Revelry (Taint #1) (41 page)

“That’s not right. My flights were paid for by the record company, and the payments came from them, not Cooper.”

“Yeah, but he was the one paying your wage to them.”

“Why would he do that?”

Leif shrugs. “Beats the shit outta me. Seems like an expensive way to keep some pretty pussy around.”

My stomach roils. I was already concerned enough about getting paid for this job while sleeping with two members of the band. When the record company had tried to milk what we had to make a buck, I’d felt even worse, but this?

He’s been paying me the whole time
?

He may not have intended it this way, but by paying me a wage and fucking me at the same time, he made me a whore.
His whore
.

Another thought occurs to me—perhaps this had been his plan all along. One last fuck you to the girl who broke his heart, and if you make a few bucks out of it in record sales in the meantime then it’s all gravy, right? Dread slowly creeps into my heart. I don’t want it to be true, but how can I tell any different? What if it had all been fake? What if it had all just been a bid to sell more records?

I’d like to believe that that wasn’t the case, but how can I be sure? The answer is I can’t. And that kills me, because everything I felt for the both of them was real. Everything I
feel
is real.

“You didn’t know any of this?” Leif asks, pulling me from my reverie. “I thought for sure you knew.”

I shake my head. I replay all of the times we’d been alone. The times when he had said that I meant something to him. All of the time he’d had to tell me about this, and didn’t. My gut twists, and I get up and run for the bathroom, retching into the bowl. When I’m done emptying the contents of my stomach, I brush my teeth and splash my face with water, and then I exit the bathroom.

“Hey, you want something to drink?” Leif asks, and I graciously accept the water he offers.

“Thanks,” I whisper, dazedly staring at the contents of the cup.

Leif runs a hand over the back of his neck. “Listen, I feel shitty being the one to tell you all that.”

“It’s not your fault, Leif.”

“I know, but—

“It’s okay, really. I just need to talk it out with Cooper.”

The roar from the stadium can still be heard, loud and clear. I contemplate leaving right now, but if I do I’ll regret it to the day I die because I have to see his face. I have to see the look in his eyes as he tells me that what Leif is saying is not true.
It can’t be true.
I sit down heavily in the booth and sip more of the water Leif gave me. I bury my head in my hands. It’s pounding from all the vomiting and the questions I have.

“You feeling okay?” Leif asks, and his voice washes over me as if I’m underwater. I shake my head as if to clear it.

“What?”

“You wanna come lie down?” Leif crouches down in front of me. He’s close. Too close. His breath is on my face, the scent of Jack Daniels washing over me. My stomach lurches again. It cramps painfully, and Leif asks again if I want to lie down.

“No. I’m fine,” I say, though I feel anything but. My tongue is thick in my mouth, heavy as it butchers my words.

“You look tired, Ali,” Leif says, rubbing his hands up and down my arms. “Come on, I’ll take you in the back. You can sleep.”

“No. I don’t want to. James,” I murmur. “James is sleeping.”

“Fuck,” Leif says, his voice sounding so angry and far away. He stands, and his blue eyes gaze at me with such hatred. He’s nothing like his brother. “James is here?”

“Sleeping.” I close my eyes, because sleeping sounds so good right now.

“Shit,” he says. I blink up at him, but I can barely keep my eyes open. “We’re moving this thing forward.”

“What?” I say, but at this point I’m not even sure I’m making words so much as just thinking them. I open my eyes. Leif has his phone pressed to his ear and he’s whispering into the receiver, staring down at me with such contempt that I shrink back. Or I try to shrink back, but I only end up slumping against the booth.

“Then find a way to get past security,” he hisses into the phone. “She’s leaving. This is our only chance.”

“Only chance for what?” I ask, but my thick tongue swallows the words, and I can’t keep my eyes open. My mouth is dry and my limbs are heavy, but they’re floating, too. I’m weighed down, yet weightless. My skin tingles. I close my eyes, and then I really am weightless. I drift. I float.

“No, move her to the couch.”

I blink up at Leif, but it’s not his face I see. It’s someone else’s. He’s middle-aged, with sandy-blond hair and deep-set lines in his overly tanned face.

“I know you,” I say, but I don’t know if it comes out as anything at all.

“Gonna make you famous, sweetheart.”

“You need to fucking hurry up. Another fifteen minutes until they’re done, and then we’re both dead if they come back and find us when she’s high as a fucking kite. Where’s my money?”

“You’ll get your money after the shots.”

“Sh—” I close my eyes.

“Shh, that’s it, sweetheart. Just lie back and relax, we’ll do everything else.

