Still Her (Turn it Up Book 2)

by Natalie Parker

  “The day after you leave. There’s a lot of bands in the lineup and each is only playing four songs or so. I’m surprised you guys didn’t have time to do it too.”

  I’m confused. How does he know we didn’t have time to make an appearance when we didn’t even know about this in the first place?

  “What do you mean? This is the first I’m even hearing about it.”

  “What? When we got a list of all the bands that were playing it, we asked why Turn it Up wasn’t on it. We knew you guys would be somewhere in the vicinity and presumed you’d be part of it. All anyone had to say was that the event manager had reached out to your agent and asked for you, and he’d told them you wouldn’t have time in your schedule.”

  And now it all makes sense. When Eli told Mayzie he wouldn’t have any gigs for us while she was thinking about his proposition, he seriously acted on the notion. I lean my forehead against the windowpane for a moment, welcoming the cooling effect it has on the building fire in my mind. “Right,” I grumble out.

  “Jack, you all right man?” George asks, concern evident in his tone.

  “Yeah…” I pinch the bridge of my nose. I’m not sure if I should bring him into this, but I need to talk to someone. Sure, Mike and Sarah know what’s going on, but anything they have to say about it comes from a family perspective. They’re too close, and therefore it’s hard for them to see the big picture. I need someone that understands the life, the business. George has more years in the industry under his belt. He’s a friend and I trust him. “Listen, I have a question. Who’s your agent?”

  “Uh,” he pauses, obviously caught off guard by my random question. “Rachel Lawrence. She’s with Excel PR. Why?”

  “Something’s going on. I don’t think I should get into it on the phone, but let’s meet up in Boston. We’ll make it happen. I’ll fill you in then.”

  “Alright,” he responds hesitantly.

  We hang up, and I go back to assembling the dresser for not even five minutes before my phone rings again. This time, the name Det. Morris is lighting up my screen.

  “Morris,” I say his name like a statement when I answer.

  “Jack, hey. This a good time?”

  I glance at the half-built dresser and let out an exasperated sigh. “Sure,” I return.

  “I’m in town for the holiday and I’d like to drop by and check in.”

  “What do you mean, you’re in town?”

  “I’m from here, remember? Went to school with Mike…”

  The realization dawns and I remember Mike calling him a college buddy. “Right,” I acknowledge. I’m hesitant, but it’s not like this whole thing will just go away if I avoid talking about it. I reluctantly agree and give him our address. He tells me he’ll be by in a few before we hang up.

  As promised, he arrives at the gate at the head of our driveway less than ten minutes later and I let him through.

  Once he’s inside and settled in the living room I head to the kitchen. I need a beer. “You want one?” I ask him over my shoulder.

  “Please,” he answers, his voice carrying as much frustration and tension as mine, and I point it out.

  “You look as rough as I feel.”

  He nods, his face pensive, after accepting the cracked open beer. “I’ll be honest, Jack. I came by to see if you and Mayzie are any closer to deciding what you want to do. I can’t ethically coerce you in any way, but full disclosure, I want to take this son of a bitch down.”

  “You say that as if I don’t,” I volley back. “This is the woman I love we’re talking about. My life. What I want to do is lay him out.”

  “And while I can’t let you do that, I can help you bring a stop to him and his career. Just think about it; we get proof to convict him, that’s it. He’s done before the paper even cools from the press. That would be even better than beating his ass,” he takes a pull on his beer and looks back over at me from the chair he’s parked in. “And besides… I’ve been there.”

  “Yeah. I know about him messing with your fiancé, and I can more than sympathize. But is that what this is about? You want to avenge your lady by using mine to get to him?”

  “Well, as you apparently know, Lola and I already tried. We failed. You and Mayzie have a shot at it now.”

  “And because you were willing to put your fiancé on the front lines, I should be willing to do the same with my wife?” I’m keeping the volume of my voice in check, but not my tone. It’s riddled with hostility. “You think I should just give her a swat on the ass and tell her to go get him?”

