Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Me
Did Santa bring you everything you wanted?
Jack
Depends.
Me
***
Jack
Will you have a bow on the top of your head when I see you next week?
Me
I can’t believe it worked out for you to actually come. I can’t wait to see you.
Jack
I’ve been planning on coming for months. Didn’t Wells tell you?
Me
Pfffft. No, of course he didn’t. I know you wanted to make it, but your schedule is insane. This is the best news!… Minus that I’ll have to be careful with the press.
Jack
I’m not above finding a closet.
Me
I like where your head is at.
Jack
How many sets are you and Fiona doing?
Me
They added some other performers, so we’re each doing a few songs, then a few together at the end right before the ball drops.
Me
I wish I could kiss you at midnight...
Jack
You’ll be out of that bullshit contract soon enough, and then no more hiding.
Me
I like the sound of that too.
Jack
Do you remember when you and Fiona drunk dialed me last summer after the Summer Fest in Atlanta?
Me
…despite trying to forget that night, yes, yes I do.
Jack
Who dialed my number?
Me
What?
Jack
One of you called me, even though I was on speaker.
Me
Who do you think it was?
Jack
Well, I think you wanted to, but I think Fiona pushed you to do it.
Me
I did want to, but you’re right. Fiona absolutely was the enabler… and held the phone as I pressed dial.
“Listen, you guys can all stay out here, be good little toy soldiers, and no one else is coming in here. Okay? You don’t need to watch us talk about girl stuff, right?
Unless…” Fiona tilts her head to the side to size up the bodyguards Rick stuck on me tonight.
“Did you have an opinion of a diva cup versus an organic tampon? I’d be open to hearing your thoughts—oh!
And especially if you have any tips for dealing with in-grown hairs after shaving your bikini line. ”
The bodyguards blanche and look at each other, shaking their heads.
I don’t even bother learning their names at this point because Rick seems to rotate them out every month or two, and they never do anything to help me anyway.
They only answer to Rick, so I don’t care to speak to them if I don’t have to.
“No, that’s okay. We already secured the suite.
Any deliveries will be required to be checked, though.
” He glares at me like I’m trying to smuggle trade secrets into my hotel room.
“That’s okay, Arnold, we’re only going to order in some food, nothing too exciting, and have some girl talk.
Okay? Okay, great.” Fiona grins and pats his arm.
We’re rarely in the same city at the same time, let alone performing at the same concert or festival, so when our schedules allowed us to be at the same festival and hotel, we wanted a night together without worrying about cameras or press or bullshit in general.
“My name isn’t Arnold, it’s—”
Fiona interrupts him, “Oh, honey, it’s okay. You look like an Arnold, so that’s what you’ll be to me. Okay? Have fun boys and don’t worry about us!” She boops him on the nose and pulls me into my suite, shutting the door with her hip and locking it with a mischievous grin.
The wall of muscle may have cleared the suite, but they didn’t clear Fiona’s bag.
Rick doesn’t want me drinking tonight because he thinks I’ll look bloated tomorrow.
Fiona knows how tight of a leash Rick keeps me on, but she always finds a way around it.
She pulls out a bottle of tequila, a small bag of limes, and an artisan citrus salt for tequila shots.
An hour later, the artisan salt proved not to help the burn of the shots, but after a while, nothing seemed to bother me and I was laughing too hard to care anyway.
Allie has a lower capacity than us and is already sprawled out on the sofa with her eyes closed with a grin on her face.
“Clutter cats called,” Allie calls out to me and Fiona as we sit at the breakfast table on the other side of the sofa. I think Fiona is playing a card game, or more aptly, I think Fiona thinks she is playing a card game, but really, she’s just shuffling the cards in a mess.
“Cool crescendo crashes,” Fiona adds without looking up from her cards but dissolves into laughter. She’s used to our silly alteration game.
“Coffee calling cows!” I join Fiona in her giggles as Allie mumbles something, and I suspect she’s going to spend the night in that exact spot.
“Ooo, calling! That gives me an idea!” Fiona jumps up, and promptly falls over on her ass, before bouncing back up to grab her phone off the counter.
“Who are we calling? It’s … I don’t know what time it is but it’s late! Or early! I mean, it’s dark out, Fi!” I point to the window because obviously that’s a time.
