Stuck With a Rock Star

by Amelie Bloom

  Every other time we’d broken up, it had been me. I should have let it stick one of those other times.

  “I didn’t break up with Hugo this time. He broke up with me. He—”

  I couldn’t keep going. If I did, I was going to dissolve into a bawling, wailing mess.

  “Was Hugo cheating on you?”

  Maybe. Probably.

  “I think he’s—”

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell my sister that Hugo was most likely going to be having a baby with somebody else.

  “Abby?” Bianca said on the other end of the phone. “Are you alright?”

  “No.”

  Very much not alright.

  “Maybe we can finish this conversation when you’re feeling more together,” Bianca suggested.

  What I really needed most at the moment was not a listening ear, but a shoulder to cry on. All I wanted was a big hug from Bianca, but she was hours away in San Francisco, and I was stuck here in the woods with a man child who’d most certainly get the wrong idea if I demanded a hug from him.

  “How’s Jax handling all this?”

  For a few seconds, I thought Bianca was asking how Jax was taking my breakup from Hugo, but then I realized she didn’t know that Jax was aware Hugo and I had even been in a relationship.

  Bianca certainly didn’t know that Jax and I had not, strictly speaking, always had a purely professional relationship. There were certain things that were just too embarrassing to reveal, even to Bianca.

  “Jax seems to be handling banishment to the back of beyond better than I am. I don’t know why he insisted I come up here with him. It was completely unnecessary, but the way he carried on you would have thought—”

  “Jax likes you,” said Bianca. You do know that, don’t you?”

  Chapter Ten

  “Of course, Jax likes me,” I told Bianca, “I cater to his every whim.”

  “That’s not what I’m getting at, and you know it.”

  It was a good thing I hadn’t confessed that drunken kiss. Apparently, Bianca already had ideas.

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Bianca,” I said.

  “That man is half in love with you,” my sister said. “You must be blind not to see it.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it? I think he’s never made a move because he’s your boss.”

  “Since when did that stop—”

  “Jax is—”

  Bianca seemed to be at a loss for words.

  “If you’re going to make Jax out to be some kind of boy scout, then you’ve got it all wrong,” I told Bianca.

  “I’m not a boy scout?” a voice said from the base of the boulder.

  I hastily swiped at my eyes and inelegantly wiped my snotty nose with the back of my hand. There’s no subtle way of doing that, unfortunately.

  I rolled my eyes at Jax and told Bianca I had to go, then scrambled down off the boulder.

  “Talking about me, huh?”

  There was no use denying I’d been talking about him, so I said, “My sister, Bianca, was extolling your virtues because you offered me such a big bonus to come up here.”

  That was a lie, but I thought I’d been quick thinking until Jax said, “I’m about as far from being a boy scout as a person can get.”

  Our brother Rob was in the boy scouts, and I remember him endlessly practicing the oath.

  “A boy scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent,” I said. “You’re right. That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “See? My point exactly. Ready to go back down?”

  Except that boy scout oath did sound like Jax, minus the obedient, clean, and reverent part. Jax was even thrifty. He spent a lot of money, but aside from having a nice house, he rarely spent lavishly on himself.

  “I still need to call my Gran,” I said. “It’s her 85th birthday.”

  “I’ll wait for you on that rock, then,” Jax said, pointing downhill to a large boulder.

  “I won’t be long.”

  I wasn’t about to wish my grandmother a happy birthday and then say, “Oh, by the way, your youngest granddaughter’s wedding is off.”

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to tell her. She dragged it out of me.

  “Something wrong, pumpkin?” she asked after I’d wished her a happy birthday.

  I insisted that I was perfectly fine, aside from being stuck in the woods.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said. “It’s Hugo again, isn’t it?”

  It was Hugo, but I denied it.

  “Are you sure you really want to marry him?”

  I had been sure. Now? Not so much.

  “What’s wrong with Hugo?” I asked. My grandmother had never been all that enthusiastic about Hugo, but back when we’d first gotten together, he’d been a bit of a jerk. Hugo had matured since then.

  “I probably shouldn’t say this—” Gran said.

  Then don’t, I wanted to say, but curiosity got the best of me.

  “Go ahead and say it,” I told Gran.

  “I just worry, that’s all,” Gran said. The connection was bad, and that made her seem very far away, although Pasadena was hardly the other side of the world.

  “Why are you worried?” I asked as I rowed up a collection of random sticks by order of size to distract me from watching Jax, who’d stretched out on the boulder below me and looked for all the world like a cat soaking up the slanted rays of the late afternoon sun.

  “How many times have you and Hugo broken up?” Gran asked.

  “Counting high school?”

  “Yes.”

  “Eight times.”

  “Why did you get back together each time?”

  I’d expected Gran to ask why we’d broken up each time. There had been any number of catalysts, but they’d all boiled down to the fact that I felt ignored and taken for granted.

  Hugo had never cheated before, that I knew of. He’d never hit me or been verbally abusive. He was a bit controlling at times, which bothered me, but it was his complete indifference to my feelings that always got to me in the end.

  “We’d get back together because we loved each other,” I said.

