I hear Jessa’s breath hitch and I’m practically vibrating with anger. I should have walked Jessa straight out that door. Stella is dangerous. I know that. Before I realized that she had plans to own me, she used to play this game with the girls I would fuck around with. She would charm them, play the martyr, get them to trust her and then she would pull some psychopathic shit on them. And these were just girls that I had maybe fucked once. I don’t want to think about what she would be willing to do to Jessa.
“I don’t want to hear that,” Jessa tells her. “I hate that he was with you. I don’t like that you are so blatantly trying to take him from me. But fight, if you want to. I don’t think it matters. I don’t think there is anything you could say or do that would make him leave me for you. I don’t want to fight, but I will.” Jessa’s vulnerable voice breaks my heart. I turn to her and I see the pain in her eyes. It’s my job to protect her and I’m letting Stella hurt her.
“There is no fighting,” I tell Jessa, turning her face to mine. “Don’t listen to her and the games she plays. There is no fighting. It’s just us. It’s just me and you.”
“Okay,” she agrees, but I can see the worry in her eyes.
“It’s time to go,” I hear Billy telling Stella.
“Fine,” she says. I can feel her standing in front of us, but my eyes are still locked with Jessa’s. “It was nice to meet you, Jessa. Do you mind if your man walks me to the door?”
Jessa takes her eyes from mine and looks at her. “You’d have to ask him, Stella. Paxton can make his own decisions, right?”
Stella looks at me then. “I know what she’s getting at, Pax, and that wasn’t my fault. When I met you, you were just a boy; you needed me to take care of you. But not anymore, huh? You’ve turned into quite the man,” she says running her eyes over me.
“Okay, Stella. That’s enough. Billy, get her out of here,” I say, turning my attention back to Jessa. I hear them walk away and I tell Jessa, “Shit… I’m sorry.”
“Do you think this is going to be a daily occurrence?”
“No, beso. I won’t let that happen. I would have kicked her ass out of here the second I saw her, but I needed her to understand that she needs to give up on this situation because I am desperately in love with someone else.”
“I don’t like seeing you with her. It’s physically painful to be around her knowing that you loved her. That you were with her. That she is willing to try so hard to get you back.”
“I never loved her, beso.”
“You never told Stella you loved her?”
“Yeah, I did. They were just words. I never loved her. Not like this. If it’s not you then it’s not gonna be anyone. I’m never going to leave you. I don’t need to chase anyone. I don’t need anything but you.” I stare at her eyes that are still filled with worry. She’s not letting herself believe me. She’s still trying to rely on her old mind set. “Come on, kid. I just said all kinds of sweet romantic shit to you. What do you have to say to me?”
The corner of her mouth finally lifts into a half smile. “I love you so much it’s terrifying. I need you so badly it’s paralyzing. If you ever leave me,” she pauses and shakes her head. “I can’t live without you, Pax. And, truthfully, I hate that. I hate that I need you so much. I hate that my existence is so dependent on whether you want to keep loving me.”
I look at her eyes that are full of genuine fear and I don’t know what else I can say to ease that fear. “I’m always going to love you. I’m always going to be yours. What do you want me to do? What do you want me to say? I will do anything.”
She just shakes her head at me, telling me there is nothing I can do. I run my finger over her cheek and lean in to her, taking her lips gently into mine. There are no words, but this, what happens when we are together, is proof that it is only us.
Chapter 6 - Jessa
I just took my last final and Pax and the guys are still at the rehearsal space so Vi took it upon herself to take me out tonight because I fucking need it. These past few days have been stressful. Knowing that Stella is still in town and with her intentions made crystal clear, I can’t help but stress out about it. I’m trying to trust Paxton and not be paranoid, but she wasn’t lying when she said she was willing to fight for him. According to Vi, she’s still harassing Billy and when Vi and the guys went out the other night, she showed up, hoping Pax would be there.
