Feverish (Bullet #3) (22 page)

No…that wasn’t true.
Banging
made it
sound so cheap, and Emily was anything but. She was so much more,
and if she didn’t have that cocksucker boyfriend of hers just
barely out of the picture, he thought he might actually have a
chance of convincing her to try him for real. No matter what she
said, he knew she wasn’t feeling anything serious about him. Oh,
she liked what he did for her, and they had a growing
friendship…but that was it. There was nothing else there.

Still, he wasn’t going to tell Brian. For
multiple reasons—not just to keep it secret from Mary—he wanted it
kept under the covers, so to speak. He shrugged. “Just don’t feel
like it.”

“Yeah, well…” Clay knew what his friend was
saying. His porn collection had been the topic of many Last Five
Seconds conversations. He was happy letting Brian think that, so he
just nodded.

Brian looked confused. “Or…?”

Clay tried to look half-angry, something he
wasn’t good at. “Or maybe you worry about me too much. Get the fuck
out of here. You’re starting to sound like a woman.”

Brian started laughing and turned to grab the
doorknob. “Fuck you.”

Clay laughed too and slapped his friend on
the shoulder blade. “Tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

“Your place this time?”

“Nah. Here’s good. I keep hoping to get
another look at your assistant.” He lowered his voice. “Goddamn, is
she hot.” He grinned. “You’re a dumb ass if you don’t tap
that.”

Clay felt something stir inside him,
something primal, and he couldn’t believe he wanted to rip his
friend’s head off. Still…how could Brian know if Clay hadn’t said a
word? He tried to look casual and rolled his eyes. “Get the fuck
out of here, man.” He’d have to find a way to do more music writing
sessions at Brian’s and he’d also have to make it quite clear that
Emily was off limits. Maybe he’d mention her fiancé next time.

He closed the door and let his thoughts
become buried in her. God, he would have loved to tell his friend
how much she meant to him. She was a beautiful soul in and out, and
he was lucky to have her in his life.

He’d barely seen her earlier when Mary was
there, but now he could go take her in his arms and maybe talk her
into spending some time with him. If he knew her, though, she’d
tell him he had to wait until five o’clock. He’d never told her she
had to work until five every day, and yet she did most of them
time. Sometimes she even worked later. He knew she did things for
him on the weekends too.

So he was going to the office where she was
sure to be. He practically sprinted down the hall. When he got
close to the door, though, he slowed down to his Jet gait and
swagger. Couldn’t look too eager. When he walked in, though, she
was nowhere to be seen. There were two big file boxes on the desk
next to the computer but no sign of Emily.

He walked back to the kitchen and peeked in
there but struck out. He walked back down the hall and the bathroom
door was open, so he concluded the only other place she might be
would be her bedroom—unless, of course, she’d left the house for
some reason. When he got to her door, he tapped on it. “Emily? You
in there?” He thought he heard her say something. “Emily?”

“I don’t want to talk right now.”

Oh, Christ. More boyfriend problems. What did
that asshole do this time? “Come on, Emily. Come out. I’ll
listen.”

Sounding more angry: “I’m not ready.”

That was weird. He’d never heard that tone
from her before. “Okay. Well…I’ll be out here when you are.” If he
didn’t know better, she almost sounded angry at him. Strange. He
decided to go work more on the new music he and Brian were
creating. Several of the songs were ready for drums and vocals, but
a couple were still a little rough. And he felt like he had one
more song in him for now, but it wasn’t quite ready to come out—not
yet, anyway.

So he grabbed a can of Coke and headed into
the music room. He lost track of time when he worked on his music,
so he wasn’t sure how long he’d been in there when Emily came in
the room. She was not happy, and he couldn’t tell if she was upset,
angry, sad, or all of the above. “Hey. Ready to talk?” He hoped his
voice sounded sympathetic and supportive.

She nodded. “Yeah. Can we talk in the
kitchen? I just made some coffee.”

At night?
Well, he wasn’t going to
question it. “Yeah, okay.” He set the guitar in its stand and then
stretched. That was how he could tell he’d been sitting for well
over an hour, maybe two.

When they got to the kitchen, she poured
herself a cup of fresh java. “Want some?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m good.” She
finished doctoring her coffee and then sat down at the table next
to him. “So what’s going on?”

