Marked By Fire

by Meg Ripley

  “No fucking way,” I told Dan. “He was kissing her.” My two best friends in the band looked at each other again.

  “Fucking asshole,” Dan said, shaking his head. “He’s all about not risking ruining the band and pulls some shit like this?”

  “Ron’s going to pop a fucking aneurism,” Nick suggested, half-smiling. “Man.” He scrubbed at his face.

  “Alex wouldn’t say anything about anything,” Dan told me. “He walked out of the studio. Allie was crying her eyes out.”

  “I don’t care about that,” I said, trying not to picture it in my head.

  “She seems to think that there was some kind of misunderstanding,” Nick told me. “Though I can’t imagine how that’s even possible.”

  “I drove her home,” Dan continued. “Anyway, Alex wouldn’t say anything, and then you weren’t answering your fucking phone, so Nick and I decided that since you obviously weren’t coming in today, we’d come to you.” I couldn’t help but smile a little bit. It was different from the last time that I’d bailed on them; this time they were actually trying to get me back. But this time it was way more serious than Dan picking up some girl that I’d wanted to date.

  “I don’t want to be to blame for the band fucking up,” I told them. “It’s not my fucking fault--we can agree on that, right?” Dan and Nick looked at each other and then at me again.

  “Let’s not talk about that right now,” Nick suggested. “You look like you downed a bottle of Jack.”

  “Two-thirds of a bottle,” I corrected him.

  “Let’s get some coffee in you and get you to Tucker Duke’s,” Dan said. I thought about it; it actually sounded like a damn good idea. My stomach twisted inside of me and I hoped that food would at least take care of that shit. Everything else was going to take longer, but at least I might feel a little bit better with some food in me.

  “Let me change,” I said, picking up my cup of coffee and drinking down the rest of it.

  “I won like $40 off of Alex in a bet,” Nick said, smirking. “I’ll use it to buy your lunch. It’ll be like Alex is paying for it unwillingly.”

  “You’re all heart,” I told him. I took the coffee cup into the kitchen and put it in the empty sink, scrubbing at my face again. I knew Nick and Dan were going to try and figure out how to make shit work in the band; I didn’t know if I was on board with going along with it. There was no way that anything would ever excuse either Allie or Alex, right? I shook my head, dismissing the idea. There was no fucking way.

  I didn’t say anything to either Dan or Nick as I went into my bedroom. I needed to eat, and I wasn’t about to turn down a free meal, especially a Tucker Duke’s meal. I started stripping off my stinking, alcohol-reeking clothes and thought about maybe taking a quick shower, at least to wash off some of the BO I knew I was drenched in. But instead I slapped on some deodorant, stepped into my bathroom and splashed some water on my face, through my hair. I sprayed just a little bit of cologne on and put on some fresh clothes. I looked like hell, but I was pretty sure that if anyone in the band was entitled to look like shit right then, it was me.

  “Okay,” I said, coming out of my bedroom. Nick and Dan were busy texting--I could guess pretty readily who. They put their phones away, and had the good grace not to look the least bit self-conscious as they got up.

  “Let’s get a burger in you and some cheese fritters and figure out what to do with the rest of the day,” Dan suggested, picking out two of the things he knew I liked best from the restaurant.

  “Let’s see how those go down, and then we’ll figure it out,” I countered. I wanted to put off talking about the band, about Allie, about the whole bullshit situation, as long as possible.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “You can’t keep avoiding him,” Jules said from across the table. I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s been two fucking days,” I told him. “And at this point the only thing keeping me from saying I won’t go into the fucking studio with him ever again is knowing that if I quit, everyone’s going to fucking blame me.”

  “Well the band will blame Alex,” Jules pointed out. “That was a shitty fucking thing for him to do.” He plucked a cigarette out of its box and brought it to his lips.

  “Apparently, Mary is fine with it,” I said bleakly. Jules snickered.

