PLAYED: A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE

by Wild, Nikki

  Angel apparently saw that, and hesitated for a moment. It was enough for my smile to falter. Fuck. Did I just overplay this? “But I, well… I guess it’s true that I’m not working tomorrow night…”

  “Want to see a real rock star in his element? I’ll get you a backstage pass. You’ll watch the show from the sidelines. No fighting through sweaty crowds and mosh pits. You’ll be safe with a view to kill for.”

  “That sounds incredible,” she murmured, still carefully watching my eyes. “What time?”

  “I’ll have someone pick you up here around 4 o’clock. That’ll get you there in time to see our set… And all the other sets, too. We’re sharing the stage with some fucking legends.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Old Greg is out of town tomorrow. He probably won’t even know that I’ve left. This could work.”

  “You think so?” I asked.

  “Alright,” Angel nodded, not without some reluctance. “Yeah. I guess it’s a deal.”

  “You bet it is,” I whispered, slipping a fingertip below her chin. She shivered at my touch, staring into my eyes fearfully. It would be so easy to kiss her right now.

  No. I’ll wait.

  There’s a better time for this.

  Instead, I told her goodbye, slipped into my jeep, and whipped out of the parking lot. Before she disappeared from view, I turned over my shoulder to give her one more little wave. I smiled knowingly to myself.

  Just a brief delay.

  No big deal.

  I felt my usual confidence rush back into my veins, my swagger emboldened by my understanding of where I belonged in the universe.

  Where she belonged.

  Which was around my cock, tomorrow night.

  Who needs the back of a rickety old bar?

  I’d rather fuck you in the tour bus, anyway.

  Chapter 8

  Angel

  When I woke up hours later in my familiar old cot, I crawled out of bed and brushed my teeth. Peering at my sleepy gaze in the mirror, I wondered why I was so exhausted. But then, it all came flashing back, in a slideshow montage of events in my head.

  The bikers, trying to rape me.

  The rocker, shirtless and oh so handsome.

  The seductive way he looked at me.

  How close I’d been to giving myself up.

  Sweet Caramel Jesus on a stick.

  How fucking stupid had I been? I could barely believe it. Hot or not, no boy had ever had that kind of effect on me. I mean, yeah, I felt like I was a little indebted to him for rescuing me and taking those punches. But…

  Old Greg had been right.

  I’d almost fucked him.

  I’m such an idiot.

  That look in his eyes…that seductive, low yarl of a baritone in his singing voice… and then there was all that bullshit at the end of the night. He’d been putting serious moves on me, coercing me to come along to see him play life. I could see the burning lust in his eyes, and I knew that he didn’t really give a rat’s ass about me.

  No.

  Nuh-uh.

  Ain’t happenin’.

  I groaned angrily at myself. I held myself to a higher standard than this. Sure, I owed him for what he did for me – but did I owe him that?

  I mean… he was really hot.

  UGH.

  No.

  Still mentally grumbling to myself, I went on with my morning routine. After brushing my teeth, I hopped into the freezing cold shower for the millionth time. I’d learned to clean up fast without access to hot water in the improvised bathroom for over a year.

  It was only while I was toweling off that I thought back to the concert he’d mentioned. Didn’t he say that he was going to send someone for me?

  I looked over at the time.

  It was coming up on 11 AM.

  Great. Only five hours of waiting.

  Throwing on a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of shorts, I cracked a few eggs, slapped on some bacon, and made myself fried egg sandwiches for breakfast. A tumbler of frigid tap water from the bar rounded out my breakfast of champions.

  As I dwelled on recent events, I found myself savoring the warmth of the eggs. Alabama rarely got what you could consider cold, but there was a slight chill to the air outside – a cold front must have snapped through.

  Didn’t help that this bar had the approximate insulation of a paper bag.

  Should I go? I wondered to myself.

  Could I have been wrong?

  Does he REALLY want to see me again?

  Trent probably saw me as just another notch in his bedpost. It had been a long time, and he was really hot. Could I be okay with that? After all, I thought to myself, maybe he’d already lost interest from being interrupted by my landlord.

  It was just so utterly lame that the only time I brushed with fame, with someone from well beyond this shitty little town, it was with such a conflicting, obvious asshole.

  He rescued me.

  He wanted to fuck me.

  I had wanted to fuck him.

  Well… that thought had only lasted a few minutes. I’d been caught up in the moment, in my brush with fame. But I couldn’t let him have that kind of control over me… and wouldn’t you know it, the guy looked the type to get angry over that.

  UGH.

  Why is this shit always so complicated?

