“You guys ready?” Jay asked from my left side.
Katie squirmed in her black dress like I squirmed in my red dress. Rome pulled me closer to him in the limo, as if we could shield each other from the screaming outside. The only person who looked prepared was Vick. She looked angelic in a form fitting crystal-blue dress that swung fluidly around her pumps.
“How long do we have to stay?” Katie blurted.
Jay chuckled. “You three look like deer in headlights.”
I stomped my red pump. “Shut up, Jay. We’re only going because you’re making us.”
Vick jumped in. “Speak for yourself. I intend to take a selfie with every actor I meet tonight.”
I snorted. “I intend to hide in a corner.”
“It’ll be fun, Sass Pot.” Jay poked me in the ribs.
I dropped my head onto Rome’s shoulder. “These are your people. Not ours. We don’t belong.”
Jay’s shoulders bunched a little. “You belong anywhere I am, Brey. Always.”
Which was why I had succumbed to wearing the form fitting, sequined, designer dress Jay had bought for me. Instead of blending in like I wanted, he pushed me to stand out.
It was why I let Vick, yet again, do my hair and makeup. This was his night, and I couldn’t say no to anything.
I had hated cameras ever since the day I’d walked out of the Stonewood house and had been blinded by them. I didn’t want to be the center of attention. So, this part of Jay’s life, I avoided.
I avoided people who ran up to him for his autograph and asked me if I was his girlfriend.
I avoided tabloids speculating about us.
I avoided a lot.
I heard the screaming outside of our limo. My gut clenched. When I looked at Jay, he seemed on top of the world though.
Yes, I hated this part, but I loved the guy on my left with every bone in my camera-shy body.
I turned to him and smiled, trying my damnedest not to tear up. “You did it, Jay.”
He took both my hands in his and touched his forehead to mine. “You helped.”
Although I hadn’t helped much, he made me feel like I had. I remembered the lines I would read back to him and the times I told him he was unstoppable when he doubted himself.
Which reminded me to give him my only advice. “This movie is a romance, which means you’re romancing every woman in America. Be charming, be committed. Charming is easy for you.”
“Who am I committing myself to?”
I pulled back and looked at Katie, who had a hell-to-the-no look on her face, and Vick, who smiled radiantly. “Your PR team needs to do a better job with these sorts of things,” I mumbled.
He and Rome laughed.
I threw my hands up. “Well, it’s true!”
Jay sobered enough to say, “My PR doesn’t get to tell me who to date. I told them I would have three women in the limo with me, including you. That was enough for them.”
I waved that idea away. “I’m not feeding into the tabloids. Vick, you walk with him.”
“Well, duh. You and Katie are going to try to Runaway Bride this as soon as you can. Rome, be honest, are you the getaway transportation?”
Rome just shrugged, staying quiet but smirking the whole time.
The limo inched forward more and then stopped. Someone tapped on the top of it as if to signal we were next. Jay eyes twinkled at all of us. “Third premiere, and I get to share it with all of you. Vick, you ready to be on my arm?”
“I was made for it,” she responded like a true entertainer.
Then he looked at us, a twinkle in his eyes. “You guys got this?”
Did I have it? Could I face a mob of cameras like I had at his last premiere? I loathed the feeling of stepping back into the brightness after it felt like I was hiding. I hated that every camera strobe seemed to glimpse into the deepest, darkest parts of me. Did they remember who I was? Did they want my story?
Did it matter? The answer was always no.
Jay was my rock and my very best friend. My family.
I loved Katie, Vick, and Rome. They were my family too, but Jay was always number one. I’d do anything for him, even if I didn’t want to.
“Let’s do this with a smile on our faces, all right?” I said, slapping him on the shoulder.
The dimples finally showed on his face, a signal that he’d relaxed and the last of his hesitation fled. His strong jawline and baby-blue eyes paired with dark hair spiked in a crew cut had even me sighing. If there was an eligible bachelor look, he wore it without any flaws.
