#Kissing (Rock and Romance #1) (3 page)

Chapter 6

Backstage after the show, instead of going straight to the green room, I follow the red glow of an exit sign. The metal door creaks open and the bitter wind freezes the sweat on my face. I close my eyes against the light of the cars and cabs below, against the glow of whatever city this is, and breathe deep, preparing myself for the party. And the party after that.

Three beers and two shots later, we're at an exclusive club in some town, and I'm lucky I remember my name. Or Kat's.

She appears wearing an impossible vinyl dress and pulls me onto the dancefloor. The trance-inducing song isn't my style, but it's the kind that insists our movements are sexy. Niko watches from the table where he ingests various cocktails and concoctions, dreaming up what we're going to do together later.

Kat, in her booty and boob-baring outfit, oozes pure porn star sex. As we grind together, her artificially buoyant boobs squeak against the fabric of her dress. I toss my head back and laugh. She takes this as an invitation to lick my neck, running a tingle through me.

When the song ends, I return to Niko. He pulls me onto his lap.

"That was fucking hot." His eyes, and nearly every other male's, follow Kat who leads a new dance partner onto the floor.

"That was for you," I say.

Several drinks later, courtesy of Slade and various members of the satellite that perpetually hovers around the Halos nebula, we return to the hotel.

Niko picks me up, thrusting me against the wall of the elevator. My reflection is blurry, but I don't care about recognizing myself, not when the heat between my legs has been aching since he was onstage. When the ding sounds for our floor, we stumble out, onto the rug, tongues thrashing, hips grinding, and not caring that a couple has to step around us.

Drunk, we stumble, crawl, and carry each other toward the room, but the key card doesn't work. Niko slips it in again and jiggles the handle. I shove it in the other way. Nothing. I lean against the wall, the heavy liquid in my bloodstream shuttering my eyes.

"Is this the right room?" Niko asks, his voice a sexy British slur.

"If it has a bed, it's the right room," I say, slinging my arm around him and kissing his neck.

We switch places and he presses me against the door, but before clothing comes off or we're kicked out, Slade, Kat, and a few others appear.

"Looking for a party?" asks a guy I vaguely remember is named Malcolm, or Maxwell, or something.

I don't care what his name is, but the others do since he's Slade's buddy and the one that's been providing their substances of choice. I don't pay attention.

Without consulting me, Niko tugs me by the hand, and we proceed to the end of the hall where we board another elevator.

We get off on the suite floor and the door hangs open at the end of the hallway. Inside, Jill, topless, streaks by, barks a husky laugh, with a bottle of whisky in her hand. By the floor to ceiling windows, Kenji soaks in a hot tub, surrounded by his girls.

I lose Niko somewhere in the crowd of laughter and dissonance, a veritable Tumblr page for a lost weekend and identical to so many other nights.

Chapter 7

And so I lose myself. At first I keep it classy, rock star glam with a champagne drink the guy who appointed himself bartender dubbed the dazzler. It's as blue as a pair of eyes that captivate me, drawing me away from the moments when I should be concentrating on having an orgasm with my boyfriend.

The dazzler makes me feel strangely dazzled and rather dazzling, and I strut over to a floor to ceiling window and look up.

Jill ghosts next to me and follows my gaze. She silently passes me the bottle of whisky. I'm suspicious of her generosity. She's now wearing a tight-fitting gray shirt with a hand lifting the middle finger.

I pass her the remains of the dazzler.

"I didn't know you shared." I've perfected the disinterested and casually aloof lean, my eyes flat, my attention suited for far better things than whatever it is I'm doing. I excel at this only because for so many years I intimately knew the opposite—the keen interest of the perfect student.

She snorts. "It's that kind of night." Her smile is hitched and crooked.

I take a swig. As usual, the alcohol burns my throat.

We share an odd moment of companionable silence, our attention on the stars.

