“Of course.” I thumbed under my nose, fighting the smile. That track was killer. It was everything Midnite Kills stood for. Heavy guitars. Lyrics that cut to the bone. A little rap mixed in with vocals that would make David Draiman a jealous shit. Ricky should have been excited. Floored. Already on the phone with a graphic designer to get the cover underway. . . But the second hand on the clock ticked by.
“Epic, right?” I said.
“It’s last year.”
“What?”
“That track was amazing, dickweed.” Nash belched next to me before slouching in his chair. Leo leaned over his knees on my other side, dragging a hand through his unkempt blond hair.
“That sound’s on its way out.” Ricky sat up, the chair creaking when he leaned toward his computer. “This is the direction the label wants you guys to go.” He jabbed a finger over his keyboard, and some offensive excuse for punk rock trickled through the speakers.
The guitars were weak. The bass non-existent. Instead of drums, some electronic, techno bullshit kept the beat.
“Fuck that.” I waved a dismissive hand through the air.
“Is that. . . pop?” Nash looked at me, one eyebrow lifted, his nostrils flaring while he pointed at Ricky’s massive Mac. “Is this some Britney Spears crap?”
“Come on, Ricky,” Leo laughed. “You’re messing around with us.”
“Trust me. You’ll be glad you shifted the direction of your music to meet the demands.” Ricky pulled a stack of papers from a file and scribbled something across the top.
“You do realize that we’re multiplatinum?” I placed my hands by my temples. My head was about to explode. “Hell, we beat out Pandemic Sorrow this year on awards, Ricky. We beat out Jag-fucking-Steel. Come on, man. The label’s wrong.”
“Per your contract, you sing what we approve.” He yanked the flash drive with our EP from his computer. “And we do not approve of that.” Then tossed it to me.
I caught it, fighting the angry heat that slowly consumed my body. “I’m not playing music that’ll end up on Kidz Bop,” I said. “You and the label can rethink this shit. And then we’ll talk.” The chair tumbled over when I pushed out of it.
The label screwed with everything. Sure, I had signed on the dotted line three years ago, when I was a naïve kid with twenty bucks in my pocket. I was Charlie Bucket, and Devil’s Side Record handed me a motherfucking Golden Ticket. A promise of fame, fortune, and every dream I could possibly imagine. No more shitty bars. No more struggling to make rent. But I had made them too much money to let them dictate my actual art. They instructed me on how to dress, how to walk, and they decided how I wore my hair, but I’d keel over and die before they dictated my music.
It was the last piece of me still alive.
Fuming, we left the label, piled into Leo’s gunmetal Jaguar F-Pace and headed down to Loco Los Cabezos off Sunset.
Leo parked across the street from the pumpkin-orange stucco building, and we climbed out. Nash directed his attention to the flashing neon sign of a taco clutching a beer, and he rubbed a hand over his stomach. “Bottomless tacos are almost as good as a buffet of pussy.”
Leo held up three fingers. The girl grabbed menus and utensils before escorting us to the patio.
I massaged my temples before starting across the road. Nash had a one-track mind: women and food. Or maybe that was two tracks. Either way, he had tunnel vision.
The smell of fried steak and chicken filled the air the second we set foot inside the tiled entrance. The hostess grinned, swatting her long, black hair over her shoulder and batting her eyes when Nash sashayed past the podium in rhythm with the upbeat Mariachi music.
Within half an hour, I’d gorged myself on a Loco Boco Burrito, was on cerveza numero tres, and Nash had shown off a “cooter shot” from Barbi B that made my burrito threaten to come back up. I was ready to go home and crawl in bed, even though the sun had not yet sunk below the horizon.
The scrape and rattle of wheels over the sidewalk rumbled through the patio when a group of kids skateboarded past the restaurant. A fit of laughter rang out when one of them took a nasty spill into a garbage can. Tourists with cameras strolled down the street. Several stopped to snap pictures of us eating. Sometimes shit like that made me feel like a three-legged tiger in the zoo, but whatever. If people wanted a picture of me cramming my face, they could have at it. There had been far worse about me splattered over the tabloids in the past.
