The Bad Boys Of Molly Riot: The Complete Hard Rock Star Series

by Jade Allen

  “People lose keys all the time,” I pointed out, glancing around briefly before I brushed a lock of her short hair out of Olivia’s face. “Especially when they get absolutely bombed on champagne.”

  “That was your fault,” Olivia told me, wagging a finger in my direction. “I am not the one who smuggled an entire case of champagne out of the venue.”

  “Hey! It was on the rider, and if we didn’t drink it, it was just going to go to the crew there. I left the beers behind for them.” Olivia punched the elevator button and snickered.

  “Right. Playing champagne-pong in the hotel rec room was totally the only proper thing to do,” she said.

  “You’re the one who decided to up the ante by making it strip champagne-pong,” I pointed out.

  “On round four, after you got me bombed,” Olivia insisted. She stuck her tongue out at me. The elevator chimed and we both stepped on quickly.

  “It’s not my fault that I’m so much better than you at champagne-pong,” I told her. The doors closed behind us and I took advantage of being alone with Olivia to lean in and kiss her quickly on the lips. “Besides, if I remember correctly, there was enough champagne left over for some fun experiments…” I cupped one of her tits through her clothes and gave it a quick squeeze. “I seem to recall you enjoyed the bubbles fizzing against your clit.”

  “Here,” she said, giving me a little push away from her and slapping a cold plastic rectangle into my hand. “Don’t lose it this time.”

  “If I do I could just invite you over to my place,” I suggested with a smirk.

  “I’m not explaining to my boss how I lost another card,” Olivia said, shaking her head.

  “You’re partying with musicians,” I pointed out. “These things happen. It makes your reports more realistic if you participate.” Olivia chuckled, shaking her head.

  “You are a terrible influence,” she told me, poking me in the chest.

  “I am the best possible influence for you,” I said. “After all, if it weren’t for me, how would you have learned that you prefer vaping pot to smoking it out of a bong?”

  “Or that spicy foods are a terrible idea if you’ve already gotten drunk to the point of nausea?” Olivia shook her head again. “This is on tour. I don’t really expect this to last, Nick.”

  “Why not?” I moved a little closer to her. “We started out before the tour did. We can last after it.”

  “Is that really what you want?” She looked up at me and I had to make myself look at her eyes instead of her eyelashes, her lips, the pink in her cheeks. “You’ve done a great job of not hitting on anyone else…at least as far as I’ve seen,” she said. She licked her lips and it almost ruined any chance I had for focusing on her words. “But in another month or two, you’re going to get bored of me.”

  “You?” I snorted, shaking my head. “How can I get bored of someone who goes into every experience totally fresh?”

  “We’re running out of first times,” Olivia pointed out. “Just about the only drugs you haven’t managed to score for us are coke, meth, and E.”

  “I don’t do the first two anymore, and E you really need to have a full night to enjoy. Preferably at a club somewhere.” I kissed her forehead. “You’ve smoked out with me what—five times? And every time it’s like it’s new to you. I know you smoked before—no one takes a hit that big without coughing up a lung if they’re a newbie. So it’s just who you are.”

  “We’ve also done so many things sexually that we’re going to run out of new things to try there,” Olivia pointed out. We got off the elevator and started down the hall. “Face it, Nicky: you’re all about novelty, and when that wears off, you’ll get the itch again. I’ve made my peace with it.” I reached out and grabbed her hand, stopping her in the hallway.

  “I want more than novelty now,” I told her lowly. “I want you. You’re excited, interested, engaged.” I smiled. “How many times do I have to tell you that it’s you I want, not just the ‘hard to get’ woman?” Olivia took a deep breath.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” she said. She stood up on the balls of her feet and kissed me lightly. “Now let’s get our stuff put away so we don’t throw off Ron’s precious schedule.”

  I walked Olivia to her hotel room door and went further down the hall to my own room; the rest of the guys had gone up already, but I’d waited for Olivia to check in, loitering in the lobby. She was right; Ron was all about our schedule while we were on tour. He especially wanted to take advantage of the increased press this time around, since Alex had made us media darlings. So, every date on the tour there was guaranteed to be at least two interviews with two different radio stations, along with some kind of promotional opportunity after the show was over—and of course, Olivia’s coverage of the tour was a constant thing.

  I thought about the way things stood between Olivia and me. We’d been on tour almost two months; I’d managed to keep from even really looking at the girls who made their way backstage. Jules, Mark and Dan had managed to score about a dozen times since we’d first left for the tour—I’d stuck by Olivia. The question is: is she right? As soon as the novelty wears off, are you going to start getting that itch? Looking for something new, something fun and exciting, something mindless? I pulled my dirty clothes out of my suitcase and tossed it aside, sorting through what little I had clean to change before the radio interview.