Beautiful wasn’t a word to describe him or any of the other Stonewood brothers. Not even Jay’s father could take on that word. These men were hard, fierce, and downright sexy. Every woman vied for their attention. I knew because I’d read, and got to see firsthand, story after story of Jay’s reckless behavior with them.
I smoothed the tight red dress down. Versace did form fitting and sparkle like nothing else I’d ever seen. Vick had taken my measurements, Jay opened his wallet, and I ended up in this thing. It didn’t fit like his eligible bachelor look fit him. I didn’t reek of perfection or class like him either, but it would do.
The limo door swung open. The cameras blinded everyone.
I knew I’d lock up if we didn’t keep moving.
My heart jumped with each flash. My limbs started to freeze.
But my mind worked overtime.
Would they bring up my past? Would they want to know details? Would they remember?
As my heart jumped with each flash, I searched deep, deep down for my little old friend, Control.
Katie shoved Vick out first. Like a true diva, she lapped up the attention.
The flashes went wild as Jay smiled down at her and she swooned like the actress she was made to play.
Katie mumbled, “What attention whores.”
Rome whispered to me, “It’s now or never.”
Rome slid out of the limo and reached in for me.
I rolled my lips between my teeth, took a deep breath, and stepped out.
No flashes went off.
No one screamed at me.
Katie slid out after me and said, “We look like the reject groupie friends of Jay.”
“Fine by me,” I whispered as we started to sneak past Jay who smiled so genuinely at the cameras, they practically kissed him when they went off.
When I passed behind him though, his arm shot out. He whispered something in Vick’s ear. Then somehow, I was standing in her place. Jay pinned me to his waist and leaned down to whisper into my hair, “Smile, Sass Pot.”
I glared at him and saw the determination in his eyes.
He had been made for the limelight and I hadn’t. My phobia of it frustrated him. I knew that but I couldn’t control it.
I wanted to scream at him for making me confront it so publicly.
Paparazzi screamed at me, ‘Is he finally committed to just you, Aubrey?”
I held back a snide remark and felt a shake starting to run through my whole body. A few magazines had printed pictures of Jay and me over the years as if our friendship was more. Then, the magazines had gone on to print pictures of Rome splashed with headlines like “Stonewood left for a bartender.” The story was wrong, of course. Rome did bartend at the bars he owned.
“Remind us, how long have you known each other?”
Since two blue-eyed, dark-haired devils tackled me for my candy right after they’d moved in years ago. Of course, Mrs. Stonewood made them apologize, and we became fast friends. Best friends. Inseparable, really.
Now, if I gave them an answer like that, I’d not only sound extremely committed to him, I’d crush every girl’s hopeful dream of ever meaning more to him than I did. So, I held back my answer again.
‘How long have you been exclusive? Pictures of you both are everywhere.”
I cringed a little. I avoided being out in public as much as I could for that very reason. The cameras, the speculation, the ongoing story were all too much for me. I wanted my best friend without all the crap that came with him. I didn’t need to read the magazines saying that I was an idiot because Jay was running around on me. Or they would say I was a genius because I had somehow kept him around.
What they didn’t seem to ever want to print was that we were just friends. The Stonewood men, in general, didn’t really settle for any one woman. Jett and Senior Stonewood were married to their work. Jax and Jay were married to their noncommittal lifestyle.
The three Stonewood brothers were born into a life of luxury and easy access to women. Their father owned Stonewood Enterprises, one of the largest investment firms in Chicago, and their mother was a soft-hearted beauty from a little town in Wisconsin who fell for the business shark.
They were raised mostly in Chicago, but when business trumped fatherhood for Senior Stonewood, that soft-hearted beauty turned hard and took her children back to Wisconsin to learn a more modest lifestyle. Their separation was amicable, the press wrote.
I knew better. When a man who has conquered the business world begs for a woman to come back, and every paparazzi that asks him about his divorce gets cut off by him correcting them with the word separation, there’s more to the story. Every time they saw each other, there was love that couldn’t be broken in their eyes.
The girls at our school had love in their eyes for the Stonewood boys too. I didn’t think that love could be broken either until one threw her text book at Jax after catching him in the hall with another girl. He apologized, of course, and somehow that love in her eyes came right back. I witnessed the cycle over and over again. I swore to myself that I would never be that pathetic.
