On the Rocks Read online

  “Nothing to apologize for.” He kissed my belly and said, “Mission accomplished.”

  Teddy’s voice almost seemed far off. “Hell, yeah.”

  I tried to open my eyes but an overwhelming heavy sleepiness was burying me. “Thanks,” I said, barely able to hear my own voice. And my gratitude seemed so weak.

  But Jake said, “My pleasure.”

  “Yeah.”

  And what could I do for them?

  Nothing…because I drifted off.

  My sleep was dreamless and light, in spite of the alcohol in my system, but that was because there was still plenty of sex action taking place in the bed. It was much deserved, mind you. Those boys had outdone themselves.

  I heard a loud groan and then managed to pry my eyes open. Teddy was standing at the foot of the bed and Jake was sitting. Teddy’s eyes were closed and it took me a second to realize Jake was blowing Teddy.

  Ah. He’d finally convinced him.

  I blinked because now I saw Teddy’s little (or not so little) secret. His cock was pierced, and not just a little bit. A lot.

  Then I smiled and fell back asleep before my head hit the pillow once more.

  I could hear lots more sex—lots of groans and moans of pleasure, but not much talking. I heard both Teddy and Jake getting off, and I felt bad that I wasn’t involved, but blackness consumed me along with bed spins before I spun down a spiral of dreamless sleep.

  * * *

  Pasty mouth. Pounding head.

  Shameful thoughts.

  All those sensations rushed over me in that order long before I opened my eyes.

  God, I fucking hurt. And I pushed the emotions out of my head. There was nothing to be ashamed of—that was a societal judgment rushing through my brain. We were three consenting adults, and we’d had a good time. We worked together and last night we’d played together…and it would only feel weird if I let myself feel that way.

  So I wasn’t going to.

  But I needed to get up. A wave of nausea rolled through my gut and I needed to make my way to the bathroom. Even if I wouldn’t vomit, my bladder was telling me it too needed relief. A heavy arm was draped over my chest and I needed to open my eyes so I could extricate myself from the tangled mass of bodies.

  When I lifted my eyelids, I looked around. The room was dark, so I didn’t know if it was still the dead of night or if this hotel just so happened to have really good drapes that kept out most of the daylight. Some light was spilling out of the bathroom, though, and I felt gratitude that I could use it as a beacon. Jake was lying to my right, and it was his arm draped over me. Teddy was on my other side with his back to me. We were all under the covers and, as I peeled them down after resting Jake’s arm on his side, I figured out why. The air conditioning was full throttle in the room, and it was downright cold, making my entire body tense up.

  I wasn’t drunk enough to feel warm anymore.

  Both men were breathing rhythmically, one of them softly snoring, but I didn’t hear that until I was off the bed and stumbling toward the light.

  I emptied my bladder and then stood, flushing the toilet. The wave of nausea passed but I still felt queasy. I ran my hands under cool water and then cupped a little and sipped it, just enough to ease the dryness of my throat. I hoped that if I could sleep for a while longer, the nausea might go away, along with the drumming in my head.

  Back in the main room, I glanced around for the temperature dial but it proved to be too much for the state I was in. I had a heavy comforter and two men to return to, and they could warm me up. I crawled up the middle of the bed on my hands and knees and Jake muttered, “I thought you were gonna leave.”

  “Nope.” I slid under the comforter and pulled it up to my chin.

  “Your teeth are chattering. Are you cold?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Aw. C’mere.” I rolled on my side and backed up toward him so he could hold me in his arms like a spoon. It was sweet and comforting, even though I knew Jake and I would never have any deeper feelings for each other aside from friendship. There was something in the back of my mind, something in my memory that my conscious brain hadn’t registered but something I somehow instinctively knew—or it was probably something I’d heard last night while asleep or in a haze, but I somehow knew that, while Jake was bisexual, his preference was for men. And yet, here he was, holding me tenderly like someone he never wanted to let go, while it was glaring—to me, at least—that Teddy wanted to be as far away from us as possible. I was almost surprised that he wasn’t sleeping on the sofa or hadn’t gone to his room.

