Everything She Needs (The Everything Trilogy) (30 page)

I’d been hugged by friends but no one held me with real affection the way that Jack did. I shook off my feelings and sucked them up, determined not to spoil my night.

We partied into the early hours. Louie came in and pulled me out of the chair, hugging me really tight. “Good girl. I’m proud of you, you were terrific. I saw you, but had to head out to Eject, they had some problems that only I could take care of. I needed to catch up with a couple of people there too, before I could come back.”

I thanked Louie and my new bandmates for the opportunity they gave me. Louie sent Brett, Holly, Elle, Jack
, and I back to our apartment in a limousine, and Mandy insisted that she and Neil came along too. There was no way she was missing this.

Mandy was a funny drunk, and we all had a laugh on the way home at her antics. We decided they should sleep over. One of the couches in the sitting room was a bed settee.

It was nice, sitting around chatting into the early hours, with everyone apart from Elle, who lasted about fifteen minutes, went to the bathroom, and didn’t come back. I went to investigate. She had crashed on Saffy’s bed and was passed out. To be fair, it was 7am UK time, and she’d been traveling.

The tone into the night was very relaxed
, and we all shared things about our lives that we didn’t know about each other. It was taking our friendships to the next level.

Holly whispered to me in the kitchen, “Your Jack is a very special man, Lily. I’m jealous.”

I smiled at her. “Yeah, I’m so thankful for him, he means the world to me.” I looked over and he turned to look at me, as if he sensed me, and smiled.

Mandy was in the middle of telling us something
, and she got a text. It was 3:30am in the morning. “Who the hell is texting you at this time of the morning.” Neil sounded suspicious. Mandy’s face went pink. We all fell silent, wishing we weren’t party to this private moment. It was very awkward and from the look on Mandy’s face, she didn’t want to share it with him.

He pulled her phone away from her. “Give it here, I’m more than intrigued who would be giving you that reaction.” He opened the text
, and he was clearly shocked by whatever he saw. We could see that it was something he didn’t want to share either.

Mandy gave him a soft smile, but Neil’s eyes were giving her an angry glare. He shook his head. “You had no right, Mandy, no fucking right.” He tossed her phone at her and walked into my bedroom to get away.

Mandy stood and went after him, leaving her phone on the floor. Holly grabbed it, then shrugged at us. “What?  I, for one, won’t sleep without knowing what that fucking text is about.” Brett tried to take the phone from her, but knocked it into my lap just as she’d opened it. It was a text from Alfie. It read, “Yeah, she is.”

I felt like I had been stabbed in the heart. Mandy was supposed to be my friend
, and she was texting with my ex. Jack pulled me to him. “Bedtime, Lily. You’re not doing any drama tonight, let’s go!” I stood up, and Holly hugged me.

“Don’t
worry, we’ll get to the bottom of it.” She squeezed my arm and walked past me.

Neil came out of the room looking furious.  He stopped and put his arm around me. “She’s drunk, she was drunk when she text
ed him. I don’t know what the text said, though, she deleted it from the phone memory, and she won’t tell me. Sorry honey, go to bed, we’ll talk in the morning.”

The night was suddenly ruined because of that text. Jack pulled Mandy out
of my bathroom and led her out into the sitting room. She had been sitting on the toilet crying. When she passed me she stared at me with tears running down her face.

“I’m sorry, Lily.” I couldn’t look at her. It hurt too much
. I trusted her, and she went behind my back. I didn’t cry. I felt numb, the high from my achievement tonight, gone. I went through the motions of getting ready for bed. Jack took a shower because of the traveling; he hadn’t had time earlier.

He slid between my sheets wearing some boxer shorts. I was wearing a small camisole top and pyjama shorts. His skin felt cool and silky
, and he smelled clean and fresh after his shower.  He wrapped his arms around me, and I had memories of Alfie doing exactly the same thing.

