Page 23 of Still Her

Jack

The next morning,I’m awakened by the sound of a cell phone buzzing on the side table, alternating with a soft purring sound on my other side. When Mayzie is exceptionally tired and sleeping hard, she tends to emit an adorably gentle snore. The fact that she’s doing that now is a good sign; it means she’s sleeping really well. Not wanting to disrupt that, I turn over and reach for the cell. We have matching phones, but being that its Annie’s name flashing across the screen I know it’s Mayzie’s. I’m not awake enough to realize that I could just send it to voicemail, and instead pick up.

“Hey Annie,” I mumble into the phone.

“Jack. Shit. I woke you. I’m sorry,” I pick up just a hint of urgency in her voice. Then again, if there’s a change in the weather, these two trip over themselves to call one another.

“It’s alright,” I squint my eyes at the digital clock, “the alarm’s going to go off soon anyway. Everything okay?”

“Uh… yeah. Yeah, I just had to tell Mayzie something,” Her voice starts off hesitant at first and then picks up a more upbeat tone.

“Alright. Well she’s still asleep…” I look over at Mayzie who is flat on her stomach, eyes still closed and her motor still going to confirm I’m right. “And I want to let her be… we… had kind of a night last night.”

“Oh, okay. No problem,” Annie responds, again sounding hesitant, but she’s letting it go. “Can you just have her call me when she wakes up?”

“You bet.”

We say goodbye and end the call. I slide out of bed and head over to my duffel and grab a pair of boxer briefs and running pants. I pick my phone up off the wet bar and text Kelly, asking if she can come to our room and take the dogs out. I find a group text on my phone, asking the whole band to meet in Ron’s suite in less than half an hour. I throw my hoodie on and leash up the dogs, handing them off to Kelly when she gently knocks on our door.

By now, Mayzie has begun to stir, so I head over to the Keurig. Once I’ve made her coffee, I walk over to the bed, set it on the side table and crawl over to her.

“Thank you,” she blinks up at me.

“Hey,” I smile back down at her. “We have to go meet in Ron’s room in a few minutes, baby.”

Her smile falls a little and she nibbles her bottom lip. “Mind going without me?”

I take in a breath and slowly let it out while I ponder this. This largely concerns her, and while I feel like she should be part of the conversation, I can also see how it might stress her out right now. Plus, it might give me a chance to let go and vent in the way I want and need to, in the company of the guys. I’m still fired up beyond belief, but I’ve been restraining myself. I couldn’t go off in front of Mayzie last night when she needed me so badly, and I seriously need to let some of it out. With what she went through with my piece of shit agent last night, I figured she didn’t need me flying off the handle in front of her.

“Okay,” I concede, and her smile lifts again as she reaches up and pulls me down to lay on top of her. I melt into her, remembering she’s still naked under the covers. She presses up into me, making me lose my mind, my control quickly following it. My hoodie zipper is still open and she runs her hands up my chest while she presses a kiss to my neck. “Whoa, baby. What are you doing? We talked about this. No seducing me when I’ve got somewhere to be; you know I can’t control myself,” I groan, not making any move to stop her, in fact, I lean down and start making out with her neck. My cock hardens at the moan she makes in response.

She drops her arms and her hands fall on either side of her head. “Okay, fine. I thought you could just use a release. We both could…” She’s still smiling, and there’s a hint of mischief to it now. I’m glad to see this isn’t bringing her down enough to not carry on like she usually would.

“You’re right about that,” I arch an eyebrow at her and give her a flirty smile before dropping a kiss to her lips and easing up off of her. “And I think we should definitely take each other up on that, so I’m going to go get this over with.” I make my own cup of coffee and cram my feet into my sneakers. I can’t resist leaning down and giving her one more kiss as she props herself up on her elbows, hoping it will keep her in that frame of mind. “Don’t you dare get dressed while I’m gone,” I wink at her.

I’m almost out the door when I remember, “Oh, Annie called you, baby. She wants you to call her back.”

“Okay,” she smiles faintly and reaches for her coffee.

I walk down the empty hallway of doors to the elevator. Once I’m inside, I reach down to adjust my raging hard-on as I ride up one floor to Ron’s suite. When I’m let inside, I see everyone is already here, dressed pretty much the same way I am. Except for Ron, ever the professional, who has clearly already showered, shaved and dressed.

I help myself to more coffee from his Keurig, and sit down on one of the chairs in the sitting area.

“Alright guys,” Ron begins, “we have an issue with Eli we need to address.”

“What issue?” Chris asks from his slouched position in the corner of the couch. He’s in sweats, his hair all rumpled and his eyes are barely open.

I take a sip of my steaming mug of black before answering. “He seems to think that because he’s our agent, he can help himself to my wife.”

Chris’s eyes widen at my statement as Matt’s slowly close with the realization that something else has happened. He’s the only one I confided in when this first became an issue. Josh found out last night, leaving Chris the only one coming out of the dark right now.

“How are you holding up, Jack?” Ron turns his head towards me.

“Feeling like I want to go into full cliché rock star mode and destroy this hotel room,” I retort.

“I get it; I get it, but easy, guy.”

I give a sarcastic shrug. “Either that or I fly out to L.A. and plow my fist through his face. You choose.” I’m getting cynical as I open my steam valve, letting my rage come out in small increments.