On the Road: (Vagabonds Book 2) (New Adult Rock Star Romance) (3 page)

Chapter Three

MAYBE I SHOULD have been sad, but I wasn’t.  I was angry that CJ was being so stubborn about the whole thing.  Warm and comfy in the overly soft bed, I fell asleep clutching my phone but it dropped out of my hand at some point.

The alarm on my phone awakened me, though.  Peter had scheduled a call for eleven AM, so I’d set my alarm for ten.  When I found my phone where it had sunk in the covers, I swiped the screen to turn off the blaring klaxon.  Then I set up and stretched, and that was when I saw Vicki in bed, the covers pulled up to her chin.

She must have decided to get high without me.

I got up and made coffee in the little two-cup pot in our room, remembering that someone in the lobby had said there would be coffee down there available all morning if we wanted it.

I went to the bathroom to relieve my bladder and then it hit me. 
Holy shit.
  Tonight was going to be our first official concert.

I came out of there, excited and out of control.  I jumped on Vicki’s bed.  “Hey!  We become real rock stars tonight.  Get up!”

I could barely hear her mutter.  “What the fuck, Kyle?  Get off the damn bed.”

“C’mon, Vicki.  Get your ass up.”  I stopped jumping and sat down, then slid so I was sitting on the edge.  Then I moved closer to the head of the bed and whispered, “I made coffee.”

“What the hell?  You’re not gonna let me sleep, are you?”

“We have our meeting in an hour.”

“Cigarettes.  Coffee.  Bring them, please, and then I’ll get up.”

“We have to pack too.”

“First things first, damn it.”

I poured us both a cup of coffee in the paper coffee cups left for that purpose, and then poured all the sugar and creamer packets they’d given us (not nearly enough, in my opinion), stirred them, and walked back to the bed.  I handed her the cup and she sat up.  “Cigarettes,” she demanded.

“Hell, no.  There’s no smoking in this room.  We’ll be fined a shitload if you light up in here.”

“So what?  We can afford it.”

“No, we really can’t, Vicki.  We’re not making any money yet.”

“Let Peter pay the damn fine.”

“Don’t be stupid.  You’re can’t do it.”

She growled and pulled the comforter over her head.  “Then fuck off and let me sleep.”

“Look…if you get up, I’ll go outside with you.  I’ll carry your coffee.  I’ll even have a smoke with you.”

She slowly peeked over the edge.  Her voice was sicky sweet when she said, “You will?”

“Yes.  Now get up!”  I yanked the comforter down.  But I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to see.  Yeah, I’d known Vicki was a skinny little thing with her ribs poking out—I’d seen that just fine the night before.  No…this morning, her body looked awful.  Not only did she have bruises everywhere, but she had burn marks on one of her arms—probably from a cigarette—and what looked like hickeys on her thighs and a big gross one on her neck.  My mouth let out a sound before I could stop it.  “Oh, my God.  What the hell happened, Vicki?”

“What do you mean?”  My mouth was hanging agape and she blinked as if to get the sleep out of her eyes before looking to see what I was staring at.  “Oh.  That’s why that spot on my arm hurts.”  Uh, yeah.  It should have—but I still didn’t have any words.  Then she noticed the bruises and hickeys on her thighs my eyes were drawn to.  “Oh.  Too much fun last night, I guess.”

I tried to force a smile, but her body was horrible to look at.  “Scored some pot, I take it?”

“Yeah…and then some.”

“I guess.”  I sighed and walked over to my suitcase.  “Get dressed.”  We had a long day ahead of us, and I wanted to get the picture of her abused body out of my mind as soon as heavenly possible.

* * *

We all sat around a big table at an IHOP a little over an hour later.  Things were quiet as we placed our orders and waited patiently for the waiter to bring our coffee and juice…and water.  It took me a little bit to notice that everyone looked a little too tired, a little too weary, as though they’d all overdone it as much as my roommate had.

Once the waiter had cleared out (although he made stops here and there with butter and syrup and the like), Peter said, “I take it you all had fun last night after we settled in.”  Liz shook her head before resting it in the palm of her hand once more, and Barbie sipped at her coffee as though it were the temperature of Venus.  “I would think that maybe now is the time to lay down a few ground rules, but I’m afraid it would fall on deaf ears this morning, so I will promise ground rules later this week.

