She seemed uneasy.
"What is it?" I sighed.
"I get it now," she bitterly replied, climbing out of the bed. "This is just your life, isn"t it?"
"I don"t have any idea what you"re talking about," I replied grumpily.
She was getting upset.
Why?
Haven"t I given her everything she wanted?
"What happens when you get bored of me, Trent?" She demanded to know, placing her bowl of half-finished ice cream on the end table. "What happens then?"
I rolled my eyes.
"I"m not going to get bored with you."
"You can"t know that for sure."
"Drop it," I demanded.
"I can"t drop it. I need to know."
"Fine. You want it this way?" I ascended from the bed, rising up as a naked, angry stack of muscles and mounting irritation. "Kick the hornet"s nest, then. If you"re going to try and rile me up like this, then maybe I will get bored of you. This is where I come to relax between tours, or studio sessions, or practice jams. I"m tired. I don"t exactly need you f.u.c.king this all up for me."
Angel bit back tears and grabbed her clothes, throwing on her shirt and panties before rushing from the room.
"Don"t you run from me," I growled after her, but it was too late.
f.u.c.k. Why?
What was the point of THAT?
Angrily, I threw my bedroom TV remote across the room. It broke apart against the wall, clattering uselessly to the floor as the batteries bounced away.
I glared at the television screen.
Two middle-aged b.i.t.c.hes were fighting, and it kept cutting away to the overacted, stunned faces of a few people nearby probably family members or friends.
There isn"t even anything decent on.
My ears p.r.i.c.ked. I could hear a slight shuffle of her at the bottom of the stairs, and then silence permeated the house.
She"ll be back, I told myself angrily.
An hour pa.s.sed without her return, and I decided to swallow my pride and walk back downstairs. As I descended the landing and flicked on a tableside lamp, I spotted Angel curled up alone on the couch.
The size of my sectional only seemed to make her look even smaller, and for the first time since our argument I felt a pang of remorse.
"What are you doing down here?" I asked her.
"Leave me alone."
I gazed towards the staircase. Up there was nothing but a wasted night without her company.
"Yeah...that"s not going to happen."
Her shoulders bounced slightly, and as I approached her, she turned away.
I realized then that she had been crying.
"What was all of that, upstairs?" I asked her. "Where did any of that come from?"
Angel sniffled, still facing into the couch. She murmured something, but her positioning m.u.f.fled the response.
"You"re going to have to try and run that one past me again," I informed her. "Perhaps this time, you could face me. It would certainly help with the hearing."
Angel reluctantly switched positions, rolling over to face me.
"I said, "You"re going to get rid of me.""
I was almost furious.
Livid, that she would dare question me.
That she"d question my trust, my judgment.
But I could see Angel clearly, in that moment.
She wasn"t an insolent brat, begging for attention or throwing some sort of bulls.h.i.t pity party.
She was scared.
"You don"t understand what this does to someone like me," she clarified, studying my face as I relaxed. "You just swooped into my life and pulled me away from everything I hated. I never thought I"d really get out of there, away from that s.h.i.thole town in the middle of nowhere...but then you came along."
"You"re afraid," I observed gently. "You"re scared that this will end, and you"ll wake up in that little room behind the bar."
"This can"t be real, none of this," she whimpered. "I can"t let myself believe it for a minute. When I do when I give myself into it it"s all going to leave me."
"Angel," I whispered tenderly.
"No," she insisted, sitting up on the couch and rubbing her eyes. "You"ll get bored of me, or you"ll die, or something else will happen, and then I"ll have to go back to that horrible place..."
"Angel," I insisted, sitting down next to her.
She looked at me, her eyes still moist with tears and fears. I brushed a knuckle lightly against her cheek, sliding the wetness away.
"Let me tell you a story," I whispered to her. "This rockstar gig, it"s only been going well for the last couple years. Before that, we were playing bas.e.m.e.nts and bars. Places lot like the one you used to work at... But we kept at it. We worked hard. The four of us would pile up five grand worth of equipment into a five hundred dollar van to drive fifty miles to make fifty bucks.."