  “Check yourself Krasinski,” his head snaps up. “You have to know damn well it’s not like that. We tried to go for it, because Lola wanted to. I told her what options we had and that’s what she wanted to do. So that’s what we did. What we tried to do. We confronted it as a team. If he’d taken the bait, I would’ve been right there, ready to move in before she came to any harm. Unfortunately, that one time she was alone with him made her so skittish she couldn’t get away from him fast enough, so when she tried to lure him into our set-up, he either knew what was going on or it wasn’t enough of a game for him. Either way, he was done. We missed the chance. And the time that’s gone by ever since has been… hard.”

  That last sentence resonates. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the hell we’ve been through watching that bastard gloat at us from the headlines because of some deal he made or some act he signed with. Seeing his cocky, shit eating grin on the cover of Forbes, living the life… Meanwhile, the occasional distraught woman walks into my precinct with a story similar to Lola’s, that Eli made them feel defiled, worthless or frightened; that this scum cornered her the way he did Mayzie, and continues to take what he wants with no consequence.”

  I’m quiet. I can’t think of a damn thing to say that would be a justifiable argument. He’s been in my shoes, and because he chose the route I’m trying like hell to avoid, nothing I say will make him understand. Maybe he already does. I don’t fucking know…

  “Look, I can’t promise that if you and Mayzie decide to have her meet up with this jerk-off in New York that everything will flow perfectly without a hitch and we’ll come out of it victorious,” He takes another pull of beer, rolling the bottle between both hands. “But I can promise you that if you fold, this doesn’t stop. He keeps doing what he’s doing, either to you guys or to someone else. Maybe you’ll buy your way out and be just fine and he’ll leave you alone while you pick up the pieces,” he shrugs. “Or Mayzie will become an even bigger conquest to him and he’ll keep coming at you under the radar, making more cryptic calls from burner phones, pulling strings with other PR firms that you try to sign with… The possibilities are endless. Sure, you could change your phone numbers or issue a no-contact order, but who knows how he’ll react to that. It could piss him off and make him sic his lawyers on you again because you have. No. Proof.” He shakes his head, staring at the fire I have crackling in the fireplace that my lazy dogs are lying in front of.

  “How would you have dealt with your girl meeting up with him, if it had come to it?” I challenge.

  He sets his empty bottle down on the coffee table. The sigh he lets out is one of resignation as he stares at the floor. “Well, I admit I wasn’t as afraid for her as you are for yours. I’m a cop. I have training, resources, and a gun at my disposal.” He gives himself a humorless eye-roll. “Plus, I was going to be in a room nearby, listening the whole time.”

  I finally get tired of holding my guard up and recline back, dropping my head back on the couch cushions, gripping my beer with one hand and rubbing my eyes with the other.

  After a moment, Morris looks back up. “But Jack, I’d be there to do the same for Mayzie. I won’t let anything bad happen to her.”

  I roll my head to look at him. “Just her being in a room with him will be something bad happening to her.”

  He shakes his head and offers me a defeated shrug. “But she could possibly be rewarded for being br
ave by putting an end to this mother fucker. What would she get from buying out and cowering for the rest of your lives?”

  I run a hand through my hair and close my eyes. “Morris…” that last remark tested my hospitality. It was invasive and it crossed the line, but I think what bothers me most, is the merit lying deep within it.

  “You don’t have to say anymore, Jack. I’ve imposed more than enough, I know.” Morris gets to his feet and grabs his coat off the hook by the door. I stand and walk over to see him out, my hands on my hips, still trying to exude some kind of control. With the door just part way open, he casts me one last glance. “No one wants to do it this way Jack. But unlike the other way, if we’re successful, when it’s over… it’s truly over.” With that he saunters out the front door, closing it gently behind him.

  MAYZIE

  I come in from the garage door that leads into the kitchen, and the dogs come frolicking over to me, smelling the bags of Chinese take-out that I’m carting in. I set them on the kitchen counter and let them out the back slider. It was an interesting time with Annie, hearing about what it’s like to be running your own photography business while expecting a bar managers love child. Seems life’s a clusterfuck all around right now. I didn’t tell her anything about Douche-gate. She’s got enough going on right now without worrying about me. I promise myself I’ll tell her the whole story when it’s all over. Whenever that may be.

