Chapter 20
Maddy
Next, we hit up a pub, play a round of pool and two rounds of darts, and share several pints to neutralize all the sweets we just had. Then we’re hopping in the car again.
We arrive at the next part of our date, and it’s a big, open loft studio in the arts district. The kind you walk up a metal spiral staircase to get to.
There are beautiful, hyper-realistic paintings on the walls of everyone from dogs to royals and old Hollywood actors. I am so absorbed in studying each one that I bump into the artist herself.
“Hi, Maddy? I’m Jasmine, I’m going to be painting you today.”
The painter is an insanely beautiful woman with tawny skin and a thick, black braid down her back.
My jaw drops. “Painting me? Like that?” I gesture to the most gorgeous painting of my queen, Lady Gaga, in front of me. She looks like a goddess. “Are you serious?”
“You and Jett, yeah. I’m so excited, I am a huge fan of your dad and was just listening to your mum’s new book on Audible, so I feel like I know more about you than you’d probably like. If they like your portrait, please, tell them I’d drop everything to paint them.”
I thank her and, in a daze, fall into the love seat where Jett is scratching lyric ideas into a tiny notepad.
How old school. How, Dad.
He stashes the pad in his jacket and tosses it on a nearby chair. We are once again matching in tight white tees and black leather pants. He has on the same gold chain he always does, the one from our photoshoot back in the day. Only now do I realize that's yet another sign I missed.
“I love matching with you, actually.” He grins.
“Jett, I can’t believe this!” I whisper. “This is not a first date activity!”
His face falls. “Don’t you like it? There’s a retro video game arcade across the street if you’d rath—”
“I love it, Jett.” I glance over at Jasmine, who is preparing her paints and moving her easel closer to us. I lower my voice. “This is just not the behavior of, well, a rockstar with your reputation.”
“Fuck my reputation, Baby.” That makes me wetter than the ocean itself.
“I knew how good we looked together from day one. It’s nearly late July, so in three months it will be eight years we’ve looked like a perfect pair, everyone has always said so.
Is eight years really too soon to wanna see us together on canvas? ”
“I suppose not,” I say.
What if he’s tired of me in a week? What if I’m not like, on his level … in the bedroom? Maybe I'll bore him, he does bore easily. Shit! Will this painting end up at a thrift shop someday? My stomach turns inside out, and I nearly dry heave.
Jasmine is glowing with her paintbrush in hand, “I don’t know if I’ve ever painted a more beautiful couple in my life. You look like you were simply made for each other.”
She’s so sweet, but the unintended pressure behind her words makes my stomach threaten to bring my beer and cupcakes back up. “So, you can talk to me, talk to each other, just sit and stare, but keep looking at each other, all right?”
“Okay,” I say, Jett’s eyes melting me from the inside out.
“Easy.” Jett smirks.
Jasmine studies us for a full minute before sitting down and getting to work. “How did this happen, you two? Your mum said in her book that Jett was like a son to her, that Maddy was dating a charming, British actor … how he was such a gentleman?”
“Bullocks,” Jett mutters.
“I guess things have changed a lot since that book went to press,” I say stupidly.
“Mads, we’re going to be sitting with Jasmine a while. She is an incredibly accomplished painter; she doesn’t want to hear pre-planned soundbites. She’s working miracles over there, at least tell her the real shit.”
I narrow my eyes at him. Then he barely whispers loud enough for me to hear, “This is her process. Let it all out. She’s signed an NDA, don’t hold back.”
A let out a deep exhale of frustration, and his eyelashes flutter, making it hard to stay mad at him like that.
“Jett and I…” Where the hell do I start?
“We met eight years ago, at the hottest twenty-five under twenty-five event hosted by Seventeen magazine. From that moment, it was instant … well, I thought it was instant friendchem. How was I to know that he liked me? He threw candy at my head and hit on my mum!”
“I was immature! That was my way of giving you attention.”
“You know plenty of other ways to give attention, Jett. You had two very hot people pressed up against a wall after that shoot, ready to fuck them both, and neither one of them was me.” I counter.
“You didn't want me! You told me you didn't date and I respected that, even though you were full of shit, Mads. You clearly enjoyed dating pretty blonde boys. Like hello, I have Instagram! I have eyes!” I don't know if he hears the frustrated little growl in my throat as he tilts his eyes towards Jasmine.
“The truth is, Mads wouldn’t look at me twice because I reminded her of her dad.
