Sidewalk Flower (36 page)

“Pick up, you little fuck.”
 
Okay, maybe Lucky didn’t deserve that.
 
The chair either.
 
No, Lucky absolutely did.
 
Trissy was barely holding it together.
 
The least his cousin should have done was
have a discussion before leaving town without a word.

Finally, after two more calls, Lucky
answered the phone.
 

“Hello,” he said lazy and slurred.
  

“Lucky?
 
It’s Jaxon.
 
We need to talk.”

Lucky groaned.
 
“No, we don’t.”

“Grow up, Lucas.
 
Be a man.”

“What the hell is that, Jaxon? You call
doing what you did being a man?”

“No, I don’t.
 
But at least I didn’t run away from her like
a fucking poof.”
 
Jaxon made a fist and
then pretended that his fingers had just exploded open.

“You know what?
 
Unless you have some point to make, I’m
hanging up.”

“Shit, Lucky.
 
Can’t you see what’s going on here?”

“Yeah, clearly.
 
I saw the two of you kissing that night.
 
And now you call me to tell me that I’m the
asshole.
 
At least Trista apologized.”

Trissy did
what?
 
“What?
 
What do you mean?”

Lucky was silent on the other end.
 

Whenever he had nothing to say, it was
usually because he had no good defense.
 
Lucky probably didn’t either.

“She left me some messages.
 
Said she was sorry.”

He nearly let go of a few more colorful
expletives his cousin deserved to hear but knew that would end the call.
 

“Have you spoken to her, Lucky?”

“Not exactly.”
 
His kid cousin’s response was awfully quiet.

“Lucky, she didn’t kiss me.
 
I kissed her.”

“Yeah, at least three times.
 
Anything past that and you’d have to rub it
in my face on your own.”

“Don’t you see what that means?
 
I tried kissing her, as you’ve attested to,
several times.
 
She didn’t feel anything
for me, Lucky.
 
That’s what I’m trying to
tell you.”

“Jaxon, you are a fucking selfish
asshole.”

“I know.
 
But Trissy isn’t.
 
And she doesn’t
deserve this from you.
 
And I think you
know that.”

“Bullshit.
 
She could’ve gotten up and left the
room.
 
She didn’t.”

“She didn’t leave because she was in
shock and still clearly concerned over my health.
 
I’m telling you it was meaningless.
 
I knew that going into it.
 
I just had to prove it to her.
 
Trissy felt like she owed me for things that
happened a long time ago.
 
I thought she
was confused over some hidden feelings for me.”

“I thought you said you knew she’d refuse
you.”

“Well yeah, I knew it but I didn’t think
she did.
 
And the truth was that she was
pretty damn clear on the subject without my idiotic stunt.”
 
He remembered the tender way his bestie’d
cupped his face yet looked at him like he was crazy.

“Why didn’t she say that in her message?”

“She shouldn’t have had to.
 
If you’d have stuck around a few
minnies
longer, you’d have seen and heard for yourself.
 
She was just on her way out to you.
 
I’d never seen her face so hopeful and
happy.
 
And then, never so worried and
lost.
 
Even with all the shit I’ve pulled
over the years and the situations I’ve gotten myself into, she never looked
that scared over me.
 
She truly thought
something had happened to you.”
 
If he
really wanted to make his point, he’d tell Lucky how she’d only slept a handful
of hours the past week and how removed she’d been from all the excitement
surrounding her.
 
But he didn’t want to
paint Trissy so bad off.

“Did she ask you to call me?”

He plunked his forehead down into his
palm.
 
“Give me a fucking break,
Lucky?
 
What do you think?”

“No.”

“Yeah, get a clue.
 
She said she didn’t want to upset you and
your family.”

“That would be your family too,
Jaxon.
 
Or have you forgotten?”

Silence.
 
No excuses, no defense.

This call wasn’t about him.
 
But Lucky had taken his licks and now it was
his turn.
 
If they were having this
conversation, then they were having it like real men.
 

“Uncle Bear doesn’t know about Maryella,
does he?”
 
Lucky asked.

Shame slapped him hard.
 
“No.”

“Well, I showed my dad a couple pictures
of her yesterday and he wants me to talk with your father later this morning.”

Now it was his turn to feel like the
coward.
 
He bit his lower lip to pain.

“Look, Jaxon, I know that’s your
business.
 
But that man loves you all the
same.
 
He’s still your father and he never
disrespected your mother’s name.
 
I know
that much for sure.”

“Yeah well, maybe we both have some
things to get right.
 
I can’t do much
from here, Lucky, and it’s a bad time of year to start trying.”

“Maybe a phone call sometime would be a
good start.”
 
Lucky yawned loudly.

“Yeah, I was gonna say the same to you,
little cuzzy.”

“I hear you, Jaxon.
 
I hear you.”

He pounded his fist lightly on the dark
wood, ritzy desk.
 
“Hey, when you talk to
Bear
, tell him I said hi and tell him I’d like him to
meet his granddaughter someday.
 
