On the Road: (Vagabonds Book 2) (New Adult Rock Star Romance)

by Jamison, Jade C.

  It was so damned intense, I finally begged him to stop, but only after I rode the wave as long as I could.

  Soon after, he started making his way back up the bed and I heard something. Before I could ask Dog if he heard what I was hearing, I realized it had to be Vicki—masturbating. Apparently, she had come back to our room sometime during the night and our lovemaking had turned her on.

  But as I heard the moan as she gave into her orgasm, I realized it wasn’t Vicki—it was our blonde vocalist. “Barbie, what the hell?”

  She let out a last groan and said, “God. You guys made me so fucking hot. I couldn’t help myself.”

  “No. I mean what are you doing in here?”

  “Liz was being a douche, so Vicki gave me her room card. She’s with Andrew anyway.”

  Dog finally said, “What the hell’s she doin’ with that guy?”

  “Oh, my God. Is that Bad Dog?” The light switch flipped on, flooding us in beams from the lamp between the bed that were way too bright and started my head pounding. Add to that, while Dog was wearing jeans, I was completely naked. “Nice tits, Kyle. Why have I never seen your tits before?”

  “Shut the fuck up and turn off the light, Barbie.”

  She licked her index and middle fingers before flipping me off. “Don’t mind if I do.”

  * * *

  After that, Dog and I had an unspoken agreement that we were friends with benefits. Only that wasn’t completely true. He was my FWB, but he never, not once, assumed that we were girlfriend/ boyfriend, nor did he make the leap that I was there for him. I suppose I would have been had he asked, but it was nice that he didn’t. It was good for me to be able to play the field but have someone comfortable and comforting if and when I needed it.

  Again, that was part of the whole not-shitting-where-you-eat saying, because it could lead to resentment on his part.

  But we fucked at least once a week, and he seemed pretty satisfied with that. TT was also kind enough to give us space when we needed it, so it worked out pretty well.

  But while my relationship with Dog was fine, my band was another story completely. I don’t know why our patience was wearing thin, but we girls started arguing more and more. Barbie started competing against everyone for the hottest “boy groupie” in the room at our parties, instead of focusing on the guys obviously interested in her. She’d go after girls once in a while too, just so Liz was included in all the pain Barbie liked to dish out.

  But she was starting to annoy the shit out of all of us. Whenever she could, she liked to tell us that the band wouldn’t be the same without her—and then one time in a drunken moment, she proceeded to inform us that she was carrying the band. Liz told her to fuck off and stormed out of the room. From then on, she didn’t speak to or look at Barbie. She didn’t even acknowledge her. If she had to talk about her, she simply called Barbie “the vocalist.”

  We knew who she was talking about—and it was starting to piss Barbie off.

  It was almost spring that March, and we were in Florida. Barbie had started partying shortly after noon that day. Why, I wasn’t sure, but she did say she was tired of us “stick-in-the-mud bitches.” I supposed it was no worse than Vicki constantly shooting up. And that was something else that was wearing thin—Vicki failed to keep her promise. She not only hadn’t cut back, but she seemed to be constantly high anymore. If I even hinted at being worried, she’d say, “I’m pain free, sister.” She knew how to effectively shut me up.

  But that day, Barbie was in fine form. She had been picking on Kelly lately, maybe because Kelly hadn’t been fighting back. Today, though, the girl had had it and was giving it to Barbie as good as she was getting it. So Barbie was knocking back the drinks one at a time. When we got in the van to head to the venue, Liz said, “Peter, I think you might need to induce vomiting in our vocalist, because she’s likely to get alcohol poisoning.”

  “Don’t be an alarmist, Ms. Mayerson.” He looked in the mirror attached to his visor. Barbie’s head was lolling and she seemed really out of it. Liz might have had a point. “Ms. Bennett, how are you feeling?”

  Barbie popped her head up and the movement was exaggerated, snapping her neck to attention as if she were a private in the Army and her sergeant was getting ready to tell her to give him twenty if she didn’t straighten up immediately. “I feel great,” she insisted, but her words were slurred. She was the only person in that van who thought she was fine.

