Dead Serious

by C. M. Stunich

  “Cute,” I say, passing him back my glass. Turner trades it for his own and hands me the amber liquid with another smirk. I clutch the cup in my fingers, waiting for him to drop the punch line on this joke. He's smiling too big not to have one. After we left the hotel, he went through a quiet process of his own. I think all of this is meant to distract him just as well as it's meant for me. I can tell he's still having a hard time accepting that Travis was anything at all to America, let alone the father of her child.

  Turner finishes making his drink and then lights up another cigarette. I take a look around and notice that pretty much everyone in here is smoking – and not all of them are smoking cigarettes. I know for a fact that California has crappy ass laws about smoking indoors, even in bars.

  “This isn't your average run of the mill bar, is it?” I ask, leaning forward a little and letting my voice get lost in the surge of music blaring from the speaker. A second later, I get out a cigarette of my own. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a dude laying lines of coke out on the bar. Okay. Definitely not a normal bar then.

  “Think of it like a doorway,” Turner tells me as I wait for the alcohol and the energy drink to take hold in my veins. I want to get fucking trashed tonight, let everything I've learned settle into my subconscious. I can do this. I can get through this. Just like I make it through every March 15th. Just like I'm learning to forgive Turner. I'll cope. It's what I fucking do. “You still have our phones in your jacket?” I nod and blow a few smoke rings at his face. Turner's lip wrinkles and he scoots across the booth to sit with his thigh pressed into mine. “You keep doing shit like that and we won't even make it to our real destination.”

  I knew it.

  “Where are we going?” I whisper, letting smoke kiss his ear as I breathe against the ebony hair he's worked so hard to style for me. My hand finds Turner's thigh, and I can't help myself from digging my fingers into his jeans.

  “To have the best fucking night of your life, Knox.”

  “Okay, Campbell,” I say, putting out my cigarette in the ash tray I hadn't noticed was sitting on our silver bottle tray. “I'll trust you.” I hold up a finger and take a sip of my drink with my other hand. “But just for tonight.” He grins big and slides his tongue over his lips. God damn. “Now tell me why we're not being swarmed by psychotic fans?”

  “This place, I learned about it way back when, when Indecency really started climbing the charts. I mean, we weren't anything like we are now, but we'd get recognized. This one night, I met a girl in a club.”

  “Surprise, surprise,” I tell him, feeling a small surge of jealousy. How stupid is that? “Let me guess the rest of this story. You fucked her?” Turner shrugs and leans over, lifting up some strands of my hair in his fingers.

  “If it makes you feel any better, she couldn't hold a candle to you.” I let him kiss my throat and let my eyes flutter closed. The pain from Hayden and Katie's deaths starts to fade into an annoying buzz, buried in alcohol, tobacco, and raging lust. I don't have to think about real life shit when I'm drowning in this instead. “Anyway, afterwards, she told me about this place. She said she'd been trying to get in for years. I thought, what the fuck, I'm hot shit now. I'll check this place out, I'll get in.” Turner chuckles roughly and sends my entire body into overload. Before I get a chance to jump him though, he's digging the eight ball out from my jacket and tossing it on the table. “They told me to get lost.”

  I lean back and watch his face, both brows raised this time.

  “I can't imagine you taking rejection well, Turner Dakota Campbell.” I wonder briefly what would happen to my career if the press got a hold of a picture of me and Turner snorting blow at a seedy ass little bar. I decide that Amatory Riot's next single would probably end up at the top of the charts. God, this world is so fucked. Besides, nobody here really seems to mind if legal is an applicable adjective to their current activity. Fuck it.

  “Oh, I didn't. I got into a fight with the bouncer and thrown out on the fucking street. Next day, I came right back and guess what?” Turner pulls out his wallet and grabs a credit card and a twenty dollar bill. I watch as he lays out four lines on the table in front of us. The first night we fucked, in that nasty ass fucking bathroom, we did this exact same thing, almost literally. It gives me the chills. Especially when I remember that that was actually our second time fucking. The first time was when Turner took my virginity and got me pregnant. Please tell me this isn't another sign that tomorrow's going to end horribly?

