The girl smiled – though it was a sick sort of Oh my GOD I’M SO EMBARRASSED grimace.
Then Riley walked out and slapped the girl on the ass.
More like stumbled out, actually. She was barefoot and dressed in a grey sleeveless t-shirt and ripped jeans. Her eyes were swollen shut and her raccoon eyes were even worse than before. Her mohawk was flattened horizontally over one side of her head, with hairsprayed sections jutting stiffly every which way.
As soon as Riley smacked her ass, the girl jerked and then blushed furiously.
“G’wan… I got… band… stuff…” Riley mumbled as she shuffled over towards the table like a blind zombie.
The girl raced past us, over to the penthouse door – and then paused before she let herself out.
“Call me,” she said piteously.
Riley waved her arm like Yeah, yeah without looking over at her.
Then the girl disappeared out the door.
“Uhhhhhhh,” Riley groaned as she plopped down in a chair, her eyes no more than puffy slits in her face.
“You’re such an asshole,” Ryan said amiably.
“Shu’ fuck up,” Riley mumbled as she held out her arm.
Killian reached down behind the table and handed her a bottle of Jack Daniels.
I stared at him.
“Hair o’ the dog,” Killian said, like whiskey was the most natural thing in the world for breakfast.
Without a word, Riley unscrewed the cap and took a drink straight from the bottle. A looooong drink.
“Ew,” I whispered.
Without looking at me, Riley flipped me a bird with her free hand – and kept guzzling.
“It’s like her morning coffee,” Ryan explained.
When she finally stopped drinking, she let the bottle dangle from her hand and leaned her head back against the top of her chair. “UGH I hate straight bitches. They never want to go down on you.”
EW.
I put my forkful of eggs back on my plate, uneaten.
“Good morning to you, too, sunshine,” Ryan teased.
“Fuck off.” Riley tilted her head up, opened one eye halfway, and looked at me. “What’re you doin’ here, Blondie? I thought you and D woulda been poundin’ it out all mornin’.”
“Well, you’d be wrong,” I said icily.
She leaned her head back against the chair. “Guess he’s poundin’ somebody else,” she murmured.
I wanted to jump across the table and smash the fucking bottle of whiskey over her head.
But a deep, rumbling voice stopped me.
“Well, you’d be wrong again,” Derek said as he closed the penthouse door behind him.
27
He was dressed in jeans, boots, a black t-shirt that hugged his chest, and his customary sunglasses.
My heart leapt. I was so happy to see him that my whole body buzzed with anticipation –
But a second after my heart jumped in my chest, it seized with fear.
Our previous encounter last night in my room – temporarily forgotten because of Riley’s antics – reared up in my memory like some monstrous shadow.
Derek seemed to have no such qualms, though. He just ambled over to the table, sat down between Riley and Ryan, and reached for a plate.
He didn’t even look at me.
It was like a punch to the gut.
“I’m assuming that chick out in the hallway was yours, Riley,” he said as he piled on eggs and bacon.
“Whose else would it be?” she snorted. “Nobody else in here gets any pussy.”
“Jesus, Riley,” Ryan groaned, “I’m eating.”
“See? He’s too much of a pussy to even talk about pussy. And don’t even get me started on Mary Jane over there.”
She was obviously referring to Killian. He ignored her and kept strumming his chords with one hand and eating toast with the other.
Riley flopped her head towards Derek and grinned. “Broke another one in last night.”
“Just a second ago you were groaning about her being straight,” Ryan reminded her.
She just flipped him off. Apparently that was her preferred method of communication.
“Stick with the lesbians, Riley,” Derek said in a bored voice, like this was an all-too-common topic of conversation. “Or real switch hitters. Bi-curious does not equal bisexual.”
“Don’t I know it,” she groaned. “But straight girls are so… I dunno. Guess I like the challenge.”
“You must not like getting reciprocation.”
“Fuck off,” Riley grinned again – and then the grin turned evil as she looked at me. “Hey, what’s this I hear about you and Blondie not doin’ it?”
Derek looked up at me for the first time, though I couldn’t tell anything because the sunglasses shielded his eyes.
“You heard right,” he said neutrally, and gave me a half-smile before returning to his breakfast.
“Why do you keep hittin’ on her if she doesn’t put out?” Riley taunted.
“I dunno. Guess I like the challenge.”
That wasn’t what you said last night, I thought.
But I had sense enough not to say it out loud.
