Revelry (Taint #1)

by Carmen Jenner

  Sugartown Series

  Welcome to Sugartown (Sugartown #1)

  Enjoy Your Stay (Sugartown #2)

  Greetings from Sugartown (Sugartown #3)

  Now Leaving Sugartown (Sugartown #4)

  Savage Saints MC Series

  KICK

  TANK

  Taint Series

  Revelry (Taint #1)

  Closer (Taint #2)

  Hurt (Taint #3)

  Cooper Ryan is living the dream. Between the parties with rock royalty, booze, groupies and performing to crowds of thousands with his band Taint, life seems pretty sweet. There’s just one thing missing: the feisty little red-head that took his baby and ran off with his heart. Throwing himself into music is the only thing keeping him sane.

  Until a run-in with a nonplussed, package-wielding PA throws everything off balance.

  Ali Jones is having a craptastic life. Her grandmother died, leaving her homeless, penniless, and alone, and her boyfriend left her for a tramp who takes her clothes off for money. That’s why when she lands her dream job at a record company it seems like it’s too good to be true.

  Because it is.

  Slapped with an ultimatum, Ali must decide if facing the horror of the unemployment line is a fate worse than going on the road with four rowdy rockers hell-bent on making her life misery.

  He’s adored by millions.

  She’s not even loved by her cat.

  Can they ignore their hatred long enough to survive the tour from hell? Or will their chemistry force everything to come crashing down around them?

  For the real Ali

  Because without you

  I would never have taken that first step.

  I love you, lady!

  I stare down into my Jack and Coke. The ice has melted, the condensation on the outside of the glass is long gone, evaporated away by the dense heat in this shithole of a pub. I’ve done nothing but wander aimlessly from one dodgy establishment to the other for days now. As long as they were happy to keep serving me drinks, I was happy to keep handing over my hard earned cash to get well and truly shitfaced. If there was a level of consciousness beyond shitfaced, I’d happily jump on that fucker and drive my dick right through to the other side, just to forget.

  I tighten my grip on the glass until I finally feel a different kind of pain than the one in my chest, where my fucking heart used to be. My arm trembles and the bartender takes his eyes from the footy match on the screen and scowls.

  “Last drink, mate.” he says in a gruff, apathetic voice before he turns his attention back to the TV with its shitty, fuzzy reception. I pull my wallet out and slap two hundred bucks down on the bar. He eyes the money appreciatively and then cocks a bushy grey brow at me.

  “Keep ’em comin’.” I slur, tossing back the remainder of my drink. “No, you know what; give me the strongest fucking drink you have.”

  “Alright, but you chuck up in my bar, I’m gonna make you clean that shit up and then I’m gonna charge ya, double. You got that, kid?”

  “Yeah, loud and clear, old man.”

  He takes down a bottle of amber liquor and lines up three shot glasses, pouring booze into them. He slides two towards me. I down them one after the other. Revelling in that shit as it burns its way down my throat and sits like battery acid in my empty stomach.

  “Jesus, what the fuck was that?”

  I cough and rub at my chest. I think about retching, because my stomach feels as though it’s just been turned inside out, but the bar tender shoots me a look that says I’ll be mopping it up with my face if I chuck up on his bar.

  “Inner Circle Black Rum.” He downs his shot and slaps at his own chest with a meaty fist. “Seventy-five per cent alcohol. That’ll put hair on your balls, sunshine.”

  “Will it make me shit out my liver too?”

  “Probably.” He studies me a moment, and pours another shot. I can’t help but notice he turns and puts his glass in the sink. “Well, whoever she was she must have done a fucking number on ya, kid.”

  “Who said anything about a woman?” I say bitterly, and suck back the shot. After the alcohol burns away, deep molasses and burnt toffee roll over my tongue. The booze, though, it strikes the inside of my head like a fucking anvil. I gotta get Deb to get me some of this shit.

  “No one had to.” He chuckles. “You think you’re the only sorry-arsed bastard who’s ever wound up at my bar nursing a broken heart? Look around you, kid. Everyone here is nursing a broken something.”

