Weathering Jack Storm (Silver Strings G Series) (30 page)

When Marissa only stared, appalled, her mother exclaimed, “I’m talking about your father!”

“Daddy?”

“Marissa, your father and I were never married. He was stubborn with his music. Put it first even when it wasn’t putting food on the table. I couldn’t deal with that after a while. Then when he changed, got a steady job, and wanted to come back, I guess I couldn’t forgive him for before.”

Her childhood flashed back. In the light of this stunning revelation, so many things made sense, and with new understanding of old memories, her parents’ breakup made sense.

“Of course, I guess Jack having already made his way comes with its own ups and downs. Your brother was showing me some of the things on the ‘innernets’ that you have been dealing with.” Her mother’s words were sympathetic, and her chest heaved through a few silent seconds. “Just be very sure that is the life you want before binding to it.”

Usually, it grated on her nerves when her mother mispronounced internet, but this time she had more important thoughts. The shock and awe of her mother’s confession, and her own inner concessions.

Jack was her world. She loved him with all her heart. She could not imagine falling out of love with him. Yet, their life together, in a few short weeks, already had not been easy.

Every day came with some sort of outside interference, whether it was the assistant that lived with them, the rude publicist, his family, the demands of his band and its members, and now the tour.

Jack Storm shared the same body with Jack Loren.

Now, he had gone behind her back and paternity tested Tristan at the first doubt his family showed—something that she could not even properly confront him about because she never saw him.

These were the thoughts rotating round and round in her head creating more thoughts. Like the colors on the pinwheel Tristan had begged for as they walked the beach one afternoon with Olivia. Only her thoughts over the next days weren’t too colorful.

Each day, when she talked, Skyped, or sent a text to Jack, she kept the doubts to herself.

♪♫¨♫♪

When her mother had been recovering at home for a week, and when Tristan’s was cast free and walking without tiring, Jack brought up flying them to meet him on tour. Sadly staring at the phone, she made excuses to stay where she was.

Almost a week later, it was more difficult to make excuses to his face, but she did, falling back on her mother’s health the day and night that he had come to see them. Feeling like a heel, she watched him roll out of bed, dress, and trek to Tristan’s room for a goodbye hug.

In a post-show two a.m. phone call, a few days after that, he pressured her harder. The pain of missing them was obvious in his voice, and she missed him terribly, but she swallowed her own emptiness. “I need a favor.”

“Anything. You know that.”

“I was thinking of staying here until the tour is over.”

Jack was quiet for so long that she wanted to take the words back. From the den down the hall, she heard Tristan singing, and she knew that he was hopping and dancing around to the song on his show.

“Wait, where are you?” Jack asked.

The disorientation was something she had heard before. As the tour progressed through so many cities, and he grew wearier, he would become confused over what day it was, or whether it was morning or afternoon. Now, he was wondering if she was in LA or Gulfport.

“Gulfport.”

“Why would you want to stay there until the tour is over?”

As she tried to gather the courage to tell him she needed a break from LA, and as she tried to hold back her hurt at the DNA test, his growl rumbled through the phone. “What the hell?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered into the speaker. It just feels better here. I think I just need a break.”

“From what?” he exploded, and reflexively she pulled the phone a few inches from her ear. “From swimming pools? And shopping? From mani’s, pedi’s, and makeovers? From a sick ride to drive you all those places and a driver if you don’t feel like it!”

The anger bleeding into her ears seemed irrational. Scorn dripped from his words, and she felt shocked that her simple question had released that degree of ugliness.

“Is that who you think I am? I was never that girl, Jack...”

Ignoring her indignation, he smoothly shot back, “I’ve got almost ten thousand dollars on a charge card, plus a new car note that says you are.”

How dare he come up with some total, and in doing so, have thrown in purchases that she never would have made had it not been expected of her? It certainly hadn’t been her idea to spend what she considered a small fortune on her outfit for the drop party. Also, she had not asked for or expected a car—especially that one!

“Fuck you!” The hyperventilation and pounding of her chest was a silent addendum to her curse.

“No Marissa. Fuck you. Fuck you, fuck you. Fuck you!–”

Pressing the end button to save her ears from any further four letter words, she let the phone fall from her hand and dropped her head to the bed. The volatile anger threading through his curses was shocking.

The words would not stop rattling her brain. In a tailspin, the conversation had gone from one of his typically sweet phone calls to strings of four letter hate.

“Anything. You know that...Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you...”

The day felt lonely, and lonelier still, when he didn’t call to Skype after the show.

Moreover, he didn’t call or text the next day, so she sent a text the day after.

Call me later?

Sent 10:00 AM

After waiting hours for an answer, she sent another.

Did you get my text?

Sent 4:05 PM

And another.

What are we doing?

Sent 2:01 AM

His answering text stung like a slap.

J
ACK

Taking a break like you wanted.

2:02 AM

You know that is not what I meant

Sent 2:04 AM

J
ACK

Whatever

2:04 AM

Barely, she restrained herself from thumbing a four-letter word into the phone, and instead she fingered a four-letter gesture at the phone.

Finally, she cried, the sobs jerking her body, itching her eyes, and stuffing up her nose. How the hell could something so good go so bad so fast?

