Hard Rock Roots Box Set (132 page)

“You don't have to feed me lines,” she says, but I'm not, so I just shrug. I don't lie, no point in it. Doesn't make anything better.

“I'm serious,” I say, my mind wandering in a million directions.
Was that a spot of blood on the bed?
After I collapsed, Naomi covered it up quick, shoved a pillow onto the wet spot and distracted me by putting her head against my chest. Felt too damn good for me to even remember what it was that I was going to ask. “You used to people blowing smoke up your ass or something?”

“Actually, yeah,” she says, but she doesn't sound all that upset about it, more like it's just simple fact. Naomi glances over her shoulder at me, and I feel my cock rise to attention. He's a greedy little fucker, but holy crap, when she stares at me with those eyes of hers, I can't help myself. “You're saying you're not?”

“I'm saying I don't keep secrets, and a lie is just a secret that hasn't been discovered. So no. I'm not lying. The only thing I want to put up your ass is—”

“Fuck you,” she grumbles, but I can hear a smile in her voice, feel a certain kind of tentative joy in the way she leans into me, lets me hold her. “I don't think we're ready for that yet. I'd like to try it the old fashioned way a few more times if you don't mind.”

“Missionary, doggy style, the congress of the cow, I don't give a fuck how it happens just so long as it does.”

“So you're saying you want to do it again?” she asks, pushing back against me as I grab the pack of cigarettes I brought in here from the side of the bathtub. I light one and take a drag before sticking it between her lips.

“Are you fucking kidding me? I want to worship your body until I memorize every square frigging inch.”

“You're just saying that because you're drunk.”

“Doesn't make it any less true.”

We sit in silence for a while and then Naomi climbs out, wrapping a towel around her body and waiting for me to drag my tired ass out after her. I think it's like, five in the morning or something. Maybe later. Six? Seven?

I snatch my cell from the pocket of my jeans and shoot off a quick text to Ronnie, letting him know that where I am and who I'm with. If I don't, the bleeding heart little bitch might have a heart attack. He's overprotective like that. Besides, Milo has a tracking app on my phone and if I don't tell him where I am, he'll come looking for me. Don't need that shit right now. Right now, I just want to crawl into bed and fall asleep next to this girl.

“What happens in the morning?” Naomi asks as I slide in next to her and pull her against me. I want to fuck again, but as soon as my head hits that pillow, I start to fade away, black out and give into the booze and the drugs and the rock and the lack of sleep. I hardly ever sleep anymore. Always on the road, always partying, always fucking. This feels good, so goddamn good.

“Whatever you want to happen, Knox,” I murmur, my substance addled blood rushing to my brain and grabbing hold of me.

“Anything?” she asks. “You swear on your fucking cock?”

“Anything,” I mumble as my substance addled blood rushes into my brain and knocks me out.

Too bad the last thing I ever say to her is a lie.

When I wake up, my body's sore as hell, but I'm smiling because last night, I headed out with a single hope, a single dream. The man I've read about in magazines, seen on TV, worshipped from afar, he was right here, in my arms, in my body, and he promised me everything I ever could've wanted.

I roll over and sit up, running my hands down my face. He's not in bed, but the bathroom door's closed. I wonder if he's in there, slumped over the toilet with a killer hangover?
He better not act all fucking weird and shit this morning,
I think, taking a massive breath and climbing out of bed. Turner's shirt's on the floor, so I slip it on, glancing around for his jeans. Those are gone, along with his boots, but my guitar and bag are in the corner of the room. I don't even remember bringing those up here, completely forgot about the pair of scissors inside, the scrap of metal that could literally change my fate if it fell into the wrong hands. Maybe I was more drunk than I thought? Or maybe I was just wrapped up in Turner Campbell?

“Turner?” I ask, moving over to the bathroom and knocking on the door. I wait a moment, but there's no answer. “Hello?” I twist the knob and push it in, finding a bathtub full of water and a few damp towels on the floor.

No.

I realize what's happening right away. I do. Some part of me understands that last night was a fucked up fairytale, some stupid fantasy that I was entertaining because I was so desperate
not
to be me, not to be living my fucked up version of a life. But I still won't let reality in. I tuck my fantasy blanket tighter around my shoulders and bolt out of the bathroom, searching the rest of the room in a wild frenzy. I toss pillows to the floor, tear the sheets off the bed, kick open the patio doors.

He's not here, obviously. He's not anywhere.

Turner Campbell is gone.

My body starts to tremble as I sit down hard on the edge of the bed and put my face in my hands for a moment.
Maybe he went out to get coffee?
I turn the clock on the nightstand towards me, and feel a sickening lurch in my stomach when I see the time. It's well past noon and there's no sign of my rock star prince. None.

He could still come back,
I lie to myself, standing up and tugging my skirt back on, my boots. My tattoo hurts like a bitch, but I can't look at it. Not right now.
He wouldn't have gotten your name tattooed on his back if he didn't give a shit. Right? Right?

