Consumed (15 page)

Rubbing my hands down the back of my tight, navy blue skinny jeans, I glance around at the rest of the band. “Do y’all know where—?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll have him all to yourself after the show,” Sinjin says, sitting upright. He tosses the cloth that was over his eyes behind him, where it lands a few inches from the candle on the end table. “But if it makes you feel better, he’s on the phone in the bathroom.” He points two fingers at the restroom in the back of the room. Sure enough the door is closed.

“Look at you cooperating,” I say sarcastically. “Was that so hard?”

Cal gets up from the couch, his straight black hair swinging around his shoulders. “He’s twitching from having to be a good boy,” he states dryly. “Oh, and your ass better come back here tonight after the show.” He winks theatrically. “I heard a rumor you’re supposed to do body-shots. What I want to know is if it’s supposed to be with me or off of me? Or off of you? And how Lucas feels about that?”

I shoot a hell-freezing look at Sinjin who’s the only person aside from Lucas that I’ve mentioned Ashley’s YTS bucket list to. He smiles like the Cheshire cat and then stretches back out on the loveseat, rolling over on his side so that his face is turned away from us. When he speaks, his voice is low, but it’s quiet enough in the dressing room for everyone to hear what he’s saying loud and clear. 

“Lucas will break the fucking bottle over your head if her lips even come close to you.”

Ignoring Sin, I address Wyatt. “Can you let Lucas know that I’m putting his wardrobe for tonight in that closet over there?” He confirms that he will, and after I take Lucas’s belongings off the rack and hang them neatly in the dressing room closet, I pull my garment cart toward the door. 

Before I leave, I pause. 

My eyes flit to the restroom door once again, and I twist my lips to the side. I try to convince myself that it’s not Sam he’s talking to and that she hasn’t tried to snake her way back into his life. I haven’t heard from her since the night before we left, and I’ve almost talked myself into believing that she won’t send another. That she wanted to retaliate against Lucas after reading an article about us being together and the easiest way for her to do so was to reach out to me.

Ripping my gaze away from the door, I give the band—minus Sinjin, whose back is still turned—an upbeat smile. “Good luck. Or break a leg.”

After I return the rack to the crew dressing room, I make it a third of the way up the hall before I hear yet another voice shouting my name. This time it’s a shirtless Wyatt McCrae.

I meet him halfway. “Yes?” I ask. 

He rubs his hand across his shoulder, pulling my attention to the intense bluebird tattoo that runs to the center of his chest. “Can you stick around for a few minutes?”

“Do you need me to come back for something?” I start to return to the band’s dressing room, but he stops me. 

“No, trust me, we’re good. But Sin and me thought it would be a good idea to get someone to escort you to the stage?” 

I fold my arms over my stomach. “I know how to find it.”

“I bet you do, but you’re on a lot of women’s shit list because you’re with Lucas.  Believe me, I would do the same thing if Kylie was here.” When I try to get a word in, he continues, “And she wouldn’t give me shit over something like this. Give David ten minutes, okay?”

“He’s walking with me?”

Wyatt rolls his blue eyes, obviously irritated with all of my questions, but his voice is patient when he answers, “No, but he’s calling someone on the radio to do it for him.”

David ends up taking less than five minutes to find me an escort. He introduces himself as Aaron, but after that, he’s silent as he walks me with me out of the backstage building toward the direction of Cilla Craig yelling into a microphone. Aaron doesn’t leave until the security crew near the stage has cleared me to enter the pit and I’m immersed in the crowd that’s rocking out and screaming along with Cilla. 

Even though it’s jam-packed out here, with sweaty bodies rubbing against me at every angle, I turn my face up to the stage and watch as Cilla struts around and goes through the chorus of one of Wicked Lambs’ more popular songs.

No matter how much I want to head-butt that woman 95% of the time, there’s no way in hell I could deny how talented she is, or how amazing she looks on stage in a lace-up corset top, tiny black shorts, purple fishnets stockings, and black leather boots. She doesn’t seem to notice the groupies pressing themselves against the stage, shrieking her name at the top of their lungs, or how all around there are cameras flaring as they snap photo after photo of her. 