“Let me say this:  I want you all to think about your actions and how they will affect the band.  Hangovers, vomiting, heaving, dry mouths, overdoing it…all those things will affect how you sound tonight, and this is your
first concert
.  I’m sure I don’t need to tell you just how much your first concert is your first impression on the world.  If you suck, the world will believe you suck.  I don’t think you want that.”  We all shook our heads, assuring him we did not.

“Oh, one other question.”  He sipped his coffee and set the cup down audibly before saying, “It seems each of you fucked the new manager last night.  Guess we’re keeping it all in the band, eh?”

I felt like a cartoon character, like my jaw was literally hitting the table.  I’d imagined that I was a wild child bursting at the seams, but it appeared as though my bandmates could and would easily give me a run for my money.  I don’t know why I felt compelled to speak up, but I said, “
I
didn’t!”

Peter blinked and almost smiled.  “Hmm.  I wouldn’t have pegged you for the odd man out, Ms. Summers.”

I grinned.  “Something you need to know about me, Cyrus.  I’m a rebel.  I’m not gonna do something just because everyone else is.”

He nodded.  “I’ll bear that in mind.”  Peter continued his lecture, but I tuned him out, because I was starting to worry. 
Vicki
had been part of a…what would they even call that?  Too small to be an orgy, right?  So, a
fivesome
?  How would four girls and one guy work exactly?  I’d have to ponder that later, because my mind wandered to other things.  I didn’t have issues with the fact that they had sex, that there were five of them, or any of that, necessarily—hell, it sounded kind of fun.  A sexfest!  What concerned me first was Andrew.  What possessed this guy, who’d been our new manager for less than twenty-four hours, mind you, to decide to fuck everyone (except for me, for some strange reason) he was in charge of?  It made me very wary of the guy.  And, on top of that, Vicki’s body didn’t look like she’d had a night of
pleasure
.  She looked like she’d been someone’s whipping girl.  And all five of them looked like shit, like they’d way overdone—and if their little tryst or whatever the hell they wanted to call it caused them to perform poorly tonight, I was going to come undone.  I was all for partying—hell, I couldn’t wait to party—but if it fucked up our performance, I was going to be angry.

For now, I’d reserve judgment and keep my mouth shut, but I was nervous.  Really nervous.

* * *

After breakfast, we headed back to the hotel.  Peter let us know we’d be staying there one more night and leave early the next morning for our next venue.  That was probably great for my group, because they all looked like they needed a lot more sleep.  Hell, Kelly and Vicki looked like they were ready to doze off in the van.

I was on my phone and noticed that I’d gotten a text from Vicki the night before. 
Hey!  I scored big.  Wanna come join the party?
  Ah…so I
had
been invited and slept through it all.  I wondered if I would have taken her up on her offer.  Seeing them now, knowing what I did, there was no way I’d do it, but last night?  I wasn’t sure.  I didn’t know what they’d been offered.  Surely, it didn’t start off with the promise of five-way sex.  Or had it?  Had it instead started with the offer of free pot and booze and who-knew-what-else Andrew was offering and just blossomed from there?

After what felt a bit like continued rejection from CJ, I might have jumped at that chance.  The light of day, however, changed the playing field a bit, and I wasn’t quite as willing to be part of Andrew’s little harem.  It felt cheap somehow, devaluing, like he only wanted to manage a bunch of teenage rock stars so he could bed them.  Thus far, I was unimpressed with Mr. Slick.

So when we headed up to the hotel and Andrew managed to finagle me away from the group for a bit so that he and I were lagging behind, I was dubious about anything he might have to say right off the bat.

He draped an arm over my shoulder.  It took everything I had in me to stop myself from jerking away in repulsion.  Like I said, I didn’t begrudge any of them a little fun, but this guy was grossing me out.  He had to be close to thirty, and here he was perping on all us young women.  I had CJ on the one hand, a guy barely older than I, wanting to preserve my innocence or some such (or his clean record, by the sounds of it), and then this guy, wanting to bed as many underage girls as possible.  God.  I didn’t even want to know what all they’d done.

