Doll Face

by C. M. Stunich

  “So I insulted some dead Asian bitch. Big fucking deal.” Cohen points at me and lets a smirk move over his mouth, one that he modeled after his idol, Turner Campbell. Thing is, that look on Turner's face is legit. On Cohen's? Eh. Not so much. “And I've gotten my dick wet with this cunt enough times that I feel like I got the right to talk to her however I damn well please.” Ronnie takes a few steps forward, but Brayden's men bristle, like they're not about to let any shit go down here. Ah. I see. Cohen doesn't actually have any balls; he's just grandstanding because he thinks having two muscled men at his back makes him immune to getting his ass kicked.

  I rise to my feet and give Ronnie a look, taking in his black T-shirt with the red rose, the cursive writing that says Bloom Big, Bleed Bright. The cotton fabric stretches across his muscles, reminding me yet again that I haven't been laid in way too fucking long. Closest thing I've had in the last ten or whatever days was that magical bit of tongue in the hotel room. My body makes sure I don't miss Ronnie's well-fitting jeans, the ones that are at least two sizes smaller than he normally wears, but also two sizes bigger than Turner's – at least.

  “It's okay, love, I got this,” I tell him, putting a hand on his chest and cutting off a rush of hormones that floods my brain and makes me feel a little loopy. “We've had enough violence on this tour.” I look back at Cohen with a stern expression. “Cohen Rose was on his way out.” I pat Ronnie and take a step back, watching as Turner looks between my ex and Ronnie with one raised brow, wondering if he's going to go for it anyway, Brayden's men be damned.

  I move away from the new man in my life and turn back towards Cohen, getting as close to him as the guards will allow before I put a smile on my face and look between them.

  “One hug for the road, one last hurrah for the relationship we used to have, the one that wasn't so bad before you turned rogue.” I shrug and hold out my arms. Cohen looks confused as fuck, but that's normal. He's definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer. “No wucking furries,” I tell him and he wrinkles his face up like I'm retarded. Too much Aussie slang for the stupid little Yank, I guess. “No fucking worries,” I clarify, keeping my arms wide and wiggling my fingers, “I don't bite.”

  “You know what, screw you, Lola,” Cohen says, backing up and proving that sometimes a little nicety goes a long way to pissing somebody off. Only I'm not just trying to scare Cohen away or prove some new world bullshit about how violence never solves anything. I'm trying to clobber the scummy little creep in the face. Just a little closer … I take a step towards Cohen, arms still open and then sigh, dropping them to my side like I'm done here. “Why don't you go back to the Outback where you belong? Go fuck a koala or some shit. I'm done here.” Cohen starts to turn away and I wrap my fingers around his arm. He pauses a moment to look back at me. Big mistake on his part.

  A smile steals across my lips, but neither of Brayden's bitches moves in to separate us. I guess with my big eyes and my fun sized little body, nobody thinks of me as much of a threat.

  “Deal. I mean, I'd rather fuck a koala than touch your short fat little dick again. Never in my life have I had to ask is it in before. Cohen, you should be ashamed of yourself.” Before he can tear his arm from my grip, I curl the fingers of my right hand into a fist and let it fly, smashing my knuckles right into Cohen Rose's ugly ass face. The wheedling scream that tears from his throat and the accompanying droplets of blood that splatter the floor are more than worth the rough grasp of Brayden's men as they pull me back and my belly grumbles in pain, the tender skin stretching as they shove me back and I fall into Ronnie's hard body.

  Gentle fingers curl around my arms and I can feel a smile beaming against my back as Cohen screams something incoherent at me and then storms off, boots squeaking across the floor. If I never see that man again, it'll be too soon. I pray that I never will, but knowing my luck, he'll probably be waiting on my bed for me when I get home.

  Life's always fucked like that, isn't it?

  When somebody says get tested, the thoughts that come to mind aren't so bad. I mean, I figured maybe I'd piss in a cup, get some blood drawn or whatever, but I had no clue. No fucking clue. Some dude in rubber gloves stuck a freaking swab in my pee hole. Yeah. You heard me. I got a Goddamn Q-tip shoved in my dick. The only positive part of the experience was hearing Turner's roar of rage from the next room. It took me ten minutes to calm him down after that and convince him to go through with the whole thing. But at least now we'll both know. Too bad I couldn't get Jesse to come with us. He just miraculously disappeared about the time we had to go. Fucking asshole.

