Absolutely Unforgivable (5 page)

We turned into the parking lot of a shopping center. The marquee above the bar read
Rowdy’s
. I was a little disappointed we had arrived so quickly. I was enjoying the ride in my beautifully perfect new car. My shiny, new convertible BMW. I still could barely believe it was mine. I was still so caught up in the thought of my new car, I had almost forgotten about the people I was coming to meet. Billy and Jeromy met up in the parking lot and started to head into the bar together while I followed just behind them.

Rowdy’s was bigger than the bar I had worked in, back home in Oklahoma. To the right was a counter that was the full length of the building. To the left was a stage where they already had their equipment set up. Near the stage was a long table where the band and their closest friends gathered. Jeromy grabbed my hand and pulled me forward to meet everyone. I squeezed his hand. My stomach turned in knots.

“Oh my God! You must be Stacy! I’m so glad to finally meet you. I’m Mindy!” She was a perky blonde girl with dark brown eyes, and thinly plucked eyebrows that were shaped into a deceivingly perfect arch. She had tiny arms, velvety soft skin and a paper-thin waste that screamed of unnatural skinniness. When she pulled away from me, I noticed she had a huge smile on her face, as if she was genuinely excited to meet me.

I turned my head toward Billy, wondering if he would explain who she was, but he didn’t at first. He paused for a moment and then realizing his mistake, he leaned into me and said, “That’s Bran’s old lady.” He pointed across the table to where Bran was sitting. Mindy bounced back over to him and sat on the corner of his chair. He put one arm across her leg and with the other picked up his beer, tilted his head and lifted his beer up, as to acknowledge our arrival.

“Hey man. Good to see you again,” he shouted across the table to Jeromy. Jeromy gave him the same sort of acknowledgement. As Jeromy cocked his head back, I noticed a table of girls next to him checking him out, whispering and pointing. You would think by now I would be used to the attention that Jeromy draws from other females, but I quite honestly wasn’t. And now with Billy and him together, they seemed to be drawing quite a crowd of giggling girls. I did my best to ignore it and instead focus on meeting Billy’s other friends.

Bran was the drummer, I thought, trying to remind myself who was who. Sitting next to Bran was Zander, the lead guitarist. I recognized his messy hair. He looked exactly like his picture. Sitting across the table from Zander was Travis. He was speaking to a heavy set man with a goatee. “That’s Brick,” Billy said as he pointed to him. “He runs our website and makes our videos for YouTube.”

I glanced back over to Travis as I noticed two women fawning over him. They looked similar, with long bleach blonde hair, a clearly fake suntan, long nails with bright pink polish, and matching bright pink lipstick.

Mindy popped back up next to me and took my hand. “Come on, let me introduce you to Darla and Starla.” I immediately knew who she was talking about. The girls did look so much alike; it only made sense that they were related. They didn’t look enough like each other to be actual twins, so I surmised that they were just sisters.

But as it turned out, Darla and Starla weren’t sisters at all. They just happened to have similar names and looked alike. It was their similarities that had drawn them together as friends, they would later tell me.

Surprisingly, the bar wasn’t too loud and having a conversation with the others was easy. That was, until it was time for the band to play. Billy was the last to take the stage and when he did the crowds let out a loud roar. I sat down next to Jeromy, positioned perfectly near the stage so I could see the show.

Billy was superb, he really commanded the stage. Countless half-dressed women leapt to their feet and began shouting as Billy sang one song after another. He had such energy, such presence. It was hard to take your eyes off of him. At the end of their set, the band left the stage to uproarious applause and cheers.

As they made their way back to our table, they passed several girls waiting for their attention. While the other men seemed to revel in it, Billy didn’t. Instead he came back and sat down next to Jeromy and I, and the two began a conversation about sports and going to see a Houston Texans football game in the fall. It was strange, really. It was as if he didn’t realize the line of women standing by the stage who were waiting for him, dying to get even a second glance.

Billy was nothing like I had imagined him to be. I assumed he would be your stereotypical rock god with women falling all over him, which they were, but I expected him to love every minute of it and have a new bimbo every night. Although I had just met him, he didn’t seem anything like that at all. I was pleasantly surprised. But then again, maybe he was just putting on a good face since it was our first night in town.

As Jeromy went up to the bar to get us another round of beers, Billy slid over into his chair to sit next to me. “So what did you think?” he asked as he nodded towards the stage.

“Oh, you were fine,” I said to him nervously and then quickly looked away. This was the first time we had really spoken alone. I didn’t know why he intimidated me so much, but he really did.

“Fine?” he said, sounding almost offended. “I was hoping for a little more than fine.”

“No, no. I didn’t mean it like that,” I pleaded. “Really I didn’t. You guys were great. I’m so sorry.” My face was turning several shades of red.

Billy laughed it off and started to get up as Jeromy came back but Jeromy said, “No, man, stay seated; I’ll take this one,” and pointed to the chair next to me. He kissed my forehead and took the empty chair on the other side of me. “Miss me?” he purred into my ear.

“I did, very much so,” I said to him as I leaned in to kiss him.

“So what did you think of the band?” Jeromy asked me, while handing me my new beer.

“Yeah Stacy, what did you think of the band?” Billy said sarcastically behind me.

“I thought they were amazing. Billy really knows how to work the crowd.”

“We aren’t all of that. We were just …
fine
was it?” I turned to face Billy as he said it with a smirk on his face.

Billy leaned in and asked Jeromy, “So, have you told her yet?”

“No, I think she still needs a few more beers in her first.”

Billy hadn’t exactly been quiet about saying it and when he did everyone around the table laughed. They all seemed to be in on it. Whatever
it
was. I wondered what the heck they were talking about, but as I looked around nobody seemed to be willing to tell me.

