The Rock Star Next Door, a Modern Fairytale (45 page)

And yet
, the band was falling apart
around her
. Darrell’s attempted assault on Jack was a sobering reality they couldn’t ignore. Darrell’s simmering resentment coupled with Kyra’s flagrant abandonment made her realize she couldn’t live for
the members of
Heartless
any longer. They grew up together. They ran away from abusive parents and eked out a life for themselves here in LA. Their determinati
on paid off. They were now rich
and relatively famous--and they were clawing at each other like rabid dogs.

This man, this wonderful, handsome, perfect man was asking her to live with him, to create a life with him. He was still standing there, holding out a hand to her, holding out a life line. Jessie stared at him, humbled by his persistence.

After everything that had happened between them, he still wanted her?

That great se
x last night came flooding back
and with it the memory of her babbling. She’d said something about marrying him, didn’t she?  It was all fuzzy now. She kept saying yes while he was going down on her, and then he asked what the question was. Did she merely think it or had she actually said it aloud?

“
. . . yes . . . I’ll marry you, if you still want me . . .
”

As if in answer to her thoughts, Lex said. “Yes, Jessie. I still want you.”

“I still need time.
I don’t want to be pushed into something I’m uncertain about.
”

“I know. We’ll take it a day at a time. You’re alive. Darrell didn’t kill you, and I’ve decided not to kill him, at least not today.”

She couldn’t help but smile at his
quip
, and yet, as Jessie gazed into Lex’s steely blue eyes, she realized he wasn’t joking. He meant every word.

“And, we
’re not getting married . . .”
She added. “At least, not today.”

He nod
ded. “Not today. But
some
day. W
hen you’re ready. Until then, you can live with me
or visit me
and bunk next door with Jack. But--“ His voice dropped an octave in warning. “If I see Darrell next door, if I see him anywhere near you and there isn’t a camera involved, I’m calling in the big guns. And believe me, in this town, 300 pound bodyguards are a text message away. I won’t allow him to hurt you again, intentional or not.”

Chapter Twenty Two

Time.
She needed time.

Lex considered time his enemy in this game of hearts.

W
hat if he were looking at it
wrong?
What
if Time were
his ally?

Patience, Lex
. That’s what he’d been telling himself this past week.
Be patie
nt.
Let her
walk alongside you at her own pace. Stop forcing her to keep up with you.

His daily meditation
s
rev
ealed things
about his
behavior
he didn’t want to see
.
In his zeal to
rush into their
reunion of souls
he was
backing Jessie
into a corner by insisting
they hurry through
the process of courtship and marry.
Yes
, that was his
bi
g epiphany
in the weeks they
spent apart. The lesson was underscored
in this past week while Jessie slowly edged
her way back to him like a shy woodland creature he’d been trying t
o feed by hand. If he startled her
she
’d bolt
.

It was a big hit to his ego, learning he was still just a s
elfish prick with a bruised ego under all that new age wisdom.
That was why he’d pushed Jessie into a hurried marriage. To soothe his ego after spending ten years hoping the
wrong
woman would finally say yes and marry
him. Now he had the right woman
and h
e was chasing her away over
past baggage with Crystal that shouldn’t be a factor in his relationship with Jessie.

Jessie needed
time. N
ow that they were back together--in a tentative way--nothing official--he was
n’t
going to go all caveman on her again and demand the relationship had to be his way or no way
at all
.

H
e cringed when he thought of their break up. It
was
his fault.
He
gave her an ultimatum instead of
understanding. She backed away
and he walked out on her.

Marry me, right now
or it’s over
.

Yeah, didn’t that speak volumes about
love--patien
t, enduring, timeless love?

A month apart with time to reflect upon their shattered love
life
had given him plenty of time to reflect on why Jessie kept backing away from him. The more he pressured her to move forwa
rd
the more she b
acked away from him
.

She was back in his life
,
thanks to
Darrell’s accident
al
ass
a
u
lt
,
but she
still
needed him to drop gears and slow down.
H
e wanted Jessie here
in his home
.
He wanted her to move in
with him
. He wanted her here e
very night, all night. He wanted to go to sleep with her nestled in his arms, and wake up with her face next to his on the pillow.

Jessi
e was taking a week to relax and recover before jumping back in to the grueling schedule of the MTV Halloween special shoot.
The doctor prescribed two weeks, but she was taking only one.
It was only August, but the production schedule was ti
ght for an October air time. Jessie
came over to his place in the evenings. She laughed with him. They ate dinner together--mostly take out--and just hung out as they tried to piece together the shattered piece
s of their
relationship. They made love a couple of times, but come midnight, like Cinderella
she
always
went home. Next door it may be, but it was still too
far away. Lex wanted to hold Jessie
close, tuck
her beneath his arm and protect her
against the coming storm.