  “Not so much,” he told me. “Basically, his story to her was that he was trying to prove that Allie was no good, that she wasn’t loyal or anything, just trying to use you.”

  “Well he did a good goddamn job at that,” I said, lighting a cigarette of my own. We were outside of Jules’ apartment building, armed with coffee and donuts from Dandee Donut Factory near my house. Fran was at a show, and Jules hadn’t wanted to go, so he’d invited me over--and as much as I was hating life, I had to admit that I wanted to hear his perspective on the situation. “Also proved that he doesn’t give a fuck about anyone but himself,” I added.

  “Mary told him no sex until he fixes his life,” Jules told me.

  “She might as well break up with him, then,” I said.

  “She has faith in him,” Jules said with a shrug. “Look: from what I’ve heard from Allie and Alex--and yeah, take shit with as many grains of salt as you want--she didn’t have much to do with that.”

  “They were kissing, Jules,” I said. “Just because I’m a drummer doesn’t mean I’m a fucking idiot.”

  “Yeah, I get it,” Jules said. “But think about this: if Alex had just grabbed Allie and started kissing her, it wouldn’t look that different from if they were kissing each other.” I looked at him for a long moment.

  “How stoned did you get before I came over?” Jules laughed.

  “Not nearly stoned enough,” he said, shaking his head. He sipped his coffee and flicked ash off the end of his cigarette. “But the point remains.”

  “So, you’re telling me that Alex forced himself on Allie, and so I should forgive them both?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m telling you to talk to your girl,” Jules said. “There’s more to the situation than just people violating your trust or whatever you want to call it--especially since there’s the whole band to think about.”

  “So even the rest of the band will blame me if shit goes to hell, even though it was Alex who pulled this shit,” I said.

  “No,” Jules told me. “If you want to drive up to his place right now and kick the shit out of him, I’ll go with.” He grinned. “I think you’d probably be able to recruit Dan and Nick too. But the thing is, you have to think about the band. We can kick Alex out--but that’s a huge fucking load of paperwork, and also, we end up with no lead singer.” He shrugged again and took a drag of his cigarette. “The real question is whether you want the band to keep going. What that’s going to look like.”

  “I don’t even know,” I told him. “I’m good with you, and Dan, and Nick.” I took some smoke into my lungs and held it there a moment before blowing it out. “I just don’t know what I want to do. Things were starting to actually go well for us and then…” I shook my head. “It’s not fucking fair.”

  “You’re right,” Jules said. “It fucking isn’t. But you have to make up your mind about how to deal with that, and you have to do it fucking fast. The label is on the verge of just paying us off if we don’t come up with something for them.” Jules stubbed out his cigarette. “If you’re done with the band, then you’re done with the band. But if you’re not, you need to figure out what you’re going to do about the situation with Alex.” I nodded and looked down at the ground for a few moments, thinking.

  “Let’s go to his house and fucking jump him,” I said, half-joking.

  “Want me to call Nick and Dan?” I sighed.

  “I should probably just fucking talk to the guy, but I feel like if I go and do it alone I’ll lose my shit,” I told Jules.

  “Then let me call a meeting,” Jules said. “No Ron, no Jack, just us. We haven’t done that in a while.”

  “We haven�
��t,” I agreed. “I just…” I groaned and stubbed out my own cigarette. “Fuck, man.”

  “It’s some fucking bullshit,” Jules said, nodding. “We need to handle it. We need to figure it out.”

  “But you’re on my side on this, right?” I looked at him. Jules smiled.

  “As far as you having beef with Alex, yeah,” he said. “You’re justified. But I think if you want the band to keep going you’re going to have to find a way to deal with it with the rest of us.”

  “I don’t know, man,” I said. I finished off my coffee and grabbed one of the last donuts from the box. “I just don’t fucking know what I should do.”

