Gluttony (2 page)

He woke her with a kiss.

“Whuh? Where …?” Beth Manning opened her eyes, disoriented and unsure why she was sleeping sitting up, lodged into the corner of a van that stunk of pot and sweat socks. But she smiled, nonetheless. It didn’t really matter where she was, or how much her neck and back ached—not when Reed Sawyer’s chocolate brown eyes were so close and his dark, curly hair was brushing her skin.

It was the best kind of alarm clock.

“Was I sleeping?” she mumbled, slowly making sense of her surroundings. She remembered piling into the van, nestling into a space between the guitar cases and the drum that was just big enough for one—or two, if they sat nearly on top of each other. She had curled under Reed’s arm, leaned her head on his shoulder, promised to stay awake for the long drive, and then zoned out, staring at the grayish brown monotony of the landscape speeding by. “Sorry, I guess I must have drifted off.”

“No worries,” Reed assured her, giving her another quick peck on the lips. “It was cute.”

“Yeah, the snoring was adorable!” Hale called from the driver’s seat.

That’s right, we’re not alone,
Beth reminded herself. When Reed was around, it seemed like the rest of the world fell away. But in reality, his bandmates, Fish and Hale, were never far behind. Not that Beth was complaining. She was in no position to complain about anything.

“And the drooling,” Fish added teasingly. “The drooling was
especially
attractive.”

“I did not drool!” Beth cried indignantly.

“Oh, don’t worry.” Fish, riding shotgun, twisted around toward the back and brandished his cell phone. “We’ve got pictures.”

“Shut up, losers,” Reed snapped. But Beth just smiled, and snuggled into his side, resting her head in the warm and familiar nook between his chest and shoulder. He looped his arm around her and began lightly tracing out patterns on her arm. She shivered.

Without warning, the van made a sharp left turn, veering into a parking lot and screeching to a stop. “Welcome to Vegas, kids,” Hale said, with a sharp blast on the horn. “Gateway to stardom.”

Stardom couldn t come soon enough, if it would mean an entourage to carry all the instruments and equipment up to the room. Or, even better, a van with a real lock on the doors that would keep out any thieves desperate enough to steal fifteen-year-old half-busted amplifiers. But since they currently had neither roadies nor locking doors, the three members of the Blind Monkeys had to make due with what they had: the combined strength of three scrawny potheads.

And one ever-faithful blond groupie.

“You don’t have to help,” Reed told her, pulling his guitar case out of the back. Beth was loaded up like a packhorse with heavy, scuffed-up duffel bags—no one trusted her to carry the real equipment. “You can go check in and we’ll meet you inside.”

“I’m fine,” she protested, ignoring the way the straps dug into her bare shoulder. “I want to help.” She was afraid that if she didn’t make herself useful, the other guys might realize that she didn’t really belong. Reed might finally figure it out himself.

Yes, she was the one who’d found out about that weekend’s All-American Band Battle, and she was the one who’d convinced Reed and the guys to enter. But no matter how much she hung out with them, she’d never be one of them, not really.

And she dreaded the day they got sick of her and left her behind.

Alone.

She couldn’t stand that. Not again.

Reed shrugged. “Whatever.” He slung his guitar case over his shoulder and hoisted an amp, heading across the parking lot. Beth began to follow, but then, as the hotel rose into full view, she stopped. And gasped.

The Camelot was the cheapest hotel almost-but-not-quite-on the Strip; Beth, a Vegas virgin, would have been willing to bet it was also the gaudiest. The gleaming white monstrosity towered over the parking lot—literally, as its twenty stories were sculpted into the guise of a medieval tower, complete with ramparts, turrets and, down below, a churning, brownish moat. It reminded Beth of a model castle her fourth-grade class had once built from sugar cubes, except that in this version, the royal crest was outlined in neon and featured a ten-foot-tall fluorescent princess wearing a jeweled crown—and little else.

Then there was the piéce de résistance, guarding the palace doors. Beth goggled at the enormous, green animatronic dragon swinging its long neck up and down with an alarmingly loud creak each time it shifted direction. Periodically a puff of smoke would issue from its squarish mouth, followed by a warning siren, and then—

WHOOOSH!
A flume of fire blasted out of the dragon, a jolt of orange and red billowing several feet out into the night. Beth cringed, imagining she could feel the heat.

“It’s not going to eat you,” Reed teased, tipping his head toward the front doors, which were now nearly eclipsed by smoke. “Let’s make a run for it.”

Weighed down by luggage and guitars, it wasn’t much of a run, but they eventually made it inside the hotel and up to the room. The Camelot had obviously burned through its decorating budget before furnishing the guest rooms, and the Blind Monkeys had reserved the cheapest one available. It smelled like cigarettes, the toilet was clogged, and the tiny window faced a cement airshaft.

There was one bed.

Harper could barely keep her eyes open, but she wasn’t about to fall asleep, not when the skeezy tow-truck driver kept sneaking glances at her cleavage. He’d already offered—twice—to bundle her up in one of his ratty old blankets to protect her from the cold. As if she needed some middle-aged dirt-bucket to tuck her in—as if, in fact, she’d be willing to touch anything in this trash heap on wheels. Touching the seat was bad enough; these pants would need to be burned.

Miranda, on the other hand, apparently had no such qualms. She was totally conked out, her head resting on Harper’s shoulder. All that complaining—Stop spilling crumbs in the car! Stop sticking your head out the window! Stop flashing the other drivers!—must have worn her out. Or maybe it was just the hour they’d spent shivering in the darkness, waiting for someone to pass by. With no cell reception and no idea how far they were from civilization, they’d been forced to flag down a trucker, crossing their fingers that he wasn’t a deranged ax murderer trolling the roads for pretty girls too stupid to fill their gas tanks.

