The interviewer's collagen-plumped lips twisted again. "What was it like? Growing up the son of Annie Blue?"
My heart skipped a beat in sympathy. Of all the questions she could open with, she chose that one? The one Jax hated the most?
But he smiled gamely and my heart swelled with pride. "You know, to me, she's just Mom, you know?" He showed the interviewer his dimple and I inwardly cheered at how well he handled the question.
"There's been a lot of buzz around you, even before you headed into the studio. People seem fascinated by Jaxson Blue. Why do you think that it?"
He smirked that cocky grin of his. "Because they think they want my life."
"Is your life that wonderful?"
"It has its moments."
"What are the moments that make it wonderful?"
I leaned forward, already blushing.
He leaned back in his chair. "You know, kicking back with friends, making music. The simple things, really."
Okay. That was vague, but well put.
"You mention friends. Is there anyone you're particularly close with?"
Jaxson ducked his head. "The guys in my band, for sure."
That was a lie. He barely knew them.
"Anyone else?"
The interviewer was fishing. That stupid twist to her lips, I bet she thought she looked sassy or something. I wished I could reach through the TV and slap her, but this interview had been taped this morning and the damage was already done. I paused the TV again and smiled to myself. Here it was. It was about to be common knowledge.
"Close like how?" Jaxson looked penetratingly at the interviewer and she crossed and re-crossed her legs.
"A special someone in your life?" She batted her eyelashes.
When I saw Jax lick his lips, I paused the TV again. That was his tell, it always had been. He was about to lie. What was the lie? I hit play.
The Jax on the screen flicked an invisible piece of dust off his jacket. "Nah," he shook his head. "No one important."
I stabbed the off button in horror.
Was I really that pathetic, that I could forget the public heartbreak, just like that? Was one look at him all it took to strip me of my dignity and leave me a breathless ball of need?
It had been a year since anyone had touched me with the same sort of skill. Jaxson knew my body better that I knew myself, the right mix of rough and tender, the way I just shattered when he was inside of me. The aftershocks of the orgasm he had given me still trailed up my spine, leaving me boneless and breathless, a combination of complete satisfaction and the insatiable desire for more. I wanted him again, there was no denying it. I was never going to stop wanting him, pride and dignity be damned. I wanted what he gave me, that tight ball of heat that collected in my chest before exploding outward in fireworks across my skin. I craved him like chocolate. No, something more dangerous. Heroin?
Yes. I was a Jax-junkie. I had wanted him this whole time I was hating him, and now that I had my taste, I wanted him even more.
And who says I can't have him?
The thought sent me sitting bolt upright in bed. Who said? There was no rule that said I didn't get to enjoy myself while I was here. In ten days, our parents would be married and I would go back home again and it would be like nothing had happened.
I could have him, drink my fill, and then be done with him forever. Get him out of my system. On my terms. Once and for all.
A little fling, for old time's sake. A tiny bit of revenge for thinking he could cast me aside.
The small, rational part of me cried out in protest, that this was a terrible idea, but desire silenced it. I was a grown woman now, older and wiser after heartbreak. I deserved something casual and light with the hot guy who knew what my body needed. Meaningless sex, just like millions of other people enjoyed every day. That's all it needed to be.
It didn't have to mean anything.
It was fine. I wasn't doing anything wrong.
Everything would be fine.
Chapter Twenty
Jax
The green room smelled like stale cigarettes. Ghosts of all the bands who'd sat here, nervously killing time before the show started. Smoking was terrible for my voice, but when Toad shook his pack at me, I gratefully accepted a butt.
I wasn't nervous about playing, I told myself. I was nervous because of who would be watching tonight.
Liliana said she'd come, and so I knew she would. She had never let me down, and I couldn't imagine her doing it now. Not after that wild-eyed look she had given me when I asked her to come tonight.
I inhaled deeply, feeling the sharp sting of the smoke filling my lungs and hoping it would push out the memory of her coming apart around my fingers. If I started down that train of thought, I would never be able to focus onstage.
When she left me, I spiraled down pretty quickly, and Annie bundled me off to her high-priced therapist before I caused her a scandal. It was, predictably, a waste of time for all of us. Blah, blah, my mother was never an appropriate mother, bullshit, bullshit—but one thing I did learn was that I needed to make things up to all of the people I'd wronged if I ever had hope of feeling good again.
I went home that evening and I wrote an apology in the form of a poem. Then I set that poem to music. I locked myself in my hotel room for three full days, recording on a four-track. Then I went across the hall.
Greg Fingers and Bash were in the suite, which was totally normal. Thank God it was them, and not my mother, because if it had been her that answered my knock, I would have never had the nerve to do what I did next.
"Hey, can I play something for you guys?"
"Lay it on me," Greg drawled in his slightly slurred speech. He wasn't drunk, he just perpetually sounded that way after, in his words, "smoking something weird."
"You joinin' the family business?" Bash was twitching with his usual pent-up energy and it made me so nervous I didn't answer him. Instead I just pressed play.
And the song that would become “Cocky” was let loose onto the world.
It was a song for Lily, but I still didn't know what she thought of it.
Tonight, I would find out.
There was an echoing sound of footsteps in the concrete hallway below the stage. Toad and Casper looked up from their tuning. Banks licked his thumb and dog-eared the battered paperback he had on his lap, then stretched his fingers out one by one. Talon restlessly tapped his knees, drumming out a staccato beat.
The stage manager poked her harried looking face into the door. "Five more minutes, guys." She rushed away before we could even thank her.
"All right, guys," I said, standing up and stretching. This was our first club appearance, the first of many to come. I felt like I should say something momentous, but the only thing that came to me was, "Let's blow the roof off this fucker."