Chapter 3: Smart Girls Regret Vodka

Okay friends! Now that Tantric is finished we are moving forward with Drastic. If you just finished Tantric, you might recall that I posted the Prologue of Drastic and the first two chapters a while ago...way before Tantric was finished. If you are getting the notification for this update today, and it's been awhile since you read the opening of Drastic let me remind you we are taking it ALL THE WAY BACK , nearly to the beginning of our Soundcrush timeline. These opening chapters of Drastic are SEVEN years before the END of Tantric. We are at the end of the first summer of our story...the September Labor Day beach party that we have seen from Trace and Kat's view in Epic, and from Mac and Adam's view in Urgent. We didn't hear about this party in Tantric because Tantric began AFTER this party, in the fall of the same year at Tam's Wedding....

Got it? Good....

Don't worry, we are going to advance the timeline more quickly in this book than in others. Yet we will also be having flashbacks to when Bodie was fifteen...it's gonna be a DRASTIC swing in time, in this one...

Oh...one note about the song...Demons...it's really probably Marley and Bodie's theme song...especially sung as a duet like this. They have such a big mess in their past that they made and the consequences have been simmering for a long long time...and the pot is about to explode...

Here we go...again...

Marley, In The Kitchen At Martha's Vineyard

I'm hungover as fuck.

God. I haven't been that drunk since I wasn't Marley. I mean...since the days I lived a different life with Daemon. I can't really say since the days I was Jasmine, because I am still her, no matter what Bodie thinks. The choices I made as Jasmine changed my life and forever tied me to the world she got lost in.

Jaz is still a nickname I hear daily. It stills falls off the tongue of some of the most important people in my life...like TJ and his mother Pat.

My head is pounding as I drop my soft, oversized bag on the counter and it melts there, conforming to the shapes inside it. I stare at it, feeling much the same. Like a formless shape, draped over the hidden things inside.

I fight the urge to melt onto the counter and sob. What the hell was I thinking...nearly sleeping with Bodie last night? That was...so damn stupid. I am too smart to get tangled up in another mess like that. My life is complicated enough. I don't have space for a reckless romance. In fact, I don't even know what I am doing here at the Call-Out. I don't have the luxury of being able to waste time like this.

I have a routine. I have a job. Two, in fact. I have student loans, and now I have to make rent alone. Not to mention, private school tuition. I don't have time or energy to party like a rock star...with a rock star.

The thought of Bodie—his dreads swinging as he strolled toward me on the beach last night, his arrogant grin as he busted up Kade's play, his angry scowl as he called me out for keeping him in the dark about who I was, his lost, confused look as he said I don't even know what to call you, the feel of his heated hands on my skin as he was pulling my shorts off—they twist my gut with something that is both thrilling and terrifying.

I make it to the deck railing before I vomit. A lot.

It eases the horrible churn in my stomach, but makes my head hurt harder. I stumble back into the kitchen and drink water with my hands from the faucet while I paw around in my purse for the little makeup bag that has ibuprofen in it.

That's when I realize my phone is not in my purse.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I can't leave without my phone.

A mother has to stay plugged in case of emergencies.

Especially a mother like me.

My son doesn't live in a safe place like this...a world of gated mansions and private beaches and security guards.

No. The world he lives in is the real one.

Jesus, what am I even doing here?

Take a break, TJ said. You work all the time. Pat and I have got Darius, like always. You haven't had a day off in two years, Marley. Go play with the rock stars. If you won't do it if for you, do it for me. I can't fucking wait to hear what Bodie is like now.

I was so stupid to come here. I was so stupid to tell TJ that I ran into Bodie at the Lava Lounge in the first place. And I was beyond moronic to not explain to TJ that Bodie had no clue who I was. I'm pretty sure that TJ wouldn't even be able to believe that Bodie didn't recognize me. I could hardly believe it myself.

I'm still the same person I always was, to TJ. He doesn't see me any differently without the high maintenance appearance I used to front. I'm just me and TJ is just always...there.

He's been the one constant in my life, since the night thirteen years ago I got pushed to the ground and locked into handcuffs. Daemon told him to look out for me, and he did.

To be fair, I guess TJ saw my "Jaz look" fade a little more slowly than Bodie. Every time he came to visit me while I in jail awaiting trial, a little bit of Jasmine had been stripped away. First the layers of dramatic makeup went, because you don't really have access to makeup when you are facing a prison sentence. Then the nails, because I didn't have much else to do but pick them away with worry. My dark spray tan took a little longer to fade—while I was being held-over without bond, because the judge said I was definitely a flight risk, already being a runaway. The last big piece of my Jaz look was removed when my lawyer had a hairdresser come to the jail before my court date. She had them take my braids out and restyle my hair to its more natural state, so that I looked more "sympathetic" to the jury.