  “What?” I whisper, looking up and finding myself transfixed on Turner's gaze. His eyes are brown, but there's a warmness to them that I've never noticed before. “You got in?”

  “Damn straight,” he says, using the credit card to straighten out the white lines. When Turner hands me the twenty, I roll it up into a tube and lean over. I use my left hand to close one nostril and snort up the bump with the other. A sigh escapes my throat as I drop my head back and feel the euphoria hit me like a freight train. Holy lord on high, that feels so damn good. For the next half an hour or so, I'm going to feel like a fucking superhero. Good thing we have enough blow to last us the rest of the night. “I got in,” Turner continues, “and I found out what was so special about this place.”

  “You mean other than the illegal drugs?” I say as I shake my head and blink my eyes a few times to steady myself. I finish off my drink and hit the other line to amp up my high.

  Turner waves his hand dismissively.

  “Eh, there are a dozen clubs where you can shoot up, snort up, or fuck up. No, Naomi, this place is different. It's got anonymity.” I look askance at him and hand over the twenty. I hate to say this because, come on, we all know doing drugs is stupid as shit, but I figure it's not any worse than getting drunk or smoking a pack of cigarettes. Just because some of this crap is illegal doesn't really make it any worse. It's the way I choose to use it that defines its purpose. Anyway, I can't help but thinking that Turner looks hot when he bends down and presses the rolled up twenty to the end of one of the lines. He snorts them both up in quick succession and sniffles, wrinkling his nose at me for a moment before tucking away our goodies for later in my coat pocket.

  “The fact that nobody's bothered us, that's all planned out?” Turner nods and then lifts his head to look over my shoulder, no doubt checking on our illustrious bodyguards.

  “This is the antechamber for another club, one where we can hang out without getting molested by fangirls. The people in here pay for the right to hang out around those that are passing through. The real party's on the other side of these walls.”

  “Well aren't you a big fucking deal,” I say, but I'm smiling when I say it. At this point, I'm already on my way to having a great fucking time. America? Stephen? Sniper rifles? Eh. I can take 'em. I try not to laugh and lean my head onto Turner's shoulder. Thirty seconds in and I can feel the coke burning up my veins.

  “No, we are.” He puts his arm around my waist and breathes against my scalp. “As soon as you take a bathroom break and drop our cellphones in the ladies' room toilet.”

  “I'll do better than that,” I tell him, feeling my eyelids getting heavy, not with fatigue, just with relief. I get a brief glimpse in that moment of how nice it would feel to just be with him, no bullshit attached. “I'll throw 'em in the garbage with the bloody tampons, just for fun.”

  Turner chuckles as I scoot away from him, grabbing my coat and passing him a smile. He waves at me as I move across the gray cement floor towards the sign for the restrooms. The female guard follows after me, but I don't pay her any attention.

  The bathroom's actually a lot nicer than you'd expect – certainly a hell of a step up from the ones Turner and I have been fucking in – with a crystal chandelier and several roomy stalls, all of which are clean. I stop in one of them and actually take a piss, just to throw off Brayden's Amazon bodyguard. When I'm done, I extract both phones and deposit them in the silver trash can bolted to the wall.

  “What's your
name?” I ask her when I step out and pause in front of the sink. The woman stands off to the side, watching me with critical eyes. Most of the time these assholes pretend they don't give a shit, but I guess she smells our escape plan coming. I still don't know how Turner plans to give 'em the slip, but I don't care. The drugs in my system are now swearing that we are completely and utterly invincible and while I know that's a load of bullshit, I run with it. There's no point in taking a rail of coke and then fighting against it.

  I've already soaped up, washed my hands, and dried them before the woman speaks.

  “Raelia.” That's it. One word, no frills. I toss my paper towel into the hole at the end of the counter. I pause next to Raelia on my way out, examine her dark hair, her strangely pale eyes, the firm set of her mouth. She doesn't look like a bad person. I don't get any vibes from her, any chills down the spine, goose bumps, none of that. Of course, I'm no expert when it comes to studying humanity, but it's just a feeling.