The tower
card
.
Jessie’s world was crumbling, like the tower tarot card. It might not be a literal interpretation, but when he looked at her goofy ass
surrogate family,
the band, he could see the tower exploding and people falling from the high precipi
ce as inexplicable
forces des
troyed the structure. Kyra already abandoned them.
Darrell was lashing
out by trying
to
attack
Jack in a jealous rage, all because Jack was mo
re prominent as the lead singer.
Jessie was caught in the cross-fire, collateral damage in the
ir
warring egos.

And then there was Jack. So clearly lost to the magic white powder, the guy was one dose away from a dangerous melt down
or an overdose
. When it happened
the people closest to Jack would be hurt. Jessie would be hurt. Lex wanted to protect her. That was why he insisted that first night when she was released from the hospital that she move in with him. He wanted to pull her away fr
om the ticking time bomb. Hell,
he wanted to
go
all
medieval on her, pick her up, throw
her over his shoulder and c
arry her from the burning building
. He
knew he
couldn’t do that. If he became to
o
demanding, even i
f it were for her own good,
he’d end up pushing her away
a
gain, perhaps forever this time
.

He pressed stop on his iPod
and the meditation music ended
. Lex rose from his chair on the deck and stretched.
He needed to get back to his comput
er. He had a different deadline to meet now, a book contract instead of a music one. And he had hope again
after a month of misery. He had Jessie back in his life. This time, he wasn’t going to screw it up. This time, he wasn’t going to lose her.

*    *    *

By the end of the week Jessie
was able to flex her arm en
ough to hold a guitar and do
chord formation
s with
reduced
pain. She
couldn’t flail about
with her arm
as she did onstage, however
. It would take another few weeks for her muscle tissue to knit together befo
re she could resume full
range of motion in he
r arm
, according to the doctor
.

She was sitting
in the lower level game room at the beach house with her guitar on her lap, strumming quietly, trying to work the muscles in her left arm a little more to keep from getting too stiff as her wound healed. A stab wound was damned painful. She’d never again discount a knife wound as being merely a ‘cut’ again. Deep
puncture wounds were the result
and having your muscle pierced by a sharp object,
cutting
nearly to the bone
was an absolute bitch. She had to have the dressings changed
every day at the clinic and have a
nurse irrigate the wound to forestall any infection.

Steve drove her there each morning and sat with her like a good frie
nd. Lex had offered to take her
but Jessie declined his assistance. She didn’t want to seem too need
y as soon as they were on again. B
esides, Steve was just the right mix of concern and distance. He didn’t fuss over her like Jack or Lex would, and yet, he was there, stoic and concerned, all the same. He even cracked jokes about it, helping her laugh at the incident instead of being all alpha male caveman on her as the other
two guys
would
do
. She was taking torpedo strength an
tibiotics
along with painkillers, so she preferred to hang by herself for most of the day.
She
stayed dressed in her silk pajama pants and camisole as she
surfe
d the internet, practiced a few songs
on her new Fender
and just enjoyed the down time and the rare solitude.
Lex called her each night at
five
when he was finished writing for the day
and
the
y hooked up for dinner
. That was just enough for Jessie
right now
; a couple of hours with him at his place in the evening. No pressure, no media.

Jack, Steve and Lex were so angry with Darrell it was like walking a mine field
as she struggled to forgive him and not incur the wrath of her
dedicated
testosterone posse. Just mentioning his nam
e brought a flurry of curse
s and heated vows to sue him for dam
ages--from any one of the three men.
Darrell was
really
sorry. He sen
t Jessie flowers
every day for the past
week. And with those flowers came cards professing
just how sorry he was. She felt bad for him.
Darrell wasn’t a jerk, well, not much of one, anyway.

The news media got wind of the story
but it was discredited
by
the
record company
with a
counter story about Jessie protecting Jack from an assault from an overzealous fan. That
was like adding kerosene to an already raging fire.
Now all the celebrity news feeds were featuring the story of
Jack and Jessie
as victims of assault;
the
famous
Rock
twins
protecting each other with their lives,
thus
spurring
more news
stories about the
closeness of twins--
ad nauseum
--
once more
leaving the other three band members out of th
e spot
light. It must have burned
Darr
ell to know that
even his brash attemp
t to lash out against all the
attention she and Jack were getting was c
overed up by the execs
and spun to bring more attention to Jack and Jessie
.
It bothered Jessie, but there was no
thing she could do about. Once
news was
loosed upon the media monsters
it took on a life of its own, spouting new heads where the o
ld one was cut off like a creature of
Greek legend.