The weight of his arm on my shoulders slowed me down, and I knew that was part of his intention.  I suspected the other part was so I’d feel like his buddy or…
something
.  Before I could demand what the hell he wanted, he said, “Hey, Kyle.  No hard feelings, honey.  I think Vicki tried to reach you last night so you could join my party.  I want you to know you were the one I really wanted.  Maybe you and me could have our own private party tonight.  What ya say?”

I really wanted to tell him to shove it as far up his ass as he could reach, but I knew that could present a problem.  If I pissed him off, now that he was my manager, he could make my life hell.  I knew that much.  I had to try to be diplomatic, as much as I possibly could.  I’d bring out the big guns later if I had to, but right now, I just wanted to go back to my room.

I wished I had my guitar.  I would love to go upstairs and shred the fuck out of that thing.  The next best thing would be to shower under boiling hot water for an hour or two, get this guy’s scent off me—but I didn’t know that I’d have the chance or that it would even make me feel better.  My mind wrapped around a great excuse and I hoped it worked.  I’d stick to mostly the truth and hope it did the trick.  I looked him in the eye and said, “Andrew, that’s really sweet of you.  You’re a really good looking guy, and I realize I’m missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime, but you need to know I’m hung up on another guy. 
Really
hung up.”

Oh, my God.  That might have been totally true.

That sucked.

Andrew’s face screwed up into half a frown.  “Best way to get over a guy is to fuck another one.”

Would this guy not give up?  Shit.  “Yeah, that might be, but I’m not ready to get over him yet.”  Time for the lie.  “The main reason we’re not together is because we’re physically apart.  After this tour, we can change that.”

“I was afraid you were gonna say that.  Vicki said something about a guy named CJ.”

Just
a guy
?  No, he was more than a guy.  “CJ Slavin, bassist for Death Crunch.”

“
Oh.
  They’re the band that’s gonna play the last concert with us next summer, right?”

“Yes.  That’s them.”

He nodded.  And there it was—defeat.  I could see it in his eyes.  He wasn’t sad; he just knew he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.  Inside, I felt relief.  We started walking toward the elevator.  “Well, if he ever breaks your heart, you come runnin’ to Uncle Andy.  I promise to take good care of you.”

Yeah, I bet he would.  I managed to keep my shudder to myself.

“Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” - Eurythmics

Chapter Four

I EXPECTED VICKI to be completely passed out in her bed, but instead she was lying on top of the comforter, staring at the ceiling, twirling a piece of her chin-length brown hair in her hand.  “How you feelin’?”

“Tell you what—a little breakfast and a lotta coffee and I’m feelin’ a thousand times better.”

“Good.”

I was wondering what we could do to kill a few hours until we headed to the venue.  I was going to ask her if she wanted to go swimming again when she said, “God, Kyle, you wouldn’t believe it.”

“What?”  I plopped down on my bed.

“Last night.  Oh, my God.  I wish you could’ve been there.”

Okay…so my morbid curiosity got the best of me.  I might not want to fuck Andrew, but I wouldn’t mind hearing about what he did with my bandmates.  “Do tell.”

“Shit.  So…I went to Andrew’s room.  I figured he had to have something and, if not, I could talk him into driving me around so I could score something.”

“What makes you so sure of that?”

“I was right, wasn’t I?”  I smirked and shrugged my shoulders.  How could I argue with that?  “So I went to his room and knocked on the door.  I heard music inside, so I knew he was there.  And…he was having a drink with Barbie and Kelly.”

“A drink?”

“Yeah—straight tequila.  Holy crap.  The kind that’ll eat paint off a car.”  I laughed then—where the hell had she even heard that?  “So he asked if I wanted to party with them.  I said, ‘Sure’ but asked if he had anything stronger.  He asked what I meant and I told him I was wanting to smoke a joint.

