Get Bent (Hard Rock Roots)

by C. M. Stunich

  “She's our hostage,” Turner says, grabbing towels from the back and throwing them on the table. He watches as I pull of the sweater and throw it in the sink, filling it with soapy water and hitting that bitch like it owes me money. “Until she explains why she tried to attack Naomi. With the help of a cop.”

  “Aw, man,” Ronnie groans, hand to his face. “The cops are involved? This is not going to turn out well for us.”

  I glance over my shoulder and watch as Dax stands up and backs away from Hayden like he's never seen her before. She's been carrying a torch for him for years, so I imagine that's gotta hurt. I shake the soap bubbles from my hands and rinse my arms under the cool tap, turning away and letting the fabric soak.

  “I don't have a choice,” she repeats for the hundredth fucking time.

  “We always have a fucking choice,” Turner growls, moving to the fridge and grabbing a beer. When he hands me one, I don't protest.

  “But they're not always good,” Hayden whispers, looking at Dax with a resigned sigh. She peels her shirt over her head and slaps the bloody monstrosity on the table. She gets up and wets one of the towels, scrubbing at her tits and not caring who's looking. In fact, I think she likes the attention. “Sometimes, you get shit held over your head and your choices are so limited, you make the wrong ones, okay?”

  “No sympathy bullshit. Doesn't kick in for like, seventy-two hours. Make this count.” Turner sips his beer and I take a step closer to him. It's unconscious, but there it is. He may not be the best knight in shining armor, but he's trying. That's what counts. I don't need anybody to save me anyway. Naomi, my mind warns. Don't let him trap you. Men like this are bad news. I take a conscious step away.

  “You want the play by play?” she asks, but nobody answers, so she starts off on her rant, scrubbing at her bloody nipple with angry motions. “After that stupid bloody bird thing, I get some weird messages from this girl who says she knows more than just Naomi's dirt. She tells me to meet her, so I do when we're in Denver.” Hayden stops attacking her boob and runs her tongue along the inside of her cheek. “I get there and they fucking knock me out. I don't see who does it. Then I wake up in a room, tied and drugged. A few days pass and Eric shows up. He takes my blindfold off and tells me that he's sorry, but that he needs my help.” Hayden sniffles again. I want to shake the shit out of her, watch the pieces of this story fall to the floor and shatter, open up and reveal themselves. Instead, I just stand there and clench my fists tight. Behind me, Turner moves and ends up pressing against my back. I pretend that my cunt doesn't moisten as fast as a flick of the tongue across the lips. Not exactly the most appropriate time for a screw.

  “He tells me that he'll make me a deal.” Hayden swallows. “He only wants two things, he says. Katie and Naomi.” Hayden takes a massive breath and her ribs poke out of her skin. She really is anorexic, I think. Despite my constant insults, I never really believed it was true. Right now though, she looks all skin and bones. Eric. I knew, somehow, that he was behind all of this shit. I knew it, knew it, knew it, but I didn't want to believe it. What happened to the kid I shared flasks with under the stars? He turned into his parents? How? Why? When? My head fucking hurts. “But he said there were other people involved and that if I wanted to walk out of there alive, I'd play along and they'd leave me alone. He said I was one of their targets, but that he could get them off my back if I helped out. So I did. And I am. I. Don't. Know. Shit. Don't ask me who the other parties involved are or what they want. So, I'm sorry for what I did. I really wanted to save Naomi, okay? I was going to figure out a way to help her without putting my ass on the line. Right now, Eric is pissed, and I'm afraid of him.” She grabs the countertop and curls her fingers around the edge. “I said it. There. I'm terrified right now, and you all should be, too.” Finally. Some fucking honesty from her.

  “Why?” Ronnie asks, moving up the steps and pausing with his eyes on Hayden. Dax stays silent and Turner growls low in his throat, like he can feel the storm brewing in the sky and even worse, here on the ground.

  “Because,” Hayden whispers, keeping her eyes on the pink water in the sink. “Eric said the other targets,” she pauses and looks around the room. “Are all of you.”

  Night falls on the camp and the weather gets real weird, real fast. Hail storms from the sky like a torrent of tiny soldiers, pummeling the metal of the bus and pinging off the sides. It coats the ground in ice and traps us on the bus with our thoughts.

