Dead Serious (15 page)

“May the fleas of a thousand camels infest her armpits,” Lola says reverently, sitting up and running her hands down her pixie-like face. She has these big round eyes that make her look a hell of a lot younger than the sag of her shoulders indicates she should be. I know we're all going through shit, and I don't mean to dump mine out on everyone else, but I'm having a hard time keeping it all contained.

“Amen to that,” Sydney says, a newcomer in this little game, but a welcome face nonetheless. She has a sharp wit about her that I like. Plus, I could use some girlfriends. I keep saying I'm going to get some, but it never pans out. Blair, Sydney, Lola. There. Three friends for me. Now give me a fucking Girl Scout badge for that shit.

I stare down at my fingers, quivering so badly that the cherry of my cigarette hops and bounces in my vision. I'm not moving from this spot until I get it to stop.

“America sicced those people on Turner and me after I refused to go to another hotel. That was her. She practically said so. She sent the media and the fans after us to teach me a lesson. I also think she sent the sex tapes out.” I take a drag of my cig and let the tobacco kiss my lungs with sweet smoke. “Maybe her and Stephen really do hate each other, but it's not as cut and dry as she made it out to be.” I shake my head, wet strands of blonde slapping my cheeks.

When Turner reappears by my side, he has an eight ball of cocaine in his left hand and a handful of condoms in his right. He drops them both on the table. My eyes shift between the square packages on the left and the plastic baggy of white powder on the right. I hate to say it, but both are equally tempting.

“What's this?” I ask him, struggling to swallow. “I thought we were trying to get clean.”

“We are,” he says as Dax clears his throat behind us. I glance back and find his gray eyes desperate for mine. Yeah, I think he's into Sydney now, but in that look I get the feeling that he really wants to talk to me. I'm not sure exactly what about though. “But you're upset, and I'm just giving you choices. Deal with the pain however you want to.” It's … kind of a sweet sentiment, but his words also cause me to purse my lips.

“You're saying I get to choose between sex and drugs tonight, is that it?” Turner shrugs and looks so stupidly innocent about the whole thing that I almost smile.
God, he's so fucking dumb sometimes.
“I can't, like, take a hot bath and then go jam on my Wolfgang? Read a book? Watch some shitty reality TV? There are like, a million ways I could deal with this, Turner.”

“True, but you're also a rock star.” He slaps his palm down on the table, spiders and bats and wolves and paw prints tattooed in brilliant clarity on his skin. “And this is what we do. Drugs, sex, and rock 'n' roll. If you want to jam, I'll jam, or hell, I'll even stay out of your way, but I just thought you should know that I'm as supportive as a double D bra.”

I almost smile again, and for a freakish fucking psycho second there, I feel a slight tickle of tears. I punch those bitches back by taking a massive drag on my cigarette. Behind me, Sydney snorts rudely.

“Wow. Turner, do you hear yourself when you talk?”

“Shut the fuck up, Sydney! Go clean out Trey's bedpan or some shit. Put on some booby tassels and shake your tits, it's what you're good at.”

“Leave her alone, Turner,” Dax growls, and I spin around, stepping forward before this fight can progress much further. I give them each a look that says
not today.
Dax immediately looks chagrined, turning his head sharply away to stare at the carpet. “I'm sorry about, Katie, Naomi. I know how much it hurts to see someone you love slip away. If you want to talk, I'm here for you.” And then he stands up, adjusting the sweatbands at his wrists before trying to smile for me. We've been through the exact same shit in the past few days. There's a connection there. I hope we can channel this into an even better friendship than we had before.

I watch quietly as he leaves the room. The look on his face when I relayed what Katie had said about Hayden … it was so fucking sad. So sad. Cassie, Hayden and Eric's daughter, was legally adopted by Stephen Hammergren. But why? Is that a freakish coincidence or part of the story? I have no Goddamn idea.

