Annabella's Oblivion (Hard World Tour #1) (34 page)

What the hell happened to her in the past year when I was away? What the hell did I miss?

“
Well, Jane, that would explain why you always refused to get laid. Though, girl, you should have told us you lost your V card,” Ariel pouted.

“
This is shit I don’t want to know,” Nate murmured, and it earned him a chuckle from Jer, who looked at him, finally some amusement back in his gaze.

“
Welcome to my fucking club, man. When you’re around girls 24/7 you hear a lot of shit you don’t want to know about.”

“
I can’t believe you guys!” Jane screamed and was about to leave when Drake grabbed her hand, giving her no other choice but to stay put.

“
No need to be shy, beautiful. I haven’t gotten laid either. In fact, why don’t we rectify the situation now?” With those words, before she could react, he leaned down and propped her on his shoulder and left the room. We all blinked at that, because let me tell you, I had never expected to see shit like that involving Jane.

“
Well, who is going to have a sexy time now, huh?” Sam mused, and I couldn’t help it, I laughed so hard, holding my stomach because really! To think I thought she was waiting for the special one to give up her virginity. The room grew silent and I stopped and looked around, realizing what had happened.

They hadn’t seen me laugh in such a long time.

Nate leaned down to me, bringing my face to his, and gave me a slow peck on the lips. Everyone was staring at us.

“
Baby, everything will work out.”

For the first time since I came here, actually for the first time since I started using drugs, I believed him.

Drake

She was mine. Every inch of her body was mine.

Since the moment I claimed her virginity two years ago, she belonged to me.

She denied it.

She thought she needed someone else.

She thought she loved someone else.

She didn’t know it yet, didn’t see it yet, but the only one she needed was me.

Because no one would love her as much as I do.

She was mine.

She just needed time to see it and accept it.

“
Hey, girls.” We looked back at Jane, who was sitting behind us in the bus. She had an iPod on her lap.

“
Yeah?” Ariel asked while frantically deleting pictures on her laptop that were blurry or out of focus. And before Jane could continue, Ariel complained. “Sam, you seriously suck at taking pictures.”

“
I do not!”

“
Yeah, you do. Everything you took was shit.”

“
The pictures you took aren’t exactly the best either.”

“
Whatever. You still suck.”

Jane interrupted. “When and how did you guys lose your virginity?” I choked on my drink. Ariel and Sam stopped their usual bickering and Megan became all red.

“
Well, that’s one hell of a question,” I finally was able to say, but my throat still felt tight.

She shrugged, looking down and then at the window. “I’m just curious, that’s all.” Jane was the only one who wasn’t in a good mood after our trip, not to mention, at some point, she disappeared from our radar.

We all shared a look and changed our seats so everyone would end up facing her. She usually wasn’t the one to talk about sex; she actually avoided the subject every time it was brought up. Her curiosity right now seemed out of the blue, but then maybe she decided to give up her V card and wanted to get some inspiration about it? Jane never asked about anything directly; with her, you had to search for hints in her questions.

“
I lost it with Nick, obviously.” Megan was the first to share, despite the fact she was as red as a lobster. That would have been funny if it wasn’t for the fact she was talking about my brother.

“
Megs, come on, I feel sick. I don’t want to discuss my brother’s sex life.” Gross! I mean just ewww, no.

“
Well, she asked.” She gave me an annoyed look and quickly finished. “It was during our senior year in high school and he was very gentle. He booked a motel room and, well, the rest is history. He was amazing.” I had a feeling I was green, that’s how much it made me sick. She laughed and tapped me on the shoulder. “That’s it, no more details.”

“
Thank God for that,” I muttered, because seriously, I was close to hurling.

“
Gregory Hopkins,” Sam said, and my jaw dropped to the floor. “We were both fifteen and, well, it sucked big time. It happened at my house when my parents weren’t home. The thing didn’t last long, and we never had sex after that.”

Gregory Hopkins was a kid from our school. He was a football star and always had plans to go to law school. He was the heir to the attorney practice his parents had, and the last I heard about him, he studied at Harvard. Sam hated the guy, and he always had something nasty to say about her, not to mention he kinda scared me. Well, certainly some aspects of their behavior were explained.

“
Diego Rodrigues.” We tensed because all of us knew how much pain he’d brought Ariel and how much she loved him. Sometimes I wondered how she was able to work with us from all the pain she suffered because of that fucker. “He had a yacht. He put roses there and shit like that. I was eighteen, and it was special and good.” Her voice shook slightly, but then she quickly put a smile on her face as if it was just a thing from the past, but I had a strong suspicion it really wasn’t.

