“Kevin, why are you here in Atlanta? This seems like a really weird coincidence to me.”
“Yeah, I know. I thought you were stalking me at first or something.”
I wrinkle up my nose as he takes a sip of his drink and makes an ugly face. Kevin dumps seven of the little creamers from the bowl at the end of the table into his drink and doesn't bother to stir it. I don't even think he wants it anymore.
“Stalking you? Why the fuck would I stalk you?” I ask, not even bothering to address the groupie thing. Actually, I want him to know. I want him to know I'm fucking five guys that are kinder and smarter and hotter and more interesting than he is.
“I'm here with my dad for the 48th Annual Institute on Corporate Liability Conference,” he says, like I care what any of that means. Clearly, it's that fucking corporate lawyer get-together that Vanessa's dad is attending. What a strange twist of fate that brought all of us into this city for the night. It seems … destined. “I just can't believe … are you really a roadie?”
“Kevin, I forgive you,” I say, before he makes too big of an ass out of himself and blows this whole meeting. As soon as I say it, staring at him across the sticky surface of a diner table, I know that I made the right choice. I'm not pardoning him for his crimes, just letting my spirit know that we are now done with this guy, that he holds no emotional ties or connections to us.
“Forgive me?” he asks, blinking his thick eyelids in a slow, stupid way. “For what?”
“Um, for cheating on me, destroying my art, tearing the bracelet you gave me as a gift off my arm, giving me a serious disease, and just generally being an unapologetic asshole.” He just stares at me as I talk and then … he smiles.
“You've changed, Lil,” he says, and I want to tear his tongue out of his face. Lil is not a word that he gets to call me. It doesn't belong to him. “What the hell's happened to you these last few months?”
“You mean other than losing the most important man in my life?” I snap and Kevin's smile gets a little wider. Gross. Does he really think I'm talking about him? “My father,” I clarify, glancing around the mostly empty diner with its hanging red pendant lights, sticky floors, and bored waitresses. I worked in a place just like this back in Phoenix; every city has one or two or ten of these within its limits.
“Look, I know things between you and I got rough there for a while …” Kevin leans over and curls his meaty hand around mine. His touch, it repulses me now. I slide my hand away from him, but he doesn't seem to realize how done I am with this meeting.
I forgave him.
That's it; that was on me.
I don't need him to accept or deny that request, to admit to his wrongdoings, to do anything at all for that matter. Honestly, as disturbing as it is that we could run into each other in a city eighteen hundred miles away from where we both live, I'm glad. I've seen him and now I'm done.
He's not really worth much more of my time.
“Do you want to get together after the show?” he asks with what he must think is a sexy debonair smile. “I'm staying at the Four Seasons.”
I blink slowly at him several times before what he just said makes any sense.
“Are you … hitting on me?” I whisper incredulously. And then I laugh. I laugh until tears trace down my cheeks and I have to wipe them away with the leather sleeve of Michael's jacket. “Kevin, go fuck yourself,” I snap, and then I'm standing up and storming out of the diner, feeling pretty goddamn good about myself.
I'd feel even better if he didn't jog to catch up with me a few seconds later, stepping in front of me and cutting off my view of the market just across the street.
“Move,” I say, but he doesn't, his face taking on his hideous purple-red color in his rage.
Before I can stop him, he's reaching up and snatching my backstage pass from my neck, breaking the lanyard at the clasp and lifting it up and away from me.
“Kevin,” I say, trembling with rage. “Give that to me. Now. Don't make me call the cops.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he snarls, looking down at me as I try to keep my calm. What I really want to do is beat the shit out of him. “You think you're different now that you're dressed up and fucking a bunch of roadies?”
“I'm not fucking roadies,” I hiss at him, unable to help myself, “I'm fucking Beauty in Lies, your favorite goddamn band. I'm sleeping with all five of them.”
