A Rock & Roll Romance (9 page)

Krewella’s
‘Alive’ was pulsing through the speakers. I started talking to Kevin since I haven’t had the chance before. He was really smart, but super shy. He had a girlfriend back in LA that was studying to be a doctor and said the after parties weren’t his forte. Jake was in his own world. He seemed annoyed that I wasn’t paying attention to him, but I ignored him. It was starting to get towards the end of the night, and the music had changed to a more hardcore beat. The crowd was starting to get obstreperous. Girls were losing their tops and dancing on tables. There were a couple fights going on and even more brewing. A majority of the patrons looked beyond drunk. I was glad to be safely tucked into a corner sipping on my beer.

Jake

I was getting
extremely fucking pissed off at Kevin. I wanted to spend time with Aubrey, and he was totally monopolizing her. They were deep in conversation, and I was getting angrier by the minute. The one guy that I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about was flirting with the one girl that I wanted. Besides, he has a fucking girlfriend that’s going to be a doctor.
Aubrey’s mine!
I was watching Blake and Derek out on the dance floor. They were having a ball. I took another long sip of my beer when I noticed a girl that kept checking me out. Maybe if I make Aubrey jealous she’ll break. I stood up, and she barely even took notice.

Aubrey

I noticed a voluptuous redhead that kept looking over. She was checking out Jake. I ignored her and went back to talking to Kevin. After about a half an hour, Jake slid out from the booth and walked over to her. She whispered something to him. He laughed and nodded. She threw her arms around him and kissed him vehemently. I felt bile rise in my throat. He took a step back with red lipstick smeared all over his mouth. He smiled triumphantly. I couldn’t watch anymore. I stood to leave. As soon as I took a step Jake walked back over and put his arm around me. I moved out of his grasp and pushed him away.

“
Don’t fucking touch me! Go chase your fame and fortune. I’m done!” I huffed.

“I’m not after
fame and fortune.
I’m after you!”
He yelled.

“Really?
Kissing some girl is a funny way of showing me that you care.” I spat.

“Well
, if you weren’t fucking flirting with Kevin all night maybe I wouldn’t have done it.”

I lifted m
y hand and smacked his cheek. I focused on the dance floor trying to push past him. Nonpoint’s ‘Everybody Down’ came on and transformed an already unruly bunch and made them fucking insane. They were jumping up and down and bouncing into one another. I just wanted to leave. I saw Blake making out with some skanky blonde girl. She was rubbing her hands up and down his chest when another guy came over. He grabbed Blake by the shirt and instigated a shoving match. The girl stood there screaming. A small group started to gather around them. Jake tensed up, but didn’t make a move to help. He was too intent on watching me. Brett seemed to be hesitating whether to break it up or not, but I knew that he wouldn’t leave Jake.

“That’s my girlfriend
, asshole.” The guy yelled.

“Hey, she told me
that she was single. Take that up with her, not me bro.”  

The guy
cold-cocked Blake right in the face. A minute later, Derek walked out of the bathroom zipping up his pants. There was yet another random girl hanging on his arm. As soon as he saw what was happening he pushed her out of the way. He ran over and grabbed Blake. Jake officially called it a night.

“It’s called
blood, sex and booze. I swear it’s a curse.” Kevin whispered to me.

Everything
that I felt for Jake earlier was out the window. We climbed into the limo. Blake held a napkin to his bloody nose. I sat as far away from Jake as the small space would allow. He looked distraught and kept staring at me.
Fuck him!
As soon as we were back at the hotel I sprinted to the elevator and hit the button before he could catch me. I grabbed my suitcase from our room and stormed out. I body-checked him on the way down the hallway. He tried to grab my arm, but I maneuvered out of his grasp. Brett said something to him, and he stopped. I went to the front desk and used the company credit card to get my own room. While I was waiting the elevator door opened. There stood Jake with red lipstick still staining his mouth. I turned and started walking away from him. I’d rather sleep on a park bench than be anywhere near him at this point.

“Stop.
Aubrey, wait a minute!” He yelled.

“Fuck you, Jake Parker!” I screamed.

I walked out the front door of the hotel and made a left. He was running after me. I started walking down the street. I didn’t care that it was two in the morning, or that I had no clue where I was. I knew he was right behind me, but I forged on anyway. I turned the corner and walked right into a large body. I fell right on my ass. I looked up and saw that it was Brett. He reached his hand out to help me to my feet. I crossed my legs and sat unmoving on the ground. I also didn’t give a shit that I was acting like a five year old. Jake was not my boyfriend. I had no claim to him, and after tonight I didn’t want one either. So what if he could touch me? Maybe I was over my aversion.

Jake kneeled
down in front of me.

“Are you done?” He asked comically.
My fury spiked.

“Get away from me!” I
shrieked.

I
stumbled to my feet and started back on my path.

Brett
really looked as if he wanted to do something to block me. I glared at him. He shrugged and stepped out of my way. Jake continued following me. He started singing ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ at the top of his lungs. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I kept walking until we had gone at least a mile. Tonight sucked and I just wanted to go to bed. I stopped and turned around. Jake looked stupefied.

“Fine, you don’t
want to stop and talk to me? I’m going to talk anyway. You ignored me all night, Aubrey. You hurt my feelings, so I hurt yours. I know it wasn’t the right thing to do, but you get under my skin!”

“Go fuck one of your gr
oupies and leave me alone, Jake!”

“Come on, don’t be like this.
I don’t want a groupie. I want
you.”

“
Too fucking bad!” I screamed.

“Hey,
I told you that I could be an asshole sometimes. Tonight was a stellar example.”