Diego was older than us by ten years and should have known better than to touch the innocent Ariel back then. She was such a delicate flower; no one probably would believe now, since she was a drop-dead sexy goddess who used men as she pleased. I wished there was a way for me to help her, but there wasn’t. Last we heard about him, he married someone else and had a kid. It was hard to miss since he was a CEO of a big company and his business was all over the news.

I was so deep in my thoughts about my girls that it took me a while to notice everyone looked at me expectantly, and I got that it was my turn now.

Shit, I so didn’t want to talk about it with anyone.

Ever.

I couldn’t exactly back off now, when they’d shared their thing.

“
Ryan Jackson, and it was two years ago.” Well, talk about shock. Their faces were priceless. And then Megan made a whimper and I turned my head to her. “Don’t tell Nick about it, okay? He would probably make a big deal out of it, when it really wasn’t.” I was lying; it was a big freaking deal.

I still could remember how gentle he was. We were both nervous, but it was nevertheless beautiful.

One of the most memorable moments of my life.

“
I don’t get it. When did you have time to do that? I’ve never seen you hang out with him except that time in—” Ariel stopped and shook her head. “The time you went to have ice cream with him. I had no idea it was our code for sex.” I had a pillow near me, so I grabbed it and threw it at her while she was laughing.

“
Anyway, it happened at his house, and it was good. I left in the morning and we never talked about it again.” Megan frowned and opened her mouth to say something, but closed it abruptly.

“
What?”

“
Nothing. It’s nothing.” It wasn’t nothing and I damn well knew it. She sighed, knowing very well the Hastings offspring were stubborn.

“
It’s just that Ryan doesn’t seem like the type who would do something like that. I mean, it’s hard for me to imagine he would have sex with you and then just make you leave.”

This conversation was getting more uncomfortable by the minute.

“
He didn’t kick me out. I just left.” The girls gave me astonished looks, but there was nothing much to say. “So, Jane, tell us why you’re interested all of a sudden. You finally found the one?” I wiggled my brows and the girls giggled as they all shifted their focus back to Jane.

I couldn’t talk about Ryan.

I knew he wanted more. I’d seen it clearly.

And that scared me.

I never wanted to have a connection with anyone on an intimate level. He was great while it lasted, but I couldn’t give him more.

There was one thing I didn’t mention to them.

That night, I wasn’t the only one who had their first time.

Ryan

“
So are they coming back, or should we move on and go ahead?”

“
Maybe we can wait? You know, they’ll talk, and we could just wait.”

“
Drake is a calm person. I’m sure he’ll let her go soon.” As the girls discussed what would be the next action, Jeremy and I shared a look that spoke volumes.

Calm my ass. If his behavior was anything to go by, he would be screwing her senseless right now.

I had no idea they were married, but I knew some woman occupied his thoughts. He never paid attention to any female, and refused their advances when they hit on him.

Looks like his woman stayed loyal too, but the look she gave Jeremy worried me a little.

I didn’t have the best relationship with my brother, but I didn’t want him to love a chick who was in love with someone else, either.

“
Let’s just move on and discuss the tour. Jane knows all the details anyway,” Jeremy said with a sigh and took the papers he had in his hand, spreading them around. I had my hand behind Bella’s head on the couch and had her in my arms, and thank God she ignored the questioning looks from her band. I didn’t want her explaining shit to them. They hadn’t exactly gained my trust yet.

“
Our tour starts in Trenton in two weeks. We’ll have twenty-five cities to go to, and we’ll have our last concert in New York. It’ll all last about two and a half months. And then, depending on certain things, we may have to take a break, and only then announce the world tour.” They’d done the same tour three times already, so it wasn’t anything new for Bella.

“
The usual then.” Ariel was looking through the papers but checking her phone for some reason as well. She was restless.

“
Yep.” Then he took a deep breath and looked up at Bella. “How is your voice?”

“
I can sing, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s still a little bit raspy and it’s hard to hit higher notes, but with practice and all, I should be good to go for Buffalo.” Oddly enough, she sounded confident. Jeremy nodded and wrote down some notes on his papers. I just now noticed how stressed he was; it was like he was a walking tension who didn’t know how to let go.

“
Well then, that’s it. For today, everything is done. Fucking please stay put today, I have enough scandals to deal with.” He stood up and made a sign with his head to me, and as much as I didn’t want to leave my girl there alone, I had to follow him.