Kevin's eyes get wide and his thick, square jaw clenches tight with anger and jealousy. All around us, crowds move towards the venue, desperate to get there and get inside in time to see the start of the show. Nobody bothers to stop and pay attention to a bickering couple standing in the shadows of a diner.
The streetlamps above our head cast orange glows across the pavement, highlighting the pockmarks in Kevin's face as a slight breeze blows my hair over my shoulder.
“I always knew you were a whore,” he snarls, playing the total hypocrite. This is a guy that sleeps with any girl he can get his hands on, and he does it with complete reckless abandon and no regard for safety or the health and well-being of either himself or his partners.
I don't want to feel anymore hate in my heart, but in that moment … I kind of do.
“Give me my pass, please,” I say, holding out my palm, trying to act like it's not that big of a deal that I get it back. But it is. My ID and money are in there, and if I lose that, I might get locked out of the venue like I did that night when Michael rescued me.
The thought sends an ugly chill down my spine.
“You think if you dress yourself up, stick some fancy dicks up your loose pussy, that you'll be something? You're nothing, Lilith. The best you can ever hope to be is a fucking sidekick. I know it; you know it; your dead fucking dad knew it.”
“Give. Me. My. Pass,” I growl, ready to tackle him.
He lowers his hand like he's going to give it to me and then takes a lighter out of the pocket on his jeans, lifting both items up over his head and flicking the silver wheel. Flame leaps to life and melts the corner of the plastic badge.
“Stop it!” I scream, throwing myself at him. He moves out of the way, but at least he stops burning the pass for a split second.
“You want this?” he asks, stepping back, grabbing the handle on a postal service dropbox. In a split second, he's shoved the badge in and closed the slot, dropping my VIP pass inside what's virtually an impenetrable fortress. It's a federal offense to even tamper with one of those mailboxes; there's no fucking way I'm getting that back.
“What the fuck?” I scream at him, feeling tears prick the corners of my eyes as he pockets his lighter and smirk at me. But I won't let him have the privilege of seeing me cry. Fucker. I can work this out, no big deal. Right? “You're the worst kind of human garbage, Kevin Peregrine.”
“Well, I guess we'll really see if you're with the band now, won't we, groupie bitch.”
And then he turns on his heel and walks down the sidewalk like he doesn't have a care in the world. I briefly debate charging him, leaping on his back and letting my wildcat tear his throat out.
But I don't.
Because he's not worth it.
Not even close.
I square my shoulders, take a deep breath, and pull strength from the jacket wrapped around my shoulders. Time to walk back to the venue with my head held high.
I head back down the street, past the rapidly dwindling line, people streaming into the building with shouts of excitement and cheers of triumph. The revelry of the crowd is so intoxicating; I wish I were a part of it. But I have no ticket to get in, so I go around the back instead, trying to stay calm, be confident.
This is no big deal, right?
Muse talked to the staff; they know me now.
When I hit the back gates, I come up on a huge group of girls, giggling and laughing, flirting with the two male guards that have replaced the woman that was out here earlier. I don't recognize either of them.
“Excuse me,” I say as I push
through the crowd of glittering bodies and perfume, finding myself in front of a man with a bald head and a fierce frown. It looks like the girl closest to him is near to breaking it, hanging on his arm and laughing girlishly behind her hand. She actually has the audacity to glare at me as I approach them. “Hi, sorry, but my name is Lilith Goode and I'm actually with Beauty in Lies—”
Several of the girls snicker as I grit my teeth and take a deep breath. God, I know how stupid that sounds, but what else am I supposed to say?
“I'm with the band, too,” the blonde next to me says as she tosses her hair and grins wildly.
“And me,” says another girl with curly brown hair. They laugh, like this is all a joke, but it's not funny to me. The things Kevin said … they don't matter, not really, but that doesn't mean they don't hurt. I just want to get back inside and grab a hug from Cope, a smile from Muse. I just want in.
