Bad Boy Rock Star (14 page)

"Jack!"
I called again but he was at the end of the street.

I figured I'd call him when I got inside and make him see reason.
My side hurt a bit and I remembered the cashbox. I'd work out the band's share this morning and loan Dad what I could of mine. Maybe I'd been a bit harsh with him. We were family after all and we only had each other to depend on.

When I got back inside, I screamed.

Dad sat on my bed with the lid prised off the cashbox and a bundle of notes in his hand.

"What the hell are you doing?" I screamed.
"Put that back."

I grabbed the money from him.
My stomach burned and I wanted to throw up. Did I have no one in my life I could trust?

Dad hunched his shoulders and turned from me.
He seemed to shrink away.

"Hon, I'll get it back to you in the next day or two.
Trust me," he mumbled.

But any trust I'd felt dissolved.
I couldn't even leave him alone for a few minutes.

"I said no.
I love you, Dad, but I can't do this. I am just getting my stuff together. Don't mess it up for me." My voice shook but I had to say it. I swallowed hard and waited for him to apologise. I still believed that he could make this right.

"After all I've done for you," he said and shook his head.

I didn't even have the dream of Dad coming to rescue me now. All I had was lies and deceit and everything gone to shit. I had to get out of there. This hurt was too big for me to handle.

The teller at the bank asked me what was wrong and I tried to stop crying but that just made the tears worse. I handed over the cashbox and got the receipt but didn't want to go back to my room. I wandered around the streets, wishing I had sunglasses to cover my eyes. I must have looked a mess. I walked and walked, not even knowing where I was going.

I had no idea what the time was or how long I'd walked, but the day got warmer and the sun got brighter.
My shoes rubbed against my toes and my calves ached. I needed coffee and I needed food. I had to find a café somewhere so I could sit quietly by myself and think about how to work this out.

When I walked into the
café, I scanned the place for somewhere quiet to sit – a nice corner table where I didn't have to deal with people. Instead of finding that, I saw Jack Colt sitting at a table near the door. Was he stalking me? I ran out of the café and on to the street but he followed me out.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "You look a mess."

I tried to reply but started crying again and he wrapped his arms around me. He didn't talk or ask me what was wrong. He just held me.

Every time I thought I’d finished, that I’d cried all the tears I could cry, a fresh sob rose in throat and I clutched him tighter. If I let go, I’d have been set adrift in the world but he anchored me and made me feel like I could deal with anything so long as he held me in his arms.  I’d never had a pair of strong arms to hold me when I’d been upset before.  I’d never had anyone to just let me feel the things I needed to feel without telling me to be strong.

Finally the tears stopped.  I’d saturated Jack’s shoulder with my tears and I felt spent from all the tears.

"I think you need food," he said.

"And coffee." I sobbed the words out but I felt better. I'd cried enough.

We went back into the
café and sat down. I ordered the large breakfast with extra toast and extra bacon. Suddenly, I felt like I could eat all the food in the world and still be hungry.

"It was my dad.
At my place this morning."

He screwed up his face for a moment then nodded.

"Is that why you left? Because you heard his voice?"

"No, not at all."
But he said it funny and I thought he was lying. He'd been pissed off for sure. Maybe a little bit jealous. He wouldn't have stormed out like unless he felt something. The thought that he might be jealous made me feel a bit happier.

I took a slice of his toast while I waited for my food to arrive.

"So, last night, huh? Wasn't it something?"

He nodded then reached over to brush my hair out of my eyes.
I stole a glance at him and wondered why he did that. It seemed so intimate. I noticed his fingers, so long and thin. Perfect for playing guitar. I noticed his forearm with the black tattoo, the hairs on his arm lit up by the sun coming through the window. I noticed the way his t-shirt stretched across his chest. I noticed gold streaks in his eyes.

"Why are you staring at me?"

"Am not," I said and picked up the newspaper. "I'm so not staring at you."

Then my food arrived.
I gulped down the eggs and bacon and tomato like I'd never seen food before and never once looked up at Jack Colt even though I could feel him looking at me. This relationship was strictly business. If his t-shirt emphasised his strong shoulders and that incredibly sexy V where they met the top of his arm, that wasn't anything. Just one more thing to sell the band. I had no interest whatsoever.

Then I remembered he owed me.

"So, you were going to tell me your dark secret," I said. "You lost the bet."

He laughed but I insisted.

"It's not something I like to talk about." He grabbed a slice of toast off my plate and looked at me as if daring me to say anything. I didn't care. My stomach was so full, I never wanted to eat again.

"Well
, obviously. It'd be no point having a bet about something you went around telling the world."

"The warehouse belongs to my father.
My biological father. I don't have anything to do with him but he gives me money sometimes and thinks that's enough."

I choked on my coffee.
I'd been thinking I was the rich bitch but now I had nothing and Jack Colt had all the money.

"So
, what's the story? You give me shit about being a rich girl who's slumming it but really it's you that’s doing that?"

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.

"My mum came from a poor family and they met when they were young.
It was a love at first sight thing. You know, the whole young love with hearts and flowers and everything was going to be perfect so long as they were together."