  I had to admit, though – if he was telling the truth about the concert… that would definitely be a hell of an opportunity. I’d only ever seen small, shitty shows here. This was way different. An opportunity I wasn’t sure that I could pass up.

  Being backstage for a major rock venue.

  Watching the rock stars go balls out.

  It could be fun.

  Resigning myself to this course of action, I decided to stop fucking around and just see where that went. However, I made it very clear to myself that he and I were not going to be doing anything that might sully my innocence.

  So, I put on the radio while I tried to clean the back of the bar up. I went ahead and took my inventory count, swept out the storage rooms, reorganized the cold stock, and tried to fix one of the creaky shelves back there.

  Just for kicks, I tuned it to the Top 40 station.

  All the while, I kept my ears open for one of Trent’s songs, dragging the little battery-powered boom-box around from room to room as I worked. The stuff that was playing was mostly the kind of crap I didn’t have any patience for. Lots of young TV stars given a platform on the radio. Some super repetitive electronic music or whatever.

  Is this the shit that people listen to now?

  Luckily, there were some familiar sounds, older pop mainstays either making a comeback, or showing that they still really ruled the roost.

  I missed the days of alternative rock on the radio. Living in this bar had given me an appreciation for country music, but still… the Nineties really pushed some stellar alternative rock bands to the forefront.

  Finally, what I wanted to hear came on:

  “Featuring, by popular demand, their latest single, here’s ‘Wicked Wilds’ by Trent Masters and the Whiplash! Go see ‘em live at RIPFEST tonight! This is The Pitbull, and you’re listening to 106.7 The Pit!”

  A low growl of the guitars swung into gear, building up a crescendo. A few bars in, the drums kicked in, complementing the instruments until Trent’s voice finally poured in over the music:

  “My lonely walk along the highway / A silent king with feet a-peelin’ / Empire of dust that shattered my way / My soul regret, I’ve lost the feelin’…”

  I smiled to myself.

  It was him. Definitely him.

  I could see a clear picture of Trent Masters in my head, scrawling notes in a dirt-stained notebook. His boots were kicked up, while his band practiced chords and strummed along to their own hearts.

  I liked the thought of it.

  That’s why, when the private car finally crunched gravel just after 4 o’clock, I was dressed up in my best.

  I’d even been w
aiting for half an hour.

  Chapter 9

  Trent

  Turns out, I’d been a little harder up after my brief skirmish with the bikers than I’d thought. As much as I hated to admit it, Old Greg had been right to send me towards a clinic.

  My body had been already seriously aching by the time I arrived there, and it was only going to get worse.

  The overnight doc who saw me patched me up, nice and well. Turned out that I only had a slight concussion, nothing too major. She commented that whomever had tended my wounds had done a good job of it, but that was small substitute for getting a few bruised ribs checked out.

  Still, the place had a pharmacy built in, so I walked away with a bottle of decent painkillers and a smile on my face.

  That smile faded when I got back.

  The manager of our band, a scrawny, middle-aged fuck named Steven, climbed out of the bus as soon as I pulled up. His hands were up in the air – a classic sign that he was pissed – and his beady little eyes blazing with fury.

  “Where the fuck were you, Trent? You can’t just traipse off like that in the middle of the fucking night drunk as shit!”

  “I wasn’t drunk,” I commented blandly, tossing him the keys to the rental.

  They bounced limply off his chest, and he quickly bent over to scoop them up. When he jumped back up, he followed me back towards the bus.

  “You must have been. The others said you were drinking like a fucking camel.”

  “The others were too busy with their tongues down some groupies’ throats to have half a rat’s ass of what I was doing,” I corrected him.

  “You need to cut the prima donna act, you son of a bitch,” he grumbled angrily. “How the fuck am I supposed to do PR on you fuckers when you scatter to the winds after a show?”

  “I don’t know. Figured that’s what you were paid to do.”

  “I ain’t your goddamn babysitter.”

  “Never said you were. Frankly, I’d hate that. But if you want some advice…” I poked my finger into his chest, “…back the fuck off. The others, I can’t really speak to their maturity. But I haven’t given you shit that you haven’t started first. Trust me. I wanted to clear my head, took a drive. That was it.”

  Steven snatched the prescription bag from my hands. Before I could grab it back, he was eying the small, orange bottle inside.

  “Just out for a drive, eh? Is that the load of horse crap you’re feeding me? What kind of bullshit is this, then?”

  “So, I got into a fight.”

  He glowered at me.

  “A fucking fight?”

  “Yeah. Went to a bar. Stepped aside for a piss. I walk back in, and these biker fuckers were trying to rape the poor bartender. I roughed them up. They outnumbered me, so I took a few hits.”