Filled to the brim with cheap food, I sat back in the chair and focused on the condensation trickling down the neck of my Corona. Nash pushed his plate of bottomless tacos to the side and reached across to a freshly vacated table, grabbing the latest copy of Rolling Stone left behind. “You know,” he said, holding up the cover with my face blazoned across it. “They can’t even Photoshop the ugly outta you. I guess that’s why they chose to interview you instead of me.” He leaned back in his seat, crossed his ankle over a knee, and popped open the magazine. “It would be a liability to women’s underwear worldwide if my mug were plastered on this baby.”
Leo laughed while stuffing stale chips into his mouth. I took a swig of beer, trying to ignore the month in the right-hand corner of the cover. June. A reminder of a wound that refused to heal. Out of habit, I grabbed a piece of gum from my pocket, unwrapped it, and tossed it on top of the half-eaten tacos while holding onto the paper. “Grab me that pen,” I told Leo and pointed to the table behind him.
He obliged and tossed me the BIC before going back to his chips and salsa.
I quickly scribbled out: No one else can ever be the first. . .
Nash sat up, slapped the Rolling Stone onto the table, then pounded his fist on it, rattling the dishes. “You know, we should have named our band Love’s Truck Stop.”
I scowled. “Or we could have named it Broken Condom Baby after you. Shut up.”
Leo drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “I still think we should’ve named ourselves Pussy Patrol.”
“That sounds like Paw Patrol.” Nash glared at Leo. “And that’s a kid’s show.”
“Why do you know that’s a kid’s show?” I asked.
“Because I watch it when I’m high, dick dribble.” He sang a bar of the theme song, placed his elbow on the table, and continued to read my interview in The Stone—the interview Ricky said was “gold.”
Evidently, spilling my guts and bearing my scars would help fans connect. . .whatever that bullshit meant. I couldn’t fathom how telling the story of my abandonment at a Love’s Truck Stop—by my mother—when I was three weeks old would connect me to anyone. I’d often wondered what would have happened if some a lot-lizard hadn’t found me buckled into my ratty car seat and driven me to the police station. Maybe I would have died. Maybe somebody else would have stumbled across the carrier and just taken me, but instead, I bounced from foster home to foster home and finally aged out of that shitshow. Never adopted. Never accepted. Entirely unwanted until I found her. Until I found her. . . I snagged my beer and chugged, wanting nothing more than to drown out that pain.
“Jag and Rush are going to The Club,” Leo said, staring at his phone. “Wanna go down there?”
“I don’t have shit else to do tonight.”
Nash sighed, then shoved the Rolling Stone out of his way. “Too bad you took that oath of celibacy or whatever it was.” He jabbed a finger over the print. “This is the stuff that gets you laid then laid again.”
“I’m married.”
Leo glanced at me, one brow arched while he tossed a wad of cash onto the table. “She keeps sending you divorce papers, man.”
She did. And every single time, I sent them back to 383 St James Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England with a gum wrapper that said. Marriage is forever. The metal legs of the chair scraped over the concrete when I stood. I eyed the gum wrapper, debating on whether to leave it on the table or not. Last minute, I grabbed it and crammed it into my back pocket.
Nash snatched his shades from the tab
le and shoved them on. “What you need to do is fuck her outta your system.” He whacked me on the back, and the temptation to throat punch him was almost overwhelming. “Bumping uglies solves all life’s problems.”
“Buddha would not agree with that,” Leo said.
“Yeah.” Nash scoffed. “Well, that’s one reason I’m not Buddhist.”
Six months ago, Leo and I had both overdosed during a trip to Thailand. After coming to, Leo found Buddha and decided to replace all the “toxins” he’d been consuming with meditation. Me? I just noted that ninety-seven kilograms of cocaine was too much and tried to stick to ninety-five. Near death experiences affect us all differently, I supposed.
“You could fuck that girl. Or that girl.” Nash headed across the street.
I flipped down my sunglasses and shoved my hands in my pockets. Halfway through the crosswalk, we passed a group of middle-aged moms, fake tits on display, while they pushed strollers.
“Probably run a train on those women,” Nash continued.
