Revelry (Taint #1)

by Carmen Jenner

  “Ali,” he shouts, but I can’t see him through the throng of fangirls. I’m jostled about a bit more and I turn back, trying to get away from the press of bodies, when he pushes through the crowd, taking my hand and hurries us back inside the hotel.

  “What are you doing? I ask.

  “Getting us a room.”

  I wait until we’re a little further inside the lobby when I grab hold of his arm. “We have a room. Two of them, actually. Back at another hotel.”

  “And there’s a legion of fangirls between us and it.” He’s shaking, his face pale, and his hand is clammy in mine. “Have you ever just wanted to be someone else, Ali?”

  “Yeah, all the time.”

  He studies me, as if he’s not happy with that answer. “And what did you do when you felt that way?”

  “I took a walk to clear my head, or I went and drank so much that I could pretend I was someone else.”

  “Help me be someone else.”

  “What do you mean? You can’t be anyone else. You’re Cooper Ryan.”

  “Help me be the guy you talk to night after night on the tour bus, when everyone else is asleep. Tonight I just wanna be that guy. I want to feel normal, just this once.”

  “Okay, let’s get you a room. We can talk out what the hell just happened when you’re not about to pass out from exhaustion and too much booze.”

  Twenty minutes later, I pull off his boots as he lies face up on the bed where he’d fallen. I’m not doing anything crazy like removing his pants or anything. That would be dumb, because he’s more Adonis than I can handle fully clothed—strip him bare and I’d never want to leave this room again. I lean over to set a glass of water down on the nightstand and Coop reaches out, grasping a strand of my long hair between his fingers. “You should run, Ali-Cat. Run away before I decide to keep you forever.”

  My gut knots, and desire jackknifes through me. I pull away, chanting over and over in my head, He’s drunk. Do not sleep with him. “Okay. Why don’t you try sleeping it off, and by the morning you’ll remember why this is such a terrible idea?”

  “I want you, Holly,” he slurs. I freeze, snap my eyes shut and swallow hard.

  “Right.” I clear my throat, trying to mask the way my voice breaks, or the sharp, ragged inhalations I’m taking to keep from crying. “If you have everything you need, then, I’ll just go.”

  “I don’t have you,” he murmurs, eyes still tightly closed. “I’m so fucking lost without you, Red.”

  I can’t listen to this anymore. Even if every syllable didn’t cut me to the bone, the fact remains he’s telling me this in confidence because he’s drunk, and he’s telling me because he thinks I’m her. Somehow it hurts far more than finding my boyfriend of five years with his face buried in another woman’s pussy.

  “I have to go.”

  “No!” he shouts as I slip out into the hallway. I close the door and lean heavily against it. I bang the back of my skull against the wood and slide down to the floor. I am so fucking stupid.

  Eventually I pick myself up from the floor and take the elevator down to the lobby. I walk through the hotel and I exit out onto the street. The fangirls are still there, but they don’t notice me without Cooper Ryan’s hand threaded through mine so I walk right by them.

  The strip spreads out in front of me and I follow the lights until I reach our hotel some thirty minutes later. My feet hurt. My heart hurts, and my head definitely hurts from all the thoughts pinging around in there.

  I pass one of the many hotel bars and decide to stop for a drink. I could just go to my room, but I’d rather not be alone with my thoughts right now. Better that I share my misery around, even if I am sitting alone. At least it won’t be as bad as that unnerving silence up in my room. I order a Mac and Jack’s, preparing to find some quiet dark corner where I can skulk and make up stupid stories in my head about how pathetic the lives of the people around me are when I smack head-first into a heavily muscled torso. I follow the line of black T-shirt up to the gauges and the neck tattoos and finally up to Levi’s face. I frown.

  He smiles. “Whatcha doing here on your own, Red?”

  “Well, I was avoiding the lepers, but it looks like that’s done with now.”

  “Why do you pretend to hate me so much?”

  “Oh, that’s not pretend,” I snap.

  He wraps his fingers around the bottom of my glass, taking it from me and tossing back more than half of my beer.

