PLAYED - A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE (26 page)

“Want to see a real
rock star in his element? I’ll get you a backstage pass. You’ll watch the show
from the sidelines. No fighting through sweaty crowds and mosh pits. You’ll be safe
with a view to kill for.”

“That sounds
incredible,” she murmured, still carefully watching my eyes. “What time?”

“I’ll have someone
pick you up here around 4 o’clock. That’ll get you there in time to see our
set… And all the other sets, too. We’re sharing the stage with some fucking
legends.”

She was quiet for a
moment. “Old Greg is out of town tomorrow. He probably won’t even know that
I’ve left. This could work.”

“You think so?” I
asked.

“Alright,” Angel
nodded, not without some reluctance. “Yeah. I guess it’s a deal.”

“You bet it is,” I
whispered, slipping a fingertip below her chin. She shivered at my touch,
staring into my eyes fearfully. It would be so easy to kiss her right now.

No. I’ll wait.

There’s a better time for this.

Instead, I told her
goodbye, slipped into my jeep, and whipped out of the parking lot. Before she
disappeared from view, I turned over my shoulder to give her one more little
wave. I smiled knowingly to myself.

Just a brief delay.

No big deal.

I felt my usual confidence
rush back into my veins, my swagger emboldened by my understanding of where I
belonged in the universe.

Where
she
belonged.

Which was around my
cock, tomorrow night.

Who needs the back of a rickety old bar?

I’d rather fuck you in the tour bus, anyway.

Chapter
8

Angel

When I woke up hours
later in my familiar old cot, I crawled out of bed and brushed my teeth.
Peering at my sleepy gaze in the mirror, I wondered why I was so exhausted. But
then, it all came flashing back, in a slideshow montage of events in my head.

The bikers, trying to
rape me.

The rocker, shirtless
and
oh so handsome
.

The seductive way he
looked at me.

How close I’d been to
giving myself up.

Sweet Caramel Jesus on a stick.

How fucking stupid
had I been? I could barely believe it. Hot or not, no boy had
ever
had that kind of effect on me. I
mean, yeah, I felt like I was a little indebted to him for rescuing me and
taking those punches. But…

Old Greg had been
right.

I’d almost fucked
him.

I’m such an idiot.

That look in his
eyes…that seductive, low yarl of a baritone in his singing voice… and then
there was all that bullshit at the end of the night. He’d been putting
serious
moves on me, coercing me to come
along to see him play life. I could see the burning lust in his eyes, and I
knew that he didn’t really give a rat’s ass about me.

No.

Nuh-uh.

Ain’t happenin’.

I groaned angrily at
myself. I held myself to a higher standard than this. Sure, I owed him for what
he did for me – but did I owe him
that?

I mean… he
was
really hot.

UGH.

No.

Still mentally
grumbling to myself, I went on with my morning routine. After brushing my
teeth, I hopped into the freezing cold shower for the millionth time. I’d
learned to clean up
fast
without
access to hot water in the improvised bathroom for over a year.

It was only while I
was toweling off that I thought back to the concert he’d mentioned.
Didn’t he say that he was going to send
someone for me?

I looked over at the
time.

It was coming up on
11 AM.

Great. Only five hours of waiting.

Throwing on a
long-sleeved shirt and a pair of shorts, I cracked a few eggs, slapped on some
bacon, and made myself fried egg sandwiches for breakfast. A tumbler of frigid
tap water from the bar rounded out my breakfast of champions.

As I dwelled on
recent events, I found myself savoring the warmth of the eggs. Alabama rarely
got what you could consider
cold
, but
there was a slight chill to the air outside – a cold front must have snapped
through.

Didn’t help that this
bar had the approximate insulation of a paper bag.

Should I go?
I wondered to myself.

Could I have been wrong?

Does he REALLY want to see me again?

Trent probably saw me
as just another notch in his bedpost. It
had
been a long time, and he
was
really
hot. Could I be okay with that?
After
all,
I thought to myself,
maybe he’d
already lost interest from being interrupted by my landlord.

It was just so
utterly
lame
that the only time I
brushed with fame, with someone from well beyond this shitty little town, it was
with such a conflicting, obvious asshole.

He rescued me.

He wanted to fuck me.

I had wanted to fuck
him
.

