Tough Luck (Hard Rock Roots)

by C. M. Stunich

  Turner looks down at me with so much pity in his face that the anger surges then, climbing up my spine and punching me in the chest. My heart starts to run at a feverish pace, but I still can't manage to find my feet.

  “What the fuck are you waiting for? Get out,” I growl at him and his dark brows rise. He's not used to me having much emotion. Apparently, neither am I. A migraine comes on suddenly and takes hold of me, making my skull feel like it's ready to shatter in two. I grab my head in my hands and close my eyes, listening for the sound of the door closing behind them.

  “Are you alright?” Milo asks me, and I shake my head.

  “Just what the hell is going on?” I ask, feeling the exhaustion crawl across my skin and dig its dirty fingers into my flesh. We've been friends for awhile now, this never ending fatigue and I. My depression has sapped my lifeblood and left me so vulnerable, so so vulnerable.

  I open my eyes and look up, watching as my manager takes a seat and runs a hand though his blonde hair. I usually only see him this ruffled when he's dealing with Turner's shit. Something bad must've happened. Fuck, I mean the guy came in here covered in blood with my kid in his arms. How good did I think it was going to be?

  “Ronnie, when's the last time you saw your daughter?”

  I have no idea how to answer that question, so I just stare. What a great time I chose to go straight-edge. This shit is not going to happen. I'm going to shoot up the second he walks out of this room. I know I am, and I feel like I have no choice in the matter. That's such a load of shit, I tell myself. You always have a choice.

  “What happened to her mother, Milo?” I ask because there's no other explanation. Why else would Lydia be here? Her mom hates my friggin' guts. Last time I saw her was the first time I saw Lydia, when she was nearly a year old. And it was also the time she gave me an ultimatum – move to Oregon with her and be a part of my kid's life or keep doing music and forget about ever seeing her.

  Yeah. Hate me all you want for making the choice I did. I already hate me enough as it is.

  “There are some police officers next door that would like to speak with you after we're done here.”

  “Fuck!” I turn and punch the dresser so hard my knuckles bleed. “Just spit it out, Goddamn it!”

  Milo looks away.

  “Lydia's mother, Chelsea Stark, was murdered in her Portland apartment last night. When her boyfriend came home from work, he found … a lot of blood. But not Lydia. The girl was reported missing.” Milo nibbles at his lower lip as I stare at the hideous carpeting and try to stay composed.

  This is all connected. I know it is. This … thing with Naomi and Turner … the murder of that roadie, Katie and Eric Rhineback, it's all one and the same. I don't know how, but there's no other way to explain this shit. I mean, there are coincidences in life, but this doesn't smell like one of them. This smells like bullshit. Poor Chelsea Stark. Only mistake she ever made was in climbing into bed with me. And for the life of me, I can't even remember it.

  “When I got back to my room this evening, she was sitting on my bed covered in blood. I don't know how she got there, but I called the police right away. It was Treyjan that saw me with her in the hallway. He told me she was your daughter. I honestly had no idea.”

  “How was she killed?” I ask, wondering what could've happened that would've left Lydia covered in wet blood so many hours later. Nothing good.

  “I don't know. They … they just discovered the body.”

  My head snaps up and I stare at Milo's white face.

  “What?”

  “There was no body in the apartment, just so much blood that the coroner determined it was impossible for Chelsea to have lived through the loss.” Milo clears his throat. “The body … the body is in my room.”

  “There are fucking pigs all over the hallway,” I say as I stand on my tiptoes and stare through the peephole.

  “That explains all the noise,” Honesty mumbles before turning over and starting to snore. Glad she can sleep so freely. The rest of us – or maybe just me – know what we've done. One day, I'll pay for the crimes I've committed. I just hope today's not the day. I drop back and wring my hands, wondering about the mask. If the cops search our room and find it, it's curtains for little Miss Lola. “Shit.” I turn around and start to pace, keeping my arms crossed over my chest. I suppose now's not exactly the best time to try and get rid of it. Best thing I can do is wrap it in a pair of dirty panties and hope if anyone searches my stuff, they'll be repulsed by the bloody fabric. God, you're disgusting, I chastise myself as I grab an Indecency sweater from my bag and slip it over the top of my tank.