“I should probably … make sure he's okay,” Sydney says, but she doesn't sound very sure of her position in Dax's life. I mean, they just met. Because of their massive sexual tension, I keep thinking of them as a couple, but they're not, not really. Hmm. Sydney stands up, adjusts the little fur jacket she has draped over her shoulders, leaving a pink bra and her belly open for public view. “Don't tell any of this to Trey tonight. Wait until we get to L.A.”

“You're not his fucking keeper. I know his ass better than you do. Had to see it up in the air and humping away at a couple hundred fangirls. It's my right as his bro to decide what I'm gonna tell him.”

“Turner, go suck some big fat D.” Sydney flips him off, flicks some of her razored platinum hair over a shoulder and exits the room with a flair.

“Those two make me miss my sister,” Lola says suddenly and then she lets out a heavy sigh that settles in the room like smog. “Poppet might have a face like a smacked arse, but she wouldn't set out to hurt me or anything important to me. If I could just talk to her for a second, I could tell her all the shit that's happened. She wouldn't help Stephen anymore.” She pauses, the dark circles under her eyes standing out in stark relief against her pale skin. Lola hasn't been quite the same since the incident at the hospital. This thing with her sister must really be getting to her. Not that I blame her – considering what just happened with mine, her pain seems perfectly reasonable.
Katie. And Hayden. Two of the people that have been in my life the longest are dead.

Because they killed themselves.

I force myself to take another drag on my cigarette.

“You know, I got a call from my manager this morning.” Turner, Ronnie, and I all stare at Lola, waiting for the punchline to this shit. “Technically, I'm still under contract with Spin Fast Music Group. Ice and Glass is playing at the L.A. Concert and guess who has to hit the kit for those fuckers?”

I'm sitting at the table in my room, spinning my cell phone in lazy circles. As far as I know there's nothing preventing me from calling out, from telling someone about this shit. I might not have family out there that gives a crap, but I could call any number of news sites, TV stations, magazines. They'd listen to me, print what I had to say even if they didn't believe it. I could call the cops. Stephen Hammergren can't possibly own every cop out there. There's just no way. I could call in an anonymous tip to a random police station anywhere in the United States. But who would believe me? What I am really trying to report anyway?
Help, my manager sent the paparazzi after me! I think she's hiding something related to this whole Stephen plot. Oh? You don't know what Stephen I'm talking about? Just the guy who used to be CEO of the world's largest privately owned record label.
Until … what? Until my manager, the manager of – let's be honest – a pretty middle of the road rock band. Or at least that's what we were. Now, we're a fucking sensation, and it's not because of my music or my mad guitar skills, it's just because we're caught in some sort of sick game.

I sigh and lean back, letting cigarette smoke trail out between my lips. A few feet away, Turner Campbell sleeps on his belly on the bed, still not wearing a shirt, still hot as fuck. I drop my chin down and look at him, listening to the gentle rumble of voices outside the hotel. There's a veritable mob out there. Every once in a while, a chant breaks out and I can make out what they're saying.
Indecency! Indecency! Indecency!

I ignore them, leaning forward and putting my elbows on my knees. Beside me, the bag of blow sits undisturbed. Trust me, there's nothing I'd like to do more than fuck myself up, but I have a bad feeling that everything is about to come to a head. I want to be sober for that shit.

“Turner.” I say his name, but he doesn't stir. His back rises and falls with the soft pulse of his breath and his arm hangs limp over the edge of the mattress. I close my eyes and listen to my memories, letting them play in my head like a movie. There's Turner with either side of his head shaved, star tattoos bright on his skull. His black hair is spiked up in the center, not quite a Mohawk but definitely not a fucking faux-hawk either. God. That concert, the night we met, that was so killer. I could feel his voice inside my bones, could hear his heart beating with each breath he took against the microphone. I was starstruck. Not gonna lie about that. Turner was … glitz and glamour and a lifestyle that was so different from what I'd been living that it sounded like heaven. I'd have done anything for him, anything at all. Just like a thousand other girls. A frown creases my lips, but I don't open my eyes. I let myself relive the moment he rescued me in the parking lot, the tattoos, the blow job in the hotel elevator. Turner popping my Goddamn cherry.