She meant so I looked white, of course.

It wasn't a trick. I look the way I look. After all this time, I don't really care that most people assume I'm as white as white comes. I can't fault them for assuming what even I thought about myself growing up.

I also don't care about the double glances I get when I'm with Darius, either. I honestly never assume they are because I look white. His skin color definitely types him into the biracial category and we could easily be related. That's not why we get looks. It's because I look very young for my twenty-nine years, more like early twenties—and Darius is tall and looks older than twelve.They are simply curious about our relationship is. Is he my brother? Am I his babysitter? Or was I a teen mom?

Or maybe they just look at us because Darius is striking even for a twelve year old kid. An exceptionally gorgeous human being with an undeniable presence.

Just like his father.

Oh god. The thought of Daemon makes my head pound worse.

This was never supposed to happen. Daemon was supposed to be in jail until Darius was thirty-five.

It's one thing for a kid to know his father is in jail for being a gang leader and a drug dealer. It's another thing entirely for him to have his thug father in his life.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I am so stupid. I left Darius wide open for this.

My head pounds worse, but I have to get my phone. Now I have to go upstairs and risk seeing Bodie again, and there's nothing more I want to do than get the hell out of here and go home to my normal insane life and forget that my insane rock star adventure ever happened.

I grab my bag and head back up the stairs but I see Mac's tiny little feet dancing around the bend in the staircase. I throw myself away from the stairs and around the other side of the kitchen counter, like it's some kind of defense against that she-devil in a cowgirl hat.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Why I don't just dash out the slider and hide in the dunes I don't know, but I'm like a deer in the headlights. She bounces out at the bottom of the stairs and I just stand there for a second, frozen. Then I drop down onto the bar stool and stare at the open magazine, avoiding all eye contact. Maybe she won't even notice me. She didn't pay any attention to me last night, she was much too busy making up with Adam and snuggling in his lap.

Which I'm glad about. Really glad for them. I know she's having a scary, tough time with her pregnancy scare, and I don't want to cause her anymore tension.

So much for that. Within two minutes of her being in the kitchen, I have stumbled into Armageddon with her.

How the hell was I supposed to know that she didn't know who I was?

Fuck, Adam. Really?

Haven't we talked about transparency and good communication being the foundation of a happy marriage?

I mean, my own personal life may be jacked beyond belief, but I'm a damn good counselor and I know I've counseled Adam's dumbass better than this. I guess he still has some ground to cover with his old-fashioned attitudes about "managing" his "woman."

Damn cave man.

Whatever. I'm not really his counselor anymore, and after the disaster that I'm trying to survive right now, I doubt he and I will be able to be friends, if Mac has anything to do with it.

All the more reason for me just to get the hell away from Soundcrush and deal with my own problems, which have just exponentially exploded with the news that Daemon is getting out of prison.

Also, because I think I'm going to be sick again. Goddamn that Grey Goose. It goes down too smooth but it comes back up rough.

I'm just trying to escape Mac's rage without when Bodie skids into the kitchen. He looks like he's like to vomit, too, as he hands my phone over and Mac screeches, "Butters! Did you fuck Adam's biggest fangirl? Where's the Bro-Code now?"

Okay, I can understand she's upset, but damn. Does she have to tear into Bodie like that? She's really starting to piss me off. I remind myself not react like my inner Jasmine wants to. Mac is a tough cookie, but she is nothing compared to me. Maybe I was Daemon's precious princess that he shielded back in the day, but then I got incarcerated.

Mac could not handle the savage I could bring to this situation if I went prison yard on her ass.

Bodie shoots me a concerned look, probably thinking the same thing.

"Mac, please.Don't."

I stumble out of there, feeling a little crazy and really needing some air before I lose my temper and surprise the hell out of little Macaroni.

I mean, I can't cut a pregnant bitch, can I?

I don't even bother to clean up half of the stuff that spills out of my purse as I flee. I have my wallet and my phone—that's all I care about. I'm trying to call Patricia to check-in on Darius, but suddenly I feel like I'm going to throw up again, and I wander all the way out into the ocean because I think it might horrify the two young, cut dudes that are jogging toward me if I puke on the pristine beach right in their path.