She blinked and he noticed that her jaw
looked tense. “You…have an awful lot of porn.”

“What?”

“Downstairs…boxes and boxes. And not just
plain old porn. You have some whacked-out shit. Lesbian porn, some
hardcore kinky stuff, some weird blowjob ones, a bunch dealing
strictly with anal. I mean…what the fuck, Clay? Why the hell do you
have so much porn?”

Fuck.
He wanted to ask her why the
hell she’d been downstairs snooping in the first place, but that
didn’t matter. Maybe he could just make light of it, and they could
have a good laugh. “God, Emily, how much dust did you have to blow
off those DVDs? I haven’t watched those in years.”

“Why do you still have them? No, actually, I
really want to know why you have them at all. What the hell, Clay?
You know that’s not healthy, right? That’s not normal.”

“How do you know that, Emily?” He was
starting to feel a little defensive. “Guys like porn, all
right?”

“
That much?
You could open your own
adult store. There were at least three boxes of that crap. I nearly
lost my lunch.” Her eyes glowered. “Is that what your little movie
theater is for? So you can jack off in private?” He’d been tense up
till that point, but when she suggested he used the theater to
masturbate to porn, he started laughing. “I’m serious, Clay. I need
to know.”

He took a deep breath. He was starting to
sense that it really bothered her. “All I’m gonna say is that’s a
part of my old life.”

Her hands were folded just in front of her
coffee cup, her knuckles white. “Not good enough.”

Okay, so he was starting to care for this
woman—a lot—but he wasn’t going to start baring his entire soul to
her. “Sorry, but that’s all you’re getting.”

She sat still for a few moments, staring
inside her coffee cup. “All right. Then I’m giving you my two
weeks’ notice.”

“What? You kidding me?”

“No. I’m dead serious.”

“You’re leaving if I don’t tell you about
something that means nothing to me now.”

“Yeah…because right now you seem like some
weird creepy pervert. I need to understand.”

Part of him wanted to tell her. He did. But
the other part of him—the part that believed she was just playing
around with him before she decided to marry douche boy after
all—didn’t want to say a word. So maybe she’d take a compromise.
“Look—I’m not ready to tell you. I’ll make you a deal: I’ll tell
you two months from now.”

“No dice. You’re just hoping I forget
it.”

He let out a breath. “No. I’m hoping I feel
like I can trust you more then.”

She looked hurt. “You don’t think you can
trust me?”

He forced his jaw to relax. “It’s my
guts—everything inside—you’re talking about here, Emily. You have
no idea.”

Her voice was quiet. “What do you need from
me to know it’s okay?”

He wasn’t worried about her saying anything.
She’d signed the non-disclosure statement day one of her
employment. No, he was worried what Emily—the girl he was starting
to fall for in a huge way—might do to him once she heard his story.
He shook his head. “There’s nothing you can give me that will make
me feel better about it.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
She finished her coffee and stood. “You have my two-week notice. Do
you need that in writing?”

He sighed. “Wait.” He couldn’t believe he was
going to fucking do it. “I’ll tell you. Sit down.” He walked over
to the liquor cabinet. He would do this…but he was going to need a
stiff drink first—or maybe several.

Chapter Twenty-three

THE WHISKEY WAS hot going down, and Clay knew
it was going to hit him in a few minutes. “Okay…the porn
collection. Sorry, but I’m gonna have to backtrack a little for you
to understand it.”

“That’s fine. I’m willing to listen.” She
refilled her coffee too, and that was good, because Clay was able
to feel his muscles relax just a little bit—and that was all he
needed.

“So…the story starts a long time ago. I
graduated high school, right? Barely, but I did. The only thing
that kept me there was band. Oh, and my friends. But graduation
came, and me and my friends were excited to pursue our band dream
full time. It was one of the most fun times of my life. We just
wrote music—not much at first and definitely nothing worth
recording—and played gigs. Fucking incredible. We lived like there
was no tomorrow.” He ran his hands through his hair. So far, not
bad.

Still, he poured another drink and took a
swallow before continuing. “I dated some, but Jet? He was pretty
new. He was the reason I could get up onstage and do what I did. He
was fearless. And I met this beautiful woman. Christ. Her name was
Abigail, and she turned my whole world upside down. She was
incredible. She made me laugh. She made me happy. And I didn’t give
a shit that I had nothing. I and my friends worked shitty little
part-time jobs and played gigs. That was it. It was my world, and I
wouldn’t have traded anything for it.