“‘Oh, weed.  Yeah, I got some.’  And he dug in his suitcase and pulled out a pipe and a bag of some premium shit.  Oh, my God.  I asked the right person.  So, before I know it, I’m high and halfway drunk and somehow Liz wound up there too.  And I look up, and Barbie’s feeling Kelly up and then she starts kissing her.”  She sat up on the bed, clutching the comforter up to her face.  “Do you promise not to hate me if I tell you something?”

“Why the hell would I hate you, Vicki?”

She bit her bottom lip before she spat it out.  “It was fucking hot.  I’d had just enough that I wasn’t feeling any pain, and I just didn’t give a shit.  I didn’t even realize my hand was in my panties until Andrew said, ‘Maybe one of us can do that for you.’  I swear to God, my eyes had to be the size of the sun.  So he’s unzipping my pants; Liz is massaging my shoulders; and I’m watching Kelly and Barbie really go at it.  Holy shit.  And it just escalated from there.”  I raised my eyebrows.  Yeah, sounded like definitely a good time was had by all.

“I can’t remember for sure, but I’m pretty positive Andrew actually stuck his dick in all of us at least once.  I think Barbie took it up the ass even, but I’m fuzzy about all that.  All I know was this morning, Barbie was curled up next to Liz and had her hand on her boob.”  Something tickled the back of my brain, some hidden truth, but I couldn’t quite reach it at the moment.  “Kelly was already gone, and this morning, she acted like nothing ever happened—like she forgot.”

“Maybe she
wants
to forget.”  Kelly seemed like the type who might need more time to ease into the
sex
part of the rock-and-roll triad.  Sounded like they’d already conquered it and the drugs.  We’d made record time.  I was the only one who’d failed miserably.

“Maybe.”

I couldn’t help myself, not since she’d been the one to broach the subject.  “So…what are all those marks on you, Vicki?”

“
Marks?
”

“Yeah—like cigarette burns on your arms.”

“Shit.  That finally came back to me.  I lit a cigarette and I was feelin’ no pain.  I wanted to see if I could feel it if I put them out on my arms.  And I couldn’t.  Well, I couldn’t last night.  I sure as hell can feel them now.”

“What about the bruises and…”  I stopped myself.  The hickeys, in light of what she’d told me, were self-explanatory.

“I dunno.  I think maybe we got a little rough.  It was all in fun.”

I hoped so.  But I worried about my friend.  As much as I liked to skirt the edge and thought that experimenting might be fun, it seemed like an essential component not to her happiness but to her being.  And that worried me.  It worried me a lot.

* * *

Well, it might have made me concerned about my friend, but not so much that a few hours later I wasn’t doing the same damn thing.  She’d stolen some of Andrew’s stash on her way out of his room—the stuff she’d coined “premium shit”—and we went in the bathroom and turned on the vent before toking up.

But she also had a pint of peppermint schnapps—where she’d scored
that
, I’d never know.  And it wasn’t long before we were laughing and giggling and flying high.

I wasn’t bored anymore.

But, by the time we got to the venue, I was fucked up.  I wanted to practice on my guitar, just to make sure I could play it, to make sure I could still figure out how to make it work in my altered state, but I couldn’t.  Vicki just laughed and laughed and got in my face and so I found a restroom and locked the door.  The first thing I did was splash cold water on my face.  I needed a jolt to my system and that helped.  I managed to avoid my eyes so my mascara didn’t run but everything else got a good splash.  Then I jumped up and down and shook my arms around, hoping to clear my head. 
You can do this, Kyle.
  When I left the bathroom, Vicki asked if I wanted another hit and I told her, “Hell, no.  But if you have a regular cigarette, I’ll take it.”  I needed a stimulant of some kind, no matter how mild.  Andrew was wandering around the hall and, as I walked to the back so I could smoke, I stopped him and asked if he could find me some coffee.

“On it, pretty lady.”

Seriously?  Was he still going to come on to me?

I’d only smoked half the cigarette when Peter found me and told me to get my ass in the greenroom for a pre-show meeting.  I threw the cigarette on the ground and stomped on it, and then grew pissed that I hadn’t thought to save the unsmoked part.  But I followed and felt a little relieved that at least I wasn’t wobbly on my feet.  I seemed to be steady at any rate.