She waves me away as she pulls something up on her phone and turns it to show me—and it’s him.
Of course it’s him.
Fiona knows that I’ve been in love with Jack for years, and she strongly believes I made a mistake when I ducked out of that hotel room, but I can’t change the past.
But I can rely on liquid courage. I reach over, with Fiona still holding the phone, and press the call icon, before I squeal and duck to the floor.
“Are you FaceTiming him?!” Fiona flips the phone back, laughing as she falls into her chair. “Girl, the way you ducked onto the floor, I expected to see his face glaring back at me!”
“My face?” I hear Jack’s low timber in the hotel room and I slap my hand over my mouth, still crouched on the floor. “Fiona, are you alright?”
“Oopsie daisy, hey there, Boss Man! Sorry, WE didn’t mean to disturb you but just wanted to say hello.”
“Oh? And who is we?”
“Oh, you know, me, Allie … Tinsley.” Fiona grins at me on the floor, ignoring me making the universal cut sign—clearly not cutting it out.
“Tinsley’s there?” His voice sends shivers down my spine, and I have no right or claim to this man, but I want to. I want to claim him and keep him—forever. But that’s what darkness does, it swallows things whole and they disappear altogether. “Hello?” Jack pulls me out of my thoughts.
“Say hello, Tinsley,” Fiona eggs me on, wiggling her eyebrows and grinning.
“Hello, Tinsley.” My meek reply causes Jack to chuckle.
“You sound thrilled, Tins. What are you ladies up to at … well, I don’t know what time zone you’re in so I’m not sure what time it is there.”
Why does that make me sad? He doesn’t need to know where I am, so why would he?
“We both performed at Summer Fest in Hotlanta tonight, and damn, it was hot indeed!”
“That’s right. We had quite a few Lux artists there tonight. Good crowd?” Jack asks like we’re business associates. I can feel my happy dimming, and this is not what I wanted tonight.
“I thought the energy was great. What do you think, Tinsley?” Fiona tilts her head toward the phone and mouths ‘talk to him!’ at me.
“Yeah, good crowd. Good energy, great concert. Too much tequila.” Oops.
“Ahh, the timing of the call is making more sense.” I hear him shuffling around in bed. Is he alone in bed? He has to be … right?!
“Where did you go out tonight?”
“We didn’t, we just had a girls’ night in,” Fiona answers after I don’t respond, still stuck on the mental image of someone else in bed with him.
Jack hums and I can hear something playing in the background. “Yeah, socials look awesome from tonight. You both did great. Hey, Tinsley?”
“Yeah?”
“You looked beautiful tonight.”
“Thanks. You did too.”
“I looked beautiful?” Jack laughs. The foreign sound makes me smile, despite my brief melancholy moment.
“You always look beautiful. Have you seen yourself? I don’t even have to see you to know you looked beautiful. Don’t you think so, Fi?”
Fiona laughs. “I’m not going there. I love you like a brother, Jack, but I’m going to go find some snacks for us in the kitchen and give you two a minute.”
“Talk to you later, Fiona,” Jack calls out.
“Ta-ta, Boss Man!” Fiona calls out and waves, leaving her phone on speaker in front of me in the dining area, with Allie now snoring in the background.
It was one of the rare times I got to talk to Jack without anyone else around, and we ended up talking that night—on Fiona’s phone—for over two hours.
I know it was actually one hundred and twenty-three minutes because Fiona has reminded me of that fact more than once over the last year.
We would occasionally get to have those phone calls, usually when one of us had a few too many drinks—often only me—but he always took my call.
It was easier to touch base on texts, but those few phone calls were my lifeline more than once when I was walking through hell.
It’s hard not to wonder if I could have gotten away from Rick sooner if I had only said something, but that’s not a productive thought, not now anyway.
Those phone calls weren’t serious topics; they were happy moments, and sometimes, they were the only happy I had amidst a lot of hard shit in my life.
There may have only been a handful over the year before I had the courage to reach out and ask for help, but maybe they paved the way for me to be brave enough to do that.
And maybe Fiona not only enabled me to talk to Jack that night but helped me in more ways than one because of it.
Jack
Fiona enabling you doesn’t really surprise me though.
Me
No, it’s not groundbreaking news—but the fact that I get to see you in a few days is! You better find a closet with a lock.
Jack
Your wish is my command.