Well… that thought
had only lasted a few minutes. I’d been caught up in the moment, in my brush
with fame. But I couldn’t let him have that kind of control over me… and
wouldn’t you know it, the guy looked the type to get
angry
over that.

UGH
.

Why is this shit always so
complicated?

I had to admit,
though – if he was telling the truth about the concert… that would definitely
be a hell of an opportunity. I’d only ever seen small, shitty shows here. This
was way different. An opportunity I wasn’t sure that I could pass up.

Being backstage for a
major rock venue.

Watching the rock
stars go balls out.

It could be fun.

Resigning myself to
this course of action, I decided to stop fucking around and just see where that
went. However, I made it very clear to myself that he and I were
not
going to be doing
anything
that might sully my innocence.

So, I put on the
radio while I tried to clean the back of the bar up. I went ahead and took my
inventory count, swept out the storage rooms, reorganized the cold stock, and
tried to fix one of the creaky shelves back there.

Just for kicks, I
tuned it to the Top 40 station.

All the while, I kept
my ears open for one of Trent’s songs, dragging the little battery-powered
boom-box around from room to room as I worked. The stuff that was playing was
mostly the kind of crap I didn’t have any patience for. Lots of young TV stars
given a platform on the radio. Some super repetitive electronic music or
whatever.

Is this the shit that people listen to now?

Luckily, there were
some familiar sounds, older pop mainstays either making a comeback, or showing
that they still really ruled the roost.

I missed the days of
alternative rock on the radio. Living in this bar had given me an appreciation
for country music, but still… the Nineties really pushed some stellar
alternative rock bands to the forefront.

Finally, what I
wanted to hear came on:

“
Featuring, by popular demand, their latest single, here’s ‘Wicked
Wilds’ by Trent Masters and the Whiplash! Go see ‘em live at RIPFEST tonight!
This is The Pitbull, and you’re listening to 106.7 The Pit!”

A low growl of the
guitars swung into gear, building up a crescendo. A few bars in, the drums
kicked in, complementing the instruments until Trent’s voice finally poured in
over the music:

“
My lonely walk along the highway / A silent king with feet a-peelin’ /
Empire of dust that shattered my way / My soul regret, I’ve lost the feelin’…”

I smiled to myself.

It was him.
Definitely
him.

I could see a clear
picture of Trent Masters in my head, scrawling notes in a dirt-stained
notebook. His boots were kicked up, while his band practiced chords and
strummed along to their own hearts.

I liked the thought
of it.

That’s why, when the
private car finally crunched gravel just after 4 o’clock, I was dressed up in
my best.

I’d even been waiting
for half an hour.

Chapter
9

Trent

Turns out, I’d been a
little harder up after my brief skirmish with the bikers than I’d thought. As
much as I hated to admit it, Old Greg had been right to send me towards a
clinic.

My body had been
already seriously aching by the time I arrived there, and it was only going to
get worse.

The overnight doc who
saw me patched me up, nice and well. Turned out that I only had a slight
concussion, nothing too major. She commented that whomever had tended my wounds
had done a good job of it, but that was small substitute for getting a few
bruised ribs checked out.

Still, the place had
a pharmacy built in, so I walked away with a bottle of decent painkillers and a
smile on my face.

That smile faded when
I got back.

The manager of our
band, a scrawny, middle-aged fuck named Steven, climbed out of the bus as soon
as I pulled up. His hands were up in the air – a classic sign that he was
pissed
– and his beady little eyes
blazing with fury.

“Where the fuck
were
you, Trent? You can’t just traipse
off like that in the middle of the fucking night drunk as shit!”

“I wasn’t drunk,” I
commented blandly, tossing him the keys to the rental.

They bounced limply
off his chest, and he quickly bent over to scoop them up. When he jumped back
up, he followed me back towards the bus.

“You must have been.
The others said you were drinking like a fucking camel.”

“The
others
were too busy with their tongues
down some groupies’ throats to have half a rat’s ass of what I was doing,” I
corrected him.

“You need to cut the
prima donna act, you son of a bitch,” he grumbled angrily. “How the fuck am I
supposed to do PR on you fuckers when you scatter to the winds after a show?”

“I don’t know.
Figured that’s what you were paid to do.”

“I ain’t your goddamn
babysitter.”

