Never Enough: A Rockstar Romance

by Roxie Noir

  “Thanks,” I say aloud in my car, my phone on the passenger seat, connected somehow to the speakers. Wizardry, I think.

  “Not a problem,” says the professional-sounding man on the other end. “Glad we could get a hold of you, Mr. Lockwood. Have a nice day.”

  We both click off the line, and I expel all the air from my lungs, gripping the wheel as hard as I can.

  Fucking Liam.

  Of course it wasn’t a random burglar or a crazed fan who broke the window. Apparently, the police found a “very inebriated man with a strong British accent” bleeding all over the sofa, and he’s being attended to by paramedics.

  After which he’ll likely be hauled off in handcuffs, though it sounds as if that depends somewhat on what I say.

  I half hope it happens. If Liam’s in jail at least I won’t have to deal with him for a day or two, and he’s been getting worse lately. Despite my no alcohol in the house rule I did find a plastic jug of cheap vodka far in the back of the pantry the other day. I poured it out, but God only knows what he’s hidden in the guest room where he’s staying.

  I don’t go in there. I don’t want to find it.

  I spend the rest of my drive seething and coming up with what I’m going to say to him.

  There’s an ambulance parked in my driveway, so I pull up on the side of the road next to my tall wooden fence and walk in. It’s nearly ten o’clock, so the rotating red lights are bright against the dark houses and trees, and I’m quite sure all my neighbors are perfectly aware that there’s a spectacle in progress.

  Liam’s sitting up on a stretcher, white bandages encasing his arm from bicep to wrist. He’s pale and nearly gray, the color of concrete or something, and his clothes are covered in huge splotches of blood. There’s two policemen standing to one side, a paramedic on the other.

  He looks up at me as I walk over, lifting his bandaged arm.

  “Lookit,” he says. “Now I’ve not got to worry about running out of toilet paper while I take a shit.”

  And he’s trashed, his northern accent thick as mud, his words slurred together. The police both turn in my direction as I close the distance, but I don’t pay them any mind.

  “Are you fucking joking right now?” I ask, my voice rising.

  “You do look like you could use a laugh—”

  I grab him by the front of the shirt, sticky with his blood.

  “You fucking dickhead,” I say, my voice rising.

  “Whoa!” says one of the cops.

  “You move into my house, then you trash the place and fucking bleed all over half my fucking furniture and now you’re here telling me jokes about taking a shit?”

  “Calm down,” says a cop. I ignore him.

  “Who’s gone and rammed a stick up your arse?”

  “This is why you’ve got no one left, you stupid twat, because you don’t give a shit about—”

  “—Did you let your fake girlfriend stick it up there? Heard a rumor you liked that—”

  “—Anyone else, so you’ve got no choice but to crawl back to me but I’ve fucking had it, Liam—”

  “Hey now,” says a cop.

  “—Forgot I was talking to fucking King of Everything Gavin, maybe you could punch me now and I’d be famous again for ten minutes—”

  A siren sounds for a split second, and we both jump. One of the cops is standing next to the car, his finger on a button.

  “You need to unhand the suspect,” he says.

  I do it and step back, not looking at Liam. I’m afraid I’ll punch him in his idiot face, and I don’t need to do that in front of the police.

  “Now,” the other cop says. “If you could please come with me I’ll show you the scene and then I’ve got a few questions.”

  It takes ages. I knew it would, but three hours later I’m still there, still describing my relationship with Liam to the police, confirming for the millionth time that yes, he is currently residing on the property. For his part, Liam passes out on the stretcher, and though the paramedic occasionally looks over at him with some concern, the rest of us leave him alone.

  He’s clearly not an escape threat.

  When they’re finished asking questions, the cops get in their car and then sit there, filling out a report. The paramedics wake Liam, push him off the stretcher, get into the ambulance, and leave. I sit on the front steps of the house — which is a rental, so now I’ve got to call the company I’m renting from and explain this fucking mess — and just wait.

