Part of Me (Jessa & Paxton #1) (9 page)

“Yep,” I sneer. I don’t like the idea of Jessa going out. I don’t like the idea of her being around
Elijah. I haven’t had any time with her seeing how I slept the entire day and most of the night away. I shouldn’t have done that. I need a minute with her. I need to talk to her.

I hear the door of our room open and I look to the hallway. E
very muscle in my body flexes. “Why are you all dressed up?” I say with acid in my voice. Her perfect, soft, grabable hair is in loose curls, hanging over her naked chest and the tight black fabric over her tits. Her dress is hugging her body and every curve is pronounced like a neon sign. At the moment, she’s bare footed and there is something about that that is making all of my possessive instincts flare.

She scrunches her perfect little button nose a
t me, looking down at her body. “It’s just a dress, Pax. I wear them all the time.” Her eyes run over my naked torso and I can feel it, like her hands are all over me. “Are you getting dressed or are there specific rules in this town that only apply to you: no shirt, no shoes, no service… unless you are Paxton Alvarado, king of Chicago.”

“
Just waiting ‘til the room was free, kid,” I tell her, standing up, no longer giving a shit if word of my presence in this state makes its way back to Rachel. I walk to Jessa, staring at her eyes for a few intense seconds, and then I walk away from her.

I throw on a t-shirt and a ho
odie and try to talk some sense into myself. I should not be doing this. I should not be putting my dad’s lifeline at risk just because Jessa is too damn gorgeous for any man in his right mind to resist. But my internal thoughts, rational as they are, are bad at fucking persuasion.

#

I pull my hood over my head and grab onto Jessa’s waist as we follow Violet into the bar. I keep my head ducked but I’m a foot through the door when I hear people shouting my name. Jessa hesitates and I have to push her to get her to the back corner where I know my past is waiting. But it’s where I have to go in order to get those assholes to shut the hell up and stop shouting my name.

Billy,
Louis and Jimmy are all out of the booth and waiting for me by the time we reach them.

“Holy shit, y
ou’re back,” Billy says, extending his hand which I slap before he pulls me into a one armed hug. Louis and Jimmy are quick to follow and by the time the reacquainting is done, Jessa is out of my arm and seated in the booth next to Violet. I slide in beside her before Billy can.

“What’ve you been up to
, man? When I heard you were in Cali I figured I’d never see you again,” Billy says from the other side of the booth.

I’m not gonna answer that question. “It’s good to see you guy
s,” I tell him. “But man, being back here… shit - it’s tense. I didn’t really miss it.” And that’s the truth. Especially here in this bar. I feel tense and uncomfortable. My hands are wringing each other and my leg is bouncing off the floor and I can’t stop it.

“Things ain’t the same since you’ve been gone. That’s for damn sure. I missed all the drama,” he tells me
.

I narrow my eyes at him and flare my
nostrils. I can’t help it. I don’t want to talk about any of that shit. “Don’t even start,” I tell him. “I shouldn’t even be here. At this bar.”

“Your
mom still trying to keep you away?” Louis asks. I know they are just concerned but I don’t want to talk about this shit.

“I gotta assume so.”

“All I know is I’m glad to be relieved of my duties,” Billy says, glancing at Jessa who is talking with Violet and Jimmy, hopefully not listening to this shit.

I nod my head at him, telling him I appreciate it.

“Hell, I don’t even know what to say to you, man,” Billy says, shaking his head. “You ever think about picking up your phone and checking in with me?”

When Rachel sent me away it was sans phone. I picked a ne
w one up on the way out of town but I didn’t bother to touch base with anyone here. I really wanted all of this shit to just disappear.
I cannot believe I’m here.
“I’m sorry about that, man. I was being dodgy. It was wrong.”

“
Yeah, well I figured when this one sauntered into town,” his eyes turn to Jessa again, “your sorry ass would show up eventually.”

