A Rock & Roll Romance (12 page)

I stood up and
slid my pants down below my hips. I sucked in a shaky breath. I had to keep going if I was going to put it all out there.

“These stars are to
cover up the x’s that he carved into my skin. These were the deepest.”

I pointed to the nautical stars
that I had tattooed on each of my hipbones. I remembered the knife digging into my flesh before passing out. The scars were still somewhat visible but were less noticeable because of the tattoos. Jake looked distraught. He reached a tentative hand out.

“Can I touch you?”
He stuttered.

I nodded. He reached his hand out slowly and ran it over the scars. I flinched involuntarily
, and he pulled back. I grabbed his hand and put it back on my hip. We shared an intense stare between us. In that moment, there was no one else in the world. It was just Jake and I. He didn’t go running for the hills either. He broke the stare and looked down at his hand.

“So you took something
tragic and turned it into something beautiful. With the tattoos, I mean.”

“I guess that’s how I see it.
I did it so that I could see beauty instead of pain. ”

“That’s
really valiant. It helps me understand better. I want to know you Aubrey, all of you, not just the good. Thanks for sharing this with me. I know it’s really difficult.” He said sincerely.

“My Granny always says, ‘women are like angels, when someone breaks our wings we continue to fly around on our broomsticks because we’re flexible like that.’ It doesn’t define me
. Except, ever since it happened I have a really difficult time around guys. Most people other than my family can’t even touch me. I’ve always been sarcastic and kind of a hard ass, but after that I became frigid. Until you…”

I leaned forward so that we were nose to nose and kissed him. I kissed him the way that I’ve wanted to be kissed for the last four years.
He pulled me closer and wrapped my legs around his waist. I wrapped my hands around the back of his neck as he ran one hand through my hair and wrapped the other around my waist. I kissed him until spots blurred my vision. I lightly bit down on his spider bite piercings and pulled away. We held onto each other. I felt safe.

“I’m
ready to fall if you’re the one I fall into.” I whispered.

“Does that mean you’ll
finally agree to be my girlfriend?”

“I’ll try.
”

He
moved so that I was sitting on the bed and walked over to his backpack. He tossed a couple things over his shoulder until he pulled out a red box. He came back over to me and dropped to one knee. He opened the lid.

“Aubrey Thompson, will you please be my girlfriend?”

“Yes.” I laughed.

“Thank God!
” He kissed me and slid the ring onto my finger.

The tabloids were going to have a field day.

“
I know we’ve talked a little bit, but you should know that I’m
really
inexperienced. I mean I did some things with Jeremy before the incident, but I’ve never…”

“It’s okay. I get it.
I haven’t had sex in over a year. Waiting a little longer won’t kill me. If, and when, you’re ready we’ll talk about it. There’s no timeframe here.”

“You haven’t had sex in over a year?” I asked
completely flabbergasted. It never came up before.

“Is that the only thing you took from what I just said?” He teased. “No, I haven’t. I
already told you that I’m not the man whore the press portrays me as. I even had a physical as soon as I got back from Europe. I’m completely clean. I mostly did it because I was overseas, and there’s some weird shit over there. Anyway, enough talk about negative shit. I wanna see the rest of your ink. Who did it? It’s really good.”

“
Actually, Piper did. She’s really artsy and started working at a shop as soon as she turned eighteen. She’s really talented.”

I got to work showing him my in
k. I showed him the cute little owl on my ankle. I lifted my foot and showed him the one on my instep.
Hell on Heels.
I lifted up my tank top and showed him the one I had down my side of a cherry blossom stem. My last one was a quote across my ribcage.

Forget what
hurt you, but never forget what it taught you.

“I don’t know if I’ll be ab
le to get over what happened, or the scars I wear because of it, but maybe in time, who knows. My turn.”

“W
e’re going to rewrite the pages in our own words. Starting with one day at a time.” He smiled.

Over the past month I’ve been keeping him at arm
’s length and I genuinely wanted to get a closer look at his tattoos. I pounced on him, and he laughed. I brazenly pushed Jake back on the bed. I finally took a chance to look over all his ink. Across his sternum said, “live free, die worthy.” He had nautical stars too, one on either side on his shoulder blades. He had full sleeves on both arms filled with vintage artwork. They were extremely intricate and done in black and fade. Piper would die from excitement if she got to see them. I rolled him over and looked at his back. It looked like a gothic painting. He said it was a rendition of Hades. In gothic script, it read,
stuck between the burning light and the dusty shade.
It was exquisitely done and must have taken hours, upon hours. It reminded me of my own quote,
it’s always darkest before the dawn.
He turned over and put his hand on my lower back rubbing the dermal piercings in my dimples.

“Do you have any
more piercings?” He asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“I don’t. Do you?” He turned bright red. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Since I couldn’t see them, I could only envision where they were…

T
hey must have hurt!

“Maybe I’ll show you
one day, but right now I just want to snuggle.”

He pulled me next to him so that we were
nose to nose again. I was in bed with my
boyfriend
Jake Parker. It was surreal.

“Are y
ou ready for Pittsburgh?” He asked.

“Yeah,
I’ve been there before though. It’s only about two hours from where I live.”

“It i
s? The show isn’t for five days. Do you want to go home? You can introduce your folks to your new boyfriend.” He grinned.

“Are you sure you’re ready for that? I
mean we’ve officially been a couple for a half hour.” I teased.

