A Second Chance at love The Rocker Girls Series

by Jennifer Byars

  He looked at her, not believing what she was saying. “And what about the baby, Addie, are you going to deny it was mine?” he yelled out, and Win knew he said it just to get to him.

  She gasped and stumbled back, and her lip quivered. She looked over at Win now, as he looked at her in disbelief. Lynn looked at Win the same time Addison did, and frowned at his nonmoving ass.

  Lynn turned her head back to Mickey, placing a protective arm around Ad. “You are a son of a bitch to even bring that up to her. We all know what you did, even your boys know what you did to her!” she hissed. “Buddy even laughed about it!”

  Addison stood tall in front of this supposed rock star. “I told you eleven months ago it’s over. I don’t understand why you won’t leave me alone. I already have one territorial ass I’m hiding from, I didn’t realize it was two.”

  Her hands came up, wiping tears from her face as Margie now stood on her other side, protecting her from the man in front of her. “You told him about us… Are you not going to be happy until he puts me in the grave, Mickey? Do you think you can stop him, because you haven’t so far!”

  The looks on everyone’s faces fell, and Win knew this wasn’t a secret, what Addison’s husband had done to her. These guys knew what was happening and did nothing to help her. Margie pulled Addison from Lynn’s arm. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go home.” She looked back at Win, shaking her head, clearly disappointed by him.

  Lynn growled at Troy. “I swear if Jimmy comes and finds her I’m calling the cops and telling them that your boy broke the restraining order she has against him.” She turned to go to the van. “Just leave us the fuck alone! We’re out of the game, let someone else have the titles!” she yelled as she walked away.

  Win, South, and Rex stood now in front of the three men who had the nerve to let someone hurt his angel. “You fuckers knew her husband was hurting her, and you did nothing about it?” he questioned them angrily.

  It was Troy who spoke up. “All of Jimmy’s friends know what happens when he tries to get her back and she says no. But there’s nothing any of us can do. Addison doesn’t tell anybody until it’s too fucking late, and Jimmy has Nickels, and Nickels cleans everything up for his boy,” he said disgustedly.

  Win looked at Mickey. “You just show up here, causing her pain after she ended it with you. It’s obvious to everyone here she dumped your ass and doesn’t want you back, and to top it off, you weren’t man enough to take care of her when this asshole was hurting her!” he yelled, outraged.

  But before Mickey could say anything Win punched him again in the face. Mickey stumbled back, spitting out a mouthful of blood. He righted himself, coming back at Win and hitting him once in the jaw.

  Win ducked a couple of punches that were thrown, going for an uppercut in the gut. Mickey grunted at the first one and coughed on the second, stumbling backwards.

  Win couldn’t think straight he was so pissed. “Come on, that’s all you got, rock star?” he said, moving in his direction. “I’m going to give you a beating like you deserve!” He punched him in the face again. Mickey came back and got in two more punches to his face, but he was numb from the anger.

  Win punched him again in the face, then the kidney, and Mickey fell to the ground coughing. South came and grabbed his arm. “It’s done. You’ll end up in prison if you lay into him anymore. And then who’ll protect Addison?”

  Win huffed over Mickey’s body, breathing hard. “You keep him away from her! You hear me, no more of this bullshit! She’s done with all of you. She’s mine!” He turned and ran to his truck so he could go talk to Addison, leaving South and Rex to deal with these idiots.

  He drove like a madman, making it back to their apartment building in record time. He ran up the steps to the girls’ apartment and knocked on the door, but no one answered. Next he started pounding on it. “Open this fucking door, Lynn, I need to talk to her!” he yelled.

  The door swung open, and a very pissed-off Margie stared up at him. “What the hell do you want?” Marge swore at him. That stopped him, but just for a moment. “Please, just let me see her, Margie. I promise I’ll make it better,” he pleaded with her.

  She looked him over, then stepped aside, opening the door for him. “She’s in her room with Lynn.” And he ran to her bedroom.

