Unstoppable (Fierce) (9 page)

Eddie, however, was knuckles deep in
his prime rib dinner. Every time he opened his mouth I heard a cash register ring up a new total in the price of my sham of a marriage. With a sigh, I grabbed a spear of grilled asparagus and gnawed on it like a green French fry while Vanni regaled everyone with tales from the road.

He really was a star – on and off the stage.

Every now and then my eyes would meet Jace’s. There was an unreadable expression on his face as he watched Eddie and me thoughtfully and quietly. Eddie seemed to sense that we were being watched, so he would lean closer to me, pulling me toward him as he rested his arm across the back of my chair.

“All I know,” he said suddenly, “I’m happy to have my girl back home.” He bent forward for a kiss that I was forced to indulge be
cause everyone was watching us. “I’ll have to join you on the road, baby.”

“That’d be fun!” Shelby exclaimed, and I could have sworn she shifted closer to Jace when she did so.
“Although,” she gave us a wink, “I don’t know how much work Jordi will get done.”

I turned from her and tried not to look Jace in the eye. I knew her comment would not go unnoticed, any more than the way Eddie pulled my hand into his lap. “But who could blame me, eh, chief?” he asked Jace pointedly, but with a slick smile.

He stole another kiss, far more inappropriate than I ever would have allowed otherwise. I endured it as long as possible before I tried to subtly excuse myself and escape to the ladies’ room.

I sat in the stall, cradling my throbbing head in my hands. I was in no hurry to return to the table, especially since the dessert tray was making its round by my party
of revelers.

I was in no frame of mind to refuse chocolate. I was only human, after all.

I received a text message from Jace that simply said, “
I love you
.” It kind of made the whole shitty day worthwhile.

When I went back out to the table, Andy and Vanni were sharing a decadent chocolate dessert. I envied that she could eat real food when I had to avoid sugar like the plague. I couldn’
t simply eat a bite of dessert; it was down my gullet before I even knew what it tasted like. I’d eat another bite for flavor, which made me want another bite, and another. The high I got from the sheer process of eating numbed all the other unpleasantness of life.

Advertisers knew it to be true, that was why they always show women blissfully happy as they eat their chocolate – the solver of all life’s minor irritations. Having a bad day? Just pop a piece of candy and you’re good to go.

There’s a reason kids want the stuff so much. Candy equals happy.

In fact, everyone at my table was feasting on something sweet. Maggie hadn’t ordered anything for
herself, she just enjoyed a bite or two of Graham’s dessert, since all the men had ordered their own oversized treat. Even petite Holly was knee deep in her own epic plate of chocolate death, which she immediately tried to pawn off on me the minute I sat back down.

“You have to try this, Jordi,” she said as she scooped up a big spoonful for me. “They could just hook this up to an IV for me and I’d be in heaven for the rest of my life.”

I tried to shake my head, to ward off the demon known as sugar, but even Eddie encouraged me to give it a try. “One bite isn’t going to kill you,” was a familiar refrain – little did people understand one bite was never going to be enough.

If I could stop at one bite, I wouldn’t weigh over two hundred pounds.

Even worse, it was hard enough for me to avoid the dessert tray in the first place. I wanted every dish on that cart, it took every bit of strength I had to decline the first time. I couldn’t repeatedly say no when others insisted I join in the fun.

So naturally I didn’t. I hadn’t ordered a dessert of my own, after all. It
was
just a bite, and that one bite wouldn’t kill me. But the minute that chocolate sauce slid across my tongue, I knew I was in trouble.

Because it did feel better – it did make me happier, almost instantly. That warm, sweet mouthful was a loving hug from a lifelong comforter. When Shelby offered me an extra spoon, claiming she couldn’t possibly eat the whole dessert by herself, I made every excuse I could in my head to justify each bite thereafter.

I watched Maggie out of my peripheral vision, to see if she would judge me by the way I indulged myself on the dessert. There was, as always, no judgment there. But when she placed her spoon in the plate, indicating she had had enough, I mirrored it quickly.

The long minutes we all sat chatting afterwards were torture. All I could think about were the various plates around the table and all the half-eaten treats. If I had been by myself, each plate would be clean, starting with the divine chocolate creation in front of me. I tried not to look at it, I even scooted it away. Instead I cradled my water glass in my hand, refilling it three times before we all parted ways for the night.

Eddie said nothing as I resumed my spot on the makeshift pallet on the hardwood floor. It was uncomfortable, but I sort of felt I deserved it after caving at the restaurant. I was up and down at least four times from all the water I drank during dinner, which made the hard wood even more unforgiving as I tried to go back to sleep.

By the time dawn peeked through the blinds, I had given up on sleep entirely. Eddie was asleep on the bed, and I considered momentarily balancing on the available edge to get some more sleep. But I could tell he was naked and it made me sick to think of being that close to him. You might as well have asked me to sleep in a pit full of snakes.

So I showered and got dressed for the day. It was just as well I was up early. We had a radio interview that morning and dress rehearsal that afternoon. I puttered around the kitchen to scare up a suitable breakfast, but Eddie’s diet was very Midwest. He had lots of higher-fat protein items like eggs, bacon, sausages, meats and dairy, with very little fruit or grain to round out his starchy vegetable selection.

The breakfast that finally roused the other occupants of my house ended up being much higher in fat than I had allowed myself in months past, but everyone seemed overjoyed by the fried eggs and bacon that I served alongside French toast.

“This is so yummy,” Shelby gushed as she plowed through her plate, matching Eddie’s hungry-man appetite bite for bite. “I didn’t know you could cook.”

“My
Jordi’s a great cook,” Eddie responded. His eyes slid over me as he added, “Obviously.”