  I glance around at the other patrons. A haggard blonde wearing leopard print sways back and forth beside the jukebox while Cold Chisel plays. There’s an old dude at the opposite end of the bar, nursing his scotch and looking as fucking miserable as everyone else in this joint.

  What a depressing shithole of a bar.

  “That’s life, kid. It’s a fucking shit fight. So what? You’re a good lookin’ kid, and I can tell by that fancy leather jacket you’re wearing that you probably make more money in a week than this bar makes in three months. You’re not starvin’. You’ve probably got a big fucking apartment with a soft bed to lie down on at night. So you lost a girl? So fucking what? You drink till you’re done, and you get up, and move on.”

  “She wasn’t just a girl!” I stand and kick the chair out from under me, but then the world starts to sway back and forth and I stagger to the stool beside the one I just kicked over. I sit and bury my face in my hands. Is it possible to have a hangover while you’re drunk?

  “You want my advice?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Then drink your fucking Jack and Coke and shut the hell up. I’m missing a game here.” He places a fresh glass in front of me and turns his attention to the TV.

  The door opens behind me, and noise from the city filters in. I love this city—the traffic, and the anonymity and facelessness of the people scurrying around its streets. All of it is noise, and music, all of it a rhythm so addictive and yet so mundane that we take its beauty for granted. Of course now I get to see a lot less of the city I love. I’m no longer faceless. Kind of hard to be when the record company plaster your face all over every billboard from here to Timbuk-fucking-tu.

  The bartender lets out a low whistle. “Ivy Bar is a block back in the other direction, darlin’.”

  I hear a familiar unimpressed laugh and slam my head against the wet beer mat lining the bar.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” I mutter. But my sister doesn’t care about my objections, she just grabs a fistful of my hair and tugs my head up so I have to meet her disappointed gaze.

  Fuck she’s like our mum.

  Seriously, if she wasn’t my blood relative I’d be very afraid for my life right now. Or maybe that should make me more afraid.

  Who fucking cares? You’re screwed either way, arsehole.

  Deb releases my head without warning and my forehead slaps against the wooden edge of the bar. “Ouch, fuck. Little warning before you do that.”

  “This her?” The Bartender waggles his brows up and down.

  “Nah, this is just my pain-in-the-arse sister.”

  “What’s he been drinking?” Deb asks.

  “What hasn’t he been drinking?”

  Deb shakes her head. “I’ll have a Cosmo.”

  “Darlin’, we’ve got beer, wine or spirits. I don’t do none of that lolly-water shit.”

  Deb smiles through her ruby-red lips. It’s not her happy smile. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen what happy looks like on my sister. She’s always been a hard arse. “Fine, give me your best white that doesn’t taste like piss.”

  The bartender folds his arms over his beer gut and chuckles. “Whatever you wish, princess.”

  “What the fuck, Coop? You d
on’t answer your calls, you go on this four-day drinking bender. None of the guys can get in touch with you, and I have to give up my weekend hunting down your arse all over Sydney. Look, I know that bitch left you. I know she took your kid and went back to the fucking farm like some hometown hick traipsing back to her second cousin or something. I get it.”

  “No, you don’t,” I hiss. “She left me with a note, Deb. She took my baby and left me a fucking note.”

  “I spoke to her this morning.”

  I sigh and raise my head to look at her. “You called her?”

  “No, she called me. I hung up twice before I finally answered, and then I chewed her out for what she’d done.” She says. “I hate that she took my niece away, that she took your baby, but really what kind of life can you offer them right now? You took her away from her friends and family and left her all alone in your dive of an apartment, Coop. I can’t really say that I blame her.”

  The bartender sets a glass of white wine down in front of Deb. Her smile is acidic as she takes a sip. Wrinkling her nose, she places the glass down on the bar and pushes it away from her. “Plus, I met the lumberjack. I’m sorry, but I would have followed his fine arse back to the country, too.”