  “Hey, I was about to drink that, arsehole.” Tears prick my eyes, and I step out around him because the last thing I want is to show any sign of weakness in front of Levi.

  “Hey.” He grabs my arm and I turn and face him.

  “Listen, I’m really not in the mood for this.”

  “You still wanna meet Josh Holme?”

  I stare blindly at him. “Uh … yeah. It’s pretty high up there on my list of things to do before I die.”

  “There’s a party at his house.” He grins down at me. “You wanna go play, Red?”

  Was the Pope a fucking Catholic? Hell yes I wanted to go play.

  I felt like shit. I was an idiot who’d let her heart get carried away, and more than anything I want to forget Cooper fucking Ryan. Because I know he’s sure as hell not thinking about me right now.

  “Fine. But there had better be booze involved.” I sigh, and pretend as if my inner fangirl isn’t freaking the hell out right now that I’m going to a party at Josh’s house. Oh my fucking god, Josh fucking Holme.

  “Oh there will be. Booze and anything else you want. Stick with me, kiddo, and I’ll get you so wasted you won’t remember what year it is. Let’s get out of here,” Levi says, taking my hand and leading me through the crowd of protesting women. One groupie throws herself in his path and pushes her fake ridiculously large tits against Levi’s chest. She looks up at him with wide doe eyes from beneath lashes as fake as her tits, and says in a saccharine voice, “Levi, you promised we’d pick up where we left off last night.”

  “Not tonight, darlin’, I gotta get little Red to bed and save her from the big bad wolf.”

  She gives me the obligatory onceover. “Seems little Red is big enough to do it on her own.”

  That bitch. That was totally a hit at my weight. “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly do it on my own. I need Levi to help me out of these clothes, and then there’s the fact that I simply hate to sleep alone. He’s good at keeping me company, aren’t you, baby?” I say, running my hands up under his shirt. Levi stiffens for a second before catching himself. He lets out a low groan that I’m pretty sure I’m not even meant to hear.

  When I extricate my hands out from under his shirt I accidently brush the bulge in the front of his pants. He groans again and smiles at me. I have to try not to yank my hand back as if I just got bitten because holy fucking shit, there’s well hung and then there’s Levi Quinn, and that man is in a class all his own.

  Levi chuckles as the bimbo thrusts her chest out in front of her. “Well, when you’re done, you should totally come find me. I can even wait in your room if you like?”

  “Jesus, bitch, take a fucking hint. The boy had you once—it’s never gonna happen again. He spends his nights with me.” Technically he does, and with Debbie, Zed, Coop, Ash and Leif, but she doesn’t need to know this.

  “It’s true. Red here is our muse, and every good artist knows you don’t piss off the muse.”

  We head out of the bar towards the hotel lobby as Levi pulls a phone from his pocket and dials the number of a driver that the concierge gave us. “Yeah, bring the car around, Jeeves.”

  A minute later, we’re fighting our way through a crowd of overzealous Taint groupies who throw themselves at Levi and try to tear off his shirt. I’m jostled between paparazzi and fans and it’s complete pandemonium. When we finally do climb inside the black unmarked vehicle, I can’t help but laugh at the state of us. Levi looks as if he were attacked by a bear, and judging by the way he’s looking at me right now, my hair
and clothes are mussed enough to make it seem like I just had really good sex. I wish. The only body I’ll be rolling around with between the sheets tonight will be BOB. I wonder if there’s a level-up for vibrator games.

  “Jesus, Red, you’re looking all kinds of fucking tasty right now.”

  I laugh nervously. “Right. What was that you were saying about the big bad wolf?”

  “I can be the big bad wolf if you want me to,” he growls, sliding across the soft leather seat towards me. For a second, I study him. It’s not hard to see why women everywhere drop their panties for him. He may be an arsehole, but he’s a fucking charismatic one.

  “Back it up, Vlad the Impaler,” I say shoving at his shoulder.

  “Do you realise how easily I could have you right now?”

  I glance nervously to the driver and back at Levi, thankful that we’re not alone. As though he can sense this, our driver—Bobby, I think he said his name was—asks where we want to go with a thick American accent. Levi smiles and then glances away, shifting in his seat and readjusting the gigantic erection inside his pants.