  When he knocked he heard Lynn whisper to her, then the door cracked open. “If you’re here other than to say you’re sorry, you can go fuck off!”

  “Lynn, it’s fine. Just let him in,” he heard Addison say softly. She opened the door, glaring at him before she left and shut it, giving him and Addison some privacy.

  She was sitting on her bed with her knees tucked under her chin. “I guess you have some questions?” she sighed.

  He sat on her bed, looking at her crouched in the corner and so damn small up against the wall. “Yeah, but I wanted to tell you that I was sorry. I’m sorry that I didn’t do more, but I was kinda caught off-guard by who you really are.“ He touched her leg and she flinched, making his gut turn.

  “I’m afraid that you think I’m angry at you, because you didn’t tell me anything. But I’m not, angel, I just didn’t know what I was supposed to say, if you wanted me to say anything at all?” he said, reaching over and taking a finger from her hand that she had wrapped tightly around her legs, and she let him.

  “I was embarrassed,” she whispered.

  “Why would you be embarrassed?”

  “Because you got a front-row seat of how stupid I was. My choice of a man like Mickey,” she said, hiding her face in her knees.

  “Oh angel, my choices of women before you… I would be embarrassed to have you see any of them. You are so much more than anything I’ve ever even thought I would have in my life. If you saw those girls from my past, I would be terrified that you wouldn’t want me.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d think of me,” she whispered, looking over her knees at him.

  “No, Addison. I never thought that, baby.”

  “It looks like someone got into a fight after I left?” she said, looking over his face.

  “Yeah angel, I did. When you and the girls left, I had a talk with that asshole. I don’t think he’ll be bothering you again.”

  She sighed, wiping a tear off her cheek. “This will be your one time to ask me your questions about my past. After tonight I’m never going to talk about Addie Richardson again. It will be like she never existed.”

  He frowned, looking at her. “Angel, I don’t think I should…”

  “Do you have questions for me, Win?”

  He looked down at her. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  “Then just ask them.”

  “You’re James Richardson’s wife?”

  She nodded.

  “So when you said you knew the best Japanese tattooist…”

  “I know Terry Chin. He’s the best tattoo artist in the world. He’s also a good friend of mine…he’s done all my tattoos.”

  He nodded; he’d broken the ice, now to the hard questions. Hard for him to hear, and hard for her to talk about.

  “How long have you been married?”

  “Twelve years.”

  “So you were married to him before he became big.”

  She nodded.

  “You played with them in concert. I remember seeing you.”

  “Yeah, Jimmy and I always played together in the beginning. But when he was on tour, sometimes I’d play with them, every once in a while. He liked having me on stage with him.” She shook her head at the memory.

  Damn, that was harder for him to hear than he thought it would be. “What about this Mickey, when did you get involved with him?”

  “Over a year ago. Jimmy and I had been having…problems, for quite some time. He kept having affairs, then he’d come home smelling of alcohol, drugs, and whatever woman he was with… I can’t explain how something like that makes you feel so ugly. How you question everything you do, wonder what you’re doing wrong in bed to ma
ke your husband do that to you.” She looked down at the bed, biting her lip.

  “After the first affair, things went downhill for us. I always knew he had women throwing themselves at him, but he never cheated on me. But after he did, the drinking became worse and then the anger towards me was terrible… It was like he’d cheat on me, but would take all of his anger at himself out on me, like I made him do it.” Her voice was hoarse from screaming at Mickey, and the deepness of her voice made it hard for him to hear her.

  Her eyes met his as she bit her lip, and he could tell she was thinking whether she wanted to tell him this part. “Mickey was one of Jimmy’s best friends outside of the group. He was always very nice to me, and I never really thought anything about it because I was with Jimmy, everyone knew that. But when I got my place in the hills with the girls, he’d come by with Buddy. Who, you could probably guess after tonight’s performance, Tia had a crush on.