  “Let me get the other guys on the phone,” Jules told me. “We’ll talk.” I didn’t think it would really help all that much, but I knew that with the contracts and everything going on, there was no way I could make a decision on my own about something that was going to affect the band. I had no idea what would happen to Alex, whether Molly Riot would keep existing, what I would do about Allie’s stuff still in my car, but I knew I had to face up to it all. I couldn’t just keep avoiding it the way I had months before with the bullshit that happened with Dan. Maybe I’m growing the fuck up, I thought, as Jules stood up and took his phone out of his pocket to start making calls.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  At first, Alex refused to meet without Ron present. So I told him--through Jules--that either we had the meeting with just the band, or I sent my notice to the label that I was quitting. Since we’d managed to negotiate ownership of all our masters, they couldn’t put the album out without me.

  So, Alex set a meeting for the weekend, and I went with it just because I didn’t know if I’d be able to see his cocky-ass face without punching it. Better to let it wait, I’d decided. The rest of the guys in the band went to the studio separately in between, re-recording old parts and tweaking a few things so that at least we wouldn’t all be out of the studio, letting things hang, pissing off the label.

  In the meantime, I was more or less by myself for the few days before the meeting, and all I had to amuse myself was thinking about what Jules said, drinking, smoking a little pot, and watching TV. I binge-watched House, M.D. almost all the way through in two days, trying not to think about what a fucking shit show everything had become. My phone rang every couple of hours--one of the guys in the band, or Ron, or in a few cases, Allie, calling me. I didn’t answer it most of the time, even if it was Nick or Dan. I just didn’t feel like it.

  I had fallen asleep on my couch--in the middle of a three-episode run of House--when I heard a knock at my door; it jolted me right out of a dream about what my life would have been like if I’d somehow become a doctor instead of a drummer, following House, working under him. The knock at my door shattered the dream, and I almost tumbled onto the floor of my living room in surprise.

  Another knock brought me to my feet, and in spite of how self-pitying I felt, I couldn’t help but be a little curious. Who the hell is knocking on my door? It was mid-afternoon; it wasn’t likely to be anyone from the band, my mom would have called ahead, and my friends outside the band didn’t even know I’d be home. I padded towards the door, and whoever was on the other side of it knocked again. “I’m coming, I’m coming.” I was starting to feel irritated at whoever-it-was.

  I didn’t even bother to look through the peephole; I just unlocked and opened the door. Of all of the people I thought it could be, every possibility that had flashed through my head while I walked to answer the door, I wasn’t expecting Allie. My first instinct was the close the door immediately--slam it in her face. I started to, and she put her hand on the door frame.

  “Look, Mark,” she said, meeting my gaze in spite of me, “I just want you to give me--like--five minutes. If you want me to leave after that, then I will.”

  “If I want you to leave right now, you will,” I said, scowling at her. She sighed.

  “Please just give me a chance to explain what happened, okay?” Allie looked at me, and I could see that she’d been crying. Well she fucking should be crying, I thought, remembering what I’d seen. “Mark, just give me five minutes. Please.” I took a deep breath. Technically I didn’t have to listen to a goddamn thing she had to say; technically I could close the door on her hand--but that would take away whatever moral high ground I had in a way that beating the fuck out of Alex wouldn’t.

  “Five minutes,” I said. I tapped at my pockets and found my lighter and cigarettes--miraculously not crushed--and opened the door wide enough for me to step through it. “And you’re not coming in.”

  “That’s fair,” Allie said quietly. She followed me out of my door and down the outdoor hallway towards a little bench at the end of the row. I sat down next to the “smoker’s outpost” and took my cigs and lighter out of my pocket.

  “You have until I’m done with this,” I told her, bringing a cigarette up to my mouth and lighting it.

  “I didn’t kiss him,” Allie said. “He kissed me.”

  “So far not really changing my opinion all that much,” I told her, exhaling the first drag of smoke from my lungs.

  “Alex saw me outside, and started talking to me,” Allie told me. “He said that he knew that I was just using you, that all I wanted was to become some famous musician photographer like Autumn de Wilde or someone like that.”

  “You’ve got about another three minutes to explain to me how that ended up with the two of you kissing,” I said.