  I wrap the mask up in the nasty knickers and shove that bitch deep as I can in my bag before kicking it under the table. It might not be a good idea to go out right now, but there's no way in hell I'm sitting here with idle hands. Oh no. Fuck that.

  “I'm going out,” I tell Honesty, but she's fast asleep and doesn't give a shit anyway.

  I slip my feet into a pair of red peep toe pumps and open the door, pretending to be surprised at all of the commotion. Heads lift and eyes turn to look at me, but nobody stops me as I step into the hallway and close the door. Two rooms down from me, I see Ronnie McGuire emerging from another room with sunken cheeks and sallow skin. He didn't look so great before, but now he looks horrid. The man's attractive, I'll admit, but the way he carries himself sort of takes away from all that. He looks in need of a good fuck and a full night's sleep.

  “Hey, you,” I call out to him. He raises his head to look at me, but it takes a minute for the light to go off in his head.

  “Lola Saints,” he says with a small half-smile. “Didn't recognize you without the shades.” He points at his face and then lets his hand drop limply by his side. I peer around him and see that the next room has police tape across the door frame. Not good.

  “What's going on out here?” I ask, moving aside to let a man with gloves pass behind me. There's a smell, like old metal, that's hanging heavy in the air. I recognize that smell, and it makes my stomach churn. Blood.

  Ronnie lets his head hang and stares at the floor. It's hard to watch him. The man doesn't have anything inside to hold him up. I don't even know him and that much is obvious to me. He's like a deflated balloon or something, drifting slowly towards the earth. There isn't even enough air left in there for a pop. Nope. A pop would be way too big of a move for Ronnie McGuire.

  He's your target. Don't let yourself get too deep in.

  “You ever heard of a baby daddy?” he asks, lifting his brown eyes to mine. When we lock gazes, my chest gets a little tight and my heart starts to flutter. I don't recognize the feeling, but I can tell it's dangerous. Whatever it is, it has to be stifled. I push it down and hold it there, waiting for the life to bleed out of it.

  “A baby daddy?” I ask skeptically. I have no idea where this conversation is going. He's an odd one, this guy is. I let my eyes trail down the hard lines of his face, examine the snake tattoos on his neck. He's got a good body. He's skinny, but there are muscles there. I can see them in the swell of his biceps when he raises his arm and drops it behind his head to scratch at his dark hair.

  “Yeah, a baby daddy. Do they have those in Australia, or is it really all just koalas and kangaroos?” I snort and try not to smile. I do not find this idiot amusing. He's just a tool. Just a tool. A step on the ladder to success.

  “Ah, well,” I say, watching a smile light his face for a split second and then fade just as fast. I don't know what's going on, but he's obviously in the middle of it all. “We've got plenty of koalas and kangaroos, but we've also got drop bears. They'll eat ya in your sleep and scoop up the leftovers for their young.” I wink at him, but he doesn't respond to the gesture. That momentary spot of light is gone, snuffed out by whatever's keeping him down in the dumps. “They especially like the taste of deadbeats and scum dogs. That's we call baby daddies back home.”

  Ronnie's sullen expression turns into an all out frown.
<
br />   “Can you send the monster my way?” he asks as he moves around me and pauses with his hand hovering over the door to another room. “Because I'm one of those useless sacks of shit, and I'm about to hit the damn fan.”

  I wrinkle my brow as I watch him standing there, halfway between hell and hades, sweat pouring down his back and soaking into the fabric of his white shirt. It's got an upside down cross on the front with the words So Sue Me. Makes me inclined to like him a bit.

  Ronnie sighs and turns to face me, pain and regret etched into his face like stone, carving his bones and flesh and turning him into a tragic painting with bright eyes I can't look away from. He's consuming me, dragging me down and wrapping me up in his emotions. Goose bumps break out across my skin and my breath catches in my throat. What in the fuck is wrong with me?

  He leans his back against the door and bends over, putting his hands on the thighs of his holey jeans.