Billy waved over the waitress. She was a beautiful brunette with lots of curly dark brown hair and soft brown eyes. Her long legs stuck out in the small, tight black mini skirt she wore. The waitress had a worried look on her face and I knew exactly what it meant. I had worked at a bar long enough to know that when regulars started ordering rounds of shots they were going to get rowdy.
Rowdy … ha, I get it now. Rowdy’s.
I laughed to myself as I realized what the name of the bar meant.

“To Jeromy and Stacy!” Billy shouted as he lifted up his shot glass and then downed it. Everyone at the table repeated, “To Jeromy and Stacy!” I drank my own shot and within a few minutes the waitress returned with another. By the time I had my third shot I was definitely feeling more relaxed and by the fifth shot, I was feeling wonderful.

So wonderful that it didn’t bother me in the slightest that across the table Travis was doing shots off of Darla and Starla’s breasts. Okay maybe it bothered me some. He noticed me looking at him, cocked his head up and said, “Want some?”
God he’s an ass
. I averted my eyes and turned my attention back to Jeromy and Billy, who at that time were looking at me with a sort of conspiratorial grin across their adorably sexy faces.

Billy started to get up. “It’s that time again.” He motioned for the sound guy and he quickly made his way over to us and handed Billy a tambourine.

“Know what this is?” he asked.

“Ummm yeah. It’s a tambourine,” I answered cautiously. I glanced over to Jeromy and he had a grin on his beautiful face, but he didn’t say a word. Instead he just watched me carefully as Billy continued to address me.

“See, we have this thing around here. If you are going to hang with us, you are going to have to pass initiation. You gotta show us that you can really handle it.”

I furrowed my brow as I looked at him.
Initiation?
What the heck was he talking about?
Billy didn’t tell me anything more; instead, he grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the stage with him. The rest of the band had already taken their places. As we got on the stage the crowd cheered.

When Travis strummed the first few notes of the song, the crowd went wild. Billy grabbed the microphone in one hand, while still holding on to me with his other. “My good friend Jeromy has recently moved back in town and he brought this hot piece of ass with him.” He squeezed me tightly, pulling me in closer to him.

He paused for a moment and the crowd let out a load roar. Billy lifted his hand trying to get them to settle down so he could continue to speak. While Billy addressed the audience of eager fans, Travis continued to strum out first part of the song. It was a familiar beat and it only took me a second to realize the song was
Jessie’s Girl
. It was a song I knew well. I loved it but I still didn’t get what I was doing on stage with them. Maybe this was it. Maybe he just wanted to see if he could embarrass me with this introduction.

As the band played on, Billy continued talking to the audience. He twirled me around with his one free arm. “What do you think?” There were lots of whoops and hollers coming from the crowd. My face flushed.

“Well, you all know what that means. If she’s going to hang with us she has to pass the test.”

Billy handed me the tambourine and the crowd let out a thunderous roar. He let go of my hand and leaned into the microphone while he locked his gaze onto mine. He sang the first words of the song softly, with a sexy, come hither look on his face. The crowd ate it up. The tempo picked up and he sang his heart out.

I hated being on stage; my face was red, and my stomach was twisted in knots. I thought about bolting for the door, I’m really not one for being the center of attention but then I turned towards Jeromy to see the biggest smile on his face and I decided to just go for it.

I looked back to Billy and then took a deep breath and focused only on him, trying my best to block everyone else out of my mind and I started to shake the tambourine like I knew what I was doing.

Then when Billy got to the chorus, he stuck out a hand and motioned for me to come up closer to him. Without thinking I walked over, then leaned into him and sang the three lines with him. Billy had turned back to face the crowd after the chorus and I stepped back for the next part of the song. He leaned into the microphone and softly sang the next few lines, in a softer more seductive voice.

I stood on the side of the stage, shaking my hips to the beat of the song along with the tambourine, just watching Billy in action. He really came alive when he was on stage. His eyes lit with excitement. He was truly amazing at what he did and the crowds seemed to love him too. They were at his feet, whistling, cheering, clapping and screaming their approval.

As the beat of the song picked up again I knew it was my cue to start shaking my thing again. I gave Billy a big smile and he reached up to grab my hand and pulled me towards him. As I sang the last part of the song with Billy, I could see a sparkle in his eyes that I had not noticed before. It caught me off guard. Billy was in his element when he was on stage. Billy was a rock star, even if only a local one.

When the song ended he put his hands around my waist and pulled me in towards him. “You are fucking awesome. Jeromy is one lucky son of a bitch.”

I kissed him on the cheek and started to walk away. I was going back to sit next to Jeromy but as I tried to leave Billy pulled me back to him. He held me next to him with his arm around my waist, locking me in place. With his other hand he grabbed the microphone. I glanced out in the crowd, looking for Jeromy’s face, which still had his adorably wide grin on it so I knew he was okay with me being up on stage with Billy.

“You know, we don’t normally do this song but since tonight we have this pretty lady here to inspire me, I think it will be okay. You don’t mind, do you?”

I looked at Billy curiously as the crowd cheered him on. I wondered what song he was talking about. It started off with a slow beat and as I stood there wrapped in Billy’s arm I tried to figure out which song it was. It didn’t sound familiar. I wondered if it was one of their own. He loosened his grip on my waist but still didn’t let go as he softly sang, “When I first seen your picture, I knew that it was love at first sight. You stole my heart. You made me smile.”

Butterflies filled my stomach as our bodies swayed together with the beat of the music. At this point I had all but forgotten we were in a packed bar and my adoring boyfriend was sitting just feet away from us watching our every move. Billy had me completely captivated.

After the song ended, I stood there locked in an embrace with Billy, both of us staring into each other’s eyes. I bit my lip as I felt my entire body tingle. And then thankfully the crowd let out a thunderous roar, louder than they had been all night.