Revelry (Taint #1) (14 page)

Coop:
Yes, you’re right, there is something wrong with me. It’s called lack of boob-it-is. I need a doctor, or at the very least a sexy redheaded nurse.

I type “call your ex” into the message box, but then I think about his face when Levi had mentioned her the other day outside the studio and I feel guilty for even entertaining the idea. Promptly deleting the message before I can accidently hit send, I turn off my phone. I cover my head with the pillow in an attempt to block out the noise from Zed’s room and I try not to think about what was in that picture he sent me.

“S
o I have you sitting economy, Miss Jones.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Cooper says, clasping a hand on my shoulder and frowning apologetically. “I didn’t want to give you any special treatment, like you said.”

“So you’re all sitting business class, and I’m in economy?”

“Yep. If I recall you didn’t even really want to be here, did you?”

“Is there a problem? We still have a few seats left in business class. If you’d like, we can easily upgrade you for an extra fee.”

“No, she’s good in economy,” Coop says, eyeing the attendant’s name badge. “Thank you so much for your help, Carly.”

“You’re very welcome, Mr Ryan. Can I just say how much of a big fan I am?”

“Really?”

“I loved your first album, and I’ve pre-ordered the next through my local record store. I wish I’d known I’d be seeing you today. I would have brought something in for you to sign.”

“I wish you had too, though I’m happy to get creative if there’s a bathroom nearby?” Cooper says, and my mouth drops open as I glare at him and shake my head.

The attendant, Carly, actually just squeaks. It’s like any common sense she has just flies out the window and her snatch takes over doing the thinking for her. Yeah, okay, I can’t say I really blame her. The man who has been eyeing her suspiciously from behind the counter—probably her supervisor—leans into her space and asks, “Do we have a problem, Carly?”

“No, sir, everything is fine.”

Cooper appears to take pity on the girl and he reaches over the desk, grabbing a piece of paper and signing his name along with an impersonal “thanks for your support”.

I grab my ticket from the desk and take my bag through to security while the rest of the band talk to over-eager fans. We clear customs, and once we’re seated at the gate I pull out my phone and stare at the blank screen. I’m hit with a wave of sadness as I realise I don’t have anyone to text. I think of Grams, and how proud she would be of me seizing this opportunity, and I think of Brad and send out a little triumphant
fuck you
to wherever he is. The truth is I don’t miss him. In a sense, I feel like it was a wonder I hadn’t caught him cheating sooner. The last time we’d had sex was three months before our friendly neighbourhood stripper moved in. What man doesn’t want sex in three months? And it wasn’t for lack of trying. I’d tried repeatedly to get him to face our intimacy issues, but he was always too tired, or he just didn’t feel like it.

I’d felt like it a lot in those first weeks when he’d begun turning me down, but there’s only so much rejection a girl can take before she turns to her hand and then implements of vaginal destruction in the form of silicon penises. After a while, it just became the norm. I didn’t ask for sex, he didn’t offer it, and instead I found my solace in a vibrating nine-inch replica of porn star James Deen’s dick, who never left the seat up, never complained about how many orgasms I was having, and who was ridiculously girthy.

I don’t notice how lost I am in my thoughts until someone sits down beside me.
Cooper.
I don’t have to glance at him because I’d know his scent anywhere. It’s the smell of entitled arsehole, with a little bit of sexy-as-fuck thrown in.

“Who you calling?”

“Isn’t that the million dollar question?”

“Can I see that?” he asks, holding out his hand for my phone.

“No.”

“Give me the goddamned phone, Ali.”

“I don’t want to.” I glare at him and he yanks it off me anyway. He removes the back, pulls out the sim card and pockets it, then he stands and throws my phone in the bin.

“What are you doing?”

“I got you this earlier,” he says, handing me a brand new shiny smart phone. “Your old sim won’t work in it, and your shitty phone won’t work overseas. This way I’ll always know where to find you. I’ve programmed all of our numbers into it, including Deb’s and Leif’s, and James’s—he’s head of our road crew, so if you get stuck you call him.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I want to know that you’re safe when you’re with us.”

“So that means getting me a new phone?”

“That means taking whatever measures I have to in order to make sure you’re looked after.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Good, then the feeling is mutual.”

The hostess walks over to us and announces that they’ll board the band last to avoid everyone stalling as they walk past.

“Can my friend board with us too?” Coop asks.

“Is she in business class?”

“No.”

“Then I’m afraid she will have to board with the other economy passengers. She gives me a condescending smile, and then she turns back to Coop, fluttering her lashes, “I don’t usually do this, but do you think I could get a picture with you and the band?”