"But it didn't last?"

I sipped at my coffee while he stared out the window.

"They were fine at first.
But shit like that, it never lasts. People think they are all in love and they can overcome any obstacle. Then the obstacles are there, day after day and the love isn't as strong as it used to be."

He'd grabbed a sugar sachet and twisted in his hands.

"But surely you can work through those things, talk them over?"

He snorted. "You think?"

"Yeah, I really do think.
If you really want it to work." I don't even know where I'd gotten ideas like that. I mean, Dad had never had a relationship that I knew about since Mum died and my only serious relationship, with Tom, had died when it no longer became convenient.

"Whatever.
She got knocked up with me and he gave her a fistful of cash to deal with it."

"What did she do?"

He stopped to sip his coffee. I wondered how he felt about all this. He tried to sound detached but at times his voice shook and he'd twisted the sugar sachet so much, it'd split and the sugar spilt on the table.

"She moved back home to Gran's, and Gran pretty much raised me.
Mum wasn't around much. She had boyfriends. I lost count of them. They were all no good scum, the whole lot of them. She'd think she was in love.
He's the one, he's the one
, is what she'd say. Until he was another lying, cheating douchebag."

He stopped again.
His eyes clouded over like he was no longer there but off somewhere I couldn't reach.

"I got home from school one day.
I was 14 at the time, and there was an ambulance outside Gran's house. I wanted to run then, ran as fast as I could, so I didn't have to go inside. But I sucked it up, you know. Gran had had a heart attack. They got her out of there and into hospital. I couldn't even contact Mum. Didn't know where she was."

He still held the fragments of the sugar packet in his clenched fist.
I reached out and my hand over his. He didn't seem to notice but he didn't shake it off either.

"She was a tough old bird but she'd been old when Mum was born.
No one lasts forever. I went in to see her everyday and then, at the end, had to make all the arrangements myself. I had to move out of her place, of course, but had nowhere else to go. Mum'd shacked up with some loser at the time and he sure as hell didn't want me around. I lived where I could, friend's couches, squats, sometimes sleeping outside. I started playing guitar around then. One of the friends I stayed with had one that was gathering dust in the corner."

"You taught yourself?"

He nodded.

"Pretty much.
I moved back into the squat but the council was coming down hard on that kinda stuff back then. I got kicked out and most of my stuff got broken or stolen. I'd never wanted to take anything from my father but I had no choice. Some guy turned up with an offer and I was sick of doing it rough. I moved into the warehouse and met Eric not long after that. Mum’s still pretty messed up though. I dunno. I help her out when I can."

That woman we'd seen.
Was that his mother? Angie and I had joked about it but we'd not considered the possibility she really was.

We ordered another coffee.
I wanted to reach out and hug him but his face changed in an instant. No more sad eyes. No more unhappy Jack.

"And that's the hard luck story of Jack Colt.
Do you think it'll sell?"

I gulped.
I didn't want to seem callous but I thought it would.

"Do you keep in touch with your dad?"
I probably knew him. This wasn't such a big town.

Jack laughed but bitterly this time.

"I don't even know who he is. Mum won't talk about him. Everything I know, I learnt from Gran and she never told Gran either. He handled everything through a lawyer. Probably didn't want me chasing for more money or something. The only thing I have is this."

He pulled out a chain from under his shirt.
It had a ring on it. A man’s ring. It had insignia that looked like a bird. Before I could see any more, he tucked it away.

"
He gave that to Mum but Gran hid it away and gave it to me. She said Mum would just hock it for cash to give to one of her loser boyfriends otherwise. It doesn’t have much meaning but I kept it because Gran told me to."

If it didn’t mean anything, why did he bother wearing it?

"So, what about you?"

I told him a bit about what had happened.
Not the part about Dad trying to steal the money though. Not about that.

"Things must have been tough for you the past few months, huh?"

I nodded. "But they’re looking up now. Did Eric tell you about the record company guy?'"

"Yeah, that's fantastic."

"Except for parents." I sighed. I did not want to go home and face my dad. I couldn't bear looking at what he'd become. Maybe he'd been like that all along and I'd just never seen it. He'd never been so desperate before.

"So, do
you have plans for today? We’re rehearsing. Wanna come along?"

I grinned.
Sounded perfect to me.

I never knew hanging around rehearsal would be so much fun. I thought it'd be annoying with them going over and over the same bits of songs – and it was a bit – but then Jack would play something that sounded like nothing at all.  Just some random notes.  Then he’d play some more and the others would join in and suddenly it became
something
. The three of them worked together to create music out of nothing as though they had one brain and one soul.

"Hey
, manager," Jack said. "Why are you lazing around on the sofa?"

I’
d parked myself on a couch, thumbing through a magazine while they played. That suited me fine, staying on the periphery.

"I'm working.
This is my job."

"Get your butt up here, we need someone on the tambourine."

I thought he was kidding until a tambourine flew through the air and landed on chest with a twinkling thud.

"That hurt."

"Come on, get up here."

"Yeah, get here," added Eric.