Six hours later, his ringtone had her throwing off her depressed tent of blankets to grab the phone, but without preamble, he asked to speak to Tristan. Lurking in her bedroom doorway, she listened as her son giggled at whatever Jack said and offered up Bally’s latest escapades.

“I love you, Daddy. I miss you too...yes sir. Bye, Daddy.”

Her heart clenched as she eavesdropped. Tristan soon skipped down the hall to return her phone, and she eagerly grabbed it, but the call was ended. Her control snapped, and she jabbed ‘Call’ but was not surprised when voicemail clicked on.

“Listen you son of a bitch. You are a son of a bitch!” Okay, she really should have thought her dialogue through. Pausing, she focused on the print of the sheets while struggling for clarity. “What right do you have to be mad at me for not bringing a four-year old on tour to watch his dad be groped by groupies?” That was unfair, but it just shot out of her mouth.

Breathe Marissa, breathe. Her heart was thumping painfully.

“You lied to me. You said you knew Tristan was yours. You brought us to LA as one big happy family then sneaked off for a paternity test. You asshole...” Clicking ‘End’ before she said something else stupid, she collapsed on her bed.

His return call came directly, and even though she had waited for that ring for days, she obstinately hit ignore. The beep of a voicemail did not follow, and she remembered his stubbornness when it came to leaving a message.

‘I didn’t say I didn’t want to talk, I said I didn’t have a message.’
His words from that day at the hospital taunted her.

She longed to call Jack again, but what would she say? What was the use if she hadn’t changed her mind about sitting out the tour, and he hadn’t made an apology for his reaction?

When a week passed, it seemed as if she weren’t only sitting out tour, she was sitting out so much more.

Their love, their life together, was on ice.

She didn’t know where she and Jack were going from here. The tour had him stressed to the max. What kind of relationship did they have, though, if it couldn’t survive those stresses?

J
ACK

I miss you

3:32 AM

Marissa smacked the phone into its dock and rolled away from it to sulk into the darkness. A fresh slew of tears filled her eyes. Was she actually supposed to respond to a middle of the night text when it was their first communication after almost two weeks apart? This fight, or whatever it was, had gone way beyond text intervention.

Jack had continued to call or Skype Tristan almost every day, but didn’t use her number. Two days after their fight, a phone addressed to Tristan had arrived in the mail. A four-year old with a phone! It obviously kept her fiancé from having to go through her to talk to their son.

Did this mean they were broken up ?

She cried or teared up every day at some point. At some point every day, she rebuked herself for falling headfirst into a fantasy. Foolishly, based on some physical and imagined spiritual connection, she had taken off to California with a man she had known only a couple of weeks–even though that man was the father of her child.

It was understandable why celebrities continuously made the headlines with failed relationships if they were all bipolar, narcissistic jerks like Jack. Unfortunately, their son would always tie her to Jack in some way.

Her life had fallen into a pattern similar to the days before Jack. Only, there was no forgetting him.

Even though she had relocated, her job status had still technically been on family leave. When the casino had called to update, she had made a rash decision to take her old shift back.

Sanity.

The hours of slot machines ringing in her ears, and the activity of counting craps or dealing blackjack left little time for thinking. As far as she was concerned, that was a good thing. Anything that kept her from her own thoughts was a good thing.

Olivia had been a great support, and Marissa opened up to her mother when helping out while she recovered. Clayton had begun dating Gina from the casino, and both seemed intent on keeping her spirits up.

“Marissa,” Clayton’s voice sounded from behind causing her to jump from her reverie. “Tap out pretty lady.” Clay was still a flirt, and before moving away, he addressed her table of black jack players. “Isn’t Miss Rissa the prettiest woman in the room?”

Only because Gina wasn’t yet in the room, and she smiled at this private joke between the three of them. Gina was as big a flirt as Clay and was as outrageous in her behavior as he was. It worked for them. In a way that she knew it would never have worked between her and Jack

It felt strange to take orders from Clayton. A few months before Tristan’s surgery, she had been promoted to a gaming supervisor. Now, in coming back to work, she came as a rotating dealer.

Clearing her hands, she clapped out and weaved her way through the busy room to the employee exit. During the fifteen-minute break, she checked her texts and re-read the one from Jack twelve hours ago.

I miss you

She scrolled up to the one above it.

‘Whatever’

Then on up.

‘Taking a break like you said’

Then the one before.

‘I’ve been thinking about your ass all day :P’

There in backwards order, in a few texts, was the phenomenon.
Everything had been fine, and then it just wasn’t
. How did that even happen?

But she knew the truth. Everything hadn’t been fine. They had been happy. Even in some sort of love. Yet, it had only been a surface shine hiding everything deeper. Things she didn’t want to think about. The strip club. The paternity test. Many little personality conflicts between the two of them.

Break passed quickly. Upon reentering the pit and tapping back in at her assigned blackjack table, she beamed a friendly smile when seeing a couple of familiar faces seated. Several locals frequented this table and this game. One who always wore a Striker Chemicals hat had been coming after his work shift ended for as long as she could remember before her move away. Always friendly, he and another local guy kept her entertained with a lively conversation.

Her polite laughs were soon real, and as she dealt, she had her head thrown back chuckling at one of ‘Striker’s’ jokes when her eyes fell on–