Jag (Pandemic Sorrow #1)

by Stevie J. Cole

  “Oh, come on, now, princess. They won’t do anything to you. Look.” I laid down on the stage and motioned for the group of girls to come over. They all smiled and huddled up against the metal guard rail. I leaned down, swiping my hair out from my face. “You girls ready for the show?”

  They giggled and nodded, eyes wide.

  “That’s good. I have a favor to ask you. You see that beautiful girl standing right up there? That’s my girlfriend.”

  Their smiles faded.

  “I want to make sure she has a good spot. It’s her first show to come to like this, and it would mean a lot to me if you wouldn’t claw her eyes out. And I’ll get you some backstage passes to do a meet and greet after the show.” Their faces beamed. “Sound good to you?”

  The girl in the middle reached up and grabbed my hand. “Absolutely. If you’ll put in a good word for me with your brother.”

  “Sure thing.” I dropped her hand and pushed myself up from the stage, immediately turning around to Roxy. “They promised they wouldn’t kill you.”

  “Ugh,” she groaned. “You really, really –”

  “Know how to make an impression. I know.” I pushed her to the edge of the stage, then hopped down. Immediately, hands grabbed onto me. Nails dug into my flesh, some stroked through my hair; every part of my body was being groped by fans. Girls shouted my name and screamed bloody fucking murder. The security guard shook his head and made his way toward me.

  I stared up at Roxy on the stage and put my hands out. “You better jump down here before I get torn to shreds.”

  Rolling her eyes, she jumped down and landed in my arms. I gave her a short kiss, set her down, and then clamored up a speaker and onto the stage just in time to see Jules stomping out.

  Jules threw her hands in the air, then reached down to jerk me to my feet. “What in the holy hell are you doing? If this is how you’re going to act sober, just go get you a fix of something! You seriously could have just been mauled, you dumbass.”

  I tugged at the bottom of my shirt. “I need five backstage passes.”

  “What?”

  “Five backstage passes.” I thumbed toward the side of the stage. “Go get them.”

  Jules glared at me.

  “Please?”

  She shook her head. “I swear to God, I’m not cut out for this shit. Egotistical, arrogant, fucking insane…” she mumbled as she disappeared behind the curtain. Several seconds later, laminated VIP passes on lanyards skidded across the stage.

  Grabbing the passes, I made my way back to the edge of the stage and handed them out to the girls. “Not one scratch on her, okay?” I smiled.

  I passed by the announcer from the local radio station as I walked to the backstage area, stopping on the ramp with the rest of the guys.

  “Good for you, bro,” Stone said, patting me on the back.

  I heard our name announced, and the crowd roared. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw a packed arena swarming with fans, and my stomach suddenly turned. My heart went crazy, holding back beats and slapping against my ribcage. I honestly felt like I was going to throw up. I grabbed onto the wall and tried to regulate my breathing.

  “Dude?” Rush leaned down and looked closely at me. “Dude. You about to freak the fuck out or something?”

  I had just realized that ever since that show in Dallas six years ago, I had never come close to doing a show sober. I couldn’t go out there in front of all those people, not vulnerable like this. I felt afraid, nervous – I felt like I didn’t deserve all this. I fucking doubted myself, and I panicked.

  “Where’s the blow? Give me some damn blow!” I shouted.

  Rush pointed back to the holding room, laughing. “You see. You let a girl fuck with your head and then look what happens. Stop pretending to be something you’re not, Jag. Just be your damn self. If she doesn’t like it, tell her to fuck off!”

  I was almost in the room when that last remark flew out of his mouth. Rush had been my best friend for years and I’d never wanted to punch him, until now. I spun around and stepped back in his direction, shoving my finger in his face. “You shut the fuck up! I’ll do what I want. And don’t you ever so much as let a condescending thought cross your fucking mind about her.”

  “Wow! What the hell was that?” Stone muttered as I disappeared into the room.

