The Man You Need (Love on Tour #4) (17 page)

20

Somehow I managed to get dressed, though I have no memory of it. I stumbled down to the lobby in a daze, not really sure where I was going. I was standing in the entrance to the hotel bar, watching Alonso and some blonde, when my phone rang.

“Stacey? Hey, are you okay?” Sean asked.

“Um, yeah. Why?”

“I just saw Jack. He said you two broke up. He thought I should know. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I don’t really want to talk about it right now.”

“Okay. Where are you?”

“I’m in the hotel bar. I’m gonna have a drink with Alonso.”

“Do you want me to come down there?”

“No. I just need a minute, Sean.”

“Okay. Well, um, I’m right here in my room waiting for you when you decide you want to talk, alright?”

He had relented surprisingly quickly. And I loved him for giving me this moment. I needed it. I couldn’t go see him now because I’d just turn into a giant tear and snot-filled mess.

“Okay, I’ll be up later.”

“Stac, do me a favor and stay in the hotel, please.”

“I’ll be right here in the bar with Alonso.”

He didn’t make any comment about the fact that I’d be drinking with a giant rocker slut. He had nothing but sheer concern in his voice. It was making me weak.

“I gotta go, Sean.”

I hung up the phone and marched into the bar. I stared down at the blonde sitting across from Alonso in a cozy booth. “Get out,” I demanded.

She looked up at me. At first she looked pissed, and I thought maybe she’d get up and want to get physical. I was totally okay with that. But then she recognized me and her mouth dropped open. By this point in the tour everyone had figured out that I was Sean’s sister, and I was a celebrity by proximity among the groupies. This girl was not going to fuck with me.

“Um, Stacey Rush, hi.”

“Out.”

She stood up. “Sure. Um, okay, well, I’ll see you later, Alonso.” And then she was gone.

****

“And that’s how I ended up here with you.”

“And? What about Jack?” Alonso asks.

“He’s gone.”

I’ve had a few drinks, and I am not under control anymore. This last part of the story has me in knots.

“But you love him.”

I nod, not sure I can talk.

“And you don’t really want to go to New York and fuck some casting director in a broom closet, do you?”

I shake my head.

“You want Jack.”

Fuck. I do. I want him. And maybe even the big house and the two-point-five kids. I am about to lose it. And I can’t do it here in front of Alonso, in the middle of a bar.

“Can you take me to Sean?” I ask, my voice croaky.

“Absolutely.”

Alonso must hold his liquor better than me, because he gets up and pulls me out of my chair without so much as a wobble.

In the elevator, he calls Sean. But I don’t pay too much attention to the conversation, because I am too busy trying not to burst into tears.

When we get to Sean and Baby’s room, Alonso doesn’t even have to knock. My brother throws the door open. And exactly what I feared happens. As soon as I am enveloped in his thick arms, I fall apart.

I hear Alonso and Sean talking over my sobs.

“Thanks, man,” Sean says.

“No problem.”

I hear the door shut, but I know Sean didn’t do it, because he is still holding me tightly. It must have been Baby. Then I feel a small hand on my back.

“I’m going to make some tea,” Baby says.

It takes a couple minutes for the big, heaving sobs to stop. Then Sean walks me over to the couch. And as I sit there, leaning into my big brother’s chest, I realize I’ve been here, like this, more times than I can count. And it is still one of the most comforting places on the planet.

Baby brings three mugs over to the coffee table in front of us and sits down on my other side. She hands me a cup.

“Here’s some tea, Stac, with honey.”

I take a sip. She hands a cup to Sean.

“That’s not tea is it?” he asks.

I almost laugh. Sean never drinks tea.

“No, it’s coffee. Take it,” Baby demands. “Stacey, do you wanna talk about it?” she asks me, gently rubbing my arm.

I look up at Sean.

“I fucked up,” I say.

“I’m sure that’s not the case.”

I look over at Baby. She’s making a face at him. Sean still thinks I’m perfect. Well, at least I have that going for me.

“How did you fuck up?” Baby asks me.

I look back at my brother. “I fell in love with Jack.”

Sean nods.

“I didn’t mean too. He’s not my type. Not at all.”

“Your type,” Sean says quietly, “is not good for you.”

He’s right, of course. But it doesn’t matter now.

“Is Jack?” I ask him.

“I don’t know,” he says. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“Well, you love him.”

“I’m not like Sam.”

