What He Bargains (What He Wants, Book Nineteen) (70 page)

“I don’t get it,” Jake said.

Kurt sighed. “You wouldn’t.”

“Please elaborate. What don’t I get? What’s the axe you have to grind, buddy? Was stealing money from my wallet, mismanaging hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars not enough? “

Kurt put the cup down and chuckled. “Is your memory really that short? Or are you truly so fucking dense that you could actually forget what happened?”

Jake’s shoulders tightened and his biceps bulged. “Watch your step, brother. You’re like a hair away from getting the ass kicking you seem to be begging for.”

“Go right ahead,” Kurt said, swatting the air with his hand. “I couldn’t possibly give a shit at this point.”

Somehow, this admission seemed to take the steam out of Jake’s anger, and he sat back in his chair. “You’re upset about Afghanistan,” Jake said. “You still hanging onto that crap? Is that it?”

Kurt slid back suddenly, his eyes wide, his gaze wild. “I told you to let me go!” he shouted.

Raven backed away, frightened at the abrupt change in demeanor. But Jake was unafraid. He sat there, unmoved by his friend’s theatrics. “I wasn’t going to let you go AWOL, asshole. You would’ve ended up in military prison.”

Kurt let out a cackling laugh and looked up at the ceiling. “Good old Jake Novak strikes again. You always did think you knew what was best for everyone else. Meanwhile, you couldn’t find your own way out of a shoe box.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah,” Kurt said, his gaze meeting Jake’s, challenging him. Suddenly Kurt looked all too sober. Sober and angry. But then Raven saw that his jaw was trembling and his eyes were wet. “I looked after you when you came back,” Kurt said, his voice breaking. “I was the one who told you about Peyton, showed you that she was no good for you. And I was the one who encouraged the music, said you should go for it, that your songs were good enough to make a career out of it.”

Jake threw up his hands. “Yeah, so I made you my manager. I paid you back tenfold. I don’t owe you a thing.”

Kurt looked down, his tongue probing the inside of his mouth like it was trying to find a way out. “You should’ve let me leave when I tried to escape. I knew what the price was for getting caught. But I needed out. I needed out because I couldn’t hack the shit.”

Jake shook his head. “That wasn’t going to happen and I won’t apologize for trying to protect you from yourself.”

“Protect me?” Kurt laughed. He stood up, waving his arms like a crazy conductor. “Protect me, he says.” Kurt looked at Raven. “I bet he never told you what we did out there. I bet he didn’t tell you how we killed those people—“

Now Jake stood up, his chair falling to its side. “Shut up, Kurt.”

“I thought you said she could hear anything I had to say to you,” his friend laughed. “More bullshit from the master of manure.”

Jake darted forward and grabbed Kurt by the front of his shirt and cocked his arm back.

“Don’t hit him!” Raven screamed, running forward and trying to pull Jake off. She instantly saw how impossible it was. Jake was like iron, immovable, and far stronger than her. She couldn’t have held him back if there’d been fifty of her.

But he did listen to her. At the last moment, Jake lowered his fist. Kurt seemed almost disappointed.

And then, surprisingly, Jake’s ex-military friend who’d been so cold and cruel to Raven, began balling like a child. Tears poured down his face and his entire body started to shake. “Why couldn’t you let me leave?” he sobbed.

“Because,” Jake said. “I just couldn’t.”

“I’ll never be the same,” Kurt roared, but there was no anger left in him. He was broken. “I can’t ever forget the things I did, the things I saw.”

“We all have to live with what we did,” Jake said softly.

Kurt broke down, literally falling to the floor, and wept into his hands.

“What happened to you out there?” Raven asked, unable to keep her thoughts to herself.

Jake turned and looked at her with eyes that were haunted. “You don’t want to know. You truly don’t want to know.” Then he knelt down next to his friend and began consoling him quietly, whispering, talking to him.

Raven knew that she was witnessing something very few people would see in their lives. They were two combat veterans who’d seen too much, and normally they wouldn’t allow a civilian to intrude on their private territory. What had gone on was for their eyes and their ears and nobody else.

