BLOWING OUT A breath, already regretting the unwise decision not to have breakfast in my own room, I moved as steadily as possible towards the noise coming from a private room at the back of the dining area. I knew where they were from the boisterous chat carried throughout the huge room, even if I couldn’t see them. Disgruntled diners were moaning about the din as I moved quietly through them, their tuts and words of disgust as loud as my friends.
Tony and Pete, the Room 103 security guys smiled at me as they moved aside and allowed me into the segregated area.
“Oh dear God. Whose party did you gate-crash last night?” Jen chuckled when I pulled out a chair at the large round table beside her, her wide eyes roaming down my aching body and stilling when she found the large grazes on my knuckles, a deep disappointed sigh replacing the humour.
Blowing out a breath to calm the cartwheel in my stomach and gingerly sliding into the seat, I pushed my shades up my nose and pressed my fingers to my throbbing temples. “My own.”
“Can I bring you a drink madam?”
I squinted through my dark glasses at the waiter who appeared beside me, the bright backdrop of the sun from the huge window behind him only allowing me to focus on his silhouette. “Tea, please.”
He gave me a nod and a wide smile, “If you’d like to help yourself to the breakfast buffet situated in the main dining area.” I lifted a hand to both thank him and refuse, the mere mention of food causing a forceful shift in my delicate gut. He leaned closer towards me, “Would you care for some painkillers instead?”
I smiled appreciatively, “That would be wonderful, thank you.” I frowned at his overfamiliar hand on my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Jen asked in my ear, her voice quiet but still too loud for my poor head. I replied with a nod, pushing my fingers under my glasses to rub at my eyes.
I turned when Boss settled beside Jen, his plate piled high with various breakfast items. “Bloody hell.” My eyes widened on the huge bruise outlining one side of his face, his eye glowing with a purple shiner. “I thought I looked rough.”
Jen rolled her eyes as Bulk smirked. “He had an accident in the shower.”
“And whose fault was that?” Boss accused Jen with narrow eyes. Only just managing to hear what he had said around his mouth full of sausage and egg, I turned to Jen for an explanation.
She glared at him. “Why is it my fault?”
“Well you didn’t help, did you?”
“I was peeing! I told you not to use the disabled seat, that it was broke!”
“No,” he shook his head insistently, his cheeks reminding me of a hamsters as he shovelled more food in. “You know I’m scared in the shower on my own, you told me to sit down.”
“I meant on the floor!”
Bloody hell fire.
I thanked the waiter when he placed a pot of tea, complete with two paracetamol in front of me and frowned as Jax and E whispered furiously to one another on the opposite side of the table. E looked down to her lap, trying to hide her upset when Jax shook off her hand on his forearm.
Snapping my gaze away when Daniel slid into a seat beside Jax, his eyes on me, I concentrated on dipping my teabag in and out of the pot of water.
“Someone wanna tell me why Brent called us all to breakfast?” he asked, my body relaxing once he turned his concentration on the rest of the table.
“No idea, just rang me at five this morning and said he wanted us all here and not to move until he got here,” Bulk answered with a shrug.
“Well where is he?”
“I don’t know, just mumbled something about damage control.”
“Fuck, what we done now?”
I shook my head faintly with a small smile, amused at Room 103’s frequent mischievous activities. I didn’t envy Brent, he was constantly trying to calm the waters after one of them had caused a storm over something or other.
“And what are you laughing at, Ink?” Daniel grinned across at me, his brow quirked playfully at my humour. His eyes studied me, a small crease playing across his brow when they landed on my knuckles.
“FUCK IT, BABE! Just… fuck it!” Jax suddenly exploded, his fork bouncing off his plate when he threw it down. His chair flew backwards when he shot upright and stormed off, all eyes wide and following him across the room as he stormed out. I’d never seen Jax lose it, he was usually laid back and controlled.
We all turned slowly to E. Tears streamed down her face, her hand covering her mouth as she watched Jax disappear.
