by K. Webster
“When are you divorcing Chaz, Ry-Bear? We’re supposed to run off into the sunset, remember?” I tease. I try to follow it with a laugh, but it sounds hollow.
Normally, Ryan would slap my chest or tease back. Not today. Instead, she squeezes me tighter. “You’re not well,” she softly tells me before pulling away and making her way back over to Chaz.
I meet the faces of four of the people who are supposed to love me the most in this world. But right now, I don’t see love. I only see disappointment. To them, I’m just a fuck-up.
Bobby approaches me and I see nothing but guilt in his eyes. “Donnie, please sit down. We came here to talk to you about something.”
No.
I swallow and shake my head at him. “I’ll stand.”
Tears well in his eyes as he looks down at the floor. Chaz steps over to flank him. His eyes are harder than Bobby’s were, but they’re not mean. He just seems more resolved to state his piece.
“Look, Donnie. We all love you,” he begins.
My eyes flit over to Dad, whose arms are folded across his chest as he looks fairly pleased with himself, and then to Ryan, who has silent tears streaming down her cheeks.
“But?” I ask coldly. There’s most definitely a fucking ‘but’ here.
“Fuck, there is no ‘but.’ What I’m trying to say is that you need a break, man. You’re spinning around wildly out of control and none of us can seem to help you. And with us having families now…” he trails off, not finishing.
No.
“Out with it, Chaz,” I growl. At this point, I know what they want to say but are too chickenshit to voice.
Bobby finally looks up at me with red, wet eyes. “We’re going on a permanent hiatus. The Aces need a break. You need a break.”
No.
“Fuck you all,” I snap as I haul off and punch a hole through the sheetrock of the entryway.
“Donnie, calm the fuck down,” Chaz orders as he approaches. “We’re all getting too old for this lifestyle. And while we’ve all calmed down, you’ve been consumed. You’re losing it, man.”
I flip him off and start stalking down the hallway away from them. A flurry of voices calls after me, but I ignore them as I stomp into my bedroom and slam the door. Just as I’m heaving myself on my bed, the motherfucker follows me in.
“Donnie, look at yourself.”
I glare at him. “You’re supposed to be my fucking brother. Did my dad suggest this shit? Did you really think that breaking up the fucking band would make this any easier, Chaz?” I yell.
I’ve known him since middle school, and his eyes are always so telling. He doesn’t need to acknowledge what I just said because his face gives it all away. Dad thought this was the answer to his little problem. Convincing them that all of this stems from our fame. And those motherfuckers, who are supposed to be my brothers and are so eager to ditch the life they’re now too good for, fell hook, line, and sinker.
“You chose that fucker over me, man. Get the fuck out.” My voice is quiet, but the look I pierce him with speaks volumes.
“Donnie—”
“OUT!”
He stands still for a moment with his arms crossed over his chest, his jaw clenching angrily for several moments before he makes a move to leave.
“You need to get well, Donnie. We love you and only want the best for you.”
With both hands, I give him the bird. “Fuck you and your bullshit reasoning. Get the fuck out of my house and take the rest of them with you.”
He mutters out a string of curse words before storming from the room, slamming the door behind him. As soon as I hear the engines of their cars start up, I sit up and rip my dirty-ass shirt off. This has to have been the longest, worst fucking day of my life. But since I was with Nora for some of it, it was also the best. It makes no fucking sense whatsoever.
After a long, hot shower of trying to do anything but think of my shitty life, I finally dress in a pair of basketball shorts and head downstairs to find alcohol. I’m going to get fucked up and sleep off this foul-ass mood I’m in. I consider drinking a few cold beers to mellow out, but in the end, I snag the tequila off the top of the fridge.
Once I’ve twisted off the cap, I take a swig. The burn reminds me of the last time the band and I played Donnie Always Wins. It was a happier, lighter time. It was a time when all that mattered was their happiness. Their laughter. Their love. But while I was worrying about them, who the fuck was worrying about me?
