Waking Up in Vegas
Page 22
Whether it had the correct answer would determine its fate.
The table was silent.
I picked it up, thinking that the crash of throwing it through the front window would be blissfully cathartic… and then set it back down. I might be raging, but I wasn’t crazy. There was no way I could sleep tonight with a gaping hole in the front of my house.
And look at me, thinking that I might actually get some sleep tonight.
Even through the haze of my anger and pain, a small voice of sanity whispered from the back of my brain. And that voice called out to remind me that nothing was ever set in stone. I still held onto the useless hope that she would change her mind.
I went into Jen’s room and saw that Lita was still on the bed, whining and looking at me like maybe I wasn’t the half-crazed madman I felt I was.
And like a light switch flicking on, I realized that I actually did have someone who loved me back.
Here was a girl who needed me and actually wanted me around.
I curled around her on the bed, stroking her back and murmuring soothing words into her fur.
Turns out it soothed me, too.
I woke up at three, instinctively reaching for Jensen. Instead, all I encountered was Lita’s soft fur against my throbbing knuckles, and yesterday came back to me in screaming, vivid color.
I had so fucked up.
Jensen deserved someone who treated her like the treasure she was, and I simply had not done that. I realized far too late just how special she was.
I’d been a fool. I was so damn cocky.
I could never punish myself enough for forcing her to choose between her family and me.
I’d never even conceived that I might lose.
God, I didn’t feel like going in to work this morning. Or ever again.
I took a shower anyway, knowing I’d make that drive and say what the listeners needed to hear.
I made sure the water was cold, though.
It was all I deserved.
Chapter 24
*Bring Me To Life*
“Good morning, Las Vegas.” I sounded flat, and no wonder—it felt like my life had completely deflated.
I covered the mic with my hand so I could clear my throat, and started over. “It’s just me here this morning, and unfortunately, that’s the way it’s going to be for the foreseeable future.”
I adjusted my headphones so both cans sat squarely over my ears, and swiped a hand over my eyes.
I was surprised to find my fingers came away wet.
“Jensen,” I paused to clear my throat again, not bothering to muffle the microphone this time, “Jensen MacKenzie has taken another position with Cirrus Radio in Phoenix, Arizona. We here at KLVR wish her all the best.” My voice cracked on the last word and I had to shut off my mic.
I thought I could do this, I really did, but I was so wrong. Instead of saying anything else, I queued up ‘Love Bites’ by Def Leppard and closed the studio door.
The Rolling Stones ‘Angie’ followed on the maudlin playlist, mostly because I didn’t trust my voice anymore.
Listening to Mick Jaggar’s cracked and heartbroken whisper boldened me a bit; if he could throw that out there, why in the hell couldn’t I?
Besides, broadcasting to the entire Las Vegas valley that I was in love had effectively removed me from the Most Eligible Bachelor list forever, anyway.
Time to go all in.
“I have a confession to make.” I spoke over the end of the song—a gigantic violation of station policy—and didn’t give crap one. Let them fire me. The studio walls held too many damn memories anyway. “I was a consummate man-whore when Jensen arrived. I’d be willing to bet most of you already knew that.
“What you don’t know was that, from the moment I laid eyes on her, I was head over heels. And like a dumbass, I had no clue. I just knew she was amazing. But as most of you heard on Friday, I finally figured it out and blurted it out on the air, with all of you eavesdropping.”
I had to pause here to steady my breathing. I’ll admit to you that there may have been a few tears involved, but Las Vegas at large didn’t need to know I could actually cry. I do still have a few standards.
Albeit, very few. I’d be willing to throw myself in front of a bus if she wanted me to. I’d do anything she asked if it meant she’d just come home.
“I need to correct something I just said, since I’m being all honest and laying myself open here. Even if I wasn’t aware of it, the truth is Jensen stole my heart the very first time she put me in my place and made me feel like a complete moron.”
I huffed out an embarrassed laugh. “And, man, did it piss me off. But here’s the thing. To her, I wasn’t a bedpost notch, I was an idiot with a Y chromosome. I was a little boy in man’s clothing, calling myself an adult because I could sweet-talk women into sleeping with me.”
“Sex doesn’t make you a man, for all you guys listening out there. Far from it. Caring, responsibility, and not being a selfish ass-hat make you a true man. I’m twenty-nine years old, and I finally grew the hell up.”
Jesus. I was racking up the FCC fines today, wasn’t I? Good thing I was winding down.
“Now that I’ve wrecked your Monday morning with my revelations–”
There was a tap on my shoulder. I closed my eyes, my gut tying into Celtic knots and braids. This was it—my pinkslip.
With my back to the door and the headphones over both ears, I hadn’t heard anyone come in.
I didn’t want to turn around, even though I deserved whatever punishment BK was planning to hand me. I’d just had a meltdown over the airwaves, for chrissake.
I sighed heavily, slipped off my headphones, and slowly spun my stool.
“Sorry I’m late. You didn’t call to wake me up… Spartacus.”
What the ever-loving fuck?
