“What?” I snap as I answer it, crawling into my bunk, so I can at least pretend to have some privacy. A harsh chuckle slithers through the speaker and fucks my ear.
“Hey there,” he says, like we're old friends. “Glad to see that you're finally up and at 'em.”
“Fuck you.” I hang up and toss the phone down, knowing full well that when he calls me back, that I'll pick it up. Fifteen minutes pass. A half hour. Two.
When I fall asleep, I fall asleep dreaming of Turner soaked in blood.
Two secrets wrapped up in one and both ready to destroy me at the same time.
Great.
I spend all day on the bus smoking weed and jacking off. I have to. Otherwise, my mind gets all wrapped up on Naomi fucking Knox. I'm so zoned into her right now that I didn't even take advantage of the girls waiting outside the door last night. They were all grayscale while Naomi was in full fucking technicolor.
Oh baby, you can bet your sweet ass I'm not giving up on you, I think as I stroke my cock to her image and lean my head back against the wall behind me. Any girl that can sour hot pussy for me is worth chasing. I bring up the memory of our foreheads pressed together and the sweat rolling down between her breasts and blow my load into my hand, tossing it into the sink and washing it away before I get pissed again. Can't help it. My mood is night and day right now. One minute, I'm wanting to worship the ground she stands on, and the next, I want to destroy her.
She obviously doesn't like me, doesn't even respect me. But why? I comb my brain for that flickering punch of memory and can't find it.
“Fuck,” I snarl as I kick open the bathroom door and stalk to the front of the bus. Nobody talks to me right now; they all know better. I rip the charger out of my phone and call Knox back. When she answers, her voice is groggy and far away, soft. My hard-on springs back with a vengeance, pitching a big ass tent right there for Josh to ogle. He rolls his eyes and turns away in the captain's chair, focusing his gaze out the front window.
“Hello?”
“You gonna stop hanging up on me, so we can talk?” She pauses, and I swear to Christ, I can hear gears in her head clicking as she realizes it's me on the phone. Man, she must be pretty tired if it took her this long to get that.
“What do we have to talk about?” she asks me, and I can hear blankets rustling. I wonder if she's masturbated to me yet. If she hasn't, she will. They always do. Even if this one's different? my mind asks me. I'm too distracted to pay it much attention.
“Well, you never showed up for drinks last night. I was worried about you.”
“Bullshit,” she says, but her voice lacks any conviction, like she's too tired to even give me that emotion.
“And you owe me an explanation.”
“Oh? Do I?” Naomi says sarcastically, and my fist clenches hard at my side.
“You asked me if I sent it. Sent what?”
“Go to hell, Turner.” The phone crackles, and I think she's about to drop me again, so I speak quick. She needs to know that I know she has secrets. I could tell that from the moment I met her. It's a special trick of mine. I spent my whole life around people with dirty, little deeds to hide, so I consider myself an expert.
“Listen, babe,” I say to her, wanting to make this pretty fucking clear. “I know we've met before. I may not remember when or where yet, but I will. You can bet on it.” I pause and listen to her breathing for a moment. “And if it's one of those little secrets you want kept, come find me before I spill it.”
This time, it's my turn to hang up on her.
I clench my hand around the phone and drop it from my ear, noticing as I start to turn around that Josh is glaring at me again. Maybe he doesn't like the way I talked to Naomi. So what? He doesn't know that I'm just fucking with her. I'd never tell, no matter what it was. I may not have any secrets of my own, but I sure as shit know how to keep them. And let's be honest – most secrets are better left buried.
Phoenix is hot as fuck. No wonder I've never come here before. As soon as I step off the bus, sweat starts to pool on my lower back, and my head swims in the heat. It's the middle of the night for crying out loud, and the desert is still baking the shit out of this city.
I wipe my hand across my forehead and get out a cigarette, lighting it up before I start across the parking lot and catch a glimpse of Naomi moving across the pavement with a purpose in mind. She keeps looking over her shoulder like she expects something to leap out at her.
A grin spreads across my face.