“Only if you want to.
It would give me a chance to send Brett home for a couple days too.”

“Okay. We’ll go home and meet the folks.” He kissed me
lightly.

I kissed him back relishing in the
feeling of truly being kissed. It was like Jake was waking a part of me that had been dormant. He was a live wire to my system. He pulled back and smiled contentedly. Jake was respectful and as much as he loved pushing my buttons, he was a gentleman. He opened doors and had manners that would make my mom proud. I ran my fingers through his hair. I knew that I would have to call my dad and tell him to be on his best behavior tomorrow when we arrived. He could be such a smart ass sometimes. I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. I turned and curled into Jake and closed my eyes.

The alarm went off at eight
, and we were set to takeoff at eleven. Jake jumped in the shower, and I seized the opportunity to call my dad. I was not a morning person, so getting a call from me this early must have been a hoot.

“Morning
, Aubrey Bean.” He chuckled.

“Daddy!”
I beamed. “I have some exciting news. I’m coming home for a couple days before the next show.”

“Really?
That’s great. I miss that pretty mug of yours.”

“I need to talk to you about something else
too… I’m bringing someone with me.”

“Okay?”
He said skeptically.

“Jake Parker. Before you get started
, you should know that I really like him. I already told him exactly what happened. He understands and would never push me to do something that I didn’t want to. But, he can touch me without me having a meltdown. It’s very bizarre. Please just try and be nice to him.” I begged.

My mom and Granny already knew a
bout the Jake situation, but I withheld the information from my dad. He was very overprotective since the
incident
happened.

“I’ll see what I can do.” He huffed.

“Thanks, Daddy. I’ll see you in a little while then.”

I called Mark
and had him schedule a flight change so that we could just go straight back to Ohio. Jake called and booked Brett a ticket home. He was going to give it to him as a surprise when he came to check in this morning. It was really expensive, over three thousand dollars for a four-day drip, two of them travel days. Jake said that he wouldn’t care if it were ten thousand dollars. He wanted Brett to see Kayley. I thought it was incredibly sweet.

I went to shower. I dressed in a pair of red skinny jeans and a white sweater. I tied my chucks and walked into the bedroom. Jake was waiting for me
right outside the door. He picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder. I repeatedly smacked his ass and told him to put me down to no avail. He walked out of our hotel room and went next door to Brett’s room. He placed me on my feet. I looked up and saw an elderly couple walking down the hallway. They looked like they were about to have heart attacks. Jake knocked on the door, and Brett answered. He was already dressed in his signature suit.

“I’d like you to meet my girlfriend
, Aubrey Thompson.” He beamed proudly.

“About fucking
time.” Brett laughed and gave him a knock on the shoulder. I guess that was their caveman-ish way of saying “congratulations.”

“Pack your shit dude.” Jake yelled. He handed over the airline confirmation.

“You serious?” Brett beamed.

“Absolutely.
Get going! You have a flight to catch.” Jake patted him on the back.

Brett was
clearly a devoted dad. It had to be hard for him being away as much as he was. I was lucky that my dad took over the business for his dad. It afforded him the luxury to be around while I was growing up. Since he was self-employed, he had a little more leeway. Some days during the summer he would take off just so we could go to do something fun like go to the beach or a zoo. Sometimes we would even take a plane and fly somewhere just to get lunch. I used to feel like I was a princess.

We didn’t come from money. My grandfather, George Thompson
, started the business from nothing. It thrived until the recession when companies started doing cutbacks. They still manage to stay afloat, but I know that it’s more expensive to run the business too. He passed away in his sleep three years ago. I missed him terribly. Thankfully, Granny Jean was still full of piss and vinegar and would most likely make it to a hundred. We grabbed our luggage and headed to the airfield. Soon we were in the air and on our way to Smithville. I filled Jake in on the who’s who. He was already familiar with names, and there weren’t too many people, so he got it right away.

We t
ouched down at home base. Mark lowered the stairs, and I knew that he was happy to be home for a few days too. I practically skipped down the stairs with Jake on my heels. My dad was standing there waiting for me. I jumped on him and hugged him tightly. I realized how much I missed him.

“Aubrey Bean.” He cooed.

“Daddy! I’d like you to meet my boyfriend, Jake Parker.”

Jake reached out his hand.

“Timothy Thompson, nice to meet you!” He said like a drill sergeant. I knew for a fact, he was squeezing Jakes hand way too tightly.

“You too, sir.
Thanks for having me.” Jake flexed his hand.

“Sure. A friend of Aubrey’s is always welcome.
” He smiled. Then he leaned in to Jake. “If you hurt her, I’ll break your fucking neck. You understand?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Understood.” He swallowed audibly.

“Good. Your mom’s waiting for you at home. She’s making a ham and all the fixings. I’ll
see back there later.”

I kissed my dad goodbye and
led Jake over to my car. He was grinning from ear to ear about meeting my family. I knew it meant a lot to him since he didn’t have any real family of his own. I just hoped that our trip wouldn’t end in catastrophe.

CHAPTER SIX

Home Sweet Home

We loaded our luggage into my trunk and climbed in the car. I started the engine and watched Jake’s eyes bugged out of his head.

“Baby
, I think there’s an animal under your hood or something.” He teased.

“No, it’s the muffler.
” I said feeling slightly embarrassed. “I’m working on getting something quieter.”