I take another swallow. The only person who has showed one ounce of fight for me rather than against me lately has been Nora.
Fuck.
I can’t even think about those expressive, brown eyes without my heart fucking aching. She is supposed to be in my life. I can feel it. But it doesn’t make sense. How could someone so perfect and beautiful be made to match someone like me? She deserves so much more.
I try to push out thoughts of that angelic voice that echoed through the tunnel as I chug more of the bottle. Having not eaten dinner, I’m already feeling the buzz. Stumbling slightly, I shuffle to my room. Once I make it to my bedside table, I yank open my drawer and look for something to make the pain dissolve. So I pop open my bottle of Vicodin, shake a couple out, and swallow them down with my tequila.
After I screw the cap back on and set the bottle on the table, I strip out of my shorts and crawl into my bed. If I were in a better place in my head, I’d fucking whack off like a teenage boy to thoughts of Nora. Instead, I deny even my cock any moment of happiness and drift off into the oblivion that desperately calls out to me.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Jansen’s too-perky-for-six-thirty-in-the-morning voice chirps.
My hand unburies itself from under the covers to flip him off. “Go away, Jansen.” My voice is croaky and grumpy.
“No dice, babe. I promised Libby I’d take care of you.”
I sit up in bed to look at him, ignoring the burn on my arm from the cut I received yesterday when Donnie helped push me though the fence. A shudder courses through me as I consider what those men could have done to me had I not made it through. Much worse than a nasty cut, I presume.
Donnie.
I haven’t stopped thinking about him since he left me a broken, sobbing mess last night. The man is hurting and I’m the only one who seems to want to help him. Everyone else seems keen on watching him fall. Problem is, he’s so fragile—if he falls, he’ll break. I can’t imagine seeing such a strong, beautiful man break. I need to see him.
“Since when are you and Libby besties?” I groan as I crawl out of bed.
Jansen holds a steaming mug of coffee toward me. The old me would have melted right into a mushy puddle of love right here on the carpet at the sight of his handsome self bringing me coffee. The old me would have drooled over the way his teal-colored Polo shirt stretches nicely over his muscles. The old me would have been imagining that color at our wedding.
But I’m different now. I’m better.
The new me eyes that coffee like it’s poison. The new me wants to puke from looking at his popped, preppy-ass collar. The new me wants to choke the douchebag in front of me for hurting the old me. The new me craves something much sweeter. Something with tattoos. Something with a foul mouth. Something dangerous. Something delicious.
“Leave, Jansen.”
“Babe, I’m not leaving. We’re going to work things out.”
My eyebrow arches up at him and my lip curls in disgust. “Are you kidding me right now? I’m not really sure what little part of your brain made you think it was okay to come waltzing back into my life. I appreciate the shoulder to cry on last night, but aside from that, I don’t need anything else from you. You broke me, Jan. You changed me. I’ll never be that woman you were going to marry. So do yourself a favor and give me my fucking key. Leave while you still have any shred of dignity. We’ve been over since the moment you stood in my doorway with your bags at your feet, telling me you were leaving for Bianca. There’s no coming back to this. You don’t
deserve this, Jansen.”
“Please, Nor,” he begs. Begging just makes him look even more pathetic.
“Don’t make me call the police.” My voice is hard. Fucking serious as a heart attack.
He digs into his pocket and pulls out the apartment key. After giving me one last sad look, he tosses it on the bed and stalks out of my life. This time, hopefully for good.
As the elevator descends to the parking garage of my building, I eye my appearance in the reflective walls. This afternoon, after my shift, I’m going to Donnie’s to talk to him. He may want to give up on himself, but I simply just can’t. There is something between us—something that cannot be ignored.
My dark hair is pulled back into a sleek ponytail. I’ve put on a little makeup just for him. Something tells me that he won’t care whether or not I wear it, but I need all the ammunition I can get to make him see why we need to be together. Today, I’ve chosen a dark-grey sweater dress and black knee-high boots. I will make him understand that we are right for each other. That we can try and make whatever it is that’s budding between us work.