  Liam totters over, still drunk, barely awake, and certainly worse for the wear.

  “I’ve got nothing to say to you,” I tell him.

  He sits next to me anyway.

  “I’m sorry, mate,” he says.

  There’s a raw note in his voice. I flex one hand into a fist, as if I can fight it off.

  “I’ve fucked up again,” he goes on. “Things here were going so well and I went off and ruined everything.”

  I don’t respond.

  “I fuck up everything I touch,” he says, his voice barely a whisper. “It’s like I want to be better but I don’t want to be better at the same time. I’m dragging myself down and I can’t stop.”

  He takes a deep, shaky breath.

  “I’m so fucking sorry, Gavvy,” he says. “You’re right. You’re right about everything, I’ve got no other friends because I’ve fucked them all over sooner or later, I haven’t got any work, the band hates me and they’re bloody right to hate me—”

  “We don’t hate you,” I mutter.

  “— it was the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I threw it away and now I’ve got nothing.”

  I look over at him from the corner of my eye. His bandaged arm is hanging at his side, he’s got his face in his other hand, his elbow propped on his knee, and he’s crying.

  “I can’t stop myself,” he mutters. “I fucking killed someone and I still can’t stop myself.”

  I swallow hard. It’s tempting to think that Liam’s just faking to manipulate me into feeling sorry for him, but I’ve known him for more than half my life and Liam’s not got a manipulative bone in his body. Everything he does is pure id, driven by whatever he’s thinking or feeling at the moment.

  And right now, he’s drunk, probably high, his arm probably fucking hurts, and he knows he’s a goddamn train wreck.

  “You didn’t kill Allen,” I tell him.

  I’ve told him that over and over again. Sometimes he seems like he believes me and sometimes he doesn’t.

  “I gave it to him,” he says miserably. “I fucking handed him the needle. I told him it wasn’t as much as it looked.”

  I look over at the cop car so I don’t have to think about that night. One cop’s got a laptop out, determinedly pecking away with two fingers.

  “He’d never so much as snorted coke before I met him,” Liam says, sniffing hard. “He—”

  Liam grabs the bottom of his blood-covered shirt, puts it to his nose, and blows.

  “Jesus Christ,” I say, and jump up, heading through the door. I don’t think I’ve got tissues anywhere, but there’s a roll of paper towels on the counter and I grab those.

  Out on the counter is a bottle of whiskey, a brand I’ve never heard of.

  All the same it fucking calls to me. Just one shot, quick, no one would ever know but it would make Liam so much easier to deal with, the cops easier to take, muffle all the bullshit of this stupid night.

  I pick it up. It’s half-empty, the glass cool and heavy in my hand, the liquid inside sloshing slightly. Just one drink.

  But then I think of the books on Marisol’s nightstand. Of being in her bed, her head on my chest, her hair tickling my nose.

  I put the whiskey down and walk back to the door.

  Liam blows his nose into a towel, then stares into it like he can read the future in his snot, and he’s quiet for a long time.

  “I’ve still not worked out why you could do it and I couldn’t,” he finally says, his voice low a
nd raw with misery. “I thought we were the same, we’d come up together and had our problems together and you were just a much of a wreck as me but then...”

  He waves the snotty towel at his bandaged arm.

  “Fucking look at this,” he says.

  I take a deep breath. I don’t feel like a success, not yet, not when thirty seconds ago I looked at a bottle of cheap whiskey and had to practically drag myself away.

  “Let me send you to rehab again,” I say.

  “It didn’t fucking work.”

  I rub my hands together, staring down at the ground.

  “Research shows that people often have to go more than once, and it rarely sticks on the first try, but it does often stick,” I say.

  Liam looks at me, eyes watery and bloodshot.

  “Research shows?” he says incredulously. “Who the tits are you, some pompous university wanker?”

  “No, I’m fucking sober while you’re snot-crying on my front steps,” I snap.

  He swallows.

  “Sorry.”

