Page 24 of Still Her

“Alright, alright. Just get a hold of yourself Jack,” he tries to placate me, waving his hands in the universalcalm downgesture. “You’re no good to us, or your wife, from inside a jail cell.”

I take a moment to stare at the floor and let that thought sink in. While nothing sounds better right now than walking into Eli’s office, hauling him up by his obscenely priced suit, throwing him down on his desk and punching him repeatedly in his face… it will only end in me being led away in cuffs, devastating my wife. I remind myself she needs me with her right now, and I sure as hell need her. I do my best to reign in my anger and refocus on the conversation.

“Jack, what the hell happened anyway?” Matt asks, his eyebrows drawn together in frustrated confusion.

I run a hand through my hair while I recap last night’s events for them, being sure to include Eli’s cryptic comment about the Superbowl show, and our visit to the police station.

“You’ve got to be fucking shitting me with all this,” Chris exclaims, leaning forward now.

“He’s not. I was there. The asshole shook her up pretty good,” Josh explains, turning to face him.

Storm clouds start forming and churning in my mind when I think about how traumatized Mayzie was when I got to her last night. He didn’t only isolate her with him in a room, but there was likely no one even on that floor at the time… which leads me to wonder how he knew that would be such an opportune time to get her alone. I knew Mayzie went to a different floor because I just plain know her. He had no way of knowing she was there… unless he followed her.

“He fucking stalked her. He went out of his way to intimidate her,” I voice out loud to no one in particular. I don’t recognize my own voice as it comes out low and growly from between my clenched teeth. I can’t believe my coffee cup isn’t shattering in my hand; I’m gripping it so hard right now.

“And we’re going to put a stop to it Jack,” Ron’s voice is firm but calming as his hand falls on my shoulder. “Stay in control.”

“So what’s the plan now?” Matt goes all business.

“Jack, did you talk to your brother-in-law?” Ron’s voice snaps me out of my quiet fury.

“Yeah. He’s going to meet us in Atlanta to help us figure this out.”

“What can he do?” asks Josh.

“He’s got a strong background in law. And as much as I hate this, I think we should lay low until we talk to him. Not make any moves. So far, on paper, we don’t have any proof of what Eli’s doing. He’s being such a slick, sneaky bastard. If we make a move, he could nail us with it.” It makes me feel defeated, like he gets to win for now. I have to work hard to remind myself that if I react too soon, then we’ll lose in the long run.

“Alright,” Ron straightens up. “I’ll run interference with Eli in the meantime. I get the feeling he’s not going to call with any pending plans after we had the event last night, but if he does, I’ll put him off until we talk to Mike.”

With that, we adjourn back to our rooms so that we can pack and get ready to meet the SUV’s that’ll take us back to the buses.

When I let myself back into our room, I find Maze still in bed, still undressed.That’s my girl. She’s turning her phone over and over in her lap as she looks up at me and bites down on the corner of her lower lip. She has news.

“Baby?” I prompt her, “what’s going on?”

She blows out a breath. “Your friend knocked up my friend.”

11

Mayzie

“You wantto run that by me again?” Jack asks, as he stands in front of me in all his just-rolled-out-of-bed glory, with his hands on his hips, looking down at me, a look of total bewilderment on his handsome face.

“Annie’s pregnant,” I reply, the words tasting so strange on my tongue. Her call was one of very unexpected news to say the least. She and Jack’s friend Tyler met each other when Jack and I were first getting together. There was an attraction, but Annie didn’t let it go too far because while Tyler’s a great guy, he’s kind of slutty. So other than some harmless flirting, it never went anywhere. But as she had told me before, things were a little different when they ran into each other a few weeks ago. The attraction was apparently still there, Annie felt like she could let lose for a night and… surprise!

“Pregnant?!” Jack leans forward slightly, as if he didn’t hear me right.

“Yeah. It’s Tyler’s.”

“You’re serious,” he says it like a statement.

“As a heart attack. They ran into each other just after I left to come out on tour, and… apparently things went well?” I hold my hands up in a questioning gesture, and give him a goofy grin. While it kind of hit me like a two-by-four, especially coming on the heels of last night, it’s kind of an amusing distraction.

“Holy shit! I can’t fucking believe this,” Jack muses, as he starts pacing and chuckling. “Tyler’s going to be a dad!” He stops and looks up in question, “I mean, he is, right? Tell me he’s stepping up. If he isn’t, I’m flying back home to take all this Eli rage out on him instead.”

I try not to let the mention of the asshole’s name make me flinch. “He’s stepping up,” I nod. “They talked last night and he’s all in, I guess. It’s good,” I shrug contentedly at the concept. Annie’s not dealing with this alone.

“Good,” Jack gives a heavy nod before he starts chuckling again. “I’m sorry; I’m not laughing that they’re having a baby,” he says, trying to save face when he catches me looking at him weird. “It’s just…Tyler. I’m laughing at the idea…” He’s laughing harder and shaking his head and I’m starting to giggle too as I see where he’s going. And I let it happen. We need to laugh. “I mean, the tail-chasing horn-dog is going to settle down and be a dad now,” Jack continues, thoroughly amused. Before I know it, we’re cracking up. It’s not at my bestie or what she’s going through; we’re just letting the situation amuse us on a superficial level so that we can get our game faces back on to deal with these next few days. And it helps to picture Tyler trying to pick up ladies in the grocery store, with a baby strapped to his chest.

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