Tracy

002:

In frustration, Tracy put on her best public appearance smile, grilled into her from years of practice. Casey's hand on her wrist changed instantly to a lovers lock, and his answering calls and waves carried her through getting out of the studio and into their waiting chauffeured Mercedes.

"You lied to them!" Tracy accused as soon as the car zoomed away from downtown Huntington Beach, the pasty white sky overcast and gloomy as it was months out of the year. She'd not even had time to smell the salt spray of the ocean, not a block away or feel the cleansing breeze that normally calmed her heated skin.

"I did no such thing!" But he was laughing his head off, as he pulled something out of his blue jeans jacket pocket. Some kind of weird kit with a mirror and a razor.

Tracy eyed it ominously. "You told them Pepper's was for sure getting back together! That's a lie! Nothing has been decided, Casey! Bridget and Jules are not on board yet!" She watched as he spilt some white powder out of a tiny plastic baggie onto the mirror.

"And you told them we are getting married! Again, a lie! I haven't agreed to marry you. You just take everything for granted. I'm totally committed to finishing my degree. You know that!" She smacked the mirror out of his hands and its contents went flying into the back seat door. "What are you doing? Drugs? Right here? In the car?"

Casey scrambled to catch the powder, the razor, the mirror and its case. All of it smashed to the floor and whitewashed his jeans.

The driver clucked at them in the rearview mirror. Jake had been with them since Pepper's days, and he'd seen it all.

But he was Mormon, and he didn't do drugs, for moral reasons, and he didn't allow cocaine in his vehicle. "You need me to pull over, Miss Tracy?"

"Yes! Pull over and let Casey out!"

The car instantly veered right. "Jake! No! We've got to be in Newport Beach in forty-five minutes. Keep driving. I'm fine!" Casey gave Tracy one very incredulous look and then crossed his arms over his sunken chest. "Fine. You lost your Danny privileges."

Tracy's mouth dropped open in rage, and her lips bit back in irritation. "You have no right! I already paid for this! It isn't a privilege, it's a contract. I get him every other weekend, Casey. You can't keep him from me." She scooted her butt as far away from him as possible and see-sawed her knees bent up under herself. "Casey----" She was ready to do battle.

"It isn't a legal custody battle, and you're not his mother." Casey sneered, his white skin flaming with his own irrational ire.

"I absolutely am his mother, as much of a mother as he will ever know." She tossed her hair, noting the landmarks as they crossed PCH from Huntington into Costa Mesa. Out there, the waves were recklessly hitting the jetty sending white foam high into the air, and the wind was clamoring, pushing the car.

Inwardly she cursed her luck in leaving with him. Jake only had the one vehicle. She'd have to call someone else to pick her up.

Casey chuckled and snorted. He was shaking his head. "I never knew how you got so adamant about being his mom. It's some kind of strange compensation for me taking your virginity and not giving you a baby, right? I think your shrink told me that last time we were in together."

"Considering we've never been to my shrink together..... yeah." She braced herself against the seat, aware that Jake was listening. "It stems from the fact that Frances couldn't take care of him and I was there and did take care of him. He's my baby, Casey, and you are a creep to keep him from me. I know he's at Mom's, anyway. As soon as I get out of this car, I'm going to pick him up. You can't stop me."

He was snorting uncontrollably, in that condescending way he had when what she had said sounded childish and stupid to his ears. Of course, she knew she wasn't Daniel's biological mother. Casey may have taken her virginity when she was fourteen years old, but it had just been the one time. He hadn't been her boyfriend after that. He'd been her very controlling band leader.

He swiped at his pant legs. "You stupid bitch. Look what you did! That alone is gonna cost you!"

"Don't you call me a bitch, Casey Crandall! Jake! Pull over! I will be the one getting out!" She reached for the door handles just as Casey used the controls on his side to lock her side. Tracy reached for the peg to pull it up. "You want me to turn you in for drugs? You think I don't know what it is you're doing? That's drugs, Casey! Didn't I just spend the entire summer getting Jules off cocaine?"

"With your ridiculous herbal shit? Yeah, you turned him into a bohemian wimp." He was still retrieving the mirror and the little kit.

"He is twice the man you will ever be." Tracy sneered. "Jake! Pull over!"

"I can't Miss Tracy. The traffic is too much for me, and you can't just get out down here, you got no place else to go. I don't wanna be responsible."

"Jake, pull over! I grew up right here, right down on this very beach. Not like I can't get home on my own, even if I have to walk. I'm not sitting one more second in the car with this druggie." Jake knew how she felt about drugs, he felt the same way. He turned on the blinker and eased over to the right.

Casey went ballistic. "You work for me, asshole! You do what I say! I told you we are going to Tapas, and we have a gig, and we are set up and we are not missing it. Do not pull over!"

Jake eyed him in the rearview mirror again. "I may work for you this minute, but I can quit just like that, young man." Tracy thought it was ironic that Jake called Casey a young man, when he wasn't that much older than his twenty-five years himself. She caught his eye and cocked her head. Then she opened the car door.

"Miss Tracy! Miss Tracy, you shut that car door right this minute! Shut it with you inside, or I will not be working for either one of you spoiled brats!"

Tracy swung both of her legs outside feeling the sting of gravel against her shins, her first Candy's heel flew off. She scooted over to the edge, eyeing the grit of speed as they eased over to the shore side of the highway. If she jumped she would be seriously injured. And right now, that seemed preferable to sitting one more second in the car with a drug dealer and addict.

"Casey, get her! Do not let her jump out!" Jake looked over his shoulder, pulling over and slowing as fast as he could.

"I don't give a rat's ass if she jumps out. Serve her right if she got all mangled and had to spend weeks in the hospital. Then she'll never graduate from freaking college and never see her precious baby again. They'll lock her up and throw out the key."

If he thought his words would stop her, even as pissed off as she was, she bit her lips and eased closer to the flopping door, as it bruised her arm holding it open against the drive. She could hear cars slamming on their brakes around her, hear the cuss words shouted over the roar of honking.

Thunderous crashing mighty music filled her head as it blossomed into a full blown migraine. She couldn't think, couldn't speak,just knew that this was way deeper than Casey trying to force her to gig with him, or bluff about keeping, his son, Danny away from her. Something felt wrong inside. Hot, white, blinding light filled her mind and she knew she was about to pass out.

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