* * *
Karen - September 2009
“Why Dominic?” I put my hands on my hips. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were thinking before now?” Clad in his familiar desert fatigues, his gear bag already packed and on the floor waiting for him, he stood ready to leave me yet again. Everything about his untimely announcement was awful. It was Friday. I was exhausted from work, and I had a terrible pounding headache. “You should have given me a chance to let it sink in, so I could prepare myself at least.”
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you would react just like this.” He gave me that condescending look. The one I loathed. The one that snapped my spine straight and made me instantly defensive. I sometimes thought that he didn’t see me anymore, that he didn’t see the changes his eight long years in the service had wrought in me. That he looked at me and saw the naïve twenty-year-old girl he had left behind that first time. Maybe he wanted me to always remain that way.
“Like how exactly? I’ve supported nearly every single decision you’ve made. I compromise all of the time. I left my support network, my family, and OB behind when I came out here to New York. All for you.”
“Not just for me. You’re a star at Roxy. You love the traveling and marketing and all of the attention. No one has moved up the corporate ladder faster than you have. I’ve sat at the expensive dinners and watched those execs fawning over you. They’re going to make you a senior VP soon.”
He seemed to resent my successful career. Why couldn’t he take pride in my accomplishments instead?
Seeing him only on weekends, sometimes not even then when he was working on some special side project at Fort Drum, or when I was traveling for Roxy, I had little else to occupy my time besides my job.
“Work is good. Challenging. It keeps me busy. But Dominic, what about us? Did you consider me at all when you made the decision to reenlist and sign on for another extended overseas tour?”
“Of course I did. You are the sole reason I took the commission. You know we have to make sacrifices to advance in the military.”
I knew, but sometimes it felt to me like he expected me to rubber stamp every unilateral decision he made. Like our marriage should operate the way things did within his unit. Clear chain of command. Don’t question orders. Appreciation and love felt like an afterthought. I didn’t know how to cross the growing rift between us, one that would be impossible to traverse now that he would be away for six month cycles again. I tried to appeal to his analytical side.
“You know I want you to succeed. You know you are my priority.”
“Do I?” His eyes narrowed. “You seem awfully focused on yourself lately. That is when you aren’t on the phone talking to Ramon.”
“I could care less about the VP position for myself. I want the higher income for us. One of your primary motivations for signing up for these tours seems to be the extra pay.” From the expression on his face, I knew that my guess was true. “As for Ramon, he is a friend. That’s where it stops. We’ve had this conversation about him many times before. You know I’m not the type of woman who would interest him.”
The spread ‘em, kneel and play for him type.
“Maybe. But how do you think I feel when I see all of the gossip about my wife and the mega rich rock star played out in the media? I had hoped the speculation would end when you sold the shop and we moved out here. But it hasn’t.”
“That’s not because any of it is true. It’s only because he’s such a big celebrity now. I don’t hide anything from you. My friendship with him is totally transparent. Most of the time when he calls, or I call him, you are sitting on the couch right beside me.” The lines of communication had been reopened between me and the Dog’s guitarist since that day in his Malibu home. He had proven himself a supportive friend. He had cleaned up his act with the drugs, too, from what I could tell. He was never impaired when I talked to him, or on the rare occasion when the band had a show in the city and the three of us met up for dinner, but he was by no means reformed. He had simply exchanged one vice for another. Women. He seemed to always be with a new one, but never long enough for me to learn their names. Or ask. Or care.
“You are the basis for our friendship,” I reminded my husband. “Our families and OB are practically all we talk about.”
“I know.” His gaze softened. Finally. “I’m sorry. I trust you, baby. I couldn’t leave you alone like I do if I didn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish half the things I have if it weren’t for your support. I love you, Karen.”
“I love you,” I replied automatically and I meant it, but I would have been lying if I said I loved him the same way I had at the beginning of our marriage. It seemed that in a lot of ways a sense of duty was paramount for both of us.
Yet, he had all of me, all that was left anyway, minus the dreams, family and Southern California shores, I had left behind for him.
But now, I wondered how much of him I had anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
* * *
Ramon
“Chica, we are done here.” I slapped the fake blonde on her scrawny naked ass, an ass I had thought was passable before I had fucked her.
“But I want to meet Linc.” Her bright red lips formed a pout. Not a single smudge. I never kissed them anymore. I fucked ‘em sure, but I had to have them turn away from me.
“Talk to my manager. He’ll take care of it. Now beat it.” I had to be a ruthless asshole or they started mentally measuring us for wedding bands. I gave her the imperious lifted brow and watched her scurry to retrieve her scattered clothes. All I had to do was refasten my jeans. I hadn’t really been interested to begin with, less so when she pulled out a pen and paper and tried to hand them both back to me during the act, reminding me that she wasn’t who I had been pretending she was with my eyes closed. Everyone was a bigger disappointment, every encounter ended up being just another regret.
The door clicked closed.
But I’d heard the escalating roar of the crowd. The stomping of their feet reverberated through the cinderblock walls. Like me, the opening band had shot their wad. It was only minutes until the Dogs went on. I moved to the brightly framed makeup mirror and looked at myself, giving my reflection the same disapproving glare I had given the groupie on her way out.
