Jem…Chapter 140

*Before…. Kisses and Thorns.

Adam nods and he gets up and Justin follows him and he’s giving us the dirty looks and he points to Hannah. “She can stay the fuck here because she’s not part of the band.”

I look at him. “It’s my fucking band and I’m the sole fucking say so.”

Adam turns. “Well actually you’re my band under my label and studio and Hannah isn’t under contract."

He is looking at Hannah and they’re staring at each other again. She sighs and says. “Fine I’ll sign on…”

She’s looking at me with this look I’m look that I’m not sure I get or like but it’s weird…and I feel weird like I’m sort of disappointed that she’s joining the band.

Adam and Justin look more than pleased though as they leave ahead of us.

*And Now…

We’re heading out and we stop to get some things and Hannah is turning off her stuff on the stove and putting the shrimp into the fridge and they’re still in the package but she still puts them in a bowl and then ice from the fridge’s ice maker over them and has taken a bowl out of the dishwasher and once he sees it’s clean he gets a ladle of the broth and a spoon and he starts eating it without permission.

Yeah we get it you’re an asshole and you’re powerful.

I kinda hope he’s fucking allergic to something in there.

He’s actually making that face that he makes when he’s drinking and tasting stuff. You know the one that educated palette look.

He’s looking at Hannah and she’s staring at him. “I should beat you with that ladle Adam, ask first.”

He stares at her and Justin looks like he’s going to say something but Adam waves him off. “You’re right and I’m sorry if it was just a pot and it was just a kitchen then I wouldn’t care but you actually know what you’re doing.”

She crosses her arms. “That still doesn’t make what you did any less rude dude.”

“I said I was sorry does that count?”

“No, you’re educated enough to know better right then know better.” She points to the garbage can and he actually pours it out or what’s left to it and rinses out the bowl.

“Better?”

“No.” She walks past him and heads to our room to get her stuff and the others are looking at her and I’m impressed. I knew she worked in a few kitchens but that’s like real professional kitchen attitude. I kind of know…I mean I wasn’t always here where I am now.

When I was her age I lived up in the high society stuff and all that before I…well before the world taught me just how it can rip you a new one.

But yeah…you don’t go into a cook’s kitchen and do anything without permission.

That so looks like it’s a thing with Hanners.

Adam is making tasting faces still.

“Not bad stewed tomatoes, garlic, real butter in the roux, onions and good spices to make up for the wrong sausage and she roasted the peppers before using them. She did something else but I don’t know what it is and it’s making a lot of difference.”

Hannah comes down and she has her guitar case and a bag with some outfits and her violin case. “And you’ll never know either.”

Adam looks at her. “Did I do something to you in some past life?”

She makes a face. “No.”

“Then you what just don’t like me?”

“That’s pretty much it.”

“Well then maybe we can actually act like professionals and work with people that we don’t like so we can get things done.”

Hannah looks at him and she nods. “That’s why I’m here.”

We leave and Hannah comes with me in the car and we follow Adam and the others downtown to the studio and it’s actually even more impressive than the last time that I saw the place. He works fast and that is including a brand new blacktop parking lot and there is a section of three spaces with signs saying K & T and there’s also one for Adam and Justin and someone called Synclaire? and another two spaces for Junkyards?

Hannah says it first. “He’s signed other acts.”

I nod. “Looks like, that could be a good thing right? I mean it’s not like he’s being a one trick wonder with this right?”

She nods and we head inside and it’s still all sleek and everything and I see pictures of Synclaire and she’s sort of goth looking with big breasts and blue black hair and make-up and she kinda looks like the love child of Avril and Rhianna.

But there’s another group with a bunch of guys in leather’s and ripped sleeveless plaid shirts and they look all scruffy and stuff and they’re called Junkyards.

Shit they actually have an album poster with them on ice out on the lake or a lake and their band stuff too and a garbage can fire going and they have their instruments and some sticks and one of them is wearing a Steelheads jersey which I’ve seen here before somewhere and there’s a title called “Gonna play in the E-strings.” Which is a play-off of Tom Cochrane’s song *Big Leagues*

And there’s a whole bunch of people here and some of them look very technical and stuff and adam’s talking to them and he’s speaking French really fast to some of them and I think at one point he’s speaking German to two guys in really nice clothes…not suits but they’re just really well dressed.

Muzz staggers up and he lights a smoke and that gets him a few looks and Adam waves it off. Muzz points with the smoke in hand. “That bloke there’s actually from overseas and I think he’s the real deal luv he’s got a West-euro-radio jacket over there and he’s talking to number three son there about synching up to some of the radio feeds over there.”

I look at him. “You hot that from them?”

“Oi I might be dumb and I might have a few bad habits luv but I can learn a thing or too and besides back in the day I use to play with a few German guys in our own band.”

“Really what were they called?”

“Einhorne Raging.”

“Never heard of them.”