“What? No. I have to go. I’m leaving.” I try sitting up, but I can’t. My body is too heavy, too tired. Something tickles my lip—powder, I think, as it’s brushed across the tip of my nose and my upper lip. Someone pushes a finger into my mouth, and there’s more of the bitter-sweet powder rubbed across my gums. I have a vague recollection of Levi doing this to me once before, when I smile. “You finished early?”

There’s a pause, and I want to open my eyes so I can see his gorgeous face as he smiles down at me, but my lids are so heavy, and my face feels numb.

“Yeah, I did. Now, let’s get you out of those clothes, Ali.”

I laugh. “It’s weird … you said my name.”

His hand freezes against my stomach, but a second later he pulls my jeans down my legs. Cold air dances along my bare thighs. He runs his hand over them. “Fuck, she’s gorgeous.”

“The deal wasn’t touching her. It was getting her picture,” Leif says. His tone is sharp and bitter, angry again.

I blink in confusion, attempting to cover myself with my hands, trying to sit up. I can’t make my body do anything though. I’m weighed down with leaden limbs. My breath squeezes painfully through my lungs as I try to fight against the tide of sleep threatening to drag me under.

“Keep your fucking panties on. I’m just testing out the merchandise,” the other voice says.

“Don’t,” Leif hisses.

“What?” I murmur, but my voice is small and strained, and my mouth is dry, so, so dry. My head spins when I try to sit up, so I lie back and close my eyes. “Where’s Levi?”

I’m aware of a loud clicking noise, over and over. It’s like a mechanical wasp buzzing around my head. That thought makes me laugh. I bring my arms up across my face, covering the bright light, but someone removes them.

“Come on, Ali,” Levi says, placing my hands back over my stomach. I like how warm they are, so I press them against me, but he shakes me off. More buzzing. More mechanical wasp. I shoo it away, feeling my whole body growing heavier.

A raspy unfamiliar voice says, “Camera fucking loves you, babe.”

I don’t know what that means, but my head spins. I feel as if I might be sick again, and then I must pass out, because I don’t remember who was talking and where I am.

When I wake, it’s to shouting voices. I’m cold and trembling, and the acrid stench of vomit fills the room.

“Ali, baby,” Cooper says. His hands are warm and sweaty on my body. A blanket covers me. In the background, Levi shouts and a brief flash shows him punching Leif. Zed is behind Leif, and for a minute I think he’s protecting his brother, but he’s not—he’s holding him still while Levi busts up his brother’s face. Deb screams. Like a wild animal, she launches herself at Leif. Levi snags her around the waist and pulls her back. I close my eyes because watching their movements back and forth hurts my brain.

Cooper touches my face and I blink up at him. Sweat beads on his brow, his lips, those beautiful lips that are turned down in a frown. “Coop. I don’t feel good.”

“Shh, it’s okay,” he says, wrapping me in his arms. His body is trembling, or maybe it’s mine? No, he’s shaking too. His breathing seesaws out of his lungs as he squeezes me tightly. “An ambulance is coming; you’re okay. You’re okay.”

But I don’t believe him, because my head spins as if it’s on a tilt-a-whirl. And I have to leave him. And that’s not okay.

That will never be okay.

A
li lies on the bed, her head propped up against a fluffy pillow, consumed by sheets and bedding, her small body swallowed by the hospital gown she wears. Her face is pale and dark circles rim her eyes. If I ever find Leif, or that Gainy fucker who did this to her, I will strangle every breath from their lungs. I tremor with rage as I think about how afraid she must have been, how lost, and alone. She’d needed me and I’d been on stage, singing my heart out to thousands of nameless faces, gyrating my hips and pretending as if I wanted to fuck each and every one of them. Some days my job just feels so surreal. Some days I don’t even feel like a whole person, but just the shell of a man who pretends to be fine.
The great pretender
.

If I had a normal job, none of this would have happened, including meeting her. She would have been better off.

Ali’s whole body jolts, and her hands ball into fists. Her eyes flutter. I lean forward and gently stroke the inside of her wrist.

“Hey,” I whisper, and her hands unclench as she slowly opens her eyes. I run my fingertips over her forehead, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear.

“Hey,” she says through a raspy throat. She lifts her free hand to her neck, but stops halfway when her movements tug on the IV in her hand.

“What happened?” she croaks.

I scratch at the stubble that lines my chin, I haven’t slept, and I’m still wearing the stinking clothes I wore on stage at last night’s concert. I let out a strangled grunt and glare at our interlocked hands.

How do I tell her this
? How do I tell her that Leif, a kid I looked on like my own brother betrayed us, betrayed her in the worst possible way?

“Do you remember anything?” I ask, chewing my lip.

She shakes her head, but I know she’s holding something back from me.