Jackson
I walked in to The Archer ready for my band meeting with the guys. I saw Esme was behind the bar so I went over to say hi, while trying to get my head together. I hadn’t seen her for two days but so much had happened and it felt like it was much longer than that. We said hello, she asked me how I was feeling and I just shrugged my shoulders as I wasn’t really sure. I held her hands not wanting to let her go, she made everything feel so easy and so simple, she was just what I needed in my life. I made my way over to where the guys were and sat down.
“Hey, man.” Rick said squeezing my shoulder. I didn’t answer him, I just looked straight at Frank and Will and said; “If you want Flix to continue you have to stop sleeping with her, seeing her, talking to her, everything… I can’t believe you have done this, you knew she was mine… MINE.” I slammed my closed fist down on the table in anger. No one said anything so I continued with; “You were like brothers to me. I sat back and watched you screw anything in a skirt, but I never thought you would betray me like this.”
“She came on to me, man.” Will said. My head shot up and I growled;
“And you couldn’t say NO?”
“I’m sorry, dude, I am. There is no excuse… I don’t want to end the band.” Will pleaded.
“Yeah, me neither. I won’t have anything to do with her… Are we cool?” Frank asked.
“Cool?.. Cool? We are not cool, you slept with the woman I was going to marry. I will not forget this in a hurry. I will put my differences aside for the band.”
“Will, are you going to stop seeing her?” Rick asked him.
“Yeah, totally. For the band.”
I couldn’t sit around and be friendly with them, not yet, it was too soon. I felt like I had been stabbed in the back.
“I’m gonna get out of here, see you all later.” I told them as I stood up walked away.
Chapter 22
Esmeralda
“OMG! I can’t believe you kissed! And I can’t believe you waited until now to tell me!” Marcy screamed as we walked into the tenth clothes shop. Marcy rang me this morning and asked if I wanted to go shopping with her as she wanted a new dress for our girl’s night out this weekend. I agreed and then remembered that she would be on a mission - how could I forget what Marcy was like on a serious shopping trip? I needed coffee if I was going to keep up with her.
“Well, at least I am telling you… It’s complicated, Marce, he has only just split up with Cindy. He said he wanted to be with me, but he needs to sort his head out first. What if he realises that he doesn’t want me? Shy, book worm me?”
“Don’t be silly, you know Jackson. He is genuine… Honest… HOT… And if he said it, he meant it. Things will work out.”
“Yeah, I guess… So, how are things with Rick?” I asked trying to steer the conversation away from me, I knew it would work as she loved talking about herself.
“It’s good… No, it’s great. We are taking things slowly, but I really like him, so much. I haven’t told Danni and Kate yet, but I think we have something special, being with him just feels right.”
“Marce, that’s great, I’m so happy for you… So, what you looking to get?” I asked as we were looking around the little shop.
“Oh, you need to try this on.” She told me as she shoved a LBD at me.
“What? No, I don’t need anything new.” I told her as I pushed the dress back towards her.
“You’re trying it on, while I try on these.” She said, holding up about five different dresses.
“Ok, fine.” We walked over to the dressing room and we shared a large cubicle to try on the dresses together. Marcy had picked out a little black dress that fell just above the knee and was strapless. It felt lovely on and looked great too.
“Oh, that is perfect; let me take a photo of you.” Marcy said, taking a picture before I could even object. She was then typing away on her phone and I smiled at her and asked;
“What has Rick said now?”
“What? Rick?.. Oh… Yeah, just that he looks forward to seeing me later and asked if you were ok.”
“Oh, that’s sweet of him, I will text him and tell him I’m ok and he doesn’t need to worry.”
“NO!” Marcy yelled, then continued with in a softer voice, “I will tell him later, we need to find me a dress.”
“Ok, but I’m pretty sure you are going to be going home with all five dresses.” I said as I laughed at her.