“
Ech
.” I wrinkle up my nose and shake my head, opening my eyes back up to find the man staring at me. His cheek is pressed into a pillow and he doesn't look quite so … unapproachable. He looks like … like a man. Like my lover. Like my – I almost gag on the word –
boyfriend.

“What's
ech
?” he mumbles, shifting away from the stripe of light leaking from the bathroom. It's the only one on at the moment. The rest of the room is bathed in shadows. I sit up and uncross my legs, forcing myself to my feet. I might cast a lingering look at the eight ball on the table, but I don't touch it. Turner said we'd party in L.A., that we could sneak out, blow off our security detail for a while. Somehow, with this whole America development in order, I don't see how that's going to happen.

“You,” I tell him, moving over to the bathroom and turning off the light. The glow of my cigarette's the only bright spot in the room now. “I can't believe I let you pop my cherry.” Turner snorts and sits up, yawning and stretching his arms above his head.
Whoa. Holy shit. I guess he really is human.
I pause a few feet from the bed and just stare at him. Even though we've been spending most of our time together, I'm still not used to the raw in-between moments. He keeps his shit together, doesn't let me see anything other than the Turner Campbell he
wants
me to see. I'm not saying he's being dishonest or anything, just that he hasn't completely let himself go yet. Guess I can't blame him since I haven't either.

“Yeah, well,” he says, voice husky with sleep. He reaches up and removes the small, black plugs from his ears, setting them on the nightstand. “What can I say? I'm irresistible.” I don't respond, choosing instead to finish my cigarette and put it out in the ashtray. “Naomi,” he calls, his voice lyrical, swoon worthy, absolutely Goddamn perfect. I keep my gaze focused on the window, on my reflection, a watered down version of myself frowning back at me. “Come lay down with me. You don't have to sleep. We could pass the night away in other ways.”

I know he's trying to help me, but I find that my feet are rooted to the spot. I lick my lips and glance down at the coke again. No. No. I am fucking stronger than this. If I'm going to do drugs, it's because I'm partying or something, not because I'm too weak to stand on my own two feet. Fuck that.

“I just want to … think,” I say, but that's what I've been doing since Lola and Ronnie left. Thinking. Mulling over things in my head. I didn't play my guitar or fuck Turner or shoot up. I just smoked cigarettes and sat in that chair. That's it. America didn't come to see me. I thought she might, but I sure as fuck wasn't going to see her, not yet. If I'm alone in a room with her, I might put a knife to her throat and demand the truth. If she didn't give it to me or if I didn't like it? God, I don't know what I'd do. I don't want to find out.

I hear blankets rustling and stiffen, but Turner doesn't get up. When I turn back to look at him, the sheets are pulled aside and he's patting the empty space to his left.

“We'll figure this shit out.” He smiles at me, and my heart skips several beats. I take my eyes off of his and focus instead on the skull in the center of his chest. Tattoos are a lot easier to stare at than tender expressions.
Tender.
No. No. I've imagined something. This is a guy who just snagged the front cover of
Rollin' Strong
magazine, swooned at by every woman between the ages of twelve and a hundred and twenty. Tender is not an emotion he even has on his roster.
Heh. Naomi, you're thinking like that sixteen year old girl from forever ago. Turner might be all of that and more, but so are you. Your music has touched thousands. It can touch thousands more. Your guitar solos are unmatched. That's not hubris talking, just simple fucking fact.
I look back up and catch Turner's gaze. He hasn't cracked any stupid Turnerisms, smirked at me, flashed me his dick. What the hell is going on here?

“You sure about that?” I ask, moving forward tentatively. I think about that night in the safe house, after Trey had been shot, when Turner laid his head on my belly and fell asleep. The thought gives me goose bumps.