At least not ever again.
‘Jaydon, are you and Aubrey finally official? We want all the details.’
It jolted me into a sort of panic that they already knew my name. How did they always know?
Jay leaned in as we continued to walk. ‘So, I guess we’re back to being a couple?”
I just smiled because I’d started to feel like the crowd was closing in on me. Damn them for getting so close and crowding us like we didn’t need oxygen too.
“Relax, Brey. I got you, they are not going to swallow you up. Plus, you need a chauffeur in those six-inch heels. I’ve seen you fall over before,’ he smirked as he whispered.
I actually stopped to let out a hard laugh. What a reminder that I didn’t belong in this dress, at this event, in these heels, that I couldn’t handle the spotlight and luxury like him. ‘Well, thank you, Jay, but I think I can handle walking on my own,” I sneered as I let go of his arm with the intention to walk ahead of him.
Screw him if he thought I couldn’t do this. I’d told him I could, I’d made the decision, and I would own it. Damn him if he thought these heels weren’t worth the fall. Christian Louboutin bled class out of you. My feet were probably literally bleeding too, but I needed all the help I could get.
I heard his chuckle behind me. I turned to tell him off, but his blue eyes twinkled with mischief and pride. “Look at you, doing everything on your own.”
A rush to be bolder and ruder whipped through me. I wanted to knee him in the balls but knew we were on display. Instead, I resigned to mumbling for us to get this over with. Answers to the paparazzi questions were inevitable.
‘Jay, give us something. How long is it that you’ve known each other again?’
‘Longer than I’ve known any of you,’ he said, looking at me with all the love he could muster. I smiled back like I was in love.
‘Is marriage in the cards?’ Another screamed and thrust the mic at me.
‘Oh, Jay and I wouldn’t bind each other to an agreement like that,’ I said, insinuating what all the ladies wanted an answer to.
‘What do you mean? Are you still not exclusive? Are you both still on the market?’
‘All I can say is Jay loves women way too much to be tied to just one …’ I looked his way as if a little disappointed. I knew better than to promote the movie. I knew to promote the man because that’s what ladies really wanted.
He smiled and finished what I’d started. ‘But if I were to be tied to one, isn’t she just perfect?’ The one-liner would charm every woman in America. I could have high fived him right there.
With that, the paparazzi erupted again and the fans did too. We posed for a few more pictures and finally entered the building that promoted Nights Without You. The blockbuster would put him on most eligible bachelor list in People magazine and land him three more romantic movie lead deals.
He pulled me with him toward his costar in the film, “You have to meet Mila. You’ll love her.”
“I don’t really want to meet anyone, Jay,” I grumbled under my breath.
“And yet, you’ll be meeting everyone I work with tonight.” His smile as he said it was blinding.
As if to emphasize his point, a couple stepped into our path and introduced themselves.
I half-listened but no one noticed. Part of growing up as the daughter of Whitfield Candy’s owner meant I needed to know how to keep up appearances and attend events. Manners and small talk were taught at a young age. I’d been quick enough to learn the unspoken lessons too. How to look like you were listening, how to do a quick brush off politely, how to offend without outwardly offending.
I practiced all the lessons as I searched for the only people I wanted to talk to—Katie, Vick, and Rome. They’d been swallowed up by white pillars dancing in different colored lighting, tables set up everywhere with beautiful flower arrangements, and celebrities who mingled among them all.
That’s when I saw Jax sauntering toward us. My insides twisted up like they needed him to unwind them. His eyes twinkled in the dim lighting and mesmerized me. When he glanced at Jay, I saw a smile I remembered from a long time ago, a smile from the boy I once knew, the one who saved me, the one who sat with me at a lake and sang sweet songs to me. I remembered a boy who loved me and promised to never leave me.
He didn’t love me though. He left.
I considered running to the bathroom but after already making eye contact, I would look like I was avoiding him.
When he reached my side, he leaned toward my ear and whispered, “You having a nice night?”
