Hard Rock Roots Box Set (40 page)

“Where the fuck's Milo?” I ask Josh who's slumped at the table, cup of coffee clutched between his hands. I snatch a shirt out from the drawer under my bed and slip it on. Just so happens that it's a white one with the words
Breaking Pretty
across the front. I touch my fingers to the Indecency logo underneath and stare out the window, following a nod from Josh. The crowd today is fucking insane, taking advantage of the clear, warm weather to pile up outside the gates, shouting and screeching and flailing like a solid mass. This whole camping out shit might be coming to an end soon. Turner Campbell and crew might just have to upgrade.

I stare for a minute as I consider going for a joint. Naomi's back, so it'd be alright, wouldn't it? But then I think about my mind getting cloudy, blurring the edges of her beautiful face. Besides, she needs my help.
I
need my help. The detective work might not be so blindingly urgent, but it's still top priority. I go for a cigarette instead and pass over my morning beer for a cup of black coffee.

“He's dealing with some weird rumors,” Josh says, groggy and irritated. Told you, he's a little bitch in the mornings. When he finds out his favorite bathroom is now permanently off limits, he's going to flip the fuck out. “People are saying they saw you having sex onstage last night.” I snort and splash coffee into the sink. I imagine that there are cameras zooming in on my face right now and try to keep a wicked smirk plastered on my lips.

“Now that sure is fucking odd,” I say, but I don't respond to the question underneath his words.
Were you?
Josh makes a huffing noise under his breath and downs his cup.

“So now, thanks to that, you're even more popular than you were the night before.” He pauses and when I glance over my shoulder, I see him biting his lip. Josh looks so friggin' young to me right now, like a virgin angel or some shit. I can't even imagine how he looks onstage with the rest of us washed up, drugged up motherfuckers. I sip my coffee. I don't want to hate Josh, but it's so easy to. So easy to blame him for not fitting in, for not being Travis, for being too naïve. Life hasn't come and screwed him up the ass with a dry dildo. I should be happy about that, should try to be a guiding hand. Instead, I just get irritated whenever he's around. “How?” he whispers as I turn fully around to face him. “How do you do it?” He sounds perplexed, like he can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would be interested in me. I stare at his pale skin, his blonde hair, the angry tremble in his jaw, and I try to figure out an answer to that question.

See, here's the thing. When I think about myself, I'm arrogant as shit. I can think about all sorts of reasons why people would flock to me, throw themselves at my feet, and beg for more. But when I think about Naomi … I guess I have a harder time imagining why she'd want to be with me. I screwed her over, betrayed her fantasies and her dreams, seeded her with pain that she's only just now getting over. That makes me want to be a better person, a person that's easy to imagine her with. Maybe that's what the crowds are seeing in me now? Maybe they fell in love with an idea before and they're watching that idea come to fruition?

Or maybe I'm just full of crap.

I take another sip of my coffee, a drag on my cigarette.

“Well kid,” I say and watch as Josh purses his lips. “Maybe it's just because I'm the shit?”

I get Naomi her juice and her pill, returning back from the pharmacy just in time to be bombarded with cameras and microphones, raging fans and a mass of cell phones all recording my shocked facial expression when I climbed through the bushes and tried to hop the fence. I got out alright that same way, but I guess the vultures swept in while I was gone. I can see that this frenzied shit is going to get real ugly real fast.

“Almost decked the bitch behind the counter,” I tell Naomi when she accepts the plastic bag from me with a frown on her face. Ronnie ducks out right away and says he's going on recon. I assume that means the old whore is off to find a bang and some gossip, but I don't say anything about it. I'm changing, so maybe he is, too? Those in glass houses shouldn't chuck rocks or whatever, right? “She tried to give me some bullshit religious mumbo jumbo speech about contraception. Fuck her.”

