Chapter 17
I wanted her again. I had just had her, and I was not satiated. I wanted more of the desperate, sloppy kisses. I wanted more of her cries in my ear. I wanted more of her taste on my tongue and her warm body riding mine. God, she was hot. Everything about her tempted me. From the way the corners of her lips were naturally always turned up so she seemed to be perpetually amused, to the way her ass jiggled when she walked, to the shape of her breasts straining against every shirt she wore.
I wasn’t just attracted to her body. Her soft, inviting body. Ugh, with that thought, I had to hold myself back from pulling the van over and commanding her to climb back into my lap, where I would lower my fly, push her underwear to the side, and pound into her as her ass hit the steering wheel and the horn with every thrust.
No, I was also growing so fond of her mind. Of her sense of humor. Of her ability to submit to me yet command my attention in every interaction we had. Don’t back down now, music man. Her words echoed in my head. I had frozen at her casual way of telling me that she had been violated, yet she had immediately gotten me out of my head and kept me focused on the task at hand. I had never had someone in my life who was able to redirect me as quickly as she apparently could. I was known to play the part of the moody musician very well.
In the past, when something happened or triggered me, I would get into my head and let the hard feelings overstay their welcome. My bandmates and my manager hated when I got into one of my moods because it took all they had to snap me out of it. My moods made for great music, as most of my famous songs had been birthed in one of my angrier moments, but it didn’t always make me great company when I was in a grumpy mindset.
Clearly, I was a bit dramatic with my emotions at times, as here I was, living an anonymous life, having completely changed my body and left everyone and everything I knew behind to live this self-inflicted punishment. A punishment I had chosen for something terrible that had happened, but I was now realizing that I knew many people who also had awful things happen to them, and they hadn’t abandoned everyone they ever knew as a result.
Jessa was a good example of someone who could have so easily thrown in the towel, yet she clearly had never given up, and I respected the fuck out of her for it. I was becoming aware that I may be the dominating one, but she was really the one who owned me. Back to my original thought, I wanted more . I wanted more with her. I wanted more of her. I wanted whatever more she’d be willing to give me, and I hoped she’d be willing to continue giving it to me once she found out who I really was.
“Penny for your thoughts.” Jessa’s teasing tone broke me out of my reverie as I pulled my van back into the parking lot of her hotel.
“I haven’t seen you smoke all day.” I told her a new observation instead of letting her into the storm of my mind.
“I’m not really much of a quantity smoker.” She unbuckled and turned to look at me. “I’m more of a one to two cigarettes max a day kind of girl.”
“For the dopamine?” I winked. She started to say something, then stopped and laughed.
“I see where you’re going with this. Are you saying I don’t need to smoke because I’ve gotten so much dopamine from other things?”
“Maybe.” I tried to keep a straight face.
“And you’re proud of yourself?” She openly laughed at me again.
“I am.” I smiled back at her smugly.
The next six weeks were perfect. We spent time together every single day, maneuvering around her work and my gym schedule. We fucked on most of the surfaces in her hotel room, and she even let me go down on her in the elevator that we had taken up to the roof for a picnic beneath the stars. We whispered little facts about ourselves as we were lying under the blanket at night.
She told me about her life on the streets, her favorite color, her dreams of living in California one day, and the resentment she had toward her father for abandoning her and her mother.
I told her things like my favorite food, the dog I had grown up with, and why I thought bananas were the worst fruit in the world. I shared a heavier memory about why I had started voice lessons at the age of eight because my music teacher at school had told my mother that I was a “prodigy.” My mother had then pushed me to do it because she saw me as her way to cash out at the bank. I had loved singing but had grown to associate her love of my singing with stress and demands.
I felt guilty for leaving out some major facts about myself. Like the fact that I had been engaged. Or that I was an award-winning, platinum record singer who had a band that was waiting for me to return. I hoped she would forgive me when I finally told her those truths. I planned to tell her after the fight—the fight she and Myles planned on attending.