Before he met Lisa, Sam claimed to love just about every girl he met. He couldn’t so much as go on a date with someone without coming home and declaring that he loved her and he’d be heartbroken if she ever left him. Lisa, it turned out, was the real thing. I wasn’t like that. I’d never told anyone I loved them, until Jack.

Sean nods. “I know you’re not.”

“I don’t fall in love at the drop of a hat,” I reiterated, trying to express just how real this all was.

“I know, Stac.”

“He’s so… Jack is so… stable.”

Sean nods.

“I suppose you like that?”

He nods again.

I look over at Baby.

“Do you want me to go?” she asks.

“Absolutely not. Where’s Henry?”

“He’s asleep. Do you want to hold him?”

I do. But I don’t want to wake him up. Baby starts to get up.

“Stay,” I say, grabbing Baby’s hand.

“You’re hurting,” she says, tears in her eyes.

I nod.

“Stacey, what happened?” Sean asks. “I know you may not be ready to talk about it, but I’m in serious pain over here. I’ve been worried sick for over an hour now.”

Poor Sean. He’s been a wreck since I was sixteen years old.

“It was my fault. I hurt him. I was a crazy bitch and I pushed him away.”

Sean kisses the top of my head.

“Maybe you were just scared,” Baby says. “Believe me, Stacey, that happens. I left Sean once because I was scared.”

I remember. It was me comforting Sean that time.

“I am scared. I’m scared shitless,” I tell her. “I’m scared that he’s it for me. A boring stuffed suit, who I love to death, who I’ll spend the rest of my life with. And I’m also scared that I’ll never get him back.”

“He’s not really a stuffed suit,” Sean says.

“I know. But I still threw him away. God.” I bury my face in Sean’s chest again.

“So, do you want him back?” he asks me.

I take a deep breath and wipe a tear from my eye. “I do. But I’ll just push him away again, even if I can get him back.”

Baby looks at me long and hard. “So, if you want him, how do you keep from pushing him away?”

“I don’t fucking know. Tell me? How?”

Baby shakes her head. “I don’t know either, Stac. I just know that I had exactly the same fear once. And it hasn’t been a problem since.”

“Were you scared, Sean? When you fell in love with Baby?” I ask him.

Somehow I feel that if Sean has been through this, I can do it too.

“Absolutely.”

“Yeah?”

“Out of my mind. I had no idea what was happening to me. It was terrifying.”

“But you didn’t run away,” I point out.

“No. I didn’t. But there were moments… Stacey,” he says firmly. “You are stronger than this.”

I look at my brother. He stares at me with the same dark eyes I have.

“You’re right.”

“So?” Baby asks. “What are you going to do?”

“Call him?” I suggest.

“Or you could just go to his room. He’s in 302,” Baby tells me.

“Hmmm,” Sean mumbles.

I hate it when he does that.

“If he’s there.”

“He’s there,” Baby says.

“How the hell do you know all this?”

“He called.”

“What?” I sit up. “When?”

“A little while ago.” She flinches slightly as she tells me, “He said that when he went down to the front desk to get a room, he saw you at the bar with Alonso. He just wanted us to know.”

I should be pissed off. But for some bizarre reason I’m not. He’s jealous. He doesn’t want me to sneak off with Alonso and drown my sorrows in him. I should hate that. But I don’t.

“I don’t think he’ll want to talk to me right now.”

Neither of them says anything, and I’m pretty sure it’s because they agree. But I don’t care. I can’t stand feeling like this, and I need to fix it, now. So I wipe the tears from my face, take a sip of tea and stand up.

“I’m going to go talk to him, right now.”

“Okay, we’ll be here if you need us,” Baby says.

Sean doesn’t say anything, he just looks at me with naked concern. I square my shoulders and walk to the door.

The trek down the hall to Jack’s room is excruciating. I move my feet slowly over the worn carpet. I feel like I’m walking to my death. But I need to do this. I need to get Jack back. I can’t wait one more minute.

Jack answers the door with a wary expression on his face.

“Can we talk?” My voice cracks a little.

He doesn’t answer, but he throws the door open and steps aside. I move into the room and watch as he closes the door behind me. And I stand there, not sure what to do.

He waits a beat, then he starts. “I don’t think there’s much more to say, Stacey.”

“But there is. I love you. I meant it when I said that.”

“First of all, I can see that you are pretty drunk right now. And I don’t think you’re thinking clearly.”

“I did drink this evening. But, Jack, I am crystal clear on this. I love you.”