Toward the end of the song, as she scans the crowd, her blue-green eyes lower into the pit and lock with mine. At first, shock registers in her expression—this is the first time I’ve come out to see Wicked Lambs—but then a grin sweeps across her face. She winks at me before flipping her shock of black hair back and crooning the last line of “Let’s Get Messy.”

The crowd goes crazy. As she catches her breath, Cilla seems to soak it all in, reveling in the worship. Once the thunderous applause dies down somewhat, she brings the mic up to her lips. “Wow,” she sighs, her deep voice sounding full of surprise. It sounds so genuine that I almost believe she is. “Can I just say that Dallas makes me so stupidly happy.”

“I fucking love you, Cilla,” a girl screeches from nearby, and Cilla blows a kiss down to the pit before pulling in another long breath.

“Here’s what’s going on.” Eyeing the crowd carefully, she begins to pace the width of the stage. “My manager is going to have my head for this shit, but I wanted to give you beautiful people an exclusive listen to something that hasn’t quite made its way onto one of our albums.”

Once again the audience erupts. A bulky guy standing nearby pitches into me, knocking me forward into two skinny blondes who cast me withering glares before refocusing on what Cilla has to say.

“Me and Brady sat down to write this back in—”She spins around for just a moment to face Brady, her lead guitarist, who mouths “March.” “Back in March. I’d just broke up with my cheating motherfucker of a boyfriend.” 

Somehow hearing those words come from a woman who’s been slinking around with her lip poked out because of a man who’s involved with another woman is ironic. 

“So, let’s go out with a bang.” Cilla widens her stance. “This one’s called “Second Best.” 

Crossing my arms over my chest, I listen as Brady plays the opening. The melody falls in line with most of Wicked Lambs’ ballads, but the lyrics are just as punchy and cutting as the last song. 

Other woman who needs to fuck off, check.

A man that the heroine scorns and absolutely adores, check.

An entire verse dedicated to how, eventually, he’s going to crawl back to her? 

Yeah, that crap’s there, too.

I know the song is about Lucas—I would be a fool not to figure that out—but it’s not until she croons the final line that my slight irritation takes a giant leap over the line into pissed off. Her shimmery-lined eyes locate my blue eyes in the crowd again, and she leans into the microphone almost seductively. “I fucked him first,” Cilla sings.

She holds my gaze for so long that the big guy next to me stares over at me and draws back, as if seeing me in a new light—a light that also turns Cilla into a victim. My skin feels like it’s crawling as I watch her take a dramatic bow. 

Then, she puckers her red-painted lips at her fans. “Thank you, Dallas.”

I feel like I’m on fire during the brief transition from Wicked Lambs to Your Toxic Sequel, and I barely hear a word the MC says. 

Rather than leave and go backstage to wear I’ll most definitely see Cilla, I stick around in the pit for Lucas’s show, but I don’t feel an ounce of that under-the-stars magic I was so excited about earlier this evening. Instead, I notice the bad, the ugly. Like when a drunk, red and black bikini-clad girl gets knocked into the stage. I flinch when she finally manages to pick herself up, and the entire lower portion of her face is covered in blood. Or when two men get into a shoving match over god knows what or who and security has to intervene and drag them away as they scream at each other. 

The band doesn’t seem fazed by the pandemonium or the naked breasts, thong straps, and ass cheeks being flashed at them at every turn. 

After the second to last song on the set is performed—which is one of their newer tracks called “Tumbles Down”—I start to leave the pit to avoid the flood of departing fans that will happen in about fifteen minutes.

It takes me twice as long as it did before to get backstage, and I find myself flashing my wrist more than normal until I’m finally secured in the VIP area, which is where both Wicked Lambs and Your Toxic Sequel will be doing interviews with the press and then an acoustic show for a select handful of their fans.