Three days after our rendezvous in the sauna, I had driven Jessa to pick up Myles from the detox center. We had both been so happy when we saw how alert he looked and the healthy glow in his skin. I had slept over every night while he was away and assumed Jessa would no longer want me there once her brother was back, but when the evening rolled around, I had received a text from her saying that my side of the bed was getting cold. The happiness I felt when that text came in was indescribable. I had run through the parking lot in just my sweatpants and flip-flops to get into bed next to her.
We had gotten into a rhythm of me getting up before Jessa did to drive Myles to his NA meeting. When Jessa woke up, she would order us breakfast. When I got back, we would eat together and then shower, and then I would drive us to work. I enjoyed watching her do her thing inside while I played my music outside. During her breaks, she would bring me drinks with little notes written on the cups. One day, I received a peppermint, white mocha iced coffee with chocolate chips and cookie crumbs on top with the words “You’re my favorite plot twist” written on it in her hurried handwriting. Another day, she had brought me a hot chocolate with caramel br?lée sauce and whipped cream that said, “I like when you’re happy and naked.”
On Monday, she excitedly made me taste a drink that she told me was called a brown butter chai, made from an iced chai latte base with a shot of blonde espresso, two pumps of brown sugar, two pumps of chai, and almond milk. She had written her note across the bottom, and it said, “I find you in pieces of every song I hear.” I had kissed her so hard after I read it that she had to practically pull me off her so she could go back to work.
The next day, she simply wrote, “Your voice is my favorite sound” on a cup of coffee that reminded me of chestnuts.
Today, Saturday, was her birthday, and luckily, she was working a shorter shift than usual. I was strumming on my guitar when she brought out a drink that she called a bourbon apple cider. She said it was made from steamed apple juice mixed with two pumps of apple brown sugar syrup and cinnamon. When I made a face, she called me a picky baby, which made me laugh. I was pleasantly surprised to find the drink to actually be delicious versus what I imagined it would taste like—warmed-up applesauce. I impatiently looked to find her note, and my heart rate stuttered when I saw it on the order sticker. It simply said, “What does more look like?”
I licked remnants of the drink off my lip and smoothed my mustache with my fingers as I tried to remain calm and chill. Did that mean what I thought it meant? I had never really had to try to win over a girl. I had never had to wait so patiently to know if someone wanted to be in a relationship with me. Even Rose had been different in terms of how I saw her as a partner and not just a quick lay, but I didn’t have to work to win her over. She had already known of me and had set her sights on me long before I knew she existed. So when I decided I wanted her too, it was a done deal between us.
With Jessa, I felt that I had to actually be likable. I had to truly try. I had to win her over. I didn’t have fame and money wrapping me up in a desirable package. In fact, with Jessa, I worried knowing that would probably make her like me less.
I also knew I was running out of time, but before she found out more about me, I wanted her to want more with me , the real me . I was enjoying this slice of real life where I could finally experience the feeling of boy meets girl and has to win girl over. Not fan meets award-winning singer and fucks said singer because he’s famous, before slipping out in the middle of the night because the singer’s manager made her leave.
Jessa ducked her head in an uncharacteristic moment of shyness and smiled at me. I wondered what she meant exactly. Did she want to know what more meant just to understand what it meant to me? Or did she want to know what it meant because she was ready to step into a relationship with me? I was so ready to deliver on that. I wanted to call her mine. I wanted to show her what kind of life I could give her. I wanted all of it with her.
“Can we talk about this later?” I asked, gesturing to the cup. She nodded and started to walk away with her usual omission of a goodbye.
“Happy birthday,” I told her again, pulling her back to me. She giggled.
“I think you’ve said that six times already,” she reminded me.
“Get ready for six more.” I shrugged. “It’s your birthday! Be excited.” I put my hands on her shoulders and shook her gently. She responded by pressing her face to my chest and wrapping her arms around me.
“Thank you.”
“For what?” I pressed a kiss to her wild hair. She didn’t answer, but she didn’t have to. I knew what she wasn’t saying because I was feeling it too.