  Naomi and I sit together alone in the back, quietly playing a game of cards and nursing some beers. We've been talking for hours, her and me and Ronnie and Dax. Indecency and Amatory Riot. We're the targets. Not just Naomi, but all of us. I think about the baseball cap and wonder who sent it. Eric? Or somebody else?

  “At least we know where the guitar came from,” Naomi says as she slams an ace down on the tabletop. “From Eric. My foster brother and own, personal stalker. Wonder if he sent the doll head, too?”

  I don't respond, but I do watch the way Naomi's lips move when she talks, how they form syllables with rolling motions that remind me of much dirtier things. After a few moments of silence, she sighs and drops her hand to the table.

  “God, I'm exhausted,” she moans, running her fingers up her throat, bringing my cock to attention without even realizing she's doing it. Shit, this girl is toxic. I want to get poisoned and die between her beautiful thighs. “I can't even begin to untangle this shit. There's too much. Eric's paying cops off with money from God knows where, blackmailing people, fucking his little sister. Shit.” Naomi drops her arms to the table and lays her head on them. “Let's talk about something else for awhile, anything else.”

  “We could leave the talk out and go for something deeper,” I tell her, knowing that I sound like an asshole, but unable to hold it back. I'm not going to lie, the information we got from Hayden, from Ronnie, from that girl, Spencer. It's a lot. It needs to be mulled over, but it's hard to focus on that when I'm tired as fuck and twice as horny.

  Naomi ignores me.

  “Turn out the light and tell me a fucking story.”

  “I don't like being bossed around, Knox,” I tell her, but I'm only half-serious. We shared a joint earlier, so I'm calm. Enough. I spin in the bench and use my boot to knock down the switch, plunging that tiny room in shuttered darkness. I lean back and let my head smack against the cushions with a sigh. For awhile, the only sound is the violent crash of ice cascading from the dreary sky.

  “Were you born an asshole?” Naomi asks me. Sounds like a legit question, so I think about it for a second. Instead of getting pissed like might've done before, I just answer her.

  “No, I was made one,” I say, kicking off my boots, peeling off the socks underneath. I sit up just enough to rip my shirt over my head and toss it to the floor. The air in the cabin prickles my skin like needles, shoots me up with electricity and brings goose bumps up across my skin. When I'm in the same room as Naomi, I just stop thinking clearly. Shit. What am I saying? I don't even have to be in the same room as her to go nuts. I am now inexorably tied up in this chick's guitar strings. “My momma made sure that there wasn't much worse in the world beyond her free hands. My step-dads liked to join in, just to pound home the point. So maybe I am an asshole, but I've been waiting my whole life for respect, and I'm not letting anybody take that away from me.” I pause and try to listen to Naomi's breathing, see if she's still awake. Can't hear a fucking thing above the clattering hail. “And I don't like to be hit. By anybody. I won't take that shit ever again.”

  “I'm sorry,” Naomi says which blows my friggin' mind. Sorry? For what? I shift onto my side and try to snag a glimpse of her under the table. It's too dark to see my hand in front of my face. “Remember what I said about crumbling foundations? I have one, too. It's hard to build a solid life when the one you were born into fucked you.”

  “I think you're doing pretty alright for yourself,” I say, wishing I could see her desert eyes, find out if they're still holdi
ng a drop of that glistening wetness. One day, it'd be nice to see them moist all the time, open, swimming like the ocean under the sun. Bright, free, ready for everything. “You play guitar like a goddess, and you're the hottest lay I've ever had.” Naomi laughs at me and it's only tinged with bitter. For the most part, it's just fun.

  “I doubt that. We haven't exactly had the most opportune moments to show off our skills. Please tell me that's not true because I can do better.” She pauses, and I can almost see her licking her lips, wetting them for me, spreading them over my cock … I shake my head and put the palms of my hands against my forehead. I want Naomi to be more than sex to me. I just don't have any other point of reference to deal with my feelings.

  “It's not about the actual act with you, babe,” I tell her, praying to God that nobody's on the other side of that door listening. If I'm going to open my rib cage and let Naomi see my bloody heart, I have to make sure we're in private. Turner Campbell is not vulnerable or soft or tender. Not for anyone else. Never for fucking anyone else. And this is all new to me. I'm going to have to learn as I go.

