River James (Rockers Of Steel #3)

by Mj Fields

  “Where’s Tink?” Natasha asks, stretching her neck and yawning.

  “Perched at the top of the stairs outside Jordan’s room.” I nod up the stairs. “Where she is every night and every morning.” I laugh. “Where have you been?”

  She sighs. “I have no idea. How the hell did I miss that?”

  “In your defense, she comes down and pretends to sleep next to my bed until I fall asleep. When I wake up, she’s gone.”

  Natasha laughs. “She’s changed.” Then she looks at me and cringes. “Sorry. I wasn’t—”

  “She got high and laid. How could she not change?” I force a laugh since I don’t want her to feel bad. I know it wasn’t her intention to bring up last weekend. “You know, I have to say I feel like a complete idiot. How did I not know he was as messed up as he is? I mean, I’m trained to know when someone has a problem.”

  “How would you have known? It was like a freaking whirlwind of a weekend.” She shakes her head. “I mean, three days with a rock star, Keanna. Women dream of a weekend like that. Hell, I would have left with him, but I am … was … well, am technically still his doctor, and I had no idea he was like that.”

  I hear music coming from the TV, and we both look.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispers.

  In sixty-inch, high definition glory, I see Memphis Black standing under a million, white, twinkling lights, microphone in hand, singing a song I know I have heard a million times but never once put two and two together.

  “Holy shit,” I whisper as I watch it all unfold in front of me.

  Finn is playing bass, Billy on acoustic, and River—Oh, God, River—is playing the drums. I want to close my eyes, look away, but I can’t. I see the sticks in his hand, the ones I gave him, and have to physically hold my hand over my chest because I am so afraid it may beat its way out.

  He’s shirtless, hasn’t shaved—I mean, he isn’t like Finn, but he has more than a five o’clock shadow going on.

  “Look at that ink,” Natasha gasps.

  I give her a sideways glance.

  “I’ll turn it off.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I say or growl, rather, because she looks at me like she may be intimidated.

  Look at it? I licked it, I think, my mouth drying up.

  I take a big gulp of my wine, finishing the glass.

  “Pause it.” I jump up and run to the kitchen to grab the bottle.

  When I come back, she has not only paused but rewound it.

  I fill our glasses, and we sit and watch it all over again.

  Awaken beast, you took my all.

  Taboo desires, burn out of control.

  Intoxicated youth, a troubled teen.

  Still both inside, eternal flames.

  Surface to soul.

  But I’m chasing the light,

  Chasing my goal,

  Chasing the girl who owns my soul.

  Chasing the night,

  Chasing the score,

  Chasing the need to rock this floor.

  I’m missing you. Oo-oo-oo

  I’m missing you. Oo-oo-oo

  Chasing my dream.

  You chase the same.

  We’re chasing away the fucking game.

  Chasing the right.

  Chasing the wrong.

  Chasing the words to write your song.

  I’m missing you. Oo-oo-oo.

  I’m missing you. Oo-oo-oo.

  Down on my knees, I beg you now.

  I can’t let go. I don’t know how.

  A tender heart, a taken toll.

  What was surface took my soul.

  Surface to soul.

  But I’m chasing the light,

  Chasing my goal,

  Chasing the girl who owns my soul,

  Chasing the night,

  Chasing the score,

  Chasing the need to rock this floor.

  I’m missing you. Oo-oo-oo.

  I’m missing you. Oo-oo-oo.

  Chasing my dream.

  You chase the same.

  We’re chasing away the fucking game.

  Chasing the right,

  Chasing the wrong,

  Chasing the words to write your song.

  I’m missing you. Oo-oo-oo.

  “Sweet baby Jesus,” Natasha sighs as she leans back.

  “Again,” I demand, filling my glass for the third time.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  This time, I watch him, only him.

  “He looks good, even has some color. Dirty white boy,” I grumble the last part under my breath.

  Natasha snickers. “Isn’t that a song?”

  “It should be his theme song. That dirty”—I pause and sigh—”sexy, nasty, but so fucking good with his mouth, his hands, and he is … hung. God, Tasha, he is like really hung.”