  “He got pissed when I kept saying that I really just liked you--that it was complete chance that I saw you at the festival, and that if he had a problem with me taking pictures of you guys, I’d let him delete all of the photos right then and there,” Allie said.

  “Two minutes,” I told her. I flicked ash off the end of my cig.

  “He said that he was going to prove that I was up to no good and grabbed me and kissed me,” Allie said, and there were tears in her eyes. “I was so shocked that I didn’t even know what to do right away. And then you came out right when I started to get my wits about me to push him away.” Allie kept her gaze locked onto my face and I could feel something in me starting to ache; I actually felt guilty. “But I guess at least Alex gets what he wants: even if you do forgive me, I never want to be in the same room as him ever again.”

  “I shouldn’t have pushed it,” I said after a few moments. I stubbed out my cigarette and stuffed it into the little hole at the top of the outpost. “I should have known that Alex would pull something.” I made a face. “I thought it would be a fight, or something like that.”

  “You believe me?” Allie’s expression brightened, and for a moment a dark, gloomy little voice in my head suggested that it was because she was trying to put something over on me. But I’d spent a couple of days thinking about what Jules had said, about everything that had gone on between Allie and me before the incident, about everything I knew about Alex.

  “I’m saying I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt,” I said, taking a quick breath. “I’ve been kind of stewing on this for a couple of days anyway.” I smiled at her weakly.

  “I just…” Allie sighed, shaking her head. “I felt terrible about it, and I knew that you wouldn’t answer the phone, and that I probably shouldn’t even try talking to you in person but I had to do something.” She looked at me for a long moment. “Is it crazy for me to say I think I’m actually…” she pressed her lips together, “actually in love with you?”

  “Well, we did see each other for about a month before this happened,” I said, but my heart was beating faster in my chest at the words.

  “I don’t expect you to say it back,” Allie said quickly. “Just...I wanted you to know.” She stepped closer to me, and I didn’t try and wave her away; Allie leaned in and kissed my forehead, and then--after a quick pause, a hesitation--she kissed me on the lips.

  Almost on instinct, I wrapped my arms around her, holding her body close. She felt so good, pressed against me, better than I even remembered
--and I’d spent days remembering. I deepened the kiss, sliding my tongue against her lips until she opened her mouth. A little flare of jealousy lit up in me again, but there was nothing at all about Alex in the taste of her lips. I broke away from the kiss after a few minutes and met Allie’s gaze.

  “I need some time,” I told her. “Let me get your stuff out of my car. But this…” I smiled, just a little. “I think we can be okay.” I reached out and offered Allie my hand; she took it, and once again it just felt so fucking good. “I am going to beat the shit out of Alex.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Even with a couple of days to cool down, the minute I saw Alex’s smug, asshole face as he walked into Nick’s apartment where we’d all agreed to meet, I couldn’t stop myself. “You fucking asshole!” The words were out of me right as I jumped at him, fist back behind my head to slam into his face. None of the rest of the guys in the band made any move to stop me, and Alex was too shocked to block the punch or try and push me away.

  Pain shot up from my fist through my arm, tingling at my elbow and crackling at my shoulder as Alex and I tumbled to the floor together. I tried to ignore it, pulling back enough to punch at him again, and that was the moment when everything erupted. Nick and Jules jumped in, pulling us apart, and Dan was saying something I didn’t even hear; all I knew was that Alex had not only tried to get me to break up with a woman I actually really cared about--but that he’d basically violated her to do it. Even if it had only been a fucking kiss, the fact that he’d done it that way--that he’d forced himself on her to be so fucking petty--made my blood feel like it was boiling in my veins.

  Someone shoved me into a chair and I could feel the pain throbbing in my hand from punching Alex. “Good job,” I heard Nick saying, his voice shaking with laughter. “Think you broke his nose.”

  “Wanted to break his whole fucking face,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, we don’t want you going to jail for battery,” Nick said. “How’s the hand?”