  “Marisol’s been doing a lot of reading on addiction and heroin and all that,” I say. “And rehab is one thing that’s really excellent at breaking the cycle.”

  “Is that the false girlfriend?”

  I sigh, because I’ve got the feeling that the truth is too intricate for Liam right now, but I may as well give it a go.

  “We really are dating,” I say.

  “It’s me, mate,” he says. “Fucking lie to someone else.”

  “It did start out that way,” I say. “But it turned out we quite liked each other, and... are now actually dating.”

  He just rolls his eyes.

  “You honestly think anyone’s going to believe that story?” he asks, and then pitches his voice higher. “‘Oh, right, we weren’t dating until we were caught in a sham but now it’s real.’”

  “That’s not what I sound like,” I say, because it’s clear that I’m not going to convince Liam of anything right now, and besides, I don’t really give a flying fuck what he believes.

  “It is when you’re trying to get one over on me.”

  “I’m not.”

  A car door slams, and we both look over. The cops are walking toward us, so we stand. They look from me to Liam and back again.

  “I’m guessing you’re not interested in pressing charges,” the taller one says.

  I glance over at Liam. For a split-second I wonder if I ought to, teach him some sort of lesson or something, but I haven’t got the stones for it. I’m a fucking soft-hearted kitten.

  “No,” I say.

  Both cops nod, officially.

  “All right then,” the one on the left says. “Then we’ll be leaving you two alone, and I hope your Tuesday is better than your Monday was.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “I hope so as well.”

  I think they’re going to leave, but they simply stand on my drive for another long moment before the one on the right clears his throat.

  “Listen, I hate to do this,” he says. “But my daughter’s seventeen and she’s a huge Dirtshine fan, and I wonder if you’d mind signing something for her?”

  I’m exhausted, it’s near two in the morning, and I’ve still got a broken window to deal with, but I make myself smile.

  “Of course, mate,” I say. “If you can hold on a tic I’ve got some posters inside the house.”

  34

  Marisol

  I wait until I get home to finally call Sandra back, because I hate it when people are on the phone on the bus, and because she knows me too well. I’m a little afraid that the second she answers the phone she’ll know I got laid, and I’ve always been bad at keeping secrets from her.

  It’s why we haven’t talked much the past month, which I think she’s upset about. But I still haven’t told my family that I’m seeing someone, let alone pretending-to-date-and-now-really-dating an actual rock star.

  Sandra answers her phone on the second ring.

  “Yo,” she says.

  “I looked at those listings,” I say. “Is that an okay area? I don’t really know Brea Park.”

  Sandra groans, and I can hear the sound of her dramatically flopping onto her bed. She lives in North Hollywood with two roommates, where she has three separate part-time jobs and also does freelance graphic design.

  “I think it’s not that bad of an area,” she says. “To be honest, I don’t really know it either, but it looks kinda nice. The one building even had a cute little courtyard?”

  “I can’t get out there to help until this weekend,” I say.

  My parents aren’t exactly internet-savvy. They’ve got smartphones, but only because that’s the only kind of phone you can even buy now. They don’t own a computer, and they don’t have a clue how to search Craigslist or anything.

  “I’m not working Thursday morning, so I could go then,” she offers.

  We hash out the details. Silently, I pray that one of these is the apartment that works out, because we’re running out of options quickly. They’re out of their current apartment in two and a half weeks, and since they were given proper notice, that’s the day the police can escort them out.

  I’m fully aware that I’m dating a wealthy rock star. I’m fully aware that he’s giving me a million dollars, and that if I asked for an advance, I think he’d hand it over in a heartbeat, but I hate the thought of that. I want to solve this on my own, without feeling as though I’m using my boyfriend like an ATM.

  So I haven’t told him anything about this.

  “Once they’re in a new place I swear we should buy them a computer,” Sandra says. “I’ll pick up some extra gigs, you edit a few more shitty undergrad papers, voila, they find their own next apartment.”