  “Did you just come here to rub this shit in, Deb?”

  “No. I came to tell you she’s worried about you. She says you’ve been calling at all hours of the night, trying to get her to take you back.”

  “Fucking drama queen, I did that once,” I mutter. My sister just looks at me. “Fine, it might have happened more than once.” I lower my voice, “I miss her, Deb. The loft still smells like her. All her shit is there—it’s fucking everywhere and I don’t know what to do. I can’t get rid of it. What if she comes back and it’s gone?”

  “It’s been two months. She’s not coming back, Coop.” She pats my hair and I push my head into her hands the way I used to when I was a kid and I’d fall over and skin my knee. “If I were a lesser sister, I’d video this moment and make you watch it back so you could see how pathetic you are in it. Holly’s not coming back. She chose the other guy and left with your kid. If that makes you sad, if it makes you want to scream and yell and throw shit, then use it. Write that bitch the song she deserves. Write a whole fucking album worth of songs about how much you hate her, but quit being a pussy, and quit hiding out in bars with lowlifes.” Deb gives the publican and his patrons a pointed glare.

  “Now get off that barstool,” she says. “I’m taking your sorry arse home and sobering you up. You’ve missed an entire week’s worth of rehearsals, Coop. They’re not waiting any longer. Harbour Records needs that album finished, and the guys have no direction without you. Not to mention no vocalist.”

  I take another sip of my drink, wishing it would drown out my sister, but no such luck. Deb removes the glass from my hand and holds it out to the bartender, shaking her wrist impatiently when he doesn’t immediately haul arse to take it from her.

  “You can’t afford to be slacking right now. Vanessa is already pissed enough that you cancelled this tour. I know the fans love you, but that love is only so deep if you’re not out there shaking your shit in front of them. Forget Holly. Think about your career.”

  I groan and slam my forehead into the bar again. “What if I can’t forget?”

  “You have to, Coop. She’s not coming back.” Deb pulls her phone out from her tiny purse, punching in buttons. She holds it to her ear and barks into the receiver.

  Ah, shit. She’s either talking to the guys, or she’s called our mother.

  “Yeah, I found him. Well I did what you idiots were too dense to. I tracked his phone through GPS. Now tell me you’re not too fucked up to come help me with his sorry arse. Mmhmm, that’s great, Zed. I don’t care. I’ll see you in ten minutes.”

  I watch my sister take another sip of her wine as if she didn’t just call my band mate to come babysit me, and then I bury my head in my hands and just wish it all away. I’d give up everything if I could escape for a day—hell I’d even settle for twenty goddamn seconds. If I could, I’d wish away all of it: the band, the groupies, the money, and the record deal. I’d throw it all away to have her back in my arms again, and the sad part is I can’t even say I didn’t know it was coming. The night I found out about the baby and returned to Sugartown, I knew. The second I saw Jackson fucking Rowe in their lounge room, I knew she loved him more than she had ever loved me. I knew, and still I did everything I could to keep her.

  Everything but make her happy.

  Zed taps out a rhythm on the table in front of him with his bare hands. If he doesn’t shut up soon, I’m going to fucking lose it. For twenty minutes we’ve been sitting around a table in this stuffy, over-furnished room, staring down the record execs as if they were the enemy. Today they kind of are, so I guess that description is pretty apt.

  In less than a half hour this has gone from a cordial meeting to every member of the band wanting to beat Guidelli and his team of lawyers over the head with their instruments. Their list of demands is grating on each and every one of us. I see it in the way Ash’s shoulders are hunched up around his ears, the way Levi is grinding his teeth and the way Zed drums his fingers on the table, working furiously the longer this meet goes on—though, it’s highly possible he’s just coming down and has the jitters.