Jackson
We were at The Archer doing our rehearsal for our gig at the weekend, we were taking a break and my phone went off alerting me to a text message. I was hesitant about reading it as Cindy was still texting me constantly, asking for forgiveness. I decided to read it and was surprised to see it was from Marcy. I opened it and a picture message came up of Esme in a little black dress, and a little caption saying; ‘Don’t I look hot!’ She really did look hot. My stomach fluttered and a smile appeared on my face. The next thing I knew my phone was grabbed out of my hand as Rick said “What’s that bitch sending you now?”
I laughed and he looked at me and said; “Why is Marcy sending you a picture of Es?”
I shrugged my shoulders and looked away as he carried on with; “Wow, she looks amazing in that dress.”
I glared at him and said; “Yes, she does… And don’t you have a girlfriend?”
Rick put his hands up in defence and said; “Just saying what I see.”
“What is it?” Will asked
“Just Marcy playing matchmaker.” Rick told him.
“Oh yeah, with who?” Frank asked.
“Esme and Jax.”
“That’s cool bro, she’s real nice.” Will told me.
“Come on, guys, let’s get back to it.” Frank said as he picked his guitar back up.
I grabbed the phone back from Rick, looked at the picture again before sliding the phone into my back pocket, I grabbed my microphone and counted the lads in.
Chapter 23
Esmeralda
I had just got home from work and it was one o' clock in the morning. I was buzzing from a busy shift and needed to wind down, so I had a shower, put my PJs on, grabbed a hot chocolate and my kindle and made my way to the sofa. Just as I sat down, there was a knock on the door. Who could that be at this time of the night? I thought to myself. I opened the front door to see Jax standing there, with my kindle still in my hand.
“Hi.” I was surprised to see him standing there.
“Hey, still reading a rocker book? Reading about me?” He asked as he winked at me.
“No, just starting something new. Come on in… You want a drink?”
“Coffee, would be great.” He said as he followed me into the kitchen. “I hope you don’t mind me dropping in?”
“No, not at all. How are you?” I had my back to him as I was getting the coffee out of the cupboard, I didn’t hear him approach me until I felt his hands on my hips. He swept my hair over my right shoulder and gave me a little kiss on my neck. It felt so good and I didn’t want him to stop. When the kettle finished boiling, he stepped back; I made his coffee and handed it to him and we went and sat down on the sofa.
“I’m doing ok, I moved into Rick’s place. Just on his sofa at the minute as his sister is visiting… I just wanted to see you, hope that’s ok?”
I didn’t know what to say so I just nodded my head. My tummy was doing somersaults.
“Are you ok, Esme?”
“Yeah, I’m glad you’re here.” I said quietly, feeling a little shy. The next thing I knew Jax was pulling me towards him on the sofa and I was cuddled up against his chest. We fitted together perfectly. He placed his chin on the top of my head and put his arms around me. “Me too, I didn’t want to stay away any longer.”
We sat there, cuddling and talking about nothing in particular, when Jax looked at his watch and it was nearly half past one in the morning.
“I’d better go, we’ve got a band meeting in the morning about our tour and you need to get some sleep.” I moved a
way from him, he stood up and pulled me up too. I walked him to the front door, he turned to face me and placed his hand on my cheek and pulled me in for a kiss. His hands then travelled lower and gripped onto my hips. His tongue swiped across my bottom lip as if asking for entry and I opened my mouth, stood on my tiptoes and wrapped my arms around his neck pulling him closer to me.
After a few minutes, we pulled apart and we were both breathless. He then gave me one more peck on the lips and said; “Wow, now I don’t wanna leave.” I giggled and he continued with “Bye, Esme.” I said bye and watched him walk away, I shut my front door, locked it and leant back against it with the biggest smile on my face.
Jackson
I was glad that I’d decided to drop in and see Esme, she was just as pleased to see me. When we were together everything seemed right, and it felt like we were the only two people on the planet. I tried to stay away but I couldn’t any longer. When I was with her I forgot about everything else and only saw her.