  “What's Brayden's story?” I ask, feeling bold, bolstered by more than just my ornery personality. Raelia remains stoic, rooted to the spot. Even in the bathroom, there's a speaker blasting hip hop music. It sounds ten times louder in here. God, I can't stand that bass line. It makes my teeth hurt. I'm telling Turner I'm ready to get the fuck out of here. I want to go somewhere that has music that makes my ears bleed. “Is he a bad guy, this Brayden dude?” Still no response. Fine. Whatever. I tried.

  “He's not, actually,” she says as I reach for the door handle and pause. When I glance over my shoulder and see her face still frozen in the same expression, I can tell that's all I'm going to get. Frankly, I'm probably lucky for that much. Hmm.

  I head out the door with my jacket draped over my arm and slide back into the booth next to Turner. He's made us up another set of drinks and is waiting with his elbow on the table, another cigarette clutched in his fingers. In front of him, there's a small, square napkin, and a pen.

  To those who look our way, these broken pieces STAY.

  These words are scribbled down in Turner's loose, scrawling handwriting.

  I have a thing for fucking handwriting. I feel like you can tell so much about a person by looking at their style. Turner's is big and messy and takes up most of the empty space. It's not curly or fancy, no flourishes except for some underlines beneath the word STAY. In that, I read complete and utter confidence.

  It turns me on.

  I think confidence is one of those underappreciated traits in a person. People are always drawn to it, but they never realize why. I do. I don't want a man that pussyfoots around and apologizes for everything he does. If you're going to be a menace like Turner Campbell, you have to at least own up to your shit.

  “I'm so fucking horny right now,” I tell him, taking my drink and sipping it slowly. The burn of the alcohol on the back of my tongue feels good. Turner looks up at me and smiles, a real smile this time, not just a smirk.

  “My process. You asked before what it was. It's just … you know, whatever. I write on my arm or the back of one of Ronnie's T-shirts or a wall. Anything that's nearby, so I won't forget what I heard in my head. Most of my songs start off as complete and utter crap.”

  “Mine, too,” I whisper, dragging the napkin towards me. I take the pen and write another line beneath his.

  Can't bring me down, no matter what you say.

  Turner takes it back, slowly extracting the pen from my grip. Our fingers tangle together and white hot energy ricochets through my body, making my bones ache. I find my gaze stuck to his mouth while his eyes search mine and then drop to the napkin again. He adds some punctuation and then draws a staff with five lines and four spaces, scribbling some musical notes in.

  To those who look our way, these broken pieces STAY. Can't bring me down. no. matter. what. you. say.

  Turner closes his eyes for a moment and hums something under his breath.

  “I feel inspired when I'm with you, Naomi Isabelle Knox.”

  I snort and grab the napkin from the tabletop, crumpling it up and shoving it in my jacket pocket. When Turner opens his eyes, I slide onto his lap and try not to berate myself for acting on my impulses. If I don't give myself permission to love him, to accept him and the annoying things he does, then I'll spend the rest of my life fighting with myself.

  “If you're singing to me, I know you're trashed,” I tell him, even though that's only partially true. I've seen this man drunk, fucked up on crystal, and he still acts like Turner Motherfucking Campbell. If anything's scrambling his judgment and dropping his walls, it's probably me.

  I shift my body forward and enjoy the hard bulge in his pants. My mind conjures up that moment onstage, right after Katie released me from Eric's trailer, when we fucked bareback while the lights went out and the crowd and crew scrambled around blindly. I want to do that again. Fuck like that. I guess it's time for birth control pills or something. I want him skin to skin so badly it's making my teeth hurt, so badly I can't even remember what happened yesterday at the prison.

  “I sing to you because it's one of the few gifts I have worth giving.”

  What the fuck, Turner?

  I have to kiss his face off for that shit, grab the sides of his cheeks with my hands, press our hot aching mouths together and feel his tongue stud moving against my flesh. Saliva coats our lips as we taste each other with careless abandon, breathing and sighing and moving together like we're fucking. My hips find a rhythm that his hands encourage by squeezing my ass gently and rocking me against him. Nobody bothers us, nobody snaps any pictures. We're left alone. Completely and utterly alone.

  It's only when Turner's hands slide up under my shirt and graze my bare skin with nearly painful pleasure that I put a stop to it, sitting back, gasping for breath and dragging my fingers through my own hair to help ground myself.