I leaned away immediately and answered him with a canned response. “Of course. It’s a great night.”
He smiled down at me and his voice rumbled out for only me to hear, “You’re lying.”
I hated and loved the way he sounded. That rasp and I had had an ambivalent relationship from the day I realized Jax and I could be more than just friends.
He’d whispered something to a girl in high school and she’d shiver just like I did when I heard it. I’d spun into a jealous silent rage then, realizing every girl in our school was affected in the same way I was. We all wanted him, and he’d shared a piece of himself with everyone but me.
That was until our last summer. Those three glorious months after his senior year, he’d spent only with me. I didn’t get just a piece of him, I thought I’d gotten all of him. We jogged down to our lake, away from the world, away from inquiring eyes. He brought his guitar and played just for me. I lost myself in that rasp, in his songs, and in my love for him.
I lost myself altogether when he left.
He looked over at a table and then at Jay who was still talking with the couple. “Mind if I steal your date for a minute?”
Jay couldn’t say no. It would have been completely rude. So, before he could even worry about it, I grabbed Jax’s arm and he led me to a table.
“Sit with me for a while?” he asked.
“You know, I am actually getting ready to leave …”
He pulled the chair out for me and I sat down, not wanting to cause a scene.
He sat next to me and asked, “How have you been?”
The question startled me. How could he, after all this time, be that casual?
“Seriously? Do you honestly care about anyone but yourself?”
He flinched at my words. Well, I suppose that came out ruder than I anticipated.
“You’re holding onto something from years ago, Sweet Sin. It’s no way to live.”
“Don’t call me that,” I whispered as the pain deep in my chest started again.
“All right, sorry, Peaches.” He tilted his head to the side and smirked.
Another nickname that shot more pain—reminding me of heartbreak—through my chest.
“I go by Brey. That’s it.”
“No.” He said it firm, low, in command. When he leaned forward just a breath closer to me, I could see his eyes had darkened. “You go by Whitfield, Peaches, or Sweet Sin to me. It will never be anything else.”
I’m sure Jax had become accustomed to women, and men for that matter, listening to him, shaken by his demeanor and the power he seemed to hold with just a look. Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t one of those people.
“No, Jax.” I stood and smoothed the red sequins of my dress. “That’s who I was to a sweet boy in high school. He called me those names all the time. But he’s gone. I don’t have any idea where that boy went.”
I felt his eyes brush over me, taking me in. My body reacted in a way I should have been ashamed of. I felt hot, and I knew my eyes showed my reaction to his perusal because he was smiling as he licked his lips like I was his next meal. “Fine. I’ll play. Let’s talk about where that boy went.”
I shook my head, trying to clear out the damn hormones affecting my senses. Half the reason I reacted to him was because I needed to find someone else to hook up with. I also needed to find Rome and smack him for leaving me feeling this needy before I saw my first love who now just happened to be one of People magazine’s “Hottest Bachelors.”
An announcement sounded. “With one Stonewood, you normally find another, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight, Jax is here supporting his brother, Jay. Ladies, you’ve got to be excited about that one.” The spotlight turned directly toward Jax, and I took that as my moment to escape. I moved quickly to find a bathroom where I could pull myself together.
I would have to thank God for making the bathroom a single-person room with a lock on the door.
Silence.
Brilliant, beautiful silence.
I looked in the mirror and tried to muster up some confidence.
“You can handle this. The most uncomfortable situations are what make you stronger.”
It was a mantra. Something that got me through the good and bad days. Tonight was definitely turning into a bad night.
I looked like hell too. The mirror reflected a girl with hair that had frizzed. My long, dark curls had lost their luster in the summer heat. My smoky eyeliner somehow made my green eyes seem bigger than they already were.
“Hey, is anyone in there?” A loud knock sounded at the door.
“One minute!” I yelled.
They mumbled something but I heard footsteps walking away.
I shrugged my shoulders and smoothed my dress again. My main concern wasn’t someone else’s bladder issue. There were probably twenty other bathrooms in this humongous place.