  “Like a black man?” she asks in all her white girl glory.

  I can’t help laughing.

  “Rewind it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m very sure.” I fill my glass again and sit back, curling my feet underneath myself.

  I look up when I see Tink coming down the stairs. She sits in front of me and looks at the TV.

  “Seriously, Tink?”

  “The bitches all like him.” Natasha busts out laughing.

  “Stupid, stupid bitches.” I shake my head. “And look at them all: tan, little, California, bikini-clad, fake tittied—”

  “Wow, Keanna.” Natasha shakes her head at me, chuckling.

  “Sorry,” I huff. “No. No, I’m not. I should tweet what I said to the car sales whore.”

  “Which was …?”

  “How did I taste?” I answer.

  Her jaw drops open. “You had a threesome?”

  “Oh, dear god, no.” I shake my head, and instead of filling my empty glass, I decide to just drink from the bottle. “It’s a long story.”

  “Long like his dick?”

  We start laughing immediately.

  “One more time. And, Natasha?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Please don’t let me tweet that.”

  “I won’t.”

  I grab my phone and take a picture of Tink the traitor watching her human crush.

  “And don’t let me send that.”

  “I would never.”

  “He looks good, right?” I ask as we watch it ‘one more time.’

  “Do you want me to say no? I will. I will say no. His six-pack could be an eight, and he looks horrible with a tan and that nasty stubble.” She sets her empty wine glass down on the coffee table. “I can say any woman who even considers a gang bang with the entire STD band is out of their damn mind. Would that help?”

  I shake my head. “Watch his wrist. Do you think he—”

  “Jerks off a lot? Hell yes, he does,” she slurs. “Stupid, sexy boy.”

  I look over at her, seeing she is clearly buzzing and crushing on the band, the entire band.

  She looks at me. “They’re all dirty pigs.” The P in pigs is way over-pronounced.

  At that, I laugh, and she rewinds it.

  Three more times and we are singing along with the lyrics. Four more times and I am using my fingers, tapping along with his beat. Five more times and another bottle of wine goes back and forth between two friends. Then I pull up Tink’s picture, and somehow, someway, I push send.

  “Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” I exclaim and throw the phone down.

  “What does all that shit mean?” Natasha asks, her voice thick from the amount of wine we have consumed.

  “It means you are a horrible babysitter. I sent him the picture of Tink!”

  “No,” she gasps.

  “Yes!” I curl up into a ball.

  She grabs my phone. “You are so fucking lucky.”

  I snatch the phone away. “Why?”

  “It didn’t go through. Now make sure you don’t try again.”

  I can’t get her fucking face, her fuck
ing image, the sound of her moans and cries out of my head. Hands down, it was the best piece of ass I have ever had: spank bank numero uno, a Christ heist, an ass that’s defiantly been sitting in sugar, fucking ultimate onion. It almost brings me to tears to think about not having it again … almost.

  That shit is done. She’s lucky, too, because sometimes, you like someone enough to leave them alone. She will be just fucking fine.

  I have been sober now for four days. I haven’t touched shit except a cigarette, a couple of beers, and my cock. So the high I am depending on is relaxation, relationship mending between me and my band, and the release I find in the shower.

  “Fuck,” I hiss as I jack myself faster and tighten my hold on my cock. I lean my head on my forearm that’s against the shower wall as the water beats down on me. I close my eyes as I feel the slight tinge of pain that comes before I unload, and my cum hits the shower wall. “Fuck!”

  I get out, grab a towel, and I’m ready for a fucking nap, not the circus tonight promises to bring.

  “One down,” I tell myself, drying off my dick. “Now to continue mending fences.”

  I convinced myself that it’s Momma Joe's fault. Yeah, that’s what I call her now, and she calls me son.

  I get dressed in shorts and a sweatshirt, because even though we are going to be faking summer tonight, it’s a bit nippley here.

  As I jog down the stairs, I hear the sound of the snare. Someone is beating the drums. I stop at the end of the stairs, immediately recognizing the beat.