  “My daughter is here,” he whispers, and I can't help taking a step back in shock. Daughter? She's already here? This is already happening? I'm guessing this is what Mr. Rutledge really wanted to talk to me about. His gaze flicks straight up back to mine and cuts through me, making me shiver and sending my body into a push and pull sort of a state where my head says one thing and my down under says another. This changes everything. “My daughter is here, and I haven't seen her in two years. She's here and her fucking mother is dead. The Goddamn body was in that room. My baby was in that room with her dead mom.”

  My eyes get big, almost as big as those stupid sunglasses I was wearing earlier. My head snaps around and I can't seem to stop staring at the police tape and the people coming and going from the room. Blood. Copper tang on my tongue. Just like that night. It's the same as that night. I resist the urge to clamp my hands over my ears and start screaming. I look back at Ronnie. There are tears in his eyes now, clinging to him and refusing to fall. It's like he's holding all of this pain and sadness inside of himself, weighing his body down with negativity. I just want to shake him. And maybe pash the shit out of him, too. Yep, there's definitely something wrong with me.

  “I don't know what to do with her. I don't even know her.” He lifts his head and looks at me like he thinks I could help him, like somehow I know something he doesn't. Which, unfortunately, is actually true. He stands up suddenly and touches a hand to his chest. It's covered in ink, words I can't read and little purple hearts. Broken hearts. Four of them to be exact. “She's mine now. Mine.” He points at his chest. “How am I supposed to be worth something to her when I don't even mean anything to myself?”

  “That's the problem then,” I tell him, feeling myself solidifying even as I watch him fall apart. “If you don't love yourself,” I shrug. “You're pretty much fucked. Chin up and you'll get through it.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cohen step into the hallway. When he sees the cops, he freezes up and looks at me like I'm the culprit, like I called them all here just to spite him. I flip him off and reach forward, taking one of Ronnie's big biceps in my hand. Warmth prickles between us, flickering from his flesh into mine. Our eyes meet and my mouth gets dry. Can't say the same thing about my cunt. “Look, if you go in there like this, you're only sabotaging yourself. Let's get out of here for a little while. Your girl will be here when you come back.”

  Cohen stays where he is and watches us. I know if he thinks I'm working, he'll leave me alone. Good thing, too, because I'd hate to cut his nuts off in front of the cops.

  I tug on Ronnie's arm, but he doesn't move. He stands stone still and stares at me like he isn't sure what to make of me. Smart guy. If I'm anything, it's trouble. But at the same time, I can't leave him here like this, and I sure as hell can't let him go in there. His mood is palpable, and it sits in the air like poison. I don't know his daughter or what she already thinks of him, but a poisonous parent can taint a child. I should know. My white trash bitch of a mother showed me that firsthand.

  I don't let my mind remind me what I'm supposed to be doing with Ronnie. I'm not supposed to be lifting him up and taking care of him. My job is to bring him down, destroy him from the inside out. I'll start tomorrow, I promise as I push aside the mixed feelings. Just a few weeks ago, I went down on him in a fuckin' closet. The man doesn't even remember it. I told myself then that this would be easy, that I could take him down without a second thought. I'm not so sure anymore, and we've only just properly met. Not good.

  “Come on. I promise it'll be good for you. Just a little walk around the block. That's it. No strings attached.” Ronnie doesn't say anything, but he stumbles forward and lets me pull him against my side. Near the staircase, there's a pair of cops, but I'm not worried anymore. It's obvious why they're here now, and it has nothing to do with me. Well, not exactly. Might as well get this over with.

  I pause in front of them and smile, pulling a pass out of my pocket that has my picture and information on it. Before they can even open their mouths to speak, I cut right to the chase.

  “Name's Lola Saints, and I swear on the tits of Mother Mary that I didn't kill anybody.”

  The shocked expressions on their faces aren't enough to keep my mind from correcting me.

  Not tonight, it reminds me. You didn't kill anybody tonight.

  Ronnie is pliable and limp as I drag him down the stairs, past the spilled vodka bottle, and through the lobby. The night air feels cool in comparison to the stuffy hotel, and the sky is reasonably clear. You'd never know a fucking devil had swooped through here and decimated our buses just a few days ago. And then there was that thing with that girl, Katie. I shiver.