  “I think we should go somewhere,” Sydney says as we stand outside in a circle and smoke cigarettes. The area around the hospital is some sort of stupid fucking 'smoke free zone', so we had to cross the street with all of our fucking bodyguards in tow and sequester ourselves near the faculty apartments. We huddle next to the back wall of one of the buildings like junior high school students trying to find a spot to grab a smoke, terrified one of our teachers is going to come around the corner at any second and bust us all.

  The thought makes me chuckle.

  “Go somewhere?” Dax coughs and then shakes his head. Looking at him right now makes me sick to my stomach. He's not in a good place. I don't know the guy, but I'm actually pretty fucking worried about him. I tried to bum a cigarette from him, but he gave me a sharp smile and told me he didn't have anything I'd want. Dax isn't just smoking with us; he's getting wet. That little stick in his hand, the one that looks like a motherfucking cigarette? That's actually a dippy. A smoke dipped in angel dust. I always stayed away from that fucking crap, even when I was at my worst. Angel dust will fuck you so hard that you won't remember which end is up. Emptiness, isolation, loneliness. The first and only time I ever tried a dippy, I came this close to killing myself. Yes, drugs can numb the pain but having them numb my entire soul to the point of oblivion? No thanks.

  But I'm in no place here to tell Dax what to do with his life. It's his body, his heart, his soul.

  “Like, to party or something?” Dax asks, giving Sydney a look that's half irritation, half hope. He wants to stay in the hospital, watch over Blair and Naomi, but he's also desperate to get the hell out of there.

  “Yeah, I mean,” Sydney stands on her toes and peers over Turner's shoulder, “anywhere but here. Get out and do something.” We all follow her gaze and freeze when a woman walks by carrying a pair of reusable shopping bags. She gives us a look and wrinkles her nose at the cigarette smoke but doesn't say anything. Either she doesn't watch the news and has no idea who the fuck we are, or she doesn't care. Thank God. I pull out my phone again and Google myself – weird, I know – but I can't seem to stop doing it. I'm terrified my STD results are going to end up on the Internet before they land in my hands. I give a passing thought to Paulette Washington and then shake it off. No reality show, no fucking way.

  “Isn't that, like, sacrilegious or some shit?” Turner asks, holding his cig in one hand and crossing the other over his belly. His eyes are faraway and his voice sounds hollow. After Lola punched Cohen Rose in the face and turned my cock rock solid with desperation for her, Turner wandered off to start making preparations to take Naomi back to the house. Not sure if that went well or not because he won't talk about it. I slide my gaze to Lola, standing to my right, her body radiating heat that makes my mouth water and my hands shake. This could very well be the longest stretch of my life without sex since I lost my virginity way back when. It hurts. Can't say I'm a fan, but I also can't fuck a woman with a gunshot wound. Let's just say, my hand is exhausted.

  “How so?” Sydney says, sweeping blonde hair away from her face. “We're not dead. We're not zombies. This is life, and it never stops, not even if we want it to. You, Dax, Lola,” she gestures around the group, “you all need to get out. We don't have to do anything crazy. Let's just go grab some drinks or something. I think it'd be good for all of us.” She finishes her cigarette and crushes it out on the sidewalk wi
th her red suede boots.

  “Where are we supposed to go though?” Lola asks, her big bug eyed sunglasses in place, blocking her blue eyes from my gaze. There's a string of tension between us that's stretching tighter and tighter with each passing day. Since the day we officially met, backstage at one of our OKC concerts, we've been fucking like rabbits. The last two weeks? Not so much. “I mean, we'd get mobbed on our way to the dunny. How the hell are we supposed to go clubbing?”

  Turner coughs and throws his cigarette down beside Sydney's, eyes still glazed over, voice a lot softer than I'd like to hear it. The overconfident, cocky, asshole attitude is Turner in a good mood. I miss it when he's not throwing insults and flipping everybody off, grabbing his junk and just generally being a prick. That's my brother. If you don't like it, fuck off.