“Guess you must not like reciprocation,” Riley joked.
“Mm,” he said, bobbing his head like You got me as he chewed a mouthful of eggs.
At that point, Miles strode into the room.
“Alright, gents and rabid animals,” he said with a pointed look at Riley. She flipped him off, as usual. “The bus will be here at 3 o’clock. You will be ready by 3 o’clock, or I will kick your ass all the way from here down to the lobby. Show’s in Irvine. With the abominable state of Los Angeles traffic, that’s two hours at least. Do whatever you want before 3 o’clock, and do whatever you want on the bus, but you will be on the bus at 3:05 or you will NOT enjoy the consequences.”
“Are we staying in Irvine?” Ryan asked.
“No, we’re continuing on down to San Diego for tomorrow night’s show.”
“After-party on the bus,” Derek grinned, and looked at me as he said it.
I glowered at him, then looked at Miles and raised my hand.
“This isn’t primary school,” Miles said tersely. “What?”
“I’m going on the bus, right?”
“If you’re on it by 3:05, yes. If not, sod off.”
Riley raised her hand, obviously mocking me.
“What,” Miles snapped.
Riley slowly folded down all her fingers except the middle one, grinning as she did it.
“Fuck off, you little slag,” Miles growled. “Three o’clock. No exceptions.”
Then he walked away.
Ryan looked around the table. “I had some ideas I wanted to work on before tonight.”
“Fine by me,” Killian agreed.
Derek just nodded.
“Fuck no, I gotta get some sleep,” Riley yawned.
“No, you gotta get a shower,” Derek said. “You stink.”
“Fuck you.”
“No thanks.”
“Ha! You’d be lucky to get it, seein’ as Blondie’s not puttin’ out.”
“Okay,” Derek said simply, like That’s it. He stood up, slipped behind Riley’s chair, and got her in a full nelson headlock. His arms looped under hers and over her shoulders, and his hands locked behind her head. He pulled her backwards off the chair, tipping it over backwards. It clattered on the floor as he dragged her to her feet.
She immediately started screaming like a tomcat in a back alley fight, kicking and clawing and flailing and spitting.
“LET GO OF ME, YOU STUPID COCKSUCKING SON OF A BITCH!”
“I’m throwing her in the shower,” Derek announced calmly to the group. “Be back in five.”
“Thank you,” Ryan said.
“No problem.”
“I’M GONNA KILL ALL ‘A YOU FUCKIN’ MOTHERFUCKERS – ”
“Bye, luv,” Killian waved at her.
“FUCK YOU, YOU LIMEY FUCK – LET GO OF ME, YOU GODDAMN ASSHOLE!”
Derek dragged her back into her bedroom, kicking and screaming all the way.
A little shaken, I looked over at Ryan. “Is that… normal?”
“At least once a week,” Ryan said, completely blasé about the whole thing. “Or whenever she needs a bath. More orange juice?”
I let him fill up my glass again, and gradually went back to eating my breakfast.
28
Once breakfast was over, Killian went to another bedroom in the penthouse, apparently to get dressed. Ryan fiddled with the wires to all the instruments and microphones sitting out in the middle of the penthouse. Derek came back from Riley’s bedroom dripping wet.
“Be back in a minute,” he said, and left the penthouse.
Ten minutes later, Killian was back outside in his customary black shirt, black pants, and black shoes – and with a freshly-lit joint. Ryan was warming up on his bass. And Derek walked in wearing a dry outfit.
As they all took their places, Riley shuffled out in soccer shorts and a wifebeater, her face freshly scrubbed and pink. Without the fright mask of mascara, it was a lot easier to see how pretty her features actually were. All the dried styling gunk was gone from her mohawk, too, leaving her hair a limp, wet mass hanging down one side of her head.
“You guys suck,” she grumbled as she sat down at her drums and picked up her drumsticks, but that was all she said.
For the next two hours, I got a peek behind the curtain of one of the world’s most famous bands.
It started off with Ryan. He played a slapping kind of beat on his bass, and Killian suggested, “How about this?” and dropped in a chugging guitar riff. Riley joined in on the drums – not loud or overpowering, just counting out time and throwing in a combination of snares and cymbals here and there. Derek pulled out a notebook and made some marks in it, then interrupted. “Yeah, when you did that – ” here he sang a few wordless notes – “I was thinking of dropping in, ‘I’m over what you told me when you told me it was through.’”