  Oh, I don’t think Peter thought she was okay either, but he wasn’t going to back down now. Heaven forbid he not be right all the damn time.

  So I and my fellow non-Barbie Vagabonds zipped our lips. We weren’t going to win this battle, so we just had to cross our fingers and hope for the best.

  But I had my doubts.

  Barbie actually fell asleep at the venue while we waited to go on. The four of us decided it might be best to let her snooze until it got closer and so we didn’t wake her up until about five minutes before we got on stage.

  “What the fuck, you guys? Why didn’t you wake me up?” She lifted herself out of the chair and tried storming across the room, but her body betrayed her. She was blitzed out of her mind.

  She was getting in her bag when Liz said, “We just did.” I sensed that she was so angry, she wanted to say more, but she kept it contained. Barbie pulled a can of beer out of her bag and popped the tab.

  “Bad idea,” I said.

  “Fuck off, Kyle.”

  I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “No, Barbie, you fuck off. We have to be onstage in five minutes, and you’re already so wasted, you can’t even keep your eyes open.”

  “I am fine,” she said and started singing “Dream World” before guzzling half the can. I looked at Liz and saw the fear in her eyes that I was sure she could see in mine. This was a recipe for disaster if there ever was one. Barbie sounded like shit, but she was at least keeping in tune. Maybe being in front of the mike and an audience of hundreds would help her sober up.

  Less than ten minutes later, we were in front of a huge crowd—and I was nervous as hell. Barbie might have looked okay to the folks who bought the tickets, but I and my bandmates could tell she was completely fubar. She started out by grabbing for the mike, and her hand didn’t obey her, instead slapping at the stand like she had a heavy piece of rubber attached her arm instead of an appendage that was supposed to help her. She missed the mark completely the second time, so the third time, she brought up both hands and held the mike between them, bringing her lips close and breathing into it, creating a loud blowing sound. She giggled, but we kept playing the intro to “Dream World,” hoping she’d jump in at some point.

  Instead, she decided she had something to say. “Hey, California.” She giggled. “Oh, fuck. I mean Florida. Sorry about that. My bad. I got you confused…but you both grow oranges and lemons, right? And you’re both hot as fuck come July.” She laughed at that point and I glanced over at Liz. My fellow guitarist was fuming. If temperature were truly a sign of anger, Liz would have caught on fire at that moment. Barbie was making Vicki look like a poster child for clean living. At least, in spite of all that girl’s indiscretions, she’d kept a beat throughout all our shows. Barbie? She was everything I’d always dreaded could happen onstage if we played too hard before show time.

  “Oh, and beaches. You have beaches. Honestly, though, I like the ones in California better.” She started laughing again, that loud, obnoxious, raucous laugh of hers that grated me down to my nerves. “Did I say that out loud? Sorry about that.” She broke into giggles again, and Kelly gave me a questioning look, as if she was wondering when the guy with the hook was going to come to pull our frontwoman offstage. Barbie lost her footing for a second but managed to upright herself before glancing back at Liz. “I guess these bitches are expecting me to sing this song—so let me join in.” She started singing the song’s first verse, but we were clearly playing the chorus. I didn’t know if we should try to match her or just storm on.

 
; Liz made the decision. She stopped playing. Well, if she was going to, then so was I—and it wasn’t long before Kelly’s low bass stopped thrumming. Vicki’s beats followed shortly thereafter. Barbie sang two more lines before turning to us and saying, “What?”

  Liz spoke, but she was away from the mike so the audience wouldn’t hear. “Barbie, we need you to focus. Is there a different song you’d rather we play?”

  Barbie snorted and then said, “Actually, yeah. Why don’t we do ‘Give It to Me, Baby’? I fucking love that song.” She turned and pointed to the audience before yelling into the mike. “And they will too!”

