Everybody Falls (35 page)

Because Denny wasn't coming back.

His brother was never going to be back.

Ever.

His head and his heart couldn't accept it and this was the longest they'd ever been apart from one another. That he'd been apart from someone who was much more than just a sibling.

"Wha's gonna happen to me?" he slurred on a whisper, hearing the whine in the words that had escaped.

"Don't know, man," Turner replied. "But you'll get through it."

The sounds of the party, the after-funeral festivities were starting to get loud. Jax could see no difference in this party and the thousands of parties they'd thrown at this very same house.

Same group of people. Maybe different faces, except the same jacked-up, motherfucking, leeches wanting to be a part of the rock and roll life even if only peripherally.

The girls with too much makeup and too little clothes, the men with long hair and inked bodies. Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, baby.

Party 'til you puke.

Party 'til you pass out.

Party 'til you die.

The only difference was, at this party, Denny wasn't here. They'd planted his ass hours ago in one of the exclusive parts of Forest Lawn, cemetery to the famous.

Fucking A. Party like a rock star.

Jax raised his eyes to the sky, not seeing any stars.

Of course not.

There was too much illumination in this part of Malibu to see any stars, except the human kind.

Jax closed his eyes, realizing he was moments away from passing out.

And he'd been grateful to lose consciousness at that particular place and time.

He just wished he could now.

Because, now, he really was alone.

An orphan with no family, no crowd of yes-people. Just his girl and a group of has-beens to prop him up when his heart and his life had been blown to smithereens. Like his therapist had reminded him again and again, you can't depend on others for your emotions. He was supposed to be 'claiming' his and taking care of them as they came up.

The emotions which were moving through him now though, he didn't feel like claiming. Didn't want to be feeling. And the fucking ache, the fucking hurt, were like daggers in his head, his heart and underneath his skin.

He stood up shakily and began putting one foot in front of another, flashing on the stash of booze he'd found in Grandpop's old workshop. A whole row of bottles with a couple of shot glasses pushed off to the side in that old locked cupboard in back.

A tempting row of glassware, dusty and unclaimed, which called to him in such a taunting, seductive whisper.

'Drink me', he heard them call. 'We can make it better."

He'd been sober for eight months, two weeks and four days. A long, hurtful eight months after ten years of hiding from reality with the drugs and booze. Sober was supposed to feel better.

Wasn't it?

That's what he'd heard from the assembly when he went for the daily meetings, from his therapist. Shit, even Grams had said it a couple of times.

But, at the moment, sober sucked. Reality was awful and he wanted it all to just go the fuck away. Right, the fuck, now.

What was he supposed to do when the need was the greatest? Call on God or something. Wasn't God the one that took Grams away?

Or was it to call Boots to help him? He was Jax's sponsor and was supposed to help him. Shit, the old man couldn't help himself and seemed to make up the rules as he went along.

Like there weren't already enough fucking rules in the world.

Jax slipped into one of the chairs at the dining room table and rested his head on his folded arms. The table his Grams wanted to use for everyday since she knew that she wasn't going to have any more special occasions to use it.

Fuck!

He wanted to scream.

He wanted to run as far and as fast as his legs could carry him.

He wanted to hit, maim and destroy something,
anything
, just to release all these fucking emotions. To make them get gone and stay gone.

'Drink us, Jax,' the bottles sang in the quiet of the kitchen, cutting through the chaos of his mind. 'Just a little and we can make it all better.'

He was entitled to it, right? He deserved it.

His Grams was dead.

A couple of swallows wouldn't hurt. Just enough to take the edge off, to make some of the pain go away. And he could brush his teeth and swish some of that peppermint shit so nobody would have to know. Lace was still asleep and Sarge was out by the road. Boots was, well, Boots was doing what he thought needed to be done.

He, though, was just sitting and hurting, almost out of his fucking mind with the soft call of the bottles, the goddamn juice that could see him over this first bit.

Just today.

Just a couple of swallows to get through today wouldn't be bad.

He deserved to take the edge off, just ease it off a tad bit, so he could function.

Hell, yeah. A little was
exactly
what he needed.

Jax heard the screen door of the back porch behind him as he made his way across the backyard, back through the garage into the large space that was the workshop. To the glass bottles that were calling louder now. That were steadily singing, connecting with his broken, empty heart.

He held up the middle fingers of both hands over his head as he moved over the open uncovered area, giving the whirlybirds in the sky something to focus their lenses on.

*.*.*.*.*

"Christ, babe!" I heard him bellow as he shoved me away, pushing me so hard that I fell off the side of the bed and my ass hit the floor with a bang. "If you want to suck me off then do it fucking right!"

I hadn't wanted to suck him at all. He'd gotten into bed and then, when I'd pressed up next to him to find my special spot on his shoulder, he'd used a hand at my neck to push me downwards. He'd pushed me down hard, his fingers digging in, not giving me a choice.

It had been weird with him since Edie had passed.

I understood some of it. Grams passing had hit him so badly yet a lot of the behavior I was seeing couldn't be blamed on just that.

At first we'd clung together, both of us crying off and on, sharing our stories of her in soft whispers that were intertwined with soothing kisses and silky caresses in his room of the quiet farmhouse. Then, there were the times he'd go for his 'walks'. Walks that seemed to take a long, long time and he'd come back then lock himself in the downstairs bathroom.