Jill hands me the bottle again. I lift it and say, "Let's drink to the
F
s. For fun, to forget, and to fuck."

She cackles.

The party guests, hangers-on, and those hoping to get contact high, or contact-famous, lounge lazily as though waiting for the band to break out the board games or beer pong. Even though my cultivated appearance says indifference, I'm so over this.

Just before I take another sip, I ask, "Does the bartender have any tequila?"

She laughs because it's well known that tequila and me is a risky combination.

"Crazy nights make good stories," I say with a wink.

Chapter 8

With my hand on my hip, I consider how to orchestrate mischief. The synapses that would otherwise channel comprehension to multivariable calculus problems and lines of Middle English obediently create chaos out of order, well, relative order.

I smile as I invent entertainment.

I stumble toward a door I'm certain leads to a bedroom, which most certainly will contain a phone. I have a call to make. Kat intercepts me, winding an arm around my waist. Her clouded eyes tell me she's already enjoying herself.

"You don't want to go in there," she says in accented English.

"No? Why's that?" I ask, curious about what wonders await behind door number one.

She draws me away, and we're a two-headed organism as we careen toward a table with a fancy vase filled with autumn-hued flowers. I recognize sunset lilies from my grandmother's garden, along with auburn mums, and little red berries that remind me of poison.

"Never mind. You and I never finished that dance." She pulls me onto a coffee table and grinds against my leg.

My current interests mostly involve the attention of a guitar-player with messy hair and a voice that my ears seek in the cacophony of chatter and crappy music that isn't the Halos. Nonetheless, I fall into rhythm with Kat. Our arms whirl in the air. She spins a pair of panties around her finger, tossing them into the room, and then gives everyone watching an eyeful of her enormous fake tits. It's sexy, if you're into that kind of thing.

Slade pulls her away with a whisper in her ear. Her eyes dip, and she gives my hip a squeeze and wanders off. I lower from the table, suddenly feeling foolish.

The hotel suite boasts two bedrooms, two baths—all occupied—, a balcony, the kitchen where the bartender works with a dwindling assortment of colorful and intoxicating liquids, and of course, the main room, smoky and stuffed full. Everyone is here for the party, the proximity and association of fame and excess, free alcohol and drugs, and the epic question of what might happen.

Nothing, if it continues like this.

I'm here to bring it. These people think that by being in this suite something cool is going to happen to chat about around the water cooler at work on Monday or brag to their friends about at brunch the morning after. I'm a quick study and Bubbie always said if you want a party, you have to make it happen and create your own fun. The key is in making it come off as spontaneous debauchery.

A blinking red light catches my eye on a table with a lamp.
Aha
! There's the phone. I dial for room service.

"Hi, when does the shift change?" I ask, interrupting the receptionist's greeting.

"The shift started at eleven and goes until seven." Her voice is bubbly, a college student probably, and not entirely unfamiliar with unusual calls from suites.

"Send anyone up on their break if they want to party. But first, I have a few requests."

"Go right ahead," she says. 

"At twelve am, please provide us with a shit ton of alcohol."

"Would you like to be more specific?"

"Nope, I expect that you're sufficiently skilled in this area, thank you," I say efficiently. Aside from prescription medication for my diabetes, as a rule, I don't dabble in drugs.

"Next?"

"For one o'clock, please call
Gentleman and Blonds
. Have them send a few of their finest. At two am, we'll take five-hundred water balloons."

"Five-hundred?"

"At the very least. For three, twenty pizzas, set one aside for you guys down there if you're hungry. It's on us."

"What toppings?"

"Surprise me."

"Which pizza place do you want? Nearby, there's—"

"The greasiest. At four, extra linens, please. For five, popcorn and candy."

"What kind of candy?" she asks.

"All the kinds."

"Anything else?"

"I'll get back to you at dawn."

"I leave at seven," she says.

"Not if you come up here you don't."

She laughs.

"If you want autographs or anything, let me know; I can hook it up as a thank you."