But he and I don’t talk about her. He goes out of his way to avoid talking about her and when we are apart he calls or texts me constantly, more than normal, and I know it’s to reassure me that Stella hasn’t stopped by and that he loves me.
About the only time I don’t worry is at night when I’m in his arms. When we are together, there are no worries. In my mind I know there is no reason to worry, but somewhere inside of me, in a place I can’t identify, the insecurity remains. I wouldn’t even know where to look in order to get it to go away.
But right now I’m gonna forget all that shit and get drunk with Vi.
“So what are we going to do all week – you don’t have school, the boys will be rehearsing for the Lincoln show, things are going to be quiet around the salon. We should do something fun. Maybe get out of the city for a day?”
“Yeah,” I say, unenthusiastically. Vi’s right; the guys are going to be busy, not only with rehearsals, but also working with the venue and the radio station to get everything ready for the show. I can follow him around all week like a groupie but as far as getting any time alone with him… that’s probably not gonna happen until he comes home at night. Nat’s words, and the fact that she is still not talking to me, are suddenly consuming my brain. I feel bad that I am ditching out on her just so I can be available when Pax needs me. I should be there. But the thought of being away from him for that long hurts.
“What’s up with you, girl? You seem off.”
“I’m fine. I just… I feel guilty about the fact that I’m not going home. I should be there for Nat. Especially since I won’t even get to see Pax all week.”
“You know if you go home he’ll follow you. He’ll just skip out on the show completely and follow you home.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll talk to him. There’s really no reason we can’t spend a week apart.”
She raises an eyebrow at me.
“What?”
“I just don’t like that idea. Maybe you can handle it but I doubt Paxton can.”
“Vi, that’s ridiculous. It’s a week. He’ll be so busy he won’t even know I’m gone.”
“Yes, Jessa, he will. And I don’t want to see what’s gonna happen to him if you do leave. I know you can’t imagine it – I mean he’s doing so great with the band and everything this time around – but he was a shit storm last time he had to deal with all of this. And if you think he’s going to stay on lock down without you around, you’re wrong.”
“Okay, you’re freaking me out. What the hell is he going to do?”
Vi opens her mouth to answer me, but her eyes lose focus and instead she says, “Holy shit. You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
I turn to see what’s got Vi so worked up. Stella is headed across the bar with a tall, dark, tattooed guy. They are both staring at us and it looks like they are headed our way. “Who is that?” I ask about the guy she’s with, hoping it’s the new love of her life.
“Fucking, Vincent,” she seethes.
“Oh, shit,” I mutter as the pair make their way to our booth.
“I’m sorry, Violet,” Stella tells her. “I told him to leave it alone. I swear, I didn’t know you were here. I wouldn’t have ever brought him here.”
“Stay the hell out of it, Stell,” Vincent tells her, his eyes never leaving Vi. “Do you mind,” he asks gesturing to our booth. Stella doesn’t bother asking. She scoots in next to me and lets out a frustrated breath.
Vi seems completely shocked and unable to speak so Vincent scoots in next to her.
“He’s such a psycho,” Stella mutters
under her breath as Vincent starts talking quietly to Violet.
I can’t help but let out a disbelieving laugh at Stella’s remark. “He’s a psycho?”
My innuendo is not lost on her. She turns her eyes to mine and rolls them. “What he is doing is not the same thing that I’m doing if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“What is he doing?” I ask with concern. I know that Violet is in love with Jimmy, but the way she’s looking at Vincent is disconcerting.
“What he always does. Trying to fuck with Paxton. He’s such an asshole.”
“How is talking to Vi fucking with Paxton?” I ask her, letting the whole enemy thing rest for a moment so I can get a better handle on this situation that I’m not sure if I should get Violet out of.
“I swear to God, everything that ass does is to fuck with Paxton. I should have realized that before I got involved with him, but he’s such a good liar. You have no idea. He needs to get a life. His only purpose in living is to take Paxton down, I shit you not.”