  Or maybe it was all just my imagination.

  I fell back asleep.

  * * *

  My phone rang first, but I had barely awakened before it stopped. Teddy’s was next and he leapt out of bed like it was on fire. He made his way across the room to where our clothes were strewn about the living area, almost like confetti. He managed to find his jeans and pull his phone out, and the sound of his deep voice ensured that I wouldn’t be going back to sleep.

  And, if that hadn’t worked, the actual words would have.

  “Oh, shit. Yeah. I’ll be down in ten minutes.” There was a pause as I sat up and felt Jake stirring on the bed beside me. “Yeah. They’re here. We…yeah. Partied too much.” Another pause. “Yes, we’ll be ready for tonight. No ball busting necessary.”

  Had to be Mollie.

  He hung up and said, “Guys, we’re late for call.”

  My head was fuzzy as I tried to remember what the hell we were supposed to do. And then I remembered. A fucking radio interview. God, those had never turned out well for me. I always did much better with magazines and video. But I got up and started moving around. Jake offered us both some pills “to take the edge off,” but I told him I’d find about ten ibuprofen after a shower.

  “Don’t got time to shower, Kyle.”

  “Fuck that.” I found my phone while I threw on my t-shirt from the night before. Then I dialed our manager. “I’ll be about a half hour.”

  Before I could hang up, she said, “No. Get your ass down here now, Kyle.”

  “I can’t. I need to shower.”

  “If you don’t get down here in the next few minutes, we’re gonna be late.”

  “Fuck me.” Yeah, well, see how that worked out?

  The good news was the three of us weren’t panicked, but we were rushed. Moving quickly and with purpose took our minds off what would have otherwise been the awkwardness of the moment. We all moved with one goal in mind and that was to get downstairs fast. As much as I hated radio interviews, being late would make me—make us—look bad. I couldn’t let that happen. So I pulled on my jeans along with my socks and boots and scooped up my bra and panties. I located my room card and Teddy was at the door just as I was. Jake already had jeans on and was pulling on a clean t-shirt. Teddy was quiet as we walked down the hall. I could feel something coming off him, but I couldn’t tell what.

  I suspected he too felt dirty.

  We separated at my room while he had to walk one more door down and I said, “See you in a minute.”

  He said, “Yeah,” but he didn’t make eye contact with me.

  Jesus. Not good. But I didn’t give a shit once I was in my room.

  I took a deep breath for focus. I didn’t want to be in a cramped radio booth and smell like a dirty whore. I brushed my hair and pulled it into a ponytail and then jumped in the shower. I pulled the paper off the tiny hotel bar soap and scrubbed every surface. And I did it in less than two minutes. I jumped out, toweled off, and then found my makeup bag on the counter. I drew on new eyeliner and mascara after running a damp washcloth under my eyes.

  I still felt dirty but a little better, and after brushing my teeth, I was almost good to go.

  I threw on a clean t-shirt and jeans (and underwear too) before putting on my boots and throwing everything into my one piece of luggage.

  I still managed to do it all in fifteen minutes, and Mollie didn
’t even text me asking me where the hell I was until the elevator was going down and I could text her back that I was on my way. I’d call that success.

  Chapter Nine

  THINGS NEVER FELT the same in the band again. Jake and I were still tight as friends, and Brandon sensed something had happened, but he was far too sweet (and possibly innocent) to ask. It was all Teddy. The guy carried the memories of that night with him like a nonexistent albatross, and I couldn’t understand why. I tried talking to him about it—once with Jake and once without—but he wouldn’t do it. He just said he’d rather pretend like that night had never happened.

  He apparently had a few issues.

  But I wasn’t going to push the matter. On stage and when we were in the limelight, he remained a consummate professional. I should have seen his ultimate departure coming, though. He stayed with us throughout the entire tour, but he let me know once we were home that he was leaving.

  That sucked, because he’d been perfect for the band. He played rhythm to my lead well.

