No Holding Back (8 page)

Os was the first to step in, swatting at a few hands that flailed around him like flies
. Security did their best to keep the crowds under control, but only by shoving Chris past the bus doors with his own body, did he manage to protect her from being exposed. Not to mention deter would-be souvenir snatchers from grabbing onto an article of her clothing.

As Wade and Joe filed in
behind, Wade noticed that his brother went directly into his bedroom without so much as a word and shut the door behind him. But he didn’t have time to see what was up Os’ ass at the moment. 

Because Wade lost his footing on the large steps and landed on Joe who, in turn, fell squarely onto Chris.
The three of them dominoed up the landing just as Pete closed and locked the door shut with a switch from his massive dashboard.

“
Ooof!” Chris bellowed. “Get offa me, wouldja?!”

Joe feigned upset.
“Tell me about it! What the hell’er you two tryin’ to do?
Gang
rape me?!”

Chris crawled a short distance away and collapsed onto her back while Wade, too exhausted to laugh, shoved Joe aside with a,
“Move, dammit!”

The three of them laid side by side for the longest time, heaving and panting, yet thankf
ul that they made it through the night in one piece.

Just then, Joe laughed breathlessly
before his breathing fell into small giggles. But in no time at all, it appeared to be contagious. Chris started to laugh and a few moments later, Wade joined in as well. Soon the three were rolling so hard, the only reason why they stopped was because their stomachs started to hurt. Eventually, Chris was the first to speak.

“Holy s
hit,” she stated, still out of breath from the whole ordeal. “I can’t believe it’s over!”

Just then, Wade heard several female voices through all of the fierce banging on the doors. He nearly swallowed his tongue and forgot to tell Chris about one more thing
.

G
roupies.

“It
’s not over yet,” Wade said as he hopped up and pulled Chris up along with him.

“Huh? Whaddya mean?”

Just then, Joe panicked and gestured to Pete. “We gotta hide her, man! Pete’s a horny bastard and you know he’s not gonna keep it locked forever!”

And right on cue, the doo
rs burst open and a half dozen scantily clad twenty-something beauties poured into Heretic’s bus. Joe instantly went to meet them but also acted as a barrier and shot an evil at them both.

“Dammit
!” Wade whispered fiercely.

Chris panicked. “Wh
-What do I do!?”

Already, Chris
could see one of the girls plop herself onto Pete’s lap and snake her hands down inside of his pants.

Wade spotted his phone
on the table and snatched it while pushing Chris to the relative safety her room.

“Nothing. Here – take this
!”

And with that
, he shoved his phone into her hand, opened the door to her room, and pushed her in.

“What am I supposed to do with
this
!?” she hissed.

“
You’ll figure it out," he said cryptically. "Whatever you do: stay in here, lock the door, and
don’t
come out!”

Suddenly, s
everal girls plowed right through Joe. While one attached themselves to his lips, two others set their sights on Wade. Joe looked to be enjoying himself but his gaze held a sense of urgency and hopelessness as they made a b-line to the two remaining members of Heretic.

“Oh Waa-aade? You wouldn
’t want to keep your adoring fans waiting, now would you?”

A gorgeous red head with too much eye makeup and full pouting lips
, teased as she loosed a few buttons around her bulging breasts. Wade laughed as she made every attempt to undo his belt, but he made himself an immovable barrier between Chris and the groupies.

“W
ould I do that to you, ladies?”

His reply was so sickeningly sweet that Chris
wanted to gag. Instead, she rolled her eyes under her hoodie.

“What about your new drummer?”
asked an equally voluptuous black-haired Goth who reached out to Chris. But Wade interjected immediately and caught her wrist, and kissed the top of it apologetically.

“Oh,
I am so sorry, ladies. But I’m afraid that our drummer’s gonna hit the sack a little early tonight.”

They made a
few disheartening and melodramatic groans and making Chris snort in disgust.

Wade turned
and looked directly at her. “
Aren’t
you, Chris?”

Wade
’s killer expression bore into her and it was more than enough to get her to move back into her room as the red-head hit her knees and made several motions to relieve Wade of his pants. But Chris needed no further urging as she closed the door to her room and locked it shut.

She backed away from the partition, a trembling and nervous wreck
though she was while several knocks came from the girls from the other side, beckoning her to come out and ‘play’. She seriously doubted if the flimsy partition would hold the onslaught of groupies, but she prayed it would. She drew back from the door and forgetting where her bed was, tripped and fell back onto the mattress.

She was still shaking off the trauma
of it all when she laid aside her sticks and looked down at Wade’s sleek phone, wondering what the hell he wanted her to do with it.

She was
much too scared to remove her hoodie but in answer to her question, she began to hear moaning and groaning from outside. She knew that numerous sexual acts were occurring just outside her room and not wanting to hear anymore loud smacking of lips and other body parts, she caught onto Wade’s idea.