“Never said you were.
Frankly, I’d hate that. But if you want some advice…” I poked my finger into
his chest, “…back the fuck off. The others, I can’t really speak to their
maturity. But I haven’t given you shit that you haven’t started first. Trust
me. I wanted to clear my head, took a drive. That was it.”

Steven snatched the
prescription bag from my hands. Before I could grab it back, he was eying the
small, orange bottle inside.

“Just out for a
drive, eh? Is that the load of horse crap you’re feeding me? What kind of
bullshit is
this
, then?”

“So, I got into a
fight.”

He glowered at me.

“A fucking
fight?
”

“Yeah. Went to a bar.
Stepped aside for a piss. I walk back in, and these biker fuckers were trying
to rape the poor bartender. I roughed them up. They outnumbered me, so I took a
few hits.”

“Look at you, Mister
Hotshot ‘Knight in Shining Armor,’” the manager sardonically told me. “You’re
on thin ice, and I’m holding onto these.”

I tugged the bottle
back.

“Nice fucking try.
The last thing I need is a reprisal of your goddamn pill problem. We’ve only
got a few more shows on tour; just keep your shit together and we’ll be home
free.”

Steven simmered with
mounting anger, but I took the last few steps towards the bus. Being
intelligent for once, he didn’t bother to follow me inside, waking up anyone.

As I closed the door
behind myself, I wondered why we even had to deal with him. Music labels didn’t
usually assign managers out anymore, but this guy was dumped on us as a
condition of our contract.

Probably because we’d
pissed them off by bringing a decent lawyer along to renegotiate the terms of
our royalties and earning potential, because
fuck
making pennies on the dollar.

I stepped over a few
sleeping bodies – it looked my guitarist, Waylon, had barely escorted his pair
of sweet little honeys inside before fucking them in our tiny little kitchen.

Well, Papa’s home now.

And Papa says “No bare asses in the kitchen.”

I nudged one of them
with my foot. She murmured in her sleep a little, and I persisted. Finally, she
rose up, yawning and looking at me in the semi-darkness.

“Time to go,
sweetheart. You and your friend. How long did
Pound Town
last?”

She sighed sleepily.
“Not long enough.”

“Yeah, didn’t think
so. He talks a tough game, but that’s about it. I think I’ve clocked him at
about forty-five seconds before.”

“Well, it was longer
than
that.
”

I couldn’t help but
laugh.

“Anyway, you should
get going. Need a ride? I can call you a taxi or something, but you need to get
gone.”

“Nah, we drove.
Thanks though.” She smiled quietly, her sultry little eyes locked onto me. “You
want to pick up where he left off?”

I seriously
considered that for a moment, but Angel’s face entered my head. My cock
twitched a little, but only because of how close I’d been to fucking her.

Nah. I’ve already made my pick.

“Don’t do sloppy
seconds.”

“Fair enough,” she
muttered.

The groupie woke up
her friend, and they bid me goodnight before leaving my sight.

My drummer was asleep
with his cougar. I could tell that he was still dressed in his wife beater – he
was unusually attached to those. Paired with cargo pants and sweat stains in
some interesting places, Dylan usually went with a style that I affectionately
called
Divorced, Single Nebraskan Dad
Chic
.

I decided not to
bother either of them.

Dylan was a total
idiot, but he was a more rational idiot than my impulsive guitarist – although
I didn’t like how chummy those two had been getting lately.

The bassist, had
already sent his piece of ass away for the night. Lying in bed with a book,
Terence gave me a brief nod as I passed by in the hall.

Our bassist didn’t
talk much.

He was a thoughtful
guy. Reserved.

It made him someone
easy for me to work with.

Settling down in bed,
I curled my fingers behind my head and waited for sleep to rear its ugly head.
Unfortunately, it was a bit busy that night.

Instead, I wound up
thinking about Angel.

Those sweet hips of
hers.

That nice rack.

Her gorgeous hair.

Those beautiful eyes…

As I’d done so many
times in the last few weeks, I rubbed one out to help myself sleep. It was
dispassionate, unfeeling, just a burst of chemicals in my head to subdue my
thoughts.

My self-loathing.

My lack of emotion.

My private little
clusterfuck of imbalances.

I felt filthy.
Disgusting. The groupies, the fame, the attention, none of it fucking mattered.
But when I saw the way that
girl
was
looking at me…I forgot, briefly.

Forgot how screwed up
I was inside.

Huh. Imagine that.