  I frantically leaned over the table, pushing a line together with my fingers and sucking it up. Then another, and another. I collapsed in the chair, panting and waiting on the shit to get in my system. Ten fucking minutes. It usually takes ten minutes. I don’t have ten minutes. Fuck! I reached over and pinched some powder between my fingers and rubbed it on my gums. I heard Stone and Rush strum their guitars, and the rumble of the audience shook the floor, the vibrations breaking through the soles of my boots and traveling up my legs. Next came the drums, and I completely missed my cue. The guys improvised and slyly started the song from the beginning again.

  Sweat was dripping down my face and my leg was shaking, and just when I was grabbing the bag of heroin out of desperation, miraculously, that flash of euphoria drowned me. I plugged my ears, yanked up my guitar, and sprinted to the stage. The lights flashed and I took my place, pulling my hand away from the guitar to wipe under my nose. I glanced down and found Roxy, grinning and staring up at me like I was a god.

  I had my music, my girl, and my drugs. Who the hell was I fooling? This was who I was. I was fame. I was Jag Steele, and no matter how badly I needed to, I couldn’t stay sober and have everything I wanted.

  Chapter 35

  After the show we did the meet and greet, and Roxy stood over to the side talking with Jules. She kept her back turned to me. I’m not sure if she was trying to block out the sight of all those girls telling me they loved me, or just the sight of me. After the last girl had gotten her picture made with us and cried a bit, Jules came over to a group of four girls who had been selected and sent them to the side of the room.

  “You guys have fun,” I said, and walked over toward Roxy, who was still turned away from us.

  Rush snickered, “Hey! This may work out after all. I’m just going to take the girl that should’ve been yours.”

  Ignoring him, I wrapped my arm around Roxy’s waist and pulled at her to follow me. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She cut her eyes over to me. An annoying giggle broke out from the group of girls standing with Jules, and Roxy glanced over her shoulder. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Are they literally signing waivers to screw them? Oh, my God. And – why are there four of them? Sure you don’t want to join them?”

  “Positive.” I squeezed her against my side. “The fourth girl was Rush’s idea.”

  “Well, someone’s going to be very disappointed.”

  We made our way out of the venue and into the street. Taking a right, we headed toward King Street. “You ever been to Charleston?”

  Roxy shook her head. “Nope. And this heat is ridiculous. The air feels wet. Gross!” She paused and then laughed. “The farthest east I’ve been is Las Vegas when I tried to run away one time.”

  “Run away? Really?”

  “Yep. I hitchhiked there when I was fifteen. I’d stayed up one night watching Striptease and thought maybe being a stripper would be a good idea. Better than what I lived in anyway. Me and Sean had gotten in a fight because he was trying to tell me what to do. You know, the entire ‘rebellious teenager you’re not my parent’ thing.” She looked up at me. “Anyway, I ended up there. Sat out in front of the Mirage on one of the fountains and cried. The cops came up, took me to the station and called Sean. He was livid with me.”

  Looking at Roxy, I never would have believed half the shit she told me. She seemed too put together to have come from such a disaster. Some people are just really good at painting a mask to hide the pain and disappointment of life, I guess.

  “Let’s go this way,” I pointed. “You’re lucky you didn’t get killed hitchhiking from fucking LA to Las Vegas.”

&n
bsp; “I know. I would have been okay with that though. I think I was actually banking on it.”

  I waited for her to laugh, pinch me, or display some type of behavior to show she was joking, but she didn’t.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Let’s see.” I pulled my phone from my pocket and checked the time. “What about a ghost tour? Those are fun. I used to do them all the time when I was a kid in Savannah.”

  “A ghost tour?” she stopped and stared at me, arching one brow. “And you said riding horses was lame.”

  ****

  “… there have been many eyewitness accounts of people seeing a specter-like presence roaming the halls at night, but the ghost’s legs are cut off just below the knees. Does anyone know why this might be?” The guide fell silent, waiting on someone to answer him. “The original floors were actually lower than the floors now. So the ghost of Robert E. Lee is assumed to be walking on the old floors.”

  I pinched Roxy’s side and she jumped, then swatted at me. “I will choke you out if you do that again!”

  “Are you seriously scared?”