  “ ‘Voodoo’ by Godsmack,” I say as I walk in and see Xavier beating the hell out of the drums, baby Patrick attached to him in one of those baby carrying things, holding my sticks.

  Xavier stops playing and looks at me as he stands up. “Wanna play something for me?”

  I shrug. “I’m better than you.”

  He laughs. “You think so? Try doing it with a kid attached to you, smartass.”

  “You gonna let me wear the kid?”

  He looks at me, studying me. I made a deal with his wife, or more accurately, she said a long time ago that I couldn’t hold him if I wasn’t sober. I know he’s thinking about that now.

  “Yeah.” He unsnaps the contraption and takes Patrick out, then starts to hand him off to me, but stops. “Don’t fucking drop him.”

  I nod and take him.

  “Bang-bang,” Patrick says, grabbing my face.

  “So they’ve been talking about me behind my back, huh, little guy?” I laugh, which makes him laugh, too. “Little guy, I’m kind of digging you right now.”

  Taelyn comes in and stops dead in her tracks. She smiles when I wink at her.

  “This kid here is tits, T. Can you imagine the one we’d have?” I remark, looking at X-man.

  “You’re only standing because my son is in your hands,” Xavier growls at me.

  “I know, man. I know.”

  Xavier hooks me up in the baby BDSM gear, then puts Patrick in. It feels fucked up, yet pretty cool. Then I sit at the drums with a kid attached to me and tap in while he swings my sticks around as he laughs when he makes contact with anything, including my head.

  When Finn walks in, the song changes. I start beating to “Moby Dick” by Led Zeppelin. Fucking flawless.

  He grabs the bass, X-man grabs the acoustic, and it’s on.

  The drum solo rolls around, and my ass leaves the seat. “Hang tight, little guy.”

  Lost in my head, feeling good, I close my eyes and feel the beat all the way to my soul.

  “You ready to fuck shit up?” I ask Patrick when the song ends.

  “Bang-bang!”

  “All day long, buddy. Think blues riff on crack. This song is for your momma and Momma Joe.”

  He giggles.

  “Kid, if you keep laughing at me, I’m gonna have to keep you. Now let’s beat it in.”

  I start with a floor tom riff. Right, left, right, left, over and over again until my wrist gets loose, and my drums sound like a V8 engine revving up.

  “Now we add the double bass, swing-shuffle pattern, tom accents, and I’m done, bud. Hope you got that. It’s a go,” I instruct little man.

  I’m lost in the beat with a kid laughing and whacking me in the head to his own beat, and everyone joins in. We’re now playing “Surface to Soul,” and I swear he’s cooking something in his diapers.

  I stop playing and point to Taelyn. “Something’s brewing, Momma Steel.”

  She laughs as she walks over, unhooks him, and lifts him up.

  Little man is not happy.

  “Bang-bang!”

  “I know, buddy, but your dad would be pissed.”

  “You aren’t holding my kid anymore, River.” He scowls.

  I see Noah, Sonya’s boy, standing beside her, looking at me.

  “You wanna give it a try?”

  Finn leans over and whispers, “He’s got some hearing issues.”

  “Perfect. I’ve got some issues myself.” I look back at Noah. “Come on, little dude.”

  He looks at his mom, who smiles and nods. “If you wanna go …” She laughs when he runs over to me. “Okay, then.”

  I wink at Xavier. “Safe again.”

  “This time, asshole.”

  “Xavier Steel, watch your mouth,” Momma Joe scolds him.

  “But he said—”

  “I heard nothing.” She turns and gives me a wink.

  I look back at Xavier, who scowls.

  “Noah, you know how to stick your tongue out at someone?”

  He grins and nods.

  “Do it to Xavier. He loves it.”

  After an hour of fucking around, I am sweating, and so is Noah. The kid’s on me, shirtless, just swinging the sticks and beating the piss out of the drums.

  “Lunch is ready,” Momma Joe yells to us.

  I love that chick.