"Seriously?"

"Mhmm." Someone paws at my shoulder, but I shrug them off.

"We're not supposed to acknowledge the guests in that way, but if you could that would be so awesome. The Halos—Niko is like—" I don't hear her and don't care because his head is in my lap and he bats at my hair, his eyes shiny, and his lips kissable.

"Thanks." I hang up.

"What was that all about?" he asks, taking a drag off a cigarette. He only smokes when he's wasted.

"That's for me to know." I wink.

"Secrets? No fair?"

"Where've you been?"

"Getting a massage." His answer turns me toward irritable.

"I thought that was my job."

"I'll take another one." He goes in for a kiss, but his breath is sour and smoky.

"I'll take a drink," I say. I try to ignore how too many nights lately have turned the corner from
us
to him, off doing whatever he does if I'm not by his side—I don't like it when he uses drugs, but I can't pretend I don't know what I signed up for. "It seems like tonight I'll have to entertain myself."

I stalk over to the bar and knock back a shot of tequila, my howl loud as I slam down the glass, a rally call for the night.

I learn the guy tending the makeshift bar calls himself Kingston and makes a mean
diablo
and by mean, I mean marvelous.

"What are you missing?" I ask.

"I'm masterful at creating something from very little," he says, gesturing to the remaining bottles. "But a tip jar…" he says.

"That can be arranged." I dump a container of cocktail peanuts over my shoulder and tear off the label. They're probably Slade's request; he eats them by the handful.

"Have a marker?" I ask.

Kingston tosses me one from his bag on the counter. I write
If you're not going to give Kingston a kiss, leave him a tip
.

I receive appreciative laughter when I show him my handiwork and position it by a tangled strand of Christmas lights. Again, Slade, I assume, trying to do something for the hotel suite atmosphere. He's better suited for smoky pool hall habitat. Whatever, it lights up the colorful bottles and paints flecks of light on Kingston's white V-neck.

Just then, someone bangs on the door. "I had some stuff sent up for you to play with," I say with a wink. I point in the direction of the three hotel employees wheeling in carts stacked with cases of beer, champagne, and colorful bottles of liquid damage. I tip an invisible hat and say, "Thank you for the diablo, sir," and stuff a ten in the peanut container.

With the diablo in hand, I take a seat on the edge of the marble hot tub enclosure, angling toward a window overlooking the city. I let my thoughts go fuzzy, forgetting everything but the way the stars guide me farther and farther from everything I know.

The music changes and my awareness bubbles back to the suite, the voices in the background, and the girls, cooing at Kenji behind me.

"You're going to turn into raisins," I say. "Never mind, that probably doesn't translate well," I mutter.

He says something that my brief lesson in Japanese doesn't translate. His smile is devious and he knows it as he eyes the girls in the tub.

"I had the bar restocked. The fun should begin any time now." I suppress a yawn.

The girls giggle and one of them says, "Kenji wants you to come in with us."

"Kenji has to ask me in English. I tried Japanese and we all saw how poorly that went."

He laughs, telling me he understands more than he lets on and downs the rest of a drink, lifting it in my direction as if in salute.

I drift back into the core of the party—more guests fill the room. A guy with a scraggly beard leans in close to two other guys with their backs toward me. His companions do a double take when I pass.

"What are you looking at?" I say with a laugh.

If Kingston gets to play bartender, Kenji hot tub host, and Niko absentee, then I get to be a bitch. If they were invited here, they should know I'm Niko's girl. Wherever he is.

A puddle of hippies reclines on a sofa, smoking weed. Kat crouches over a table, tanking a powdery substance. Two girls make out in a dark corner. Jill straddles some guy as if she's riding a horse, and waves the whisky overhead.

Niko disappeared again. I'm about to open door number two, to check if he's in there getting another massage when there's another knock on the main door.

"Fire Marshall, open up," calls a loud voice.