  “Jack?” I call out, as I unwind my scarf and unzip my coat. My call is met with silence as I make my way over to the hook by the front door, shedding my coat and hanging it up. I glance over into the living room that is completely darkened, save for the orange glow coming from the fireplace. I can’t wait to spend an entire winter at home, just to enjoy little things like that.

  I can just barely make out Jack’s form lying on the couch. He’s on his back with one arm across his chest, and the other draped over his eyes. My shoulders drop at the sight of him. Tour life is exhausting; especially once you stop moving and take a beat to let it all catch up to you. I walk over to the couch and gently sit down next to him. The cushions dipping with my weight gently stir him and I lay a hand over his, gently sweeping my thumb back and forth. He pulls his arm farther up on his head, revealing sleepy, heavily lidded eyes.

  “Always such a beautiful sight to wake up to,” he rasps.

  “Charmer,” I smirk down at him. “I brought dinner.”

  “I had a lovely visit from the good detective,” he tells me, sarcastically.

  My smile slips slightly. “Yeah? What did he want?” I ask, after Jack nods.

  “What do you think he wanted?” he replies, as he turns on his side. I give a somber nod in response. “Come here,” he reaches for me and pulls me down to lay with him. There’s plenty of room for me to lay down facing him because of the, ahem, double-wide.

  “He was pushing for us to take the dipshit down?” I ask quietly.

  “Yeah.” He’s quiet for a few moments, as if gathering his thoughts and psyching himself up. He takes a breath. “And I’ll be honest, a very big part of me wants to just throw everything we have at him so he’ll leave us alone, so that you don’t have to deal with him anymore.”

  I nod, knowing where he’s coming from with this. “And what do other parts of you think?”

  He shakes his head, sighing deeply. “The other parts of me know how that would hurt you in the long run, knowing what we sacrificed that we shouldn’t have had to. How it would hang over you. I don’t want that for you either.”

  “I know,” I assure him, quietly.

  “Baby… what do you want to do?” His voice is heavy, like it kills him to be turning this over to me, but he knows that something has to give.

  I take a moment to respond to him, because as has been the case through this whole thing, I really, seriously, do not know what the hell I want to do. I don’t want to do any of it. But that’s not going to work here, so I find a way to put my thoughts into words.

  “I don’t know what I want to do. I only know what I don’t want to do. I don’t want to buy our way out of the contract. I don’t want to give him everything we have and watch for him over our shoulders for God only knows how long. It would be like rewarding him. I want him to be stopped. I want him to pay for what he’s done to other people. I also…” I swallow, “don’t want to face him. And I don’t think I can without you.”

  He caresses my cheek with the back of his knuckles, and I try to tell him with my eyes that I mean what I say, that I’m not patronizing him, or trying to just make him feel needed, or give him any vindication. I’m saying it because I truly need him. He gives me strength. He makes me brave. And with him near, I know I’m safe.

  “Then you won’t do it without me,” he says firmly, and even in the darkness, I can see the solemnness in his eyes before he’s pulling me close so that my forehead rests against his. “You’re sure?”

  No. But I nod. “Yeah, I guess this is one of those times where when you can’t do the ideal thing, you do the right thing, huh?” He closes his eyes and gives a humorless chuckle. “What about you? Are you sure?” I ask.

  “Fuck no,” he shakes his head. “So I guess I’ll just be running on faith.”

  I nod. “We both can.”

  Without another word, Jack sits up and pulls me with him, keeping my body flush against his and crushes his mouth against mine, eliciting a whimper from between my lips. His hands come up my sides, pushing my shirt up, and he breaks our kiss only long enough to yank it off of me.

  He starts kissing up my shoulder, gently at first, and then with hunger. His fingers grip my skin and a warm glow settles over our atmosphere.

  Not long after, he is pressing me into the couch, maneuvering himself to kneel over me. His warm lips travel over the skin of my back and my lower jaw drops in a gasp when I feel his hardness against my ass. I moan my encouragement as he sweeps my hair off the back of my neck, making sure his mouth doesn’t miss the sensitive skin there.