However, the Jack that entered that bathroom wasn't the same one that came out.

The exiting Jack was overly jovial and a real happy-go-lucky kind of guy.

Loud.

Raw.

Boisterous.

A guy I didn't know. A guy I didn't like very much. A guy that wasn't my Jack.

It got worse after the director at the mortuary had made a visit, explaining that he didn't have the security Jack needed if he attended Edie's funeral. Explaining there was a special room in the back he could let Jack use to say good-bye in private. Saying there was no way he could protect the other people that wanted to attend if Jack was going to be a part of the memorial service, much less stand at the gravesite.

I'd called Sarge after the funeral director left because of the rage he'd flown into. A rage that actually scared me down to my soul. Luckily, Sarge and Turner had gotten him calmed down and into bed.

There was little left of the china that I had so carefully stacked under Edie's tutelage when she wanted to use it for everyday. It had taken me an hour to get it all swept up off the old linoleum after his, and there's no other words for it, temper tantrum.

"Lace, you still need to open the Bakery tomorrow, Baby Girl," Sarge had argued when I had said that I was needed at the farmhouse. I was talking out loud about maybe finding another baker to fill in for me as he, Turner, and I sat at the dining room table still planted in the kitchen.

"I told you before about this. Rockers love and care different than other people, especially those that have grown up in the business. You need to keep up with your life if you're going to survive," he'd said firmly. "You can come back here in the afternoons, but it's important you keep up your regular life, Lace."

It was that first time I came back to the farmhouse after the Bakery's re-opening that I really saw the change in my Jack.

No kisses.

No real hugs of merit.

And when we'd gone to bed, he'd simply rolled over and tried to shove himself into me.

No caresses.

No words, either spicy or sweet.

He'd just tried to part my thighs with his legs as I felt his hardness press against my core, and I was as dry as the Sahara. It hadn't seemed to deter him, nor did he even seem to notice until I shoved a hand between us to cup myself; to barricade my opening from his hard, dry prods.

He got the message.

After rolling off me, he grabbed my hand and had me stroke him in complete silence, before he rolled away from me and went to sleep, not even bothering to clean himself off. Even tired as I was, I'd lain awake next to him for hours wondering about what had happened and how to make it better.

Edie's funeral was beautiful, the chapel filled with flowers and I don't think there were but a few places left to sit when all was said and done. Jack had done a vocal recording, a beautiful tribute about Grams and what he knew of her that was so caring and so loving there wasn't a dry eye in the place.

Jack couldn't be there. Nor could he be at the gravesite.

I tried to fill him in on everything, giving him my impressions of the beautiful service, of the flowers and the music that she had picked out to be played which included two Wynter's Vicious songs. He cut me off before storming out towards the garage.

And, I got it. I really did.

He was hurting and hurting bad. He'd lost her and then didn't even get the opportunity to participate in saying good-bye to her except for a voice recording.

However, this last thing? The tossing me on the floor? Even if he didn't mean to do it, it was still so wrong. So very, very wrong. I can do understanding and can be supportive but did I need to be treated badly just because he was hurting?

Oh, hell, no.

"What's going on, Jack?" I asked on almost a whisper, raising myself to my feet and wrapping my arms around my waist in my place next to the bed, trying to still my body's tremors. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, however this was a way too much even for me.

He raised his head and looked at me, eyes narrowed, lips tight.

"What's going on?" he said harshly on a high voice mimicking mine. "Here's what's going on, you dumb broad."

I saw him swing his legs to the floor as he grabbed the nightstand as if he was centering himself.

"You're fucking clueless in bed. Almost fucking useless. Jay-sus, you small town girls need an education," he laughed, yet the laugh I heard, the sound that hit my heart was ruthless in its intent. It had an icy edge, a hateful undertone that ripped into me and was nothing like I'd ever heard come out of his mouth "What? You haven't heard that before? Seems to me that a daughter of a whore, a gal who's own mother wanted to watch her fuck a star, would know at least how to give head."

My ears heard the words which seemed to make a bee-line to my heart, each syllable a stab. Each utterance a hammer. I could almost hear the break there when the words, his words smashed into me. I couldn't help it. I stumbled backward with the resounding when it did.

I reached for my clothes on the dresser as his mouth kept spewing his hurtful, destructive words.

"Don't look at me like that, you dumb cunt! I'm not the problem here. If you don't know what you're doing, then why are you even the fuck in my bed? Huh? God, you stupid little star-struck…You're nothing 'cept a GiM, aren't you? A squealer, but without any talent. Get the fuck outta my house," he'd screamed as he had tried to stand.

I was dressed and running down the stairs as he continued to yell, my heart left in pieces on his bedroom floor.

My hand slipped on the large knob of the back door of the kitchen and, once released, I sped towards the door of the porch only to be brought up by the sight of a girl standing at the edge of the overhead, outside light.

"You okay, honey?" she asked quietly, her eyes doing an eye-roam.

I was doing the same, noting the denim vest over a lacey bra, the frayed short, jean cut-offs and the fishnets paired with Doc Martins. Her blonde hair was in a messy bun on top of her head and her makeup was heavy and dark.

"He was pretty fucked up when I left him this morning," she explained, her eyes shooting over my shoulder at the shouts still heard from within. "Maybe I should come back tomorrow."

That was it. That was when the thing in my chest was completely destroyed, whatever had remained was now ash.