ONNAXOFF

Chapter 40

Abel

In the time it takes me to take off my jacket and finish setting up my phone to work with the hotel Wi-Fi, Jessie steps out of the bathroom. She’s already wearing one of the hotel-supplied fluffy robes.
Before I can comment on how she changes clothes faster than a character on The Sims, she asks, “So how long have you and Cash been married?”
“Me and Cash? Oh, we’re not married yet. Just engaged.” I reply sarcastically.
“Does he know that? Because judging from how little he trusts me around you, he either thinks he’s your wife or your father.”
“It’s not personal. He’s just doing his job. Which he’s really good at, by the way.”
“I know, I know. I’m just a tiny bit overwhelmed by how protective he is. With his strict ‘rules’: No public appearances, or accidentally showing up in a reflection or in the background of a social media picture, no talking about you to anyone, no calling myself ‘Mrs Tesfaye’ etc. He has it all planned out. You’d think he was working for the president.” She talks while unzipping her yellow suitcase, tossing in the clothes she just changed out of. We’re only in Frankfurt for two nights, so there’s no use unpacking.

During the long flight, I zoned out of their more or less one-sided conversation where Cash laid out the ground rules for the tour, but every now and then, I’d hear him say “It’s just to be on the safe side,” or “I’m serious, Jessie. Stop rolling your eyes.”

I had considered jumping into their discussion, but instead channelled Lamar’s pacifist attitude and decided to let them work it out for themselves. They’re both stubborn as fuck, but Jessie is more than capable of dealing with Cash’s overprotectiveness.

She shifts several unnecessary pillows from the bed onto the armchair and slips the robe off before she climbs in. Thankful for the fact that she hardly ever wears clothes to bed, I plug my phone in to charge and join her.

She pulls the covers over us and wriggles around to get comfortable on the soft mattress. Her lips curve up in a smile as I lean in to kiss her.

"Your mouth is cold as fuck." I murmur.

"I just brushed my teeth."

"But you're not going to sleep, right?" The clock on the wall says it’s almost 4am, but my body clock is still running on Toronto time, so technically it's only 10pm.
"Actually, I'm exhausted." She reveals apologetically. “I stayed up all last night with Eli before we left for the airport. And after that 10 hour flight and having to listen to all of Cash's ‘rules’, all I want to do is crash."
"Are you sure you want to sleep? Right now?" I raise an eyebrow.
We haven't had sex in about two weeks. I’ve been too busy and she’s been… going through shit. But she’s better now. Sure, she smiles less than she used to, and she smoked a cigarette just before the flight, but she’s talking in full sentences again and at my birthday party the other night, she turned up just as hard as everyone else. And two weeks? For us, that's gotta be a record.
“I’m sure.” She yawns. “But we still have tomorrow. And every night for the next six weeks. Believe me, you’ll be sick of me by the end of it.” Doubtful.

After she gives me one last kiss, I watch her eyes close and less than a minute later, she’s asleep. I pick my phone back up and try to distract myself from the fact that once again, I'll be going to bed unsatisfied.

I've never had this problem before. Usually, when I'm on tour, it's that there is too much pussy, not enough time.
Traditionally, on my first night in a new city, I’d go out with the boys and ‘explore the scene’. By which Lamar always meant check out the girls.
Our first night in Barcelona, he declared Spanish girls had taken first place on the hottest women of the world chart. At the time, I had to agree wholeheartedly. This was back when girls still scoffed when I told them I was an artist. “I’ve never heard of you.” they’d sneer.
The bartender of the bar we visited must have heard of me though. She had her smoky brown eyes latched onto me from the moment we walked in.
I’m still not sure, because the lyrics came to me subconsciously while I was high on the most potent weed, but something tells me she was the inspiration behind Remember You.
“All I ask of you is try to earn my memory. Make me remember you, like you’ll remember me.”
Maybe it’s the fact that I remember her so vividly that I can still smell the sickly sweet strawberry scented lip gloss she wiped off her mouth before she went down on me. God, her head game was fucking wild.
I probably still have her number somewhere in my contact list.