She unraveled the ear buds and shoved them almost too painfully in her ears. She turn
ed it on as fast as possible in her shaking hands and brought the volume up as loud as she could handle – wanting only to ensure that her ears were blind to the events that went on mere feet from her. As some of Wade’s favorite songs connected with her eardrums, she laid down on her bed, curled up on her side in all her sweaty clothes, and turned off the light.

With eyes locked open,
she couldn’t help but stare at the door in complete terror as a few thin strands of light shone in through the cracks. She feared that at any moment, some girl would come bursting in, dead-set on ripping off her clothes, exposing her and revealing Heretic’s secret to everyone. She didn’t want to fail Wade and Joe, not in the way that Hess did. And so she clutched her drenched clothes around her even tighter and remained a silent witness as the gigantic bus rocked back and forth.

Fear and loud music were her only companions as she drifted off uncomfortably.

Chris sat upright as if someone had shocked her into waking. She hated how she had let herself doze off during the orgy but as she shook off the sleep, she noticed that Wade’s phone stopped playing and so she gently plucked the buds from her ears. It was still dark in her room but as Chris lifted the curtain to the only window in her room, she had to shield her eyes from the morning sun. She could see that they were moving along at a gentle pace, but she couldn’t understand how she managed to sleep through last night.

As she yawned
and stretched her sore limbs, she became still for a moment and held her breath, listening and waiting.

No deep breathing,
no groaning or smacking of asses. It was completely silent save for the droning noise of the bus as it hummed along the road. Wearily, she rose from bed and walked up to the plastic partition, coming as close as she dared and straining her ears for the slightest noise. She waited until she was certain there was nothing other than the dull roar of the engine. She sighed breathlessly when she realized that last night’s festivities were, thankfully, at an end.

She cra
cked open the hard plastic partition millimeter after millimeter until she peered precariously through the small crack, but she didn’t see anyone. Feeling braver by the moment, she pulled it open more and more, but she guessed that the groupies hit the road before they did.

Finally, she opened her door just wide enough to steal a glance
down the small hallway. And when she found only Joe sitting at his usual spot at the table, she sighed in relief.

Joe
spotted her right away and made several over-exaggerated motions for her to join him. Gratefully, she left her room with Wade’s phone in hand and as soon as she stepped into the kitchen, Joe made another gesture for silence and pointed to the couch opposite of him. And there lay Wade, asleep in all his clothes from the night before. But Chris couldn’t see his face as he lay facing the couch cushions. Carefully, she wrapped the cord around his phone and placed it on the arm rest.

Then, she q
uietly took her usual spot by the table and noticed that Os wasn’t up front and judging by the soft snoring that came from behind his door, he was still out cold. She didn’t know whether or not he took part in last night’s festivities but she thought it best to remove such potentially disturbing images from her mind.

No sooner than she planted herself in her seat, than she noticed an unusual stench in the air. It smelled oily, almost like lingering tobacco, but she hardly had time to dwell upon it further when Joe broke into his trademark grin.

“Good morning!”

Joe
’s unusually chipper voice made Chris cringe; after all, he was the one that pointed out that Wade was sleeping. But she just smiled and shook her head.

“You can take that off, y
’know. It’s just us now. We left those broads behind,” he said.

Chris too
k up Joe’s offer and pulled back her hoodie, removed her beanie, and ran her fingers through her dark hair several times. Then, she took both hands and scratched her scalp and massaged the flesh just because it felt so damn good. When she looked back up at Joe, she couldn’t help but notice that he was still smiling. Now, she was just waiting for him to tell her that he farted.

“Why are you talking like that?”

“Like what?” Joe asked in a hurtful fashion.

“
…like you just got done smoking a fat one.”

Just then, Joe
’s grin became even wider, if such a thing were possible.

“Because maybe I
did
just get done smoking a fat one!"

He giggled uncontrollably and
tried keeping her laugh to a full roar. At least it explained the weird stench.

“You wanna hit? I still got some left…”
he offered, but Chris shook her head.

“No, thanks. I
’m cool. I have other ways of getting high.”

“R
ight on, chica,” he said, making a fist. “Right. On.”

Chris laughed through her nose and bumped Joe
’s fist in return. She was starting to get hungry and thought about looking around for some food, but Joe interrupted her thoughts.

“I gotta know what your secret is, man!”

Joe’s question caught Chris by surprise.

“What? S
ecret? Joe, I already told you-.”

“C
’mon, Chris! You can’t be a musical genius without
some
reason! How the hell did you get to be so damn good?!”

“Ok, just shh!”

Chris wanted nothing more than for Joe to quiet down without waking Wade, but it was too late. Unbeknownst to either of them, he had already been awake for quite some time, but instead of revealing it, Wade continued to pretend to be out cold. He knew that if anyone could get Chris to open up, it would be Joe.