  Liz rolled her eyes and then looked at Vicki, nodding for our drummer friend to cue us up. In a few seconds, we were playing a new song. This song was never intended to be a single, so we’d always placed it near the end of the set. By that point, non-fans would already either love or hate us and so wouldn’t be turned off by the suggestiveness of the lyrics in that song, and fans wouldn’t care when we played any of our songs, just so long as we entertained them. But if it made Barbie focus and behave, then it would be worth it.

  But there were problems right off the bat. She started singing the second verse instead of the first. Liz was seething, but my thought was at least the girl was singing—and doing it consistently now. Sure, the meaning of the song was diluted because there had been no build up, but it wasn’t like people could understand her anyway. She sounded at times like her mouth was full of gumdrops.

  Because of her misstep, Liz mouthed the word solo to me, indicating we’d take Barbie’s cue and skip the second verse that she’d already sung. But—at about the spot where I was going to launch (and we’d already built to it)—she started singing the second verse. Again!

  Holy shit. I’d never seen Liz so furious in all my life. We fumbled but managed to get back on track, once more playing the verse. I wondered if Barbie had any idea how angry we were with her…but I knew she wasn’t—or, if she was, she just didn’t care. That, too, would have been typical.

  We managed to make it through the song but Barbie paused and asked “what the fuck” the rest of the band was doing. I thought I could hear a little fomenting dissent in the audience, and it made me nervous. The vibes were definitely not good, but Barbie, normally good at reading and leading an audience, couldn’t pick up on it because she was too damn numb.

  We stumbled, much like a drunk person, through three other songs, and Liz and I exchanged more glances. We were ready to take her offstage, because she was beginning to do us serious damage. We started getting boos and even had a couple of audience members throw plastic cups onstage. When Barbie finally realized it, she said, “Fuck off, you assholes!” She slurred then, saying, “If you’re gonna throw cups up here, they better have Budweiser in them.” All that did was draw more angry noise from the crowd. Liz shook her head and walked offstage. I didn’t blame her, but I was almost frozen in place, wondering when this train was going to crash.

  Barbie proceeded to call the audience all manner of names, ranging from motherfucking cocksuckers to cum-guzzling skanky white trash hos. Dear God in heaven, we’d be lucky to have a single fan after that. Kelly and I were yelling at Barbie to stop, and after another half a minute, the power was cut to her mike. Once the sound of her voice was muted, I could hear the drone of negativity coming from the audience. It was then that I realized Liz hadn’t just walked—she was talking to key people (who had evidently been sleeping or just didn’t give a fuck), asking them to cut off sound to Barbie’s mike and, as I saw upon Liz’s return, quietly escort our drunken friend from the stage.

  But before they could, Barbie had already taken up residence at Liz’s mike, once she’d realized that an entire minute of her rant had been wasted on her bandmates and the front two rows (who likely didn’t hear her because of the noise coming from the crowd). Barbie said, “Aw, fuck you all,” and then dropped to the stage.

  I thought she was messing around at first. Liz had Bad Dog and TT in tow (I once more wondered where our wonderful producer and manager were). We all huddled over Barbie (and I couldn’t help but notice a smattering of cheers passing through the audience) and Dog held his finger under her nose. “She’s breathing—she just passed out,” he said.

  Liz still looked pissed. “Thank heaven for small favors.”

  “We’ll take her backstage where she can sleep it off.”

  Liz’s words were firm and unmistakable. “Under no circumstances is she allowed to be back up here. Understood?”

  Dog nodded. “But we have to be here in a bit to break it down.”

  “Then find that worthless fuck Andrew to babysit.”

  TT said, “On it, oh, mistress.”

  Liz didn’t appreciate the title but was far too focused on our current dilemma to give a shit. She urged me and Kelly to join her by the drum kit. “We’ve got a lot to salvage here. This could ruin us if we don’t take care of it. Listen to that.” Yeah, it sounded bad. “I’ll sing.”

  “You still playing?”

  “Yeah. I trained to sing and play, remember? No problem. And these are my words. Anyway, let’s pick up mid-set with ‘She’s Okay (She’s with Me).’ Sound good?”

  I laughed. “Oh, God. Just don’t tell them the name of the song.”