But the German guy with Adam seems to and he comes over and he’s talking in that animated way that a fan might with Muzz who’s actually talking back occasionally butchering the effect of his apparent language gifts with Oi’s and mates interspersed in the whole thing.

It’s actually kind of funny to watch and they walk outside with Muzz saying something but I heard the word beer.

The Adam’s coming up to Hannah and he’s looking at her and he had things in hand that looks like the papers and he says. “We have a problem?”

She looks at him. “What’s that?”

He gives her a long stare. “You don’t exist, there’s nothing out there that matches you with your name.”

She shrugs. “But it’s still my name.”

“But it’s not your legal one.”

“But it’s still my name.”

“I can’t sign you under this, I can’t pay you.”

“You can’t, well you can pay Summer and then she can pay me.”

He’s chewing his lip.

I cross my arms. “It’s my band Adam and I say she stays.”

He’s looking at me then at her and then at me and I can tell he doesn’t really like this but at the same time I know he wants her around so he can mess with her. I know he likes to mess with her just because she’s in his face.

He looks undecided and I say. “Look you’re that connected and shit why don’t you do what you do and pull some strings and stuff and get Hannah a whole new set of I.D.’s and then we can pay her and she can be like free of all her past bullshit.”

Hannah looks at me. “What if I don’t want to be on anyone’s book period Summer, there’s a lot of advantages to not being legally anywhere.”

I nod. “But you’re nearly sixteen and that’s emancipation age so even if the cops did find you it’s not like they could make you go home anyways after that. Get legal and you can make like legal stuff happen like stuff you need I.D.’s for.”

Adam nods. “I can pull some strings I know a few people that can do this, but when I do this I want you to sign the contracts with us and…”

Hannah looks at him. “And what?”

“And we have a kitchen here it’s not a big one but it’s something for when we want something hot here so I want you to go and get your things for that stew and bring it here and finish it so we all can have some.”

“I don’t have enough things home for everyone here I’ll need to get more stuff.”

“Fine.”

She holds out her hand. “I’ll need money too.”

“Justin has a car and a company credit card.”

“Good for him I don’t trust him so hell no.”

Adam looks at her. “Why don’t you trust him did he do anything to you?”

She shakes her head. “No, not at all but he doesn’t like me and he has that look that some guys get when they want to educate someone…and he’s not the only one that has that look too Mister Marshal…that look tells me to either run or grab something sharp and since I’m with Summer and I’m not planning on leaving her I’ll grab something sharp.”

They’re staring at each other again….and I am not sure what to think because he sets stuff off in her that just has her riled up and then there’s the fact that everyone thinks Justin is a creep but it’s more than that.

She said that she wasn’t going to run because I was here.

Dammit I hate it when they make me feel all guilty and stuff.

Then Tara says. “And remember like she used to like work in a kitchen, she know how to use a knife.”

Adam has this look on his face while looking at Hanners and that’s like she’s amusing him and that sort of has me worried.

Getting any kind of real or solid emotion out of people like Adam is dangerous because they’re so effing fake and hollow that they want more. And I don’t want Adam to want more of Hannah…it could be really bad.

He exhales. “I’ll get money from petty cash.”

He walks away and I look at her. “You gotta be careful around him Hannah he’s not sane, not like regular shitbags.”

She nods. “I know and that’s why I’m here Summer, I don’t trust him and I’ve known guys just like him I used to work for guys like him. Sure they weren’t as rich but they were rich enough.”

“No, look trust me as rich as they might have been Hanners they’re not like him.”

She looks at me and she smiles. “This feels right summer and me and feels right hasn’t happened a whole lot in my life okay. I don’t want this to get all fucked up or you to get all fucked up.”

Dammit…fuck, fuck, fuck…why does she do these things!?

I just nod and I want to do more than that I want to kiss her but at the same time I just sort of want to keep from getting too close.

She’s getting too close, and she’s a lot of the things that I’ve wanted in my life y’know…?

Someone to actually care for me and to protect me.

Because no one else ever has but me.

Adam comes and he gives her an envelope with money and she calls a cab and she leaves and there’s almost a sort of relief with her being gone and Adam comes over to me and he’s looking at me and I look at him.

He smiles. “She’s different.”

I look at him. “Yup.” I try to be non-committal about it.

“You know her story?”

“A little, worse than some.”

“Oh?”

“Not my story to tell Adam, why is she getting under your skin like Jem is?”

He gets this look. “Angel Benton is not under my skin, not in a bad way.”

Aaaaah yeah bullshit.

“Yeah I’m going to call bullshit on that I was there at Lucky’s that night.”

“I know you were mixed up in that too, you know that SLB is playing there Thursday nights now.”

What…?

Grrr…bitches.

“No I didn’t know that.”

“And you didn’t know they’re a record label and a company?”