Chris waited a few moments to ensure that Wade was still sleeping before she relaxed and
spoke in a low voice.

“Well, ever since I started going to school, the band instructors always let me play drums in the band room until they had to leave. I did that shit for years,”
she explained while trying not to let the bad memories of her past show on her face. “My dad never knew any better. He was always deployed somewhere and when he asked, I just said I had tutors. If he had known the truth, he wouldda beat my ass.”

“Yeah, right,"
Joe teased, waiting for a punch line.

“I
’m serious. Even now…if he ever found me…” Chris’ voice dropped so low, Wade had to strain just to hear. “I’m pretty sure he’d ship my ass off to basic training in no time.”

Joe shifted uncomfortably in his seat almost afraid to ask any more questions, but curiosity prevailed.

“So, why didn’t you join band practice or some shit?” he pressed.

“
Because Whitesnake isn’t exactly in their curriculum,” she answered back, unable to understand why he couldn’t grasp such simple things.

“
Oh…right…” he said.

“So,
after too much music and failing grades, I dropped out. My dad wasn’t exactly thrilled when he found out. Heh. He made a call to get me into the Army the very next day, but it never got that far. I ran away that night and I’ve been runnin’ ever since.”

Chris held a thousand-yard stare until Joe
came at her with another question.

“How the hell did you make a living?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “For a while, I didn’t. I just lived on the streets until a friend hooked me up with a place to live. And the best part was, the guy I lived with had a drum set in his basement that he never used. I didn’t have to pay bills and I only had to give him a pack of smokes every once in a while,” she admitted nervously.

“Awesome!”

Joe made another fist and put it in front of Chris to which she obliged him yet again.

“I got a part-time gig at a music store. I didn
’t make much, but I bought some tunes every chance I got. That’s how I learned your stuff an-.”

Joe
’s head sunk so low to the table, he was almost looking at Chris through his eyebrows.

“Whoa.
Whoa. Whoa, whoa….
whoa
. Just stop right there.”

“What?” Chris wrinkled her nose.

“
Learn
our stuff? Whaddya mean you
learned
our stuff. Don’t tell me you became a badass with drums just by listening to us.”

Chris was
puzzled. “Well, yeah. What other way is there?”

Joe shook his head
in disbelief “Well, most people
read
music!” he chuckled.

“Oh. W
ell, I dunno how.”

Joe
’s eyes widened even more.

“
Please tell me this is just the weed fuckin’ with me, right?”

“No? Why?”

He snickered and buried his head in his hand and for a moment, it seemed he was talking more to himself than Chris.

“
I can’t believe Miss Bad-Ass Drummer here doesn’t even know a single note of music!”

“You didn
’t seem to care last night,” she shot right back at him.

But Wade caught himself laughing at the irony of it all. One thing was for certain:
he couldn’t believe Heretic’s luck. Chris’ ability to play like she was born to do it was something divine. It’s not often anyone comes along sporting real talent. Sure, Wade knew he was talented, but he had to work hard to get to that point. Chris made it look easy. In fact, when it came right down to it, it reaffirmed his
own
envy. However, Wade continued to listen intently to their conversation.

“True.”

“So whenever I got off work, I just went down into the basement and I played until my hands hurt. Sometimes, I had to play in the dark when the power got shut off. But even then, I still got in about fourteen hours a day.”

“Whoa! Seriously?!
You can play in the dark?” Joe asked excitedly.

Chris shrugged her shoulders and couldn
’t understand why Joe was getting so wound up. After all, her hobby came as naturally to her as breathing.

“Not much choice when the guy you lived with was always late on bills.
I don’t even think he had a job. Not unless you call drug-dealing a job,” she stated with a roll of her eyes. “Come to think of it, I think that’s how I got away with playing so much. I guess you don’t really care what’s going on if you’re passed out cold all the time from drugs and booze.”

“Man, I
know
the feelin’!” Joe’s face contorted into a silly grin making Chris laugh outright just as Joe began to massage his gut with this hand. “Fuck, I’m hungry… Hey! We might have some Funyuns left!”

Joe
darted to the cabinets and started rummaging through them noisily hoping to find something to sate his munchies. But Chris shook off his odd mannerisms and short attention span.

Meanwhile, Wade was hard at work processing all that he
had heard. He couldn’t help but remember some of the first words that came from her at the audition.

“I
can play your shit in the dark.”

Wade doubted this ability outright at first, since there was no one he knew that could actually perform such a feat. But hearing Chris reveal her talents to Joe with such
candidness lead him to believe that she was telling the truth. But he hardly had time to think about anything anymore because soon, sleep crept upon Wade and he drifted off, this time for real. All the while, he couldn’t help but think about their next gig in San Diego.