After the elevator doors open and I step out, I’m blinded by flash after flash of light.
“Miss Storm, may we see the injury you sustained while in the company of Mr. Jennings last night?”
“Miss Storm, are you carrying his illegitimate child?”
“Miss Storm will you press charges?”
“Miss Storm, is it true you married Donnie Jennings?”
“Miss Storm—”
I snap out of my daze and angrily push past the throng of reporters who have somehow found their way into my parking garage.
“No comment,” I snarl as I take off in a run toward my car.
They follow me like a bunch of freaking zombies and I’m dinner. One of the men grabs my upper arm and I shriek. The fucker grabbed my sore arm.
“Leave me alone!” I scream as I fumble through my purse looking for my keys.
I manage to unlock my door and heave myself in. For some reason, I expect them to go away, but instead, they just continue snapping photos and asking millions of ridiculous questions. Quickly, I start the engine and begin backing out of my spot. Several of them run off toward their own cars and I smile victoriously. I manage not to run anyone over as I make it to the exit of the parking garage. But as I wait for an opening in traffic to let me out, I see several news vans lining up behind me, which makes me groan.
“Get a fucking life!” I yell in frustration. They can’t hear me, but it feels good to shout it. When I see an opening, I peel out of the garage and into traffic. I laugh like a lunatic until in the mirror I see three vans rip out after me, causing cars to slam on their brakes to keep from hitting them. Gassing it, I start swerving in and out of traffic to lose the assholes. My anger subsides as nervousness is replaced. These jerks are relentless in their pursuit. Why won’t they leave me the hell alone?
I’ve managed to lose two of the vans, but the one that’s left is hot on my bumper. The fucker keeps honking at me like that’ll make me want to pull over and answer his questions. As if! When I spy him waving for me to pull over in my rearview mirror, I completely miss the car in front of me slamming on its brakes. I hear the squeal of tires and snap my attention in front of me. In an effort to not hit the car, I swerve hard to the right and bounce right over the curb, onto the sidewalk, and into a chain link fence.
I’m still blinking back stars from the impact when my door is wrenched open. The same motherfucker who grabbed my arm earlier yanks on it again.
“Miss Storm, are you okay? I’m so sorry. But can you answer a few questions for me?” He is pushy as hell and I’m pretty sure he’s breaking several laws by fucking manhandling me.
I stare at him in disbelief. “Get your fucking hands off me!” I screech.
He drops my arm and stumbles back as I scramble out of the car after him.
“You did this!” I hiss, pointing to my car, which is tangled in the fence. “You did this and you better believe I will be pressing charges. Against YOU.”
His face turns red with anger. “You’re the one who drove off into a fence. Perhaps you were on drugs after a long night with that bad-boy rock star?”
Stalking over to him, I grab two handfuls of his shirt. “Listen here, asshole.” My voice is a low growl. “I slammed into that fence because you chased me. I will get my dad, your worst fucking nightmare, involved because clearly you aren’t afraid of a woman. But hear me out. I will bring Mr. Storm himself and your career will end. As far as your sick fascination with Donnie…you can go fuck yourself. I care about him. So leave both of us the fuck alone!” For emphasis, I flip him off with both hands after I release his shirt.
His eyes dart to his cameraman, who I just now notice. “Duke, did you get that?”
Duke nods and runs back to the van. Something tells me that I’ve messed up even though these idiots are the ones running around trying to ruin lives.
“Bye, Miss Storm. Be watching for your story before noon.” The smug-ass bastard laughs and trots off to his van.
Pulling out my phone, I decide to call my father. It seems that, no matter how hard I want to stand on my own two feet, I’ll always need his help.
“I brought enough leftover pizza for the both of us,” Libby tells me as we clock out for lunch. Even though I’m still pissed at her for having taken Jansen’s side through all of this, I can’t be mad at her forever. She’s my best friend.