Jack lets out a long sigh and runs a hand through his hair. “That doesn’t magically fix everything.”

“Well, what does?”

“Stacey, you and I aren’t on the same path. I didn’t know what I wanted. And you changed that. Now I know where I want to go with my life. But you don’t want any of it. You made that perfectly clear.”

I bite my lip and stare at him. Then I take a deep breath and plunge in. “Maybe I could change what I want.” If it would get me Jack, I could change almost anything.

“I don’t want to change you, Stacey. That’s not what this is about.”

This is so frustrating. If he doesn’t want me to change, then what does he want? “Jack, I don’t understand. I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“You can’t do anything. This just isn’t going to work. You must see that. That’s why you started this whole conversation, isn’t it?”

I
had
started all this with talk about going back to New York. Then I’d hurt him. And now I want to undo it all. In this moment I just want Jack to take me in his arms. I don’t care about all the doubts I had before. I don’t care about the vision of our disastrous break-up in the near future that I could see so clearly in my head last night. I don’t care about any of that right now.

“Look, Jack, maybe we have to figure some stuff out. But we can. We can work through it.”

“I can’t right now, Stac. I know you’re sad. But, goddamn it, I’m hurting, too. And I feel like a fucking fool for thinking that we could make this work.”

I stare at Jack. He doesn’t believe in us. I can’t blame him, really. It had been only a few weeks of friendship followed by a handful of nights as lovers. It wasn’t like we had some long history. We’d barely gotten off the ground when we’d crashed and burned.

For some reason, when I’d been sitting in Sean and Baby’s hotel room and they’d been talking about their own love story, I could see how it might work out for us, too. They’d worked through all their issues. So why couldn’t we?

But looking at Jack now, I realize that this is really the better way. I know we aren’t going anywhere. I knew it from the moment I told Jack I loved him. Ending it later won’t hurt any less than ending it right now. But God, I don’t want it to end.

“Okay. I’ll leave you alone,” I say quietly.

I turn and walk out the door. Jack doesn’t try to stop me.

21

Tak answers the door and I fall into his arms.

“Hey, baby girl, calm down now,” he says, as he lowers me gently onto the couch.

Tak lets me cry it out onto his designer shirt, handing me tissues and whispering soothingly to me. At some point I feel him reach over, while still holding onto me. I think he’s texting on his phone. And I feel like an idiot. I barely know this guy, and here I am crying my heart out in front of him. Meanwhile, he’s so bored he’s sending texts.

I wipe off my face and sit up. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, don’t be sorry.”

“Where’s Mike?”

“Some paparazzi showed up at the hotel and he went to take care of it. He’ll be back in a bit.”

“I should probably go,” I say, feeling embarrassed.

“You’re not going anywhere right now. You’re going sit here and drink some wine and tell Tak all about it.”

He opens the bottle of red wine that was sitting on the table and pours two huge glasses. The bottle is half empty by the time he’s done filling them nearly to the top. He hands me one.

“Take a drink, sweetheart.”

I take a couple big gulps.

“That a girl. Now, what happened?”

“I, um, I can’t really talk about it right now,” I say, my voice breaking.

“Fine, you wanna hear me talk?”

I nod.

He leans back in the couch and takes my free hand in his. “What would you like me to talk about?”

“I don’t know.”

“Growing up? My career? Mike?”

“Mike. Tell me how you met.”

“Yeah? You sure you wanna hear a love story right now, because I’m guessing–”

“No. That’s exactly what I want to hear.” I take another sip of wine.

“Okay. Here goes. I met Mike because of a douchebag reporter named Lance. You know him?”

I nod. Lance had done the retraction story when Hank was accused of being little Henry’s father. Mike had dated him briefly after that.

“Apparently, Mike dumped the guy after a couple weeks. But Lance was super into Mike and never really got over him. I met Lance when I was in the magazine offices one day signing a contract for a shoot. He wasn’t really my type. I mean, I like tall, built and manly.”

“Like Mike,” I said.

“Exactly. But he asked me out and I was intrigued by the whole reporter thing. Anyway, we went on a few dates, nothing serious. One night we were in this bar and Mike walks in. Lance points him out to me. He says that’s the guy he never got over. And I could see why right away.” Tak grins.

“Anyway, Lance stands up and starts waving Mike over like an idiot. Mike was definitely about to make his escape, but then he caught sight of me sitting there next to Lance.”

“Love at first sight?” I ask.

