Get Bent (16 page)

I blow smoke in his face.

He just breathes it in with a smile.

“Let's just say, when Turner's on a warpath, people stay out of his way.”

“Uh huh.” I lean back and wait until Ronnie shows up with blankets and pillows, depositing them on the tabletop and retreating with a little wink. Turner locks the door behind him and settles back into his position across from me. I put my feet up and rest my toes against his legs. “You think you're so tough, but I see right through you.”

He leans forward and breathes hot breath against my face.

“Really, Naomi? And what is it that you see?”

“I see a man who thinks he knows what he wants, but doesn't understand it. I see a guy who – ”

Turner interrupts me by grabbing my chin and pressing his forehead to mine. I don't move away when he crawls between my legs, keeping those fingers locked tight on my face.

“Naomi, you see a guy who thought he lost the only thing he ever really wanted. The one thing he craved and never even knew about,” he whispers, and his voice is soft, like kitty cat fur soft. It's
weird
as shit. This is the same guy who left that roadie half-naked over a PA speaker, that knocked me up and left my pregnant and alone at sixteen, who parties and fucks and sings and doesn't care whose heart gets broken in the process. This is also the guy who's making my chest tight and my eyes wet, who's created a throbbing pulse between my thighs and slicked my skin with sweat. “You see an asshole with a whole laundry list of faults, who doesn't even know how many chicks he's slept with, but who only wants one.”

“What if I said you can't have her?” I tell him, not liking the ache I feel when he pulls away and sits back down across from me. My body is
begging
me to fuck him again, to hold him tight inside of me and make him
mine.
I want to piss all over him and claw up his back and make sure that all of these other bitches know he's off limits. I want them to know that he wants me in ways he's never wanted them, that he craves me in ways he's never felt before. I shiver and snatch a cigarette with angry, shaking hands.

Turner just grins, all cocky and arrogant. It's not a front, not necessarily, but something about it rings fake when he looks at me. I've found a crack in the Campbell shell. And it's me.
I'm
the fucking crack.

“I'd have to say too damn bad. I get what I want, Naomi, and what I want is you. Get used to it.” I flip him off.

“Hey, Turner,” I say. “Fuck you.” He leans forward.

“I just did that.” I shake my head and grab the water bottle, alternating sips with drags.

“I fucked you.” He laughs, loud and raucous, like a fucking cheese grater scraped over an old record player. I hate to admit it, but I kind of like it.
Oh God, no. You're not falling for him, are you? What is all of this sappy shit? This isn't you, Naomi. You don't need a man. You need answers and then you need closure and then you need to get back to your career. Your career. The music. Your music that he's been borrowing.
I debate talking about that with him, but I don't know how to broach the subject. It's too sensitive. I pick an easier topic. “When we get to Dallas, I need you to get me a morning after pill, do you understand? Like, before the parking brake is even in place, you're going out to get it.” Turner gives me a loaded, cocky ass fucking smile. I want to eat his face off and rape him at the same time. Something is seriously wrong with me. I blame it on my week in captivity.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” he growls, taking a nice, long, slow drag on his new smoke. He lets tendrils of gray drift from his nostrils.

“And if I get herpes, I'll fucking kill you.” His grin gets bigger, and I notice something different about his face, like he's gotten more handsome all of a sudden. It takes me a minute to figure out what it is. He's
happy.
For the first time since I've met him, I can tell that Turner fucking Campbell is actually happy. Why? Because of me. I look away.

“I told you, babe, I'm clean. I've used more rubbers than an English school teacher.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I snarl, grabbing a pillow and fluffing it. Might not seem all that comfortable to sleep on a bench, but to me, it all still feels like heaven. I've got gauze and Neosporin on my wrists and ankles, I'm not drugged, and best of all, I'm
free.
I could probably fall asleep in an alley with a bag of trash as a pillow and diseased rats for bedmates and I'd be alright.

As soon as my head hits the pillow, my eyelids start to droop. There is so much going on in this little room that it makes my head spin. What happened to me, what Turner went through while I was gone, America in the hospital, Katie, Eric, Hayden.
Ugh.
I've had more than enough for one night.

“It means,” Turner whispers, grabbing a blanket and laying it over my curled body. “That I'm in love with you, Naomi Knox.”

Naomi has no fucking clue how I feel inside. To her, the last week was a nightmare, a trial she had to overcome. To me, it was an aching pit of hope and despair, fear and need and want all mixed into one. I'm not saying I had it worse or anything, but shit. Thinking she might be dead, wanting to believe she wasn't … Right now, staring down at her sleeping face, I want to do a fucking river dance. I want to jump on this table and scream and shout my joy to the world. The high I'm on right now is better than any drug ever invented. I am King today. I am God. I am Happy. Yeah. Happy. That horrible H-word that we spend our lives searching for.

Naomi's asleep, so I figure I can get away with brushing her hair from her forehead, kissing her cheek, without getting my balls torn off. I touch her arm, press my palm against her shoulder and just breathe. Without even knowing it, I've been holding my breath for days waiting for this girl. Looking at her now, I can't believe I ever touched another woman. I'm repulsed by the idea, fucking sickened by it.