Vomiting in the ocean is a much better choice. There's no one swimming and if you think about it, creatures pee and poop and die and rot in the ocean. What's a little drunk-girl vomit in the already sketch soup?

Just as I'm giving myself permission to hurl, my phone is jerked out of my hand and I'm hoisted up and hurled into the sea. I come up spluttering and pissed, but I have no doubt who just sucker-dunked me. Bodie's presence swarms all over me.

"Are you fucking crazy?" I yell at him as I fight to claw away the long dark hair stuck to face like a curtain and open my eyes against the stinging salt water.

His smile is so infuriatingly gorgeous as he shrugs and says. "Sometimes."

"What the fuck did you do that for?" I shout over the rumble of water crashing into us.

"I felt like it!" he yells back.

"I think you need to explore that feeling!" I scream.

He looks confused, then he laughs. "Jesus, you really are a fucking therapist now, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am! Are you are way out of bounds here, buddy!" I try to slosh past him, but he angles in front of me.

"Fine! I feel...angry!" he yells. "I'm pissed at you! After everything that happened last night, you were just gonna walk with out us talking about it?"

"You aren't talking! You are trying to drown me!"

"Figured you could swim. Seems like you are a survivor."

"You are insane." I jab a finger at him. "And that's a professional opinion, you jerk!"

"Naw, I am perfectly sane now," he sneers. "Last night was I was crazy."

"What?"

"Last night, I was insane. Clearly, wanting you so bad even though I know you are shady as fuck was kinda crazy."

I try to ignore the part about him wanting me. I wanted him too, but we were drunk and now we aren't. "I'm shady as fuck?" I stumble as a wave knocks into me and pushes me towards Bodie. "I noticed that my phone was unlocked when you handed it to me. Snooping in my phone and getting caught at it, is not only shady as fuck, it's dumb as fuck."

Bodie steadies himself in the roiling shallow surf putting his hands on his knees. His dark brows and just a hint of a goatee make him look like a mischievous devil but his eyes are angrier than he wants to let on. He really is pissed.

He shrugs. "I'm not sorry. You don't scream trustworthy to me, Jaz. I don't know what kind of game you are running, here. Did Daemon send you to fuck with me somehow?"

That's when I lose it. "Fuck you, Bodie!!!I don't answer to Daemon! Not anymore!!!" I scream and run at him. He tries to grab me, but I duck down and pull at his leg hard, upending him in the surf.

I've already got my phone and bag and I'm booking down the beach to the public access when he catches up with me. He grabs me by the arm and jerks. I swing around, shoving my pepper spray in his face.

"Do.Not.Fuck.With.Me.Or.I.Fuck.Back!!!!" My voice is not my own. It's a girl's I left behind in prison.

His eyes widen. I guess he sees the reflection of his own incarcerated experiences there. He holds up his hands.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I put my hands on you without asking. Really. I been there, where you are. In jail. Lots of time. I guess...I guess you have, too, huh?" His voice is hoarse, his lips slightly parted, trembling.

Trembling. Like they want to say more. Like they they are trying to force themselves closed.

I just stare at Bodie's full, expressive lips, and I lower the pepper spray. He moves toward me his arms held out, like a plea for me not to turn and walk away.

"There was a lot of time to think in there," he says. "TJ told me...you got eighteen months. Real prison, not juvi. I thought about you. Worried...about you..." He is so close now I can see his six pack trembling beneath his wet, stuck-on shirt.

Trembling just like his lips.

I swallow. There is so much inside this boy trying to escape. Beneath the dreads and the muscles and the jewelry. I close my eyes.

I have one angry boy. I don't have room for another in my life.

Yet, I take the step forward and embrace him. For that night. For the way he tried to hide me. For the way he called out to me when they put us in the squad cars.

"Jaz. It's okay. He'll send a lawyer for you. They just read your rights, remember? Anything you say will held against you...so you wait for the lawyer, okay?"

He was warning me not to rat on Daemon, right under the cops' noses. Even at fifteen Bodie was smart. Always so smart and so much older than he actually was. I didn't know he was fifteen when I...initiated him into Daemon's gang.

It wasn't an initiation to me. It was real. But it couldn't be real, so I had to pretend it was what Daemon told him it was.

His arms are around me now. "You're okay? I mean...you made it through prison, okay?"

I hug him back. "Yeah. Minimum security. A few girls tried to knife me and a few more tried to wife me, but mostly I just did my time."

Bodie's head drops to my shoulder and I can't tell if he's laughing or sobbing or a little of both. "Jesus, fuck, Jaz. I'm glad you can joke about it."