“Definitely lust at first sight. Mike came right over to the table and sat down next to me. He and I just started talking. We completely ignored Lance. The poor fool kept trying to interject himself into our conversation, but it was pointless, we were totally wrapped up in each other. We left him sitting there and went back to Mike’s condo. We were inseparable for the two weeks leading up to the tour.”

Tak takes a sip of wine and squeezes my hand. I smile, hoping he’ll continue.

“A couple days before the tour, Mike told me about Sean and Hank. He gave me the whole lowdown on them. They’re like his family, you know.”

“No. I mean, I guess I know that, kind of. But I don’t really know all of it.”

“Mike’s parents are small-minded assholes. He came out to them when he was sixteen and they kicked him out, refused to let him see his sisters, and told him to go to hell. He was on his own for a long time.”

“I had no idea.”

“He went to school on loans and worked his ass off. He had a few friends, but it was a lonely existence. And the whole thing made him pretty leery of telling people who he really was. The job with Sean was huge for him professionally. But he didn’t open up to them at first, either. Then one day, the three of them were sitting around Sean’s living room and Sean just up and asked Mike if he had a boyfriend, like it was his way of casually asking if he’s gay.”

“Knowing my brother, it probably was.”

“Yeah, that’s what Mike figured, too. So, he answered straight up that he didn’t have a boyfriend at the moment and waited, scared shitless, to see how they would react.”

“I bet they acted like it was nothing.”

“Yep. They did. And after a while he figured out that they couldn’t care less about the gender of the people he sleeps with. Anyway, time went by and they became his friends. But Stacey, it was so much more than that. Sean and Hank are like his family, and they’re the only family he has.”

“They feel the same way about him.”

“I can see that. And that’s why, after he explained all this to me, I was nervous as hell about meeting them.”

“Yeah, I guess it would kind of be like meeting the parents, huh?”

“Pretty much. He also told me that they had never liked any of his boyfriends. And that after Mike had his heart smashed by that asshole Grey, he’d agreed they should get a chance to meet all his boyfriends before he got serious.”

“But it was too late, wasn’t it?”

“Way too late. We were already so into each other by that point. So, he gave me a choice. I could meet them before we left on the tour or when I flew in to meet up with him in Texas. I figured if I met them before the tour and they didn’t like me, then Mike was going to leave with them and I’d be all freaked out that he would have second thoughts about us the whole time we were apart. So I decided to meet them on tour. I figured if they didn’t like me at first I’d at least have a couple days to change their minds.”

“Obviously, all your worry was for nothing.”

“Yeah, thank God for that.”

The door opened and Mike walked in with two bottles of wine and a couple glasses.

“I heard Stacey was here and we need to get drunk.”

Suddenly I realized why Tak had been on his phone, and I felt like an ass for assuming otherwise.

“How’re you doing, sweetheart?” Mike asked, sitting down on the other side of me.

“I guess you heard about Jack, huh?” I watched him slide another glass over and fill up all three, draining the original bottle of wine.

“I heard. And I told Sean you were here.” He rubbed my back. “What can I do, Stac?”

“I need to go home, Mike.”

****

Four months later…

I’m running over that awful night in my mind again. We’d spent the next couple hours drinking wine and getting pretty sloshed while I mulled over Mike’s question. “Where is home?”

By the time I woke up, with a pretty decent hangover, I knew where I wanted to go. So I boarded a flight to LAX, along with Tak. Then he delivered me to Lisa and Sam.

So much has happened since then. I took that audition and got the part. The pilot has just come out and we are waiting to hear if the show will be picked up. If it is, I plan to buy Mike’s condo. Mike just closed on a house and he’s moving Tak in with him next week.

I am still living with Sean and Baby. I could have moved out of their place and into L.A., but they want me close. The only way I can afford something in Malibu is if I get this gig. So I am still playing auntie and hanging out with my family all the time. But I’m actually really enjoying it.

I’ve changed. I was so sure that as soon as I went back to acting and hanging out with strangers on a regular basis, I would go right back to being someone else all the time. But I had been wrong. I go to work, I talk to my co-workers, make new friends, and I am me, all the time now.

I wish I could say that I’m over-the-rainbow happy. But I’m not. I miss Jack every second of every day.

I know what he’s up to. In fact, I know more than any ex-girlfriend probably should, because Jack is working for Sam now. Sam had agreed to take on new clients, if Jack would do all the legwork. Jack makes the contacts, goes to all the meetings, and does all the schmoozing. Sam just signs on the dotted line. They’d recently picked up Tak, too. He would be branching the business out into modeling.

