Chapter 69: Smart Girls See A Lie

Trigger Warning: A pregnancy-ending scenario is related in this chapter . It's handled with sensitivity,but  be forewarned if you are sensitive to this particular topic...

Marley

Fog is just a blanket of innocuous molecules, but it never feels that way to me. It feels like a deliberate, malevolent entity descending to thwart. I hate to drive in fog, it sets my teeth on edge to think of an accident, especially with Darius in the car. I hate to walk in fog—it frizzes my hair.

Today, I hate looking out of my balcony window and seeing a ghostly white. It reminds me of the specter that creeps on Bodie, and how my effort to help that situation only made it worse.

Arabella left in a huff last night, and I didn't try to stop her. She was angry that he was so dismissive to her when she really was trying to be on her best behavior and helpful at the same time. Right now, no good can come from them opening up a Cain discussion when they are irritated with each other.

Of course she's still loyal to him—I'm not worried about her causing trouble for him over her missing stepfather. But she needs time to cool off, and maybe...maybe there is something to what Bodie said to me last night. I was trying to manipulate him, like you might manipulate a child for their own good. Maybe it's not my place to intervene in his process over what happened to Cain.

I just love him so much, I can't stand to see him struggling.

Well, Jasmine...if you love him so much, why did you kick him out of his own bed last night?

Dr. Watkins, you should know the answer to that if you are so frickin' smart.

Because you were pissed off and also a little bit drunk and you didn't want to mouth off and create a big fight from one small frustrated exchange.

No. Because the fool needed to be checked. He might be the rock star, but he can't yell at Doc Gorgeous like that. If he had been yelling because his kit got lost in transit, okay. But he can't yell at me about personal stuff in front of the crew.

You yelled at him first, you know.

Shut up, Dr. Watkins.

Go make up with your man, Jasmine.

That's advice I will take, if he's awake. If he's sleeping I will wait, of course. I turn from the view of fog and crack open the door to the living area. The couch is empty, but the blankets are swirled in a mass like he slept there. Or at least tried.

A quick scan shows me there is a large bower of jasmine on the kitchenette counter.

I smile. Whenever I have a work triumph—like the day one of the Soundcrush trailers broke down but I still managed to get the band's equipment to the show on time— or we have the smallest thing to celebrate—like the anniversary of the day he showed up in the Lunar lounge parking lot— or if we have a rough day like yesterday when we get irritated with each other—which has happened a few times, because it's not easy to work together in this stressful situation, live together out of suitcases and parent together— I always find jasmine in the suite with a note from him.

I don't know how the man does that. Jasmine is not an easy flower to find. I guess he has some secret rider that he has someone—maybe Riley or Ariadne or more likely Penelope—adding to our hotel requirements before each stop, just in case he finds a need to flower-shower me.

The sweetness of the jasmine fills my senses and obliterates my residual irritation before I reach the note. It reads:

Jasmine,

I'm sorry. You are a gracious woman embracing my business relationship with Arabella, and I snarled at you for that. I was wrong there. Forgive me?

I missed you last night. I need you with me, it seems. The sweet scent of you is the only thing that ever eases my mind. I had to have the jasmine brought up just to get to sleep. I guess I should have played that off...it is for you to enjoy too, of course.

All of me is yours,

BJ

PS...I'm downstairs in the gym...boxing with Riley.

What?

Going a few playful rounds with Adam, Trace, Matt, Dom, or even Javi is a thing I'm used to.

But boxing with Riley?

That's as unlikely as boxing with Leed.

I dress quickly in workout attire, check with Darius via text to find that he and Gwen are spending the couple of hours before checkout by the pool,call ahead to the coffee kiosk in the lobby to place an order, and hurry downstairs to the gym, because this?

My boss and my boo, bashing on each other?

This, I gotta see.

When I flash my keycard to enter the private gym--set up via rider  in a ballroom that only our artists and entourage have access too-- I find Bodie and Riley are the only ones here, but it's early yet.