As I tried to smooth more flyaways, I whispered one last time, “You can handle this.”
I wasn’t going to fix much more of my appearance at this point. So with a final sigh, I went to unlock the door. I turned the knob, but it didn’t give. I turned it again a little harder and yanked. Didn’t budge an inch.
“Come on,” I muttered, feeling my control slipping away and the fear seeping in. I jiggled it a few more times as my palms started to sweat.
“Okay. No big deal, just call Jay,” I told myself as I pulled my phone out to dial his number.
No signal?
No signal!
I tried the door again. I wanted it to magically open. I needed some higher power to give me a break. It didn’t work.
Panic and more fear lurked.
“Someone will need the bathroom. Ms. Whatever will be back any minute. Control yourself.” It was a command. I wanted to follow my own orders, but knew my panic and fear always stole that control from me.
“Shit!” I slammed my hand on the door. As I did, loud music started on the other side of the door.
That meant people were going to watch the music. They would wait to go to the bathroom. I would be stuck.
“No, no, no,” I whispered as I turned my back to the door and slid down to sit.
I couldn’t be stuck. It was too small.
“Much too small.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to focus on the words, on anything else.
My lovely friend, Control, smiled at me and waved goodbye. He was skipping happily away, and I felt my breath hitch.
“I’m locked in.”
I tried the handle again.
“Keep calm, Aubrey.”
This time it was burning hot.
“Stuck. I’m stuck.”
I jerked back and stumbled over my heels.
The heat. It meant there was fire. Fire everywhere. I was going to burn. Die of smoke inhalation. There was no oxygen.
Low. I had to get low to the ground. I dropped to the floor quickly and crawled away from the door to the opposite corner.
“Please, please someone come for me.”
I heard her voice in the back of my head saying that he would come.
Don’t worry, he’ll come.
There wasn’t enough air to wait. I was suffocating.
Smoke swirled all around. Swirled into my lungs, started to drown me just like water would. I laid down and army-crawled toward the door. I needed help. She needed help. If I didn’t try to get out, we’d die in here. We’d burn.
I curled up at the door and tried to yell. With no air, only a whisper came. “Please, please help,” I tried to call out as I banged on the door.
The crackle of fire from outside took over. It roared to life like a lion moving in to kill. She whispered from the other side of the room, “He’ll come for us, I swear.”
I whimpered.
Would he save us if he was the one who’d wanted us to burn?
The question forced Control, my sweet friend, out.
Memory, my sworn enemy, stepped in.
“Sit up straight when you eat at my damn table.” My father spit the words at me after he’d caught me slouching.
Women in his household were to have manners. I knew this but hated it all the same. Every time I went over to the Stonewoods, the boys didn’t have to sit up straight. They didn’t have to keep their elbows off the table or only speak when spoken to. Mrs. Stonewood, or Nancy as she insisted I call her, just told me to relax and have some fun.
Fun in the Whitfield household was unknown.
Mother sat silent. She didn’t glance up when my father patronized me. She’d mastered the art of invisibility.
That night, I tried to mirror her, not wanting to aggravate my father’s anger. My mother blamed his outbursts on his hard upbringing. She still loved him, said he’d been a sweet man once, that things could always be worse.
I never knew the sweet man. So there was never any love between the two of us.
As for my mother, I saw her sweetness every day. She protected me from him as best she could. She played middle man to the constant hate my father and I had for each other. Somehow, even through his abuse, she remained stoically loyal to him and to me. Maybe he really did love her and that’s why he never went after me, knowing that I was my mother’s only weakness in her love for him.
“Aubrey, how was school?” he asked, back to trying to have the white picket fence and perfect family that he forced upon us.
“Most students were excited it was Friday, Father. Everyone was happy and …”
“Everyone was acting like animals,” he growled.
I started to protest. My mother cut me off. “Your studies are going well still, Brey?”
“Her name is Aubrey. There is a reason we named her that.”
My mother’s head dropped again. Her long dark hair curtained around her face, hiding her disapproval. Mother always called me Brey when he wasn’t around. Just like I called her Mom when he wasn’t around. “Just a little secret,” she would say with a smile.
