Helplessly Aware

By Charlie burton

Chapter 19

VALENTINE’S Day wasn’t turning out to be such a great day after all. Not that it was supposed to be an annually happy day, but it was usually better than most. JC played idly with the red rose that he clutched in his hand. It was the most perfect flower he could have found, with crimson petals as soft as dew and a scent that clung to it like a garland of daises. Yet, the fact that he was still holding it meant that the day was dire. A small curl of white paper was hidden amongst the petals, right in the heart of it.

Every time I look into your eyes, I'm helplessly aware, that the someone I've been searching for is right there.

That’s what he’d scribbled on it. Helplessly aware, JC thought, that pretty much summed it all up. He knew now that he’d fallen in the deep end with Grace, and the rose that he held was supposed to be gripped between her fingers filling her nose with its sweet aroma, rather than him. JC sighed and placed the single stem back into the thin vase in his hotel room. It was dark outside and everyone else was milling around down in the poolroom, working out, or just having a drink at the bar. Celebrating a day of love, even if it turned out to be just family and friends.

As he wandered out to the elevator, all he could think about was where Grace was at that very moment, what she was doing, who she was with, was she happy? JC laughed modestly, imagining that she was out with some college friends at a club or coffee house just living it up. Ting, the elevator reached the first floor and he stepped out, surveying the layout and debating whether to join the guys for pool or go grab a drink. More or less sociable, that was the decision. Grace, that’s what he needed. Not an option, JC reminded himself. The prospect of touring in Europe again had its plus sides, for he wouldn’t deny the fact that he found great beauty and contrast in the many countries they’d visited there, but the down side had always been that it wasn’t home. This time he could add ‘lack of Grace’ to why it wasn’t so great. Pool, he decided, something to take his mind of things.

* * *

“Get off me!” Grace screamed, wriggling under his strong hold. “Just leave me alone!”

“Why now would I want to leave such a beautiful girl alone in such a dangerous place? You couldn’t imagine the kind of psycho’s walking around at this time of night.”

He might as well have laughed scornfully at her to add the finishing touch to his words. How could she have been so stupid? The slime-a-second guy who’d attempted to pay her for information on *NSync’s ‘sex lives’, as he’d put it, threatening her with rumours including herself if she didn’t.

“You’ve gone all quiet, why?” Oz tilted his head to the side and trailed his eyes slowly down her body.

“You bastard,” she growled weakly.

“I heard you and JC were doing a hand thing to each other, did you turn him on?”

“What are you talking about?!”

“A reliable – I suppose that’s what you could call her – source told me she’d walked in on you two putting hands in intimate places.”

“Tara?!”

“God, doesn’t the world just get better for some people?”

“She was giving you information?”

“Well you wouldn’t. It would have been so much easier if you had, then I wouldn’t have had to gone to all the trouble. Do you know how much turmoil you put me through to get what I wanted?”

“You’re both malicious creeps who need to be locked up or removed far away from mankind,” she spat, glaring at him with enraged eyes. Comfortingly, her anger gave her new confidence.

“Oh Grace, don’t talk like that,” he murmured, running his fingers over her chest.

“Get off me!” she cried, peeling his hand from her body. He only stepped closer – close enough so that she could feel his breath on her face and neck.

“Sshh,” he hushed, placing his lips onto her neck in nibbling kisses.

Grace’s voice broke and the composure drained from her as though he were a vampire sucking blood from her neck. “Leave me alone,” she whimpered, struggling uselessly with him.

Oz barely noticed her screams and body that shrank away from his very presence, it’s that or he just chose to ignore them. All he could see, smell and think about was her, her body, what it would be like to feel those groaning moments of ecstasy and pleasure again.

“You’re hurting me,” she wept, his teeth violently grabbing her neck as he succumbed to a beast within that could only smell and taste the sweet odour of sex. When he began to fumble at her clothes it released a new adrenaline into her body, not of fear, but of survival. It pulsed into her muscles and her brain, telling her this would be her only chance to escape his defiling fingers. She wasn’t going to let it end his way.

Grace didn’t know whether she could face Alyx with everything that had just happened. She was exhausted and shaken from running away from Oz Quest, after gracefully slamming her knee into his groin, which thankfully loosened his grasp on her. The cab driver who’d picked her up had been aware she was shaken up and asked her if she would rather go to the cops, but there was no case so she didn’t want to complicate things.

For about ten minutes she just stood outside their dorm door, reducing the speed of her breathing, although nothing could control the beat of her heart, it knew what had happened out there and no amount of calm and deep breaths was going to appease it.

Someone cried out in shock as they opened the door and came face to face with Grace. “Alyx!” she exclaimed, wondering what she was going to say to him.

“Grace! What the hell…what the hell are you doing standing outside?”

“I was just about to come in,” she replied.

“I’ve been so worried about you. I mean I tried convincing myself you were probably just out with someone, it being Valentine’s Day and everything.”

Grace looked at him curiously. “Valentine’s Day?”

“You didn’t know it was Valentine’s Day today? My-oh-my, where have you been?”

You don’t wanna know, Grace thought. Thankfully Alyx was less probing on details for once, which was helpful because it meant she could start to blot the evening’s occurrences from her head as soon as possible.

“So who were you out with?” he asked, offering her a heart-shaped chocolate.

They were sat in their pyjamas on her bed, devouring a box of chocolates that Alyx had bought himself.

“Just this guy.”

“Just some random, run-of-the-mill guy you met.” Alyx wanted to know more.

