by Jessie Cooke
I moved faster, egged on by the sound of her sexy voice, plunging deeper and hitting harder as I soaked up her gasps and moans. She sought out my mouth again and we kissed, practically choking on each other’s tongues as I pounded into her, keeping my hands between her back and the wall as she slammed into it. Her movements became more frenetic and I knew she was on the verge again. This girl was insatiable. I loved it.
I felt my balls tighten up and my body go rigid and that was when I remembered that I wasn’t wearing a condom. “Fuck…should I pull out baby?”
“Don’t you dare! I’m on the pill. Fuck me Blake! Don’t stop.”
“Oh baby girl…you’re so sexy.” I fucked her, driving into her like I never remember doing it with anyone before. God I loved being inside of her. Just about the time she cried out and dug her fingernails into me I felt myself explode inside of her. “Oh Jesus….Oh Bailey…fuck!” I continued to hold onto her as we both came down, trembling in each other’s arms. She had her head on my shoulder and her body was melded to mine. I never wanted to let her go. When I felt her body relax and felt her began to slide to her feet, I gripped onto her and said, “Not yet.” I expected her to argue and push away, but she didn’t. She continued to clutch onto me until I slid her slowly to the floor, kissing the side of her face and whispering, “Chocolate enough for you?” She laughed aloud.
6
Bailey
Blake is definitely not chocolate. He’s as vanilla as they come no matter how good he is in the sack. He’s sweet and funny and he never, ever gets mad. I know this because for the past two weeks, I’ve tried to piss him off. I go out of my way some days to be a bitch, just to see what he’ll do. I know that sounds twisted and it probably is. I do it because I honestly don’t believe anyone is really just that nice...at least not anymore. The one time when I really believed that someone was, I got burned.
Speaking of getting burned, I am just about burnt out on these interviews. Since the Good Morning America interview that we both rocked, we’ve been on The View and the Talk and both VH1 and MTV’s news magazines. This is supposed to be the last one for a while and then we can relax for the next three weeks. Thank God. I hate interviews. For me, it’s the absolute worst part about this job. I don’t understand why, just because people buy your CD’s and go to your concerts that they think it gives them a right to know everything about you. I don’t insist on knowing who my hairdresser is fucking and I still pay her and buy her stuff. I don’t care who my manicurist’s father is or how many Government agencies are investigating him. I really don’t.
Blake isn’t bothered by the interviews. I guess that’s because he’s so honest and everything in his life is what it is. He has nothing to hide, unlike me. I have a list of things that I pray the public never finds out about. The reporters finding out who my father is when I was on the Fresh New Voices show was the least of my worries. The biggest issue that I have is when they ask where I went the year after the Fresh New Voices tour was over. That was the worst year of my life and no matter how many people Daddy paid to cover it up, I still live in fear of it coming out.
I’ve practiced a million answers to the question: “Where did you disappear to for a year?” I smile and say things like, “I was taking a simpatico,” or “I was going to school,” or “I was dealing with family issues.” I have lots of answers, but none of them are true. Daddy keeps telling me I need to pick one answer and stick with it, but when the time came, I usually panicked and just said the first thing that popped into my head. The truth was that Daddy paid a lot of people to make sure that the truth would never come out, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still live in constant fear that it will.
Being interviewed side by side with Blake helped. Usually if the interviewer was female, Blake would start talking in that smooth, sexy Texas accent of his and she would practically forget I was there. While her panties melted off, the time would tick away and she’d have less time to ask me direct questions. Blake always went out of his way to try and bring the attention back to me, just because he is so sweet. What he didn’t know was that I preferred it on him instead.
My favorite part of all of this was getting to spend so much time with him. We spent a few nights writing a couple of songs together and we practice at the studio for our tour at least a few days a week. He makes me laugh and he makes me forget that all of this could fall apart for me so easily. Blake and I have a lot of sex too. I think in the past two weeks we’ve tried every possible position, and each one has been better than the last. I was getting attached to him, but I was being smart about it so that I didn’t make the same mistake that led to all my troubles in the first place. I knew that it was too soon to be in love with him and I reminded myself of that often. I didn’t worry about who he was with when he wasn’t with me, or at least I reminded myself not to, and I tried hard to appreciate the fact that he needs his own space to breathe sometimes. It was all proof that I was capable of learning from my past. All I want now is for us to finish this last interview so that we can spend the next three weeks really getting to know everything about each other.
“You okay?” I jumped. I’d been so immersed in my own thoughts that I almost forgot he was there. We’d been sitting in this stupid greenroom for an hour already waiting to go on set.
I smiled at him. “I’m good. I’m just tired of all of this. I’ll be so glad when this PR rush is over and we’re on the road finally.”
He nodded. “It’s been a while since I’ve been on stage too. I miss it. It’s funny that just a couple of years ago I didn’t even know what it felt like. Now I find myself unable to imagine living without it.”
I sat down next to him. “I don’t think you’re ever going to have to find out. You are so talented and the fans adore you. You’ll be one of those old guys who are still touring at seventy.”
