Bottleneck Read online

  “Yeah.” He scoffs. “Sure. You’ll be telling me next that you're monogamous. I’ll let your mom know she can have the afternoon off on my way out, huh?”

  He’s right: I wouldn’t have done it later—she would. But he could have picked a better way to make his point than highlight how spoiled I am.

  “How is she, anyway?”

  “Mom?” I huff a laugh.

  “Deanna, you moron.” He gives me a once over as he drops an empty ramen cup into the trash. “You look relatively unscathed.”

  “That’s because you can’t see my pride.”

  He smiles, head bowed. “You do it to yourself, Em.”

  “And that’s what really hurts,” I sing back.

  “Nice.” Toby finishes clearing the surfaces in silence, leaving it cleaner than when Mom does pop up here during my absence.

  “You ever need a job after music,” I tease. “You’d make a good house-bitch.”

  “Somebody has to do what you won’t,” he gripes. “Call it a habit after following your dirty asses around for too many years.”

  “You heard anything from Tabitha?” I test.

  Call me fucked up, but I want to hear that I’m not the only one in a miserable non-relationship. Knowing Rey’s woman hurts as much as he does will somehow make my pathetic existence seem not quite so bad.

  A little more ordinary.

  “Nope.” Toby glances around the place as though checking he’s done enough. “Not since I called her at the end of the tour.”

  We kept his little brother moving with uppers, and when that didn’t work, we fed Rey anything that would keep his heart beating fast enough to make him need to move. It wasn’t our finest hour, and my part in the supply of those substances weighs heavy, but one look at Toby right now shows he carries that burden the worst.

  “You did what you had to,” I offer quietly.

  “Is it what he needed, though?”

  “He’s alive, and he’s in rehab,” I summarize. “Both things are way better than being dead or without a career.”

  If Rey had defaulted on that final show, our contract would be ashes. He’d used up his warnings by acting out at the start of the tour. One more infraction would be all it would take for our hard-nosed label to find a reason to cut our expenses from their books.

  Keeping him on stage was the only thing keeping us from becoming a male version of Letters from Alice. Alice.

  “Hey.” I scoot up the seat again, vigor renewed. “You have any idea what happened to Alice’s career?”

  Toby frowns. “Um, you denied them a gig supporting us, remember?”

  I snarl, shaking my head at him. I’m well aware of what I did to blue-ball her band when I spoke with Mary-Anne. “I mean after that. They’re still a fucking support act, dude. And not even for a full tour. What’s with that?”

  He tips his head to one side. “I agree; they’re good enough to hold their own.” His gaze hardens. “Just find it odd that you care considering your history with the woman.”

  “I may have killed some time with her drummer while I was there—opened old wounds.”

  Toby groans. “You’re unbelievable. When are you going to stop fucking the woman over?”

  “When it stops being fun to mess with her,” I answer, knee-jerk, as I toss an arm over the back of my seat. “Why are they still scratching for gigs, though? What the fuck is their current manager doing?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?” he challenges.

  “I did.” I return his judgmental glare. “She won’t say.”

  “You know as well as I do it takes money to stay top-billing.” Toby perches himself on the arm of the chair, keys in his hand. “Without cash for a recording studio, they’re struggling to get enough done for a complete album. And then there was the issue with their drummer.”

  “Fria?”

  “Nah.” He shakes his head. “The one before her. She quit and took the songs she’d written with her. Said she sue Alice if the band used them.”

  “Fuck me.” I rake a hand through my already messed-up hair. “She’s had a shit run of luck, huh?”

  Toby nods.

  I frown at the guy. “How do you know all this, and I don’t?”

  “Because unlike the rest of you, I actually bother to make connections in this industry. I hear things.”

  I flick him a middle finger and give my attention to Mosaic instead.

  “Anyway.” He rises to his feet, tossing the keys between his hands. “Now that I’m satisfied that you’re alive and …” He grimaces. “Alive. I’m off.”

