Forgetting Popper (Los Rancheros #3)

Forgetting Popper

By Brandace Morrow

Los Rancheros Series

Book 3

Forgetting Popper
© Copyright 2014 by Brandace Morrow

All rights reserved. No part
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piracy in any capacity of copyrighted material in violation of the
author’s rights.

This book is a work of
fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any
events, occurrences, places, or business establishments is purely
coincidental. The characters and story line are created from the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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Cover design by Najla Qamber
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“FUCK OFF, TORONTO!” I doubt the crowd can
hear my growl into the microphone. They’re busy beating the shit
out of each other. Mosh pits tend to get out of hand at these
concerts, and we had been banned from more than a few venues. I
lean down and pick up the bottle of water at my feet. My bleached
blonde hair falls in tangled, sweaty ropes that I swear try to
strangle me. It sticks to my arms and torso like a giant spider
web. Disgusting.

I raise the bottle that I want nothing more
than to chug. My throat is on fire from screaming at these stupid
fucks all night. But true to form, I aim it at the men trying to
beat each other into the cement, hitting my target in the temple
and spraying water over the crowd.

They go crazy, yelling, pounding their feet.
I raise my middle finger and walk off stage shirtless, my nipples
covered with black tape. Someone hands me a towel, the other band
members taking up the majority of the crews’ attention in their
high from performing.

I stop only when I get to my dressing room,
and wish there was a shower in the small room. I do the best I can
in the little attached bathroom with the towel to wash away the
sweat from the night. My hair is a lost cause, so I flip my head
over, twist the ass length mass into a rope then wrap it around my
head. When I sit back up, there’s a sleazy fat guy with gold chains
standing behind me. My eyes lock on his in the mirror as I put the
hair tie in, then get to work taking the tape off.

It hurts like a fucking bitch, the freshly
uncovered skin quickly becoming red. I hold out my hand and Brian
hands me a shirt. I only turn when it’s over my head, giving him
the same insolent expression I’ve worn for seven years.

“There are some reporters that want to do
interviews on the bus to the next leg. You need to make yourself
available to them, and answer whatever questions they ask,” he
tells me.

I roll my eyes and laugh. “It’s
Saturday.”

His face becomes red and blotchy, and I know
what’s coming. “You will do this interview and ride on the fucking
bus with the rest of the band, Popper, or so help me—”

“Yeah, what?” I cut him off. “What are you
gonna do?” I ask as I advance on him in my five-inch boots. He’s a
short little fucker, only coming to my shoulder in these shoes, but
he thinks he can order me around because he’s older. I watch his
jaw clench, but I only know because I can hear his teeth grinding,
not because there’s any muscles showing on his bloated face.

“Don’t make me get rough with you, Popper.
You have an obligation as the lead singer.”

“Next time, Brian. I’ve been leaving every
Saturday since the tour started. Today isn’t any different. My
plane leaves in three hours, and I’ll be on it.”

He sighs, like he’s so put out. My leaving
isn’t news to him on this particular day of the week.

“Fine,” he relents with surprising ease.
“Just have a drink with one of them at the bar to tide them over.
You can do that, right?”

I study his face warily before nodding my
head slightly.

“Good.” He turns. “Let’s go.” He wraps his
sausage fingers around my arm so tight that I know he’s striking at
me the only way he can. He always squeezes my arms too hard. No one
thinks a thing about it, on stage or off, when they see the
bruises. They’ve just always been there, up and down my bicep. I
let him pull me two steps before I wrench my arm away to grab my
bag, the pain of getting out of his hand more hurtful than him
actually holding my arm. But it’s the principle of the thing.

I let him touch me. I let him get away with
it. And I can escape any time I want. The game to stay impassive
and not flinch has been one I’ve played all my life.

Brian, of course, doesn’t wait for me, much
less hold the door. By the time I get into the hall, where chaos is
reigning as the stage gets broken down, Brian is lost in people and
boxes that are taller than him. When I make my way through the maze
of hallways, finally entering the green room, I see him doing what
he does best: schmooze.

There’s a makeshift bar in the corner so I
take a stool amidst the pot smoke and coffee tables with lines of
white already laid out. The guys in the band are on couches around
the hazy room with mostly naked women draped about them.

My eyes meet the man behind the counter, some
venue employee that has to be there to fill our rider requirements.
His eyes light up as they take me in. I stare until his eyes come
back to my face. He swallows quickly when he realizes I’m not
flattered by the mental striptease he’s been imagining in his
head.

“Whiskey, right? I’m good at guessing
drinks.” He smiles then winks. My face doesn’t so much as twitch. I
am stone.

Here’s the thing about this world I live in.
Everyone immediately knows you. Everyone knows what you want, what
you think, what you feel. Or they think they do. They have
expectations. I fucking hate whiskey. All I want to drink is water
. . . well, maybe a strawberry daiquiri or something frozen to
soothe my throat. But no, the lead singer of Chimera wouldn’t do
that in this house of horrors. So I do what’s expected of me.

“On the rocks.” My voice is already raspy on
a good day from doing this so long. After a concert, there’s barely
anything left. The man smirks and quickly fills my order.

I look around just as a man slides into the
stool beside me.

“Popper, it’s a pleasure to meet you. My name
is Randal. I hope I can ask you a few questions tonight on the bus.
Brian told me to come over and introduce myself.” He says all of
this with a smile, his sweater screaming preppy, something that
gives me hives.