When we got to the room, my other four bandmates were already there.  I glanced around the space, and I smiled, because even through the haze, I saw that we looked like a real rock band.  We looked bad ass.  All we needed were tattoos—but we wouldn’t be getting them anytime soon if Peter had his way.

“It has come to my attention that some of you
indulged
a little before the show.  You can’t take everything seriously, whores.  ‘Sex, drugs, and rock and rock’ does
not
pertain to a bunch of horny teenagers.  Do you expect to be able to perform well if you’re not all there?  And what do you think your audience is going to think about you?  This is their very first exposure to you, and they will not be kind if they feel like you’ve wasted their time.”

Peter might have been an asshole, but his words were ringing true with me.  I’d been thinking the very same thing.  Indulging before the concert had been a stupid mistake, one that I would not make again.  Having a beer or two before was one thing, but getting blitzed out of my mind was quite another and showed poor judgment.

I was nodding when Andrew walked in the room, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee.  He handed it to me and I gladly took it. 
Black?
  I’d have to let him know for future reference how I liked it, but meanwhile beggars couldn’t be choosers.  I looked at the liquid before tipping the cup, and it had a shiny, oily film on it.  I knew what that meant.  It had been sitting a while.  Again, though, the alternative was
nothing
and I had to take it.  So I sipped at it and I sensed that it was blistering my tongue, but I really couldn’t
feel
it.

I just tuned in as best as I could and kept my mouth shut.  I was
not
going to fuck this up for my band.  Somewhere in the midst of all those words, I heard something about a meet and greet.

“What?  Why didn’t you tell us before?”

“You are going to have lots of these, Ms. Bennett.  Check your itinerary.  It’s on there.  In the meantime, my job is to get you here and make sure you do what you’re supposed to—since Mr. Curtis has failed to do so.”  He stared her down, daring her to say something else, but she was smart and kept her mouth shut.  Finally, he looked at us all and said, “Now, it’s entirely up to you, but I suggest you make nice with your fans.  Think first impression.  If they don’t like you or think you’re trampy little bitches, the world will know.  These are your first fans.  Don’t blow it.”

I nodded again, hoping to sober up more.  I was actually excited to meet our fans.  They were the ones who would sing to our songs, tell other people how much they loved us, and they were the ones whose asses would fill the seats.  But…then I started to think.  “Hey, Peter, are these
our
fans or the other bands’ fans?”

“They are both, but you are the only band doing a meet and greet tonight, so these people
want
to see you.  Bear that in mind.”

Okay.  I had this.  I grabbed a bottle of water and Peter said Andrew would take us to the meet-and-greet room in ten minutes, so if we wanted to touch up our makeup or something, now was the time to do it.

God.  I was nervous.  If I hadn’t already been drunk as shit, I would have considered having another drink.  I don’t know why it was making me tense, because I liked people and I usually got along with most folks just fine—and, as Peter had said—these people
wanted
to meet us.  There was nothing that should be uncomfortable about it.

It seemed like no time had passed when Andrew said, “Okay, ladies.  Ready to go?”

Barbie gave him a sly grin and said, “Always, baby.”  He gave her a look as if to tell her what she’d said was inappropriate—like he had any room to judge.  But he turned and let us all follow.  As we filed out the door, Barbie slapped him on the ass.  He turned and glared but still said nothing.

Served the perv right.  He was getting exactly what he’d asked for.

We walked down the long hall and then through a set of security doors.  We rounded a corner and went into another room and voila!  There they were.  I don’t know why I’d expected a huge crowd, and maybe that was my naïveté, but it was just a handful of people.  Peter had been right about one thing—they were definitely enthusiastic and eager to see
us
.

Unfortunately, I was so trashed, I barely remembered a thing afterward.  I answered a few questions, signed a few autographs, and then, before I knew it, we were being escorted out so we could prepare for the concert.

I stared at myself in the dressing room mirror.  I didn’t quite look real to myself, but I told myself I had this.  I was, at least, feeling a little bit more sober than earlier, but I still had a long way to go.  “Let’s go!” Andrew yelled in the door and Vicki gave me a hug.

“C’mon, Kyle.  Let’s go be rock stars!”