destinesia | gnr

sunlight on your skin

1990

"THAT NIGHT YOU LEFT," Slash repeated, looking at her through his curls. "I went down to The Strip.. and found some girl..." he confessed.

Jackie's breath hitched a bit. She was feeling guilty about leaving all over again, but now she had a whole other weight on her shoulders.

"And we didn't do anything." He quickly clarified when he saw the look on her face. "But I was gonna take her to a motel.. and..." he trailed off. She got the hint and nodded, unable to meet his eyes.

"But I realized that I had the perfect girl right at home, waiting for me... probably worried sick that I was passed out in a ditch somewhere, and without a second thought I went back home ...only to find you'd already left." He said. "And I swear to god, on my way home I saw your car driving off, but I ignored it." Her heart split into two at that. Slash just kept twisting the knife. She accepted the knife though. She thought she had to for the hell she put him through.

Jackie was going through a roller coaster of emotions with heated, flushed cheeks and watery eyes.

She sniffled a bit, swallowing hard and finally speaking up. "I'm really sorry I left. I should've seen that you were in a bad place.. but I couldn't see past the booze and violence, and yelling, and fighting, and all that shit." She said. "For whatever its worth, I didn't want to leave. I really, really didn't want to... but it's what I do, right? I run. I always run away instead of facing the problem and fixing it. I should've tried fixing it with you instead of running around the country just to get away from it.." she paused. "If it makes you feel better, I couldn't really get away, you guys followed me everywhere I went."

He chuckled. "Sorry about that. Didn't mean to." He joked.

"Oh, please. I'm sure you got a kick knowing I saw your face on every Raw magazine... in every store... in every city of every state I ran around." She laughed.

"No! What? Me? Never." He bounced back in his spot on the bed, holding his hand to his heart as if she offended him. "Did it work though?" He smirked, bumping her shoulder with his own.

She sucked in air and squinted her eyes. "Honestly, yeah." She replied. He threw his head back in laughter and smacked her arm lightly.

"So you and Izzy, huh?" He said as casually as possible.

"I don't know." She shrugged. "Maybe." She pondered on it for a moment.

Definitely, she thought.

But she'd never admit that to anyone.

"Yeah, alriiight..." He teased. They stayed in comfortable silence for a little before he grabbed her hand. "I'm glad we could talk it out..." he smiled softly at her.

The feeling of his touch back on her after all these years felt like sunlight on her skin. Even something as little as his thumb rubbing against the back of her hand. "Me too." She replied after a minute, nodding her head.

"Now come on, there's somebody I want you to meet." He jumped off the bed and pulled her out the door. "Wait, now? But I look-" she stuttered while trying to fix her hair and smoothing her clothes down. "You look perfect, come on!" He urged. The words rolled right off his tongue but he didn't even bat an eye unlike she did. She bit down hard when she felt her cheeks tingling at the subtle compliment.

Now that they gave each other a peace of mind, she had a little hope that maybe things could go back to how they were.

All of her hope was crumbled up and stomped on when Slash planted her in the kitchen, right in front of a beautiful brunette woman with bright green eyes. "Vick, this is Jackie- the one I was tellin' you about." He threw his arm over the unknown woman's shoulders.

Jackie felt her knees weaken and all the air leave her chest but she quickly snapped out of it. She couldn't break. Not right now... not in front of this gorgeous girl who was probably Slash's girlfriend.

"Oh my god, hi!" The woman smiled. Jackie plastered a bright smile across her face and refused to let it falter even when she saw her hand slide around Slash's waist. "I'm Vicki, I've heard a lot about you! It's so great to meet you." She held her left hand out for Jackie to shake.

She shook Vicki's manicured hand shakily. "Hi, I'm Jackie- great to meet you too." She said. The dryness in her tone was clear even though she tried to hide it. She wanted to be polite. She had absolutely nothing against this woman who so far seemed like an angel sent from heaven.

Slash furrowed his brows at the way Jackie was acting. Nobody else noticed it but him, and of course Izzy. He came up beside her and placed a hand on the small of her back, smiling politely at Vicki, who he'd already met.

Mason popped up on the other side of Jackie and held his hand out to Vicki. "Mason." He winked. She smiled. "Vicki. I like your necklace, Mason." She pointed to the shark tooth that hung around Mason's neck.

Jackie tried not to roll her eyes at that. Mason's necklace was the most basic blond boy necklace ever. Especially for an L.A tourist from Seattle.

"Alright, dinner reservations are in like thirty minutes, come on guys." Axl came into the kitchen waving his hands around so they'd hurry up.

Dinner? Boy, this was gonna be a longggg night. With Mason's usual bullshit at every public eating place ever, and Slash and Vicki's little thing...

At least she had Izzy to keep her from losing her mind. She took a quick shower and began unpacking in her old bedroom so she could get out her makeup and one of the nice outfits she brought. Izzy avoided being alone with Axl as best as he could, so he didn't have to hear a lecture from him about skipping town.

As she was using her flat iron to curl her hair at her old vanity, the door opened behind her. She looked back to see Izzy standing with his arms out, presenting himself. "Too much?" He asked. He was wearing a satin, dark red button up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, then black pants and his usual black sneakers.

"Shiiiit..." She tried to whistle. "You look cute!" She gushed.

"Cute? Seriously?" He dropped his hands to his sides. "Jackie, I'm in one of the heaviest, biggest rock bands of all time, I don't want to look cute." He said sarcastically, walking up behind her to look at her reflection. "You look cute though." He said, resting his hands on her shoulders.

"Shut up, that's gross." She ducked her head to hide her blush. He snickered then noticed how tense her back and shoulders were. "Hey, I know it's weird and stuff, with Slash and everything, but please- to the best of your ability, enjoy tonight." He began massaging her tense shoulders.

"To the best of my ability." She agreed, putting lip gloss over her lips. She quickly pushed her chair out, forgetting Izzy stood right behind her, and drove the chair smack into his groin. "Oh, shit." He groaned, leaning over the chair a bit.

"Oops." She shrugged, sauntering out of the bedroom with a little extra sway in her hips. Izzy rolled his tongue on his cheek before following her out.

Finally everybody rounded up to go out, Jackie, Izzy, and Mason riding in the rental together while the three others went in Slash's Cadillac.

What Jackie didn't know when she got in the car was that she was on her way to one of the worst nights of her life.

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