As I push through the crowd to get to the hospitality room, I make up my mind not to say anything to Cilla. First, I’ve had an hour and a half to get some of my anger at her “I fucked him first” line out of my system. And second? It’s not like it isn’t true. Admitting this makes my stomach feel like it’s swallowing my chest. 

But my resolve to stay quiet changes a few seconds after I enter the packed room. 

Cilla’s perched on the side of the plush armchair that Brady’s sitting in, a red Solo cup tipped up to her mouth, and her face turned toward the entrance to the room. When her gaze lands on her prey, me, a satisfied gleam crawls into her eyes. She mouths something, but it’s impossible for me to decipher it through the haze.

It’s probably best I can’t.

I have never wanted to hit someone so badly.

No, correction: I’ve never wanted to throat punch someone this much.

Her red lips widen as I stalk across the room to her. “Did you like the song?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” My voice is higher-pitched than normal, and I pray she doesn’t notice. “Do you like seeming like a desperate bitch?”

Cilla’s lips flatten into a sneer. “You’re really coming in here with that bullshit?” She glances back, probably to get some type of confirmation from Brady, but he’s staring down at a non-existent message on his phone. Grunting in disgust, she scoots her butt off the chair. “I’m getting a drink.”

If she thinks I’m anywhere near finished speaking with her, then she’s sadly mistaken.

I’m right behind her as she makes a beeline to the adjoining room. There’s a couple of crewmembers in here grabbing food, but Cilla pays them no mind as she slinks over to the refreshment table holding the liquor. She snatches a plastic cup from the stack on the corner and places the rim of it against her lips in amusement.

“Are you following me, Pepper? I guess this tour isn’t complete without me getting a brand new stalker.”

Cilla would say something so cocky.

“Trust me, you are the last person I’d ever want to stalk,” I say through clenched teeth, earning a dramatic pout from her. “And if you think being a bitch, or letting me know that you’ve fucked my boyfriend in the past is going to make me turn around and go home, then you have another thing coming.” With each word, I move closer to her until I’m standing less than six inches from her face. Up close, I can see that her lips are trembling. 

She races her tongue over the center of them. “Mmm, the submissive has a backbone. You must drive Lucas up the wall with that type of shit.” She reaches for a bottle of top shelf vodka, but I grab it first. She laughs coldly. “Just so you know, I don’t give a shit if you’re here or not.”

“Right.” I tilt my head to the side, sizing her up from the heels of her black, lace-up boots to the strands of dark hair damp against her forehead. “I’m sure you don’t. But just so you know, I’m not going anywhere unless Lucas asks me to.”

She pries the bottle of vodka out of my grip, sloshing some on the front of my white strapless shirt. “Well if that’s what you’re waiting for, I guess you know exactly what to expect then, don’t you?”

The only thing that stops me from flinching is just how hard I poke my nails into the palms of my hands. Cilla is watching me carefully for a reaction, and I refuse to give her the satisfaction of knowing that her bitter reminder of what happened in the past has stung me. I give her nothing but a distant smile that only confuses her and makes her shoulders hunch forward. 

“Guess we both know our roles,” I retort.

Her face flushed, Cilla finishes pouring her drink in sharp, jerky movements. As soon as she’s done, she raises the plastic cup in a shaky toast. “Enjoy the after-party, bitch.”

I wait until she’s gone to move even an inch. My hands are completely numb as I grab myself a miniature bottle of Coke from one of the side tables. Every muscle in my body feels taut, and I’m unable to keep from working my teeth together. For a long time, I stand by the spread of refreshments, clenching and unclenching my hand around the cold plastic, oblivious to the comings and goings of the band and crewmembers. 

Finally, I feel a familiar, possessive touch flare across my hip. I inhale deeply, breathing Lucas in, but not wanting to look at him. “The show was incredible,” I say flatly.

“Fuck the show, I care more about you stabbing someone with this thing.” He plucks the bottle out of my hand and places it on the table. “Look at me, Sienna.”