  I stripped my clothes off and threw them at the laundry bag. I didn’t think it was just novelty. The more time I spent with Olivia the more interesting I found her. Maybe that’s because she’s not just some dumb bimbo you’re picking up to sleep with once and then never see again. I grinned to myself, tugging a pair of jeans up my legs. But what if she’s right? What if it’s just exciting right now? What do I do when we’ve exhausted all of the possibilities? A second later, though, I was shaking my head again. As if two people could ever exhaust all the possibilities of things you can do in bed. I threw on a shirt and grabbed a jacket to wear over it—radio studios always seemed to be either freezing or sweltering. I pulled my shoes on and headed for the door, checking to make sure that I had all the things I needed: phone, keys, cigarettes, both key cards, and wallet. Apart from that I wouldn’t need much of anything that wasn’t in my backpack on the bus. Things will work out, I told myself.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  We got out of the radio interview unscathed, and I climbed onto the bus quickly the minute we were out of the station’s offices. Maybe if we were lucky, I’d have a little time to spend with Olivia before we had to do the next interview at the club we were playing at. I’d left her working on more content for the magazine, compiling pictures and writing an article that would go up on the Record Spin website in a few days.

  I walked through to the lounge; but Olivia wasn’t there. I frowned, hearing Jules giving Mark shit about something—some comment he’d made that I barely cared about. Alex was talking to Ron about scheduling something or other, and I didn’t care about that either. I walked to the back of the bus. “Hannah? You seen Olivia? Did she go somewhere or something?”

  “She was in the lounge last time I checked,” Hannah said with a shrug. “Working on another article for the magazine.” I sucked on my front teeth and tried to think. The only place on the bus I hadn’t looked through was the bunks.

  The guys were settling in the lounge when I walked back through. “Anyone see Olivia go anywhere? I don’t want to leave her stranded,” I said, trying not to sound as anxious as I was starting to feel.

  “Why would she get off the bus?” I shrugged, continuing onto the bunks. I went to my bunk first—just on impulse. She wasn’t there. The next option—and the most obvious one—was her own bunk.

  Sure enough, when I tugged aside the curtain, there she was, curled up on the bed, facing the wall. “Liv? What’s going on? What’s up?” I looked back at the lounge and decided that it was probably better to join her in the bed—if she would let me—than to stand outside of the bu
nk and try and talk to her. I climbed up and pulled myself onto the bed behind her.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Olivia said, her voice creaking and breaking. I tugged the curtain back into place behind me.

  “Obviously, it’s a big deal,” I pointed out. I shifted closer to her on the bed. “Come on, Liv. Tell me what’s going on.” I pitched my voice low, my lips only inches away from her ear.

  “We got found out,” Olivia said after a moment’s silence. Her voice was flat. “Someone sent pictures to my editor. He emailed me while we were checking into the hotel, but I didn’t see it until you got to the station.”

  “What’s so wrong about that?” I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her body against mine. “I mean, how terrible can it be? We’re in the open now.”

  “He’s thinking about pulling me from the assignment,” Olivia said. “Looks like the rest of the guys are going to get to argue over who gets the money or how to split it.”

  “Why does he want to pull you?”

  “Because it’s a scandal! Everyone’s going to be going on about me being a slut. I’m ruined.” She shuddered against me and sobbed, turning her face towards the pillow. “All anyone is going to ever associate me with is fucking the guitarist of Molly Riot.” I tightened my grip on her and Olivia struggled against me, pulling away. “I knew this was a mistake. I knew it was stupid and a bad idea and I did it anyway.”

  “It wasn’t a mistake!” I heard the guys in the lounge starting to go quiet—not quite stopping their chatter, but certainly going about it a lot less. I didn’t care. “Look, Liv—it happens all the time. Julian Casablancas got together with his band’s assistant manager. Dave Grohl married someone from MTV.” I pulled her tightly against me until she stopped struggling. “We’ll convince your editor that it’s actually better that you’re dating me.”

  “And if someone bitches that the only reason I wrote something is because I’m fucking you? What then, Nick? Women’s careers get ruined over this.”

  “Yours won’t.” I kissed the top of her head, holding her body against mine, feeling the tension in every muscle. “I swear, Olivia. I won’t let anyone ruin your career over this. It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing to you,” she said, her voice tight and so bitter I could almost taste it. “When you break up with me in two months or four or six because you want something new, you can forget all about me, and not give a single shit about what my career looks like.”

  “By the time I break up with you—if I ever do, which at the moment I’m not planning—no one is even going to remember this.”

  “They will if it goes to press,” Olivia said. “And I can just about guarantee that the kind of person who would find my fucking editor’s personal email to send him pictures of us together is exactly the kind of person who’d send the same pictures to a bunch of other people.”

  “So, you come clean with it,” I suggested. “Make it your next article on the site. Talk about the ridiculousness of having a relationship on the road.” I gripped her so tightly I knew it was probably more than a little uncomfortable for Olivia, but I couldn’t make myself let go of her. “If you don’t freak out over this and you handle it like it doesn’t matter, then it won’t matter.”

  “Just…just let me be for a little while, Nick,” she said. She sounded exhausted—so thoroughly exhausted that my grip loosened without me even thinking about it. “I need to cry over this and try and get…get myself together, and I can’t do that if you’re insisting that everything is going to be fine and dandy and fucking wonderful. I need to—I need to think. And I can’t think if you’re right here next to me.”