  His mouth and his movements have me in ecstasy long before he puts an arm around my waist to pull my hips up slightly, making them flush with his so that he can push himself inside me, connecting us. From there, our bodies find an urgent rhythm, moving together.

  Jack rests his forehead against my back as he thrusts into me with beautifully brutal strokes. He holds his weight on one hand while his other arm stays wrapped protectively around my middle. My gasps and moans carry through our vaulted living room as my arousal climbs and climbs. Jack is communicating so much to me in this moment. With each pound, it’s like he’s trying to establish some kind of control after recently relinquishing a small amount on a different plane. His hand gently grips my chin to turn my head back so our lips can unsteadily meet between our sharp and forceful movements. And then he withdraws from me to nudge my hip and turn me to my back. I let out a low groan of relief when he’s back inside me. His hands go into my hair as he resumes his motions, pinning my gaze with his.

  You’re everything, his eyes say. His intense glare just magnifies the sensations flowing through my body, turning me on to the maximum capacity.

  The euphoria culminates with Jack holding me against him. I fall off the cliff, careening and tumbling as he slams the last of his release into me, letting me have it all. My plummeting slows little by little, until I’m caught safely in his arms.

  JACK

  Even if I could find the right words, I don’t have the mental capacity to say them right now, so I’m trying, with my body, with my touch, to convey to Mayzie that while I’m letting go of a small amount of dominance in our predicament, I’m not happy about it. That my need to protect her and keep her close comes from a place of love so profound it can’t be fathomed. That my need to not let her out of my sight may be unreasonable to some, but so be it. She may be strong, capable and brave, but that doesn’t mean I want to let her walk into a situation where she has to be.

  And now, as we lay facing each other, I know I need to tell her
that. If I had my way, we’d never talk about this again. But if we’re keeping this option open, I need us to be clear about something.

  “I don’t even want to talk about this,” I whisper, “but I need to say one thing.”

  “Okay,” she says, looking me in the eyes and giving me her attention.

  “If we decide to take that fucker down, I’m going to be nearby.” She continues to look at me with no response, but she’s taking in my words, so I continue. “You’re not going to worry about where the hell I’m supposed to be, or what I should be doing with the band. You’re going to let me be your fucking husband this time, which means I’m going to be right there.” I don’t mean to be coming off like such an overbearing asshole, I’m just having a hard time letting go of any amount of control over something so important to me, and I’m desperately grasping on to as much as I can. I soften my tone before saying, “Got it?” I smooth my thumb over her cheek, hoping she understands how hard it is for me to even entertain this option.

  “Yes,” she responds, her eyes solemnly trained on mine. I feel my eyebrows go up. That was easy. She’s not being a pistol. Looks like we’re both giving a little here. “I need you, Jack.” And with those words, my eyes close and my entire body relaxes in a slump, like all the resolve is deflating out of it. She really just said that and meant it. I know she loves me, that she wants me. But taking care of her is what makes my heart beat. I feel a trace of calmness return to my soul and settle in my chest.

  “Think we can leave it on that note for now?” I ask, giving her a hopeful half-smile.

  She closes her eyes and nods. “Definitely.”

  MAYZIE

  After turning over a thousand times in bed that night, I pull the covers back and get up. This is ridiculous. I can’t get a decent sleep in our own bed. I glance over to make sure my movements didn’t wake Jack and see him shirtless on his side, his eyes still closed. I pick his t-shirt up from off the floor and put it on. The soft cottony material falls down to my knees and I’m enveloped in his clean, leathery scent. My eyes have long since adjusted to the darkness, and I wander the house without flipping any lights on until I get to the kitchen where I turn on the single small one that hangs over the stove. I shuffle around, opening the fridge and closing it, rifling through cupboards, not sure what the hell I hope to find that will be the answer to this insomnia. And then, as I lean back against the fridge, my eyes land on it: my laptop, resting on the island countertop. My brain won’t turn off with all the loud thoughts racing around in it, like it’s a frickin’ Nascar track. Maybe if I just let some of it out…