  “Thanks, ma,” I sass, running my forefinger and thumb along the soft lengths of my dog’s ear.

  “Like a fucking teenager,” he mutters to himself as he heads for the door. “I’ll see you in a few weeks.” Toby turns, walking backward. “Be sober when you play this time, huh?”

  “You do realize Slash played some of his best music while propped upright,” I call back.

  “You’re not Slash,” he retorts, punctuating his insult with the click of my door.

  I meet the concerned gaze of Mosaic and shrug. “Don’t you start on me.” I’m more likely to wake up one day and find this fucker talking to me than I am getting sober.

  When putting down the bottle means returning to the stark clarity of an alcohol-free reality, then you gotta ask yourself—why the fuck would I do that? Especially when clearer thoughts mean a sharper conscience.

  Roughly ten years and endless benders later, Deanna is the woman who still stands by my side when the stage lights go out. I should want to be with her, to spend every moment I’m home with her. And yet, I don’t.

  I want to know she’s there for me, that somebody cares enough to fight for me even if the reason behind that anger isn’t love.

  But that’s all. She’s comfort through connection, not need.

  And as I reach over the arm of the chair and wrap my fingers around the bottle that’ll skip this damn record off repeat, what fucks me up worse is knowing she’s not the woman that I’ll slide into oblivion picturing in my mind’s eye.

  Respite comes with waves of white-gold hair and a smile that could soften the most hardened sinner’s heart.

  I find satisfaction in my dreams of Alice, knowing I don’t stand a chance at repeating the same in reality.

  After all, if eight years apart isn’t long enough to let wounds heal, then I don’t think a lifetime will make a lick of difference to the intensity of her pain.

  SIXTEEN

  Alice

  “The Rush” – JJ Wilde

  “Have you checked the kitchen?” Telly lays a bony hand on the small round handles and tugs the overhead cabinets open.

  “Yes. And the bunk storage.” I take a step back to let Shanae past with her wheeled suitcase.

  Fria sits in the front lounge of the bus, one leg crossed over the other and foot-tapping as she scrolls her phone.

  Our last show with Lords of London was amazing. Capped by the surprise presentation that Jasper gave us after his opening song. I may have cried. I may have also hoped those aren’t the pictures Emery stumbles across.

  Not that I’m still thinking of him a week later or anything.

  “I’m certain we’ve got everything, Telly.”

  He lifts a packet of spiced jerky from the very back of the topmost shelf. “One hundred percent certain?”

  My heart clenches. “To be fair, that wasn’t ours.”

  “Belonged to the boy, huh?” He retains the dried meat, holding the packet to his chest as though to protect me from it.

  “Uh. Yeah.” Palms skimming the tops of my cutoffs, I run my eye over what has been our home the past two months.

  I want to be able to say there were great memories made, but as is the fashion of all of our gigs lately, we seem to have only grown further apart. Evidenced by our drummer and her disinterested demeanor.

  “Are you ready to go, Fria?” I fold my arms and then nod to Telly when he gesture
s to the trash bag with the jerky.

  “My shit is in the car. So, yeah.”

  “Well.” I refrain from kicking her in the shin. “Let’s do it then.”

  We have a long ride ahead of us in peak hour traffic to reach the airport, and I really don’t fancy my painkiller wearing off before I get out of the car. It took one strategic hasty Uber to the pharmacy to get a rush script filled that I could have done without paying for. So, sue me if I’m too frugal with them.

  With a flounce and a dramatic sigh, Fria traipses down the stairs; Shanae pieces the last piece of our luggage puzzle together in the back of the rideshare. In a way, these girls are my second family. But as I look at the pair of them now, I can’t shake how this resembles the last holiday my real family took before Mom and Dad announced they would divorce.

  Tension more than hangs in the air; it places a physical barrier between each of us.

  “I’m going to miss you!” Shanae exclaims, launching herself at Telly when he drops out to the parking lot.