I toss my cig down and hurry forward, cutting through the bushes and heading her off before she comes out the other side. When I step out at her, she doesn't scream, doesn't even flinch, just glares at me with her orange-brown eyes for a moment before taking out her shades and slipping them on her face. It's dark out, so that means she's trying to hide from me.
My grin gets bigger.
“Hey there, in a hurry?”
Naomi ignores me and moves off into the darkness, blonde hair catching light from the street lamps and glowing as she moves between pools of brightness. Angel, devil, angel, devil. That's what she looks like as she crosses between light and dark. I follow a few steps behind her.
At the next intersection, she pauses and turns to look at me.
“Stalking is an actual crime, you know.”
I shrug.
“Yeah, but walking to the gas station isn't. I can't help it if we're going to the same place.” She continues to stare at me, and then turns away, letting smoke trail from her lips in a gray cloud and curl up and into her nostrils.
“What the hell do you want from me? You want to fuck me, is that it?”
I think about that for a minute and run my hand through my hair. That's a good question. What do I want with this girl? Even I don't know the answer to that.
“At first, I kind of wanted to punch you in the face,” I admit. Turner Campbell doesn't keep secrets of his own, not even little ones. Learned my lesson by watching the people around me fuck up royally, eaten alive from the inside. Stupid ass motherfuckers. Once it becomes a secret, it's hard to let it out. If you don't keep it inside to begin with, it doesn't get the chance to fester and rot. So, honesty is my policy. If it makes me a dick, so be it. “But now, yeah, I'd kinda like to fuck you.”
“As long as you promise not to leave me half-naked with my panties down around my ankles,” Naomi says with a sarcastic smile, and then starts across the street. I follow after her and flip off a trucker who honks at us when the light turns green.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask her as I catch up and watch as she rolls her eyes at me. Naomi pauses at the island of cement in the center of the road and turns to face me with raised brows.
“Wow. You don't even remember that girl, do you?” she asks, sounding disgusted. I look her up and down, take in her white wife beater, her black jeans and the high heels she's got on. Fuck me. If I don't scratch this itch soon, I'm gonna have the bluest balls in the fucking country.
“That roadie chick? Yeah, I remember her. I'm not always shit faced, you know? I do have moments of clarity.” I flick myself in the head and run my tongue over my lips, letting her take in the stud and pretend she isn't interested. From what I gathered onstage last night, she wants me just as hard as I want her. She just doesn't know it yet. See, that's the fucking problem with keeping secrets. Once you've got a few, you get so addicted that you even start keeping them from yourself. Poor Knox. Good thing she's got me to liberate her. “Somebody walked in on us. Despite what you might've heard, I don't really like to have an audience.”
Naomi's harsh laugh echoes through the darkness as she swipes off her shades and starts walking backward without even looking for traffic. It's a ballsy move, stupid, too. Fuck, I really do like this girl.
“You stupid, motherfucking, piece of shit asshole,” she says as she sticks the sunglasses in her pocket and turns away from me, blonde hair whipping around in the hot, dry air. I take a deep breath and watch after
her, feeling that anger boiling inside of me again. Something about her just pisses me off at the same time it gets me off. Jesus Christ.
“What?” I ask, throwing my hands up in the air. Naomi Knox is strange as fuck. I thought I was an expert on women, but this one is out of my range of knowledge. “What the fuck is it now?”
“That person that walked in on you,” she begins, stopping on the sidewalk and turning back to face me with a crooked smile, one that's sinfully wicked. “That was me, and I wasn't impressed.”
Aw, fuck me.
I start to move across the road after her and nearly get killed by a fucking semi carrying logs. Dirt and grit sting my eyes and push me back to the sidewalk as my heart frantically tries to explode from my chest. When I finally recover, Naomi's gone.
I'll admit, seeing Turner almost get turned into hamburger meat really fucked with me. There was this second there where I really thought he was going to die, and I was mad at myself for not telling him. Yeah, the emotion was premature and stupid as shit, but now I know that at some point, I have to hunt the devil down and tell him what he put me through. I've been dragging this shit around for far too long, and it's getting old. If I'm ever going to escape really and truly, I've got to dig up my dirt and bury him in it, too.