“What does Vi have to do with it?”
“I told him she’s with Jimmy and that Jimmy is now in their band. So either, he’s trying to get on her good side so he can weasel himself back into an actual band. Or, and this is the more likely option, he’s going to try to get her back in order to destroy Jimmy and fuck with the order of things in Polly.”
“Violet,” I shout across the table. Her eyes leave Vincent’s to look at me. “I don’t think you need to be talking to him.”
“Give me a minute, Jess. I just listened to his pathetic sob story and now it’s my turn.” I can see the anger in her face and my concern is no longer. She’s gonna tell him off and then we’ll get the hell out of here. I smile at her and she turns back to Vincent, her pointer finger already working overtime. I lean back in the booth and, for a second, I forget exactly who Stella is. For the moment we are both on the same side – we both dislike this Vincent guy.
“I can’t believe I ruined things with Paxton for that asshole,” Stella muses.
I stare at her for a moment, unsure of what to say about that. Does she still not understand that I am with him now? That he no longer belongs to her? I know I should just say nothing, but my curiosity is clawing to get out. “So you guys were good before Vincent came along?”
“Yeah, I mean, things weren’t perfect. Pax was having a hard time dealing with everything that was going on in his life – he was using too heavily and all the shit with his mom and dad was getting to him, but things with us were good. I thought they were better than ever. He and I always had fun together, but in the beginning he was a shitty boyfriend. Actually, we were more like roommates. We were best friends. I mean, he was just a kid and he was experiencing this life for the first time so I was cool with it – the girls he was sleeping with on the side. I was doing it myself. But things changed after he left Vincent’s band. Things got really hard for him and we spent weeks – just the two of us – holed up in our apartment and things changed after that. We were a team. We were doing this whole crazy life thing together.” Her eyes focus on mine then and she actually looks guilty, like she’s realizing I’m with him and she maybe shouldn’t have said what she just did. “God, I’m sorry. It’s still hard for me to think of him with someone else. I shouldn’t have just said those things.”
“It’s okay,” I force myself to tell her. “He told me the same story.” I manage a smile, thinking it’s mostly true, but the words best friends hurts. Also the holed up for two weeks and the fact that she knew about Gabriel and Rachel. I mean, it makes sense, but Vi didn’t even know who Rachel was until Pax had his overdose and she showed up at the hospital. I didn’t think that life was something he shared with anyone but me.
“So you guys talked about me?”
“Yeah. We did.”
“Well can I just say, in my defense, that Paxton probably didn’t tell you the truthful ending because he doesn’t even know it? I just want to clear it up with him but he’s so terrified that I’m going to mess things up with the two of you, he won’t even talk to me so I can explain.”
“Do you want me to pass along a message?”
“I’d rather tell him myself. Maybe if you were there with him he would listen.”
“Oh yes, Stella, please let me help you take my boyfriend from me in any way possible.”
She actually laughs at that, like she thinks it’s funny, laughs. “It sounds bad when you put it like that.”
“It is bad. You came to Chicago to try to take my boyfriend away from me.”
“Truthfully, Jessa, I had no idea he was dating someone. He’s only been back here for a few months. Even if Paxton were the commitment type, which he isn’t, I wouldn’t have thought he could have become so serious with a girl he just met. I mean, you just met him, right? If you had known him when he was living here before I would have known about you.”
“I’m not gonna discuss my relationship with you,” I tell her flatly.
“I’m really not trying to hurt you. I’m getting the sense now that what he has with you is serious so I will back off. I just want a chance to explain. I don’t want him to hate me.”
“Maybe you can do it now,” I tell her as I watch Paxton, Jimmy, Louis and Billy enter the bar. Paxton’s leading the pack and I watch as his eyes sweep over me and Stella, but they ultimately settle on Vincent.
“Jesus, it’s not bad enough that I gotta deal with this one,” Paxton says, leaning into Vincent nodding his head toward Stella, “but now you’re back too.”