  She throws her arms around his slight frame, hugging him in a viper’s lock. He lets out a strangled laugh, opening his arm to welcome me in too. Our awkward trio holds on for a few precious seconds before he gently eases us off him to acknowledge Fria.

  I force my jaw to stay shut when I notice the tear balancing precariously on her lower lid. Whatever Telly tells her as he clasps both hands on her shoulders, it has our staunchest member ducking her head and dabbing the heel of one hand beneath her eye.

  I know we’re close to our ageing driver, but I guess I didn’t give full credit to how much it affected all of us when we realized this might really be the last time that we traverse the states with him.

  “You all make me so proud,” he announces with a firm nod. His hands squeeze Fria before he lets her go, and sucks in a deep breath. “I’ll see you girls on the next trip.”

  Shanae murmurs something, Fria’s jaw jutted forward as she holds in her emotions. I choose not to watch as he boards the bus and kicks it to life, ready to drop the vehicle back at the lease company.

  “Shotgun.” Resting bitch face back in place, Fria turns for the waiting car.

  I glance toward Shanae, who shrugs, and then heads for the rear. Suits me fine if our drummer wants to isolate herself up front; I could do without more of her bullshit.

  My phone vibrates in the back pocket of my cut-offs, and I pull it out to place it on my lap as I buckle in beside Shanae. The driver eases out into the street while I flip the device over and check the display.

  My lungs seize, and I complete the short message three times over before I let myself read into it.

  E: Can we talk face-to-face?

  “Everything okay?” Shanae whispers, leaning across.

  I bury the screen against my thigh and nod tightly. “Looking forward to being home,” I say with a smile.

  It’s not a complete lie: I am. It just has nothing to do with the reason why my gut clenches and my palms grow hot.

  A: Face-to-face? Why?

  Eight years we’ve avoided each other for the better part, and eight years I’ve wished that Emery understood just how much his ignorance toward my feelings for him cut me to the bone. But now that I’m faced with what’s more-or-less an invitation to possibly make that a reality?

  I feel the same way I did that cold November night when he laughed and told me to “quit acting dumb.”

  E: Come visit me. Please?

  “There aren’t three seats left together,” Shanae mutters, pulling my attention back to the people in the car.

  We cruise down the road toward gridlock on the highway, no other route available that’ll get us to the airport any quicker. Fria stares out her window, the driver focused on the road before him. He seems the type to avoid pointless conversation, all his mannerisms screaming “let me do my job”.

  A: Can’t we just talk on the phone?

  “I can get two seats together and one separate,” Shanae continues, head down over her smartphone.

  One too many missed flights due to delays on the road, and we learned pretty quick to buy your tickets at the last minute.

  E: I need to see you.

  “Book the two together,” I say with a dry mouth. “I’m heading home for a day.”

  Fria stiffens in front of me.

  Shanae frowns before widening her eyes. “You mean home, home?”

  I nod. “Figured a trip to see my mother about a loan might be a good idea.” Stepping foot in her house is purely an afterthought to the bigger plan afoot, but the girls don’t need to know.

  “Typical,” Fria mutters. “Always the martyr.”

  Our driver’s hands flex on the steering wheel as we begin our slow crawl along the hardtop. I choose not to call her out on her bullshit. Not just for his sake, but because I honestly couldn’t spare any mental power to argue the point with her when I internally practice how the fuck I’m going to explain to Emery that past eight years are a grudge over a girly crush gone wrong. Let Fria believe what she wants; I know the real reason for a trip back to my hometown.

  “Booked.” Shanae drops the phone into her lap. “I picked the flight two hours from now to give us leeway,” she tells Fria.

  Our drummer grunts in response.

  I poke my tongue out at the back of her head, noting in my periphery that the Uber driver watches me in his rearview. His disinterested gaze drifts back to the Range Rover that forces its way into our lane ahead of us.

  “Hey.” I get an elbow from my left. “Call me when you get there, okay? You don’t have to do this alone,” she whispers, seemingly trying to avoid Fria’s involvement.