  “And why's that?” Naomi asks. Her voice sounds a little too harsh to me, like she's trying too hard to be tough. I told you when I first looked at her that she was vulnerable. But in the same way as me. Not weak but ready to show somebody her hidden side. I get it.

  “You've been on my mind constantly since you thrust my jacket at my chest, even when I thought you were just another conquest.” I swallow hard and hope this doesn't just piss her off more. “Even when I thought I disliked you, I was drawn to you. And I like you because you don't like me. It shows you have a good judge of character.” I try to smile, but I don't know how it's supposed to come across in that dark ass room. I dig a cigarette out of the pocket of my jeans and light up, using the crackling cherry as a point of reference to stare at. “I love you, Naomi, and I'll say it a million times if you need me to. Every day until the day I die. Even if you don't believe me, even if you don't accept it, I'll say it forever. I'm twenty-eight years old. I know what I want at this point on my life.” I roll back on my side and pass the cigarette under the table to her. Surprisingly, she takes it. I grab her wrist in time with a crack of lightning outside the window, and I swear to fuck that I can feel it. It travels into the ground, up the tires, into my spine and through my arm straight to Naomi's heart. She shivers violently, but she doesn't pull her arm away. “And what I want is you.”

  “Fuck you,” she whispers, but her voice isn't as powerful as it was before. I'm getting in there, climbing into that crack I left before.

  “Any time you want. I am on call for that shit.”

  “Your manager, Milo, coming to get you,” Naomi begins and I freeze, fucking still as a Greek statue, chiseled abs and all. “That doesn't make you blameless. It doesn't free you of the responsibility.”

  “I know,” I start to say, but she isn't done. She lets me keep holding onto her wrist though.

  “But it does help,” she starts. “You were still too trashed to remember me later, but you didn't choose to leave. That doesn't mean everything, but it's a start.” She pauses and my throat gets tight. I want to kiss her so bad it hurts. “Now let go of my fucking wrist. I want to know what Spencer said to you again. Someone from Ice and Glass got the doll head package delivered to their bus by accident?”

  “Naomi,” I begin, keeping my hold tight, my fingers tense.

  “Let go of me, Turner.”

  “No.”

  I roll to the floor and drop to my knees, pulling her down with me and snagging the cig from her other hand. I smash it into the floor and drag her against me, wrapping my fingers in her blonde hair and kissing her mouth so hard it hurts. At first, she resists, but only until my tongue ring clicks against her teeth. It's like a bell, calling her to arms.

  Naomi flips her arm around and looses my grip, grabbing onto my wrists instead. She takes both and slams them against the seat of the bench behind my head. My body gets hot with adrenaline and it takes everything in me not to fight her back.

  “I don't like to be controlled,” I tell her, but she shushes me with an angry nibble on my lower lip. Thunder rumbles and rattles the windows above us. The storm is picking up energy, feeding it into the two of us, igniting the toxic cloud of lust and longing we're carrying around. And this time, I really hope there's an explosion.

  “Turner, if you want to stand a chance with me, and I mean a chance, not a guarantee, you will shut your fucking mouth and do as I say.” I start to protest and then stop. Lightning flashes outside and I catch a glimpse of Naomi's pretty face, rimmed in shadows, wet with tears. My walls come crashing down fast, and I relax into her, lean back and let the softness of her body brush against the hardness of mine.

  I don't know why she's crying. All I know is that I want her to stop. Not because it bothers me or because I'm overwhelmed, nothing like that. I want her to stop because I can't stand to see her sad.

  “You better not be fucking with me again or things will end bad for you, you know that?” she says, and I wonder what she's getting at. Is she going to give us a chance? Is that what this is about? “When I said I'd cut off your prized bits, I wasn't joking.”

  “I believe it,” I tell her. Which I do. But I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid of anything but losing this girl. I've found what I want in my life and I'm going to have it, the rest of the world be damned. I'm going to find Eric and smash his face, drag the rest of the information from his bloody body and finish this. I will be that knight in shining armor for her. No matter what it fucking takes. I have a lot of baggage to make up for. Here's to hoping it'll be enough.

  “I don't want to be a passing fancy or a one week girlfriend. I'm not a toy to be played with Turner, and I know you like to party hard. Do you understand that what you did to me before hurt? Do you know hard I ached after that? How much I wished things could've been different?”

