Hard As Rock (41 page)

Riley looked back and forth between them in abject terror.

I was sure one of them was going to walk out right now, and my money was on Ryan.

Then he surprised me.

He turned and pulled me tight against him, kissing me passionately, fervently.

I was so shocked, I barely had time to return the kiss. I was just sinking into it when he let go of me, turned around, and leered right in Derek’s face. “She’s with me now. Get used to it.”

And then he walked onstage to the ever-increasing roar of the crowd.

Derek had murder written all over his face as he watched him go.

Unsure of what to do, Killian hesitated… then followed Ryan.

Riley seemed entirely lost. She gazed out at Ryan and Killian, then back at Derek… then timidly shuffled out to join her bandmates.

Derek turned and looked at me. The anger softened into pain, and he stared deep into my eyes.

“I love you,” he said, barely audible over the crowd’s roar. “This isn’t over.”

Then he walked out onstage, too.

When Derek emerged from the wings, the audience went berserk. Feminine screams filled the air, supported by the bass of ten thousand men. They had thought Bigger might break up – but here they were, live and in the flesh!

If the fans only knew how close they’d come to never seeing them together again.

Killian had been uncharacteristically silent, not playing one of his mischievous intros, so there wasn’t any music until Derek grabbed the mic and shouted, “One, two, three, four!”

As though broken from some fairytale trance, Riley immediately hit the drums and started thrashing. You’d never have known she’d been almost catatonic with fear just thirty seconds before.

The band launched into “Forgot You Were Gone,” which had peaked at number one on the Billboard charts just three months before. The crowd tried to sing along, but were confused when Derek changed the lyrics:

Could’ve been

A night of sin

But you played it safe

And went back to him

But I’m not holding back

You say he’s the one

But you know he’s not

We both know your past

I haven’t forgot

So I will never hold back

You thought I was gone

Just for a second

So you went with a man

Who doesn’t deserve you

I asked for forgiveness

And I’m still waitin’

For you to come on back

The crowd was puzzled, but still roared their approval.

Ryan was livid.

He played his part, but he stared down Derek with a glare so hateful that I thought somebody’s head was going to explode in flames.

It only got worse from there.

They were supposed to play one of their new songs, but Derek suddenly shouted at the crowd, “Hey – I feel a cover coming on. What do you think?”

The entire audience cheered.

“I’m thinkin’… I don’t know… ‘I Wish That I Had Jessie’s Girl.’ What do
you
think?”

Rick Springfield’s early 80’s hit about a guy who’s in love with his best friend’s girlfriend.

Oh shit.

Even a blind man could see where this was going.

The entire audience hooted their approval, though, and Derek turned around and pointed at Killian. “Go, man, go!”

The song started off with a guitar part – which meant it was all on Killian’s shoulders.

He froze and looked at Ryan.

Meanwhile – with Derek egging them on – the entire audience started chanting, “GO, MAN, GO! GO, MAN, GO!”

Ryan sneered at Derek… and then turned to Killian and nodded.

Killian nodded back, and started playing the opening bars.

Riley joined in.

And suddenly “Jessie’s Girl” turned into “Ryan’s Girl.”

I kid you not.

Derek substituted in Ryan’s name for ‘Jessie’ every chance he got.

Ryan continued to play, but I could see him clenching his jaw from 70 feet away.

The audience ate it up. I’m sure enough of them had heard rumors from the internet that they knew what was going on, and they sang right along with Derek.

“Christ, what’s he doing?” Miles growled from my right side.

I looked over. The manager’s eyes were glued on Derek.

“He’s trying to start a fight,” I said, sick to my stomach.

“Jessie’s Girl” finally ended and they launched into one of the new songs, “Gold And Diamonds.” Derek didn’t alter anything in that one, but the shenanigans weren’t over yet. Not by a long shot.

As soon as it was over, he announced to the crowd, “I’m thinkin’ another cover… what about ‘My Best Friend’s Girl’?”