This was totally embarrassing. What did I know about playing a tambourine? I'd only make a fool of myself. The couch was plenty good enough for me. But Jack and Eric grabbed my arms and pulled me up.

"Okay, okay.
I'll do it and prove to you I'm crap."

I started shaking the tambourine around.
Jack grabbed me from behind and guided my movements. It didn't seem that hard but I wasn't in any hurry to let on. Maybe it was my imagination but he did seem to get himself into situations that involved putting his arms around me quite a lot.

The heat of
his body warmed my back and I felt as if I could almost feel his heartbeat. His hand covered mine, prompting me when to tap the tambourine and when to shake it. His other hand rested on my waist. His breath tickled my neck and my heart felt lighter. I tried not to grin too much but to focus on his movements.

As Spud began ta
pping the drums, we followed his beat – shake, shake, tap. That was easy but, as the beat became faster, we both moved, our hips swaying in time. Shake, shake, tap. And a hip thrust on the tap.

I leaned back against him and maybe my thrusts became a bit more of a grind.
He responded by grinding himself into me and pulling me a bit tighter into him. Then suddenly he pulled away from me.

"Right, let's do
Party Dress
, from the top."

Spud started with the drums, a simple beat leading in.
I followed what he was doing. Soon, I got the hang of it and was playing along with them. I shook my hips and tapped the tambourine against them. I looked at Jack and he grinned back at me. A thrill went through me. I was really doing this.

I felt at one, not just with Jack but the entire band.  I
’d worked with them to create this.  I bit my bottom lip to control my smile but it was something awesome, this teamwork thing.

I didn’t even need to concentrate, I be
gan moving around, doing some sexy little dance moves, shaking my hips and running my free hand down my body.

Then I thought I'd do some
backup vocals, singing along with the melody.

"Stop! Stop!"
Jack seemed distressed.  Had his amp blown a fuse?  He’d stopped playing.

A
ll three of them stared at me.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Your singing…"

Was I really that good?
They did seem awestruck. Maybe I could do this, maybe I could have my own singing career. I'd always thought I'd look great up on stage.

"Yeah, sorry Hannah, but that's really putting me off."
Eric smiled at me apologetically.

"I've heard strangled cats sound better," added Spud.

"You are joking, right?" I could sing. I could sing really well. People had always said so. They were just having a joke.

"NO!" all three of them
cried.

"It's terrible
." Jack shook his head as though he couldn't believe what he'd just heard.

I picked up a cushion from the couch and threw it at Jack.
Then I picked up another and threw it at Eric.

Jack and Eric looked at each other then rushed at me with the cushions, raining blows down on me.
I covered my head to block them. They knocked me back onto the couch as I tried to wrench the cushions from their hands.

"Stop, stop."
I tried to sound serious but I couldn’t stop laughing.

Instead of stopping, Jack went for my ribs, tickling me until I screamed.
I tried to squirm away from him but rolled onto the floor. He kept at it, pinning me down so I had no control. His fingers dug into my ribs again and I squirmed and screamed until I fell on the floor in exquisite agony. Even that didn't stop him though. If anything, it seemed to encourage him. He straddled me and kept tickling. I kicked out with my legs and punched at him, trying to get him off me, feeling as if I'd pee my pants.

Then he stopped and looked down at me.
His hair flopped in his eyes and his face was flushed. He relaxed his grip on my wrists and I could've easily rolled out from under him while his guard was down but I no longer wanted to.

Everything else stopped until it became just the two of us in the entire world.
Every part of me became aware of him, moving closer to me as though in slow motion. I bucked my hips, not wanting to get away, but wanting to feel his body against mine.

His gaze went from my face to my nipples, hard and straining against the thin fabric of my dress.
So hard that they almost caused me pain. I wanted to feel his full lips pressed around them, sucking and licking.

"Hey, settle down you two.
Get a room."

Well
, that sure broke the spell. I'd forgotten about the other two in the studio but became fully aware of my surroundings and the floor beneath me, and the hard cock of Jack Colt pressing into my leg.

"Huh?" Jack turned to Spud.

"Are we rehearsing or are the two of you just going to fool around?"
Spud looked really angry. "We’re renting this space by the hour, remember, so if you want to fool around, leave it for after rehearsal."

Jack jumped up.

"I guess we should get back to work."

I stayed on the ground for a moment, shell
-shocked. What had just happened? Eric shot me a look that I couldn't figure out and Jack didn't look at me at all.

"Hannah, pull your dress down," Spud said.
"You look like a dirty whore."

I gave Spud a withering look.

"You don’t have to be so crass." I smoothed my dress down but I was pretty sure that it hadn’t been up around my waist or anything. I tried to catch Jack’s eye, even Eric’s so they could back me up.

I bet
Spud just wished he’d been the one pinned down by Jack instead.

Spud shrugged.

"Come on, Jack," he said. "Balls to the wall. Forget the distractions and let’s rock."

Jack straightened his shirt and ran his fingers through his hair before
picking up his guitar.

I figured they didn’t need me around to watch them play. I picked up my bag and waved them goodbye.