But then I sit down on the couch and I wait. And I wait. And I wait.

I sit there staring at the wall, my body trembling with rage and fear, until housekeeping comes and kicks me out. Time to rent the room to the next guest, to the next asshole who wants to tear apart a girl's soul and leave her broken.

I toss my guitar and my backpack over my shoulder and head downstairs, using the last few dollars I have to catch a ride back to the concert venue.

When I get there, I'm not surprised to see that the buses are gone.

Gone.

There's nothing here anymore but an empty parking lot, a bunch of broken glass bottles, and a single Indecency T-shirt, laying shredded and dirty on the cement.

I sit down hard, not giving a fuck that pebbles are cutting into my thighs, scraping my skin and bleeding me dry. I want to bleed to death. In this moment, I want to bleed out all over the sidewalk until I'm nothing, until I'm less than nothing.

I drag the shirt into my lap, press it to my face and weep.

That's the first moment in my life when I realize something.

There's only one emotion stronger than love and that's hate.

Turner motherfucking Campbell.

I hate him. I fucking hate him. I hate him with every ounce of my soul, every beat of my heart, hate him with every breath I take.

One day, I'll fucking see him again. I know I will. But this time, I won't be standing below the stage, I'll be on it. And the spotlight will be on me, and the guitar will be in
my
hands, and the crowd will be singing my words.

Mine.

But I'll never stop hating him.

Never.

Turner Campbell betrayed me, and he broke my heart, and he left me behind. Just like everyone else in my life, he tossed me aside like I was nothing.

Inside of me, a spark burns to life and dries the tears from my eyes.

I won't be tossed aside again.

My name is Naomi Isabelle Knox, and I am fucked. I have a story to tell. And it's real ugly.

Real, real fucking ugly.

Sometime before “Tough Luck” …

My body slams into the wall, but it doesn't hurt. When you walk around in this hazy state of euphoria like I do, nothing really matters. It's like, you do shit, but only because your body's already preprogrammed for it: breathe, eat, sleep, fuck, play. I can pound my kit like nobody's business, no matter how high I get. And I can still pick up girls.

None of them are her, are Asuka, but it doesn't matter when I'm like this. My blood is a strange mixture of violent chemicals, bubbling into my brain and popping all my memories, my thoughts. The remnants splatter against the insides of my skull, but I don't care. When I come out of this state, I will. Right now? There's a gorgeous girl on the floor with her hands at the zipper to my jeans.

I'm not sure where we are. I guess it's like a closet or something? Doesn't matter. I will fuck, eat, sleep, play, breathe anywhere. I'm a man on autopilot, a man who loved so deeply and with so much of himself that when it was gone, he was nothing but a husk.

My name is Ronnie McGuire, and all I have to say is, whoever said it's better to have and loved and lost, is a piece of shit. Fuck him.

“Tell me what you like,” the girl murmurs with some sexy ass accent. I can't place where it's from, but at this point, I'm hardly even sure she's speaking English anymore. Maybe I'm just imagining her voice?

I stay propped up against the wall, reaching down to bury my fingers in her hair. It's so dark in here that I can't see what color it is, and my brain's too addled with old memories and pain and booze to remember what she looked like when I picked her up a whole twenty seconds ago.

Think she's in a band or something, but who knows? I'm worse than Turner when it comes to picking up people and then forgetting them. He says I've slept with the entire merch staff. Not sure if that's true, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it was.

“I like it all, doll face,” I murmur, as my zipper slides down and fingers curl around the waistband of my boxers. The girl tugs them down violently, the fabric catching on my cock and drawing a groan from my throat. Hot breath teases my skin as she inches her mouth close, closer, touches her lips to the head of my cock and then pulls back.

“Bloody hell, you're fucking huge,” she grumbles, but then she's right back at it, pressing kisses along the length of my shaft. The move surprises me. Most girls just go in there to get it over with. Who the hell likes giving blow jobs? They want to suck me off so they can tell their friends they got with a rock star, but they don't want to sit there forever and play games. I usually get a few good head bobs and then a lick, a few pumps of the fist.

This is so much better than that.

This fucking girl turns the BJ into an art form, kissing and tasting and savoring me. Her breath feathers against my skin as she moves her mouth to my balls, licking and suckling gently at the skin until I buck my hips and groan. It's hard to get a reaction like that out of me, real frigging hard. For the most part, I'm silent when I fuck. I can never get into it enough to care.

I care right now.

“Christ,” I murmur, glad that my weight's being supported by the wall behind me. I don't think I could stand without it, and not just because I'm fucked up right now. I can feel my pulse thundering in my neck, my hands quivering as I wrap them tighter in this girl's silky soft hair.

She slides her mouth back up to my dick, putting the tip between her lips and soaking it with saliva. When she pulls back, she blows hot air gently against the wetness, making me shiver and bite down hard on my lower lip.