  “I know a place,” he says absently, but not like he really cares. I'm going to have to keep a close eye on him if we go anywhere. I won't let him screw up what he has with Naomi – not that I think he would, but it never hurts to be cautious. “I took Naomi there the night before the concert. It's called Slick's.” I take a drag on my cigarette and watch him lift his gaze up, drag a smirk onto his lips that doesn't feel real, like a mask of his usual self. I shiver despite the warmth from above.

  “You've tried to drag us there before,” I tell him, thinking this must be the club with the secret bathroom entrance.

  “You mean I have dragged you there before, numb nuts. You were just too high to remember that shit. We can party there with all the other riffraff that infests this town.” Turner sighs and glances at Dax or more specifically, at his dippy. I watch my friend run his tongue across his lower lip as he fights the craving and – thankfully – finds the courage to fight it back for another day. “We'll be safe there. We can drink ourselves into a stupor and dance with people so famous they almost make us look ordinary.” Turner tosses a wink at the group and gets out another smoke.

  “Tight quarters, lots of people, crazy ass twerking,” I say and Lola smiles, “are you sure you're up for that?” She pauses and uses her left hand to pull up her shirt, revealing a patch of bandages. We all watch quietly as she peels them back and reveals what essentially looks like a massive scab. There are dark lines around the edges, stitches. But overall, it doesn't look too bad. I move around behind her and check the exit wound, pulling up the white gauze from Lola's back. Her body shivers as my fingertips graze her spine and my dick springs to life. Sydney sees and rolls her eyes at me. “Well, fuck me. It looks a hell of a lot better than it did a few days ago.”

  “I'm an Aussie,” Lola says, dropping her shirt back into place. She smiles with those full lips of hers, the red-pink of her lipstick bright against her white teeth. “We're made of tough shit. If you guys want to party, I say let's go for it. I'm not sure if I could stand another night in.”

  “Fucking awesome,” Turner says, pulling his cell from his pocket and swallowing hard. Nobody else might notice the gesture, but I do. It's not going to be the same without Naomi. It'll never be the same without her. Jesus, please wake the fuck up, Sleeping Beauty. “I'll call Jesse and see if he wants to come. Trey's too fucked up, so let's not even mention this shit to him right now.” Turner dials and nibbles at one of his lip rings. “We could even invite Josh,” he says, his grin getting a little more real, a little more Turner Motherfucking Campbell. “Oh, but that's right,” he snaps his fingers, “he's not of age yet.” Turner chuckles while he waits for Jesse to answer.

  “If it's okay with you guys, I want to invite Kash and Wren to come out with us. They're not doing too well right now.” Dax bends down and scrapes his smoke against the cement before dropping it back into a plastic baggy and tucking it into his back pocket. “While you guys have been chilling in your mansion,” Dax bites the word off the tip of his tongue and rises to his feet, sharing a steely gray eyed glare with Turner, “we've been cooped up in a hotel, surrounded on all sides by fans, no manager to wipe our asses.” The word manager slithers from his lips like a curse as he moves away and Sydney's eyes follow the movement.

  “Shit,” she whispers, and I don't disagree, watching Dax's back and wondering if I should extend my shepherding of wisdom outwards, into Amatory Riot. They might feel broken, but they're just getting started. All of this pain and angst and heartbreak, it'll only make the rock 'n' roll more real. If they can get through this, we'll have some serious competition on our hands.

  I reach down and take Lola's fingers in mine, squeezing them and scooting close enough that the fine hairs on our upper arms brush. She shivers and my grip tightens.

  “Thanks for this,” she tells me, turning and pushing herself into me. My hands come around her waist, gentle at first, but pressing harder when her breasts squish into me. Our lips meet and I slide my tongue into her mouth, tasting her heat and smelling a sweet citrusy perfume on her clothes. The last couple of days, we've been sleeping in the same bed together, visiting Lydia, sitting by the pool, but we were both too busy trying to process everything that's happened. It didn't feel like we were really together. Right now, right here, in this moment it does.