  Levi checks his phone and gives Bobby an address, and then we’re whisked away amidst the flashes of cameras, both from fans and paparazzi. No doubt there will be another story in the tabloids tomorrow: Mysterious redhead leaves the Wynn in Las Vegas with Levi Quinn last night after reportedly checking into the MGM Grand earlier in the evening with Taint frontman Cooper Ryan. Who is this lascivious little minx hotel hopping with the Aussie band, and do fans need to be worried?

  I laugh at how ridiculous that notion is, and Levi looks at me with a curious expression. “Are you laughing at me, Red?”

  “No, I’m laughing at the field day the press are going to have with this tomorrow.”

  “Why?”

  “Never mind. So you know by taking me to this party you’re going to need to stick close by. I mean, I may go supercharged fangirl over Josh’s arse. You may need to restrain me.”

  “So you’re saying you want me to tie you down?”

  “No, I’m saying don’t run off with some bimbo groupie and leave me all alone.”

  “You’ll be fine. Just be yourself.”

  “Like you’ll be yourself?” I ask. Levi grins, but I see behind that smile. “I’ve seen you when you’re not ‘on’. You’re still Levi Quinn, but there’s actually some emotion under all that cocky pretence.”

  “Cocky being the operative word.”

  “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Hide behind big dick jokes?”

  He shrugs. “I have a big dick. I’m not hiding behind anything.”

  “Except your gigantic cock.” I roll my eyes at his overexcited expression. Jesus. Like a dog with a bone. “I mean, I’m sure it’s lovely, but there’s more to you than that. You don’t write songs like ‘Bared and Bleeding’ without having something on the inside.”

  His mouth tips up in a lecherous grin. “I do. A lot of come.”

  “Oh my god, you’re an animal.”

  “What the hell do you want me to say, Red? Do I want a woman to call mine? Maybe someday. Right now I’m just happy banging a chick in every city.”

  “Right. And when you’re old and your balls are down around your ankles, and your big gigantic cock is all shrivelled and wrinkly, and you can’t sustain an erection without the help of a little blue pill, what then?”

  “I’ll die young—a fiery plane crash, or the victim of a nympho jealous groupie who cuts off my junk and stores it in a jar.”

  I stare at him quizzically, and then attempt to erase that creeptastic thought from my mind by asking, “And if you don’t?”

  “Jesus Christ, woman, can’t you ever just accept anything at face value?”

  I shake my head. “Not really, no.”

  His expression turns serious as he studies me. “That’s what he sees in you.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “Coop. He loves a challenge.”

  “I think he likes the fact that I remind him of his ex,” I say bitterly. An ex he’s still very much hung up on.

  “Maybe. He’s caught up in this fucked up love-hate relationship with that bitch, but I think he’s pretty caught up in you too.”

  “He called me Holly,” I say.

  “Ah shit,” Levi says. “When?”

  “Tonight. He was drunk, he kissed me, called me Holly and I ran.”

  Levi whistles. “Jesus Christ, is he gonna be sore over that in the morning.”

  I pick at a thread on my jeans and avoid his gaze. “I doubt he’ll even remember. He was pretty tanked.”

  “Fuck remembering. I’m gonna be all over his arse like a rash about this shit.”

  Because that wouldn’t be humiliating at all. I don’t want to think about Coop, and I certainly don’t want to discuss his ex with Levi. “Can we stop talking about Cooper now?”

  “You’re really chomping at the bit for poor, twisted up, unhappy Coop, huh Red?”

  “Shut up. I barely know him.”

  “Bullshit. I bunk across from you two, I know all about your little late-night chats.”

  “You heard those?” I ask, getting pissy, because I can’t believe that he would pretend to be asleep and eavesdrop in on our conversations.

  “We live on a fucking tour bus, Red. Nothing is sacred there.” Levi shakes his head, and for a moment I glimpse a different person beneath his lewd, overtly sexual rock-star persona. For a brief second there he was as lonely and vulnerable as I am. I know he feels my studious gaze on him, but he doesn’t say anything. He presses a button on the console beside him and a minibar pops out from his door. “Champagne, my lady?”