The kiss we shared as I was leaving was amazing and she was just as into it as I was. I didn’t want to pull away and stop but I needed to before I did something that I would have regretted. What I really wanted to do was pick her up and take her back to her bedroom and spend the night with her, but it was still too soon. Her kisses drove me wild and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what everything else would feel like.
I text Esme as soon as I got back to Rick’s; ‘Nite Esme, will be thinking about that kiss all night. x’
‘Me too x’
Chapter 24
Esmeralda
It was Friday night and Flix were playing on stage, it was their first performance since Jax and Cindy had split up. Rick had told me that they were all going to put their differences aside for the sake of the band as long as Will and Frank had nothing to do with Cindy again. I couldn’t imagine Cindy being ok with that. She didn’t seem like the kind of girl to give up easily. I was glad that Jackson now knew the truth about her, it was a weight lifted off my shoulders and I didn’t feel like I was carrying around her dirty little secrets anymore. I still felt bad that I hadn’t told him, there just never seemed to be the right time to bring it up.
Flix sounded great, and as usual the crowd were going crazy for them. Though I could tell Jax’s heart wasn’t in it, he seemed to be struggling. I noticed he kept looking over to me quite a lot and I was dancing and nodding my head, trying to encourage him to enjoy the atmosphere. Then I noticed he looked away and his body went tense. I looked to where he was looking and Cindy was standing there with a smile on her face. She made her way over to the stage just as they finished their last song. Just seeing her and seeing the way she looked at Jax made me feel sick to the pit of my stomach, I was jealous of course, but also worried for Jax as she seemed to know how to hit him where it hurt.
Jackson
I was looking at Cindy, shocked that she had the nerve to turn up here, I had made it clear at the beginning of the week when I collected my stuff that I wanted nothing more to do with her. She had bombarded me all week with text messages, begging me to see her and to get back with her and I stupidly thought that by ignoring her she would get the message and leave me alone.
“Hey, baby.” She said to me, grinning. Her eyes had a wild look in them, which made me think that she was high.
“What do you want?” I asked sternly.
“Do you want to dance?”
“No.”
“Grab a drink?” She slurred.
“No.” I went to walk away and she jumped onto the stage and grabbed my hand and pulled me to her like she was going to kiss me. I pulled away from her. I noticed she then looked over towards Will and Frank; they looked at each other and walked away making it clear that they were keeping to their side of our deal.
“Go away, Cindy, you are not wanted here.” I told her nodding towards the band so she could see it wasn’t just me who didn’t want her. She looked down at her feet, almost hurt for a second, before she lifted her head up, shrugged her shoulders, leant into me and said; “Your loss, someone else’s gain, tonight.” She smirked at me, jumped off the stage and made her way over to a guy stood at the bar. Within a few seconds she had her tongue down his throat. I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard Rick say; “She isn’t worth it, man.”
“Yeah, I know.”
He was right, she wasn’t worth it; she had shown me her true colours by sleeping around and moving on so easily. It was weird, my feelings for her had evaporated so quickly; it felt like she was a stranger.
“I thought she was ‘the one’, you know?” I told Rick “Now, I feel like I don’t know her, like I never knew her.”
“Maybe ‘the one’ is a lot closer than you think.” Rick smiled. I looked at him, confused, and he said “Just think about it. Let’s grab a drink and let loose tonight.”
I agreed with him and we made our way to the bar.
Chapter 25
Esmeralda
“I’m so excited you got the night off work!” Marcy squealed to me, all excited.
“Yeah, me too. And isn’t it great that Paul said we could have a free bar tonight for all the extra shifts I’ve been doing?”
Kate, Marcy and Danni all held up their cocktails to me; “Cheers.” We all said together.