“Anyway, Abby…she rocked my world. I’d never
felt anything like that before. It was hardcore and intense, and I
would have done anything for her. But her dad hated my guts.
Abby—she’s African American, and her dad hated me just because I
was a white boy. He didn’t think I was good enough for her. But we
didn’t care. We kept seeing each other. We loved each other.

“And then she got pregnant. What the fuck was
I supposed to do? Well, after giving it some thought, I knew I
didn’t want her to get an abortion. My kid was growing inside the
woman I loved. I wanted to do the right thing. So we got married.
Yeah, her dad was really pissed then. My piss-ant job, though—no
way it would pay for her medical expenses. She got on Medicaid, but
still. I knew she couldn’t move in with me and my loser friends.
That was no kind of life for my new wife and baby. I quit the band
and got two almost full-time jobs, both shitty. I wanted to be a
good man. I wanted to take care of my family.

“We were so happy at first. We lived in a
shitty trailer in a shitty neighborhood, but it was ours, and we
had a baby on the way.

“The jobs started to take their toll, though.
I hardly saw Abby. I mostly slept when I was home. I did get to
talk to the baby through her tummy, though, you know? And I was
able to pay all our bills, but I was tired. Beyond tired. Before I
knew it, the baby arrived. Little Jasmine Yerica Smith. She was the
most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Had her mama’s eyes
and lips. I was the proudest daddy you’ve ever seen. I cried.
There’s nothing like watching a child come into this world, but you
can’t believe what it’s like when it’s your own. It’s a
miracle.”

Okay, so now he was veering into the sappy.
He needed another swig of whiskey. “I had a few days off from work,
but I had to go back to both jobs at one point. Nothing had
changed, really—I was working a lot, sleeping when I could, and
spending as much time as I could with my wife and daughter. Our
time together was quality, but there wasn’t much of it.

“Anyway, Jas was about seven or eight months
old when I noticed Abby getting distant. And, uh, it took a while,
but…” He swallowed. Now they were getting to the hard part. Could
he keep himself from getting emotional? He had to. “I found out she
was having an affair. It—ripped my heart in two. This woman I loved
so much, more than life, and she was sleeping with someone else.
That just killed me.

“We talked. And it was fucking stupid—I know.
But we decided to work it out. She said she was sorry, that she
felt so lonely without me, and she said she’d never do it again. I
believed her. She was my baby, you know?”

Okay, now he was being a pussy. He was only
able to keep going because Emily’s features had softened. She’d
stopped looking so angry and started looking like she cared again.
“So we made another go at it. I had to keep working, though. Even
with my two jobs, we could barely make ends meet. Abby asked if I
wanted her to work, but her job would have just barely paid for
daycare. It would have been stupid to have Abs work so someone else
could raise our kid. It bothered me, though, because I missed a lot
of important things with Jas…but at least I knew her mom was taking
good care of her.

“And then she did it again. She should have
just fucking stabbed me in the heart. I was lost then. I stayed
with some friends for a few days and then we talked. She wanted to
try again, she said, but I couldn’t trust her anymore. She was
going to keep stomping on my heart, and I was a dumb ass if I let
her. Turned out she’d been screwing around with the same guy she
had been the first time. Maybe she’d never stopped. I didn’t want
her to hurt me again.

“It wasn’t long before I had the child
support people crawling up my ass. I really wanted to take Jas, but
I couldn’t. She knew her mom better, spent more time with her. She
hardly knew me and, besides, I’d have to pay a babysitter all the
time. So I lost the woman I loved and my daughter at the same time.
It was like my heart was pulled out of my chest and thrown into a
shredder. So I decided
fuck it
. I wasn’t gonna keep working
my ass off doing shit I fucking hated for nothing. No one
appreciated my hard work. Oh, I kept the better-paying shitty job.
I was a cook at a down-home restaurant. Nothing fancy, but steady
work. They would keep me working days. And then I called Brian. He
and I had been in our first band together, and I knew he was still
playing in a band. But I asked if he wanted to do something with me
again, and he said
hell, yeah
, and Last Five Seconds was
born. Not the one you know now—we’ve had a few changes in line up.
Still, that was the beginning.