He put his arm around me and pulled me into his side. His green eyes are so pretty. I love looking at them up close. He brought his mouth crushing down on mine and he gave me a long, sexy kiss. When he pulled his head up, he left his mouth close to mine and he said,
“Thank you. But you want to know a secret?”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t want to do this until I’m seventy. I want to do this until I have a family, and then I want all of this to be a fun memory.”
“Really?” I pulled back so that I could see his face better. “You’d really give this all up for a wife and kids?”
“Absolutely. This is fun, but I was having fun singing at that bar back home. This pays a lot better though. I figure by the time I meet her, the woman who wants to marry me and have babies with me, I’ll have made enough money to buy us a nice house on a good chunk of property and we can ranch or farm.” I shook my head and lay it into his chest. He’s so vanilla. While most music stars are making plans to top the charts, this guy was thinking about making babies. I sat there with him holding me and let that sink in…he said, “When I meet her.” That obviously means he doesn’t think he met her yet, and that meant I wasn’t even in the running. I pulled away from him and stood up abruptly. I could feel myself getting angry. I tried to stop it. I could always feel myself hurtling towards disaster; my problem was stopping the train before it got out of control.
I tried to distract myself by thinking about the interview. That made it worse. I suddenly started thinking that today would be the one. Today will be the day that they ask me about that year, and I can’t remember what I’m supposed to say. I started to panic. The thoughts began to accelerate inside my brain. I’m trying to slow them down so I can breathe but they won’t stop. My breaths are coming in ragged gasps and I feel like I’m going to black out. My heart is beginning to hammer inside my chest like it wants out. The room is spinning…Oh God! Blake is staring at me….
“Hey…what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I feel so sick.
“Are you sure?”
“I said nothing! Get off me!” I want him to hold
me and make it go away. I want to cry.
“Okay, sorry.” He sat back down, but he was watching me. Shit! I’m going to pass out. I can’t breathe!
“Hey you two, they’re ready for you.”
Blake didn’t take his eyes off me. He waited until the producer left and then he looked at me and said, “Can you do this?”
“Of course. You go. I’ll be right there.”
“Bailey…”
“Go!” He reluctantly got up and left the room. Thank God! I squatted in the floor to stop the spinning. I could feel tears pushing their way to the corners of my eyes. How the hell was I going to do this? Stop it, Bailey! Pull it together! You’re going to blow this…all of it. You’re going to lose Blake…Shit! I pulled myself up off the floor and picked up my bottle of water. Taking several long pulls, I looked up at the television screen. Blake was sitting in the big chair next to the male and female host. He was smiling…so handsome. I could hear him joking about how I wanted to look beautiful for the audience…but he couldn’t imagine how I could get any better looking. God…I don’t want to fall in love with him. Then I have to worry about losing him. Why can’t he be an asshole? He made it seem so normal that I hadn’t come out with him. He was handling this like a pro and he didn’t even know I was having a meltdown. He was protecting me. He is so nice that he can charm the pants off a snake…but unlike a lot of players I’ve met, he genuinely means what he says.
He went to dinner with me Monday night and he charmed my father. It was rare that my father liked anyone outside of the family right away, but it was obvious that he liked Blake a lot. My brothers gave him a hard time and he just laughed and joked with them. He didn’t act like he realized that he was in a restaurant surrounded by some of the biggest names in organized crime in both Chicago and New York. Some people would meet Blake and see things like that as him being naïve, but the more I’m around him, the more I think that he’s just incredibly non-judgmental. I even started to wonder if he’s non-judgmental enough that I could tell him about the last year of my life. Maybe that was part of what led to this meltdown.
I made myself take in a few more breaths and blow them out slowly. Then with my back straight and my head held high, I walked out into the hallway. As soon as I did, I collided with someone coming out of the room across the hall.
My body flew back and hit the wall. “Shit!”
“I’m sorry…Bailey?”
I glanced up at the sound of the voice and I suddenly didn’t have to worry about the pounding of my heart. It stopped. The silence was suddenly deafening as we stared at each other. “Nick…” I finally managed to say. “What are you doing here?” Suddenly the hallway seemed small and claustrophobic like a closet. I was having a hard time breathing again. Nick was huge…or at least a lot bigger than I remembered him. He’d lost that skinny kid look. He had broad shoulders and I could see the muscles underneath his shirt and the traces of tattoos sticking out of both of his sleeves. His hair is longer, almost to his shoulders and his eyes have lost that look of innocence he used to have…they were more jaded now, cynical no doubt from all he’d been through.
“Bailey! You’re supposed to be on stage!” the producer was back and yelling at me. He didn’t seem to notice Nick and his mom. I didn’t acknowledge him. I couldn’t stop looking at Nick. He was staring at me and I wanted to run in the other direction from both of them. I turned away from Nick.
“Bailey, wait.”
I must be stronger, I tried telling myself. Look at me, I’m actually walking away. “I have to go on set. I’ll talk to you later.”
“When Bailey…another year? I miss you…” I almost stopped but I willed myself forward. I moved down the hall towards the set and I was only a few steps away when I heard another voice from the past. This one was female, a female who despised me.