I bit back any retort. It wasn’t worth it. With my busy schedule for the day
, the sooner I could shake Eddie free, the sooner I could finally spend time with Jace.

I so needed to spend time with Jace.

But Eddie had other ideas. He insisted that he tag along with us. “I’ve missed you so much,” he’d croon as he wrapped his arms around me. “I want to make up for lost time while you’re home.”

I glared at him. “But I’ll be way too busy to give you any attention,
sweetheart
.”

Shelby propped her head up on her hand. “That doesn’t matter when you’re in love,” she said with a dreamy smile. “When you’re in love, all you want is to be close to that special someone.”

I knew she was thinking about Jace, which was convenient… so was I.

Eddie attached himself to my side like the parasitic leech that he was, finding any and all reasons to keep his hands on my body, to tell the world – or at least Jace – that I was legally taken.
I could see Jace’s jaw set in a clenched, tight line. I knew he was fighting all his instincts not to intervene. I tried to plead with him with my eyes, to remind him this was only a few days and then we would be back out on the road, free to be together and love one another again.

Shelby seemed blissfully unaware of any tension as she sat ever closer to Jace.

Inexplicably this pissed Eddie off, too.

By the time we made it to the arena for dress rehearsal, his hands were rough and angry when they clutched me to him. Finally, when we got a rare minute alone, I spun on him with outrage. “I don’t want you touching me!” I hissed through clenched teeth.

He grabbed my arm and roughly pulled me closer. “Too bad, honey. That ring on your finger says I can touch you all I want.”

With that he planted another hateful kiss on my unwilling mouth. I wrenched so violently away from him that I felt something tweak
violently in my back. It was so strong it took my breath away, but I fought through it and stalked as far away from Eddie as I could get.

The pain, though, did not subside. It was a lingering ache that grew worse every time I moved slightly to the left. By the time I went up for my songs, I was in agony. It took
Jace’s intro to do me in. That was the song I was all over the stage, stalking it with a powerful performance that demanded a certain amount of dramatic flair.

The minute I bent down, it was over. The microphone toppled loudly to the floor
. Everyone on stage rushed to where I was doubled over. I couldn’t have straightened my spine if I wanted to. They eased me onto the floor, where I gasped through every painful spasm. Jace raced out to join me, which, of course, meant Eddie hopped on the stage and ran to get in between us.

“I got it, Chief,” he said dismissively as he leaned toward me, blocking Jace from my view. I couldn’t argue. I could barely breathe. I gasped for air as tears poured down my face.

The stage director called for an EMT and I was inevitably taken to the local hospital. When the examining doctor touched my back, I nearly sailed right off the other side of the table. Finally the nurses iced me down until I could straighten out, and by then the medication had kicked in. Thanks to a cocktail of anti-inflammatories, a muscle relaxer and a strong dose of hydrocodone, I was sucked into dreamland in my private room.

Maggie roused me as soon as she arrived at the hospital. She wanted to examine me, to see what the problem may have been. As a physical therapist by trade, she had some ideas of what may have happened. The X-rays showed no ruptured disc in my spine, which had been the first concern. Maggie was certain it was muscular, especially as her nimble fingers dug deep into the cushy muscles of my backside to find the source of the problem.

“You’re pretty knotted up back here,” she informed me as I gritted through her examination.

“Then shouldn’t a massage feel good?” I muttered as I gripped the handles on the side of the bed until my knuckles turned white.

“Not necessarily,” she said wryly. “Your muscles are clenched tightly thanks to these muscle spasms. No doubt they caught a nerve in there.” She dug even deeper into my left buttock. “Massage the muscle, unclench the nerve. But it’s deep, Jordi. It’s not going to be an easy fix.”

She withdrew a tiny electronic machine from her bag. On the end were two sticky pads that she affixed to my bare hip. She then set the machine to send electronic pulses into the pads to stimulate the muscle.
That felt much better than the manual massage, as did the ultrasound machine she brought into the room about twenty minutes later. By then I was nearly unconscious again with the pills.

Thanks to the heavy narcotics, I was able to sleep throug
h most of the pain. By morning, both Maggie and Graham were there to speak with the doctor, who basically told us everything that the back pain wasn’t.

He snapped the x-ray onto the light box on the wall.
“As you can see,” he said to Maggie, whom he knew had a medical background, “there is no sign of a slipped or ruptured disc in her spine. I would recommend an MRI to properly pinpoint the source of her pain.”

“It’s muscular,”
Maggie informed him as she studied the x-ray.

“Have you ever had an episode like this before, Jordi?” the doctor asked, and I shook my head. “Have you changed your activity level lately?”

Again, I shook my head. “Just preparing for the concert.”

“I wouldn’t recommend performing tonight,” he said as he glanced over my report. “You’re going to need a day or two of complete rest, then Nurse Fowler here can set you on a PT regimen to get you back on your feet.”

“I can’t perform?” I asked, crestfallen.

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t advise it
, at least for the next few days. This was a pretty severe back spasm. Your body is telling you it needs a break. Listen to it.” He made more notes on his clipboard. “We’ll give you a steroid injection to help bring down the inflammation; that should get you mobile enough to continue with the tour.”

Within an hour I was discharged. Graham and Maggie insisted I go to their house to recover, but Eddie put his foot down. He wanted to take care of me. I personally would have rather gone with Graham and Maggie, but I plastered on my fake smile and told them I’d be fine.

Eddie was quiet all the way back to the house. Anticipating his reaction to my new ordeal was almost more painful than my back.

Most painful of all was that I couldn’t join my tour family on stage. Despite my better judgment, I finally asked, “So who is doing
Jace’s intro?”

“Shelby,” he said tersely, as if he wasn’t any happier about it than I was.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the window.