“Hot stuff?” Boss asked gently as he took Jax’s seat beside her. “What’s going on? And don’t tell me nothing again, that’s bullshit. I know you, and something is wrong. You’ve been off for weeks.”
She squeezed her eyes closed, her chest hiccupping when she opened them and swallowed back her sobs. She blew out a breath and took his hand. His face dropped, his skin blanching when he witnessed her worry for him. “E?”
She struggled for a moment, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to talk. She brought his hand to her mouth, giving his knuckles a soft kiss. “I have cancer, Boss.”
He stared at her, confused, his eyes narrowing and his head shaking from side to side. “What?”
I was wondering if I had misheard too. That wasn’t right. Not E. Not cancer. My throat hurt when I witnessed her despair and I dropped my hands to my lap trying to hide the shake in them.
“Breast cancer.”
He stared at her. I could feel Jen twitching beside me, her desperation to soothe her husband instinctive.
He nodded slowly, sniffing deeply. “Okay.” He ran his tongue around his teeth and pointed to her, his narrow eyes scrutinising her. “And why is Jax angry?”
Dropping his hand, she turned back to stare at her plate. She picked up her fork, stabbed at the yolk on her egg, and then placed it back down, picking up her knife and pushing her beans around.
“E!” We all jolted at Boss’s harsh tone, E included. Her mouth moved and everyone leaned closer to catch her words but it seemed only Boss heard them when he glared at her, his face appearing to freeze for a moment.
“No! That’s bullshit. Why?”
My eyes were flicking between the pair, trying to ascertain what the hell was going on. She shrugged, still refusing to look at him. Jen shot upright when Boss grabbed E’s arm and yanked her back towards him, but he held up his hand to her. She sat back down slowly, her body still on alert as she teetered on the edge of her seat. “Who are you, your fucking Mother?”
My jaw dropped as E’s hand shot out, the slap across his face, the bruised side, loud and sharp in the air around us. “Fuck you!” she spat, pulling herself out of his grip. “I told Jax and I’m telling you, this is my choice, no one else’s. If I don’t want treatment then I won’t have it. It is MY decision!”
“No!” Boss countered. “That’s not a decision, that’s cowardice.”
Her face crumpled, both hands covering her face as a distraught sob gutted us all. “Yes, I’m a coward,” she squeaked as she turned back to him. “I’m scared, alright. I saw what the treatment did to my mother. It wasn’t the cancer that destroyed her body in the end, it was the fucking drugs that broke her.” She shook her head angrily. “I’M FUCKING TERRIFIED!”
He huddled her up quickly. Pulling her from her chair and onto his lap, his arms curled around her, his hand stroking up and down her back as she buried her face into his chest and cried.
I excused myself, wanting to give the band privacy for a moment and made my way to the buffet table. My stomach revolted at the mere sight of it, but I perused it for a while, trying to stall my return to the table. I just didn’t know what to say, and to be honest, it wasn’t even my place to be seated with them but it had been Jen’s insistent phone call that I join them for breakfast that had seen me there at the wrong time.
My heart ached. E had told me what she had gone through when her mother had died of cancer. She too had also hidden it from her family, only facing up to it w
hen it had been too late.
My eyes lifted to two young men sat beside the buffet table who were sniggering, their heads together over a newspaper. They were swearing and laughing loudly, the diners around them glowering their way.
I picked up a bread roll, picking at it and stalling further as I moved around the table just studying the various foods.
“Fucking ponce!” one of the men hissed with disgust.
“Yeah but fuck, I’d have never have thought it. Shit, the guy was always in the paper with some hot pussy on his arm, if it wasn’t splashed all over the front page, I would never have believed it.”
“Dirty bastard!” the first one spat out, the sinister tone in his voice making my body still. He seemed to radiate viciousness, just the way he spoke put me on alert. “It makes me wanna hurl knowing he’s sat somewhere in this room. Fuck, he’s probably eyeing me up right now!”
I turned my head, my dark glasses hiding my eyes from them. His friend nudged him, “Yeah, he might be imagining sliding under the table and grabbing your dick with his teeth!”