  “You look like you're about to pass out. Take a breather, will ya?” I tell him, wishing he'd give me some sign of life in those dead eyes. They're dark and swimming with negativity. I can tell he's not living in the here and now. He's somewhere else altogether. My job is supposed to be to keep him there, force him down into the depths of pain and let him impale himself on his own tragedy. Instead, I get the urge to pull him back.

  Before I can stop myself, I'm spinning around in front of him and bumping the toes of my shoes against his, clutching his shirt in two grasping hands and pressing our mouths together. I'm not shy with my tongue, forcing it between his lips and tasting all of that melancholy and anguish. At first it's like kissing a fireplace hearth, all old ash and extinguished flames, but just as I'm about to pull away, I see a spark. It's small at first, burning deep within him, taking over his lips and scorching me with brilliant heat.

  Ronnie's hands come up and find my ass. He doesn't start off with small talk either. He goes straight for the gold, grabbing and caressing my flesh with greedy hands. Careful, Lola, or you might get burned. I push up against him, struggling to stay on my tiptoes so our faces can stay somewhat even. I kind of want to climb his ass like Godzilla on top of the Empire State Building, just get all up in there and find my perch. Ronnie responds to my scrambling by lifting me up by the cheeks and slamming my back into the metal pole of a street sign.

  “Oi, watch yourself, fuckface,” I growl out, but the small ache in my spine is nothing compared to the raging burn that's coming up from below. What the hell are you playing at, bitch? This is not what you're supposed to be doing. I hear my logical self screaming at me from the back of my mind, but I don't pay it any never mind. What I am supposed to do anyway? A forest fire's just caught in a dry bush. I could put it out, but it'd take a lot of effort. It's easier just to let it burn.

  I wrap my legs around Ronnie and grind my naughty place right up against his. He's hard and ready to fuck me right here on a street against a fucking stop sign. I can't help the grin that pulls across my face. Hey, I'm proud of myself, alright. The guy went from a sad sack to a raging horn ball in just a few short minutes. Good for me. Guess I've still got it.

  Ronnie pulls back suddenly and blinks a few times like he's waking up from a drunken stupor something.

  “You alright?” I ask him, fully prepared to go at it right there on the sidewalk. Hey, I already admitt
ed I was little fucked in the head, alright? What other proof do you need?

  “I can't do this right now,” he says, letting those dark clouds slide back across his eyes. “My daughter … she … ” I give him a peck on the check and push him back. He lets me slide to the pavement, and I hit the ground with a sharp clack of my heels.

  “Hey, I said no strings attached,” I tell him, putting my hands on my hips and doing my best to smile. I examine the stubble on Ronnie's face and neck, the dark shadows under his eyes. I may not have cured him, but even a second of reprieve from all of that darkness has to be a good thing, right? My pussy isn't happy though, and it's swearing up and down that I oughta kick this man's ass and be done with it. “Told ya I'd make you feel better, didn't I?” He smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. Instead, he tugs on the black plug in his ear and sucks in a massive breath.

  “My daughter needs me,” he says, and then pauses. A harsh laugh slithers from his throat as he turns back towards the hotel, letting his gaze sweep up the sides of the building like he can see through the walls. “Or I mean, she will, as soon as she realizes Turner isn't me.” He looks over his shoulder at me. I hope I look like I'm in control of myself because I don't feel like I am. My heart is flip-flopping like a fish out of water and my brain feels about as organized as a pan of scrambled eggs, burnt ones. This man is my target. My job is to get rid of him to make room for us, bulldoze Indecency for Ice and Glass. When I left Giru, I had a dream, and for a while there, I didn't think I could make it happen. When Mr. Rutledge showed up, he gave me a chance and I jumped at it. It shouldn't be so easy for me to question my luck, to even consider rendering everything I've done and all I've been through null and void.

  But I am.

  The question here is why. Just because he's a friggin' sperm donor? He doesn't even know his kid, but the look of eagerness on his face, that stark sense of desperation. That's what it is. It has to be. That and this weird churning I get in my stomach when I look at him. Something about Ronnie McGuire makes me want to put on my big girl panties and kick some ass. I want to hold him in my arms and kiss away the ghosts I can see cutting through his heart. And believe me when I tell you I have never felt this way about anyone before. Not once. Bless his horrid little heart, I think I've got a crush.