Hard Rock Roots Box Set (13 page)

“
If you leave me for dead then you're making a mistake again,
” I sing the words, and I try to charge them up with all the sexual tension that I'm feeling in my fucking bones right now. Naomi isn't just under my skin anymore; she's in my blood and my brain and all sorts of strange friggin' places that ache for her. I want to feel her body beneath mine, run my fingers through her hair, taste her lips again. I use my fingers in a subtle cue, invite her onstage with me. Somehow, I guess that if I can recapture that tension we had before, that excitement, that maybe I can breathe easier, better, but when I glance her way again, she's gone.

I suck up my irritation, and I face the crowd again, belting out the next words to the song, wondering why I'm so worked up on this girl and this kid and this weird fairytale fantasy that's been growing in my head ever since I heard her tell me what happened between us.

“
And a mistake made twice isn't really a mistake at all.
”

Naomi Knox is waiting outside my bus when I finish my set, soaked in sweat and ready to tear into her for running off. I don't know why, but something about her makes my emotions go all haywire, like I can't even think when she's around. She fucks up my inner circuits or something. That should have been my first warning, but no, I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.

She's sitting in one of Ronnie's cheap, plastic lawn chairs, smoking a cigarette. I like the way she's bent over, leaning her elbows on her knees, holding the cig between two fingers. She looks tough that way, and I like it.

“Ran off pretty quick there,” I tell her as I come up close and lean against the red and black side of the bus. My heart is pounding from the adrenaline rush, and my head's as swollen as it ever gets, full of ego and self and knowledge that no matter what happens, no matter what anyone says, I am the shit. I worked my ass off to get here, and nobody is going to take that fucking away from me. “I was hoping you'd stick around for my set.”

“I had some thinking to do,” Naomi says, sitting up, brushing some of her blonde hair behind her ear. It's natural, you know. Kind of a surprise. Not many like that, and I'm speaking from straight-up fucking experience. She puts her cigarette out in the dust near her feet and leans back. I watch a line of sweat drip down her neck and over the tattoo on her chest until it disappears between her breasts.

“Yeah?” I cross my arms over my chest and wait while she stares out and up, presumably gazing at the sky though it's kinda hard to tell with those sunglasses on her face. My guess is that she put 'em on by accident and started to like how they made her feel – protected. The eyes are the windows to the soul and all that shit, right? Guess she wants her windows curtained. “About?”

“You,” she says, and I can't help the smirk that crawls across my face when I hear that. She was thinking about little old me? Aw, how fucking sweet. Just the way I like it. “About why you were being so nice to me all of a sudden, flipping the switch from bad boy to concerned father in a single night.” My smirk drops into a frown. From the tone of her voice, she's not impressed. Fine. The way I was behaving wasn't an act. If she doesn't like it, she can go fuck herself six ways to Sunday.

And once again, what the fuck is with all the mixed signals? One minute, she's getting all up close and personal with me in the parking lot, letting me touch her, gazing at me with dilated pupils, licking her lips until they're moist. Now, what, she's annoyed with me again? Jesus Christ, I don't understand this chick at all.

“And I thought, just for a split second mind you, that maybe you had realized the error of your ways. Like, had a revelation or some shit.” Naomi sighs and removes her shades, showing me puffy eyes streaked with red, like maybe she didn't stop crying when she got off stage. Right. The melancholy, but how could I have forgotten? Guess whatever it is is my fault, too? “But I should know better,” she continues, staring at me with eyes so bright that I can't look away, not even with a stray fangirl shouts for me to look at her, snaps a picture with an old Polaroid camera. I don't even look when the bouncer comes to drag her away. Neither does Naomi. “People don't change overnight.” She pauses, smiles. In this light, I can see that her straight nose isn't actually all that straight, that in reality, when the light hits it right, it's a bit crooked.
Fuck, Turner, since when do you care about women's noses? That's fucking weird, dude.

“Oh? And finding out I had a kid didn't change me in the few seconds it took my brain to process that information? Oh, honey, if you were waiting for an overnight change, then you were waiting far too long. The second those words left your lips, I was a different man.”

Naomi laughs and shakes her head which just further pisses me off. Who the fuck does she think she is? She joins
my
tour, disrespects me, turns my life upside down, and then proceeds to fuck with me. Bitch has a lot of nerve.

But I'm still interested.

Either I'm a glutton for punishment or the drugs really have done what the PA's always said they'd do, and rotted my fucking brain right out of my skull.

“Is that so hard to believe, Knox?” I ask her and notice that her lips purse tight when I use her last name. I wonder why she hates it so much.

Naomi touches her fingers to the tattoo on her belly, the one that's peeking out from beneath her shirt right now. I can't see what it says from here, but I see a set of angel wings on either side, so maybe it's something good? Our kid's name? I don't know, but I lean forward to get a better look.

“It's hard to believe, Turner, because as soon as I tell you the truth, the whole, unabridged version of the truth, I know exactly what it is you're going to do.” She pauses again and bites her lower lip hard when Ronnie and Treyjan stumble around the front of the bus and see us there. I turn and flash them my worst
do not fuck this shit up
glare, and have to admit that I'm pleased when they leave without a fight. I'm still the boss around here, good to know. “My guess is that I've helped you in some weird, kind of fucked up way. Part of me knows that you'll work to make your fantasy happen, no matter how you have to go about doing it.”

“My fantasy? What the fuck are you smoking, Naomi? I just want to know about my kid.”
Not entirely true, but she's obviously not up for anything else tonight.
That much is obvious. No matter. I'll get the kid, and I'll get the mother. It's a fact of life. Whatever she says to the contrary, anything about not wanting to see the child or how its adoptive family might act, I know she's in pain. It's etched into every line of her face, every word she speaks, every breath she breathes.