All the stars and probably a dozen members of the entourage will fill the room in the next hour for some kind of intense rapid workout...or a few, like me, for a light elliptical trot while they mostly watch Leed and Ashlynn perform their incredibly gorgeous and romantic acroyoga. Bodie says we should try it, but I don't have the core strength yet for the fancy stuff Ashlynn can achieve on top of Leed.

Right now, however, to my amazement, Riley is gloved, and shuffling like a boxer, pounding jabs into Bodie's mitted hands.

They don't see me come in. I put the coffees down and stretch my hamstrings.

Riley is complaining about something while he jabs.

"And he just walked the fuck right in. Right into my suite. With Leed as his...witness or some bloody nonsense. Sat on the goddamn dresser drinking tequila and lecturing us like teenagers."

"Well, at least you and Row made up..." then, "Ooof, easier there, pal," as Riley misses the mitt in frustration and cuffs Bodie on the chin.

"Sorry," Riley puts his gloves on his hips and huffs. That's when they notice me.

"I brought coffee, for when you are done..."

Bodie looks over at me and grins. "Thanks. I'm glad to see you looking so smiley this morning, Jasmine."

"I'm glad to see you in a better mood, too."

He gives me the chin tip as Riley hammers his mitts again.

"So...we good?"

A nod and a smile are my answer.

"Am I interrupting? Should I go?" I ask

"No, love. Listen to this actually...Matt broke into my suite last night and..."

"Caught you and Row in flagrante? I gathered. I'm sorry, that must have been awkward."

"Worse than awkward," he growls, punching again. "It was effective. I thought Row and I were finally getting somewhere. She said she'd been lying in her suite thinking for an hour and she changed her mind about everything she'd been thinking before. She said she wanted to talk. Really talk."

Bodie steps back from Riley's jabs. "Yeah?" he says, with a very unusual tone in his voice. "Well...what exactly did she say?"

"We never got to the talking part," he say dryly.

"Ah. You decided to get the sex out of the way first..." Bodie says like there is logic in that.

"Of course."

"Only makes sense," Bodie agrees.

"What?" I laugh.

"What do you mean what?" Bodie grins at me. "You heard the man right. Fuck first, talk after. That makes perfect sense in their situation."

"Speaking as a counselor, I think you have it a little backwards, there. Good communication is a precursor to real intimacy."

Riley punches again. "Speaking as a man, I'd say lust is a rather significant distraction to a sensible conversation, don't you think?"

Bodie crows, offering his mitt in a kind of boxing-high five. "You got that right, brother." Riley taps his mitt but with less satisfaction than Bodie.

"But we never got to the talk. Hurricane Matt blew through and left us in rubble again."

Bodie slaps him hard on the arm. "Hurricanes blow over. People rebuild."

I climb on the elliptical as Riley continues to rant.

"We made up for all of twenty minutes. Now, Matt's rules are in effect again and we are once again, ending things. Thanks to his little stunt last night. I think he was having someone on his crew keep tabs on her movements in the hotel and that's how he knew she came to my suite. What kind of father intentionally interrupts his adult daughter having sex and proceeds to lecture her—in bed with her lover—for half an hour while he drinks a pint of tequila and she nearly dies from mortification?!?! What the fuck is wrong with that bastard? If I hadn't been completely naked, and Row hadn't been begging me from beneath her pile of pillows just to let him talk because that would be the best way to get rid of him, I would have punched the fucker last night."

"Naw," Bodie says. "You woulda swung and then you woulda been waking up on the floor. Matt is a slugger. You ain't ready for him. You won't be ready the next time he acts like an asshat, either— unless you rant less and jab more. Let's go." He slaps his mitts together.

Riley growls and starts throwing rabidly aggressive punches.

Unbelievable. Matt del Marco is rattling Riley's cage. Or maybe the truth is, Row has just broken through the iceman facade Riley has been putting up for so long. Somehow I think punk guitarist Riley—who wanted to marry his sweetheart at eighteen—was a very passionate  guy--much more so than the one that Soundcrush sees. So much of Riley makes sense to me now. The way he is always there, seeing all, knowing all? It's not that he is a gossip or a stalker. Putting all his energy into the business of the band is a way to avoid his own life.