“Let her go Nick. No good can come of talking to her and you know that.” I could hear my heart beating inside of my head now. I told myself to keep walking, but my body wasn’t listening. My eyes wanted to see him one more time. I turned slowly and he was still looking at me with those big, dark eyes. His mother was standing next to him…looking at me accusingly. “Leave him alone Bailey. He’s been through enough because of you.”
“Mom…”
“No Nick! You don’t think straight when it comes to her. She’ll hurt you again. She always hurts you.”
“After the show, wait for me,” I heard myself say. It was more defiance directed at his bitch of a mother. She was more obsessed than I ever was. She wasn’t any better for him than me.
“He’s not going to wait for you, Bailey!” I turned and headed towards the set while she spewed her venom at my back. “You’re a crazy girl, Bailey. You took his life away from him. You’re not going to get another chance to hurt him. I won’t let you!” I kept walking. I think I heard Nick say my name again. I got to the edge of the set and without looking back I smoothed down my skirt and tried to worry about how fat I was going to look on camera…or how pissed the producers were at me right now…or how I would explain to Blake what took me so long to get on set. Anything but what I had done to Nick.
“Well, there she is ladies and gentlemen, it’s the elusive, Bailey Clark!” I forced a bright smile and waved at the audience. As I went to take my seat, Blake’s green eyes locked into mine. Like the coward that I am, I turned my head away. “We thought you changed your mind,” the coiffed and polished morning anchor said.
“I’m sorry. I was busy running into people in the hallway.”
“Oh you ran into someone you know?”
“No, I literally ran into someone. I mowed him right down. I doubt that he’ll ever be the same.” The host and hostess both laughed and the audience laughed. I looked at Blake. He was still looking at me like he knew better.
“So Bailey I was just asking Blake what it’s like for the two of you to be working together. Blake’s first year on tour was spent with Kyle Case…one of the biggest names in rock right now. Touring with Kyle gave him an edge. I’m wondering if that’s what the match between the two of you is designed to do as well.”
“To give Blake an edge? Nah, I think he’s doing alright.” I was talking too fast and too loud. I could feel it…but like the panic and the anger…I couldn’t stop it.
She laughed again and said, “I do not mean any disrespect to you at all. I voted for you when you were on Fresh New Voices. I was thrilled when you won, but it’s been a little over a year since we’ve seen you, Bailey. I have to wonder if this is some kind of ‘come back’ tour for you.”
“You’ll have to talk to Axel Maxwell. He tells me what to do and I do it. You don’t fuck with Max the Axe!”
“Uh, this is a family show, Bailey.”
I didn’t even take a breath. “He told me to hang out with Blake, so here I am.” Blake was giving me a look that said I was screwing this up, but not like he was pissed…more like worried. My head was all over the place and my mouth wouldn’t stop. I looked at Blake again. “What do you think, Blake? What was Axel thinking when he paired us up?”
“He was thinking we’d make a great team, and he was right, as usual.”
“Yeah, Axel is always right. He says we pair up…we pair up. He tells me I’m fat…I go on a diet.”
“Axel tells you that you’re fat?” the lady anchor asked.
“No, he doesn’t say fat,” Blake tried to interject.
“Were you there?” I snapped at him, on live television.
“No but…”
“Then shut the fuck up…”
“Bailey! You can’t say that on television.” Now the room was spinning…I have to get out of here. I stood up and the morning host said,
“What are you doing, Bailey? Are you okay?” I’m not okay…not even close. Like a blind person in a room without a door, I started spinning around, trying to find an exit. I suddenly felt like this was a trap…Nick, he did this to me…this was his revenge…or maybe it was his mother. Yes, it w
as probably her. She hates me.
“I have to go…” Blake stood up. He was reaching out for me. I already ruined one star. I’d doused Nick’s light out before he’d even had a chance to shine. I need to leave this one alone. I turned and ran off the set. I kept running down the hall until I hit the emergency exit, literally. I busted out the door to the sound of someone calling my name. I think it was Blake. I left the alarm screaming behind me. I kept running. I ran towards my car and as I pulled the door open and jumped inside a wave of memories assaulted me. There were memories of first kisses…first touches…hands calloused from the constant strumming of a guitar sending chills across my body…I came back to the present and looked up through the windshield. I could see Blake, jogging across the parking lot towards me. Security was behind him…they are going to take me back to that place. I’m not going to go this time. I’m okay. I just need my medicine. I just forgot to take my medicine. No, that’s not right either. I’m out of my medicine. I ran out…weeks ago. I meant to get it re-filled, but I’ve been so busy.
I put the car in drive and floored it. Poor Blake had to jump out of the way. He was looking at me like I’d lost my mind. Little did he know, but I lost it a long time before I met him.
7
Blake
“What the fuck happened?” Axel was looking at me like I did something. Bailey flipped out and ran off. I’m worried sick about her, but I have no fucking clue what happened.
“I don’t know. She was acting a little strange all morning and then she just freaked out and took off.”
“And then you left in the middle of the interview too.”
“I went after her.”
“Not your job. Your job was to finish the interview and perform.”
“Are you kidding? She was obviously upset about something. Really upset. Bailey’s my friend. There are more important things than performing.”