  “Don’t suppose you have any beer in there?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay, fine, give me bubbles then.”

  He takes a flute from the rack and hands it to me. I hold it steady as he pops the cork. Champagne bubbles over the edge of my glass as Levi pours and he dips his head, lapping at the moisture on my hands, sliding his tongue with its little silver piercing along my flesh, before turning my wrist and taking the soft underside of my palm into his mouth, nipping at it gently.

  “I really dislike you,” I say, removing my hand from his lips and downing my champagne in one long gulp.

  “That’s not dislike making your panties wet, Red.”

  “Fuck you. It’s been so damn long since I had sex that my vagina is confused with all of the blood rushing to it.”

  “How long?”

  “A long time.”

  He grins and tops up my glass. “But how long?”

  “I don’t know,” I say impatiently. “A couple weeks, I guess.”

  “A couple of weeks? Or a couple of months?”

  “Fine, it’s been a year. Okay, more like one year, three months, and … twelve days.” I do a little calculation in my head. “Give or take.”

  “Christ. No wonder you’re giving me ‘come fuck me’ eyes.”

  “I am not giving you ‘come fuck me’ eyes.”

  Levi laughs. I pick up the twisty top from the champagne and throw it at him.

  After another glass and a lot more driving through the desolate Mojave Desert, we pull up to a huge house with a sandstone privacy fence surrounding it. Bobby speaks into an intercom, telling a disembodied voice that Mr Levi Quinn and guest have arrived, and it hits me. I’m about to meet Josh Holme. I’m about to meet the man who made me fall arse-over-head in love with rock music. I’m about to pee my pants. Oh my god, I need to pee real bad. I stare at Levi and the bastard chuckles. He’s laughing at me.

  “Calm down, Red. He’s just a person. Just like you and me.”

  “He is not a person. Josh Holme is not a fucking person. He’s a legend, a god. He’s rock royalty, he’s … oh god, he’s in that building, there’s just a courtyard and several inches worth of wall separating his body from mine.”

  “Okay, breathe, and calm the fuck down. I’m not gonna take you in there
if you’re gonna behave like a fucking fangirl.”

  “I told you,” I shriek, “I told you I’d freak. I told you my inner fangirl could not be stopped, but you didn’t listen, and now it’s too late. It’s too late for all of us.”

  We drive through the gate and I open my door before the car has even pulled to a stop, and then I’m out and running for Josh’s front door. I hear Levi swear and I’m pretty sure that dull thud was the sound of his champagne glass flying across the interior of the car as he chases after me. I press the doorbell, only I’m so excited I can’t retract my finger, so the button sticks and it just keeps ringing, and I have no way to make it stop because I’m frozen in fangirl fear. Levi catches up to me and throws his arm around my shoulder, keeping me reined in.

  “Okay, babe, if you go in like that he’s going to toss us both out on our arses before we even set foot inside. Where’s the bad-tempered woman I know and love so much? You never behaved this way in front of us.”

  “That’s because you’re not Josh Holme, you can’t be Josh Holme.” I shake my head “You will never be Josh Holme.”

  “Gee, thanks, Red. You really know how to boost a man’s ego.”

  “You’ll never ever be Josh,” I whisper, making sure we’re clear on this point.

  The door opens and Dave Growl—former drummer of inarguably one of the greatest bands of all time, and Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame Inductee—stands before me in all his resplendent bearded glory. My mouth gapes open, and apparently I no longer possess the brainpower to close it.

  “Hey man, long time no see,” Dave says, shaking Levi’s hand in a complicated rock-star handshake.

  “Yeah, it’s been, what? Two months?”

  Dave nods. “Bowie’s party, right? Dude, Coop was so fucking wasted that night. Where the hell is he?”

  “Passed out in a puddle of drool, no doubt,” Levi says. “Fucking lightweight.”

  “Can’t say I blame him. If my wife up and left me with my unborn kid, I’d want to drown in liquor too.”