I buy my cigs from the gas station and take them back to the bus where I search out Wren and score some coke off of him. It's not normally my drug of choice, but he's got plenty to go around and I need something to keep me up. Sleeping equals dreaming and right now, I've got nightmares in spades. Besides, a cocaine high sounds real good right now. I can tweak all over my guitar, blow some minds with my music. I play really good when I'm high.
I lay out white lines on the table in the front and snort them in quick succession. Wren watches me from the doorway and crosses his arms over his chest. He looks pretty hot tonight, dressed in a black tank and a pair of tight as fuck jeans. He doesn't have any shoes on either, which is a kind of a thing for me. Only problem is I hate him. Too bad because I'm horny as hell right now. I try not to admit to myself that it's all because of Turner.
“You want to talk about something?” he asks me, but I sure as shit don't. Not yet. I want to get high first. I lean back and rest my head on the seat behind me, waiting for the drugs to take over and give me courage, euphoria, confidence. It'll do all that, you know? Yeah, it could kill me, and yes, it's stupid as hell, but I do it anyway. I'm not right in the head, never have been. That's a problem of mine, one that I intend to work on at some point. I wonder briefly if I'd had real parents, if things would've been different. If, instead of being shuffled from home to home, I could've lived in one place, how I might've turned out.
I open my eyes and sit up, brushing the thoughts away like cobwebs. Introspection never helps; it only gets me more tangled up in my shit.
“Want to make out?” I ask Wren, studying his strong face, his stubbly jaw and then watching as he pulls his lip down with his middle finger and flashes me the tattoo there. Fuck Yeah, it reads. I scoot over and wait for him to join me, putting a hand on his chest before we start anything. “I don't want to screw though,” I tell him seriously. “Got it?” Wren just shrugs and wraps his arms around me, pressing his mouth to mine. I tangle my tongue with his and try not to imagine what Turner Campbell is doing right now, if he's dipping his dick into hot, wet heat and thinking of me.
Naomi, seriously? Why are you even going there?
I scoot onto Wren's lap and press the hard bulge in his pants against my crotch.
It's fun for awhile, until Hayden comes back, panting hard, face as white as a sheet. Wren and I both turn to glare at her.
“Naomi,” she pants, cheeks as pink as the top she's got on. It's got friggin' Rainbow Dash on the front. Like, who the fuck over the age of ten wears a My Little Pony on their clothing?
“What?” I snarl at her as I shove Wren back and stand up. Whatever it was that I was looking for in him, I'm not finding. I wonder if I should just fuck him, but I don't know if that'll help. If I'm honest with myself, I'm still carrying a big ass torch for Turner Campbell, one that I thought had gone out long ago. Guess it just got relit.
Apparently, Hayden doesn't like my tone and proceeds to rip into me.
“Hey, you stupid bitch, either come with me or not. If you don't, maybe I'll forget our little agreement and call the cops in Tulsa with an anonymous tip. Think the guy you stabbed last month will testify to your penchant for violence?”
I grab my jacket off the hook near the door and tear out of the bus on Hayden's heels, wishing I could just reach out and strangle her with her hair. She leads me around to the other side of the bus and down to the trailer that we tow behind it with our equipment inside.
I light a cigarette as we go, one that quickly gets forgotten when I see what Hayden wants to show me. The lit cherry tumbles through the dry darkness and hits the dirt at my feet.
On the side of the trailer, there's a message written in blood. Like a scene in a bad horror film, the headless body of a dead bird lies on the ground beside the wheel.
“Oh shit.”
Thank God we don't have a show tonight.
After what I saw, my hands are shaking so bad, I can hardly bring the cup of water to my lips for a drink. Or maybe that's from the coke I snorted. Not sure which.
“Are you sure you don't want to call the cops?” Dax asks, hovering above me and Hayden like an overprotective brother. He likes to think he's one of the responsible ones in the group. Not true. The only truly responsible one of all of us is America.