I give Naomi a once-over as she leans over the tabletop and slides the box from the bag, reading the text on the back of the tiny cardboard packaging. Obviously Ronnie fished through my drawer to get her some clothes because she's decked out in a pair of my black skinny jeans, belted up at the waist with a baggy Amatory Riot tee over the top. No bra and I expect no underwear unless she's wearing some of my briefs. My cock gets rock solid and starts to interrupt signals from my brain to the rest of my body. Tricky little motherfucker.

“Take one pill within seventy-two hours of unprotected sex,” she reads as I drop into the seat and do my best to control myself. Not exactly the right time to hit on a chick when she's reading the emergency contraceptive instruction manual. I make sure that I still have some condoms in my pocket for later. “Take the second twelve hours after the first.” Naomi pops a white pill out of the foil and takes it down with a swig of orange juice. “At least it's not friggin' rocket science,” she says as she tucks the other away in the back pocket of her jeans. She swipes some blonde hair over her shoulder and glares at me. “And you don't have herpes?”

I unbutton my pants and expose myself, watching as her eyes catch on my dick and hold there.

“Not since I last checked.” Naomi rolls her eyes and pretends not to be interested. But I know she can feel the heat between us. Even with the air conditioning running full blast, it's not enough to keep the windows back here from fogging up. I reach back and twist the handle on the blinds to let in a bit of light. The sunshine highlights her perfect cheekbones, her moist lips, her gorgeous eyes. They look orange this morning, not brown. Just orange. Like flames.
I want to be incinerated.

“Turner,” she says and her voice drops low, gets real serious. I button my pants back up, feeling kind of, sort of like a complete tool. I feel awkward around her now. I'm just going to admit it, like she's an angel and I'm … I don't know. A devil? She's become this mystical
thing
, this far off goal I've been reaching for, lamenting at the same time I'm celebrating, and now she's just here. I imagine myself like a nerdy kid in high school, trying to grope his first tit. I feel all wonky right now like I have no clue how to seduce a woman.
I feel like a damn virgin.
“That can't happen again. I mean, I can't even believe it
happened.
I was in a weird place last night. I feel better today.” She sighs and sits down across from me, leaning forward and putting her elbows on her knees. “My experience wasn't so bad, but it could've been worse, Turner. They were gearing up for
bad.
I know it. I could fucking smell it.” She touches two fingers to her nose and drops her hand back in her lap. Her eyes dart to the parted blinds, and I know they're making her nervous, so I close them again and drop the room back into shadow.

“So let's find these fuckers and put them out of their misery,” I say, leaning back all casual like. Truthfully, I still just want to touch her, feel her skin, make sure she's really here, that she wasn't carted away in that ambulance and slapped on a cold slab, marked like a biological specimen. Instead, I lean over and pull out a drawer that's under the bench seat. When the space is this tight, things get interesting. There are drawers all over this place. Just so happens this one's got some killer shoes in it. “I'll be your eyes and ears, beautiful. You tell me what you want from me and you got it.”

“A wig,” she says, and I glance up with a smile.

“Kinky.” Naomi sighs and puts her hands on her hips.

“I need to be able to go out with you, see things for myself. I'm not going to sit here in the back of your bus like a doormat, waiting for one of your bandmates to find me here crouched and shivering. I have to take action, Turner. That's what I do. I take charge and I make sure that I'm taken care of. There's nobody else around to do it for me.”

“Until me,” I say and I toss her a pair of shoes. They're mine, so they're a little big, but they'll have to work for now. Naomi catches the black sneakers and gives me a harsh look. I notice that she doesn't get within three feet of me. Is it because she can feel that passion between us? Because she's afraid to want me? Or because she's disgusted by it.
God, I hope not.

“I'm not a damsel in distress, Turner,” she says, slamming the soles of the shoes on the table. Her ankle tat peeks out at me from the under the jeans and for the first time ever, I get to stare at it while she's distracted. I figure this chance might not come along ever again, so I take it and run with it.