“Sure,” Coop smiles at the attendant. He gets up and presses the sim card from my old phone into my palm. “In case you need to call anyone from that old list.”

“Well even if I did want to, I have no way of finding the numbers on that list, so what difference does it make?” I say, and stare out the window at the giant jet I’m about to board. Cooper follows the attendant and poses for photos with the rest of the band. They all wear baseball caps pulled down low on their foreheads.
Idiots
. It’s not like we don’t know who they are because they’re wearing freaking caps.

I’m the seat behind business class, and when they finally board the band, I can see straight through their stupid curtain to Coop and Levi. They’re a row apart and each of them has three seats to themselves. I can see all this because not only did I not get first class, but also I didn’t even get a window seat. I got the aisle. And the guy next to me is so huge that he takes up his seat and half of the seat beside me, there are all of ten centimetres between his large body and mine. And I have to spend the next fourteen hours of the journey wedged in beside him.

I pull out my DS, but I’m wound way too tightly to do any damage to that sucker, so I put it away and stare at the phone Cooper gave me. It’s switched off because I don’t want to be the one bringing the damn plane down, but I stare at the shiny screen and then turn it over in my hands. When he handed it to me before I hadn’t looked at the case, I’d been too pissed that he’d just thrown my other phone in the bin, but I run my fingers over the embossed bright green Gamers Only logo on the back. I shake my head and then put it away in my bag.

I’m exhausted. Between Zed’s banshees and Cooper’s text messages last night, I barely slept at all. I pull out a black eye mask that I bought from the newsagency before we boarded. I’m just about to put it on when the engines roar a little louder and the captain greets us with his welcoming message. I notice Cooper shifting restlessly in his seat. His hand grips the armrest tightly and his knuckles turn white. I feel kind of bad for him. He really wasn’t kidding when he said he was afraid of flying. Still, the bastard sat me in economy, so he can suck it.

About six hours into our flight and I’m staring at the wall in front of me. I’ve been hit in the elbow more times than I can count with the trolley, and the man beside me—Rick, yes, he introduced himself, and then he introduced me to pictures of his three dogs, eight cats and fourteen fucking birds—snores so loudly you’d think we were flying over the one millionth eruption of Mount Vesuvius. I’m about ready to strangle him with my headset when Coop slowly vacates his seat and stumbles toward the bathrooms, clutching the seats and partitions as he goes. He glances at me as he stumbles through the door to the bathrooms and then he shuts himself inside, looking positively green.

When he emerges, he stands in the aisle a second, and just stares at me.

“Hi,” I prompt.

“Hey.”

“How was the bathroom?”

“No nearly as calming as I thought it’d be.”

“Well, economy is lovely. Rick here—” I indicate towards the sleeping lump of a human beside me as he snores the plane down, even though he’s wearing those little nostril clamps that are supposed to prevent snoring. “Rick here regaled me with tales of his sovereign journey to Australia for the first six hours of our flight. He’s going back to the south where he’ll partake in his 100
th
Civil War re-enactment next weekend, but not before he visits his great aunt’s estate in LA.” I lower my voice, and I hiss, “You couldn’t even sit me near a freaking window?”

“I didn’t think you’d want the window.”

“I’ve never been overseas, Cooper, of course I want the window. Normal passengers want the damn window—”

He frowns, bites his lip, and then blurts out, “Will you come sit with me?”

“What?”

“I need a distraction. A big one.” He rakes his hands through his hair. They tremble slightly. “I need you to come sit with me.”

“You booked me in economy, I have to stay in economy. They don’t just let you get up and move seats because you want to.”

“I’ll talk to the flight attendant.”

“I’m really quite comfortable where I am, thank you,” I say, and pull out the magazine in the pocket before me. It’s a Qantas jet, so naturally I’m going to find people and places within Australia inside its pages. What I don’t expect to see is an exposé on Cooper Ryan, looking a hell of a lot more comfortable in front of the camera than he does up close.

“Please, Ali?”

“No. You’re a big boy, Cooper; I’m pretty sure you can handle a flight by yourself,” I say, and dismiss him by pulling my eye mask down over my face and snuggling into all of the extra awesome room I have here in my economy seat.

Several hours later, after tossing and turning for far too long, and feeling like a complete bitch, an attendant taps me on the arm. “Excuse me, miss, there seems to have been a problem with your seat. We’re upgrading you to business class.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, if you’ll just gather together your belongings and follow me.”