“Hey, Naomi,” a voice calls out from the end of the alley. I don't turn my head because there's only one person I've ever met that sounds like a demonic version of Mickey Mouse. “Hayden got drunk and vomited all over the bathroom. There's like three inches of fucking puke in there.” Wren pauses next to me and tucks his skinny hands into the front pockets of his acid washed jeans. “It smells like tequila and it's making me sick.” I take a drag on my cigarette and close my eyes. The music from inside is drifting through the walls and poking the bare skin on my arms like a chorus of needles. I sigh and flick my smoke to the grimy cement.
“So clean it up,” I tell him as I crush the butt to ashes with the toe of my stiletto boot. “I'm tired of being Hayden's bitch.” Wren watches me, but doesn't say anything else. He knows I'll do it. That I'll walk in there and pick our lead singer up off the floor, wipe her down and strip her naked, put her to bed and tell her a goddamn fairy tale. I'm no stranger to cleaning up Hayden's messes. I just have to get my head in the right place before I do it. Wren shifts his weight to the side and continues to stare. “Fuck, don't just stand there and stare at me. You know I'll friggin' do it. Gimme a minute, why don't you?”
I turn away and start down the alley, back towards the front where bouncers in black shirts wait, passing around a silver flask and sharing a joint. They know me, so they don't say anything, just watch as I step into their circle and reach out my hand. Both items make their way to me quickly.
“I love your shit, Knox,” says a man with bright blue eyes and a tattoo of a dragon curling up his left arm. I swig some of the alcohol from the flask. Ugh. Cheap whiskey. I wipe my hand across my mouth and hand it the person standing next to me.
“My shit?” I ask as I pinch the joint between my fingers and slide it into my mouth. I take a nice, long drag and wait for the smoke to fill my lungs and cloud my brain. I can't look at Hayden if I don't get fucked up first. Ever since that day, the sight of her makes me sick to my stomach. God, I hate that bitch.
“Your music. It's good shit.” I blow white smoke into the air and smile with tight lips.
“If you ever call my music shit again,” I say as I pass the joint to dragon-boy. “I will kick your fucking ass to the curb.”
I make out with dragon-boy for awhile and stop just short of second base. He seems pretty pissed off, but I'm not a fucking whore, and I'm just not that into sex right now. My head feels light and fluffy, like it's been stuffed with cotton, and I'm having trouble walking. I have to stop in the alley and sit on the dirty cement, so I can take my stilettos off. It isn't easy to navigate in four inch heels, especially with the alcohol and the THC roiling around inside of me.
I throw the leather boots over my arm and stumble back to the bus, fully expecting to find Hayden right where Wren left her – drunk and drowning in puke. When I open the door, I get a whole other story.
“Right there, baby,” Hayden is growling, hands curled around the edge of the countertop. Behind her, Turner Campbell is thrusting his dick like he's in a fucking marathon or something, gripping her skinny hips with white knuckles and squeezing his eyes shut tight. He doesn't even look up when I ascend the creaky steps.
“What the fuck, Hayden?” I ask, but she's so out of it that she doesn't hear me. Turner does, I can tell, but he doesn't respond either. Doesn't stop. The wet sound of their bodies sliding together makes my stomach twist dangerously. Vomit climbs my throat, but I swallow it back. “Hey, motherfucker,” I snarl, forgetting instantly about that angelic presence I saw on stage. It was all a trick of the light, a nice, fat slice of show business that he shoved down everybody's throat – including mine. He's back to being a devil again. How could I have ever forgotten? After what he did to me before, I should slit his freaking throat and toss him out the window, let the stray dogs in the alley finish him off. “Get off of her! She's fucking wasted, you asshole.” I throw my boots on the floor and move forward, putting one hand on Turner's chest and shoving him back. He stumbles and hits the cabinets with a grunt, sliding to the floor with his dick hanging out of his pants and his shirt bunched up around his midsection. Bits of spiderweb peek out at me from under the black fabric of his tee, crawling down and wrapping his cock. He's even got tattoos on the damn thing. You'd think I'd have noticed that before, but I guess I was too busy getting my cherry popped to think about much else.
“What the hell?” he moans, putting a hand to his head and rubbing at his forehead with fingers wrapped in ink. When Turner pushes his hair back, the edges of star tattoos wink at me from his hairline. He's obviously trashed as shit, too, and doesn't make even a halfhearted attempt to stand up on his own. I roll my eyes and ignore him, throwing an arm around Hayden's waist as she tilts to the side and threatens to topple over. I don't have much love for the bitch, but if she dies, Amatory Riot is pretty much screwed sideways. It would be a sort of love/hate thing for me if she were to fall and crack her head open.