“Pull yourself together, Martinez.” I snagged a handful of guitar pics from the bar and slid them into my jeans pocket. I had a ninety-minute performance to get through, longer if we had three encores like we’d had the previous night. But you never knew with New Yorkers at The Garden. One night you might rock it out, the next they could decide you were yesterday’s news. You had to earn their approval every time.
But that wasn’t why I needed to give myself the pep talk, or why I’d let the groupie in to try to take the edge off.
Karen was coming to the show, without her husband. Patch had taken off again on another extended tour without considering how she felt about it. She had been in tears when she had called me. She had tried to back out of coming to the show because he wouldn’t be there with her and wouldn’t like her spending time with me alone.
“Fuck that,” I had told her, one of the few times I had spoken out against St. Dominic. “You deserve a night out. You’re one of my best friends. I need to see you. We’ve been planning to get together for months. The last thing you need to do when you’re feeling depressed is to be alone in your apartment. Come,” I had cajoled. “We can hang out with Ash and Linc the whole time if that will make you feel better.” I hadn’t mentioned that they would be so wasted they wouldn’t really be effective chaperones.
She had eventually given in, but she wouldn’t have if she had known how hard I got just thinking about her. The quickie hadn’t helped matters at all.
• • •
Karen
Front row seats, just behind the pit packed with rabid Dirt Dogs fans. The band had sold out both their back to back shows at the Garden within hours of the tickets going on sale eleven months a
go.
I was thrilled for Ramon. I didn’t begrudge the guys their success. They had come a long way since that first mini tour up the SoCal coast in Ash’s father’s Volkswagen bus. But as I stared at the dark stage and the spot to the left of the center mic where I knew Ramon would stand, I noted the fever pitch of anticipation in the crowd growing, but I didn’t feel right about being a part of it. The empty seat beside me added to my guilt. It wasn’t so much that I had come knowing that Dominic wouldn’t approve. It was because of my own thoughts regarding Ramon.
He tempted me.
Not because he was a rock star that millions of women around the globe coveted.
Not because of his sexy body that made him the number one score for the groupies.
Not because of how sinfully handsome he was with those dark glossy curls, that piercing gaze and that half-mocking smile.
It was because he was my best friend, the person who understood me better than anyone else, more than the man I had married who didn’t seem to realize, or didn’t care anymore how much it hurt me every time he left me.
Isolated. Lonely. Heartsick.
Most of my married life I had been like that…a widow’s existence though my husband was very much alive.
Suddenly a scintillating guitar rift split my thoughts and nearly ripped the roof off the venue. The fans went nuts. I rose from my seat like everyone else around me. Purple and blue beams came together illuminating the side of the stage where the Dirt Dogs’ guitarist appeared. Cock sure confident, his shoulders back, his shirt unbuttoned to the waist, his jeans hanging low, he strode across the stage, commanding the sold-out crowd’s attention. When he reached his mic, he leaned backward in a lazy repose, his fingers flying effortlessly across the fretboard of his Les Paul.
Inwardly I swooned, acknowledging that the rock god thing factored prominently in my more elaborate private fantasies.
• • •
“What’d you think of the show?” Ramon swaggered off the stage amid thunderous applause.
“I thought you were fantastic.” I smiled euphorically, a rush buzzing along my skin from the energy the Dogs had conjured from notes, lyrics and a monumental dose of attitude.
He liked my answer. Grinning, he shook out his sweat drenched hair the same way he did whenever he emerged from the ocean.
“Ramon!” I complained, letting out an affronted squeak and jumping backward too late to avoid the spray.
“Glad you made it, surfer girl.” He lifted his chin as someone stepped behind me. A glance over my shoulder revealed not the security guard who had escorted me backstage, but a guitar tech wearing a black t-shirt that said, ‘staff’ in white block letters. Ramon handed him the well-used Les Paul he had played most of the night, trading it out for a light blue hollow body. “Hurry up guys!” he shouted the abrupt order to his bandmates. Linc, Ash and Diesel were a couple of feet away from us drying off their sweat drenched hair and faces with towels that they hastily tossed aside. “We still have to do an encore,” Ramon explained to me, shifting closer. His heat and his oak moss and sandalwood scent swirled around us. The intensity in his gaze held me spellbound as he leaned in and pressed a soft butterfly kiss to the round of my cheek. “Stay right here,” he stated firmly while I swayed as if I had downed a double dose of straight Tequila. “Don’t you dare go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”
Legs shaky, I planted them into the black boards beneath me and lifted a hand to hold the kiss that married to another couldn’t mean anything to my flushed skin. I stared at him and only him as he reclaimed the stage with the others. I watched the lights pulse lovingly on his form, transfixed by the glow that seemed to transform him into something more than a mere mortal.
But as the backstage personnel carried out their assigned tasks, I summoned the will to back away. Ramon wasn’t for me. I had made the mistake of thinking he might have been once before. I didn’t have the reserves to relearn that lesson. Reason prevailing over fantasy, I left the man I wanted to return to the one I had. That I didn’t care to have anymore. But the one I had chosen. The one I was committed to walk it out with. Even if I had to do it mostly alone.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
* * *
Ramon - June 2012
“Where the hell’s your helmet, skateboard girl?”