  I knew, though, that there were plenty of other fish in the sea and there would be plenty of other guys willing to play.

  Maybe. I was supremely disappointed in the overall scheme of things. My debut solo album hadn’t done nearly as well as I thought it should have. Where were all my supposed fans, all those people who claimed to love me and love my work? They sure as fuck weren’t buying my album or coming to my concerts.

  No, that wasn’t fair. I had no doubt that my hardcore fans were, but no one else was. I had thousands and thousands of Facebook likes and Twitter followers, but I hadn’t even sold as many albums as the supposed fans I had in cyberspace.

  I felt like a fucking failure. It killed me, gutted me, shredded my heart. Music was my first love, and I wanted to share my creations with the world, but apparently they didn’t want them.

  So, yeah, I wallowed for a while. I let it eat at me. I decided I would let it all in for now, because I was going to have to let it go and pick myself up at some point.

  I considered quitting but had no idea what the hell I would do with myself. Quitting was always a fallback option…but I discovered that I still had some fight in me left.

  Mom and dad were living in Hawaii now, and I visited them for a month, soaking in the sun and the smell of saltwater in paradise, and I pretended I wasn’t a rock star.

  Except for when I got one new tattoo on my butt cheek. It said Kiss My Ass. That was like flipping my finger to the world after drowning in disappointment. Now I was up and swinging and ready to kick ass again, and it started by being a rebel.

  Fortunately, getting a tattoo on my ass, even without a few drinks, didn’t hurt nearly as much as I’d thought it would.

  What really killed me, something I wouldn’t tell a soul—not even to a therapist bound by laws of confidentiality had I chosen to avail myself of one—was how well Liz was doing. Jesus, the fucking fans loved her, ate her shit up like it was a Krispy Kreme. It probably wouldn’t have bothered me so much if her stuff had been good. But I’d finally broken down and bought her album to find out for myself. People raved and raved about it—and she was an old friend, to boot—so I decided to give it a listen. Maybe the shit they were playing on the radio wasn’t representative of everything on the record.

  Unfortunately, it was. Actually, the singles that were getting airtime were the best songs on the album. Overall, the music sounded mostly like our first album, but there was more to it than that. It had a heavy punk feel but it wasn’t fresh. It sounded like old music, even though it was new. There was nothing innovative or different about it, including the words. It sounded derivative and plain.

  And fuck it. If that was what it took to get ahead, I was going to be a fucking rebel all my life and be happy with shitty sales. I wasn’t going to sell out by being crappy or mediocre. And it felt like that was what Liz was doing, like she’d stepped down and decided to stray from excellence.

  That made me all the more determined to be different, and as the months drifted by, I was able to distance myself from my first effort. Yes, I knew now in retrospect that it did have a Vagabonds sound to it, just as critics and fans had noted. So, when I returned home, I decided to lock myself inside for a month and just listen to my favorite music, let it influence me and change my songwriting.

  I went through all my music and decided against older stuff, because I definitely did not want an old sound like Liz. So, much as I loved it, there would be no early metal, no hair or glam metal, no grunge. If the music hadn’t been written or hit the charts in this millennium, then I wasn’t going to listen to it.

  But I didn’t just listen. I drowned in it. I absorbed it. I ate and drank it. I fell asleep at night with the stereo playing and let it play all night long, turning up the volume when I arose in the morning. My car had an MP3 plugin so I could listen to anything specific I wanted to. I used an iPod when I worked out.

  I didn’t listen to the Vagabonds. I also didn’t listen to the first incarnation of Kyle Summers, the band (I cracked myself up calling it that). But I was jamming out to some good shit—Death Crunch, Lamb of God, Korn, Last Five Seconds, Slipknot, Black Matter, Bullet for My Valentine, Shock Treatment, Godsmack, Seether…you name it. If they were a kick ass band in the twenty-first century, I was listening to them.