  “God,” I moan, shaking my head out and forcing myself to remember that I have to breathe actual oxygen and not just Turner Campbell into my lungs. Turner adjusts his hands, so they're sitting loosely on either side of my waist, above the shirt this time. I can manage that.

  “You might be the only natural blonde I've ever met,” he says, and I have to really force myself to look him in the eyes. He's serious about that. Strange, considering his massive list of conquests. I purse my lips. “You've got the most beautiful fucking hair, Knox.” I reach down and push his hands away, sliding off his lap and onto the seat next to him. The extrication process almost kills me.

  “Okay, no more drinks for you tonight,” I say because that's how I feel comfortable, writing off his emotions as nothing more than substance induced bullshit. He narrows his eyes at me and leans close. I pretend not to notice and snatch his discarded cigarette off the table before it burns a fucking hole in the lacquered top of the wood.

  “I'm not so fucked up that I can't tell what I'm saying anymore, Naomi. Not even close. I just like the shit out of you. There's not really much else to it. Stop trying to pretend that I don't care, that I'm just playing around with you. I'm not. When I confessed my love to you, I meant that shit. I didn't have to lie to girls to get them into bed with me. I didn't just say that to anyone. Ask Ronnie or Trey or Jesse.”

  I close my eyes, squeeze the cigarette between my lips, and then open them back. Turner's still staring at me, waiting, I guess, for me to say something to that.

  “I know,” I tell him, hoping this doesn't devolve into anything mushy or romantic. It will, eventually, I'm aware of that. But not right now. If we go there and open up my Pandora's box of emotions, everything will come spilling out and I'll bleed to death.

  We sit in silence for a while, listening as the current song ends and then cycles over to an Amatory Riot track. Hayden's voice haunts the air around me like a ghost.

  “Time to go?” Turner asks, but I'm already in the process of standing up.

  “Time to go.”

  “Hey Raelia, we're gonna go have a fuck in the bathroom. You want to make sure that shit's all nice and clear
for us and then fuck off?” I address the female guard since she's the only one whose name I know – thanks to Naomi anyway.

  The woman exchanges a look with the other guard and then sighs. Having sex in the back of that van was actually a good move. These people are fully aware of what Naomi and I are capable of and – surprising as shit, I know – they're not interested in seeing it.

  Naomi slips her coat on and we lead the way to the men's bathroom, letting Raelia scope out the single stall. Nobody in there. No windows. No problem, right?

  “Thanks, babe,” I say with a tight smile as she narrows her eyes on me and moves to stand outside the bathroom door. I kick it shut with my boot and then flick the deadbolt into place. If the sound of the lock turning bothers Brayden's bodyguard, she doesn't let on.

  “Is there really some secret celebrity club hidden back here somewhere or is this actually a desperate attempt on your part to fuck me in another bathroom?” I turn and grin at Naomi, taking a step forward and putting my hands on either side of her head as she leans against the black tile wall. Her expression as she gazes back at me is priceless. Eyes hooded with desire, lips slightly parted but scowling, skin flushed. Fuck.

  I lean down and run my tongue along the side of her jaw, just for the hell of it.

  “Where's the club, Turner?” Naomi asks, trying her best to keep the beast at bay. I can hear it howling behind her words, ready to leap out and rake its claws across me. She wants me so bad right now. I'm loving it.

  I step back and turn away, grateful that she seems to be enjoying herself thus far. I'm new to this whole dating thing. That, and my mind is struggling not to think of Travis. A kid. If he had a kid, he would've told us about it, especially if the circumstances were this fucked. Besides, one minute America says they were engaged and the next, that he broke up with her. One plus one is still two, and this shit is adding up to three. Still, some answers are better than none. We know shit now, and knowing is half the battle. Right G.I. fuckin' Joe? If you don't get the reference, go fuck yourself. Then Google that shit. G.I. Joe is killer. I used to play with a G.I. Joe action figure that was missing a leg. It was one of the few toys my mother didn't pawn off, smash up, or just light on fire for the sheer pleasure of watching me cry. It was broken, so I got to keep it. Is it such a wonder that I turned into an asshole?