Naomi Knox is waiting outside my bus when I finish my set, soaked in sweat and ready to tear into her for running off. I don't know why, but something about her makes my emotions go all haywire, like I can't even think when she's around. She fucks up my inner circuits or something. That should have been my first warning, but no, I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.
She's sitting in one of Ronnie's cheap, plastic lawn chairs, smoking a cigarette. I like the way she's bent over, leaning her elbows on her knees, holding the cig between two fingers. She looks tough that way, and I like it.
“Ran off pretty quick there,” I tell her as I come up close and lean against the red and black side of the bus. My heart is pounding from the adrenaline rush, and my head's as swollen as it ever gets, full of ego and self and knowledge that no matter what happens, no matter what anyone says, I am the shit. I worked my ass off to get here, and nobody is going to take that fucking away from me. “I was hoping you'd stick around for my set.”
“I had some thinking to do,” Naomi says, sitting up, brushing some of her blonde hair behind her ear. It's natural, you know. Kind of a surprise. Not many like that, and I'm speaking from straight-up fucking experience. She puts her cigarette out in the dust near her feet and leans back. I watch a line of sweat drip down her neck and over the tattoo on her chest until it disappears between her breasts.
“Yeah?” I cross my arms over my chest and wait while she stares out and up, presumably gazing at the sky though it's kinda hard to tell with those sunglasses on her face. My guess is that she put 'em on by accident and started to like how they made her feel – protected. The eyes are the windows to the soul and all that shit, right? Guess she wants her windows curtained. “About?”
“You,” she says, and I can't help the smirk that crawls across my face when I hear that. She was thinking about little old me? Aw, how fucking sweet. Just the way I like it. “About why you were being so nice to me all of a sudden, flipping the switch from bad boy to concerned father in a single night.” My smirk drops into a frown. From the tone of her voice, she's not impressed. Fine. The way I was behaving wasn't an act. If she doesn't like it, she can go fuck herself six ways to Sunday.
And once again, what the fuck is with all the mixed signals? One minute, she's getting all up close and personal with me in the parking lot, letting me touch her, gazing at me with dilated pupils, licking her lips until they're moist. Now, what, she's annoyed with me again? Jesus Christ, I don't understand this chick at all.
“And I thought, just for a split second mind you, that maybe you had realized the error of your ways. Like, had a revelation or some shit.” Naomi sighs and removes her shades, showing me puffy eyes streaked with red, like maybe she didn't stop crying when she got off stage. Right. The melancholy, but how could I have forgotten? Guess whatever it is is my fault, too? “But I should know better,” she continues, staring at me with eyes so bright that I can't look away, not even with a stray fangirl shouts for me to look at her, snaps a picture with an old Polaroid camera. I don't even look when the bouncer comes to drag her away. Neither does Naomi. “People don't change overnight.” She pauses, smiles. In this light, I can see that her straight nose isn't actually all that straight, that in reality, when the light hits it right, it's a bit crooked. Fuck, Turner, since when do you care about women's noses? That's fucking weird, dude.
“Oh? And finding out I had a kid didn't change me in the few seconds it took my brain to process that information? Oh, honey, if you were waiting for an overnight change, then you were waiting far too long. The second those words left your lips, I was a different man.”
Naomi laughs and shakes her head which just further pisses me off. Who the fuck does she think she is? She joins my tour, disrespects me, turns my life upside down, and then proceeds to fuck with me. Bitch has a lot of nerve.
But I'm still interested.
Either I'm a glutton for punishment or the drugs really have done what the PA's always said they'd do, and rotted my fucking brain right out of my skull.
“Is that so hard to believe, Knox?” I ask her and notice that her lips purse tight when I use her last name. I wonder why she hates it so much.
Naomi touches her fingers to the tattoo on her belly, the one that's peeking out from beneath her shirt right now. I can't see what it says from here, but I see a set of angel wings on either side, so maybe it's something good? Our kid's name? I don't know, but I lean forward to get a better look.
“It's hard to believe, Turner, because as soon as I tell you the truth, the whole, unabridged version of the truth, I know exactly what it is you're going to do.” She pauses again and bites her lower lip hard when Ronnie and Treyjan stumble around the front of the bus and see us there. I turn and flash them my worst do not fuck this shit up glare, and have to admit that I'm pleased when they leave without a fight. I'm still the boss around here, good to know. “My guess is that I've helped you in some weird, kind of fucked up way. Part of me knows that you'll work to make your fantasy happen, no matter how you have to go about doing it.”