She’d spoken to soon about him being less interested on the finer points. “He’s called Bray.” If she did end up telling Alyx what happened, she wasn’t going to have him knowing Oz’s real name. Suddenly her eyes welled up, it was like water from every part of her body seemed to concentrate in her eyes, spilling over in a stream of tears.

“Grace?” Alyx murmured, shocked at the sudden invasion of tears and sobs. He pulled her into his safe arms and she relayed the whole evening to him.

* * *

Los Angeles airport had never looked better to JC as they’d stepped from their plane, even the surrounding buildings seemed to smile at him. Justin had kept up the emails and the occasional phone call with Grace, apparently she had got a job as a waitress at the trendy coffee bar that her roommate worked at. He’d also sensed that something was up because she was sounding too overly exultant whenever they talked, and in the past Justin knew it was her way of covering up her true feelings.

“Bet she’s not expecting this,” Justin commented, smiling at JC as they climbed out of the cab, Todd and Eric from security stepping out behind them.

JC glanced at the illuminated sign before them and tried to compose himself as his heart went crazy at the thought of seeing her again. “Uh-mm,” he mumbled, noises were all he could make.

Justin eyed him up, his eyebrows kinked and JC knew the look in his eyes. “Is it just me, or do you have a thing for her?”

The words shook JC off guard even though he’d been half expecting them. “No,” he cried, pushing Justin into the bar.

“Too quickly,” Justin replied, grinning. Todd and Eric took a separate table to JC and Justin, and a waiter wandered over to them as they surveyed the menu.

JC was a cowering puppy behind his red tinted glasses, a baseball cap covering his head and he was also wearing bullion colored jacket and dark Jeans.

“Hi, what can I get you to drink?” the waitress asked.

“Actually, I was wondering if I could ask a huge favour?” Justin asked, looking sweetly at her.

Grace wrinkled up her face when Dolcé told her that two guys had asked specifically for her to be their waitress. Grabbing a pad she wandered towards table five.

JC saw her from his hiding place behind the menu as she walked towards them, unaware of who they were. She looked just as he always remembered her; long black cords, a white shirt and her hair in two braids, her face fresh without lots of makeup, just mascara and lip gloss.

“I guess the wide eyes means she’s coming,” Justin said.

JC only just had time to glare at Justin before she said ‘hi’ and asked them what they wanted. Justin grinned up at her, pulling of his bush hat to reveal the familiar wild curls.

Her face exploded and she gasped, “Justin?!”

“Did ya miss me?” he growled, throwing her a sexy look.

Immediately she glanced across to the guy sat opposite him, “JC?” she asked.

He smiled sheepishly. “Hi Grace.”

“What are you guys doing here? Of course I missed you!”

“We got into LA last night and we had some promotional thing and a radio appearance, we leave tomorrow morning,” Justin informed her.

“We couldn’t miss out on dropping in and surprising you,” JC added quietly.

Grace was still in shock as she took down their orders and she couldn’t help but notice how stunning they both looked. Justin’s bubbly voice reminded her what ‘home’ was like, and JC’s smile together with his sensitive blue eyes highlighted what she felt for him – a lot.

“Isn’t that-” Alyx started as she returned to the bar with their orders.

“Uh-huh,” she mumbled still in shock, grabbing two mugs and fiddling about with the machine. Suddenly she’d forgotten how it worked.

Alyx reached over and helped her out. “What are they doin’ here?”

“Promotion, or something like that.” Grace turned and removed a slice of rich chocolate cake and a cinnamon bun from the counter and onto plates.

Putting everything on a round tray she carefully wove her way back to Justin and JC.

“What’s up with her?” Dan asked, leaning over to Alyx as they both watched Grace. Dan was the manager of the bar and a really friendly guy native to San Diego.

“Those two guys, they’re two members from *NSync. You know Grace’s mom works for them and everything?”

“Uh-huh.”

“They kinda dropped in to surprise her, she’s completely overwhelmed – they’re her whole life practically, especially those two. Justin’s her best friend and she has a hidden crush thing going for the other one, JC.”

Dan paused in thought for a moment. “Really now?”

After Grace had left their table with her empty tray, Justin and JC began chatting again. Moments later Grace appeared beside their table with a steaming hot chocolate in one hand a piece of the same cake JC had, and they both looked at her curiously.

“My manager, Dan, said I could have some time off because you guys are here – I think Alyx let him in on who you were.”

“Aw yeah Gracie!” Justin cried, clearing a space for Grace on the small table and she pulled up a chair.

“It was so good to see them,” Grace sighed, pulling on her coat as her and Alyx got ready to leave.

“I could tell.” His words and tone caused her to look at him. “Nothing going on between you and any of them, my ass!”

“There’s not.” They wandered out of the back, saying goodnight to Dan on the way.

“Yeah-yeah-yeah,” Alyx replied, “That’s what you always say, and I don’t believe you now. Not after seeing you with them tonight.”

Grace made a noise in the back of her throat as they walked down the dark alley towards their college. They could have taken a cab, but it was only a few blocks away and it was good to get some fresh air and they talked more walking home.

Alyx laughed at her. “Your signs of frustration when you know someone else is right are so funny.”

“You shouldn’t be picking on innocent girls.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes Alyx, I do fancy the pants of JC’, that’s what they say in England, right? Fancy?”

Grace couldn’t help but giggle as his voice twisted into a British accent. “Why do you say that I fancy JC?”

“Just the way you kept glancing at him across the table. You and Justin are like this,” he said, crossing his fingers as tightly as possible, “that’s obvious too, but JC, you looked at him in a tender demeanour…” Alyx trailed off, remembering exactly how her eyes looked at him so timidly – like behind her eyes she was screaming out can’t you see what I feel for you? Then Grace screamed.