“What the fuck, you sick bastard!” He stood up, shivering and slapped his mate around the head before taking off, his mate scurrying after him.
I pulled off some more bread, popping it into my mouth as curiosity got the better of me and I grabbed the newspaper they had been looking at.
A funny choked sound caught in my throat when the contents of my stomach battled with the piece of bread I’d just swallowed. Luckily the bread won as I forced them both down.
I dropped into a chair as my eyes froze on the black and white picture spread across the front page. I wasn’t even aware that my head was shaking from side to side, my mouth wide open as tears ran down my hot cheeks.
“Are you okay, dear?” an elderly woman sat on the next table asked gently as she leaned in towards me. Her eyes dropped to see what I was staring at. “Oh dear, that poor boy. I expect they’ll cripple his career for this. He always seemed so nice to me, a bit of a rum ‘un. But he’s a boy and boys need their fun, eh?”
I stared at her, “I…”
“Oh those men are just homophobic, don’t you let them upset you.”
“I…”
I couldn’t form words. My heart rate had tripled as the world seemed to slow around me causing a conflict in my brain. I wondered if I was still drunk. How much had I consumed last night? It wasn’t making any sense.
However, when I witnessed Brent storm through the room, Julie hot on his tail, his furious eyes zeroing in on the room where they all were, I knew I wasn’t imagining anything. The picture on the front page of Daniel and Mr Mercedes kissing, unmistakeably naked under a thin sheet in bed was real. It was very fucking real.
JUST AS I was about to go after Zoe, the need to be near her overpowering, Brent stormed in the room. His enraged face snapped left and right as he hunted for someone. Me evidently, when his narrow eyes found me and darkened further.
Fuck, what now?
He froze for a moment, his expression softening guiltily before he pulled himself together. Every single hair rose on my body, alarm bells ringing in every lobe of my brain. Something was wrong, something very bad.
“Brent?”
His teeth sank into his bottom lip. My eyes lowered to the newspaper rolled up in his hand, then back up.
“Can you remember when I signed you all?” he asked curiously, pulling out a chair and seating himself opposite me, his eyes still very much on me as though asking me the question personally. “How I asked you to all be honest with me so the media couldn’t pull up all the bullshit surrounding your secrets and slaughter you?”
I closed my eyes slowly, my breathing becoming uncontrollable. It wasn’t what I knew to be on the front page that hurt, it was the knowledge of how it got there that was tearing me apart slowly from the inside.
“Please don’t do this here.” I whispered, holding his eyes, pleading with him not to do this in front of the guy’s. “Brent. Please.”
He shook his head sadly, his eyes watering but regret written all over him. “We do this here, Romeo, in front of your friends, because fuck! You’re gonna need every one of them.”
“Romeo?” Bulk moved across the room, coming to stand by my side.
My stomach twisted, nausea fighting for freedom. I couldn’t seem to breathe properly, my lungs struggling to cope with the violent way I was sucking air in.
“What the hell is going on?” Boss asked as E slid back into her seat and every single pair of eyes locked on me.
“I hope you’re strong enough for the backlash of this, Romeo,” Brent said quietly, “because shit, on top of the Penny scandal, the press are gonna rip you to fucking shreds.”
He threw the paper into the centre of the table, all eyes looking at it as it unrolled and the evidence of last night’s fun broke my heart.
Everyone leaned over to read it, each of them slowly seating themselves back down, a loud silence developing around me.
Fire heated my whole body, shame and self-disgust raging through me. I couldn’t lift my eyes from the paper; the black and white photograph of mine and Nick’s entwined bodies haunting me, the pleasure on my face horrifying. What had last night seemed too good to be true, had actually turned out too good to be true. His deception hurt, in fact it fucking crippled me. I had believed his lies, trusted his words that he wasn’t fucking me just for a story. What a fucking fool!
“And this causes a problem, how?” Bulk asked as he squeezed my shoulder.
I blinked, lifting my face and stared at him. His eyes were on Brent, confusion written across his features.