  “No. But when I’m concentrating on these ridiculous stories and then you pinch the shit out of me, my body doesn’t receive it well.”

  I laughed. “Okay. Had enough?”

  We walked away from the group and sat on one of the wrought iron benches on the side of the narrow street.

  Roxy laid her head on my shoulder and drew circles on my thigh with her fingertip. “How much longer do you have on this tour?”

  “Oh, two more weeks after tomorrow.”

  “Then you’ve got the one for a year, right?”

  I swallowed. I had refused to let myself think about that. I knew that would be the end of this relationship. How could I expect to be gone for almost a year, worn the fuck out, and stay in a relationship with a girl whose main issue with me was my drug use?

  “Yeah.” I pulled in a breath. “It’s only ten months though. International tours pretty much suck ass.”

  I glanced down at her and found her eyes fixed on the ground. I was pretty sure she was worrying that she’d fucked up by getting involved with me.

  “You know this won’t last, right?” she asked bluntly.

  I bounced my leg a few times, then wiped my hand down my face.

  She cleared her throat and sat up. “Nothing lasts, though, so I guess it doesn’t matter.”

  “Come on, princess. Don’t say that. I don’t want this to end. I like you. You give me hope, which is something I haven’t had since I was a damn kid. It’ll work if we want it to.”

  Roxy smiled and exhaled. “Yeah. Okay, Jag. I forgot you don’t know what normal is. Things just work out for you. So maybe your disillusionment will help this last, right?”

  ****

  That night we went back to a hotel. I could have just taken her back to the tour bus, but I didn’t want to see her laying where all those other girls had lain. Roxy wasn’t a girl I was going to take on the tour bus and cram into my bunk to fuck, then push into the floor so I could go to sleep. Unlike all the others, I wasn’t calling her princess to make her blush, or to make her think she was special just so she’d have less guilt about fucking me. To me, she literally was a princess.

  I laid there with Roxy curled up next to me and tried to force my mind to stop racing. I knew she was right, that we were doomed, but I didn’t want us to be. The timing of it all sucked!

  Looking at her, I realized how fucked I really was. I wanted to make this girl happy. I hated being away from her, and I felt like she made me a better person. She forced me to come down off that damn cloud and out of the fog I’d been stumbling around in for years. Roxy Slade choked the fame out of me. This was the girl that could make me feel. I was terrified that I may very well have already fallen in love with her, because she made me forget about myself. I wanted to be selfless when it came to her. What the fuck did I just think?

  I knew how ridiculous it sounded. Me – Jag Steele, man whore of the decade – actually loving someone. It defied reality, it defied who I was – or did it? It only takes one instance, one encounter to make you question who the fuck you are. And no, the whole falling in love thing within a matter of a month and a half was definitely not characteristic of me. But then again, I was pretty sure I’d been living a fucking scripted life; I’d been following the suggested route of the rock stars before me – maybe that wasn’t really me. It couldn’t have been me, because I really did honestly fucking love this girl lying in bed with me. And the thought of having to put her on a plane and being unable to see her for two more weeks made my stomach knot up.

  It was almost three in the morning and I needed sleep, but I just couldn’t calm myself down. I was scared that I had something I’d inevitably lose, and I couldn’t handle the thought of it. Slipping out from under the covers, I quietly made my way to the bathroom and opened my bag. I pulled out a bottle of sleeping pills, dumped a few in my hand, and swallowed them back.

  There wasn’t a damn thing I could do without medicating myself. Hell, if I didn’t have drugs, I wasn’t even sure who I would be, but it sure as hell wouldn’t have been Jag Steele. That guy was a fraud. He was just a lonely, depressed, worthless piece of shit that hid behind a high, and that realization was a huge blow to my ego. And if I couldn’t really be Jag Steele without the drugs, how in the hell could I keep her?