“I guess you know me better than I know myself,” I tell him. “Coming back here was never part of the plan. Fuck, I really shouldn’t be here
, man.” I shake my head and turn my eyes from Billy. It’s hitting me- being in this booth where I’ve sat a hundred times, with Billy and Louis across from me, just like they are now.

My heart is
pounding in my chest and my leg is mimicking the pounding as my foot hammers against the floor. And then I feel Jessa’s hand wrap around my thigh. My head snaps in her direction. “Hey,” she whispers. “I’s okay. She’s not going to find out you’re here.”

I take a deep breath and wrap my arm around her. My leg slowly stops moving.
“It’s just surreal, being back here. I don’t know that I even give a shit if word gets back to Rachel.”

Jessa leans her cheek on my chest. She really
doesn’t have a choice- my arm is wrapped around her so tightly. I can smell her hair and I tuck my hand around a piece of it. “What are you so worried about then? I can hear you heart beating, Pax. Why is it beating so hard?”

I close my eyes and
inhale her scent. “It’s just hard being back here, in this bar. It’s where everything started and where everything ended.”

“I’m sorry, babe,” she says quietly, settling into my side. Sh
e removes her hand from my thigh now that my leg is no longer shaking and wraps it around my stomach. “We should have just stayed home tonight,” she tells me and it sounds so good. I like it.
We should have just stayed home tonight
. But I know that I shouldn’t like it. Coming back here just brings back all the shit I hate about life. About myself. And it also makes it so bloody clear that I want Jessa. That I want more from her than just a quick fuck. This town. I swear. I’m always so weak and vulnerable here. Like my heart is just out in the open, totally exposed.

“I
probably won’t be doing this again.”

“I don’t get it, Pax. Everyone I meet here seems to know and respect and care about you, but you act like everything here is so awful
… like the city itself is poison.”

“The city is poison. If it weren’t for the
good
people here I wouldn’t have made it out of it.”

Jessa lays silently on my chest
. The rest of the crew has made their way onto the dance floor. Vi and the boys are jumping around in the space in front of the stage that suggests a dance floor. I look at the band and remember being on that stage. It’s a new band, one I don’t know. They look young and happy. I remember that. I remember how good it felt to be up on that stage feeding off the energy, releasing everything that was inside of me. I throw back my drink and I can feel the alcohol swim through my veins and the heat from Jessa warming my body, the good memories of this place coming back to me, and it almost feels okay.

“Let’s dance, Pax,” Jessa says quietly.

I pull my hand out from under her hair and set my drink down. “Yeah. Okay.”

I hold onto Jessa as we make our way into the heat of the compact crowd.
People are jumping and thrashing to the punk vibe. When we settle in the back corner of the crowd, Jessa clings tight to my shoulders and looks at me with sorrow in her eyes. Or is it pity? Probably just friendly concern for her poor friend Paxton.
Fuck that
.

I grab tight to her waist an
d pick her up off the ground. Her hands wrap around my shoulders as she lets out a screech. I grab a hold of her calf and wrap her leg around my hip; she wraps her other leg around me all on her own. Immediately that sensation that I’ve been waiting for a girl to send through my body is there. My eyes are staring at hers with intent. But her eyes are staring at my mouth and her fingers are fisting my sweatshirt.
Fuck it
, I think to myself, moving one hand from the back of her thighs and around the base of her neck and digging my fingers into her flesh. Her stare flashes from my lips and her own lips pop open like this thing between us is news to her. Like me going in for her is surprising.

Then some motherfucker crashes into her back and s
he’s pushed into me and I loose contact with her. She holds onto me and buries her face into my neck. I take a hand off Jessa to grab a hold of the kid by his collar, wrenching it around his neck before throwing him back into the crowd. Jessa unhitches her legs from my waist and slides down my body and back onto the floor and I know I’ve lost her. She’s retreating. My hands are back on her waist and I pull her to me but when her eyes return to mine there is nothing there but apologies.