Turner Dakota Campbell
is scrawled across her foot just under her ankle bone, where the gauze bandages wrap. Done up in red with two black knives crisscrossed behind my middle name. Guess I was her first in more ways than one. The tattoo's a little amateur, but there's something romantic about the soft lines and blurred coloring. Unconsciously, my hand reaches up and slides over my shoulder. Naomi notices and turns away, blocking my view.

“You might not be a damsel in distress,” I tell her, trying to keep my breathing slow and steady. I'm a bit sweaty today, a bit messed up from
not
being messed up if you know what I mean. “But there's no way for you to walk around with me and not get noticed. A wig won't do it, babe.”

“Why's that?” she snaps, and I stand up, moving closer to her, brushing against her back just enough that our clothes catch, kiss cotton threads and fuck us hard with the magnetism of our body heat, begging us to clash, to intertwine like we did last night and never let go. Goddamn and
fuck.
I don't want Naomi to take that pill. I want to make little Campbell babies with her and put a ring on her finger and walk her down the aisle, all of that fairytale shit. It's so bad now I'm starting to wonder if I've gone insane. This love at first sight crap isn't easy to deal with. I go from wanting to punch the chick to wanting to marry her? Kind of weird.

I pinch open the blinds, so she can see the mass of reporters. Her eyes get big and her lip curls.

“I thought all of that roaring was a TV or something,” she says, sounding horrified. It did just sort of happen overnight. We went from mediocre popularity to all out stardom in a week. As soon as Naomi resurfaces and reveals that she's still alive and well, she's going to be declared a saint. “What in the cock sucking Christ?” I laugh and the motion of my breath ruffles her hair. She shivers and well, fuck man, but that's all she wrote.

Naomi spins and our mouths clash, our hands grab and we're suddenly pressed together so tight that it'd take a freaking power tool to pry us apart. I breathe her in and she tastes me; I touch her breasts and she cups my crotch. I can't get to her fast enough, can't drink her in deeply enough.

“I'm so confused,” she moans as she slides down to the bench and I follow, getting between her legs, tugging at her jeans. She tangles her fingers in my hair as I unbuckle the belt and pull the denim over her hips. Her pussy is right there in my face, blonde hair, swollen and wet.
Fuck.
I kiss it hard and she moans, spreading her knees open for me, letting me in. With one hand, I slip my fingers in her cunt and with the other, I stroke my raging cock.

“Don't be,” I whisper against her heat, gritting my teeth with the effort of staying here, on my knees. I've never done this for any other woman. Turner Campbell does not fucking do the knee thing. But Naomi isn't just a woman, she's a rock goddess, a slice of fury, a ball of take no shit rage and beauty.
God. I'm going crazy here.
“Just fucking live it.”

“I hate you,” she whispers, but I don't know what those words mean right now. They're garbled and full of confusion, messy and twisted. I want to hear an
I love you
from her, but if it were so easily had, maybe I wouldn't be so willing to work for it?
I love you, Turner Dakota Campbell
rings in my head, an echo of a memory, some ghost from a distant past. One day, I'm going to lie down and remember everything that happened between us that first night, write it all down somewhere or something, prove to her that it's there, buried in me somewhere.

“Hate me all you want,” I tell her as I breathe against her swollen clit. It's like a rock now, solid as my dick. “But you're going to moan while you're doing it.” And then I kiss her where the sun don't shine. My tongue moves up her wet crack, moistening her even though she doesn't need any help. I lick around my fingers and then slide them out, tasting her as I go. When I grab her hips and press my lips to her clit, my fingertips burn, melting away the whorls and the lines, taking away my identity and mixing it with hers. And even though I know I'm a self-assured, self-centered asshole, it feels good to be this close to another person.

Naomi moans, low and deep, raising her hips to my face, pressing herself against me. It's almost too much to bear. I want to stand up and thrust my cock inside of her, feel her warm and hot around me, grinding her ridges against my shaft. But if I pride myself on anything, it's on being a good lover, and I haven't exactly shown her my skills. There are
some
pluses to being a dirty fucking whore. Or stud as I prefer to call it.