  “We’d watch movies, eat pizza, play cards, and just talk. Hell, we even helped them write some of their songs for their last album. It was nice to have a guy pay attention to me without having to worry about other complications getting in the way.

  “He was coming over more and more to check in on me. Making sure I was doing okay with all the things the tabloids were saying about Jimmy’s flings.” Her eyes met his. “It was hard going into the grocery stores for a while there.” She tried to crack a smile, but didn’t quite make it.

  “Mickey always told me I was beautiful, but now he would tell me all the time. He’d open the door for me, guide me through by touching the small of my back. He would whisper to me how he couldn’t believe what a fool Jimmy was for cheating on me, because if he had me I would be all he ever needed…he made me feel beautiful and wanted at a time when I felt very ugly and alone.

  “Jimmy would come over all the time, making sure no man got too close to me, then I would smell the women on him, and with him so gone from the booze, I couldn’t even talk to him, he would try to dominate every move I made.

  “Mickey on the other hand, had to be near me every second of the day. He loved letting everyone know he was seeing me… He loved it more when Jimmy would burst in, seeing him at my place.

  “I broke it off with him when we were singing at the Hot Spot…that’s a club on the Strip, and he came to watch us one night, well him and the guys. I didn’t know he was trying to piss off Jimmy. I thought he just wanted me. But that night when I got off stage, I guess he told Jimmy where we were singing and told him to come watch. Jimmy and the guys were on tour, so we never worried about us running into them, but that night…

  “So I go off stage and Mickey starts to kiss me…really no big deal. That is until Jimmy comes up ripping me from his arms, that’s when Mickey tells him that he’s, as he put it, ‘fucking me’ and the two of them got into a fight in the middle of the damn club.

  “Nickels blamed me for the publicity mess. It was one thing to have Jimmy think Mickey and me were just friends, but when he told him that he was sleeping with me… That led into more problems for me than I was willing to deal with. I wanted to finish my last year of school without all this shit.”

  “Did he know Jimmy hit you?”

  Again she nodded. “Well, they all knew he slapped me around every once in a while. Did they know that he put me in the hospital…no, I didn’t want anyone to know what I went through with him. His band knew of only one time that he did that to me.”

  “Angel, if a man knows a guy is hitting his woman, and doesn’t do anything to stop him, then he’s no fucking man at all!” Win growled to her.

  Addison shook her head. “He told me that I should divorce Jimmy and marry him. I tried to tell him that I already gave the damn papers to Jimmy… He just wouldn’t sign them!” she said irritably. “Everybody’s afraid of Jimmy, especially when he’s drunk,” she whispered.

  Win nodded, looking at Addison’s shattered appearance. He took a deep breath before he asked her the toughest question. “Angel, were you really going to have his baby?”

  Tears flowed freely, and he moved to take her in his arms, but she put her hand up and shook her head. “Yes, I was going to,” she whispered, then looked back up at him. “But how it happened…that’s the terrible part.”

  “Okay, angel, tell me what you want me to know,” he said softly to her. She nodded, looking back down, taking a deep breath. “You see, Jimmy knows me and my body. Troy told me that Jimmy went over there fighting with Mickey after that night in the club. But Jimmy taunted Mickey, saying gross foul things about his and my lovemaking, which I won’t bother to repeat, but Mickey was pissed.

  “After a couple months of Mickey and I seeing each other, I knew he wasn’t the man I thought he was. He definitely wasn’t the man for me. I thought when we broke things off we were still friends, I mean I was still married to Jimmy, I let him go to go do his thing. You’d think he’d be happy…right?” She looked at him, and he could see the confusion in her eyes.

  “Mickey called me up about two months after, telling me Acid Pool were doing a benefit concert right there in Los Angeles. It’d been a while since I played in concert, but he and the guys would love to have me and the girls play with them, to, you know, give the fans a thrill.” She sighed. “So, being stupidly flattered by what he said, I talked to the girls and we told him we would love to do the concert with them.