  I decided a few things as I listened over and over to some of my favorite songs. The first was that I wanted to go a little heavier. The second was that I was happy being just “basic” metal—I didn’t need to be in a subgenre, and I certainly knew what my limits were.

  And I did that…from my own place. I broke down and got my own apartment, and when CJ got back from Death Crunch’s huge tour that ended two days earlier in Europe, I picked him up at DIA. We hugged and kissed and, yes, I was happy to see him. He looked different—a little more filled out and he’d grown a bit of a beard. He still stirred me up and I was thrilled to see him…but I wasn’t sure how to break the news.

  But I didn’t, because we talked nonstop the whole way home—about his tour and mine, about future plans, and it was then that I told him about Teddy leaving the band. When he asked why, I told him Teddy hadn’t given a reason. I knew I could have told him what I suspected and he’d have to live with it; after all, it was his stupid idea that we see other people while on the road. It would serve him right if he felt jealous.

  I didn’t say a word, though. But when we parked at CJ’s apartment building, I knew I needed to say something so it wasn’t a shock when we got upstairs. I grabbed his bass case while he threw a backpack over his shoulder and carried a big suitcase in one hand, a grocery bag in the other. As we started walking toward the building, I said, “Umm, I need to let you know…I moved out.”

  It was subtle, but I noticed a slight pause in his step. Oh. So maybe he would have a problem with it. Well, I’d known it would be awkward, but I didn’t want it to be any big deal. “Out of my place, you mean?”

  I nodded but kept my eyes on the stairs I’d have to place a foot on momentarily. “Yeah.”

  He was quiet for a few seconds. “Did you get your own place or…?”

  “Yeah. I just… Well, I want to thank you for your hospitality, you know. For letting me stay with you.”

  He muttered, “Yeah, sure,” but I could tell it was merely an automated response. He was still processing it all. It wasn’t until we were inside, lights on and everything we’d been carrying put down, that he made sure he had my attention. “Is something wrong? Is there somebody else?”

  Oh. That plunged in my heart like a harpoon. I didn’t know if I felt worse for not telling him before—because it obviously meant more to him than I’d thought—or because he believed I’d cheat on him. Well…when I was home. No, it was more than that. I guess, in hindsight, I’d say we had an open relationship, whether I wanted it or not, whether I agreed or not. That was the only way I could have CJ, and I’d been okay with it.

  But I wasn’t happy with it anymore.

>   So I was stinging some that he figured I could just hang my heart up and stop caring. It didn’t work that way, not for me. He’d owned me from the first time we’d been together, and it wouldn’t be that easy to let go.

  I felt like now might be a good time to let out a lighthearted laugh and call him silly, because of course he was the only guy for me. Then I thought it might be better to give him a wistful smile and just let him know that I needed some time to myself. But, instead, the rebel inside felt like balls out truth was the best way—the only way with the man I loved so fiercely that I ached to the core.

  I did want to assure him, though. “God, no, CJ. There’s nobody else. But…” I shook my head, grappling for the words. “I need some space, something to call my own. We’re not building a life together here. This was never my home—it was yours—and, while I appreciate your generosity, I didn’t want to overstay my welcome.”

  There it was—something—and that goddamn something sent a chill bolting over the surface of my arms, making the tiny hairs stand on end. You missed something, Kyle. What was it? There was a change in his face, so subtle that I just couldn’t make it out. It was a flash in his eye or a twitch in his cheek or a muscle in his jaw…but it was there, and you better believe it registered with my subconscious. All my fucking alarm bells were going off—every last one of them—and they were blaring at me that I had just fucked up monumentally.

  But CJ was, if nothing else, always a gentleman. What made him frustrating and hard to read (in spite of the klaxons ringing in my heart) was that he held his cards close to his chest. There was little room for guessing, and I suspect that even had I come right out and asked him how he felt right at that moment, he wouldn’t have told me. And maybe he was too shocked to say anyway.

  He took a deep breath and I saw another subtle shift. It was like watching a door close in slow motion. “So where’d you move?” He started walking toward the kitchen, grocery bag in hand.