Vincent looks at him and laughs. “I didn’t come here for you, you arrogant prick. Are you still nursing that wound? It’s not like you were the first guy to get fucked over by a girl.”
“You understand, asshole, that she’s been creeping around here for a week now trying to get back into my life.”
“If you are trying to suggest that she fucked me over and left me like she did you… that’s not the case. Do you know how long she’d been sniffing around me for before I finally broke down and fucked her?”
“Vincent, shut up,” Stella tells him with hate in her eyes. “I always loved him. I never loved you. You knew that.”
I watch as Paxton’s eyes flash to hers. I don’t care how many times he tells me I have nothing to worry about. The clear fact is that when he looks at her, when he is near her, there is something going on. His eyes just now, they were vulnerable. Maybe even hopeful.
“Whatever, bitch. You left him for me. Plain and simple.”
“I did not leave him for you. I left him because he didn’t love me. He loved his drugs. He loved his music. He loved fucking skanks in the back rooms after concerts, but he didn’t love me. I was tired of trying to make him love me and you knew that. You told me every time he did shit behind my back. You wore me down, made me feel like he didn’t give a shit about me then waited in the wings ready to pick up the pieces so you could screw him over.” She says this like she’s talking to Vincent, but her eyes are locked with Paxton’s and Paxton’s haven’t left hers. My entire body is hot. The panic and dread that was born inside of me the first night she showed up is back. “I’m sorry,” she whispers to Paxton.
The tension is so thick it’s suffocating. I am just a spectator in this romantic, sexually-charged show down. It feels so concrete that it’s them and I am just me, watching like everyone else. Feeling like I should be rooting for the young lovers who have been pulled apart but so clearly belong together.
“I never….” Paxton whispers and the tone of his voice as he speaks to her breaks my heart. “I didn’t get it, Stell. I should have realized what was going on.”
I’m bracing myself because the next scene in this drama is the kiss. He will wrap her in his arms and they will kiss and vow to never hurt each other again. I can feel tears threatening to fall out of my eyes but, like the rest of the table, I am to rapt to really care.
“All I ever wanted was for you to love me,” she says, her own eyes dripping with tears
.
“I did love you, Stell.”
With those words, that are so clearly the truth, I feel myself breaking apart and floating away. I have left my body. He lied to me. Every word he ever told me about her was a lie. It’s so fucking clear. I feel my body inching out of the booth. I see Paxton’s mouth moving, but I can’t hear words. I see myself exiting the scene unnoticed by anyone there. I walk away and leave them there. Leaving without a ripple. Without an eye on me. As if I never existed.
Chapter 7 - Paxton
Seeing Vincent with Stella, I’m beginning to understand. She’s not the monster I made her out to be. Yeah, she’s selfish, mean and sneaky as fuck, but as far as the shit she did with Vincent…she was just another tool in his box. I stare into her eyes and I know her words are true. She always loved me. She never loved him. He worked her over with his lies until she ran into his arms. I actually feel bad for the girl.
As I look at her; at her pain and at her tears, I can’t help but see Jessa. Stella is the living representation of all of Jessa’s fears where I’m concerned. I never loved Stella like she loved me, but I made her believe that I did. She gave me everything and I gave her nothing. It hurts to look at her. It hurts to know that I hurt her that way. “I did love you, Stell,” I tell her because it’s the truth. At some point I cared about her enough to call it love – the kind of love I have for Violet, not the kind of love I have for Jessa. “But not like I should have. Not the way you loved me. You’re right. I get that now, and I’m sorry.”
“It just sucks that I gave up what we had for him,” she whispers.
I shake my head at that statement. “We didn’t have anything, Stell. Not really. I understand that now, and someday you will too,” I tell her, taking my eyes off Stella to look at Jessa, but she’s not there. My eyes start scanning the bar, but I don’t see her. “Where did Jessa go?” I ask Vi.
Inside of You (Jessa & Paxton #2) Page 7