It’s
kind of hard right now, you know.”
 

“Yeah, I know.
 
I’ll tell him.”

“So, uh, we’re in New York tonight,
leaving for some other city tomorrow, and then I think D.C. a few days after
that.
 
Well, actually it’s Virginnny but
they like to call it the D.C. area.
 
I
don’t know why the fuck they do that.”

“You got me.”

“Yeah, well I’m glad we had this
talk.
 
Maybe I’ll see you at a show or
something.
 
You know, Trissy handles all
that VIP and backstage shit.
 
She could
probably get you a ticket.
 
If you gave
her a call…”

“All right, man.
 
I’m gonna let you go.
 
It’s
frickin’ two
thirty in the morning here.”

He pulled the phone from his ear and
spoke directly into it like a microphone.
 
“Call her.”
 
He had to be clear.

“Goodnight, Jaxon.”

The long conversation had left him
drained.
 
He rubbed his hands over his
face feeling like he’d done something good for once,
then
jacked his shit.
 
Afterwards, he fell
back onto his bed and begged for sleep.

* * * *

He’d taken a bit of an ass chewing, but
one he’d deserved.
 
Jaxon admitted the
kissing incident had been a good intention gone wrong.
 
Trista had apparently been on her way back to
him when he’d left her.
 
Which made believing she’d give him a second chance pretty
ridiculous at this point.
 
Jaxon
had treated her like crap, but at least he was there, taking his lumps and
sticking it out.
 

He opened the images folder on his phone
and selected the one of Trista holding Maryella on her hip.
 
She had been the little girl’s shield that
day and Jaxon’s saving grace for the past sixteen years.
 
But who had protected her?
 
Her gramma, he supposed.
 
He was thankful for that.
 

But who was there for her now?
 
How had he been any different than the hollow
promise of the church that stood just feet away from her while she’d suffered
the abuse of her own step-father?
 
Lord, I told her I loved her,
then
ran away
.
 
Cheapened their time together by falling down at the precise moment when
he should have stood tall.
 

It wasn’t the time for a phone call.
 
It was time he acted like a man.
 
After breakfast, he would set out to make
things right.
 
He wouldn’t fail her this
time.

Chapter
Twenty-Four

“Remember, this is the place that’s out
there in the woods.
 
It’s like a one-lane
highway and nothing for miles and then bam, right there in the middle of the
forest, there’s the amphitheater.
 
We
played there last time, dude,” said Will, Sin Pointe’s drummer, trying to
refresh Jaxon’s memory as they rode from the hotel to the venue in a black
shiny van.
 

The extra-dark tint on the windows cast a
grey haze over the trees.
 
When they
pulled to the back entrance and climbed the ramp to the trailers, the leaves
turned a crisp green.
 
If only she could
tap into that presto-change-o herself.
 

“Virginny, right?”
 
Jaxon looked around, squinting at the sunny
sky.

Her voice came out dull but it still
seemed to cut right through him.
“Yes, Jaxon.
Virginia.
 
Or D.C.
  
However you want to call it, this is where
we are tonight.”

She’d expect to spend another night in
the hotel’s gym, killing herself to poppy music, before Jaxon led her back to
her room.
 
It had become a habit.
 
Not a good one.
 
She needed him as much as an addict needed
painkillers and a vodka chaser.
 
They
both worked to dull the pain but left a lasting mark the next day.
 
He probably hadn’t meant for her to find
comfort in his swarming darkness that lulled her to sleep each night but so
far, he hadn’t denied her.
 

“Oh crap.
 
Jaxon, did we forget to bring Ben?”
  
She was sure he’d gotten in the van.
 
But he was nowhere to be seen.
 
Seriously, she was now forgetting six-foot-five grown men?
 
If she popped open her skull, would there be
a fortune cookie instead of brain mass?
 
Would it say “Sorry, better luck next life time?”
 
Probably.

Ugh.
 
Shake it off and get your head in the game,
Trista
.

Jaxon had started changing into his stage
clothes, swapping out his casual jeans for leather pants and a tight, black,
three-quarters sleeve shirt.
 
He shrugged
his shoulders and pulled on a large, black, buckled boot, letting his pant leg
set stiffly unbound around it.
 

“I don’t know, Trissy.
 
I’m sure he’s fine.
 
Hey, when is the meet and greet?
 
Do I have time to grab some chow?”
 
He obviously wasn’t that concerned.

She fidgeted with her phone, holding a
makeup bag and set lists in her other hand.
 
“Twenty minutes so you’d better eat fast.
 
Here…”
 
She gave him a stick of gum.
 
“You’re gonna need that.”
 
The
smell of garlic and cheese wafted down the narrow corridor that connected their
dressing room to the catering area.
 
“You
don’t want people all over the message board tomorrow saying how much your
breath stinks.”

“They wouldn’t…”

“You’d be surprised.”

He tucked the stick of gum into his
pocket, kissed her on the cheek, and then disappeared behind an unmarked white
door.