“No, it's fine,” she snaps at him as she paces back and forth, hands tucked into the pockets of her navy suit coat, bits of stray hair poking out of her slicked back bun. She looks frazzled which is pretty impressive. It's the first time I've ever seen her like that. “Spencer's probably already washed it off anyway.” America pauses and looks down at Hayden and me.
The bloody words flip through my head on a continuous loop.
Hayden knows Naomi's truth. Keep your fucking mouths shut.
“You have no clue who might've done this?” she asks in a very severe tone, one that brings tears to Hayden's blue eyes. God, I can't stand that bitch. At least she isn't blaming me for this shit. “Like, is there someone you might've told something to?” she asks, stressing the word for Hayden's benefit. Unfortunately, since Dax is standing there, she can't be anymore obvious, but I wish she could be. There's at least a fifty/fifty chance that Hayden isn't going to understand what America's trying to get at.
“Not a fucking soul,” I say, and Hayden just shakes her head. Neither of us believes her, I don't think, but there isn't anything we can do about it, so I just walk away and try not to dwell on the idea that somebody just decapitated a bird (or judging from the amount of blood, probably three or four) and used its life force to write a threatening message. At least now I know I have a stalker of some sort.
Awesome.
I leave the bus, even as America shouts at me to get my ass back there and get ready to take care of something I should've taken care of a long time ago. The adrenaline from the message and the coke are melding together to make for one pretty amazing trip. I feel like a Titan as I storm through the camp and pause outside of Indecency's bus.
The bodyguard just stares at me like I'm an idiot.
“I'm here to see Turner Campbell,” I tell him, which he's probably heard a thousand times before. The man, who's as big as an ox and twice as wide, folds his arms across his chest and sighs.
“He isn't here,” he tells me and then shakes his head, continuing on before I get the chance to start an argument. I'm kinda glad because my fights never end well. Last month, I stabbed a rabid fan in the stomach with a fucking hunting knife. Thankfully, the charges were dropped, but I have to be more careful than that. Another incident could bring everything crashing down around my fucking head, and if I go to prison, I'm hanging myself with my sheets. I won't survive in there. “But he did tell me to expect you, so
if you'd like to go up and wait, that'll be fine with me. I just have to pat you down for weapons first.”
I stare at the man like he's fucking insane.
Expecting me?
Turner was expecting me?
That son of a bitch.
My blood goes hot and my heart cold.
“Thanks.” I force the word out through tight lips and spin away on my heel, moving across the dirt in the direction of the gas station when a voice calls out behind me.
“Naomi?”
I turn around and find a blonde in dark washed jeans and a red T-shirt. I don't know his name, but I know he plays bass in Turner's band. He's standing on the bottom step of the bus and holding the screen open with one hand. In the other, he has a book. I trust him right away.
I take a step forward.
“Yeah?”
The man smiles.
“Hey, I know you don't know me, but my name is Joshua Drake. I was wondering if I could talk to you for just a sec? It's about Turner.”
A smile stretches hard across my lips, and I head for the door of the bus with a very specific purpose in mind – pissing off Turner Campbell.
I fuck around the city for awhile, hitting up a few bars and stumbling half-drunk back to the parking lot where the buses are parked for the night. I find a lot of girls that night, but I turn them all down. Cannot stop thinking about Naomi Knox.
That was her? I wonder for the hundredth time. I'm still having a hard time believing she was the one that walked in on me fucking that roadie. Was that when we first met? Is that why she hates me? Nah. Well, maybe a little. But that isn't it. There's something else, something more.
When I hit the bus, I pause next to our bodyguard – can't remember his name for shit – and squint at him with tired eyes.
“Naomi stop by for me?” I ask, and the man smirks. Makes me want to hit him in the fucking face. Who the fuck does he think he is? “What's your problem, man?” I growl when he just stares at me. He doesn't speak, doesn't bother to answer my question, and I swear on my fucking cock that I'm about to fire his ass when I hear moans emanating out from the bus. Normally, I'd just ignore that shit, but the look on the bodyguard's face tells me that there's something else going on here.
Real Ugly Page 6