Trucker Hank offered them a ride, and got a quick thanks but no thanks for his trouble. They may have been stupid, but not that stupid. So instead, the guy promised to check in at the next gas station he passed and send someone back to help them.

“We’re going to be out here all night,” Miranda had moaned, once the truck’s lights had disappeared into the distance.

In fact, it had only been another hour, but that had been long enough. When Leroy had finally arrived with his tow truck, offering to take them and their wounded Civic back to “town,” they’d climbed in eagerly, only later realizing that the cab of the truck smelled like roadkill, as did Leroy.

It was a long drive.

“Here we are, gals,” he said finally, pulling into a tiny, one-pump gas station that looked like a relic from the stone age—or, at least, the fifties. (Same difference.) Harper poked Miranda to wake her up, and climbed out of the truck, sucking in a deep lungful of the fresh air. She’d been hoping to grab something to eat once they got into town, but …

“Where is ‘here,’ exactly?” she asked dubiously.

“Natchoz, California,” he said proudly. “Town center.”

“Did he say nachos?” Miranda whispered, half giggling, half yawning. “Think we could find some?”

Doubtful. Harper took another look at the “town center.” Aside from the gas station, there was a small shack whose sign read only C
AFÉ
and … that was about it. She was used to lame small towns—being born and bred in Grace, CA, lameness capital of the world, it kind of came with the territory. But this wasn’t a town, it was a live-in trash heap with its own mailbox.

Leroy filled up their tank, never taking his eyes off Harper’s chest. “That’ll be forty-seven bucks, ladies,” he finally said, hanging up the nozzle. Harper looked at Miranda; taking her cue, Miranda whipped out a credit card. “No can do.” Leroy chuckled. “The machine’s busted.”

“You can’t fix it?” Miranda asked anxiously.

Now the chuckle turned into a roar. “Machine’s been busted since 1997. You girls got cash?”

Miranda darted her eyes toward Harper and gave her head a quick shake. Translation: They were totally screwed. Harper’s wallet, as usual, was empty; she’d been counting on Kane to front her the cash for the Vegas adventure, and Miranda’s credit card to get them through the journey.

So now what?

They could make a run for it—hop in the car and drive away before Leroy knew what hit him.

Or—

“You girls ain’t got the cash, I’m thinking you could make it up to me another way,” Leroy said, giving them a nasty grin. “In trade.”

Holy shit.

Beth couldn’t stop staring at the bed. She snuck a glance at Reed—he was watching it too.

Her mother thought she was spending the weekend at a friend’s house—which showed how little her parents knew of her life these days. She was out of friends. Reed was all she had left. If he disappeared …

She refused to let herself think about it. But she still couldn’t avoid looking at the bed.

Reed had never pushed her, never pressured her, never expected her to move faster than she was comfortable with or go further than she was ready to go. Not like Adam, who’d pretended he would wait forever—but only waited until a better offer came along. And not like Kane, who never wanted to take no for an answer, and who made Beth feel like a con artist, promising something that she was never intending to deliver.

Why did everything always come down to sex?

Reed was different from other guys in a lot of ways, but Beth wasn’t stupid. He was still a guy. And sooner or later, he would surely want to know: When? And then: Why not?

She couldn’t avoid it forever. And now, here, the bed filling up half the room, she suspected she couldn’t avoid it at all.

“Why don’t you guys scope out the casino?” Reed suggested. He shot Beth an easy to interpret look:
Let’s ditch these losers, and we can finally be alone
. Part of her couldn’t wait—but part of her, as always, was afraid.

“Dude, we have to get ready for tomorrow,” Fish pointed out.

“You want to rehearse?” Reed asked incredulously, glancing at the clock. The Blind Monkeys almost never rehearsed—it was one of the reasons they sucked. (Not the only reason, of course: Fish’s near total lack of rhythm and Hale’s tendency to forget what he was doing in the middle of a song helped too.) “Now?”

“Not rehearse,” Fish said, a lopsided grin spreading across his face.
“Prepare.”

Hale got it instantly. They were tuned in to the same wavelength. Or, more accurately, tuned out. “Gotta prepare the
mind
, dude,” he said, digging for something in his backpack. “Get in the zone.”

He pulled out the bong. Fish whipped out a lighter and cocked his head at Beth and Reed. “You in?”

“I don’t know,” Reed hedged. “Maybe we should—”

“We’re in,” Beth interrupted. She plopped down on the edge of the bed and tugged Reed down next to her. She could tell he wanted to get away from the guys—and probably the bong, too. Ever since they’d started dating. Reed had been cutting back on the pot. Way back.

But no matter: Once she’d discovered that one or two puffs of the miracle drug would crush her doubts, calm her terrors, and clear her head, Beth had been more than happy to pick up his slack. She reached for the bong and, like an old pro, inhaled deeply, savoring the burn.

Along with Reed, this was the only thing that had allowed her to make it through the last couple months. This feeling of lightness and freedom, so different from the suffocating guilt and shame that always threatened to crush her. She needed the escape—and if Reed ever found out why, he would leave her, which made her terror absolute.

Fish reached for the bong, but she held tight and, violating etiquette and caution, inhaled another deep lungful. It would be a long weekend—and she needed all the help she could get.

“Now,
this
is more like it,” Harper gushed as they turned onto the Strip. “Civilization. Thank God.”