“How… but…” I sputtered, struggling to pick my chin up off my knees. I didn’t even care that she’d just told all of Sin City what Tack was actually short for.
“As usual, you’re good with the vocabulary.” Jensen smirked. “It’s a wonder you’re still employed.”
I had to be hallucinating. Jensen MacKenzie could not possibly be standing in front of me right now.
Behind her were BK and… my mother?
Yeah, definitely a mirage. Or a nightmare.
I reached out to touch her, certain my trembling fingers would just pass right through.
I wound up cradling her cheek and pulling her down toward me. “You’re real.”
“Yeah.” The uniquely Jensen half-smile played over her lips.
Then it disappeared from view because I was crushing those lips against mine. As her sweet toffee flavor welcomed me home, I heard BK’s gruff voice say, “You’re not fired. Now play some music.”
Jen busted out with a laugh, and much as I wanted to keep doing what I was doing, it’s impossible to kiss someone who’s snorting hysterically.
Loathe to let her go with even one of my hands, I half-turned back to the console. I was afraid the boss might change his mind if I didn’t get a song channeling over the air ASAP, so I told the listeners we’d be back in a moment, clicking to play a couple of random titles on the list of ones starting with ‘A’.
‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’ (appropriately enough) started blasting through the speakers in the hall. I guess my implosion this morning was entertainment for everyone who was in the building this early.
The phone lines lit up, I’m sure with Vegassers dying of curiosity, but since I didn’t have the foggiest idea what to say, I just let them ring.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here,” my mother said, making me finally look her way. She was glowering at me in her usual judgmental fashion, but the effect was watered down somewhat today. Her hair was flattened on one side, and she didn’t have on a bit of her usual make-up. She looked barely awake. A random thought of childhood breakfasts late on a Sunday morning flitted through my head, making me smile.
So warm, my mother was. I guess she cared, in her own subdued-bulldozer way. I just shook my head. “You stayed at my mother’s last night?”
Jen dragged her chair to my side of the booth, sat down, and raised guilty eyes to mine. “I needed somewhere to stay.”
“You have a place to stay.”
“I wasn’t so sure about that. And after I tell you the whole truth, I don’t know if you’ll welcome me back.”
“You’re scaring me, Jen.”
She released a cavernous sigh. “I have a confession to make. When BK initially approached me about the timeslot in Phoenix, my answer was yes.”
“But you told me you said no.” That came out a little testier than I’d intended, but in my defense, the morning had been quite the rollercoaster ride.
“I lied. Because I was afraid.”
Boy, could I ever relate.
Jen sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and I could tell she desperately wanted to look anywhere but at me. I loved her more for keeping her eyes steadily on mine, instead.
“The intensity of my feelings, and how quickly they hit me, scared me to death,” she said softly. “I thought I’d be just another notch on your headboard, and sticking around to watch you with your next conquest would kill me.”
I nodded, not ready to admit that her leaving had almost done the same thing to me.
“While I was in Phoenix, I wasn’t thinking about my father. Instead of being worried about his health, I was missing you like crazy.”
“Same here,” I mumbled over the sudden and thick lump in my throat. If only we’d told each other then, maybe this all could have been avoided.
“And that got me terrified all over again, so I lied a second time and told you I had to report to my new job a week sooner than I actually had to. Just so I could flee from something I wasn’t sure I was ready for,” she said softly.
“And now?” I reached out and took her soft hand in mine.
With a tremulous smile, she said, “I finally woke up and realized that I loved you, too. I’m so sorry I lied. I swear it’ll never happen again.” She gave a small chuckle, that wholly Jensen sound that reverberated through my ears. Through my heart.
“Say it again,” I implored softly.
“What? That I’m sorry?” Her smile widened, fully aware of what I really wanted to hear. She traced her fingertips across my cheek, met my eyes and amended, “I’m completely head-over-heels in love with you, Tack Morgan.”
“So you’re not taking the job in Phoenix?” I held my breath, worried that all I’d accomplished was getting her to stay an extra week—in this business, a contract was a contract.
“I called them this morning and told them to find someone else.”
“And what about the termites in your condo? Was that part of your escape plan, too?”
Jen shook her head. “No, all that was real. I guess fate had designs for us, as well. But now that Angus has worn out our welcome with your mother, he and I need a place to stay. I was hoping some randy hotshot DJ might be looking for a couple of roommates.”
“Hey, where is Angus?”
“I dropped him off at home. Lita went nuts. What happened to the lamp, by the way?” Jen laughed.
Not your house. Home. Our home. Me and Jen together at last.
I dragged a hand through my hair. “Yeah, well, my night wasn’t any better than yours. Besides, I never really liked that lamp.”
Jen stepped into the vee of my open knees, wrapping her arms behind my neck. “Good thing we have at least a dozen in the garage to replace it with.” She leaned in until she was a breath away.
“Good thing,” I murmured between brushes of my lips over hers. Then our mouths were too busy to say anything at all.
Epilogue
*In Your Eyes*
Three months later~
“This is Jensen MacKenzie, signing off for the very last time here on KLVR. Have a great weekend out there, folks, and keep it real.”