  Chapter 36

  We’d been back from tour for three weeks, and Roxy and I had spent damn near every minute together, pretty much just locked up in my house. And for those few weeks, everything was perfect. I had managed to keep the fact that I couldn’t stop using hidden from her. I hid the drugs under my sink by taping the bag to the ceiling of the cabinet. I had to force myself to wait an hour and a half before I’d wander back into the restroom. In an effort to seem less suspicious I kept a bottle of water with me at all times. At least that way Roxy would just figure I had to piss. When I would go in the bathroom, I’d frantically pull the package loose, shoving something up my nose or down my throat, and then I’d flush the toilet. I kept a steady stream of drugs in my system so my blown-out pupils just seemed normal.

  I’d broken down and told my lawyer about Layne. Of course he demanded I get a DNA test. The thought had come up that maybe I should mention Layne to Roxy, but I decided I would wait – just in case it came back that he wasn’t mine, which was doubtful. I was terrified that when I did tell her, that would be what drove her away. A lie. That’s all it would take to give her a reason to run away from me without looking back. One fuck up, one slip – one lie.

  The last week before the international tour started, Roxy started to pull away, and I knew what she was doing. She had been bleeding everything she could out of us, and now that she was certain it was about to end, she was trying to remove her emotions from it. That shield of hers came up.

  ****

  We’d been practicing for an hour, and out of boredom Roxy excused herself to take a shower. When we finished, Pax left, and then me, Stone, and Rush left the studio, making our way to the front of my house.

  “You ready to get back on the road?” Stone asked.

  “Nah, man, I’m really not.”

  Stone laughed. “Rush is ready. He got turned out after that last show in Jersey.”

  “Yeah. Dude!” Rush smacked his hand over my shoulder. “You don’t know what the hell you’re missing. This fucking hot-ass bitch – man, her tits were just right, her ass, oh, my God – it had to have been gifted to her by the heavens.” He let out a Neanderthal grunt and clenched his fist in front of his face. “She did the rusty trombone on me and it rocked my fucking world, dude!”

  I gave an uninterested look at him and shook my head as we turned into the living room. “You’re going to end up with more than a drippy dick if you start messing with weird shit like that!”

  Stone cut his eyes over at me, a smart-ass grin creeping across his mouth. “How do you know what that is, Jag? You had
your trombone played lately?” He snickered.

  “No one, and I mean no one, touches my asshole. Okay?” I slammed my hand over my forehead. “Sick fuckers.”

  Rush blew an annoyed breath from his lips. “Dude. You suck! You’re not any fun anymore. I mean, I want you to be happy and all, but this is ridiculous. She’s just a girl. There’s a million other girls that are way hotter than her.”

  I glared at him. “You don’t fucking get it, do you? She’s my girl. She’s the girl I want, and I don’t want to lose her. For the first time in my life, I feel like somebody fucking wants me, like I’m good enough. Damn it. Can’t you just be happy for me, you ass?”

  Stone walked into the kitchen and Rush shrugged, then plopped down on my couch, putting his feet up on the glass coffee table. “She was just a bet. Your twenty-thousand-dollar bet that you could get her to suck your dick. Remember? Looks like you won.” He called out to Stone. “Dude, looks like you better be stroking out a check to him.” Rush put his arms behind his head and stared me in the eyes. “I think that’s all this is anyway. You found something you couldn’t have, and that’s what got you. Not her. It’s the fact that you felt like you’ve won something. She’s nothing more than a damn bet.” A huge smile spread over his lips. He looked utterly pleased with himself.

  Shaking my head, I muttered, “Fuck off, Rush. You don’t get it. She was never a fucking bet.” I turned and found Roxy standing in the hallway by my bedroom with a blank expression on her face. Before I could say anything, she spun around and slammed the door in my face, locking it.

  “Roxy?” I leaned against the door.

  “Don’t,” she growled.

  I turned to Rush. “You fucker! Did you see her standing there?”

  “Nope. At least not until it was too late. I’m just trying to help you out before you really fuck up. You’ve got a life anybody would give their left nut for, and you’re trying to screw it all for something that’s not real. Love?” Rush laughed. “You probably think you love her. And all I need is for you to go get on some self-loathing downward spiral and try to kill yourself when you guys split.”