The Cars’ 1978 hit.

He was sticking to a theme.

Again, Killian looked panicked.

Again, Ryan nodded his consent… but he looked like he might pop out a switchblade or a Saturday Night Special any second.

Derek sang the song.

I felt sick.

Derek was trying to tear Ryan apart, all on account of me. Just because he was doing it by fucking with his head didn’t make it any less painful or brutal.

Next up was a Bigger song – “Girl, Please Stay.” Which kind of stuck to the theme.

The crowd sang along.

Another spontaneous cover followed: Blink 182’s “Dammit.”

Ryan agreed again when Killian looked at him, even though it was evident what Derek was doing. It was hard to miss when he changed the song’s lyrics to “And you know / I fucked her.”

Ryan just kept up his Death Ray looks at the back of Derek’s head.

Then, after “Dammit” was over, it all went to hell.

Derek quieted the crowd down so they could hear him. “This isn’t one we’ve actually ever done as a band before, so I don’t know if the others can play it by ear… but that’s okay, I’ll sing it
a capella
if I have to. I’d like to dedicate it to a special woman. She knows who she is.”

And then, without announcing the song to the band or waiting for any sort of accompaniment at all, he turned to me in the wings and started singing Hozier’s “Take Me To Church.”

The same song he’d sung to me from Ryan’s front lawn.

Except he didn’t start from the beginning. He started it with the chorus, right at the most sexual part of the song.

My stomach flip-flopped, because I knew what Derek was trying to do – and he succeeded.

Ryan didn’t sit still for that one.

In fact, he did something I would have thought unthinkable: he pulled off his bass guitar in a fit of rage, gripped the neck like a handle, and swung the instrument overhead, down onto the stage like an ax.

KRANG!

The instrument snapped in two, and the entire auditorium echoed with the screeching feedback.

Half of the audience gasped, and the other half cheered.

But when Ryan threw the first punch, they all screamed.

Derek saw it coming and dropped the mic. The boom of the reverb echoed across the field:
KOOM – OOM – OOM!

Derek stepped back at the last minute. Ryan’s fist still connected with Derek’s jaw, but it was a glancing blow.

And Derek was ready with the counterattack.

He lowered his head and tackled Ryan in the gut, taking him to the stage floor.

“NO!” I screamed. I tried to run towards them, but Miles grabbed my arm with a grip of steel and hauled me back.

By now the crowd was roaring – but not an excited ruckus; more of a shocked and outraged confusion.

Derek and Ryan rolled across the stage. Ryan had the height advantage, but Derek had a good 30 pounds of muscle on him – and that apparently was the deciding factor in a ground fight. Derek wound up on top, straddling Ryan, and began to pummel his face with blow after blow.

“NOOOO!” I shrieked, but by now a roadie had grabbed me and wrapped me up in his log-sized arms.

Miles was hustling security guys out onto the stage, but they were too late: Riley had already joined the fray.

She launched herself from the drums as soon as Derek tackled Ryan. Once he started punching, she jumped on Derek’s back and tried to pull him off.

I don’t know if it was deliberate or an accident, but Derek’s elbow hooked back and caught her in the face.

She tumbled to the floor, and the entire audience gasped. Hundreds screamed out “No!”

Not only did they disapprove of what Derek had done, they apparently thought Riley was down for the count.

They didn’t know Riley.

She leapt back up as Derek continued to wail on Ryan – but this time, she lunged for his head.

Specifically, his ear.

And bit.

There was a spurt of red and an outraged shout from Derek. He wrenched himself away from Riley and fell to the floor, clutching his ear.

Riley stood above him, blood on her mouth and wife-beater.

The entire audience was screaming now, on the knife’s edge of violent hysteria.

Riley looked possessed. Or like a rabid dog. Maybe both. She launched herself at Derek again –

But by then twelve security guys were onstage.

One of them bear-hugged Riley from the back. Another guy grabbed her legs to stop the kicking and stomping.