  “As long as you configure their internet and teach them to use it,” I say, lying on my back, staring up at the ceiling.

  The pillow smells a little like Gavin, and my heart thumps.

  “Oh, God, I hadn’t thought of that,” Sandra says.

  She’s quiet for a moment.

  “We can just keep helping them with apartments,” she says, and I laugh. “I tried to show my manager Instagram today and it did not go well, Marisol. She kept trying to — oh! Holy shit, that reminds me, I called you earlier because are you on TMZ?!”

  I go dead quiet.

  “Marisol,” she says.

  “Probably?”

  “Okay,” she says.

  More silence.

  “That was an invitation for you to explain!” she half-shouts into the phone, and I can practically see my little sister, flopped on her bed, waving one hand in the air. “You’re dating the guy from Dirtshine but not really and he’s having a fight with the drummer who’s new and not the original drummer that everyone thought was kind of cute? And they’re fighting over you?!”

  “Kinda,” I say.

  “I swear to God, Mar—”

  “Okay, okay,” I say.

  I explain the whole ludicrous situation, top to bottom, starting with the secret concert at the Whiskey Lounge and ending with tonight’s meeting, though I leave out our afterparty. When I finish, there’s a long silence on the other end.

  “I swear they used that plot on Pasión Prohibida last week,” she says. “Are you sure no one got jilted at the altar so you could go full telenovela?”

  “Shut up,” I say.

  “No wonder you don’t want mom and dad to have the internet,” she says.

  “Please don’t tell them,” I say. “I’m going to, but it’s all kind of weird and ridiculous right now.”

  “I could blackmail you,” she says, laughing.

  “Do not blackmail me.”

  “Just for dumb shit,” she goes on. “One of mom’s pork tamales left in the freezer? Sure, Marisol, you can have it if you want me to tell...”

  “You’re a monster,” I say, rolling my eyes.

  Sandra just laughs.

  “It’s pretty fucking weird, but if he treats you right and y
ou’re happy, we’re good,” she says.

  I smile up at my ceiling.

  “We’re good,” I say.

  And then maybe the weirdest thing of all happens, and life is... normal. Sure, I’m dating someone who was shirtless on the cover of Rolling Stone, but I go to class, do my homework, and correct bad undergraduate essays until I think my eyes might bleed. Finals start in a few weeks, and even though I know I’m already pretty prepared and I’ll be fine, I start worrying anyway.

  Well, also, my parents need a place to live, and I still haven’t told Gavin the whole truth.

  And, some of my fellow students have started getting called for job interviews and I haven’t. It’s only one or two, but it still hurts. I wanted to be the first person called, at the top of every firm’s list.

  So it’s not like my life is stress-free, but it’s good.

  We do normal couple stuff. I take him to a loud, crowded Oaxacan restaurant where we stuff our faces with mole, listen to a band play and no one even gives him a second glance. We go see a black-and-white movie at Grauman’s Egyptian Theater and split a massive bucket of popcorn. I take him hiking in Griffith Park, up to the Observatory, where you can see practically all of L.A., and I point the city out to him and we stand there, looking over the Los Angeles basin, his arms around me and his chin on top of my head.

  “You know I didn’t like it here at first?” he says.

  “And now?”

  “I think I’m coming around.”

  I lean back against him. There are planes coming in to land at LAX, flying east to west, and I watch once as it lowers across the sky.

  “Why?”

  “Guess,” he says, and kisses the top of my head.

  A few girls in their early twenties look over at us, eyes narrowed in an is-that-a-famous-person expression, but they look away.

  We spend a lot of nights at my place. I get used to studying while he lounges on my bed, headphones on, and reads. He starts with the books I borrowed about addiction, but moves onto the novels on my bookshelves. It’s oddly relaxing and kind of intimate in a weird way, sitting together in silence for hours.

  He stays over a lot, though I’ve still never been to his house. But all my school stuff is here, not there, so it really makes sense — besides, it hasn’t even been two weeks.