Cake: A Love Story (26 page)

Chapter Twenty

Casey

I woke up at around 7 in the morning. Jake was still sleeping. I lay there awhile thinking about what had happened last night. His reaction took me by surprise. Whatever had happened to him, Jake was, obviously, not okay talking about it. I looked at my sleeping boyfriend. Although I knew he would not appreciate it, I traced his body with my eyes anyway. His scars entranced me. There were a few which were deep and jagged. The skin around those scars folded into one inverted pocket. These scars were encased in tattoo designs making me wonder if he was trying to minimize their shocking existence. It was obvious something violent and terrible had happened for him to get scars like that. Had he been stabbed? Other scars were long and shallow as if the tip of a knife had been dragged across his skin. Still others were sharp and deep like something had struck him. And then there were other smaller and singular scars, like the faded ones on his cheek, in one eyebrow and along his jawline. Jake’s wrists, ankles, legs, butt were also marked up but those scars were also faded. I wondered if he’d had laser surgery, or even skin graphs to reduce scarring. I knew a little about this stuff because a friend of mine had been in a serious car accident as a child and had undergone a series of treatments to diminish her scars.

My eyes focused on his knee. It was a mess. Deep jagged scars crisscrossed the area. These looked more like surgical scars but I couldn’t be sure. I could see now that his knee was swollen. No wonder he’d yelped in pain when I’d accidently touched it. When I finished categorizing all of Jake’s visible scars, I tried to wrap my brain around what must have happened to him all those years ago to cause such trauma to his body. I also couldn’t help but wonder what that would do to a person’s psyche. How could someone go through something as horrible as what Jake clearly went through and not come out of it without internal scarring. Was Jake hiding that part from me? Was my mom right? Was the trauma of what he suffered going to come back some day to haunt us?

After waiting nearly a half hour for him to wake up, I finally had to get up and use the bathroom. Once I was done, I glanced over and he was still out. I wanted him to sleep so I pulled on a sweatshirt, just in case Lassen was out, and tiptoed into the living room area of the bus. Lassen’s partition was closed. I relaxed. I made some Keurig coffee and picked up the itinerary. It was the size of a book. Curious, I opened it up and read through the list of all the cities we would be visiting, getting more excited by the second. Then I flipped the page and there was an overview of the first city on the list. It told a little about the history of the city, listing notable restaurants and interesting places. I flipped through the book until I came to Birmingham. I read through the summery of the city and was immediately interested in Aston Hall. Jake had told me he didn’t have anything to do until 1:00pm that day so I decided I was going to take him sightseeing.

I went into the bedroom and climbed onto the bed where my snoozing guy lay. Careful to avoid his knee, I kissed him all over like a dog licking his master.

“Wake up. Wake up,” I sang out. “Everybody wake up.”

“Oh God,” Jake groaned. “You have terrible pitch.”

I laughed. “Get up. We are going sightseeing.”

Jake rubbed his eyes. “We are?”

As it turned out, taking Jake on an outing wasn’t as easy as hopping in a car. Advanced preparation was a must. When I told him where I wanted to go, Jake called his tour manager and told him to make it happen. I could only imagine the look of annoyance on Sean’s face when he heard that. I told Jake that it wasn’t a big deal and that we didn’t have to go but he insisted that he, too, wanted to see Aston Hall.

Two hours later, the museum director was leading us on a private tour through Ashton Hall. The Hall was built in the early 1600’s and used to be a private home until it was turned into a public park and museum in the 1800’s. The director carefully avoided the tourists as she guided us through the mansion, even taking us to rooms that were off limit to the public. I wondered if Jake always got this kind of special treatment. Not that I was complaining. I was directly benefitting from his celebrity status. No driving. No waiting. No being herded around like cattle. Hell yeah!

After touring the mansion, Jake and I strolled through the lush gardens alone. It was a cool day so he was wearing a baseball cap and a hoodie pulled up over it. No one gave him a second look. We walked the gravel paths and marveled at all the colors. Together, we tried to determine what flowers we were looking at. Jake was no help at all. I teased him relentlessly and he seemed to love it. He was so relaxed and acted like he had nothing better to do than hang out with me all day even though the reality was, in seven hours he would be performing in front of thousands of screaming fans.

Much to Sean’s relief we made it back on time. Jake had a number of things he needed to do so I retreated back to the bus. Lassen was in the living room when I came in. He immediately got up to leave.

“You don’t have to leave on my account,” I said.

“I always give Jake his privacy when he’s on the bus.”

“Jake’s not here.”

“I was on my way out anyway,” he said then quickly exited.

I had to admit, I was glad he left. I still didn’t know the man and was a bit uncomfortable around him. Jake trusted him but that didn’t mean I automatically did. I had to get used to having another person in the bus with us. I mean geez; Jake and I were having sex only a few feet from where Lassen slept. It was a little weird if you asked me.

After the concert, we hung out in the green room for a while and Jake introduced me to the roadies. Nearly every one of them was long- haired or tattooed or both. Pretty much every other word out of their mouths was the f-word and they knew how to pound down the liquor. They were kind of like a rolling band of rock n’ roll carneys. Most, maybe even all of them, were older than Jake. Some even looked to be in their fifties and sixties. They all had rough exteriors but most of them were really nice guys. And they loved me! Who knew that my particular brand of crude humor would play so well to the roadie crowd?

Jake hung back and let me take the lead. He seemed to be enjoying himself but he definitely didn’t act the same way with these guys as he did with his brothers. I also noticed that the roadies seemed a little reserved with him. Like when one guy made an offensive joke toward me, he stopped himself mid-laugh and looked over nervously at Jake. I wasn’t sure what their relationship was like with him but it was clear that Jake was in charge and they looked to him for direction. When Jake laughed at the joke, everyone else seemed to almost exhale in relief.