I am still their only acting client, however, and I deal only with Sam. In fact, I haven’t seen Jack once in the last four months. He sees my brother nearly every day, and he, Sam and Sean watch hockey games together on a regular basis now that the season has started. Jack even babysits for my nieces every once in a while. But, despite the way our lives are intertwined, we have not crossed paths, not once.

I know that Jack moved his grandparents to a small house in Malibu. Sean and Sam had helped him with the move. I know that he’s not dating anyone right now. And I know that he works like a maniac. But I haven’t seen his face or heard his voice since we parted in Seattle.

Until now.

I’m nervous as hell because I know that he’s going walk through the door any minute. I stand in the corner of Sam’s living room, keeping an eye on the front door across the room.

The house is filling up. Sam is throwing a party for all the new clients his budding agency has gained. He practically begged me to come tonight. Bell went into labor a few hours ago, meaning that Sean, Hank and Baby are all at the hospital with her. Sam is not comfortable in crowds. He’s a charming son of a bitch, but he needs a security blanket when dealing with a huge amount of strangers at once. So, Lisa and I are his comfort. Having us here helps him relax.

I’d rather be at the hospital waiting for Bell to pop that baby out. Hell, I’d rather be just about anywhere else. But at the same time, I’m dying to lay my eyes on Jack.

I’m getting a little concerned, because he and Sam are hosting this party and he should definitely be here already. Tak and Mike are here, in the center of all the action, talking to everyone and making the party fun and light, as usual.

Lisa had been standing with me for a while, but Sam pulled her away to help him greet people. And now I’m alone. Waiting.

My heart feels like it just fell out of my body when Jack walks in with Sharyl on his arm. Oh God. I knew it was going to be hard to see him, but this is even worse than I expected.

Sam had most definitely not mentioned this. Either it was new, or Sam didn’t know about it. Sharyl looks great. She’s wearing a black cocktail dress that shows off all her assets. Both of her arms are wound around one of Jack’s, and she has the biggest shit-eating grin on her face.

I’m torn between wanting to rub her face into the carpet and escape out the patio door as I watch them greeting everyone. Jack is shaking hands, smiling, and introducing Sharyl to person after person. I stand in the corner and watch him. Every so often his eyes dart toward me and our gazes meet. My stomach flips around each time.

They move through the room fluidly, stopping to talk to various people along the way. I stay right where I am. And eventually, they get to Mike, who’s standing just a few paces away from me.

“Sharyl just got back into town and I bumped into her at the coffee shop yesterday,” Jack explains to Mike.

“I begged him to let me come to the party,” Sharyl says. “This is… Well, it’s good for my career.”

Mike gives her a fake smile. “Good move, Sharyl.” He can’t help the frown that forms at the corner of his lips when he turns back to Jack.

“Hey, Mike. Maybe you could introduce Sharyl to Freddi Black. I know she’s going to tour soon and she might need someone like Sharyl.”

“Absolutely.” Mike holds his arm out to Sharyl and gives her a charming grin.

She transfers her grasp from Jack to him. As Mike moves to pull Sharyl across the room, he turns his head quickly to look back at me. When I pull my gaze away from Mike, I see that Jack is walking toward me.

“Hi, Stacey,” he says casually.

“Hi, Jack.” I swallow hard. He’s standing right in front of me now. And he is beautiful. I’ve missed him so much. It’s hard to stand still and not leap into his arms, but I manage.

“You look great.”

No, I don’t. I couldn’t bring myself to do the whole ‘look amazing in front of the ex’ thing. So I threw on a faded sundress and the pair of ugly sandals Baby got me for my birthday. They
are
awfully comfy.

The old sundress does, however, show off my tattoo. It’s perched on my left shoulder blade, in plain sight. Two months ago I’d gotten the bright yellow sun design with blue sky and fluffy white clouds as a gift to myself. After Jack left me, I finally decided what I wanted inked on my body forever – a reminder of what a bright sunny day was like. I’d had them Jack, and someday I would have them again.

Unlike me, Jack looks incredible. He’s wearing a pair of well-fitting khakis and a crisp, white button-up shirt. There was a time when I would have thought he looked stuffy and boring. But now I want to peel the shirt off his chest and undo the button of his pants with my teeth. I want to blame my dirty vision on the four months without sex. But it’s really just Jack’s fault.

“Listen, I asked Sam if I could be the one to tell you,” he says, leaning toward me. “The show got picked up.”