I shrug beneath the weight of his head on my shoulder. "It was a long time ago. I'm okay."

He searches my face. "You're...different. Really different."

I put a hand on his face. "So are you. So different, Bodie."

He looks away and takes a big breath. "Yeah. I am. But some days...I'm the same."

He puts his hands on my shoulders, stepping back a pace. "Listen...last night..."

"Pffttt," I wave it away. "Alcohol insanity."

His lips part slightly again. Then he shuts them and opens them again. "Yeah, especially since...I wasn't honest. Arabella...she's not...it's not...I mean...I don't what we are. I mean...she and I were put together by the label, but things got fuzzy quick. Sometimes that happens on the road. Touring together. Partying together. So maybe she and I are not exclusive but maybe not...fake, either. I dunno, Arabella and I haven't had that talk but after this weekend I think...I should probably figure things out with her..."

Suddenly I feel a wave washing over me, even though we are no longer in the water. I just can't tell if it's a wave of relief or disappointment. Either way, Arabella makes this...clearer, I guess. It's just like I said earlier. I need to get the hell out of here and get home to my real life.

"Well, I'm glad to see I'm not the only shady wrong-doer in this situation," I smile bitterly.

He looks me directly in the eye and the anger is gone. "I didn't mean to lead you on, or try to fangirl you on purpose. I just got...drunk and disorderly with you. I'm so fucking wrong, for last night."

I nod. I appreciate the way Bodie is manning up and being sincere and honest, but it still stings. It's been a while since I've had feelings as confusing as these. I prefer not feeling much—the way I felt for my fiancee, or even the way I felt crushing on an unattainable and very attached Adam. "It's okay. I've been wrong, too. I should have told you who I was. Or at least, told Adam that I knew you once and you didn't recognize me anymore."

Now he winces and rubs a weary hand over his eyes. He searches my face. "God, I can't believe I didn't see it. Is it awful to tell you, I think I never really looked at you at the Lunar Lounge?"

"You looked at me," I say wryly. "Just not at my face."

He groans. "I'm sorry. What can I say? I was on tour. In work mode."

"And by work mode, you mean a douche-bag rock star who only sees women as fangirl-tits-and-ass?" I add.

He chokes on his on spit. "Jesus. You never used to be so blunt."

"Prison changes people."

He nods solemnly. "Yeah. So does fame, I guess. You're right. I was in the parking lot of a strip club and I was imagining you on the pole. I was looking beneath your clothes and not at you. I'm sorry I had asshole thoughts."

"Well, for the record, I was a bartender there, not one of the performers."

He suppresses a grin. "I'm a little bit surprised by that. There's no shame in exotic dancing, and a smart girl like you surely ran the numbers on that. Part time dancer has to make more money than part-time bartender."

"Fine, you want the truth? I danced two nights when I first started. The owner told me I couldn't keep turning down the "premium package" private dances. I told him I didn't sign up to give blow jobs in the back rooms, just to work the pole. He fired me. I told TJ what happened. He and some of the guys went down there and had a chat with the owner. He gave me my job back— bartending, with a cut of the dancers' tips."

Bodie grins. "That seems more like the Jaz I knew." His smile fades. "TJ still in with the crew? Last night on the phone he said he went straight."

"He's as straight as he can be," I bite my lip. "He has a good job. Owns a legal car dealership. He doesn't traffic or deal anything illegal and nobody asks him too, because Daemon is still technically in charge. But you don't stay in the hood and ever really leave the gang. You know that."

"I know that. That's why I didn't come back after juvi." He shoves his hands in pockets and looks out to sea.

I don't like seeing Bodie solemn and sad. I cross my arms, working up to tease him. "You think you are off the hook for not recognizing me? What about when I got here? I was here for hours that first night, talking you and Trace and Leed down from going to LA to kill your ex-manager."

He swivels his gaze to my eyes. "Well obviously I was worried about Mac and pissed as fuck at Dawes. But...shit, here's the truth...when you first got here, and I opened the door...I noticed your eyes...they seemed...familiar. But they are different than they used to be. You used to weigh them down with thick black liner and fake eyelashes. Now they are all soft and smoky and more...alive. I felt all...prickly, looking at you in that doorway."

"Wow, is that a compliment or a criticism? I can't tell." My voice is dry.

He rolls his eyes in irritation. "Girl you know you were always fine. That's not what I mean. I just mean...I felt...off somehow, looking at you. Like my memory was trying to fight with my eyes or something. It's funny, but I told Adam...there's was something about you that...bothered me. Now I know, it was just...that...I put you away in my memory a long time ago. And you were fighting to the surface inside my mind."