  “No, thank you for putting up with all this shit, for visiting my daughter with me. To be honest with you, she scares me a little. If only because I don't know how to handle her. And every time we go over there, every time that she doesn't call me Dad, I feel like insides are going to spill out my belly button.” Lola slides her hands up either side of my face as I stare into her shades and wish I could tear them away from her eyes and toss them into the street. Fucking sunglasses.

  “Don't be scared of her, Ronnie. And don't thank me for being there. It's the least I could do. When you're ready, when you've embraced the idea of being a father, body and soul, and you've forgiven yourself for all the things you've done, that's when she'll call you by name. Until then, just be patient.” Lola kisses me and my heart soars. Well, okay, that's not the only part of me flying a flag if you catch my drift. Lola slides her hands down my cheeks, over the tattoos on my throat, my arms, and then cups my junk, right there in front of Sydney and Turner who both wrinkle their noses in disgust. “And keep hold of this. You're gonna need it later. If I don't get laid sometime soon, my fucking head's going to explode.” She leans up on her toes and kisses my cheek. “Better yours does first, if ya catch my drift.”

  We manage to convince Dax to come with us back to the mansion with promises from Wren and Kash to get a ride from their security detail over here. Seems like as good a meeting place as any, and we've got a few hours before the club opens. Fine by me. Lola and I have other ways of entertaining ourselves until it's time to head out. Or at least, we did until I walked in here and found Paulette Washington sitting in my living room with Milo Terrabotti.

  I pause in the doorway and clear my throat, drawing his attention up and over to me. Milo hurriedly sets down his tea or coffee or whatever the fuck it is before coming over to me, dressed in his best suit and tie, hair perfect, the black bags under his eyes covered up with makeup.

  “Mr. McGuire,” he says with a smile as he takes my arm and guides me into the living room, towards the sofa where Miss Washington sits. She doesn't bother to stand up, lifting up a hand for me to shake. I do – briefly – and drop it like it's poisonous. When I glance over my shoulder, I see that I'm the only one in here. Lola told me she was going to go tart herself up which I guess means she's going to dress for the occasion. The phrase puts a smile on my face that Paulette mistakes for something else when I turn back to her, beaming up at me like I've already said yes to whatever crazy idea it is that she's come up with.

  “I'm guessing you dragged me in here because you know I'm not so high on smack anymore that I can't make my own decisions. I've now become the 'difficult' one.” I make quotes with my fingers and feel bad when Milo cringes like a kicked dog. The poor guy's been through enough; I need to cut the bastard some slack. “Sorry. Long day.” I almost mention the swab that got shoved up my piss hole but decide that's a topic b
etter left for later, in case Paulette really pisses me off. I can whip that out and see if her skin crawls when I mention it. “What I mean to say is no reality show.” Paulette opens her mouth, but I'm not done. “When I say no reality show, I really mean no fucking reality show. Not now, not next month, never. It's too much.”

  “Mr. McGuire,” Paulette says when I give her the chance, folding my arms over my chest and refusing to take the seat Milo offers me. When my manager realizes that I'm not going to sit, he sighs and makes himself comfortable on his feet behind me. “I can understand why you'd say that, given the recent slew,” Paulette practically growls the word out, “of terrible reality television. Programs that are so far removed from reality that you'd be more likely to find truth in sitcom. Listen, Ronnie – can I call you Ronnie? – you're a smart man and obviously a very strong person to survive drug addiction. Many people – my own sister included – never make it out alive.” She leans forward, folding her perfect hands on her black slacks. Jesus, she reminds me of America. I tilt my head to the side and study her face, her perfect nose, her perfect cheeks, her perfect chin. She's like a little brunette Barbie doll, all Beverly Hills plastic surgery and cosmetic decadence. Hmm. America, at least, was real – physically speaking. Still, the resemblance is enough to convince me that I don't trust this bitch as far as I can throw her. No way, no how. “But you should at least hear me out. The idea I pitched to the studio has got a lot of people talking. This is the next best thing in entertainment. Live, twenty-four hour feeds of the house via planted cameras. No camera crew, no interference, no cut away interviews. Just you and your families living here and interacting. When you leave the house, nobody will follow you. You'll still have your privacy.”