“He’s bisexual, not a fucking alien!” Boss snapped at Brent. “Why is this a problem?”
“Because no one knew, that’s why!” Brent argued.
“We knew, so what the hell does other people’s opinions matter?” E bit back. “Fuck them, this is Romeo’s preference. It’s not gonna suddenly stop his ability to play guitar, so I’m not sure what the issue is?”
“Wait?” I stuttered, “What? You know?”
She lifted a brow in disbelief. “Of course we know. Romeo,” She sighed, shaking her head slowly. “You really should stop drinking. You tell us all sorts when you’re pissed. Only problem is you can never remember the next day.” She leaned across to me and slipped her fingers through mine, giving me a smile. “We’ve been waiting years for you to tell us when you’re actually sober!”
“And you don’t...”
“Don’t?” E pressed when I paused and cringed.
“Well... I don’t disgust you?”
Everyone chuckled. “Fuck Romeo,” Bulk laughed. “We have Boss for Christ’s sake, nothing disgusts us anymore.”
Boss glowered at Bulk then turned to me with his head tipped in puzzlement. “No, you don’t disgust us… where the fuck did you get that idea?”
“I dunno, I just thought.”
I looked around, coming to rest on Jen. My whole body seized up with her sorrowful eyes. “Oh fuck!” I shot upright quickly scanning the room. “Where is she?”
Jen shrugged. “I dunno, she just went for something to eat.”
Brent groaned, his fingers rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “She was sat at a table in the main area with an old woman.” I nodded but froze with his next words. “She was reading a paper.”
WHY WASN’T SHE answering the door? I’d tried to open it but it was locked and I’d been thumping on the thing for the last ten minutes. I pressed my ear to it but there was no noise from the inside.
“Ink?” My head dropped to rest on the door, my aching heart causing me to slide down it. The last thing I had wanted was to hurt her, that was the main reason I had kept it all secret. “Baby, please. Let me just explain.”
“Baby?” her voice suddenly screamed from the other side. “Baby? I’m far from your baby, Romeo!” Her drop of my real name shouldn’t have hurt me as much as it did, I’d been asking her for years to call me Romeo, and now when she was,
I didn’t like it. It seemed too cold for our relationship, not that we really had one.
“Zoe, let me in. We need to talk.”
“Fuck - off!”
Jen grimaced, catching Zoe’s anger as she walked down the corridor towards me, making her way to her own room which was situated next to Zoe’s.
“You should have told her, Romeo,” she whispered when she reached me.
“I know, but this is the very reason I didn’t.”
She nodded, rubbing her hand up and down my arm. “I know.” She looked conflicted for a moment, then rummaged in her bag and pulled out a key card. A small devious smile curved her lips before she handed it to me and winked, walking away whistling faintly.
She turned as she opened her door, “Hurt her, and I’ll fucking kill you, but it’s time to sort yourselves out. Be honest with her now, she deserves that.”
I gave her a nod, totally agreeing with her. “Thank you.” She smiled and closed the door behind her.
The hallway was empty when I slipped inside quietly. The sound of her weeping broke me. I knew I loved her, I’d known it for a while, but I’d also known my life would drown her. She had Jakob to think about now and although the others coped with the life and raising children, I wasn’t sure I could do it. The fact that I craved men sexually, as well as Zoe, caused the conflict to deepen. It wasn’t as if Zoe didn’t turn me on, because she did, a lot, a hell of a lot; sex with her was and had always been amazing. But I wasn’t sure I could live a life without that part.
Yet listening to her sorrow, I knew it was time to put her first, to put my own needs aside and at least try. She deserved that. She deserved the fucking world if I could give it her. I just had to convince her now.
I moved down the hallway, stilling at the bathroom door that was slightly ajar. The sound of the shower was doing nothing to tame the volume of her sobs. Why did she have to be in the shower? I was now picturing her long bare legs, wet and creamy, her plump tits covered in soap, her hands sliding over her own skin as she washed herself.
Finally Heaven (Room 103 Book 4) Page 7