She was heavily into the anti-rebel, the Ken doll, the polo player, anyone that was the antithesis of rock ‘n roll. But one can only hide from their true selves for so long, you know?”
Well, that stings.
Jasmine nods. “Oh, I know. I spent years as a failed ballerina because I didn’t want to be like my hippie, artist parents, and here we are.”
I huff a deep breath and glare at him. “I wasn’t doing that on a conscious level. It’s not like I’m the first girl to go after Prince Charming. It’s not my fault he turned out to be a cheater and…”
“Over the weekend, in the pool house, you saw me for the first time, Mads. Like really saw me, after eight years. Just because, what? Because you needed a rebound? I have abs now? Because my hair is tamed? Is that it, hmm? My skin is clearer, my jaw line is blah blah … You know how that sounds?”
“I always saw you!” I huff. “Being around you has always felt right.” Fuck if I’m going to be called shallow.
Think, pathetic brain, think. “Its just that … my brain wasn’t fully formed until now.
My immature, idiotic mind knew I wasn’t ready to fall like this.
It told me to be with people that couldn’t get under my skin like you, to keep you at arm’s length until I was ready. ”
“There’s that fire in the eyes.” I hear Jasmine pressing her tiny paintbrush into the canvas, I peek left to confirm, vivid green paint is applied, more forcefully than she needs to.
He clamps his hands around my waist and stares into my damn soul.
“Being with me isn’t for the faint of heart, Mads.
I care about you, and I wouldn’t waste your time if I thought you couldn’t handle me.
If I thought you weren’t ready. You’re stronger than anyone gives you credit for.
I think you’ve realised by now that this isn’t a casual first date for me, that I meant it when I said I wanted everything.
That my heart belongs to you. I told ya how badly I wanted inside you, but I didn’t just mean there.
” His hand falls from my waist to ghost briefly against the heat between my thighs, and I shudder, “I also meant here.” His nails gently scratch my scalp, and I try not to moan in front of Jasmine.
“And here.” He places his palm over my heart and lets it stay.
“That’s it, Jett,” Jasmine adds a dot of white paint, swirling it around in my green to make his soft pastel sea glass shade.
My heart must be beating so hard his hand practically lifts off my chest with each beat, but he keeps it there.
Jasmine notices. “Jett, is that going to hurt your arm if you keep your hand there? I really like that.”
“No problem at all,” he says, his eyes on only me.
“Can I paint the bandage or is that a sore subject?” She eyes his hand curiously. “I can pretend it’s not there.”
Jett laughs. “Should she leave it in, Mads? A reminder of our insane family’s involvement?”
I shake my head. “Why not paint it in? Not every relationship starts with a mandatory blood oath.” Jasmine clearly knows enough about Dad to not question further.
“Talking to my family about you that night, especially my siblings, it was like they could barely handle the idea of us hooking up. That this could only be sex, and it would be fleeting. That I’m sewing my wild oats with you or something, that it could only be lust and I thought maybe it was.
It doesn’t feel like that anymore, Jett, not after what you just said.
Not after escorting me to my interview today, making it fun and comfortable for me, I’ve never felt anything but comfortable around you, just so you know.
The way you kept me calm, making sure my needs were met …
Prince Uncharming would never. He’d be much too worried about how he looked in the camera. ”
“You see why this escalated so quickly, Mads? How it went from one kiss to this so fast? How we couldn’t even keep it casual for one date?”
“Our history.”
“I’m connected to your family through the heartbeat, the DNA of rock ‘n roll, Mads. But you and I have slowly built something different, haven’t we?”
“We have, we were building it, I’m so stupid for thinking it was just a friendship we were building. I feel like I was blind for so long. I hate everyone making this about me being superficial when really I was just an idiot.”
“I’m sorry, Mads. You’re not superficial or an idiot. I won’t bring that up again. And you might want to not bring up Asshole Archer again, I mean, you’re free to, but if I hear one more time how he didn’t take care of you, I’m going to jump on a plane and go knock his posh fuckin’ lights out.”
“Yeah, okay, I’ll stop if you do. Though that would be really fun to watch.
” I smirk, and Jasmine laughs softly. Having her here, listening to a conversation of this magnitude, is just so freaking weird, but I continue, “When you were with Dad today, Mum said, ‘If he follows you into that interview, you’ll know his feelings for you are more than lust.’ You know I hate when my parents are right. ”