Except now, he wants a life and he has to deal with the one he left behind before he can claim the new one.

Eventually Riley wears himself out. After a water break, they switch roles, so that Bodie can take his turn at throwing punches. For some unusual reason, Bodie opts not to use the gloves, but begins to tape his hands instead. I bite back an admonition for him to mind his already pained drummer's hands. He's right. He's a grown ass man and if wants to spar with taped hands instead of the more protective gloves, well...he knows his own body better than I do.

Speaking of knowing his body... I plod away on my elliptical as I watch Bodie's abdomen contract while he sits down to wraps his hands. I think about how well I know those muscles. How my fingers crawl them as he makes love to me. How his abs tighten as he moves above me. How heavy yet wonderful he feels as he presses me flat to the mattress in the first moment of his utter release, before coming back to himself and relieving his weight off me.

Bodie is tagging Riley's mitts now, jabbing much more quickly and with more force than Riley.

"Protect your face, I don't wanna bust you up," he says lightly. Riley raises the mitts and Bodie lightens up, but only a little.

I continue admiring how sexy Bodie is when he boxes, and conjecture if we might have enough time for official make-up sex because we don't have morning press today. After about ten minutes Riley cuts me a side eye.

"You should see your face, Marley. It's not hard to tell what you are daydreaming about—ooooooffff!"

Riley staggers back. Bodie popped him hard—right in the mouth. He's bleeding.

"Shit, Riley, I'm sorry man. Sit down, let me look."

"It's fine." Riley spits into a towel.

"Naw. You're bleeding like a mother fucker. Might need stitches. Let me look." He pulls Riley's lip down gently. "I think it's okay, but I've got a first aid kit in my bag."

"It's not necessary..."Riley mutters.

"Really it is, man." He holds up his taped hands. "This tape has been in the bottom of my gym bag for a while. Could be pretty grungy. You don't want your lip all puffed up with infection."

I'm already bringing Bodie his bag from across the room, digging into it.

"I got it," he says, stilling my hand.

Shit. I'm doing it again. Mothering people whose mother I am not. I step back from the bag and retrieve my coffee, giving Riley a sympathetic grin, while he holds a cold and swiftly bloody water bottle to his lip.

Bodie pulls out a small first aid pouch—like the ones I ordered for the buses and the trucks. I see my own handwriting in sharpie on the kit. It says, Artist Bus. I labeled them all, of course.

That's weird. When did he take that kit? And why? I just used it two days ago, retrieving a band aid for my heel because my Chanel pumps gave me a blister. And we didn't even ride on the bus yesterday. He had to take it from there either last night or this morning.

While I'm puzzling over this, he pulls something from the kit that I don't remember seeing when I dug through there—a test tube, with a swab and some kind of liquid in it.

"What is that?" I ask curiously.

"Just some Neosporin," he says casually. "Some kind of expensive single use product in these overpriced first aid kits you bought," he grins at me, gripping the tube tightly in his fist, obscuring it.

But not before I got a good look at it. The wrapping on the tube? It does not look like Neosporin branding. It looks suspiciously familiar, however.

While I'm trying to place where I've seen it before, Bodie efficiently swabs around inside Riley's gum, and then hands him a fresh cloth.

I'm watching now, and I raise my eyebrows at Bodie as he returns the "disposable antiseptic swab" back to the tube of liquid, screws the cap/swab combo tightly back on and puts it in the pocket of his gym shorts. He sees me watching and gives me a slight head shake.

The head shake-warding off my question—and the look in Bodie's eyes? I realize all at once where I've seen that particular striping of label before.

In Kade's hand—when he swabbed my mouth for Darius' paternity test.

Images of Row, intercepting Bodie with that damn fish bowl of blue Hawaiian punch, of the two of them, heads close and expressions guarded on the balcony last night, of Bodie clearly agitated, following her out of the suite last night.

Oh my god.

I stare at Bodie as he stares back at me. He shakes his head again. Once. So slightly. I feel my own eyes narrow at him.

"Whose bad idea was this whole boxing thing anyway?" I say genially.

