The Debt 7 (Club Alpha) (11 page)

Jake began fucking her, his hips crashing
into her hips, as his hands pushed her hands up and to each side, pressing her
arms into the sand as he made her wet.

“Make me come, Jake,” she moaned.

He sped up, and his hips were wilder, his
cock so wet from her juices, so slick, and soon her legs were wide open and she
was bucking her hips in a ferocious orgasm.

He came along with her, and then he lay
atop her body, breathing into her mouth, whispering “I love you,” in her ear,
just like she’d known he would say.

***

That night, Jake held her close, his body
melding into hers so tightly that she could feel his heartbeat mixing together
with her heartbeat in the stillness.

Faintly, she could also still hear the
waves washing on shore at the beach.

Raven drifted in and out of sleep, so
peaceful that she forced herself to stay awake and savor it as long as
possible.

I
never want this to end.

His arms were so strong, not just because
they were muscular, but because Jake was strong inside as well.

He loved her completely and she finally
was able to accept it.

She eventually drifted to sleep and
didn’t wake up again until the next morning.
 
Jake woke up first, getting out of bed,
humming to himself.
 
Raven watched
him as he grabbed his clothes and headed into the bathroom.

She smiled, thinking about how much his
attitude had changed since he’d gotten back in the studio.

This
is where he should be
,
she thought.
 
This is what he needs to do
.

Raven got up soon after, and then they
had a breakfast of coffee, bacon and eggs—that Jake made efficiently and quickly—eating
fast, because Rory and Phil were due any minute.

It was during breakfast that Raven saw
the story about her and Jake on her cell phone while she was browsing the web.

“Fuck,” she said, knowing she shouldn’t
have been googling her own name.
 
She’d
done it out of habit, and then she turned up something awful.

Jake looked up from his plate of
eggs.
 
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his
brow creasing.

Raven shook her head in disbelief.
 
“Just when I thought it couldn’t get any
worse.”

Her eyes read the headline over and over
again.

JAKE’S
GIRL A REGULAR ‘YOKO ONO,’ CLAIMS PRODUCER

But the headline didn’t just call her
Yoko Ono, the notorious wife of John Lennon who many blamed for breaking up The
Beatles at the height of their fame.

The article was actually a series of
quotes from Hec, the producer that they’d kicked out of the studio.
 
Apparently, he hadn’t wasted any time in
slamming them to the press.

Raven handed her phone to Jake.
 
“I’m just warning you,” she said.
 
“It’s bad.”

Jake took the phone and his eyes narrowed
as he saw the headline.
 
“Babe, I’m
so sorry,” he told her.

“It’s not just taking shots at me,” she
told him.
 
“Keep going.”

He grimaced as he read further.
 
“Raven has Jake under her spell,” Jake
read aloud.
 
“She’s got the poor guy
convinced that he’s the next Ed Sheeran, when in reality his new songs are more
like something out of The Wiggles.
 
Only, like, if the Wiggles sucked.”

Raven put a hand up to her forehead.
 
“This is not good.
 
And
it’s been picked
up by all the major media outlets
, people are passing it around. It’s
basically gone viral already.”

Jake was still focused on her phone.
 
He continued reading the article aloud,
quoting Hec’s comments.
 
“Novak’s
clearly having a nervous breakdown,” Jake said, smiling bitterly.
 
He took a breath and kept going.
 
“Jake had a good thing going, but now
he’s fired all the people who got him to where he is, and he’s just listening
to this chick who has him wrapped around her little finger.
 
Mark my words, Jake Novak will never have
another hit song for the rest of his life.”
 
Jake stopped reading, put the phone down
and slid it across the table to Raven.
 

She sighed.
 
“Do you think he’s right?” she asked.

Jake sat back.
 
“Do I think he’s right?
 
Are you serious?”

“Well, you did fire everyone and now it’s
just us.
 
I don’t know anything
about music or the industry—“

“Raven, don’t let his poison get into
your head,” Jake told her.

“I know, it’s just hard,” she said,
playing with her cell phone.
 

“Screw that guy,” Jake said.

“Totally,” she agreed, but inside she
wasn’t so sure.
 
Hec was a big
producer,
he’d worked with plenty of talented people and had
tremendous success.
 
Who was she to
think that she knew better than him?

Seconds later, the doorbell rang and Jake
threw his napkin on his plate and stood up.
 
“That’s the boys,” he told her.
 
“Time to make music.”

***

At the end of the day, Rory did a rough
mix of the songs they’d recorded thus far.
 
The four of them sat in the control room and listened as the music
poured out of the speakers.

Everyone was quiet, listening to what had
been accomplished, and Raven wasn’t sure what everyone thought of the end
result.

She only knew what she was feeling as she
sat on the couch and heard Jake singing and playing from his heart, from his
very soul.

The final song that Rory played for them
was a soft ballad Jake had written called Too Far From Home.
 
It was haunting, melodic, and Jake’s
voice was so pained and yet beautiful and pure, that she was having trouble
keeping her emotions bottled up.