I stand up straight and finish my cigarette.

I don't even know what to do with myself now. I just want to pace back and forth and guard Naomi with my life. I want to snarl at anybody that comes near, and I swear to fuck that I will defend her to the
death.
Truth be told, I don't even care about anything else now. I mean, think about it. I have money, fame, respect, music, and my girl. That's it. What else is there? I've even got friends that'll stick by my side no matter what, and let's just be honest, a hot smokin' body. So now what?

“Now,” I tell my cig as I press it in the ashtray. “Now I find the fuckers who are threatening my shit, and I take them down. I destroy them one by one until there's nothing left on this earth to challenge me.” I smile and look down at Naomi. “Except for her,” I whisper. “Because I know this chick will be challenging me every day for the rest of my Goddamn life.”

Morning rolls around, and I haven't slept much. I pretty much sat up and watched Naomi sleep like a fucking stalker. I almost fell asleep a few times, but woke up startled, thinking it was all a dream, that I'd never found her and that she'd showed up dead in a ditch somewhere the next morning. It was kind of a shitty night. And a perfect one. Dichotomous bullshit.

“Get me some fucking orange juice,” Naomi whispers when I push her feet off my lap and stand up, rolling my head around and getting a crick out of my neck. “And something to eat.” She pauses and then, mouth muffled by the pillow, manages to get out a forced
please.

I smile and kick open the door, closing it carefully behind me. Ronnie's already up, so I give him a nod and he stands up, moving into the back and slipping inside. I wonder what he and Naomi will talk about when I'm gone.

“Where the fuck's Milo?” I ask Josh who's slumped at the table, cup of coffee clutched between his hands. I snatch a shirt out from the drawer under my bed and slip it on. Just so happens that it's a white one with the words
Breaking Pretty
across the front. I touch my fingers to the Indecency logo underneath and stare out the window, following a nod from Josh. The crowd today is fucking insane, taking advantage of the clear, warm weather to pile up outside the gates, shouting and screeching and flailing like a solid mass. This whole camping out shit might be coming to an end soon. Turner Campbell and crew might just have to upgrade.

I stare for a minute as I consider going for a joint. Naomi's back, so it'd be alright, wouldn't it? But then I think about my mind getting cloudy, blurring the edges of her beautiful face. Besides, she needs my help.
I
need my help. The detective work might not be so blindingly urgent, but it's still top priority. I go for a cigarette instead and pass over my morning beer for a cup of black coffee.

“He's dealing with some weird rumors,” Josh says, groggy and irritated. Told you, he's a little bitch in the mornings. When he finds out his favorite bathroom is now permanently off limits, he's going to flip the fuck out. “People are saying they saw you having sex onstage last night.” I snort and splash coffee into the sink. I imagine that there are cameras zooming in on my face right now and try to keep a wicked smirk plastered on my lips.

“Now that sure is fucking odd,” I say, but I don't respond to the question underneath his words.
Were you?
Josh makes a huffing noise under his breath and downs his cup.

“So now, thanks to that, you're even more popular than you were the night before.” He pauses and when I glance over my shoulder, I see him biting his lip. Josh looks so friggin' young to me right now, like a virgin angel or some shit. I can't even imagine how he looks onstage with the rest of us washed up, drugged up motherfuckers. I sip my coffee. I don't want to hate Josh, but it's so easy to. So easy to blame him for not fitting in, for not being Travis, for being too naïve. Life hasn't come and screwed him up the ass with a dry dildo. I should be happy about that, should try to be a guiding hand. Instead, I just get irritated whenever he's around. “How?” he whispers as I turn fully around to face him. “How do you do it?” He sounds perplexed, like he can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would be interested in me. I stare at his pale skin, his blonde hair, the angry tremble in his jaw, and I try to figure out an answer to that question.

See, here's the thing. When I think about myself, I'm arrogant as shit. I can think about all sorts of reasons why people would flock to me, throw themselves at my feet, and beg for more. But when I think about Naomi … I guess I have a harder time imagining why she'd want to be with me. I screwed her over, betrayed her fantasies and her dreams, seeded her with pain that she's only just now getting over. That makes me want to be a better person, a person that's easy to imagine her with. Maybe that's what the crowds are seeing in me now? Maybe they fell in love with an idea before and they're watching that idea come to fruition?

Or maybe I'm just full of crap.

I take another sip of my coffee, a drag on my cigarette.

“Well kid,” I say and watch as Josh purses his lips. “Maybe it's just because I'm the shit?”

I get Naomi her juice and her pill, returning back from the pharmacy just in time to be bombarded with cameras and microphones, raging fans and a mass of cell phones all recording my shocked facial expression when I climbed through the bushes and tried to hop the fence. I got out alright that same way, but I guess the vultures swept in while I was gone. I can see that this frenzied shit is going to get real ugly real fast.