  I’d slipped up there and used the past tense, but Gran didn’t seem to notice.

  “There’s a difference between love and a habit,” said Gran.

  “I know that.”

  “Do you?”

  Had Hugo and I kept getting back together out of habit?

  “What about all those old married couples you see who barely talk to each other? Isn’t that how every couple ends up?” I argued back.

  I don’t know why I was so set on defending my relationship with Hugo. I had a sinking feeling that whatever my grandmother was getting at would turn out to be uncomfortably close to the truth.

  “Some couples do end up living along parallel lines,” said Gran, “but for every one of those, there are ten couples who are best friends. Is Hugo your best friend? Or is it all just about what goes on in the bedroom?”

  “Gran!”

  I was not about to discuss my sex life with my grandmother, not that there’d been a whole lot to discuss lately.

  “Is Hugo your best friend?” Gran persisted.

  He wasn’t. When I had bad news or sad news, the first person I dialed was never Hugo. He didn’t like to be bothered with what he called “emotional stuff.”

  I finally broke down and told Gran the truth.

  “We broke up,” I said.

  “Well, I hope it stays that way this time,” said Gran.

  So much for making my grandmother sad because there wasn’t going to be a wedding.

  “I’m not telling you to rush into another relationship,” said Gran, “but I have a feeling—”

  I wasn’t ready to hear about Gran’s feelings. Probably, one of her neighbors at the over-fifties trailer park where she lived had a grandson they were trying to marry off—not
interested.

  “Please don’t,” I said.

  “I’m just saying that there may be someone in your life who’s just been waiting around for you to come to your senses.”

  Huh?

  “Happy Birthday, Gran,” I said and hung up.

  When I got down to the boulder, Jax opened his eyes before lazily rolling over and sliding down the side of the boulder to land uncomfortably close to my feet.

  The sun had finally sunk behind the top of the mountain, and the breeze had kicked up. Neither of us had thought to bring jackets, but when he noticed I was shivering, he peeled off his sweater.

  “Put it on,” he said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine. Your teeth are starting to chatter.”

  My teeth were starting to chatter, but I wasn’t about to admit it.

  “You’re just as cold as I am,” I said. “Your fingernails are turning blue.”

  “Are not,” said Jax and shoved the sweater over my head.

  “What are you doing? I can’t see.”

  But then I could see and wished my vision was still obstructed by the fuzzy inside of Jax’s blue sweater.

  As Jax pulled the neck of the sweater down to expose my face, his was only inches from mine. His green eyes radiated a heady mixture of longing and concern.

  I pulled away so quickly I stumbled on the uneven footing of the scree field.

  “How’s Lilith holding up?” I asked to cover the awkward moment.

  “You know Lilith,” said Jax as he reached out to steady me until he put even more space between us. “She wants you to inventory the delivery and check it against the invoice, just in case they failed to deliver everything. She’s emailing the invoice to you.”

  “Did you tell her I can’t read emails?”

  “She wants you to download the invoice using your cell data before we go back. She also said to make sure we empty the Styrofoam coolers and get them into the fridge asap.”

  “And by we, I imagine she meant me,” I protested. “You do know I’m not actually going to go through all those boxes.”

  “I do know that, but it’ll make Lilith feel better if she believes you did it.”

  Poor Lilith. I supposed it was a tribute to the trust she had in me that she was placing the safety and wellbeing of her precious Jax in my hands.

  “I’m hungry,” I said. “How do you feel about pasta? That’s the one thing I think I can find.”

  Finding sauce turned out to be more of a challenge. We ended up practically dismantling the barrier between our beds.

  Lilith really had thought of everything. There was enough food to feed an army for weeks and a complete box of toiletries.

  As I dug through the box of shampoo and tissue and shaving cream, I pulled out a small square cardboard box.

  Chapter Eleven

  I may have shrieked as I dropped the small square box on the floor.

  Jax stuck his head over the top of the barricade and asked what was wrong. I had the presence of mind to put my foot down on the box and mumble something about seeing a cockroach.

  “Did you kill it?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Maybe there’s some bug spray in one of these boxes?” Jax suggested.

  “I think I should start supper, now that I’ve located the tomato sauce,” I said. “Looking through the rest of this can wait.”

  I did not want Jax to know that Lilith had thought condoms counted as essential supplies for a two-week sojourn in the woods.

  Lilith is a detail person, but I did not want to dwell on the details she had been envisioning when she decided that she’d better cover all contingencies for our stay at Uncle Rodney’s remote cabin by including multiple boxes of condoms.

  Lilith couldn’t possibly be condoning Jax bringing random women up to the cabin. Besides, Jax was not what you’d call promiscuous.

  Random hookups weren’t his thing, at least not unless he’d been drinking heavily, and he didn’t do that often. In fact, the only time I’d known Jax to get drunk was in the company of people he truly trusted.

  Nope. The presence of condoms could mean only one thing: Bianca was not the only person in my life rooting for Jax and me to get together.

  I decided I’d take those boxes of condoms and stash them under the mattress on the bed. If Jax found them, and I couldn’t imagine why he would, I’d throw Uncle Rodney under the bus and say they belonged to him.