He reaches out and touches my lips. "Didn't remember these until I tasted them last night. But I damn sure won't ever forget them again."

I turn my head from his touch before I do something insane like throw myself into his arms and cry for...everything that we almost were and everything that happened in the last twelve years. "Well, like you said...last night was a mistake. I am not Jasmine anymore. You aren't Clayton anymore."

"I think I said...some days I am." His voice is soft.

"I think you said you have a girlfriend," I say testily.

He nods decidedly, and threads his hands on the back of his head. "Yeah, I said something like that, didn't I?"

"Yeah."

We stand in silence.

"We need to talk about Daemon," he says finally.

"No, we don't," I say. Daemon is my problem, not Bodie's. I am bound to him, and Bodie is free.

"It's like you said...you don't ever really leave a gang. You think he's forgotten about me?" Bodie laughs. "The dumb shit that got his girl busted?"

"I'm not his girl anymore," I say emphatically. "He knows that. He knows I was engaged to someone else. That was the whole point with Marc—" I stop myself from speaking.

Bodie looks at me sharply. "You got engaged to send Daemon a message?"

Looking back on it, yes, maybe, sort of. Marc was safe. Marc was easy. Marc was definitely well outside of my old life. Marc was even cool with Darius, but Darius is not too much baggage to take on since he doesn't live with me. I guess Marc and I were just using each other. I'm not admitting any of that to Bodie right now, though.

"No. I meant...I was getting on with my life, with Marc. Daemon knows we aren't picking up where we left off twelve years ago. I've never even been to see him in prison. Not after what he did—"

I stop speaking again. The counselor in me wonders if I'm fucking up on purpose, wanting to tell Bodie more than I should.

"What did he do?" Bodie asks at once.

"It doesn't matter, that was another life..."

"What.Did.He.Do?" Bodie growls. "You always said he was good to you..."

"He was good to me in some ways. But he was controlling and manipulative. He gaslighted me, he took advantage of my naivete. He talked me into shit I can't even believe I did."

"Like what you did to me?" The anger is back now.

"Yes," I admit. "What I did to you was horrible. We were friends—"

"We were more than friends," he shoots back, like a snake striking out with venom.

I sigh. "Yes, we were more than friends. And I betrayed you and let him use that to initiate you. He could have killed you if things went differently. I could have cost you your life, if you had not kept your cool. That's the kind of person I became, with him. Not to mention, he was a drug dealer and he got me sent to prison and Bodie...the man killed people. In cold blood. I was messed up in the head at sixteen, seventeen, to think Daemon was a good man. Is all that not enough for me not to want to be with him?"

There is one more thing Daemon did to me. He sabotaged my birth control to get me pregnant. But I'm not telling Bodie that. We're going back to our separate lives and he doesn't need to know that I have a son with Daemon. Bodie would just...worry about me.

Bodie's anger is so strange...it spills over and recedes like the waves near our feet. It's gone again now, after the things I just said. He puts a hand on my shoulder and gives me a long look. "Yes, those are all the reasons you shouldn't be with him. I'm so fucking glad to hear you say that, Marley. I'm glad you grew up and got out, too."

"Yeah." I hope he doesn't hear the hollow hopelessness in my voice.

There's no getting out for me. Daemon and I share a son. A son that refuses to live with me. A son that lives in the same house Daemon grew up in. A son that loves his grandmother that raised him from an infant more than the mother that spent his first year in prison and the next few years away at college.

Of all the stupid things I've ever done, thinking my baby would wait for me to get our life together for him was the stupidest of all.

The only reason Bodie leaves me on the beach is the promise that he'll see me backstage at the Call-Out later today. I lie to him and tell him we'll talk more then.

I trudge up the beach—vomiting again in the dunes— head back to my hotel, then straight to the airport after gathering my things. This weekend with the band, it's been nothing more than a fangirl fantasy.

It's time to get back to my reality.

And my reality hasn't been this harsh in a long time. Not since the day I gave birth in prison and they took my baby away.

With Daemon getting released from prison, I'm afraid I might lose Darius all over again.

Uh-oh...Marley's got a lot more going on in her life than we suspected when we first met her way back in Urgent, doesn't she?

Thoughts on this complicated situation?

Obviously we've already seen that Marley and Bodie do not end their association here, but she ends up as his sobriety companion, and initially he wasn't all that happy about her being his sobriety companion. Thoughts on how we get there...from here?