Rock My World (25 page)

“She
knew
she was trapping him!”
Airika
had vented. “Jenna was so selfish to keep the baby.
Denying him his right to adolescence—what was she thinking?”
Airika’s
stomach twisted as she heard herself go on and on
about Jenna’s wrongdoings and misdeeds. The memory of her words spewed back at
her, unrelenting. “He was always checking me out. You know, like he was looking
back at what could have been if it weren’t for her selfishness. It was only a
matter of time before the tension grew too much and we had to see it through. In
the end, love always wins.”

Airika
hung up, feeling sick. She had turned into her
father. She had turned the personal into a professional catastrophe. There
wasn’t anyone she could blame but herself.
 
She was alone.
Unlovable, wretched, and utterly alone
in the world.

Chapter
41

“Thanks,
Min.” Alex said, hanging up the phone, taking his first full breath since this
whole thing started. He couldn’t get over how different Jenna seemed.
Whatever caused this shift in her
,
it was
sexy
. He couldn’t admit it to her, of course. He’d followed her
directions and two hours later, crisis averted. “Rose has been taken care of,”
he was told. It turned out to have been a mock-up that hadn’t even been approved
for print. He lucked out.

He should
have felt emasculated by his estranged wife telling him what to do, giving him orders.
He didn’t. He felt … grateful.
Grateful and loved.
And a little guilty.
Guilty that whatever changed her, made
her this new empowered
woman,
wasn’t him. That after
all their years together, he not only hadn’t noticed those strengths, he’d
prevented them from surfacing. He hadn’t understood her anger about not working
before, but now it was clear that his insecurities about his own manhood
affected her too. And she’d never held it against him. He felt a sudden awe for
her devotion to him over the years. He didn’t deserve her. And now she knew it
too—or would soon.

The thought
was more than he could stand. He knew he needed to tell her about his anonymous
backer and everything he’d discovered, but first, he would try one last thing
to fix it on his own. Jenna had enough to deal with and he didn’t want to
burden her with another one of his stupid mistakes. Not if he didn’t have to.

Chapter
42

“
Cici
?” Anya called from downstairs. Felicity grabbed her
backpack, checked her reflection in the mirror, changed shirts, and sprinted
down to the kitchen. Her cheeks were flushed when she reached it and Anya looked
her over, eyes narrowed.

“What have
you been up to?”

“Nothing,”
Felicity said, trying and failing to stop smiling.

Anya raised
a brow, but let it go. She handed Felicity a bowl of cereal and motioned for
her to sit. Felicity poured a glass of orange juice and tried to sip without
smudging her lip-gloss.

“I got a
call from Grandpa’s agent today, saying they found someone to play the part of
the young me in his biopic.”

“Really,
who?” Felicity asked, twisting her hair around her finger.

“You.” Anya
looked at her, disapproval spelled all over her face. Felicity felt a
tightening of her insides. She hated lying to her grandmother. She especially
hated getting caught.

“I …
Airika
said I should just audition. It wasn’t a big deal. I
didn’t think I’d get it,” she said, knowing it was a flimsy excuse. Hearing
herself say
Airika’s
name—knowing she’d
betrayed her mom—made her feel so much worse. She looked down at her bowl
of untouched cereal and pushed the soggy flakes around.

Anya didn’t
say anything for a long time. Finally, she stood up from the table and fixed
her eyes on Felicity. “You’ll tell your mom today.”

“Okay,”
Felicity said.

Excitement
usurped her guilt as she lingered by her locker, waiting for Trey, hoping he’d
make it before the first bell rang. She ran out of legitimate things to do so
she re-organized her books for the third time, hearing the bell blare through
the halls.

She jumped
as he edged next to her, a giant smile spread across her face. He grinned back,
leaning in to give her a little kiss. It was nice but it lacked the passion of
last night’s kiss. She scolded herself for wishing for more when they were in
the middle of the hall, surrounded by classmates hurrying along. Not that she
cared what anyone else thought. He walked her to her first class, their hands
entwined, not letting go until she was across the threshold.

All day she
struggled to pay attention, waiting for the bell to ring, for Trey to hold her
hand, and sneak in a kiss between classes. They fell into an easy pattern of
him picking her up from her class, holding hands to her locker, walking
together to her next class. She was sure he’d been late to every period today.
By last bell, she knew she’d find him outside her classroom, his hand ready for
her to take, like this was how it had always been.

She hopped
on his motorcycle, grabbing his waist, enjoying the contact all the way home.
She handed him her helmet, making small talk as they loitered in front of her
grandparent’s house. She desperately wanted to invite him inside but hadn’t
told her grandmother about their kiss and after this morning she didn’t want to
be thought an even bigger liar.

She wanted to keep him separate from everything
else happening in her family. He was the one good and reliable thing in her
life at the moment and he made her happy.

He tangled
his fingers in hers as she stood facing him, their hips close.

“So … ” he
said.

“So … ”

“You
gonna
invite me in?” He smiled.

She looked
into his brilliant turquoise eyes, hungry for more time with him. She flipped
her hair over her shoulders. “Yeah, just give me a minute. Kay?” She bounded up
the steps to the house.

“Grandmother?
Grandpa?” she shouted. No answer. She ran into the kitchen to find a foil
wrapped plate with a sticky note on it that read, “
Cic
,
Grandpa and I will be back by dinner. Here’s a snack. Call your mom. Love,
Grandmother”.