The headlights to Leo’s Jaguar flashed. The alarm chirped. “Nash, why are you concerned about what Spencer’s doing with his dick?” he asked.
“It’s not healthy to let that shit back up, Leo.”
I climbed into the car, wishing I was already drunk. Or high. Or both.
Nash spent the five-minute drive to The Club listing off the reasons a guy should orgasm once a day the way Bubba listed all the ways to cook shrimp in Forrest Gump.
By the time we had reached Sunset and Vine, the only light came from the flickering neon signs above the bars. After sundown, the streets took on the glitz and glamour that made LA nightlife famous. People, dressed in clothes they couldn’t afford, flocked to the bars to spend money they didn’t have on over-priced drinks they didn’t need.
Leo revved his engine before screeching to a halt in front of The Club’s valet.
Out of all the bars and nightclubs in LA, The Club was the place to be if you were somebody, or if you wanted to pretend to be somebody, evident from the line that wound around the building like a toy snake. Any given day of the week, the building was packed with wannabe models. Every bartender was a future Oscar nominee, and every janitor had a song they were trying to sell to a label.
As we approached the red-canopied entrance, people in line shouted my name. Cameras flashed, spotting my vision. I stopped to sign a few autographs, took a handful of pictures, and let some girl cop a feel. Then we were ushered to the front and right past the velvet rope that separated the wannabes from the real deals.
The bass bumped and rumbled through my chest. Strobe lights flickered green to red to blue, catching in the fog that swirled through the air.
As per routine, we followed the stairwell to the VIP area, joining other rock stars and Hollywood A-listers. Some hypnotic bullshit pumped through the speakers. Nash and Leo high-fived Jag, then fell back onto the plush, velvet sofa. Within milliseconds, girls were on their laps, performing celebrity worship, and I’d ordered a two-hundred-dollar bottle of cognac.
A few years ago, had someone told me that I’d be sitting in the VIP section of The Club next to Jag Steele, I would have thought it was maybe possible. Had they told me that one day, none of this would matter—that not one bit of it would make me happy—I would have laughed in their face. When you’re on the bottom rung of the ladder, counting pennies to pay for gas, this lifestyle seems like the answer to everything.
Money.
Notoriety.
Fans.
But that was the thing that sucked about fame. I no longer had a crutch to blame—I had everything I’d ever wanted, yet I was miserable.
A wiry brunette sauntered up to me, ribs visible through her sheer dress. With a bat of her fake lashes, she perched herself on the arm of my chair like a Siamese cat, scratching her nails over my chest. “Hey, Spence.”
“Spencer,” I corrected.
A coy smile curled her pink lips. “I saw your article in Rolling Stone.”
Nash tossed a cardboard coaster boasting The Club’s logo at me, missing by a good foot. He waggled his eyebrows in a told you so manner before thrusting his hips up like he was pounding into someone.
A redheaded waitress in short shorts and a neon pink halter top set the Cognac on the table. I snagged it, popped off the lid, and then gulped back a hearty swig of the rich man’s drink.
“Your story’s amazing,” she cooed.
I snorted into the bottle before slugging two shots-worth back. My story was either amazing or pathetic or a combination of both.
“I mean, you’ve been through so much.”
“Yeah.” I fiddled with the wedding band I still wore. “It’s called life.”
Her hand snaked down my chest to the waist of my jeans. Groaning, I dropped my head against the cushion then swatted away her touch. I didn’t have the patience for this.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I don’t want anything in return.” She reached for me again, but this time I caught her wrist.
“You’re fucking with my buzz, so take your selfie and make your social media post; then find another place to plant your knees, sweetheart.”
One of her eyebrows pulled in. Maybe the Botox kept her forehead from forming the scowl she wanted. “You’re an ass.” She pushed off the chair with a pout, tugging at the short hem of her dress before sashaying to the opposite side of VIP and sitting on the knee of Pandemic Sorrow’s drummer.
Within the hour, I’d tarnished my three-month-clean badge I had so brazenly bragged about in that issue of Rolling Stone. Which, by the way, was a load of shit. But, I had an image to sell and looking rehabilitated was evidently the “in” thing at the moment.