“Look, I lost my VIP pass just now and—”
“I lost my VIP pass!” another girl crows, and then they're all yelling it. Half of them are drunk, I think. The other half are just desperate for a taste of the dark glitter they see sparkling from afar. They have no idea how much my boys have suffered. No clue. And this, this is my job, not theirs.
“Shut up!” I scream and something about the fervency of my tone lends credibility to my statement. I smooth some red hair back from my head and close my eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath and opening them back up to stare the bald man in his small, brown eyes. “I work for the tour; I was out grocery shopping and a man stole my badge. You must work for the venue?”
“We do,” the bald guy says with a sigh. “We'll have to get someone on the tour staff to ID you …” He glances over his shoulder and we both pause when Octavia appears, walking hurriedly across the cement in her usual get-up—headset, ponytail, tablet and clipboard. “Excuse me!” the man shouts, waving her over.
I feel this massive surge of relief followed by … terror.
“This woman says she works for the tour … ?” the security guard asks as Octavia slips through the small door inset into the gate and stares at me with a horribly blank expression on her face. I stare right back at her, willing her to spout a blatant lie right to my face.
And then her mouth curves in a terrible smile and I know she's going to do it.
“She doesn't work for the tour,” she says, pretending to glance at her clipboard. “In fact, she's been denied tickets for the last three shows because of a breaking and entering and stalking charge. Please escort her off the property.”
“Are you fucking serious?” I snap, reaching out before I can stop myself and shoving her hard in the shoulders. Octavia stumbles back, but the look on her face is sheer joy, that same sort of ugly triumph I saw on Kevin's. The two of them would make a perfect couple.
“Alright, miss, that's enough,” the bald guy says, stepping forward to grab my arm as the other girls scatter out of the way. I don't resist though. If I do, the other guy'll just grab me and then maybe they'll call the cops. I bet Octavia would say whatever she needed to get me arrested.
The security guard grabs hold of the sleeve of my leather jacket in a meaty hand and starts hustling me away, pausing for a moment when Octavia calls out to him.
“Just a second, please,” she says as she moves toward me in her white sneakers and tight denim jeans. When she leans in, I can smell a sickly sweet floral perfume wafting about her smug face. “You are just a fucking groupie, Lilith. Another nameless face that the boys'll forget about in a few days. Do you understand that? You are nothing to them. I've seen them do this a hundred times with a hundred different girls. You think you're different because they all fuck you? You're nothing but a shareable sex doll.”
Octavia pulls away about a split second before I decide what the hell and punch her right in the face. Her smirk as she turns away is one of the most infuriating expressions I've ever seen in my life—save the one Kevin was wearing earlier.
But her words … even though I try to brush them off, they sting like hell.
Bald Head takes me all the way across the street and deposits me in front of a small café with that deep-set frown plastered across his lips, turning away and meandering back to his post in front of the sea of shimmering groupie girls.
I stand there in wordless shock for several minutes before I get my head together and try walking around the venue, looking for a place to sneak in. But I'm not the only person with that idea in mind, and the security is tight as hell. There are cameras, guards, even barbed wire on parts of the fence.
When I try the front, I'm told very firmly that no, they will not get a message to anyone on the tour staff and can I kindly wait outside if I don't have a ticket.
I try in vain to spot somebody from the tour that I might recognize or that might recognize me, but all the people on this side of the show work for the venue, not the band.
I stalk back to the café across the street and try not to panic.
My ID is gone, along with all the cash I had on me. My badge is gone. My phone is dead and lying on the kitchen floor of the bus. I don't know any of the boys' numbers and I have no way to contact them, even if I borrow someone else's phone. If I leave a message on their Facebook page, they won't get it. I know for a fact that they don't check any of their social media pages themselves; Octavia does all of that.
