It's honey and lemon. What? You think because I'm half-Korean, everything I do is some kind of Asian thing. Don't pigeonhole me, Hannah."

Before I could apologise, I noticed the grin on his face.
I wrapped my hands around the cup, wanting to absorb its warmth. Eric sat on my bed and I told him about Jack.

"Oh
, you should never wake up Jack when he's sleeping. He might kill you."

"You aren't joking about that. He was really freaked."

"There are some demons in that man's sleep that I'd hate to even know about," said Eric.

"You tell me that now," I said and laughed nervously. I wish
ed I'd never gone near him.

"When we're on tour, we always make sure he has his own room."

"What? Spud doesn't spoon with him?"

We both laughed.

"You know he's got a girlfriend."

My heart sank.
It sank right through the ground.

"Jack?" I asked in a strangled voice.

"No. Spud."

"No way.
A girl girlfriend? But he's gay, right?" I sat up straighter. I needed details.

"Not gay."

"He's gay for Jack."

Eric grinned.
"That may be so."

"Does he make her dress up as Jack during sex?
I bet he does. Though I guess that would be safer…"

"There's shit that happened in Jack's life.
He doesn't talk about it but he lived on the streets for a while and I think he still doesn't feel safe at times."

"Oh yeah, before his dad bought him this place."

Eric's eyes widened and he laughed.
I have no idea why. It didn't seem particularly funny to me.

"Did
he tell you that story?"

I nodded.

"Jack's a strange one." Eric shook his head with a weird smile on his face. "Drink up your tea and you can sleep some more."

"Maybe I should leave today.
I'm feeling better. I can look after myself."

Eric felt my temperature.

"You're still pretty feverish. Stay here. At least you know now."

I sunk back down into the bed and thought about what Eric had said.
I was sure Jack would come up later and apologise and laugh the whole thing off.

I woke up to the smell of wonderful food. Spicy, garlicky smells. I'd barely eaten anything in the previous few days. I felt as if I could eat a horse. A huge horse. I jumped out of bed and headed downstairs.

Eric stirred something at the stove.

"Ah, you're awake. Do you want a shower?"

To be honest, I did feel pretty manky.
I probably smelt a bit manky too. That was probably his way of saying I stunk.

"Sure
, but I don't have a change of clothes or anything." I really didn't feel like putting my horrible old clothes back on. I'm pretty sure I'd sweat through them all.

"That's okay, I can loan you some pyjamas.
They have a drawstring so you can tighten them to fit."

Eric ran off and returned with some neatly folded
PJs and a towel.

"There's shampoo and everything in the bathroom.
Help yourself."

I couldn't believe how good it felt to get under the warm water and wash all the sweat and grime from
myself. I washed my hair and scrubbed myself clean. When I got out, I dried my hair and wished I had some makeup to put on. I looked through the cupboards. No cosmetics, as you'd expect, but they did have some high quality skincare.

When I came out, Eric had set the food on the table.
Huge bowls of soup. I'd be almost totally cured after eating that soup, I knew it. My stomach rumbled and I wished Eric would stop fussing around so we could sit down to eat.

Then I noticed there were only two bowls of soup.

"Where's Jack?"

Eric shrugged.
"He's gone out. Didn't say where he's going."

I started eating.
My mouth nearly exploded from the hot chillies and I grabbed for a glass of water.

Eric laughed.
"I didn't know you couldn't handle the hot stuff."

"I can handle it.
I can handle it fine. I just wasn't expecting it. I'm fine now. See. See." I spooned the soup into my mouth and tried my hardest not to grimace at the spiciness of it.

Eric was such a good cook.
No wonder, with a mother like he had. He also seemed to work hard at his graphics work outside of the band. Altogether, he'd make a good boyfriend for someone. Not for me, obviously, since it'd be not right for me to date someone from the band, and I really did not want a boyfriend. But he'd make a great boyfriend for Angie. Better than Jack. She just had to see past Jack's rock star glamour and notice Eric's good points.

"How are you feeling now?"

"Much better. You and Jack have been so lovely, looking after me and letting me stay here. I must've been a mess yesterday."

"Yeah
, Jack was really worried about you."

That made my stupid heart skip a beat.

"So," Eric said, "what do you want to do after dinner? We could watch a DVD or something."

"Sounds perfect."

I helped him clear up then he got me a selection of DVDs to pick from. I expected guy movies,
Fast and Furious
type things or maybe music-type movies.

"So
, who owns the chick flicks?"

Eric hung his head.
He tried to look shamefaced but his mouth twitched at the corners.

"You big softie. Hey, what's this?
Busty, Horny Babes
?"

"Whaaaaat?" Eric jumped to grab the case out of my hand.

"Got you. You really believed it was though, didn't you?  You totally fell into my trap. How many horny babe DVDs do you own?"

"Hey, I thought it could've been Jack's.
Of course it wouldn't have been mine."

"Yeah, you are more the kind of guy who has his porn on the computer, right?"

I laughed and he slapped at me.

