Weathering Jack Storm (Silver Strings G Series) (3 page)

This time, instead of voice commanding the stereo, he put out a finger to shut the volume down.

“I guess it just gets to me because you are all into his stuff and not mine.” The husky words were quiet, almost petulant.

Immediately, her eyes dried and jerked in astonishment to his face. In that way she was becoming accustomed to, she found one of Tristan’s moody expressions darkening his dad’s features. It probably was not fair to Jack that because of years of experience with Tristan’s moods, at times like this, he was an open book to her.

“I’m into your stuff...,” she protested. While it felt stupid to reassure an adult about such trivial things, she understood. Many times she had not felt like an adult especially when it concerned people she loved. How childishly she had handled ‘winning Jack over.’ For emphasis, she firmly repeated, “I’m into your stuff.”

“No. You’re really not.”

“That’s not true! Stop saying that! I have everything of yours!”

“Not listened to,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Look at your playlist. My shit has half the listens of—anything else...”

Confounded, she could only stare certain he had been about to say half the listens of his father’s then at the last second had chopped the specifics off.

“Jack...” In her hesitation, she tapered off momentarily thrown by the entire conversation and the fact that he was not meeting her eyes. His expression was presently a mirror of Tristan’s the day the little boy figured out that she had trashed a few of his dozens of art scribbles affixed to the fridge with magnets. “Jack, that’s just not true...”

“Look, it doesn’t matter. Do you want to stop for something to eat or get Tristan home to bed?” His eyes remained on the city lights and sights beyond their bubble.

The way he said home lit a warm glow in her heart, and yet a piece felt chipped because she had unwittingly hurt his feelings. What he said was true. She didn’t care for his genre of music, and the only reason she ever listened to his band was to hear his voice.

The idea of him snooping through her playlists searching for his own works, looking for her approval, made her feel cherished. The notion that what he found had hurt him crushed her.

“It does matter.” Ignoring his question about food, she enlightened, “For weeks after we met, I downloaded and listened to every Jackal album available. When I found out I was pregnant, I obsessed on your stuff, twenty-four seven. Then, I just couldn’t anymore. It hurt. Not my ears. My heart. Yet sometimes I would still...” The gulf of loneliness in her memories was suddenly strong. “Maybe during these last couple of years I didn’t blast it in the car on the way to work, but I spent nights with those albums on loop so that I could hear your voice.”

This garnered his intent attention, and her pleading gaze sank into his earnest dark one. Tracing a finger over his second skin of warm worn denim, she softly jibed, “Let’s get home so I can go all fangirl on you...”

J
ACK SLOWED AND THE IRON GATE
rolled open. The outside lighting and the glow from a few windows allowed only shadowy glimpses of a home that appeared to be a multilevel stone and glass structure.

“Home sweet home,” Jack drawled, and the sweet smile he sent her way did little to calm her nerves.

He was quickly learning the emotions behind whatever he saw in her face, or perhaps he knew that a kiss was at least a temporary cure for most everything.

Gently, his lips moved against hers, in reassurance, in apology, as a mark of this new phase, or just because. She actually wasn’t sure why he kissed her and didn’t care. His tongue tickled her lips before pushing past to tease hers. When her fingers curved in an instinctive hold to the back of his neck, she thought she felt him smile.

His hand braced on her seat as he leaned, but as she met him more than halfway, it moved, sliding through her hair.

Jack could kiss like no one she had ever known. And, regretfully she had known many. She moaned quietly into the current ministration, clutching him tighter, and when reflexively she sucked, he groaned, shifting in his seat.

His slight movement brought her thoughts to what caused it, and she had a flash image of tearing open the fly of those very expensive jeans and in this very expensive car giving him everything promised in that part of the kiss.

Reading her X-rated thoughts and purposeful kiss, his throat rumbled with that special sound that a bigger mouthful always brought.

"Are we at Jacks house?"

What she always imagined happening in this instance included jumping apart in embarrassment. Tristan had never seen even a small kiss.

What actually happened was her body protested even her son’s interruption, and stole a few more seconds of nearness. Jack was the first to ease apart, but in that way that was becoming common, he did so slowly, giving her a chance to resist.

"Yeah T.J., we are here," Jack answered as they took in Tristan’s drowsy and disgruntled face.

The tiny frown quickly cleared when Jack exited the car and leaned the seat up to extract and carry him. Following them up a steep curve of stone steps, her eyes searched her son’s, but all animosity had vanished from their innocent depths.

The plate above the decorative door handle flipped up with a press of Jack’s thumb, revealing a keypad. To Tristan’s wide-eyed astonishment, Jack punched at the numbers then swung open the door.

A gentleman, even at this late hours with a forty pound child on his arm, he rested a hand on her waist urging her forward first.

Directly in the center of the airy foyer was a table with mail piled high, similar to the set up in her less elaborate hall. To the left, a staircase curved up the wall. To the right was a unique sofa that had Tristan gaping again.

The upholstery was furry and black. A long tail came off the curved arm of one end, and a growling panther head complete with whiskers and teeth, from the other. The legs, of course were panther paws.

The staccato echo of shrill barks filled the room.

“Rusty! It’s Rusty, Mom! Rusty!”

Jack scrambled to keep Tristan stable, lowering him to the floor as he squirmed, and routinely passed her his crutch. Normally, in the piggyback situation, Tristan would balance on Jack’s back while she handed the crutch over, but on this night, the tot hastily snatched it from her hand.

Amazed, she watched as the walking aid very briefly touched the ground between steps. Tristan was practically walking. The need for the referred physical therapist would be brief.

Jacks eyes flickered to her face with concurrent thoughts, and just when she felt that sync of shared emotion, a loud thwack of metal to tile snapped them from this close trance.