I knew the listeners must be freaking out right about now, hearing her say her final goodbyes. It wasn’t so long ago that she’d uttered something very similar, during a time when we all thought she was gone for good.
The day after her abandoned exodus, I’d finally gotten the whole story. I’d come home to find Jen and my mother sitting in my living room, and I thought they were gearing up for an intervention or something.
Although in truth, Jen was the person who needed one. Her fondness for pizza was beginning to worry me.
“We need to come clean,” Jen started. “Your mom and I talked a lot in the past weeks, and while not telling you about it doesn’t really count as a lie, I don’t want even a grey area in that department.”
Jen was looking at me hopefully, and I found myself smiling at her guilty expression. The thing was, so long as she hadn’t lied about loving me, there wasn’t anything we needed to talk about.
My mother obviously felt differently.
“It was high time you stopped acting like the self-centered jerk your father was,” my mother began. “He was a committed non-committer. I thought you were heading down that same road. But then you introduced me to Jensen.” She glanced over to Jen and the hard look in her eyes softened.
Jen seemed to have that effect on everyone.
“Your mother asked me for my phone number that night at Pure, and she called me the next morning, wondering if I’d changed my mind about filing assault charges against the drunk guy who attacked me.” Jen’s eyes clouded, and I couldn’t blame her. I still wanted to toss the guy off a roof.
“That’s the excuse I gave, anyway,” my mom said. “We talked for a while, and it became clear that you two were perfect for each other. Not that you’d have ever realized it on your own.” Her patented ice-blue glare narrowed. “You were too busy screwing anything that held still long enough.”
Leave it to my mother to be blunt. She was eyeing the indentations in the living room walls that I hadn’t had time to fix. I tried not to feel like a twelve-year-old again under her steely stare. Although, in truth, this time I deserved it.
“Your mom and I didn’t speak again until after I’d made the decision to take the timeslot in Phoenix. I’d called to let her know when I was leaving and ended up breaking down as I was saying goodbye. I blurted out that I had feelings for you, and that’s when, well, she came up with the idea to tell you I had to be there earlier than I actually had to.”
“I knew the compressed timeframe was just the nudge you’d need to come to your senses,” my mom interjected.
Color me stupefied. But the surprises didn’t end there.
“BK was the only other person who knew about my contrived timeframe, and, I still don’t know why, but he agreed to go along with the ruse. That’s why he didn’t show up to any of the goodbye parties. He didn’t think he could manage not to slip up,” Jen said.
I was shocked at the entire admission, but to find that my bulldog boss actually had a heart under all that girth was, I think, the most astonishing surprise of all. Who knew?
I probably should have been angry at what Jen and my mother were trying to tell me. But the truth is, I was fighting not to smile at their revelations. The love of my life, along with my mother and my boss, had concocted this scenario just to help me get my head out of my ass. They’d done it because they knew Jen and I belonged together. Apparently, even before we did. There was something sweetly humbling about that.
“I told Jen I was certain you’d come around, and if you held out until her supposed last day, she should come stay with me instead of piling into her car for Arizona.” That laser-stare was back in her eyes. “I know you so much better than you think I do, Spartacus.”
“See, BK had misundersto
od at first and told the station manager in Phoenix that I actually was coming early. So, that day when Slanker Knox was playing in the studio, I was up in BK’s office on a conference call with the guy who was supposed to be my new boss. He was scrambling to get the paperwork changed to reflect the old start date again. Then, once we were off the phone, BK spent another half an hour trying to convince me not to go at all.”
I’d never intended to tell Jen that the surprise studio session had been set up for her, but I knew I’d better remedy that once her big speech was over. Seems it was the time for soul-cleansing all around. But by the time she was done, I’d been looking from one of them to the other like I was watching a tennis match and I’d started to get dizzy. At least, that’s the reason I told myself.
I couldn’t admit then that I’d been so well-played by the only two women who truly loved me.
“So everybody was playing headgames,” I said. “Now I don’t feel so bad about doing a few of my own.” I also had a fleeting thought of hugging my chunky Hawaiian boss for asking her to stay, then thought better of it. He’d have fired me on the spot.
After all, back then I’d still had a week of therapy to go before my sexual harassment record would be wiped clean.
Strangely, now I count Dr. Cooper among my friends. I still go to see him—every few weeks or so—just because it helps to make me feel better in my own skin.
I even kept up with the journal-writing for a little while. But once I had this story down in its entirety, I finally decided to retire the thing. There wasn’t much left about me and Jen that I needed to work out.
Although there is one special entry that you might just be interested in reading:
Dear Journal,
Jensen is currently freaking out, and it’s all I can do not to bust out laughing.
I‘m not trying to make fun of her plight, either. Although I will confess to the tiniest bit of duplicity.
See, I stole the metal AC/DC logo off her keychain, and she thinks it fell off somewhere and it’s lost. And since it was the very first thing (besides Pop Tarts) that I’d ever given her, she’s all sentimental about the thing.