I also was introduced to the band members and the two backup singers, Carmen and Sasha. They were older, in their thirties or forties maybe. They seemed very interested in me, asking all kinds of questions about my life. I got the impression that they were sizing me up, determining if I was worthy of dating Jake. I wasn’t sure if I’d passed their test but after a while they stopped grilling me. Carmen and Sasha weren’t the only women I met. A couple of the band members had girlfriends travelling with them and one of the guitarists had his wife and kids with him, although I didn’t get to meet her because she was putting the kids to bed. I tried to befriend the two girlfriends but they weren’t very friendly. They kept giving me these looks. Then, at one point, I heard one of them whisper, “She’s not even that pretty.”

That would become a recurring comment that I would learn to accept from Jake’s fans. They were extremely critical of the way I looked. It was like, the minute they saw my hand in Jake’s, it was war. The sideway glances, the nasty comments and even the physical jostling really hurt my feelings those first few weeks. But Jake was always there, protecting and defending me. More importantly he was there to steadfastly justify my significance in his life to any detractors. He tried to ease the sting by telling me that the fans were jealous of me because I was beautiful. But I knew the truth. They were jealous of me because I had him. Over time, I cared less and less what they thought of me. After all, I was the one who got to roll around on the bed with their fantasy every night.

That first night in Birmingham had been a blast. We spent so long in the green room talking and telling dirty jokes that the arena staff finally had to ask us to clear out so the janitors could clean up.

After Birmingham, Jake’s travelling crew of nearly 60 people boarded one of 8 busses and 12 semi-trailers and continued on through the UK. The trucks and busses would roll into town and it would take about 6 hours to assemble the stage and props. Local crew was on hand to help with the set up. Everything ran like clockwork. I had never considered what it took to put on a tour the size of Jake’s. It really was a massive production. I was amazed at the sheer numbers of staff that were needed. There were stagehands and sound engineers and lighting guys. There were security personnel and truck drivers and musicians. And Jake, at 23-years-old, was their boss. Although he had Sean to run the day-to-day logistics, Jake still had a hand in almost everything. I watched him handle stressful situations with a maturity that belied his years.

While we were in the UK, Jake played concerts in Manchester, Sheffield then on to Glasgow and Dublin. In every city, Jake and I would go sightseeing. Although at times, sneaking him out unseen was challenging, we both came to love our little outings. Some days Jake would not be recognized at all and other days he would get mobbed. After one particularly gnarly fan encounter in Ireland, Sean insisted we have security with us. Jake reluctantly agreed. I felt safer knowing that there were people there to back us up if we got into an unmanageable situation. As strong and fearless as Jake was, even he could not handle an unruly mob on his own.

That first month I was with Jake was a whirlwind of activity. After the UK stops, we drove through the Channel Tunnel into Europe. Jake performed three to five concerts a week and was in a new city or country every three days on average. I saw and experienced things I’d only read about or had seen on TV. Ancient cities, soaring cathedrals, million dollar yachts and movie stars. It was really a dream come true and to witness these things with Jake by my side made me feel so fortunate to be living this incredible life. And Jake, for all his world travels, had really never ventured out to see the cities he was touring in. With me by his side, he seemed eager to experience everything these spectacular cities had to offer. There were times that we would sightsee all day and then Jake would have a concert that night. We would come back to our hotel or into the bus after the shows and be exhausted but exhilarated. Inspired by our experiences, Jake would stay up late into the night writing. Our special moments were becoming songs. I loved watching him work. He was such a creative person. The way he blended words together and crafted the sounds mesmerized me. He was truly an artist.

Although things could not have been going better in our relationship there was always that nagging worry that he was holding back on me. I had to wonder if it was my own imagination talking. If his horrible past hadn’t been written all over his skin, would I still think he was being guarded? Probably not.

The truth was Jake had been more open and affectionate with me than any other guy I’d ever met. Did it really matter, than, that he never spoke of the unimaginable trauma that shaped his young life? Was he not entitled to that one privacy? I sighed. At this point, it didn’t matter what he was hiding from me, because I was completely and hopelessly in love with him. Every time he walked in a room, my heart swelled with love. He took my breath away every single day. And, in the bedroom, I’d become a person I didn’t recognize. I should have been embarrassed by my lack of inhibition but Jake never made me feel self-conscious. The way he looked at me, the way he treated me, always made me feel so desired.

As far as I could tell, Jake was falling for me too but he hadn’t expressed it in words. And there was no way I was going to tell him how I felt until I knew for sure where his head was. Again, that uncertainty crept into my mind. I wished I could just sit him down and ask him all the burning questions I had. But Jake had a way of avoiding questions he didn’t like. Case in point…his knee. It was clearly getting worse with each performance. The swelling was very visible now and Jake winced in pain when he didn’t think I was looking. I asked him several times what was wrong with his knee but Jake always found a way to distract me…namely by being so damn sexy and flirty that I would forget my head if it wasn’t attached.

One night while we were travelling on the bus, I was lying with my head in his lap when I asked, “So how exactly did you become a rockstar?”

“I have no idea,” Jake laughed.

“I mean, like, how did you get into the music business?”

“Oh…when I was sixteen I entered a talent competition. I was spotted by a music scout and offered a record contract.”

“Well that was easy.”

Jake flashed me a sly grin.

“What?” I smiled back.

“It would have been easy if I hadn’t lied about my age and who I was.”

I looked up at him in surprise then sat up, grinning. “Okay…you have my undivided attention now. I want to hear this story.”

“Your head was in my lap. I’m pretty sure I already had your full attention,” he said trying to distract me with his sexiness. Nope. Not this time buddy!

“Just tell me, Jake,” I demanded, but with a smile on my face.