Paul had given me the night off as I’d been working lots recently. I very rarely got a Friday night off. Obviously, I would have loved to have gone somewhere else, but Paul offered a free bar to me and my girls, so I couldn’t refuse that. There were some bands playing at The Archer, oh, and maybe Flix happened to one of them. Since Jax and Cindy had split up, we’d been spending a bit more time together, but I hadn’t seen him at all this week because he and the band had been working on some new material. I’d had quite a few texts from him this week, which was nice because in a weird way I kind of missed him, I knew things would work out with me and Jax eventually but we were both happy to take it slow, as neither of us wanted to get hurt.
“Come on, girls, drink up! I don’t wanna miss Flix!” I nagged them as I downed my drink.
Danni looked at me and said; “Don’t wanna miss them? You see them perform every Friday night, surely you are sick of them by now?”
I shook my head. “No! Their music is great. Come on, let’s go, I wanna dance!”
We made our way to the bar and it was fairly busy; I looked over to the stage and saw that Flix were already on. I looked at my watch and saw that it was half past seven. Normally, they didn’t go on until about nine o’ clock. I looked over at the stage again and noticed that Jax and Rick were both looking across at me, so I gave them a little wave and a smile. I got a smile from both of them in return.
“What will it be, girls?” Dean asked me, he was another one of the bar staff, he was covering my shift.
“Let’s have four vodka and cokes to start with, please, Dean” I said.
“Coming up.” He said as he turned around and got our drinks.
“How come the guys are on early tonight?” I asked Dean.
“Jackson asked if they could have an early spot tonight. So we arranged for another band to play after them, should be a good night.” He told me, shrugging his shoulders.
I looked over towards the stage again and Jackson was still looking my way. I turned around and leant against the bar watching him perform; this was something I would never get bored of.
***
An hour later, me and the girls were on the dance floor. An R and B group were on the stage, they were very good. We were all enjoying dancing and getting lost in the music, when I felt someone’s hands on my hips and a slim, strong body behind me. I didn’t panic as I knew straight away that it was Jax. He bent low to my ear and whispered;
“Having fun? I couldn’t stay away any longer-these hips were drawing me in…”
I nodded and began dancing with him pressed up behind me. I swayed my hips and ground myself into his groin area, the vodka was making me brave, I would never normally have done somethin
g like that, luckily the dance floor was packed so no one could see what we were doing.
He then slowly ran his hands down my arms and held me across the stomach. I raised my arms behind me and put them around his neck.
“Mmmm” I heard him murmur, then he cleared his throat and said; “I’m going to get a drink, you want one?”
“No, thanks, I’m good.” I told him, then he let me go and walked to the bar. I watched him walk away and felt a big smile on my face as I thought about the way he was holding and touching me. I was sure I was blushing but luckily it was dark and no one could see. My happiness got knocked out of me as suddenly I went flying across the dance floor as someone walked passed me and shoved me hard. I looked around and saw that it was Cindy. She just looked at me and smirked, then wandered off.
“What the hell was that about?” Marcy asked, as she came up to see if I was ok. “Did you see who it was that shoved you?”
“It was Cindy.” I told all three girls as they surrounded me protectively. Jax then appeared, grabbed my hand and said; “Love this song, come dance with me.”
He pulled me back into the middle of the dance floor, pulled me close to him and we began dancing. He was a good dancer. I was getting a bit hot and bothered by the way we were dancing, but I didn’t say anything as I didn’t want him to let me go. I looked up at him and saw that he was looking into my eyes, I saw something in them; I wasn’t sure what it was, passion maybe? No, I’m sure it wasn’t. Then, the next thing I knew, Jackson had crashed his lips to mine. It felt so good, soft but urgent. I groaned in the back of my throat as he began nibbling on my lower lip, then I opened up for him and our tongues collided together.
When we broke the kiss, we were both panting and I could feel his erection pressing up against my leg, I was thankful it was dark as we were both hot and bothered. He smiled at me, spun me around and kept dancing with me.
Rocking Esme (The Rocking Series Book 1) Page 10