After some time, Kurt calmed down. He seemed to be all cried out. He took some deep breaths. “I didn’t intentionally steal from you,” he said, finally, “but I did whatever I wanted with your money because I hated you.”

Jake helped Kurt back to his seat and then Jake sat down again also. “I wish you’d told me how you felt.”

“How could I?” Kurt asked. “You were Jake fucking Novak, on top of the world. Military hero, superstar, celebrity, everyone loved you and you were happy as could be. I was no one, I could’ve dropped dead at any second and nobody would’ve cared.”

Jake just shook his head. “It was never like that.”

“Are you sure?”

“It wasn’t like that to me. That’s all I can say.”

Kurt sighed. “I hated you for so long that I forgot why I was so mad. And when
she
came along,” he said, gesturing to Raven, “I hated her because I could see she was going to take you away from me. And even though I despised you, I also loved you like a brother. I know that doesn’t make an ounce of sense.”

“It makes sense to me,” Raven offered.

Kurt looked at her and smiled, a real smile. “I’m sorry about what I did to you. You never deserved any of it.”

“And me?” Jake asked. “Did I deserve it?”

“No,” Kurt whispered. “You were a good friend to me. Better than I was to myself, or to you.”

Jake stood up and put a hand on Kurt’s shoulder. “You should get some sleep, brother. It’s been a long few days.”

Kurt nodded, suddenly looking exhausted, but also lighter, as if a dark spirit had fled his body. He looked up at Jake and smiled again. “You really can’t be a bastard, even if I antagonize you and push you to the end of your rope. You just can’t do it, can you?”

“Hey, I’m a big enough bastard for you and me both. Just go and get some sleep and stop overthinking everything. It’s time to move on, Kurt.”

Kurt got up and Jake showed him to the guest room.

When he came back down, he looked at Raven. “You okay?”

She nodded. “I think so. That was just sad to see. I guess I’m surprised that after everything he did to me, I just feel badly for him. He’s deeply hurt. And he may never heal.”

“We’re all like that,” Jake said. She knew that what he said was true, and it scared her, but she loved him more and more, just the same.

A
bout four hours later
, Kurt emerged from the guest room and came downstairs. Jake and Raven were on the couch watching TV and cuddling.

Kurt looked more like himself, but something in his face was still different, there was less of the old anger and bravado about him now. “Guess I’ll be heading out,” he announced.

Jake sat up. “You don’t have to go. Stay the night. Get some rest, and tomorrow—“

“No thanks,” Kurt interrupted, shaking his head. “You and I both know that I shouldn’t be around.”

Jake frowned. “I don’t want you to do anything stupid.”

“I’m going home and then I need to figure out what’s next. Probably it’ll involve a lot of therapy.” Kurt took a deep breath and then let it out. “Sorry for everything. Maybe we’ll see each other again sometime under different circumstances.”

This last line seemed meant for Raven. “Take care of yourself, Kurt,” she said.

Jake’s friend nodded once, turned on his heel and left the house. When the door closed, Jake turned to Raven. “No matter what he did to me and to us, I still owe him a lot. When you’ve been in the shit together like we were, there’s things that happen to you and only someone who’s been through it can understand.”

“I think I get it,” she said, caressing his arm. “But I don’t want you to ever let him take advantage of your generosity again. Kurt needs professional help.”

“Yeah,” Jake sighed. “But then again, so do I.”

“That’s what you have me for.”

Jake smiled, but there was sadness radiating out of him now, and Raven wished she could do something about it. Unfortunately, it seemed to her that he was unreachable to some extent. The things that he’d seen and done were locked forever away from her and the other civilians who depended on people like Jake to protect them from the harsh realities of the outside world.

Still, after some time went by, Jake grew happier again.

They were watching bad TV, cracking jokes and laughing, just hanging out. It was nothing special and yet it was everything to her. She never wanted it to end. Never wanted this moment to end, or the sound of Jake’s laughter, the smell of him, the feel of his warm body next to hers on the couch, the waves breaking on shore still echoing into the house distantly, and the fresh Florida night air seeping inside along with it.