I give her a tight smile of my own before taking my hands off her.
Stupid
. Me, with her, is stupid. I grab a hold of her neck and give her a big, hard, wet, friendly kiss on her lips before heading to the bar.

“Paxton,” she calls after me. I shove my hands in my pocket
s and keep walking. I’ve almost cleared the crowd when some passing fuckwad slams his shoulder into mine.

“Sorry, Paxton,”
Elijah says, “I wasn’t looking.”

Putting my
knuckles into his skull would feel awesome right now, but making a scene ain’t worth it. I look over my shoulder to Jessa who is making her way towards us. Her angry eyes are staring me down. She stops short of me and I’m aware that her eyes haven’t left me to look at Elijah. “What the hell?” she asks me.

“
You kids have fun tonight,” I say looking at Elijah one last time before walking away.

She grabs a hold of my forearm but I shake her off and head to the bar. Kalvin isn’t holding down the fort tonight which is good. The less people I know
, the better. In his place is a red head with big boobs and a small tank top.

She notices me and gives me an expected smile. A smile I’ve seen too many times. An easy smile that reminds me how easy things could be and makes me wonder why the hell I only want the one thing that’s impossible.

“How are
you
doing tonight?” she asks me, leaning hard into the bar and crossing her arms tightly around her chest so her tits pop out the top of her tank top. Suddenly I’m having epiphanies left and right. That right there, that thing the bartender just did, like the smile, is another predictable thing that Jessa would never do. Women… they’re all the same; their actions, their expressions, their mannerisms, it’s all so predictable. Except with Jessa. I’ve never seen her pull one of those seedy tactics on any guy. Ever. She truly is a fucking island in the sea. Untouchable. Unreachable.

“Give me a scotch,” I tell her, before throwin
g my gaze over my shoulder. I can’t see Jessa, but I can see the top of Elijah’s head. He’s not dancing, he’s bowing and I know that Jessa is in his arms.

Elijah
. You’ve got to be kidding me. Out of all the guys she could have and she chooses Elijah. Besides Billy, that kid was the closest thing I had to a brother in this city. When shit started going south with Vincent, Elijah was in my shadow, backing me up. When I left that band, he was the first to follow me. But when shit started to go downhill for me he was the first one to go crawling back to that motherfucker and beg back into his sadistic life. I turn back around and focus on the drink the girl has left for me.

“Oh
my god,” I hear some chick yell and I recognize the tone. I know what she’s going to say. She’s beside me now and has an arm on my shoulder. “You’re Paxton, aren’t you? From Polly. Holy shit. I love you.” A groupie from my glory days. This is why I need to stay away. This girl will take out her phone and facebook, tweet, blog, instagram… whatever the hell people do, that she saw Paxton from the band Polly at The bottle and word will spread like fire and next thing I know Gabriel will be slinging sliders.

I look at the girl. A petite
, raven haired thing with big green eyes. Back in the day I would have played up the fact that I am Paxton from Polly and taken the girl to the small room in the back where we used to hang out. But not anymore. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell the girl.

She cocks her head at me and narrows her eyes. “You look just like Paxton Alvarado.”

“I don’t know who that is,” I tell her.

She shrugs her shoulders and takes a seat next to me at the bar. I stand and tell her, “
Let’s go dance. Maybe I can pretend to be the guy you’re looking for.”

She gives me that smile, same as the bartender, and runs her fingers through her hair that does nothing for me, not like Jessa’s does. I grab a hold of the girl
’s hand and bring her out to the dance floor. I’m careful not to take my eyes off her. I don’t want to see Jessa and Elijah together. I will beat the guy. I grab onto the girl’s waist and she immediately starts grinding on me. The smile and the eyes she’s giving me aren’t sexy like she thinks they are; they just look desperate. But I don’t make her go, but I do turn her around before pulling her back to me. Her hands snake up my body and around my neck and now her ass is grinding on me. I let her, but it’s not doing anything for me. Even when I look down at her exposed cleavage it does nothing for me.