The next sound was the quieter thunk of Tristan’s tiny body hitting the floor. The unceasing shrill bark of Rusty was background noise as they fell to their knees beside their son who let out a long whimper.

Before they could help, he pushed himself to a sitting position cursing, "Dammit!"

Jack’s startled eyes flew to her face then narrowed in speculation. Possibly, hers did the same because Jack defended, "It wasn’t me!"

"Well it wasn’t me..." Not that she would ever admit. The occasional curse word had passed her lips within her son’s earshot.

Tristan was rubbing his elbow, and she offered, “Want me to kiss it better?”

As she placed a couple of kisses to the elbow area, Jack did a check for visible injuries, then helped him up, and wrapped an arm around his knees lifting him. Reaching beyond the barrier, he picked up Rusty.

Although not a pup any longer, the dog was still the same ball of energy that she remembered. Calming in Jack’s arms, he peered at Tristan and even offered a lick at the tiny hand petting him between the ears.

Jack stepped over the blockade, and explained that anytime he was out of the house, Rusty remained corralled or crated due to some unfortunate accidents.

Following him, she hurdled the gate and found herself in a huge modern kitchen.

Setting Tristan on the counter top, he put Rusty in his lap and advanced to the fridge. “Hungry?”

They decided on frozen pizza, and as Jack readied and put two into the oven, she monitored Tristan with Rusty, eyed Jack’s every move, and glanced around the beautiful room.

Lighting hung from a high ceiling. Stainless steel appliances, and a rich medium wood broke up the shiny black expanse of counter tops. Beyond a large glass sliding door, twice the height of Jack, the night was black. The floor was the same tile as the entry foyer, and appeared to extend into the next room, which was a step lower.

Glancing at Tristan, she wondered how he was going to fare with the stairs and the split-level rooms until he was walking better.

Although Jack had instigated it, having Rusty on the counter didn’t seem sanitary, and she eased Tristan and the dog down into a chair at the table. Jack was whistling as he cut the pizza, and Tristan’s lips were pursing as he tested the elusive sound.

“Want to watch t.v. while we eat?”

A flip of a remote switched on a small flat screen in the corner of the dining nook, and donning the oven mitts again, he carried one of the large pans to the table, carefully setting it out of Tristan’s immediate reach. Plucking the dog from their son’s lap, Jack sat him on the floor, and when his glance went to a corner of the room, she followed it to a pet feeder.

Flipping a wall switch, as he walked by it, illuminated the blackness beyond the glass, for an instant, before he flipped it immediately off with an alarmed look at Tristan.

The smile that curved her lips could not be stopped. Jack was quickly learning parenthood. The split second view of a dark swimming pool had fortunately gone unnoticed by their son who was busy flipping television channels.

Jack folded into the chair next to Tristan, and proceeded to consume a slice of pizza. She found it surreal eating freezer pizza in a kitchen more suited to gourmet meals, with a rock star sitting across from her.

A rock star who was the father of her child and who was soon to be her husband. For some reason, their relationship felt overshadowed by this day and by this house, but that didn’t stop her from an uncharacteristic public pig out on the pizza.

Well into her third slice, her chewing slowed, and her gaze went from one of Tristan’s shows to find Jack watching her with a content look. At this second, however, she was anything but content as she remembered the reason they had flown back so quickly.

“The drop party tomorrow...” Setting the extra calories down, she recalled their earlier conversations about the event. Her questions. His answers. The plan. “Are you sure I can get a dress so fast?”

“Of course. You’re in LA,” he shrugged. “Just be up and ready to go around noon. We won’t even leave the house for the party until nine.”

“Nine?”

“The days begin and end later here,” Jack grinned.

Tristan was paying them no mind, eating his pizza as he watched the characters on t.v., and she took advantage of the semi-privacy. “I’m nervous about leaving him so soon.”

“We will be twenty minutes away. You know I wouldn’t even suggest it if I didn’t know he would be fine. My aunt is very responsible. I promise.”

Jack’s aunt was coming to stay with Tristan. However, it was hard to leave him with someone she had never met. Especially when that somebody was named Candi. The name did not conjure up responsibility.

She bit back any comments about that, as well as Jack’s method of storing the pizza leftovers. Shoving the remaining slices into one of the boxes, he closed it in the fridge, and threw away the trash.

Chucking what was left of her third slice into Rusty’s bowl, she stacked the plates. Jack turned relieving her of them and set them into the sink.

They meandered toward the next room, and as they stepped into the sunken den, Jack took Tristan’s hand. Eying the enormous television screen, Tristan asked, “Are we going to hook my Xbox up here?”

“There is already an Xbox. Tomorrow when you wake up, we will unpack your games,” Jack promised.

“Where’s my room?” Tristan looked around the vast expanse of the den, and his eyes stopped on an arched throughway to what looked to be a hallway. “Does my room have a t.v.?”

Sometimes, she worried that Tristan was too obsessed with his television life. Yet, another part of her knew that once he was on his feet properly, an entire new world would beckon.

“Of course.” Jack’s face lit with his bright smile, and it was apparent that he was excited about Tristan’s room.

A ball of nerves coiled in her stomach as it sometimes did when she saw the evidence that Jack loved their son as much as she did, and at the reminder that Tristan equally belonged to Jack. What if, God forbid, things didn’t work out between her and Jack? In such a scenario, Tristan was half lost to her, and the panic of the days leading up to the present would set in again.

Jack’s normal stride shortened considerably as they matched Tristan’s pace. The hallway led back to the main foyer, and rather than opening any of the doors off of it, Jack seemed to be headed to the grand staircase.

The thought of the bedrooms being on the second floor was something that had crossed her mind upon her initial view of the stairs, but Tristan’s fall had pushed it from her mind. Suddenly, the idea that Tristan might try the stairs on his own at some point was terrifying.