  Vanessa—our Artist Relations Representative, which is really just some bullshit title that makes her feel important, because so far she’s done jack shit in the way of representing us—stands and presses her hands onto the shiny oak table-top. “Listen, boys, I know it seems like we’re putting a lot of pressure on you right now, but we wouldn’t invest all this time and money if we didn’t believe in you. The test audience weren’t happy with the last two songs on the album—”

  “Test audience?” Zed says. All four of us share a look, which extends to Deb and Zed’s brother, Leif, who are occupying seats on the side of the room.

  “I didn’t realise our music needed testing.” I sharpen my gaze, leaning forward in my seat, but I bite my tongue to keep from saying anything further. I’m so close to losing my shit today, and it has nothing to do with the bender Zed and I went on last night.

  “It’s something new we’re trying. The first album was great, it received rave reviews, you now have a legion of fangirls worldwide, but cancelling last year’s tour, and given that we’ve had countless delays in getting this new album off the ground”—she glances solely at me here, which is fine. The delays she’s referring to have been my fault. In fact, all the guys could leave now if they wanted to. This fuck-up is my fault, and mine alone. “We just need to make sure our investment is a sound one.”

  “The first album went platinum. How much more proof of a sound investment do you need?” I say, because I know it’s what we’re all thinking, and let’s face it, if I let Zed do the talking in a situation like this he’d probably try convincing them to pay us in booze, drugs, or tattoos.

  I’ve known Zed since we were five years old. Back then he was a weird looking, wiry little kid with platinum blond hair and gangly arms. Zed and his brother, Leif, were permanent fixtures at our house. They grew up without a dad, and had a mum who was too busy getting high with her drumming circle friends to pay much attention to her unruly kids.

  The four of us would play for hours in our rumpus room. We had one of those electronic four-piece band set-ups: a synthesised piece-of-shit drum kit, guitar, keyboard, and a microphone set. Zed would man the drums. Nobody ever got near his drums. I played guitar, Leif was on keys, and much to everyone’s dismay, Debbie would sing.

  As soon as she was old enough, I convinced Mum and Dad to buy her a bass and she played right up until the time she was seventeen. Then it’s as if her girl switch just flipped one day and suddenly her Fender went untouched because she might break a nail. She can be a ball-busting pain in the arse sometimes, but however self-involved she could be, she never missed sitting in on a practice, or a gig. The fact that she involves herself
in my life to a point where she could easily be doing Vanessa’s job with her eyes closed, only makes me proud of my little sister.

  Drumming was like a natural talent to Zed. Sometimes you’re born with shit like that pumping through your veins—other times you have to work at it. I guess I never really had to work at it either, but I lack the kind of musical genius Zed possesses. He can pick up any instrument and make it his bitch, even the ones he’s never seen before. And yeah, sometimes he’s a downright prick. He’s an arsehole on tour, he’ll prank you at every fucking turn, and the drugs only serve to make him even more obnoxious than normal, but if he ever walked away, I’d be walking right alongside him.

  Jesus Christ, how much did I drink last night? I feel like I ate a fucking Hallmark card and now my head is spewing sentiment all over the place.

  “Look it’s not that Harbour Records doesn’t trust you. We’re thrilled with the band’s success so far, it’s just that—”

  “That you don’t trust us.” Zed raps out an even faster beat on his knees this time. He laughs, but I know him well enough to know he’s getting antsy, which is always dangerous ground.

  “Why don’t you tell us exactly what you need from us, and then we can all get back to enjoying our day?” I lean back in my chair and sip the hot cup of coffee in my hands.

  “We want to push the album launch forward by three weeks. We’d like to launch while you’re on the US leg of the tour. We’re thinking a party in Vegas.”

  “That’s impossible,” Levi says.

  “Nothing is impossible,” Guidelli replies, with the expression of a man who knows he holds our balls in his hands. His smile grates on me. It might just be the alcohol soaking my blood, but my fist is itching to have a play date with his face.

  “If we get you in the studio soon, we believe we can have the last two songs finalised by Monday,” Vanessa says.

  “The fuck?” Zed stands and begins pacing. One thing he hates is being forced to create, but I guess it’s something we just have to deal with now that we’ve sold our souls to the record company.