An hour later, Jessa’s shift was over, and she was holding my hand as I walked her to my van and opened the door for her. Her eyes lit up when she saw the balloons I had put on the front seat.
“For me?” She turned to look at me.
“Do you see another birthday girl around here somewhere?” I pretended to look behind her, and she hit my arm playfully.
“Shut up.” She gave a laugh as she climbed into the van and grabbed the balloons. “I haven’t gotten balloons for my birthday in forever.” She was so excited about them, and it confirmed my hunch that this girl had probably not celebrated her birthday properly since her father left. I was about to remedy that, even if she tried to fight me for spending money on her.
Our first stop was at a nail salon where I had to basically beg her to let them give her a manicure and pedicure. She had told me multiple times that I couldn’t spend money on her. I knew she was suspicious about where it was coming from, and rightfully so, but she would soon understand. My fight was in six days, and then I planned to tell her everything there was to know about me.
Jessa finally agreed to do it, but only if I got a pedicure with her, so we sat in two chairs side by side and got our feet buffed, moisturized, and painted. At one point, I looked up to find the nail tech staring at me suspiciously. My heart skipped a beat. I feared she had recognized me, but she didn’t say anything and just looked back down to keep cleaning up the cuticles on my toes. Jessa had chosen a deep red polish for her feet and went with a dark onyx black for her fingers.
Interesting choices , Rose huffed in my mind. Her ghost seemed to be throwing temper tantrums every time my heart acknowledged how much healing Jessa brought me. I ignored her.
Our next stop was the hair salon.
“I am not letting anyone touch my hair.” Jessa was not happy about the idea of parting with any of her curls.
“You don’t have to cut it if you don’t want to.” I held the door open as she hesitantly shuffled inside. “Kari is a curly hair specialist, and I figured you could just let her wash it and decide what you want to do from there.”
She humphed but gave in. Two hours later, she had received a soothing scalp massage, a deep conditioning treatment, and the tiniest trim off the very bottom just to clean up the dead ends.
“Good?” I asked as we walked back to the van.
“I’m loving every fucking second, but I’m mad at you because it’s too much money, and you know it.” She tried to make herself look mad, but I kissed her all over her face until she gave in and started laughing.
“Kari asked if you were my boyfriend,” Jessa announced suddenly.
My heart grew tight in my chest as I responded, “And what did you say?”
“I said you were my music man.” She smiled softly; the emotion she was feeling reached her eyes and softened them. I reached for her hand and squeezed it, but we stayed silent for the rest of the drive back to the hotel to get changed and pick up Myles. It was odd to think of her as possibly being my girlfriend when the term couldn’t fully encompass what I really felt toward her. She was the girl who had saved me from myself. Was there a relationship status for that dynamic?
Back in the room, Jessa changed into what I called her parachute cargo pants and a black top while I watched an episode of Friends with Myles.
“How was group therapy?” I asked when the episode ended.
“It was good. We’re learning about regulating our nervous systems and understanding how our trauma makes us prone to addiction,” he told me.
I listened silently, soaking in all the knowledge he was sharing. I was so happy for him and his progress thus far, although Jessa had cautioned me from getting my hopes up since she knew firsthand how long a road his recovery journey would be. She had shared with me that she still carried Narcan with her, not because she didn’t trust Myles but because she didn’t trust his addiction.
It made me sad to watch someone not just addicted to a substance but was also addicted to filling the void within himself with drugs versus his own love. I was coming to realize that so many of us were addicted to something that filled a void. I would readily admit that I was addicted to something—I was addicted to the pain of working out and destroying my body as I built it up so powerfully instead of letting myself just feel the pain of loss. Getting sober or healing really meant learning to love yourself instead of wanting to escape yourself. Accepting what was and allowing yourself to actually feel even the most uncomfortable and painful things. The process was lifelong, hence why so many people relapsed back into their own version of hell.
Exactly , Rose’s voice said in my head. Fuck. Why wouldn’t she leave me alone?