"Bodie's of course," Riley says, his voice slightly muffled from behind the towel. "He was right on, though. Just what I needed. Well, until he took aim at my teeth," he says with a crooked grin. "Wish you'd worn the gloves, mate."

I stare at Bodie's taped hands.

Oh my god. His fists were much more likely to bust a lip than padded gloves.

My eyes cut to him again. This time I'm the one that shakes my head. I can't believe this. I can't believe any of this. Surely I can't be right about what I'm thinking. Surely Row is not pregnant. Surely she didn't ask Bodie to help her determine—with deception—who the father of her baby is.

Surely Bodie didn't agree.

I shove Bodie's coffee at him. "Well, if you guys are done, I was hoping I could steal Bodie for a chat..."

"Of course," Riley says, but he gathers his things and walks with us from the gym, strolling within hearing distance as we head toward the lobby elevators.

I lean in close to Bodie to press the up button. "Tell me that wasn't what I think it is," I whisper.

"Not now," he mutters back. Bodie avoids eye contact with me, his attention firmly planted on the elevator numbers descending above us. Clearly he's refusing to give anything-even a weird vibe-away in front of Riley, who's now cursing because the hot coffee offended his damaged mouth.

The elevator doors slide open, and Row, paler than her normal porcelain, is braced against the back wall, in jeans and tears. Immediately, I know from the twist in her shoulders and the way she doesn't even focus on us standing front of her, that she's caught up in some kind of pain.

Physical pain.

I step into the elevator, reaching for her like I would my own child. "What hurts?" I say, automatically brushing her forehead to check for fever. There is none, but I didn't expect there to be.

She leans her head on my shoulder. She doesn't answer specifically. Instead, she says, "I need to go to the hospital."

"Hospital?" Riley cries, pushing around Bodie, who steps in behind swiftly and closes the door, choosing the parking deck level.

Rowe hadn't seen Riley, behind Bodie, I don't think, but as he draws near, she turns from him, latching onto me tighter out of instinct.

Riley throws his bloody towel and his coffee right down on the elevator floor and puts both hands on her back as she clings to me."Row, please tell me what is wrong. I knew something wasn't right last night on the balcony. Good god—are you sick? Seriously ill?"

I feel her stiffen in my arms, like she bristles with resolve. She pushes away from me, and she leans against the wall, paler than before, if that is even possible. Riley immediately grasps her sides, instinctively afraid, like me, that she is going to faint.

"I'm going to be okay..." she tells him. "Don't worry. I'm not...dying...like...her..." she closes her eyes and sways. She puts a hand to her stomach but then quickly grips the rail again.

"Sssshhhh, it's okay, don't talk," he says, picking her up just as fluidly as one of these bigger, more burly rock stars would.

"Do you want me to call your parents?" I ask pulling my phone as the elevator slides open and Bodie rushes out, striding determinedly away. He's headed for the McLaren because Garvey's not up yet and hasn't yet returned it to the car rental.

"No!" she says quickly. "Please. No." She repeats, tightening her grip on Riley's neck.

Bodie revs to a ferocious stop in front of us in the two seater McLaren with the top down. "Put her in," he instructs. "Follow as soon as you can get a car," he suggests.

"Are you kidding!?!? I'm not bloody leaving her!" Riley yells at Bodie.

"Dude, you are way too freaked to drive fast. I can get her there faster, safer." He's calmly punching up a hospital on the inboard GPS.

"It's okay," Row whispers. "It's my...stomach. Appendicitis, maybe. I'm okay. Just...do what he says please."

Riley swallows heavily, like he's swallowing a protest, but he gently deposits her in the open cockpit and straps the seatbelt around her. He kisses her forehead and looks into her eyes.

"I love you, Rowan."

Simple. Direct. Sure.

So Riley.

But the way Row bursts into tears? I get the idea that it might be the first time he's expressed it.

"Don't cry, darling. I'm right behind." He bangs on the car trunk. "Go!" he yells to Bodie, who peals out.

Okay, okay, I know we all need a resolution to this. Double update, coming shortly....