  I’m normally reasonably competent in the kitchen, but that evening I managed to spill dried macaroni all over the floor (it was a good thing we had nine more boxes of the stuff), boil the water over (twice), and cut my finger on the tomato sauce can.

  While I was wincing and holding tightly to the paper towel wrapped around my finger to staunch the bleeding, Jax went in search of bandages. The band-aids I carried in my backpack weren’t going to do it.

  I stood at the foot of the stairs hoping he wouldn’t find the boxes of condoms in his search for a first aid kit, but when he started laughing his head off, I knew all hope was lost.

  He came down the stairs brandishing a blue plastic box with a cross on the lid in one hand and a fistful of condom boxes in the other.

  “What was Lilith thinking?” he said when he got control of his laughter.

  I’d rather not go down that rabbit hole, so I played dumb.

  “Why are you showing me your stash of condoms?” I demanded. “I don’t think bringing women up here to—”

  I couldn’t go on.

  “To what?”

  “To canoodle with.”

  “What about canoodling, as you so colorfully put it?”

  “Well, I just don’t think that, under the circumstances, casual canoodling is a very good idea.”

  Jax doubled over and howled.

  I don’t think I’d ever seen Jax so transparently amused with my old-fashioned vocabulary. It’s true. I spent a lot of time with my Gran in my formative years. Her quaint way of expressing herself may have rubbed off on me.

  “May I remind you that I’m bleeding,” I said. “I may need stitches.”

  It turned out that I did not need stitches. By the time I’d run my finger under the faucet and was ready for Jax to wrap and tape the gauze pad around my finger, it was clear it wasn’t really that bad.

  “Do you smell something burning?” Jax asked.

  It was the sauce scorching, and the pasta had boiled so long that it was a soggy mess.

  “How about I make us some microwave popcorn?” Jax suggested. “I’m good at microwave popcorn.”

  “That’s not much of a supper,” I protested.

  “That’s alright; we can also have peaches straight from the can.”

  “That’s an awful lot of carbs.”

  “That’s OK. Lilith isn’t here to count my macros.”

  Jax and I shared a bag of microwaved popcorn and a can of peaches as we sat out on the front porch swing and watched the sunset.

  I was starting to see the bright side of being stuck in the back of beyond with Jax.

  If I’d been home, I’d have been sobbing into a couch cushion, binge-eating potato chips, and cycling between hating Hugo and hating myself. Instead, I was watching the sunset over the tops of the trees as the 12th sexiest man alive dropped a blanket over my shoulders and asked if I thought we should open a second can of peaches.

  Chapter Twelve

  My feeling of relative wellbeing only lasted me until I woke up the next morning with a sinking feeling and made a dash downstairs to the bathroom, only to discover that my worst fears were realized.

  There were some essential supplies I had failed to pack for myself, and I had not seen anything remotely similar to the supplies I desperately needed in my survey of the box barricade.

  I tiptoed upstairs and started to gingerly poke around in the box where I’d discovered the shampoo and the condoms. What I was looking for was in that general category.

  “What are you doing?
” Jax said sleepily from the other side of the barricade when a jumbo-sized bottle of conditioner dropped from my hands to the green shag carpet with a dull thud.

  “Uh—looking for something.”

  “Looking for what?”

  I was going to have to tell him sooner or later. He was a grown man. He could handle it.

  “Aunt Flo has made an unexpected visit.”

  “Huh?”

  Clearly, Jax had not grown up with my grandmother and was unacquainted with Aunt Flo.

  “I need tampons. Did you see—anything of that sort when you were going through the boxes?”

  “No. You need to go into town?”

  I did need to go into town, and I didn’t want him to go with me. On the other hand, I wasn’t supposed to leave him on his own.

  “I don’t think there’s any other option,” I said. Not unless I wanted to emulate my pioneer ancestors and fashion something out of paper towels, not that my pioneer ancestors had access to paper towels, but you get my drift.

  “I’ll get dressed,” said Jax.

  He was sitting up in bed, shirtless. I tried not to stare, but he was painfully pretty in a tousled, sleepy kind of way.

  I think he noticed me staring because he reflexively drew the blanket up to his chest.

  “I’ll wait downstairs,” I said.

  Fifteen minutes later, we were jostling down the rough mountain road heading for Heavenly.

  “You OK?” Jax asked after the silence had stretched out for too long.

  “I’m fine.” I didn’t think he was referring to my lady problems, and his next question confirmed my suspicions.

  “How long were you and Hugo together?” Jax asked.

  “Since we were juniors in high school.”

  “That’s a long time.” When I didn’t answer, he continued. “I suppose that’s stating the obvious.”

  “It’s been me and Hugo my entire adult life,” I said. “That’s not the sort of thing a person can just sleep off.”

  “I guess not.”

  “I’m not ready to talk about this.”

  “Alright, what do you want to talk about?”

  “How about we return to a tense, brooding silence,” I said.

  “How about we talk about how we’re going to spend these next two weeks? What do you want to accomplish?”