Revelry (Taint #1) (43 page)

Everyone turns to look at me. “I can’t do this.”

“Ali,” Cooper says.

“Can’t do what?” Levi asks, snagging my hand as I pass, I glance down at him.

“Can I talk to you?” I glance between them. “Both of you, outside?”

“You can talk here,” Coop insists. “James, start the bus.”

“No,” I shout to James, and then, looking at Levi, because I can’t quite face Cooper’s anger just yet, I say, “I’m not going with you.”

“Like hell you aren’t,” Coop snaps.

“Fucking lay off,” Levi says, standing, and wedging me between the two of them. In the past this had been one of my favourite places to be, but right now? Not so much.

“Let me out, James,” I say, squeezing past Cooper. He grabs my arm, and I whirl around to face him. “Let. Me. Go.”

He does, but I think it’s only because he’s afraid of hurting me. He may not touch me, but his presence can still be felt right behind me as I stalk toward the exit. I spot my bag in the luggage storage area as I approach. Someone must have put it there last night, or maybe they moved it out of the way to let the paramedics through. Either way, I snatch it up and head for the exit.

“Open that door and you’re fired,” Cooper says to James.

“Coop,” Deb chastises.

James raises a brow at Coop, and opens the door. “You can’t hold a woman against her will, you little shit. That’s called kidnapping.”

“Ali, get back here,” Coop shouts, as I descend the stairs and head straight for the town car. Two sets of footsteps clatter on the stairs behind me. The driver leans against the side, having a cigarette. His eyes bug out when I approach. “Can you take me to an airport?”

He stares back and forth between Coop and I. “Yeah.”

“Great.” I toss my bag on the back seat and turn to face the boys. Levi stands with his hands shoved in his pockets, his expression difficult to read. He looks torn. His eyes are sad, but his gaze is stoic. Cooper, on the other hand, is furious, bearing down on me like a tornado. One that will tear up everything in his path.

“I can’t do this anymore. What they did—what you did …” I look at Coop. “I can’t process any of that with you around. You lied to me, Cooper. You slept with me and you paid me for it.” I sniff and turn to Levi. “And you knew about it.”

“I didn’t pay you for sex, Ali,” Coop hisses. “Where would you have gone? If Vanessa had fired you, and I hadn’t brought you with us, what would you have done then?”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re not responsible for me,” I say.

“We didn’t fucking lie, Ali,” Levi says, shaking his head adamantly.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t know about the money at first. He told us about Vanessa and the record company the night we boarded the tour bus, but what does it fucking matter? His money, my money, Guidelli’s?”

“This isn’t about the money, and you know it,” Coop says, and his eyes are blazing with fury. “You’re just fucking scared. Well guess what? We’re all scared. All three of us fucked up big time. I fucked up big time. Yes, I should have told you from the start, but I wasn’t paying for sex, Ali. I thought if you knew, you’d leave. And I couldn’t have that.”

“Why?”

“Because I felt normal with you.” He exhales sharply. “I felt like I’d finally stopped spinning.” He runs his hands down over his face, and his expression is so miserable that I just want to go to him. I don’t. Because what would it solve?

“I can’t be a part of this world, Cooper. My reputation is in tatters. That reporter thought I’d tried to off myself—she basically called me a drug addict. I was drugged, stripped naked, and exposed in the worst possible way, and they’re acting like—”

“I told you I would fix it.”

“How?” I shout. “How can you fix this? That shit is already out there. My face is splashed across every tabloid on the planet. People don’t think any less of you, of either of you,” I say, glancing behind him at Levi. “You’re rock stars—it’s all just part of the package for you guys, but this is going to follow me for the rest of my life.”

I let out a deep, shuddering breath, proud of myself for holding it together as much as I can. “This is not healthy for any of us. It’s not a normal relationship—”

“Fuck normal,” Levi says. “I don’t want normal. I want you and I’ll take whatever you give.”

“Levi,” I say, my voice breaking, and the tears finally spilling down my cheeks thick and fast. “We took it too far.”