“Exactly.
I don’t want to deal with that kind of thing, Jake. I won’t.” I turned to look at him.

“
Maybe
if you would fucking let me in, I would be able to understand.”

“Fuck you! I’ve known you for less than a week. I didn’t
deserve that, Jake. So what, I was talking to Kevin. Did you stop to think that maybe I would want to know the people in your band? I did it because they’re important to you! Before tonight, I thought I liked you. If you could be like you were yesterday, I might even say that we could even have something. After tonight, you have about as much of a chance as a cold day in hell. I’m staying in my own room tonight.” I stalked forward.

He stood there defeated. 

“Everybody leaves. I guess I should expect the same from you.” He called after me.

I stopped in my tracks. I turned and looked at him. It was his trump card
, and he knew it. We both had huge trust issues. His stemmed from abandonment mine were from being hurt in the past.

“I’m still here
, aren’t I? I just don’t want to be around you right now. I especially don’t want to be in bed next to you. Can you blame me?”

“All because of a fucking kiss? Seriously Aubrey, it was
just a kiss.”

M
y anger flared. Fine, he said it was just a kiss. I overpowered my fear and grabbed Brett by the back of the neck. Before he could process what I was doing, I kissed him. I pulled away and smirked at Jake. He was steaming.
Good.
I ignored him and walked back into the hotel lobby to retrieve my bag. I hit the call button for the elevator and pushed the button for the third floor. When the doors opened I went to find my room. Once I was safely inside I felt a little relief. At least I gave him a taste of his own medicine. I grabbed my toothbrush and vigorously brushed my teeth. I changed into my pajamas and walked back into the room. I jumped out of my skin when I saw Jake was on the bed in his boxers.

“Get out!” I yelled.

“No. The way I see it is that we’re even now.”

“Jake, there is no even here.”
I seethed.

“I said I was
sorry. Jesus, Aubrey, I’m fucking trying here. Why don’t you learn to relax?”

“Oh I’m sorry
, I didn’t realize that you’re an expert on my life and how I should live it. Please continue while I take notes.” I spat.

I walked over to the balcony and opened the door. I
stepped out and lit up. Jake grabbed one of my cigarettes and lit up too. I’d never seen him smoke before. I didn’t do it all the time just when I was angry, scared, or frustrated. It helped take the edge off. Tonight I was all three. I stood there and glared at him. I tossed my smoke to the ground.

“Smoke your cigarette. I hope you choke.” I pushed into him and walked back inside. I thought about locking him out there, but then he would most likely do something stupid
and get himself hurt.

“Aubrey
, will you stop already! I’m trying to understand. I wish I could take whatever pain you have away, but I can’t do that if I don’t know what the fucking problem is!”

“You
should have tried to keep your tongue in your mouth. You’re still wearing a lovely shade of slut.” I sneered.

“Please
Aubrey.” He pleaded. “I actually sleep when I’m with you. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been able to sleep like that? I can’t even remember.”

I
felt kind of bad, but I ignored him. He continued to stand there and stare at me.

“Since you’re obviously not leaving you can sleep on the
floor. If you put as much as a fingernail on my bed, you’re going to be short an appendage in the morning. I’ll make sure it’s your favorite one too!” 

He grimaced and
took a pillow off the bed and went on the floor. I climbed into bed feeling dejected. I turned on my side and faced away from him. I wasn’t going to let him know he was under my skin too. He said goodnight and I tuned him out.

Jake

I woke up feeling ridiculously stiff from sleeping on the fucking floor. I wanted nothing more than to climb into that damn bed and wrap myself around her like an
octopus. I royally fucked up last night. It started out as a tit for tat and ended with me sleeping on the floor. Any other girl that I hung around with in the past wouldn’t have bat an eyelash, even if I slept with another girl in front of them. It’s happened. Aubrey looked like she wanted to string me up by my balls. Even worse was that she looked hurt. I wanted to kick my own ass for being a dick. Then she kissed Brett! What the fuck was that shit? If it were any other girl, I would have told her to fuck off. Instead, I actually found myself wanting to kick Brett’s ass, which wouldn’t have ended well for me. Aubrey and I had our first real fight. Now we had to make up. Since we didn’t have sex, I needed to scheme up a ridiculously good plan. I wasn’t used to pursuing girls, but I knew that I was going to have to grovel and beg for forgiveness. It usually involved something shiny.

I got dressed and tiptoed out of the room. I
headed down to the lobby and assembled an array of items to try and redeem myself. Luckily, there was a gift shop attached to the lobby. I filled my arms and brought everything to the register to pay. I stopped at the front desk on my way up to put in a special room service order. I hit the button for the elevator and slowly entered the room.

Phew
, Aubrey was still sleeping soundly. I started setting up the table. I arranged the three bouquets of flowers and was getting ready to futz with the rest of the stuff when I had another idea. I quickly slipped back out and went to bang on Blake’s door. I had to knock for three minutes straight before he answered like an angry grizzly.

“What!” He barked.

“I need to borrow your guitar.”

I shoved past h
im and grabbed it. I walked out of the room to resume my mission. I went back into our room and finished setting up. I pulled the cords to the song on my phone and memorized them lickety-split. I brushed my teeth and made sure there was no remnant of last night’s lipstick.

Now the waiting game…

As soon as I noticed her start to stir I started strumming on the guitar. I broke into Kings of Leon’s ‘Use Somebody’. I put my fucking soul into that song. She sat up on her pillow and watched as I poured my heart out. She didn’t even smile. I finished and put the guitar next to the chair. I picked up the flowers and took a tentative step toward the bed. She didn’t look like she was going to kill me, so I proceeded on. When I finally made it to the bed, I put the flowers on the bedside table.