  “You don’t need the stress, hon.” Her sister waits for a kidney transplant, her father unable to earn due to a workplace incident. Her family deserve what energy she has left more than our financial woes. “Are you heading to see your parents soon?”

  She stares straight ahead, face solemn as she answers. “In a couple of days. I need to get some real sleep first.”

  “Yeah. That’s fair.”

  Her hand slides across the upholstery until warm fingertips touch the side of my hand. I upturn my palm and allow Shanae to wrap her fingers around mine. She leans across the seat until her head slides on my shoulder and sighs.

  Nine years we’ve been doing this together, and I’d consider her more a sibling to me than my actual brother. No matter how badly I fuck up my life, Shanae is proof that good people still exist.

  Nobody else gets this crazy ride we chose to go on. She’s the only one I can rely on to listen without judgment and offer genuine understanding.

  Well, the only one since I lost Emery.

  SEVENTEEN

  Emery

  “Crazy Bitch” - Buckcherry

  Sharp nails delicately scratching my dog’s head, Deanna eyes my chosen outfit for the night. I had eight days of precious sanctuary before my parents went away for the weekend and left me defenseless against this witch. She arrived mere hours after they drove out the gate and insisted that we make an appearance at some gig a guy from her gym hosts, but she never said why.

  So, I wore what I always do: torn jeans, black wife-beater, and a dark denim shirt open over the top with the sleeves rolled higher than my thick biceps. They just don’t make shirts for guys like me.

  “You have to change.” Her fingers stall, and the look in Mosaic’s eye tells me he feels like I do when I’m in that position—move, and you risk your life.

  “Maybe it’d be useful if you told me where the fuck we’re going for this thing.”

  Her nostrils slowly flare as she takes in a deep breath. I used to see her edginess as sexy; I loved the way she isn’t afraid to set herself apart. But now when I take in her blunt black bangs, one-inch plugs in her ears, and darkly lined eyes, all I see is evil.

  She wears her soul on the outside, and the result is a manifestation that would have the devil slowly back out of the room.

  “If you want to pull off torn jea
ns in a formal setting, Emery, you need to pair it with the right shirt. You can’t go casual head-to-toe.”

  “Formal,” I snap. “Thank you. Now I know.”

  The click of her heels follows me across the room to my closet. “We’re heading into the city on a Saturday night,” she clips. “How much more obvious does it need to be that you should show some fucking class?”

  I rake my gaze down her figure-hugging dress—split high at the front—while I tear the shirt and tank from my body. “If I were judging based solely on what you’ve got on, I’d say there’s no such thing as class where we’re headed.”

  “You think, do you?” She tilts her head in that way that makes my blood heat.

  Stalking to the ramshackle closet, I throw an arm in her general direction. “If the gap in your dress were any higher, we’d know what you had for breakfast.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “No.” I yank a pale gray button-down from the hanger. “Fuck you. Why are we going? If you want to parade in front of your next fill-in, then why the hell do I need to be involved?”

  Her nose scrunches in disgust, yet the lizard tongue that darts out to wet her lips reminds me how purely physical our relationship has become. “Leave it open.” The bite has fled her tone.

  My hands hover at each side of the shirt. I don’t want to humor her, but fuck Deanna has a set of legs on her that go on for miles. “Only if you hitch your dress.”

  “You want to know what I had for breakfast?” she taunts, fingers bunching the cotton over her thighs.

  I fixate on the tease of satin covering her mound. “I want to know if your cunt tastes like it.”

  Fuck the way my body reacts to her. Fuck this—all of it.

  She crosses the room in urgent steps, hands out before her to scoop my shirt free on impact. I hiss at the bite of acrylic nails against my chest, yet like the sucker I am, I revel in the pain.

  “What am I going to taste on you?” she hisses in my ear, lips brushing the lobe. “Whose pussy taints your dick, Emery?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  We do this same fucking dance, every time. Carnal lust disguised as jealousy. It could never be jealousy because that would infer that we cared about one another.