Jag swiped under his nose, brushing his long, black hair from his face. He glanced at the dance floor below where the mass of bodies moved in unison like a throbbing amoeba in a petri dish. “Man,” he said, jaw clenching while the coke set in. “They don’t know how lucky they are.”
He bent over the railing, sucking another white line up his nose. “People underestimate it. They put us on stages, lighting up our asses like some celestial body. Sex. Money. Mansions. And they worship us like we have salvation to offer. There’s a reason gods are immortal. This life kills everything.” He turned his back to me, but I didn’t miss him mumble, “And I’m just waiting on it.”
With that ominous statement, he disappeared into the crowd of other addicts and fame seekers. The buzz from the drugs shot through my system. My jaw tensed right before the guilt set in. Tomorrow, I’ll start over. Day one of being clean. . .
Tom Petty hit the nail on the head with that line about the vampires on Ventura. Those lyrics were something I had never fully appreciated until our first album went platinum.
As it turned out, everyone in Hollywood was a vampire. Me, Jag, the people down on the dancefloor, hoping for a brush with fame. Hell, the kid somewhere in Oklahoma daydreaming about a recording contract he’ll probably never see, he’d end up here one day, wanting to get bitten. We were all blood sucking and hungry. The thing was, I was pretty sure, after a while, even vampires wished for death. Given enough time, everything loses its appeal. Even immortality. Just like Jag said.
One day, we’d all be waiting on a stake through the heart.
8
Georgia Anne
The rusted hinges to the letterbox groaned when I opened it to pull out a handful of mail. Bills, advertisements for the new pub opening in the village over, and a manila envelope address to Rapunzel with my old Beverly Hills address in the corner—the name Flynn Ryder as the sender.
I tucked the other mail in my backpack before slipping a finger underneath the lip of Spencer’s letter. A stack of papers slid out, and like always, the gum wrapper that had been shoved inside fluttered to the concrete stoop of my townhome, landing right beside the planter full of violets. Marriage is forever.
It should have been. Turned out, addiction was his forever.
With a sigh, I crammed the
papers into the front zipper of my backpack then shouldered the bag on my way to meet Lottie and Tom at the coffee shop.
The sun hit my face when I stepped onto the sidewalk, and I smiled. Puddles still stood in the crevices of the cobblestone street, and the flowers in the window boxes that decorated most of the Tudor-style townhomes drooped from the overabundance of rain.
I spent the short three-minute walk with bouts of anger bubbling in my gut over Spencer’s refusal to sign the papers. Most people in my situation would set a trial date and have it all over with. However, most people weren’t trying to divorce a world-famous rock star. When Spencer blew up, he had countless NDAs signed to keep my name out of the media. The label was more than happy to oblige. Evidently, a single rocker is much more appealing.
Of course, there were “rumors.” The paparazzi never—thanks to street clothes, ball caps, and shades the size of saucers—got a snapshot of my face. As expected, the media went nuts with stories about Spencer’s estranged wife, but still, I had escaped being married to a rock star with my anonymity intact, and the second I took our divorce to trial that would go up in smoke.
I ducked through the open doorway of the Silver Spoon Café. The robust aroma of French roast lingered in the dimly lit entrance. Chandeliers made from tangled branches hung from the ceiling. I maneuvered through the empty tables, past the watercolor pictures of deer and pheasants tacked in uneven patterns along the shiplapped wall and took a seat in my normal spot by the window.
The usual waiter came by, and I ordered a café latte with whipped cream for myself, Earl Grey tea for Lottie, and an Irish whiskey for Tom, then pulled out my English literature notes and my copy of Marlowe’s, Doctor Faustus. Halfway through outlining Act III, the gangly waiter returned and placed a steaming cup of coffee beside my English lit book. He sat the other two drinks on the opposite side of the table, and I thanked him just as Tom wandered in, ever stylish in his skinny jeans and a navy, Jack Wills shirt that did his muscles favors. His backpack hit the floor with a thud before he swiped a hand through his messy brown hair. “Why are birds so bloody insane?”
Over You Page 5