  “I’ll be quiet,” I said lowly. “I’ll just lie here, and you can cry all over me, and when we get to the venue I’ll change my shirt and no one will have to know.” I glanced towards the curtain. “Well, no one other than the guys and the crew on the bus.”

  “Just leave me alone for a little while,” Olivia said. “I—I’ll talk to you about all this later when I’ve figured out what I want to do.” I wanted to argue the point; I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t going to just leave her alone. I wasn’t going to let it end like this—and I could tell she wanted it to end. When she did talk to me later, she was going to argue for us to be over. But I couldn’t make myself do it. I kissed her forehead and let go of her, and then I slipped out of the bunk and climbed down along the wall, and went into the lounge.

  “What happened?” I threw myself onto a couch and shook my head.

  “Someone sent pictures of us to her editor,” I said as quietly as possible. “Her editor’s considering taking her off the assignment.”

  “So, we say that we won’t work with anyone else,” Alex suggested. “I mean what are they going to do? Risk making a bigger scandal out of this by having to explain the cancelation?”

  “She’s afraid it’s going to ruin her career.” I sighed. “Fuck, I need a beer.” I needed more than that. I stood up on unsteady feet and went back to the bunks. I found my vapor pen and the little tiny jar of hash wax; at one point in its life it had been a container of lip balm or something. I went back into the lounge and Dan handed me an open beer. I put a dab of brown, sticky hash on the atomizer of my vape and took a quick hit, holding the tingling vapor in my lungs for as long as I dared. I exhaled and took a sip of my beer.

  “Take it slow,” Jules suggested from the table where he and Dan were playing Battleship. “You don’t want to go into the show blasted out of your mind.” I shrugged.

  “She’s going to end it,” I said quietly. I lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out of my lungs in favor of another hit of the hash. “The fuck does it matter if I play bad for one night over it?”

  “That’s some bullshit,” Alex said, scowling at me. “You’ve never, ever let any of the rest of us have the excuse of breaking up with somebody for playing bad. You don’t get it either.”

  “I’m not going to fuck the show over,” I said. “I just…” I shook my head. “I just want to get stoned enough to leave her alone. If I don’t then I’m going to keep trying to talk to her and just make things worse.” I took another hit and then set the vape aside, starting on my cigarette in earnest. I knew better than to get wasted before it was even two in the afternoon. “I just thought—for like, the first fucking time in my life—that I’d found something I wanted to really keep. And then this shit happens.” I looked at each of the other guys in the band in turn. “If I ever find out who did this to her, I’m gonna fucking break his ass.” A little smile tugged at Jules’ lips. For a second, I couldn’t help but suspect my band mates; there were only so many people who could have gotten pictures of Olivia and me together, after all. But none of them would’ve done something like that.

  “You figure out who it is and we’ll help break their ass,” Mark told me. I took a deep breath and a sip of my beer.

  “I can see the headline now,” I said, grinning wryly. “Molly Riot Share Jail Cell After Felony Assault.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Olivia avoided me the rest of the day, and I tried to fill the void that I’d gotten used to spending watching her work, helping her get the best possible pictures or sound bites from the crew or the rest of the band. I stayed on the stage even after we’d finished up sound check, playing meandering little runs on my guitar. It sounded off-pitch, but every time I checked it against the built-in tuner, it was dead on. This is why you’ve never gotten close to anything like this, I thought, picking out a mournful little OK Go tune. It took me a minute to remember the name: “Let it Rain.” I played the melody fill over and over again and then switched to the rhythm, murmuring the words to myself under the noise of the amps and speakers. “Cruise control distressed her/ kinda cursed and kinda blessed her/ engine running on the fumes…vision blue and blurry/ fallen angels in a flurry/ spinning through the empty room…”

  The thing that shocked me was that I’d never even considered the possibility of it ending between Olivia and m
e. She’d say that I was going to eventually move on from her, get tired of her—but it had never occurred to me to think that she might end it. Not really. I’d just thought things would go the same way that they’d been going; that I’d just keep ending up in her bed or her in my bed, and then once the tour ended, we’d switch off going to each other’s apartments, fucking like animals, eating dinner together and getting wasted and having a good time. Even if I never thought of it being something serious—something like a committed relationship—I’d figured it would just keep being the way it was.

  I switched to another OK Go tune almost without thinking. The low-slung groove suggested itself in my brain, the lyrics flowing through my head as I played the soulful low melody. I want you, yeah I want you/ I want you, yeah I want you bad/ So bad I can’t think straight, so bad all my bones shake/ so bad I can’t breathe… And in the light of morning for twenty-one days straight, there you are beside me…

  “Nick! You’re going to play the calluses off your fingers,” I missed the note and hit the wrong chord, startled by the sound of Alex’s voice shouting over my playing. I sighed and stopped playing altogether, setting the guitar down on its stand.

  “I was practicing,” I told Alex as I walked past him. “What else have I got to do? Olivia doesn’t want to be in the same room as me.”

  “You have two choices,” Alex said, following me. “You fight for her, or you give her up and find someone to take your mind off of her.”