  *****

  The place looks amazing. It’s fucking made in Hollywood, so of course it does, and I am riding the hell out of this high. My wrist is feeling better than ever—must be all the “therapy.” I have been “working” it a lot the past few days.

  My thoughts immediately go to her.

  She’s strong.

  I sit at the drums, making sure whoever set them up knew what the fuck they were doing. That’s one thing I should love, but I don’t —having someone setting up my drums since it takes a hell of a lot of time. It’s always been a part of the buildup, foreplay if you will.

  I look around at all the tits covered in triangles—all probably surgically enhanced—and none are as nice as hers. It’s the same with the bikini bottoms: scraps of material, covering asses that my fingers would hit the bone of before I got a good, firm grip on them.

  One could consider it a fantasy feast to every wannabe rock star out there. But me, it’s pathetic. When I sit down to eat, I want, at the very least, a queen cut prime rib in front of me, not a half-eaten fucking chicken wing.

  “You good?” Finn asks, throwing his strap around his shoulder.

  “I’m better than good.” I take a swig of my water and tap us in.

  When we finish doing “Surface to Soul” three fucking times, pretending each time is the first for the sake of the camera, I stand up and scan the crowd.

  “Looking for ass?” Memphis nudges me.

  “You know I am.” I wink, then walk to the bar.

  “Give me a Jack and Coke on the rocks, but hold the Coke,” I say to one of the tuxedo-wearing men behind the bar.

  She jumps up like a fucking Jack in the Box, and I jump back, startled, holding my hand to my chest.

  “Momma Joe, where the hell did you come from?”

  She laughs. “I am everywhere.”

  “Just wanted a drink.”

  “Hold the Coke. I heard you.” She pats my shoulder. “That’s a good choice, but holding the Jack would be good, too.”

  I shake my head and look around. “Momma Joe, easy on me.”

  I about die when I see an all too familiar
face. Fuck, I even rub my eyes because that face is one I haven’t seen in eight to ten years, the only time since he fucking left us. I went to him. No fucking clue why or when; I was way too fucked up back then.

  “How the fuck …?”

  “Your father?” Momma Joe asks.

  “Yeah, he’s definitely the fuck.”

  She doesn’t laugh.

  “Who let him in?” I ask as I see him spot me.

  I turn my back, hoping I am wrong.

  “He called yesterday; the producers told me today. Is everything okay?”

  I don’t want a scene, and no one can make that fucker walk away faster than my mom and me. I can deal with it.

  I pick up the Jack and slam it down. “Another please.”

  “River?” Momma Joe asks.

  “Yeah, yeah, sure. It’s fine.”

  “There’s my boy!” His hand hits me hard on the back, and I turn around. “This is Suzy, my fiancée.”

  I look at Suzy. “Well, they certainly get younger and younger now, don’t they?” I chuckle darkly.

  Their expressions are priceless, he’s pissed, she looks fucking smitten.

  “River, a word?” Momma Joe asks, but I shake my head. “It wasn’t a request.”

  I look at her. She looks at me. Then I see Xavier.

  “Fuck,” I mumble as I follow her.

  “Don’t lower yourself to his standard.”

  “Not to be disrespectful, but it’s pretty safe to guess I really don’t have standards all that high.”

  “River,” she scolds.

  “I’ll be fine.” I grab her face and kiss each cheek loudly. “Thanks, Momma Joe.”

  I feel her watching me, so when I get back to … him, I push my hand out. “Been a long time.”

  “Five years.” He nods. “Last time I saw you, you borrowed a few hundred dollars and my car. Never saw the cash, but the police did return the car from the junkie you sold it to.”

  “Yeah, well, as you can see, I am doing much better now than I was back then. Thanks for checking in. I’ll write you a check for the cash I borrowed.”

  I look at Suzy, reaching my hand out to her. She goes to shake it, and I pull it to my mouth and give it a nice kiss with a little tongue action that the old dog can’t see. She sees it, feels it, too. Her nipples peak behind the white, nearly see-through gauze cover up dress she’s wearing. Her face flushes, and I release her hand.