Remembering his scent and how my body felt when he touched me, my tears began to fall. I shook as I cried silently. Jack pulled me into him tighter and kissed my head, soothing me. “It’s okay, honey, everything is going to be okay
,” he cooed. I wished at that moment I could believe him.

I fell asleep at some point. My last recollection was of Jack stroking my hair. When I woke up, there was bright sunshine streaming in the window
, and it was hot. Jack lay awake, staring at the ceiling. I squinted at my clock, it was 11:55am. Stretching, I turned to look up the bed at him, he had scooted up a little. “You’re awake,” I murmured.

“It’s almost
five pm in the UK, Lily, even I can’t sleep that long.” I smiled and he scooted down and cuddled up beside me. He must have been awake a while, he was minus his morning wood.

“How are you feeling?” Jack spoke softly
in my ear.

I shifted and turned to look at him. “I’m pretty pissed at Mandy’s
behavior.” Jack swallowed hard.

“Okay, Lily, I have something to tell you
too, and I don’t want you to freak out, but we’ll get up and shower, because it’s going to take me some time to explain.” Whatever it was, by the look on his face, I wasn’t going to like it.

I slipped out of the sheets, stood beside my bed, and stared serious in Jack’s direction before padding to the bathroom.  I turned on the shower faucet and went back to lock the bathroom door. Jack ha
d a habit of just walking in on me.

I kn
ew he wasn’t perving, but still, I didn’t want him in here when I was naked, even though he has dressed me when I’ve been sick, and undressed me when I was drunk.

The shower did nothing to make me feel better.  I was clean and fresh on the outside, but my insides were still feeling like they were sitting in dirty dishwater.

I swapped places with Jack and pulled on some lace panties, sweat shorts, and a white tank top. I brushed my wet hair and pulled it up in a messy bun, then sat on my bed to wait for Jack to come back.

When he did, he looked more relaxed
. Knowing Jack well, I’d go as far as to say he took good care of himself in the shower. He smiled affectionately at me. “You look beautiful, Lily.” Jack told me that all the time.

Sometimes I wondered if it was because he wanted to please me, or if that’s how he felt when he saw me.  Sometimes I wondered if it was the player in him
, and he couldn’t help himself.

He couldn’t really disappoint me though. We were platonic
soulmates, and the love I felt for him was on a completely different level to anything of a sexual nature.

The mattress dipped as Jack sat down next to me and took one of my hands in his. He pulled it to his mouth and kissed it. The skin on his cheek felt smooth and cool as my hand brushed against his face.

“Come on. Let’s get this over with, you're torturing yourself here.” He stood and tugged at my hand, and I followed him into the sitting room.

Mandy, Neil
, and Brett were sitting at the breakfast bar. Brett told us Holly and Elle had ran to the store to get some food for breakfast.

Brett got up to
leave, sensing that the conversation that was about to take place had nothing to do with him. “Stay.” Brett was my friend too. “You might as well stay. You should know what happens here this morning as well. Holly would tell you anyway.” I stared over at Mandy. Brett sat back down again and gave me a weak smile.

Mandy looked as if she hadn’t
gotten a lot of sleep, and Neil looked tense, his jaw twitching like Alfie’s when he was mad, and I guessed he was clenching his teeth.

“Neil, whatever it is, we’re friends.” I put my hand on his shoulder as reassurance that this didn’t affect our friendship. He took my hand and squeezed it and it struck me
that there was a lot of ‘hand squeezing’ going on in my direction.

I opened the fridge and brought out the gallon of OJ that we kept in there for
emergency hangovers and poured everyone a glass.

“Mandy?” There was a question in my voice
, and I stared at her waiting for her to explain. She was looking both embarrassed and ashamed.  She lifted the glass of juice to her lips and had a sip and put it down, but she didn’t look up.

“Firstly, I did it for you.
I’m sorry. I was so proud of you I just wanted him to see what he’d missed out on.”

Jack immediately sprung to my
defense. “Mandy, don’t you think that was Lily’s call to make, not yours?” he interjected flatly. He glanced at me and took my hand.