We curled up on the couch.
I grabbed one of the blankets sitting on the floor and put it over my legs. It smelt of Jack.

"This is
cosy, isn't it?"

Eric sat a big bowl of M&Ms down on the coffee table.

"I hope it doesn't put me in the friend zone." He gave me a lingering look
, so that I had to break his gaze.

Was something going on
there? Had Jack gone out and left us alone on purpose? I wasn't sure I liked that idea.

"Are we going to watch this or what?" I asked.
Better to deflect comments like that than try to answer.

In the end, he'd convinced me to watch some Korean drama.
I didn't care. Anything to just veg out on the couch was fine in my book. It was a bit of a pain to read the subtitles at first, but after the first episode, I really had to watch the next one to see what would happen.

"It's so predictable," I said.
"The dumb girl is going to end up with the bad-ass guy in the end, isn't she?"

"So
, you don't want to watch any more?"

"Hell yeah, I want to watch more. It's like crack cocaine."

He laughed.

"The evil chick might be evil but she has the best hair.
And the best clothes. I'd totally date the evil chick. Would I look good with that hair?"

Eric nodded and grabbed a handful of M&Ms.

"And the nice guy, he has really good cheekbones. She should totally pick him.  He has better genes for babies."

"Is that important?"

"Hey, no one wants an ugly baby."

Our laughter got cut short by a crash at the door.
Jack was home. I could smell the whiskey on him before he even got into the room. Then I heard a high-pitched giggle.

A woman in a tatty red fake fur coat followed him in.
She had hair that had been bleached to a strawy frizz, and red lipstick smudged across her mouth.

"Oh
, Jack, there are people here," she shrieked as she came into the room. "Hope I'm not disturbing anything."

She threw herself on the chair, her legs flopping over the arm.

"Get me something to drink, will ya?"

I sat up straight on the couch.
Jack came over and sat on the other arm of her chair putting his arm around her.

My stomach spun out of control, like I was going to be sick.
I didn't know who she was but they were obviously very close. All that time he'd been looking after me and making sure I was okay, he’d just been being nice, obviously. Probably making sure that I'd be well enough to call the record company guy and get down to business. If this woman was his type, he must have no interest in me because I was nothing like her at all. She reeked of cheap perfume mixed with booze and bad fashion.

Eric had sat up straight too, obviously feeling awkward with them.

"Eh, what's this shit?" She grabbed the remote off the coffee table and turned the DVD off. "Put on some music. You guys need to learn to party. We need something loud."

"We were watching that," said Eric in a soft voice, but she ignored him.
He exchanged glances with me, rolling his eyes.

Jack
went into the kitchen and returned with two glasses of red wine, handing her one.

"Aren't you guys drinking?"

She spun around to look at us, slopping red wine on the floor as she moved. The muscles in Eric's face spasmed just slightly. Not enough that anyone else noticed but me.

Jack leaned over, resting his arm on her shoulder.
She stroked his leg and whispered something in his ear. They both giggled.

Now they were really making me sick.
She play-slapped him.

"Oh
, Jack, you shouldn't say things like that." She looked at me as if to imply they were talking about me.

I tried to ignore her and talk to Eric but could barely speak over the sound of her screeching laugh.
She'd kicked her shoes off and her skirt had ridden up her legs so that she was practically showing her underwear.

"Can you call for a cab?"
I asked Eric. "I think I need to go home."

"You don't have to.
I'm sorry for that." He looked over at the chick.

"No need for you to apologise." I smiled at him.
"You've been wonderful, cooking me dinner and watching dramas with me."

Eric smiled and gave me that strange look again.

"Yo, Hannah, get me a top up will you?" Jack held his wine glass out to me. "You're our manager after all. You should earn your keep."

I gave him a withering look but he just laughed.
It was like he was going out of his way to be as obnoxious to me as he possibly could.

"Yeah, me too
." The blonde laughed.

I stood up.

"I'll go outside and get a cab," I said and walked from the room, making sure to keep my stride steady and not look at them. I would not cry. I would not show emotion. I would just keep walking out.

When I got outside, I realised I was still wearing Eric's pyjamas.
I couldn’t go back in there though. I shivered in the cold and wrapped my arms around myself to keep warm.

I heard someone approach me.
My heart jumped. Maybe he'd come to apologise.

Jack thrust a bag at me.

"You left your clothes behind."

I took the bag and fished my big cardigan out, wrapping it around myself.
It'd hide the elephant print on the pyjamas and keep me warm.

"You didn't have to run off."

"Well, I didn't feel very welcome, you know."

He cupped my face in his hand and looked into my eyes for a moment.

"Don't fall me for me, Hannah. I'm not the kind of guy a princess like you should be thinking about. I'm damaged, more than you know. Women like Nancy know how to deal with me. But you, I'd destroy you without even meaning to."

I jerked my head away.

"What the hell are you talking about? I was having a fun time with Eric until the two of you came bursting in, so I have no idea what your stupid speech means. If anyone is falling for anyone here, I'd say
you
were falling for
me
. I'm not interested in you, not one little bit."