Another one pulled Ryan to his feet and hustled him off the opposite side of the stage.

Another lifted up Derek, still clutching his ear with blood-soaked hands, and followed behind Ryan at a safe distance.

The other eight stayed behind to throw back the fans rushing the stage and trying to join the fight.

Chaos erupted as the sea of humanity surged forward. Cups and beer cans rained down like a hailstorm.

Killian, who had been watching the whole debacle with the sad, detached air of a funeral-goer, quickly hustled to safety.

“Get her out of here!” Miles shouted, and my roadie me pulled away from the carnage and into the darkness backstage.

My roadie chaperone sat beside me in the back seat of a car as someone else drove to the hotel. I sobbed the entire time for them to let me go see Ryan and Derek, but nobody paid me any heed.

Turns out that was the best thing after all. I got out of the car in front of the W and saw Miles pacing in agitation.

“They want to see you,” he said as he grabbed my arm and hustled me inside.

“They’re already here?”

“The doc’s patching them up as we speak.”

“They didn’t go to the hospital?”

“No – that might involve the police, which is something
I’d
like to avoid.”

I let Miles guide me through the lobby to the elevator, my legs working robotically as my mind spun out of control.

I kept replaying the scene over and over again, of Ryan lunging for Derek, of Derek taking him down, of Derek punching him until a 98-pound punk rocker chick handed him his ass. Or his ear, I guess.

Despite my abhorrence of what had happened, though, I have to admit something. I’m not proud of this, but it’s the truth, however ugly:

The whole thing turned me on the slightest bit.

It wasn’t like I was thinking,
Oh, that was cool!
If anything, I was thinking,
Oh my God, that was horrible!

The key word in there is ‘thinking.’

The lizard part of my brain, that primal part of me, the Id, whatever you want to call it – that part was… well… kind of stoked.

It wasn’t every day that two gorgeous men I loved came to blows over me.

In a really fucked-up, Neanderthal kind of way, it was one of the hottest things ever.

So while my thinking mind was wailing
How could they do that?
there was a part of me way deep down that kind of got off on it.

Like I said, ugly. But it was the truth.

However, I was caught again staring at the Gordian Knot, the unsolvable problem. Two men, both incredible, both sexy, both with their good points and bad, had fought each other because they were in love with me –

And now I had to choose one.

I thought I had already decided on Ryan.

But I was torn – now more than ever.

The thinking part of me still yearned for Ryan, but the id – the deepest, darkest part of me – hungered for Derek.

It was like the angel on my right shoulder pleaded for Ryan, but the devil on my left wanted Derek.

And I didn’t know what to do.

But I knew with nauseated surety that I was going to have to figure it out quick.

We entered the suite where the band had gathered for meetings and to hang out. Derek was on one side with a medic bandaging his earlobe. Ryan was on the other side of the room with an ice pack over his eye. Next to him sat Killian, nervously plucking at his guitar.

Several beefy roadies – and Riley, of all people – stood in the middle of the suite like a barrier between the warring sides. Riley was sporting a purple bruise on her cheek, but otherwise didn’t look any the worse for wear. As long as you could overlook the dried blood on her wifebeater.

As soon as Miles and I walked in, though, Derek and Ryan stood up.

“Are you okay?” they both asked at the same time, then glared at each other.

Then they both looked expectantly at me.

It was like one of those contests you see in the movies, where two kids are calling to a dog to see which kid it will go to – and thus who will get to keep it.

Not that I like comparing myself to a dog, mind you, but that’s how it felt.

But I was frozen to the spot. I couldn’t move towards either.

Luckily, a bunch of things happened that covered up my indecisiveness.

“Is
she
okay?” Miles said in disbelief, then shouted, “Have either of you two fuckin’ idjits
looked
at yourself?”

“What about
me?”
Riley yelled at Derek. “What about askin’ if
I’m
okay?”

“I don’t give a fuck about
you!”
Derek yelled. “YOU nearly bit my goddamn ear off!”