  “I do,” I say as she straddles my lap and rubs her heat against my jeans. I can practically feel her pussy wrapping my cock. I stay still, sweat pouring down my face, skin burning at her touch. This is fucking torture, man. I want to grab her and touch her, kiss her face and remind myself that she's alright, that she's still alive. I want to feel her and breathe her in, absorb her scent and make her mine. Or give myself to her. Maybe that's the part I'm missing? Maybe that's what I'm getting wrong here? I can't make Knox do anything, but I have full control over myself.

  “And you do know I have blood on my hands?”

  “Watched the video myself,” I say as she releases my wrists and reaches her fingers under the hem of her baggy shirt, tentatively.

  “And?”

  “And I don't hold it against you. You did what you thought you had to do. It took some serious balls, and I respect the hell out of you for it.”

  The shirt comes off; Naomi's mouth smashes into mine, destroying words, tasting the truth in my mouth, the conviction. I bet there'll be a lot of people out there who will think I'm full of shit, that a playboy can't change, but that's only because they're still searching for something to live for. I found my purpose and I'm going to grab life by the balls and hold on tight. I saw dark, so I recognize light. I ate a whole heaping truckload of shit, so when I first tasted something good, I knew it right away. I actually imagine that if I'd been surrounded by love my whole life, kindness, joy, that it would've made this harder. How would I have known the difference? But I've got contrast which is a lot easier to distinguish than subtle shades.

  “Condom?” Naomi asks, and I pull one out of my pocket, flashing the Indecency logo at her with two fingers. I want to be inside her bare, feel her wetness, her slick ridges, fill her with my seed. I want to make babies with this chick, be a dad to a kid I already love even though it doesn't exist. But she's not ready for that, and I don't press the point.

  She sits back on my knees and unzips my pants slowly, teasing me with the rush of warmth that swirls around the room, escapes from her lips and fogs the wind
ows. Her feet are forward, close to my hands. I reach out and brush my fingers across the scabbed surface of her tattoo. It's hard to distinguish which of the rough surfaces is the knife wound she gave herself and which came from the rope and handcuffs, but I'm sorry just the same. For all of it. Every last wound.

  I brush my fingertips on the colored words, wondering if we laughed at each other in the tattoo parlor, shared stories, smiled at one another. Out of the whole night, that's the part I remember the least. I'll get it eventually, I know I will. For now, I just touch her skin with soft whispers and suck in a rush of air between my teeth when her hand frees me from my pants.

  “Struggling to understand why this pain feels different from what I've felt before,” Naomi sings, low and off-key, eyes tracing the lines of my pecs, my belly, traveling down my cock. She leans forward and presses her lips against my nipple, kissing the hardened point and trailing her mouth down. This song she's singing, I know it's about me. I feel like it wouldn't be right if I didn't feed it back to her, nourish her with her own words.

  “Waking up to the sound of your voice, playing in my head, always running in my head.” I sound so much smaller here, under this table, no heaving crowd, no microphone. It feels … it feels fucking great. I'm smaller, but I mean so much more. Does that make sense? Sure as shit does to me.

  Naomi licks my belly, running her tongue down the space between my abs, where the muscles cave before giving rise to others. She licks the sweat and the electricity from my body, drops my head back with a single kiss of her warm lips. I stare up at the ceiling with half-lidded eyes.

  When a knock sounds at the door, we both ignore it.

  “Tornado watch has been issued, asshole,” Trey says, sounding tired. “Milo's talking to the rest of the crew and the other managers, trying to decide what we should do.” He pauses and listens, but Naomi and I make no noises he can hear, protected from outsiders by the rush of rain that's just started up, replacing the hail. “And I know you don't give a shit and will continue to do whatever you want, Mother Nature be damned. Fuck me.” Trey pauses again and then presses his face against the door, rattling the folded wood design. “Man, I'm sorry. I'm sorry about the shit I gave you before. I know you're not easily fooled or fucked with. If you say you love, Naomi, I get it. Don't throw her away for whoever that is in there. It's not worth it, okay? Shit. I sound like a fag.” Trey stops talking, and a small chuckle escapes my throat, warming my belly and my chest as Naomi pauses her breath against the inked up perfection that is my cock. Yeah, alright, I'm a little full of myself, but I call that confidence. It's a good thing, right? “Just, forget it. Never mind. Just don't blame me when you die mid-fuck in the middle of a tornado.”