  “The after parties are massive after a benefit concert. And since this wasn’t our normal group of people who we dealt with, you really needed to watch yourself. But Mickey came up to me, separating me from the girls, telling me he wanted to talk to me about working on his next album together.

  “Buddy came and Tia went off with him. Margie and Troy were always friendly with each other so I didn’t think anything was strange, and Lynn and Mindy went off mingling with others. I thought I was with a friend, a friend with benefits, but still a friend no less. I wasn’t aware of his ulterior motives.

  “He gave me lots to drink that night. It had been some time since I’d gotten out. I had been studying so hard to get good grades. But between dealing with Jimmy and school work, I didn’t have a moment to myself. That night we were having a great time together, just like when we were friends…I didn’t even notice that he wasn’t drinking.”

  She bit her lip hard before she spoke again. “We had unprotected sex. I found out after everything was said and done, and you remember what I told you about me not being able to be on birth control. That was one of the things Jimmy let slip out in his fight with Mickey. I was really drunk, but I know I asked him about protection, and he told me he had on a condom.” She stopped and shook her head. “I got pregnant that night.

  “A month later, I went to the studio to talk to Mickey after their recording session to let him know I was pregnant. It was Buddy who came up, slapping Mickey on the back, congratulating him on his plan working out so well to knock me up. Now Jimmy was sure to give me the divorce that Mickey wanted, he laughed, walking away from us, leaving me in shock.”

  Holy shit, he couldn’t believe all the shit she’d been through. Something in his gut was turning when he thought about the next question, but he knew he better ask now, because like she said, after tonight all of this was behind her…behind them.

  “I’m so sorry, angel. I can’t believe what he did to you, and all his friends knew about it. Makes me want to go back and beat the shit out of him again,” he said, taking her hand now, letting her know he was there for her, and she let him. “Can I ask you one more question, sweetheart?”

  She shrugged, looking back at the comforter. “What happened to the baby? Did you have an abortion?” He saw her whole body tense and start shaking, and she shook her head. “He told Jimmy.”

  He waited for her to say more but she didn’t. She just let go of his hand and uncurled herself from the wall, tucking herself under the covers. “I think you should go now, Winston. I’m really tired and I have to work in the morning.” She turned her back to him and f
aced the wall.

  “I can stay with you, angel, I want to be here for you,” he whispered. She just shook her head without saying another word.

  “Can I come see you after work?” he asked nervously. He thought maybe she would want him to stay with her for the night, they could talk, and he could hold her. Being told that she was tired and that he should leave was not what he was expecting.

  “I get off really late tomorrow,” she whispered.

  His breath hitched, and panic flooded him at the thought of losing her. “I don’t care what time you’re off, I need to see you,” he said, running his fingers through her blonde hair.

  He saw her nod, and his panic eased a little.

  “Okay, we’ll talk more tomorrow,” he whispered, kissing the top of her head. “Night, angel.”

  He got up from the bed, shut the door and made his way to the kitchen where Lynn and Margie were sitting and talking.

  “What time does she get off tomorrow? I want to be the one to pick her up,” he told the girls.

  Margie looked at Lynn and she shrugged. “She’s off at one.”

  He nodded. “Thanks.”

  Her last statement wasn’t sitting right with him, as he walked slowly back to the apartment. All she said was that he told Jimmy. Told him what?

  Then he got it. That stupid fucker told her husband that he knocked her up! And Jimmy beat the hell out of her, and she lost the child.

  His hands went to the back of his neck and he just wanted to scream. So he ran downstairs and out to the parking lot and did just that; he growled out at the top of his lungs all the anger he had rushing inside him. Then he started swearing loudly about how fucked-up these two men in her life were.

  After a minute, he took some deep breaths, feeling a little less wound up, but just as angry. But never, never once in his whole life, had he felt so damn useless as right now. He had always tried to protect his mother, even when he was small.