  Liz managed a wry smile before we got into place. Liz said a couple of words but then waited for the audience to simmer down so they’d actually hear her. “Guys, we’re really sorry about that. We’re not quite sure what happened to our vocalist, but she’s going to get the rest she obviously needs. We are not going to let you down, though. We came to rock, and we’re .not leaving the stage until we do.” There was a mild ripple of cheers and applause throughout the crowd. Most of them were clearly not convinced.

  But as we began to play and found our rhythm (a little rough because we were shaken and also doing something new), the audience joined in and we ended on a high note.

  It could have left us in ruin, though, and I think that’s why that day will forever be etched in my memory.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  BARBIE WAS STILL passed out when we left the stage, feeling like we’d repaired all her damage, and it was a good thing she wasn’t conscious. I think Liz was as close to murder as she’d ever get. As much as I loved the band, the Vagabonds were Liz’s blood, guts, and soul, and Barbie had just taken a huge shit over all of that.

  Kelly asked Peter if we should take her to the hospital in case she had alcohol poisoning. He said he’d keep an eye on her during the night and make sure she was okay. He promised to get the medical folks involved if she took a turn for the worse.

  Yeah—he wasn’t exactly inspiring my confidence.

  Liz and I were alone later, taking a walk around the city. “Man, I thought Vicki was gonna be the one to crash and burn spectacularly. I never expected it to be Barbie.”

  “God. Me either.” We turned a corner. “I don’t suppose you have a smoke?”

  “What? You want one?”

  “Yeah.”

  I pulled the pack and lighter out of my pocket and handed them to her. As she was fumbling with everything, I said, “You did a kick ass job tonight, by the way.”

  She lit a cigarette and started coughing the smoke out of her lungs. “Thanks.”

  “At least you saved the day. That could have so ended in disaster.”

  She handed the cigarettes back to me and I lit one. “I’m still not convinced it hasn’t. Only time will tell.”

  I hoped she was wrong but she was right about one thing—we wouldn’t know for certain until later. We found out the next day that we had lots of new followers on Twitter and Facebook after that—everyone was looking for a glimpse at the self-destructive drunk girl.

  The next morning, I half expected Barbie to apologize; instead, she said nothing. It was evident that she felt like shit, and I wasn’t surprised. But I thought she owed Liz an apology even if she dismissed the rest of us, so, as we stood outside on the sidewalk before w
e got in the van, I asked, “Do you remember anything about last night?”

  She shrugged. “I remember that I didn’t nearly get enough to drink.”

  I closed my eyes and listening to my breathing for a moment. “Are you ever serious? Or no…better question. Do you ever think about anyone other than yourself?”

  “What the fuck kind of question is that, Kyle?”

  “A serious one. Last night, you nearly destroyed everything we’ve been working for.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, God. Don’t be so damned melodramatic.”

  I hadn’t heard Liz approach us from behind. “She’s not being melodramatic, Barbie.” She came around so there was no mistaking her anger. It was all over her face. “You pull that shit again, I will make sure you’re kicked out of this band.”

  “You can’t do that, you stupid cunt. I’m the face of this band. To our fans, I am the Vagabonds.”

  Liz’s voice sounded like the growl of a mama bear protecting her cub. “You are the face of the band, but you are not the band. We all are. And those are my words you’re ripping to shreds up there.”

  “I’m sorry you’re jealous of me, Liz.”

  Liz shook her head. “You’re on notice.” She brushed past her and walked into the back of the van, taking her usual seat.

  Man—cool as a cucumber. And it was that dismissal, that failure to feed into Barbie’s emotional drama that made the girl fizzle that morning. I could tell she was itching for a fight, and I think she was just trying to poke and prod someone into it. Liz refused to get in too deep. She spoke her piece and then got out—like a grenade. And I think it worked. Barbie kept her trap shut for most of the trip to the next city.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only Barbie incident. As far as being drunk onstage, Peter must have had a talk with her, because she didn’t drink like that before a concert again. The first week or so after that, we were all on pins and needles, but she was okay, and audiences—aside from the first one after the incident—seemed to like us just fine.