She shrugged and began to cry, a big
tear dropping  clear of her face and on to the countertop. I was surprised at Neil. He did nothing to comfort her as she sat there trying to appease me.

She let o
ut a shaky breath. “Alfie texts me sometimes. He asks how you’re doing.” I started to get down from my stool. “Wait, Lily… I’ve never answered him when he asked before.” I was unsettled by Mandy’s revelation.

“Alfie’s been texting you and asking about me?” She nodded
slowly, then shook her head. “But I never answered any of those texts. He texts me from time to time asking about college, general stuff, but a few times, he’s asked about you. When you were mentioned, I’ve ignored that part of the text, but when the text is only about you, I never answered any of those at all.”

Brett cleared his throat and looked at me, but just pinched his mouth into a thin line of sympathy. I wasn’t sure who it was aimed at, me or Mandy. I looked away from him and back at her.

“So what was the text last night? Why wouldn’t you tell Neil?” She looked at Neil, who stared back at her, then back at me. “He texted me when I was watching you, asking if I knew how you were. On impulse, I shot a small, short video clip of you on stage. With the caption, she’s perfect! I didn’t tell him where you were playing or the name of the band or anything else, just that.” She looked resigned that I might not want to have her as a friend after that.

“Look, I had to watch him almost destroy you a few months ago. You got your shit together
, and you’re fucking happier without him. It was more of a fuck-you-asshole text to him than a keeping-you-in-the-loop one. I wanted him to see how great you were without him.” I sat silently contemplating what she told me and looked at how sad she was. Right or wrong, she had sent the text more for me than for Alfie.

I stood down from the stool and walked over to her. “Come here.” I hugged her tightly and she sobbed.

“I’m sorry Lily…”

I cut her off,
“Shush. It’s okay.” I bent a little to look into her eyes as she sat on her stool. “Just don’t tell him anything about me if he asks again, and you can tell him I told you not to.” I turned to Neil.

“She was being a friend, Neil, a drunken one,
it's fine.” Neil put his hand on Mandy’s back and rubbed it.

“Have you learned anything here, Mandy?” She nodded
, and he hugged her closely.

Brett was about to get up
when Jack held his hand up. “Hold on, I need to add to that.” I spun around and stared hard at him.

“Jack?”
A nervous smile touched his lips.

“I was going to tell you, but I only just got here, and you were playing…”

I cut in, “Jack, tell me!” He got up and ran his hand over his face.

“He’s been to see me, several times actually.”

My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe that Alfie and Jack had been together, and Jack didn’t tell me, or tell him to go to hell. My eyes scanned the faces staring at me in the room, and I fled to my bathroom and locked the door.

Jack, the one person I thought I could always rely on, had let me down by hiding things from me for the first time in our lives. My tears flowed again, but this time I was devastated for a different reason.

Jack wasn’t my Jack anymore.  We thought that nothing could come between us. Alfie, even in his absence, had just proven me wrong.

Jack knocked on the bathroom door on and off for about an hour, then everything in the apartment went quiet. I felt exhausted
, and I had to play with the band tonight. I had rehearsals at 4pm, and it was already almost 2:30pm now. I couldn’t let the band down after one day.

I cracked the bathroom door open thinking I was on my own. Jack was sitting on my bed, Indian style. He smirked sheepishly, “I knew you’d have to come out at some point. You never let me explain.”

His voice was soft, hurt. “There’s no excuse, you kept it from me. As far as trusting someone, I guess you were the last of my bubbles to burst.”

Jack came running over to me, wrapped his arms around me
, and held me tight. I struggled to free myself. “No!” he shouted, “No fucking way, you’re not doing this to us. I was going to tell you, just not on Skype, because I was coming here. I wanted to tell you face-to-face so that I could hold you tight when I did it. I wanted to comfort you. I knew you’d be upset.” His voice was soft, and I had stopped struggling by then.