  “Look at you, Mister Hotshot ‘Knight in Shining Armor,’” the manager sardonically told me. “You’re on thin ice, and I’m holding onto these.”

  I tugged the bottle back.

  “Nice fucking try. The last thing I need is a reprisal of your goddamn pill problem. We’ve only got a few more shows on tour; just keep your shit together and we’ll be home free.”

  Steven simmered with mounting anger, but I took the last few steps towards the bus. Being intelligent for once, he didn’t bother to follow me inside, waking up anyone.

  As I closed the door behind myself, I wondered why we even had to deal with him. Music labels didn’t usually assign managers out anymore, but this guy was dumped on us as a condition of our contract.

  Probably because we’d pissed them off by bringing a decent lawyer along to renegotiate the terms of our royalties and earning potential, because fuck making pennies on the dollar.

  I stepped over a few sleeping bodies – it looked my guitarist, Waylon, had barely escorted his pair of sweet little honeys inside before fucking them in our tiny little kitchen.

  Well, Papa’s home now.

  And Papa says “No bare asses in the kitchen.”

  I nudged one of them with my foot. She murmured in her sleep a little, and I persisted. Finally, she rose up, yawning and looking at me in the semi-darkness.

  “Time to go, sweetheart. You and your friend. How long did Pound Town last?”

  She sighed sleepily. “Not long enough.”

  “Yeah, didn’t think so. He talks a tough game, but that’s about it. I think I’ve clocked him at about forty-five seconds before.”

  “Well, it was longer than that.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Anyway, you should get going. Need a ride? I can call you a taxi or something, but you need to get gone.”

  “Nah, we drove. Thanks though.” She smiled quietly, her sultry little eyes locked onto me. “You want to pick up where he left off?”

  I seriously considered that for a moment, but Angel’s face entered my head. My cock twitched a little, but only because of how close I’d been to fucking her.

  Nah. I’ve already made my pick.

  “Don’t do sloppy seconds.”

  “Fair enough,” she muttered.

  The groupie woke up her friend, and they bid me goodnight before leaving my sight.

  My drummer was asleep with his cougar. I could tell that he was still dressed in his wife beater – he was unusually attached to those. Paired with cargo pants and sweat stains in some interesting places, Dylan usually went with a style that I affectionately called Divorced, Single Nebraskan Dad Chic.

  I decided not to bother either of them.

  Dylan was a total idiot, but he was a more rational idiot than my impulsive guitarist – although I didn’t like how chummy those two had been getting lately.

  The bassist, had already sent his piece of ass away for the night. Lying in bed with a book, Terence gave me a brief nod as I passed by in the hall.

  Our bassist didn’t talk much.

  He was a thoughtful guy. Reserved.

  It made him someone easy for me to work with.

  Settling down in bed, I curled my fingers behind my head and waited for sleep to rear its ugly head. Unfortunately, it was a bit busy that night.

  Instead, I wound up thinking about Angel.

  Those sweet hips of hers.

  That nice rack.

  Her gorgeous hair.

  Those beautiful eyes…

  As I’d done so many times in the last few weeks, I rubbed one out to help myself sleep. It was dispassionate, unfeeling, just a burst of chemicals in my head to subdue my thoughts.

  My self-loathing.

  My lack of emotion.

  My private little clusterfuck of imbalances.

  I felt filthy. Disgusting. The groupies, the fame, the attention, none of it fucking mattered. But when I saw the way that girl was looking at me…I forgot, briefly.

  Forgot how screwed up I was inside.

  Huh. Imagine that.

  Chapter 10

  Angel

  The driver, a friendly backup tech for the bad, pulled behind the private area behind the main venue. We came to a stop beside a group of other private vehicles. On the other side of a tall wall, I could barely make out the roofs of what were likely the band buses.

  “By the way, you’re gonna need this to hang around backstage,” the tech told me.

  He tossed me a special, tagged lanyard, which I quickly studied before promptly sliding it into place around my neck.

  VIP – Platinum

  Trent Masters and the Whiplash, Guest

  A tall, beefy stagehand peered through the door after we knocked. Checking my tag, he nodded promptly and let us through. With him in the lead, we navigated a few unorganized corridors and turns, eventually winding up close to the stage itself.

  “This is the VIP area,” he pointed out. “Here’s where the after-party usually goes down. Band buses are over that way, just outside.”

  It was a reasonably sized dark room, with several other areas behind curtains or separated out from the main floor. Some couches, chairs, and assort
ed seating were placed seemingly without rhyme or reason. A large bar stood proud along the main wall, with a few servers scurrying around and checking on the details.