She fought hard to keep the shaking tears
inside, to pretend to be simply listening objectively.

And then, the strangest thing happened.

She glanced over at Phil, the
keyboardist, normally so happy and mellow—almost to the point of
absurdity—and he was staring straight ahead, tears streaming down his
cheeks.

Raven couldn’t believe her own eyes.
 
Phil was crying because of the beauty of
Jake’s song.

Then she looked at Rory, and even though
he was focused on the mixing board, slightly adjusting levels, she saw his hands
tremble and then his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed back his own
emotion.

Finally, the song ended on a haunting
last note from Jake’s voice, sang to perfection, exquisite in its sadness.

The room fell silent.

“Holy shit,” Phil said, wiping his hand
down the front of his face.
 
“Holy
motherfucking shit.”
 
He leaned
forward and stroked his chin.
 
“That’s the best work I’ve ever been part of,” he whispered.

Raven looked to Jake, who smiled
tentatively.
 
“It’s not too shabby,”
Jake
said, his voice betraying cautious optimism.

Rory looked at him.
 
“Not too shabby?
 
Are you crazy?”
 
He sat back.
 
“What we just did these last couple of
days is going to go down in music history.”

Raven breathed a sigh of relief, happy
that she now had confirmation of her own feelings about what she’d just
heard.
 
“I think it’s amazing,
especially Too Far From Home,” she said.
 
“I’m so proud to have been involved.
 
Even just to listen to it.”

“So what now?” Rory asked.
 
“I mean
,
I can
do a final mix.
 
You’ve got six
songs here—not quite an album, but a pretty damn good start on one.”

Jake folded his arms.
 
“I don’t know what I want to do
next.
 
I need to take some time and
think about it.”

“Well, if you ever want to work with me
again, I’d be here—I’d come wherever you wanted, whenever.
 
Making music with someone that’s got
your kind of talent is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Rory said.

Phil nodded.
 
“Most definitely.
 
I’ve been doing this for twenty years
and never had a session like that, man.”

They all stood up, including Raven, and
exchanged hugs and congratulations, and then Phil and Rory left.

When they were gone, Jake turned to
Raven.
 
“It was nice,” he said
softly.

“Are you kidding?
 
That was incredible,” she said, still
high from everything that had happened, and the realization of just how good
Jake’s new songs were.

Jake looked at her, his expression devoid
of emotion.
 
“You don’t understand,”
he said.
 
“It might have been fun,
and those songs might be good—“

“They’re better than good,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jake told her.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, my career in music is over,
Raven.
 
I’m a laughingstock.
 
I’m being sued by my
label
and I’m basically radioactive as far as the other major record
companies are concerned.
 
No one’s ever
going to work with me.
 
No one.”

She didn’t know what to say to that.
 
“Why did we even bother making the demo
if you knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere?”

“Because,” he said, “I needed to express
that stuff.
 
I had it inside of me,
and I knew you were right when you said I had to get off my ass and do the
work.
 
But it’s over now.”

She opened her mouth and then closed it,
realizing that Jake knew the reality of his situation better than she did.

“I love you,” was all she could say.

“I love you too,” he told her, and then
he walked away, and she let him go be by himself, understanding that there was
nothing she could do to help make it better.

***

They’d been apart for a few hours.

Jake had gone for a long walk on the
beach by himself, and Raven had stayed back at the house, playing video
recordings of pieces of the recording session that she’d made on her phone
while they were working.

There were a bunch of clips, and they
were all amazing, in her opinion.

But as she played one of the last videos,
she realized that she’d actually captured the full video recording of Too Far
From Home, Jake’s ballad.
 

Surprisingly, the video and audio quality
were actually quite decent, considering she’d made it on her phone and hadn’t
been trying to do a particularly good job.
 
She’d simply wanted to capture memories so that she could refer back to
it in the future.

Only now, a new thought occurred to her.

It was a dangerous idea, and one that she
knew Jake wouldn’t approve of.

Raven replayed the video of Jake on his
guitar, plaintively singing his ballad, and she continuously was
amazed—blown away—by the power of it, the simple haunting beauty of
the performance.

Jake was still away on his walk, and
Raven knew that she was going to do this next step, and that he might be very
angry with her for it.

But
if I ask him, he’ll say no.
 
And I
need to do this because it’s the right move, the only chance we have to turn
things around.

Before she could talk herself out of it,
Raven uploaded the video to YouTube.
 
She then got on her email and forwarded the video to all of the major
bloggers and social media personalities that she’d become aware of since
starting to spend time with Jake.

As she sent the very last email out, Jake
came back into the house.

He looked at her.
 
“What’s up?” he asked, almost
suspiciously.

She put the phone away, as if it was
going to start talking on its own and telling him what she’d done.
 
“Nothing,” she said, trying to sound
casual.
 
“Just relaxing.”

“You have a weird look on your face,”
Jake said, walking to the refrigerator and taking out a small bottle of fruit
juice, opening it and taking a swig.