Karen whirled around, executing a tight little circle on her board. Eyes that had been dull and lacking her usual passion a moment before lit up brilliantly at the sight of me. “Ramon!” she exclaimed. “How did you know where to find me?” She dismounted, stomped on the back of her board, popped it into her waiting hand and ran to the spectator section to meet me.
“Your secretary told me you took off early to try out some new wheels. I knew this was your favorite park. I guessed you would be here.” And I rarely announced my intention to visit her in advance anymore. Far too often she would make excuses. Far too many times she would say yes then leave me hanging like she had all those years ago at the Garden.
“Ah, so you’re a detective now in addition to your other numerous talents.”
“You have no idea the extent of my talents.” I glanced around the busy skate park with its bowl and trick ramps as if looking for a spot to have my wicked way with her. “It’s kind of busy here. We can try the Helmsley if you’d like a private demonstration.”
She play punched my shoulder.
“Weak,” I told her. “And you never answered my initial question. You should wear a helmet. It’s not like you to be so reckless.”
“I know. I forgot to bring it. I had a rough day. And I wanted to skate.”
I frowned. Sometimes, I think she courted disaster a little too cavalierly. She had lost more weight since the last time I had seen her months ago. She worked unceasingly, exercised constantly and skated like her sanity depended on her mastering each increasingly risky maneuver. She reminded me of myself, how things had been when I had tried to live my life without her in it, filling the emptiness with nonstop activity so I didn’t have to focus on what couldn’t be.
I reached for her, trailing the back of my knuckles down her cheek. I had to touch her even if the platonic contact she allowed me was always less than I really wanted. I nearly groaned with satisfaction at the softness of her skin beneath my own. For a too brief moment she leaned into the simple caress as if she were as starved for my touch as I was for hers before she straightened and glanced around. I knew she was looking for photographers. She had mentioned how much the gossip upset Dominic.
“There aren’t any.” I angled my head toward the still as a statue but alert six foot one shadow underneath the tree. “Roland is my new bodyguard. He did a quick sweep of the area before we moved in. There are no paparazzi in the immediate vicinity, but there’s no telling how long that will last.” I slowly swept my gaze over her. “It’s been forever since I saw you. Can we go somewhere quiet and private so we can talk?”
Her brow scrunched together as she considered my proposition. “Sure,” she decided, tossing her braid over her shoulder. I was glad she had grown her hair out. The shorter style hadn’t suited her any better than living in the city the past five years had. “But where did you have in mind? I’m not really dressed for hanging out at the Four Seasons’ bar.” She gestured at herself. She wore elbow and knee guards, black pants, and graphic tee tied tightly at her waist so it wouldn’t fly into her field of vision when she went airborne for tricks. I found her outfit adorable. The clothes skimmed her alluring curves, but she did have a point.
“No, I guess not.” The Seasons was where I was staying. It would be swamped with paparazzi looking to catch someone rich or famous up to something that they could spin into the next news cycle.
“Why don’t we go to my apartment?” she suggested. “I’m tired. I don’t have the energy to go out. I’d like to catch up, but I’d prefer to do it after a hot shower and after I put on some comfortable clothes. We can get something delivered.”
She didn’t intend for any
of what she had said to be sexy, but my body didn’t get the message. The thought of her being naked and wet and soapy made me hard. Hell, just about any thought with her in it turned me on. Luckily, she couldn’t read my mind.
“Sounds great,” I agreed, shifting to relieve the pressure inside my pants. “But you’ll have to lead the way.” I had never been to her apartment and hadn’t been alone with her in a long while. This would be interesting in more ways than one. I wondered if her place would tell me more about what was going on inside that sweet head of hers lately. Our friendship remained strong. Her name was at the top of my text messages and my recent call log. But the boundaries of our relationship had changed because she had changed. She seemed less and less herself, her slim shoulders and subtle curves too fragile, her vibrant life force sputtering.
• • •
Karen
I dropped my keys in the dish by the door and danced backward, trying to put distance between myself and Ramon. Being smashed into his rock-solid form on the crowded subway had been almost more than I could resist. His cologne, his warmth, his strong arm around me, his long, searching, caring glances…I wanted to succumb to him. I wanted to be the woman I saw reflected in his eyes.
“There’s bottled waters, wine, beer, the usual things in the fridge. Help yourself to whatever you want.”
His gaze flared in response to my words, but he didn’t make a suggestive comeback even though I had given him the perfect setup. “I’m fine, Karen. Thanks.” As he moved toward the sofa, his frame, his confident rock star persona and everything about him seeming to dwarf the tiny space.
“Ok.” I backed away and entered my bedroom, closing the door behind me and trying to catch my breath. My heart pounded while my mind raced with all kinds of thoughts I shouldn’t have. It felt illicit, him being here in my home, in my private space. I glanced at the bed remembering far too many occasions when Ramon had played a starring role in my imagination.
(Complete Rock Stars, Surf and Second Chances #1-5) Page 44