She couldn’t
believe her luck. She ran back out, flinging the front door open, waving Trey
inside. He walked up the steps and she gently pushed her lips to his, closing
the door with her foot. They headed up the steps to her room, where they’d gone
a million times before, but not with butterflies like this. She walked in front
of him, holding his hand, pulling him through the doorway. She spun around,
wrapping her arms around his neck.

His lips met
hers, their tongues dancing around one another, exploring. The intensity
deepened, her mouth red and raw from his patchy stubble. She’d never noticed
his facial hair before, or his muscular shoulders. Their bodies melded into
one, leaning back onto her bed, arms and hands venturing into new territory.
They didn’t speak, their mouths learning this new form of communication. The
few times they came up for air, they gazed into each other’s eyes in a way
that, a week ago, would have made her want to hurl. Now she couldn’t imagine
feeling any other way. She needed him next to her, kissing her, maybe more.

As if on
cue, her cell phone’s shrill ring pierced the air. It was her mom, interrupting
them from afar. She sat herself upright on the bed, fixed her hair, and took a
deep breath. Trey sat across from her, their legs entangled, panting.

“Hi Mom!”

“Felicity?
Where are you?” her mom asked, in what Felicity took as a suspicious tone.

“In my
r-room,” she said. “Doing homework.”

“Is
Grandmother there?”

“No.”

“Oh. When
you see her, will you tell her I need to talk her?”

“Sure,”
Felicity said. Her earlier conversation with her grandmother came back, along
with the memory of the magazine and
Airika
. She
disentangled her legs from Trey’s and stood up.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Is
everything okay?”

“It will be.
Don’t worry about it, okay. Your Dad and I are going to work it out.”

By the end
of the conversation, Felicity felt conflicted on so many levels. She felt bad
about lying. She was scared in equal parts that her Mom knew and didn’t know
about the magazine. She worried it might be true. And she wondered if her Mom
could ever forgive
her
for going
behind her back and auditioning, not to mention how she’d react when she found
out about the biopic via
Airika
.

Felicity was
thrilled to find out she got the part of the young Anya. But now it felt
tainted, punishment for being such a heartless daughter. She was mad at her dad
for letting it get to this point, while another part of her was doing a happy
dance because of how happy she was with Trey.
Does that make me a bad person: being happy when everything else is
such a mess?

“
Cici
?” Anya called from the living room.

“In here!” She
called, double-checking buttons and zippers. Trey zoomed across the room to sit
on the dressing stool in the corner, hands visible on his knees.

“Oh, hi
Trey. Are you staying for dinner?” Anya said, appearing in the doorway.

“No, I
should go home,” he said.

“Nonsense.
Your mom’s at work, right?
You can’t live on pizza. Stay. I
insist. Just call your mom.”

“Thank you,
Mrs.
Jax
. I will.”

Anya
appreciated the chivalry, but couldn’t remember the last time he’d called her
“Mrs.
Jax
.”

Chapter
43

Despite the
win on the publicity front, Alex couldn’t relax. He needed to get out of his
contract now more than ever, but didn’t see how he could pull it off. Just
because his boss turned out to be a porn mogul it didn’t negate the contract.
He needed to find someone—a lawyer—exceptionally skilled at finding
and exploiting loopholes.
Someone without scruples.
One name came to mind, but that meant confronting his jealousy. When he’d
exhausted his mental search for another option, he made the call.

“Hey bro,”
Zach said.

After
what-upping back and forth, Alex got to the point.

“Can you get
me your dad’s lawyer’s number? I need some help with a contract.”

“Don’t you
have a lawyer?” Zach asked.

“Yeah but
he’s too … moral.”

“Your lawyer
is too moral? You should put him in a
fuckin
’
museum.” Zach laughed.
 
“But if you
need amoral, then yeah, Dad’s is the best of the best. I’ll shoot you a text.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.
I
gotta
ask, is everything alright?”

“It will
be,” Alex said.

“Good luck,
man. You’ve got an amazing … family,” Zach said.

Seconds
after they hung up, as promised, Alex received a text with Ira
Stearn’s
contact info. Despite his earlier misgivings about
Zach’s motives for helping Jenna get out of town, Alex knew his friend well
enough to know he’d never cross that line. And now, all he could do was find
out if he had any legal-
ish
way of walking away from
his contract unscathed. It was a long shot, but worth a try. If not, he needed
a plan B. Quick.

Ira
Stearn
, Esq. was not surprised to hear from Alex Anders,
not because he expected to, but because nothing surprised him. He didn’t see
himself as jaded, just realistic. The rich were often more desperate than the
poor, paranoid someone would take their money, distrustful of everyone’s
motives. He made a fortune off encouraging their paranoia and convincing them
that yes, someone
was
trying to rip
them off, and that only
he
could save
them from destitution.

They were so
gullible. They all thought he was their best friend. And he enjoyed the perks.
He couldn’t lie (about that). His ideal day started off with a thick black
espresso on the green of an oceanfront golf course from which he conducted his
day’s business: schmoozing clients, barking orders into his phone, relaxing at
the end of the day in an exclusive men’s-only clubhouse where he could put up
his feet, light up a Cuban indoors, and let a smoky scotch slide down his
throat, enjoying its peaty aftertaste.

His ideal
day occurred at least three times a week. How many people could say they loved
their job? Ira
Stearn
could.

So when Alex
Anders called to talk about retaining his services for review of a contract, he
didn’t concern himself with petty questions about things like conflict of
interest. Not representing one party simply because he represented their
opposition didn’t flutter the needle on his ethical compass. Ira’s only
conflict lay in checks not clearing. Ethics were for mere mortals.