That night, the two of them slept naked together, and at some point in the night, they began touching one another silently, murmuring love, and Jake slipped inside her wetness and began moving, and she came so quickly that she couldn’t even fathom how he’d done it.

After she climaxed, she got on top of Jake and rode his hard cock, sliding up and down and going faster and faster until he grabbed her hips and forced himself deep inside, spilling everything, then pulling her down on top of him and kissing her deeply.

They fell back asleep again, and when she woke up, it was almost as if the late night activity had been a dream. But she knew it had happened—she could feel the stickiness of Jake’s semen on her thighs, and her own dried juices too, and it excited her even though it felt dirty.

Jake was lying on his back in bed next to her, and she kissed his chest before getting up and going to take a shower.

After that, she went for a walk on the beach as the sun continued rising, glimmering off the water, and Raven’s heart felt like it would burst from joy. She waved to the older woman walking her toy poodle, which yipped and barked and jumped towards Raven but was easily pulled away by its owner.

When Raven got back to the house, she was flying high. “It’s so beautiful out there,” she called out to Jake.

But Jake didn’t respond to her, and then she heard him on the phone with someone in the office, which he never had used up until that point.

Raven walked over to the doorway and peaked her head inside, and Jake gestured for her to come in. “Sander,” Jake said, “I’ve got you on speaker phone. Raven just came in, and I want her to be a part of this conversation.”

Sander was the head of Jake’s old label—the one that wanted to sue him until he was bankrupt.

“Fine,” Sander’s voice came through Jake’s cell phone, which Jake laid on the desk in front of him.

The office was almost empty but for the desk and a couple of chairs. Jake clearly had never used the room much for anything since moving into the home.

Jake pointed to a Fed Ex envelope and slid it across to Raven, his finger gesturing to the name and address on the outside of it.

Raven looked and saw that the package was from Mack Zee. It must’ve just arrived that morning. She saw that Jake had already opened it and there were three copies of the contract that Mack had sent over for Jake’s perusal.

When she picked a copy up and began reading, her eyes nearly popped out of her head. The contract was offering Jake a twenty million dollar advance. Her mouth dropped open and she looked at Jake and he was grinning widely as Sander asked him what the reason was for the early morning call.

“Sander,” Jake said, kicking his feet up on the desk and leaning back in his chair. “We need to put an end to this lawsuit and all the ridiculous character assassination PR crap you’re doing to me in the media.”

“We’re just protecting our investment, Jake. You’ve really given us no choice, and I’m sorry if it’s made life uncomfortable. But then again, I’m not sorry if it’s made you come to your senses.”

“I don’t know about all that,” Jake said. “What I do know is that I’m prepared to make good on my end of things so that we can part ways amicably.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

Jake looked at Raven before continuing. She had no idea what he was trying to do, and it made her nervous that he hadn’t discussed it with her first. But she folded her arms and waited to hear what he was going to say next.

“My proposal is that you and the label drop the lawsuit against me,” Jake told him.

“That’s not going to happen.”

“If you drop the lawsuit and knock off the bullshit in the press, I’ll sign over the publishing rights for my entire back catalog to you.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. “You would do that?”

Jake nodded, watching Raven’s reaction. She wasn’t entirely sure what he even meant. But she knew it must be a big deal if it made Sander go quiet.

Jake continued. “I’m about to cut a deal with Mack Zee on my next album.”

Sander’s voice was cold and firm. “We have an option on your next album, Jake. It’s in the contract. Or are you planning to honor nothing in your contract with us? Was that piece of paper you signed entirely meaningless?”

Jake dropped his feet to the floor and stood up. “I just told you I’d sign over my publishing. That means you’ll make all the money on my back catalog, you’ll own those songs. Those songs that I wrote, I put my energy and time into, my blood sweat and tears. And I’m giving them to you in exchange for me getting my life and career back.”

“I’m not sure, Jake,” Sander said slowly. “The word on the street is that this next album of yours could be the biggest yet. And we have an option, do we not?”

“I don’t want to work with a label that would try and cut my throat in the press because I ticked them off. Things have gone bad between us, Sander. A lot of that’s my fault, but it doesn’t matter. I want to move on.”