“You've somehow got it into your mind that there's going to be this big ass fucking reunion with some miracle child who will just throw themselves into your arms and shout,
Daddy!
” Naomi stands up suddenly and throws her arms in the air. “That they'll just come away with you, and I'll follow, that you'll have the family you've always wanted. Am I right, Turner?” She smiles wickedly at me. “Tell me I'm right about that.”

I stare right back at her, and I think about what she's saying. Is that what I'm doing? Trying to put together a family all of a sudden? Maybe. I try not to delve too deep into thoughts like that, but yeah. Yeah. Sure.

I tell her the truth. After all, it's my fucking policy.

“What's wrong with that?” I take a step closer to her, wondering how far she'll let me go before she runs away again. I lock my eyes with hers and wait for the answer to the question.

“From whore to family man in just a matter of days?” she asks this sarcastically, and I get the feeling she's actually trying to rile me up. Doesn't work. I cross my arms over my chest and tilt my chin back.

“A kid changes everything. Most people have time to get used to this shit. You just sprung it on me. What do you want me to do? I have a six year old running around out there somewhere that I've never met. You know how fucked up that is?”

“Turner,” Naomi says, shaking her head like she can't believe what it is she's about to say. “There is no – ”

“Naomi!” A voice cuts through our conversation and a second later, pretty boy emo fag Dax is standing behind her panting. In his eyes, I can see that he thinks he's in love with her, and it makes me sick. I don't know exactly what it is that I want from her, but she's right – a family might be it – so I don't like the idea of Dax moving in on what's mine. Pisses me the fuck off.

“What?” she snaps, and I'm glad to see her taking her anger out on him, too. Dax looks at her carefully and speaks very, very slowly.

“Naomi, the police are here, and they're looking for you.”

Chapter 15
Naomi Knox

Aw, shit.

My mind starts to spin as soon as Dax's lips utter the word police, and then I'm thinking about my other big secret and the dirty mess I made back in Tulsa. The one that was videotaped without my ever knowing it. The one that's sitting on America's iPad ready to be seen by anyone that has access to it. God, I hope she was smart and finally deleted that thing. Strange that it never occurred to me to ask. I've never been good at subterfuge. Jesus and fuck and fuck and FUCK.

Inside, I freak the fuck out. On the outside, I remain cool as a goddamn cucumber.

“Why?” The word doesn't come from me; it comes from Turner Campbell. Dax keeps his gaze on my face, but answers the question. He's still wearing the same clothes he had on onstage which is rare for him – normally he makes a flat out sprint to the shower. It's kind of his after show ritual. They must've been waiting for me at the bus.

“They say they're looking for someone.” Dax pauses and scratches the dark stubble on his chin. I try not to compare him and Turner because that would imply that I'm interested in one or both of them, and I'm not, but it happens anyway, and I decide that Turner has a better chin. It's thicker, more square, but not barbaric.
Fuck.
My teenage crush on him has come back raging harder than ever, despite the fact that I've already tasted what he had to offer and didn't find it all that great. Plus, he left me knocked up. Not a good way to start a relationship.
Turner and I will never, ever happen. I'd rather die first.

“Who?” Me, this time, asking as if I don't have a care in the world when in all reality, I have two. Two really, really big cares. Felonies actually. I mean, I haven't been charged with them, but why would the police be here looking for me if it wasn't about that? I didn't stab anyone … Well, not recently anyway.

“Your … brother,” Dax says, and my heart plummets to the dirt beneath my feet. Shit. Dax licks his lips and looks down at the ground with his gray eyes, like two gravestones right there on his face, all the contemplative quiet of the dead right in two round orbs. Doesn't hurt that he has them tattooed all over his arms, two full sleeves of dead people and dead things – ghosts, skeletons, zombies. I try to swallow but my mouth is dry as this fucking desert. “I didn't know you had a brother,” Dax continues, and his voice sounds kind of hurt though I'm not sure why.

I listen to the sound of the kids leaving in their shitty clunkers, shouting at one another because their ears are too fucked up from the bass to hear anything otherwise. They're sporting our tees and slapping our band stickers on their bumpers, and they think we're just so fucking cool and amazing and carefree, and they have no idea how much shit all of us are in. Being a 'rock star' really just means someone that makes music that fucks up a lot. It's true. Check it in the dictionary.

“I don't.” My words are calm, emotionless. I want to slip the shades back on, but I'm starting to think I'm using them as a way to hide. And I don't hide. I might fight or I might run because at least with those two options, I'm making a conscious choice. But hiding? It's like waiting around for someone else to make a decision for you. I don't like that. The secrets are bad enough. I try not to look at Turner during this exchange. I was
just
about to tell him the rest of the secret, just about to clear up this last, little thing and finally be able to wipe this shit from my mental board of things to do. How come bad stuff always seems to happen all at once?

“Oh.” Dax pinches at the front of his green and black striped shirt and looks confused. “But they said they were looking for an – ”

“Eric Rhineback?” I ask, and then I take out a cigarette and start walking. Both boys follow me like lost, little puppy dogs. Well, Dax is kind of like a puppy dog; Turner is more like a tramp in heat, searching for a nice, warm bitch. My lip curls. “He was the son of the last foster parents that I had.” I shrug and continue on, rounding the end of the bus and heading straight towards the pair of people in blue uniforms. “Though I'd hardly call him a brother.”

“Why would they come here looking for him?” Dax asks, making me wonder that very same thing. Why indeed. I don't answer that question, because I can't and instead pick up the pace, so I can get this over with and switch back to Turner and our little problem.