“Fuck,” Cooper shouts. He takes a step back and rakes his long fingers through his hair. “Where are you going to go, Ali?”

“I’m going home.”

“And where is that exactly?” he asks, because he knows as well as I do that there is no home waiting for me. I don’t even have my bomb of a car anymore, because I sold it to the wreckers before we left. It wasn’t worth shit, and it certainly wasn’t worth the money I’d spend keeping it in storage for the three months I’d be on tour.

“Not here,” I whisper.

“Then I hope you find it.” He turns, walking back to the bus without a goodbye. I close my eyes tightly and bury my face in Levi’s chest as his arms engulf me. I sob until my voice is hoarse.

“Don’t leave, Red,” he whispers, his voice thick with emotion. “Please don’t leave.”

“I love you,” I whisper, and then I give him a sad little smile as I stare up into his beautiful hazel eyes.

“But you’re not in love with me.” Levi says.

I exhale a ragged breath and shake my head. “I wanted to. I think I did a pretty good job of convincing myself for a while there.”

“Fuck, Red,” he whispers, sniffing and wiping away his tears before they can fall. “I don’t care. Stay. Please, just stay.”

“I can’t.” I kiss his cheek, his lips, and finally I place a kiss in the centre of his chest, over his heart, and then I slide his hands from my body, hands that are clutching my hips so tightly I feel the imprint they leave behind. I open the car door, climb into the back seat, and tell the driver to go before I can change my mind.

Levi tries calling when I’m on the way to the airport. I don’t answer. I just stare at my screen and cry so hard that the driver pulls the car over to the shoulder of the road and asks me if I want him to take me back to the bus. I tell him to keep driving.

Coop had been paying my wage, and I’d spent very little of it. It was the last thing I’d ever take from him, that ticket home. I booked the next flight available, just four hours from now, and once I cleared customs I knew there was no going back. I knew I’d likely never see either of them again, and it hurt. God, it hurt so damn much. I sat in business class, and I drank whatever alcohol the flight attendant would bring me, and I didn’t stop crying the entire way home.

That was the longest nineteen-hour flight in history. I felt bad for the man in the seat next to me. He’d sat for the first three hours listening to me sniffle before handing me a monogrammed handkerchief that I proceeded to ruin, then he gave me his mini bottle of vodka and I cried some more. He was gorgeous, with blond hair and blue eyes and a dimple in his chin. His every movement was made with dignity and the proud air of money. He was so far removed from the rockers I’d just spent the last two months with. The rockers I’d given my heart to. And I had given my heart to them. All of them. Not just Coop and Levi, but Zed and Ash too. Hell, even Deb, James, and some of the other roadies held a place in my heart. It crushed me to leave any of them behind, but by the time my flight landed in Sydney, my eyes were dry, and my conscience was clear.

I book a cheap hotel at the airport, and I spend all of the next day lying in bed with the curtains open, watching the planes take off, and wondering where all those people were going. Tomorrow I’d walk into Harbour Records and quit my job. I didn’t want to work for a company that would exploit an employee to make a couple hundred more in album sales.

I knew the industry was just as corrupt as the movie business, or politics, but there were things you were willing to sacrifice, and there were things you weren’t. My morals weren’t one of them. I’d worked my entire life to get my foot in the door, and then when I had just the tip of my Cons in, when all my struggling had finally paid off, it wasn’t what I wanted anymore. Maybe it was never what I wanted, and I’d just needed the Taint tour to show me that. Maybe Cooper did me a favour by insisting that I go, because it helped me figure out that my dreams weren’t all they were cracked up to be. And maybe one day I’d forgive him for it.

“C
hug, chug, chug,” my new work colleagues chant as I throw back the depth charge, shaking my head when the taste of bad beer and Bundy Rum rolls over my tongue. I’d managed to escape this torture for the last four weeks, but today when I’d tried to hightail it from the store, I’d been captured and corralled into the Irish pub down the street.