This morning, after Dad dropped me off at work, she took on the momma bear role and protected me from the barrage of questions from my coworkers. Eventually, they grew bored and got on with their work. I was able to immerse myself in my phone calls until lunch.
“You’re lucky I’m hungry. I’ll accept your peace offering.”
Things feel much lighter between us now, and she smiles. Then we make our way into the lunch room and find a table before she quickly reheats the pizza and sits down.
“Okay, Nor. Spill. I need all the juicy details from you—not the news. What is going on with you, girl?”
I take a bite of the pepperoni-and-cheese heaven and swallow it down before answering. “Donnie. He somehow wiggled his way into my life and I want him there. Things just keep blowing up out of our control. When we’re together, I see that things could be great for us. He makes me feel things that Jansen never had a hope of ever making me feel. With Donnie, I want to protect him but have him protect me at the same time. I want to know what makes him tick. I want to tear down his bullshit, fake walls of fun to get down to the real him—the him nobody else knows. There’s something there, Lib. You, along with everyone else, may not believe that, but I can feel it. He can feel it too, but he thinks, for some reason, I’m too good for him. Things are a mess between us, but I can’t help but feel that we’ll find our way. He’s worth it.”
She beams at me. “My momma said Brandon wasn’t anything but a piece-of-shit mechanic going nowhere. He was worth fighting for too, though. Almost two decades and two teenagers later, he’s still worth fighting for. He may wear a suit now, but he’ll always be my little grease monkey. Oh, and my momma loves him more than me now. You keep fighting, love.”
Our moment is interrupted when someone turns up the volume on the television in our breakroom.
“Miss Storm was driving erratically after a night with the infamous rock god, Donnie Jennings. Her irate behavior after she crashed through a fence insinuates she must have been under the influence. While she wasn’t charged with any wrongdoings, she made sure to send a message to her ex-lover loud and clear,” the reporter’s voice trails off as they show a video clip of me. But the clip has been altered.
“Donnie… you can go *bleep* yourself.” The video shows me angrily release the reporter to flip off the camera with both hands. They, of course, blurred out the gesture, but it was clear as to what I was doing.
“No,” I hiss.
I ignore the commotion in the room and Lib’s babbling as I fish
out my phone from my purse to call my dad.
“Sunshine,” he growls when he answers.
“Daddy,” I sob into the phone. “That asshole lied on TV!”
“I know, baby. I’m taking care of it. He’ll never report another story again. Are you okay?”
When Dad came to help me this morning after the accident, I told him the whole story about the mob of reporters, the chase, and the crash. The idiot reporter who had caused it all was already gone by the time he’d arrived. Had Dad gotten there any sooner, he’d also be on the news for punching that creep in the nose.
“Dad, can you get Donnie’s phone number from his father? Please. I need to call him and tell him it’s wrong. He can’t see that, Dad,” I tearfully explain.
He grumbles but agrees. “Of course, honey. I’ll get it and text it to you. That dickhead reporter will be issuing a statement of apology before you leave work—I can assure you that. Just focus on work and we’ll get this all worked out.”
I thank him and hang up.
Donnie. God, please don’t let him see that video.
I wake to a grumbling in my stomach and a pounding in my head. Rolling over, I check the time on my nightstand. Somehow, I managed to sleep until noon. Thoughts from last night flood my mind. No more band. No more Nora.
I want to fucking puke just thinking of the reality of it. Where in the hell do I go from here?
My phone buzzes from my bedside table. I snatch it off the table and read who sent me a text. Dad sent me a video text.
Dad: When will this end, Donald?
I furrow my brows in confusion as I push play on the video. My beautiful Nora is silently bitching out the camera as the reporter explains how she was going crazy after a night out with me. What in the fuck? I was here all night, without her. Fuck me, I wish I had been with her last night—and I wish I were with her right now.
Her voice suddenly fills my room as she spits out venomous words that make no sense. “Donnie…you can go *bleep* yourself.” She proceeds to give the middle finger to the camera with both hands.