As far as private internet contact, I don't know their emails, and I never thought to add them on any social media platforms. When Kev and I broke up, I deleted my Facebook page, my Twitter account, everything. I just didn't want to deal with any of it anymore. Even when I blocked him, I saw messages from his friends—people I thought were my friends, too—saying awful things about me.
I know my dad's Facebook login, but did I ever even tell the boys his name? Would they even think to check that?
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
I'm alone. I have nothing and nobody.
Nothing and fucking nobody.
A groupie and a whore and a bitch.
I sit down on the quiet sidewalk and sob.
I keep looking for Lilith while we wait for our set, but I don't see her anywhere. I figure she's still at the store, or working on her damn pizza and decide not to freak out.
But damn, I want to see her. I want to see her so fucking badly.
“You're still fucking glowing,” Pax teases, the slightest hint of real jealousy in his voice as he looks me over. The first thing I did when I got back here was tell them all what happened between me and Lilith. I don't bother to talk about Vanessa or Tim. I can worry about that shit tomorrow. Tonight, I feel alive, exhilarated. My skin is humming and I just feel fan-fucking-tastic.
First sexual experience in a year and it was mind-blowing.
“So what if I am?” I ask, leaning against the wall and smoking my cigarette.
“It's just funny how fucking right I was,” Pax continues and I narrow my eyes at him. But I'm too damn happy to actually be angry about anything, so I end up grinning like an asshole instead.
“You're sure she's alright, sweetheart?” Ransom asks me, pushing his hood back and tucking his hands in his pockets. “She said she'd meet us backstage before we went on.”
I study him, study Muse, Cope, Pax. But none of them seem to care that I've joined in on their … relationship with Lilith. In fact, they seem kind of relieved.
“She was on her way to some store she said you went to earlier,” I say as I think about her slipping my leather jacket on, pulling her red hair out of the collar and letting it tumble in ruby waves down her back. “I'm sure she'll be here.”
But then Octavia's waving us forward and we're taking the stage behind the white curtain, hoisting instruments up, getting into position. When the curtain lifts, I look for that red hair or those bright green eyes in the crowd and I don't see anything that even remotely looks like Lilith.
Still, I'm fucking thrilled with the connection we made. I
t's bright enough that it casts a temporary shadow over the Vanessa-Tim thing, soothes some of that violent rapacious anger inside of me.
I decide to let my feelings out into the music, play like Lilith is watching, let her know how damn good she made me feel. She forgave me, accepted me, when she should've kicked me in the balls. Why? Maybe she sees something in me that I don't even see in myself?
My guitar pick eats at my strings like a demon, tears into the instrument and unleashes its fury on the unsuspecting crowd. Its cries vibrate through me, into the floor, out the speakers, across the theater and into the desperate fingers of the audience.
I'm in good form tonight, playing like I haven't played in years, like I actually fucking care what's happening in here. Pax, Muse, Cope, Ransom, they all feel it, too, and we put on one hell of a show. We trade our guitars out between songs by tossing them across the stage to waiting roadies; we revel in the confetti and we climb on the props to rock out as close to the crowd as we can get without drowning in their fervor.
Sweat pours down my skin as Pax belts out the lyrics to songs written in part or whole by each and every one of us. It's a group goddamn effort, all of this sound and heat, this performance.
By the time it's over, my heart is pounding so fast I can feel my pulse in my head, and I'm shoving past roadies into the darkness backstage, looking for a pair of green eyes and a headful of purple-red hair.
There's no Lilith, not anywhere.
What the fuck?”
“Octavia,” Muse says, grabbing our manager on her way past. “Have you seen Lilith?”
Octavia blinks her brown eyes a few times and then frowns.
“When I went out front to speak with the venue manager, I saw her leave with a young man from the line.” She pauses and shakes her head. “He had brown eyes, slicked back hair, a black t-shirt. I have no idea where they went. Now, if you'll excuse me …”
She moves past Muse and disappears into the staff backstage, leaving me feeling completely and utterly baffled.
Groupie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 1) Page 36