I take his eager, thrust out hand before he
hits my chest with it, my whole body bobbing in time with our
hands.
Down boy
. “Brian was mistaken. You’re supposed to ask
me questions now since I won’t be on the bus tonight.”

I reach for my drink, but still catch his
crestfallen face. I swallow and it goes down like shards of glass,
but it doesn’t show on my face. I bring my teeth down hard on an
ice cube, the only reaction I allow myself.

“What a bummer!” Holy shit, he said bummer.
Do adults use that word anymore? “I wanted to get the full
experience.”

I look around the room again, seeing several
of the guys having sex on various surfaces and raise my eyebrow at
Randal
. “This is pretty much it.”

“What’s it like traveling with four guys
around the world?” he asks as he takes out a little tape
recorder.

“It’s fucking nasty. Someone takes a shit on
the bus every other day, which they know they aren’t supposed to
do. It clogs everything up and makes it smell like a sewer.” I
almost gag thinking about it. Fucking disgusting. “They get into
fights all the time. What do you want me to say?” I ask with a
shrug. I hate interviews.

Randal’s nose is wrinkled, making him look
like a little boy. Seriously, where is the respect from these
people? They probably sent an intern. “What magazine did you say
you were from?”

His eyes light up. “Oh, it’s not a magazine.
I have a blog that covers all of the acts that come through the
venue.” He shrugs bashfully. “I usually don’t get backstage, but
Tammy’s been very helpful.”

Of course our publicist has been helpful. She
signs us up for every fucking thing under the sun. God, I’m
tired.

“I’m sorry. My time’s up.” I put my feet on
the floor to stand, but a hand wraps around mine still holding my
whiskey glass. I look at the hand, then over my shoulder, where it
connects to Maury, the drummer. “Move your fingers before I break
them.”

“Now, Pops, come on. You can’t leave a drink
on the table. It’s against the rules,” he says with a smile, and
not a good one. I know for a fact all of his teeth are fake. Meth
ruined the originals. His face has a permanent yellow cast to it,
and his shoulder length black hair is as stringy as mine, but it
hangs around his face. I pick up the drink and shoot it down,
meeting his eyes again.

When I started this at fifteen, I had no idea
it was like a pack of wolves. I just wanted to sing, make music.
Maury was the oldest, well out of high school and the ringleader.
He got us the gigs in the beginning, lying about my age to get us
in to play. He had always been too touchy feely with me. I learned
how to fight, and I learned from the best: five older guys on a
small bus nonstop. I learned the art of a stare, never backing
down, always intimidating.

He blinks first, licking his lips and rubbing
his nose. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

I allow myself to look around the room, not
even caring what time it is. It is time to go. “Yeah, thanks for
the reminder.” I reach down for my bag, swinging the strap over my
shoulder.

“Thanks, Randy. It was great.”

I walk away and hear, “It’s Randal . . . oh,
okay. Bye, then.”

I get halfway down the hall before it jumps
out at me. My bare shoulder rubs against the rough cinderblock
walls and I put my hand out to push myself off of it. What the
fuck?

“Here, Pops. Let me get that for you,” a
sickeningly sweet voice says before slipping the duffel bag off of
my shoulder. It isn’t until an arm is around my shoulder that I
move my head to see who it is.

Maury smirks down at me, like a cobra about
to strike. “Let’s get you gone, Popper.”

I start hyperventilating, the fluorescent
lights above me seeming to streak into one continuous line of over
bright light. “What did you do to me?” I whisper in the most
vulnerable voice I’ve ever uttered in my life.

“Nothing yet, sweets. You’ll stay awake for
me though, won’t you?”

I’m sweating now, so badly. I feel like my
whole body is on fire, and not in a good way. It’s not until we
burst out of the doors into the cold February air that I think to
fight.

I bend my knees to duck under his arm, but
either he’s too fast or I’m super slow because he has no trouble
pushing me headfirst into the passenger seat of a car. I feel like
I drank too much and know he did something to my drink. Why did I
have to meet every challenge?

“Take me to the airport,” I try to say, but
it’s a slur, even to my ears. Maury chuckles, making me shiver. It
only makes him laugh harder. He rubs his hands together.

“Oh, this is going to be fucking brilliant.”
He takes off at a speed way too fast for so many people around us
packing up. He doesn’t hit anything, thank Christ. I realize I
don’t have a seatbelt on, and try to work the handle on the door to
get out. Even if I die, it would be better than what he’s got
planned.

His hand grabs me, wrenching the wheel
alarmingly to the side before straightening again. He brings my
hand to his pants and I can feel that he’s hard. I can’t help it. I
burst out laughing.

I laugh until there are tears streaking my
black eye makeup down my face. He’s getting more mad by the second,
finally throwing my arm away. My hand hits the window with a clink
of rings on glass.

“What’s so fucking funny?!” he yells, barely
watching the road. We’re in downtown after a concert, the traffic
isn’t what it normally is at midnight, and I’m briefly worried
about that, but it slips away.

“Your dick is so small.” I laugh again. “You
have to drug me, kidnap me to get me to have sex with you, and I
probably wouldn’t even feel if it if I was sober.”

My head hits the window, then dashboard as he
makes a quick turn and stops abruptly. I moan deep in my throat,
but it’s cut off almost instantly by Maury’s hand. My breath makes
a weird gurgling noise as I struggle to pry his big hand from
around my alarmingly fragile feeling neck.