I look at him and he says. “Starlight Music and Entertainment or some such, it’s amazing what that woman has done and can do. You know a lot of live shows peter off in a town after a while but from what I’ve been hearing people come in town to come to see her shows.”

“Good for her she’s a freaking prodigy.”

He shakes his head.

“No she’s a mystery too. I mean I’ve looked her up and she’s got a tragic past and stuff with her parents dying in a car crash and her living in foster care until she was old enough to get out.”

“You had her investigated?”

“I have everyone investigated it’s family policy.”

“You still have a thing for her.”

“She’s taken your band to a whole new place and she’s making good money if you count her PayPal stuff and I-tunes not even counting her merchandise sales and working the jobs and getting paid.”

“So you have a thing for her.”

He gives me this look both dark and hungry. “She is raising her stakes, she making a name and a business and she is the first woman to do that I’ve met that just be like a possible equal.”

I can feel the whole boner in his voice.

“So this is why you did this whole thing?”

“Actually no but it’s a benefit as is having you under contract with me because that gives me a reason to interact with her. No Blackjack’s going to be my way into the radio and music market and that’s something that my family isn’t hip deep into. Like Miss Benton I’m going to make my own mark on the world.”

“You know she’s gay right, like a dyke.”

“Oh no she’s more than that she has been seen kiss Mike before and it wasn’t innocent friendly kissing either…she’s at least on board enough that I will win her over.”

See…I really don’t like her and I don’t like what she did with SLB and Rayne and there’s just this feeling that she’s ripped me off of something.

But y’know if Adam wants her enough and if gets into chasing her enough then he just might have too much of a hard on for her that he’ll leave Hannah alone.

“You know I still don’t get why you’re so obsessed with that Jason cat he seemed pretty harmless from everything that I heard.”

Adam looks at me and his eyes get darker.

“Jason Powers is a little piece of crap that never got it. This is Harper’s Point and this is our town, my town summer we could have settled anywhere but we stayed here and we kept this shitty little place afloat through a lot of hard times and we’re still doing it and people learn to respect that.”

I look at him. “Not everyone respects power Adam, not everyone gives a shit who you are.”

He’s clenching his clipboard. “Oh, oh I fucking know that Summer and then they end up knowing that there’s consequences of doing that too. But Jason…he just wouldn’t learn he just would stay down and…he’s not better than me.”

I look at him. “He thinks he’s better than you?”

“All the time, he…” He snaps the clipboard in half.

Oh he really hates this kid.

That’d good actually.

“So with him taking off and stuff he’s basically laughing at you.”

Adam turns fast and he glares at me. “What?”

“Well really the longer he’s out there it’s like the longer that people are seeing that you’re kinda not the kind of Marshal that handles stuff or at least not like your Dad.”

“My father’s fucking useless, he’s a professional addict and barely practicing lawyer it’s my grandfather that runs things.”

That much I actually know, hell it’s not a secret Adam the first is still ruling the empire.

“But Jason is still out there.”

Adam gives me a really dark look and angry now.

I press those buttons. “Look I know you can’t find him and I know that you can’t lean on his old man because of the cop living there and going at them hard ain’t going to work so really dude the best thing you can actually do, the thing that’ll hurt that Jason dude and his old man and hell that whole fucking bunch.”

He looks at me. “And that is?”

“Make Jem fall in love with you. The only way that you’re going to get to them is through her and she’s not going to give you the time of day unless you’re not that guy that all of them have painted you as Adam.”

I look at him. “Look I don’t like you much and I think you’re an asshole but I get you and you know what the world needs assholes to run shit to be the bad guy and to make all those fucking decisions that everyone else is always too chicken shit to make. If this angel chick is that smart and that savvy with business and stuff then you like got what you need to win her over.”

“And you win her over and have her around you and stuff will bring him running into your hands because even if Jem doesn’t give him up he’ll find out from his friends that she’s with you and he’ll come running to save his cousin and shit.”

He looks at me and he carefully puts one half of the clip board over the other.

He looks calm.

Looks.

He says. “You’re right actually and as much as I don’t really like you either Summer I get you too. That has value to me so I think we can work together am I right?”

“You’re right; actually you usually are as much as I hate to admit it.”

He has that happy little glint in his eyes now; it’s that focused yet pleased look that you see narcissists get when they’re getting their fix.

He says. “Well now we are actually here for something so let’s get to work okay?”

“Definitely I’m actually interested a little bit, it was kind of good seeing you having other artists signed and things it means that this is all real….and…”

We’re walking together now towards the sound booth and he looks at me. “And?”

“You’re a Marshal dude you were raised in business and stuff. I like being on the winning side.”

He actually looks both mollified and stroked and he has a light behind those eyes that is already working and I know he’s going to use me and the band and I’m going to use him right back.

But I think as long as I can get that fire going then he’ll leave Hannah alone for the most part. He’s not the only one that can play folks and I learned from the best actually.

My Mother.