So, silence took over our meal, enveloping me in the security that without sound or improper movement, my father couldn’t find fault in our actions.
Both my mother and I mirrored each other perfectly. She held her fork in her right hand just an inch into the chicken as she cut into the meat with the knife in her left hand. The knife was never to touch the plate and it didn’t after I accidentally did so one night. My mother had stood up for me, saying I was too young to never have an accident. My father turned his anger on her, as he always did. Now, I copied my mother’s motions, making sure each slice of chicken was never too large for a woman to properly bite into.
The phone ringing jerked me from my daydream.
“Excuse me,” my father said as if we would have objected to him getting up in the first place.
He answered the phone as both my mother and I looked on. The calls to the house were either the Stonewoods or my father’s job. My mother didn’t have any friends or family left.
“She is eating dinner,” he said into the phone. “She will call you back tomorrow.”
Silence.
“No. She cannot go out tonight or any night for that matter.”
Fear seeped through me. I’d forgotten to tell Jay and Jax not to tell my dad about going out last weekend. My dad had been away and my mother had finally given me permission to go to a party and then sleep at their house.
I didn’t drive. I didn’t have a cell phone. I didn’t do anything other than go over to the Stonewoods every now and then for an hour or two. When I begged my mother, she finally agreed with a warning that my father could never find out.
“What do you mean she did last weekend?”
My mother’s eyes snapped up to meet mine. We mirrored each other again. Both of us stared in fear at the other. We sat as still and as straight as possible.
“Well, not tonight,” he said, turning slowly to look at my mother. I hated that my eyes were the same color as his. The way his lit up with rage made me wish at night that God would just wipe away every genetic trace of him in me.
“I will have her call you tomorrow.” I flinched as he slammed the receiver down on the cradle.
He stared at my mom, waiting.
I watched the clock in the kitchen like seeing the time pass by would help, maybe diffuse the situation.
Tick, tock.
She didn’t speak at first.
Tick, tock.
I thought of what I could say.
Tick, tock.
My mom trusted me.
Tick, tock.
He stood with his arms crossed and almost stared through her. He must have been thinking of ways to punish us in those moments.
Tick, tock.
“Frank, please don’t overreact.” Her voice shook.
He stood there, making her wait for the inevitable punishment. She reminded me of a woman on trial with the Salem witches. She sat up straight, as if with honor, knowing she did nothing wrong, but ready to accept her sentence anyway. In that moment, her strength and beauty overwhelmed me, made me realize how she stood up for me and how I never stood up for her.
“I snuck out,” I blurted out.
My father cocked his head as if his attention had wavered just a little from my mother.
So, I hurried on. “Mother told me I couldn’t go when I asked, and so I just climbed out of my bedroom window.”
My mother started to shake her head, trying to urge me to stop. My father turned on his heels to fully face me.
His emerald-green anger met my emerald-green hate and fear. I didn’t avert my eyes this time, didn’t try to comfort him by showing my weakness.
I’d had enough and felt just as much rage within me as he showed toward us. “You can’t keep me locked in here forever. You think you own me?” My voice rose and I stood up.
I didn’t wait for the clock to tick again.
“I won’t be here much longer, and I can’t wait to leave. I can’t wait to be everything you don’t want me to be. I’ll party and have fun and eat on the couch and study in bed rather than at a desk. I will …”
My mother gasped as he lunged for me. I jumped back but not in time. His fist landed right on my mouth, and I immediately tasted metal.
Blood. Crimson. Red. Blood.
My mother moved to soothe me, but I lifted my hand to stop her and looked at my father again. His face was red with fury which only served to fuel mine. I licked away the droplet of blood running down the corner of my mouth.
My father had hit me hard enough that he was bleeding himself.
I egged him on. “You want to make me bleed, Dad? You think that’s going to stop me from leaving when I graduate?”
“Aubrey? Are you in there?”
I wanted to answer the voice on the other side but I couldn’t. I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak.
I could hear the handle of the door rattling just before it flew open and I saw him.
Oh, Jax.