Angel watched me carefully as I spoke.
"And when this thing finally took off...it changed us, that"s for sure. My band, they were never as self-ent.i.tled as they are now. That ba.s.sist, he"s the good one...Waylon and Dylan, those two are trouble... But me? I"m still driving around in that van, wondering when the party"s gonna end."
I took a second to stare into her eyes, letting my words sink in.
"Maybe this ends tomorrow. Maybe it lasts forever. Maybe we"ll turn into these rock legends like the kind we played with at RipFest. Or maybe not. Who knows? But I know that fear. I know what it"s like to never know what the next day is going to bring. It"s going to be work, but you and I...we can make this happen."
She leaned against my shoulder, listening to my words and stifling her tears.
"Angel...you"re staying," I told her firmly. "I will find a way to convince you that you"re here for good...but tonight, you have to trust me. Can you do that?"
She quietly nodded.
"That"s right...just believe in me, in us."
"Why, though?" She asked. "Why me?"
"Because I feel something different with you, Angel," I told her. "If that"s not good enough for you...you"re the first girl who"s seen the inside of this place."
She glanced around, clearly taken aback by the remark. "Seriously?"
"Like a heart attack... I"m glad you"re here, Angel."
"Me too," she whispered, her face finally breaking into a smile.
"That"s right. That"s the girl I like so much," I told her, tracing her smile with my knuckle. "Now, why don"t you say we get upstairs and relax for the night?"
I took her by the hand, and we slipped back upstairs to my bedroom. When we crawled back into bed, maybe for the first time, we didn"t f.u.c.k like rabbits.
We lay there, holding each other, until sleep finally claimed us together.
It just felt right.
22.
Angel I woke up the following morning in Trent"s arms. For a moment, I didn"t recognize where I was, but it all started to finally come back to me. He was happily snoring away, and I smiled and just watching him from a few inches away.
He finally opened his eyes a few minutes later, returning my smile with his own confident, c.o.c.ky grin.
"You hungry?" He asked.
"Little bit."
Trent nuzzled me closer, stretching his arms out with a yawn and letting them pull me tighter against his body. He rested on his back, and I slid into position against his chest.
I could feel his morning wood against me, and I wondered how his c.o.c.k could stay this hard and rigid all the freaking time.
"We don"t really have much," he mentioned, staring up at the ceiling. "We need to take one h.e.l.l of a shopping trip."
I nodded.
He lifted my chin and tried to kiss me, but I pressed a finger against his lips.
"Mm-mm," I shook my head.
"What? What"s the matter?"
I turned away. "I"m a dragon in the mornings."
It took Trent a second, but he realized what I was saying. With a mischievous growl, he pulled my face close anyway, tugging me into a loving kiss.
"Eh, f.u.c.k dragon breath," he laughed.
My hand brushed his weapon, and his chuckles faded away to hungry, monstrous need.
"Nuh-uh," I coyly commanded, watching him carefully with raised eyebrows and a slightly open grin. "You"re going to be good if you want this taken care of..."
I began to stroke him slowly.
He started to move forward, but I stopped.
"No...you want this, you"re listening to me..."
He growled hungrily, his eyes red-hot with pulsating need that stretched all the way down to the hammering, throbbing vein of his c.o.c.k.
"That"s right," I murmured, stroking him harder now. "You just lay back and let me take care of you..."
I lowered my lips to his weapon...
An hour later, we were freshly showered together, of course and in his Dodge Viper convertible. As he zipped in and out of traffic with the top down, we sailed along towards downtown.
After phoning in an order directly to the manager, we stopped in for breakfast at a small French cafe. Trent pulled a baseball cap and a pair of sungla.s.ses on, and we took our seat outside in the patio area.
A waitress brought us our food, smiling knowingly.
"Is that really necessary?" I asked him.
He flashed a small, c.o.c.ky grin.
"Act like you know me," he chuckled. "The paparazzi just love a random sighting on the streets, either from a cell phone pic or their own cameras. And I have a reputation for being...somewhat private."