Real Ugly (26 page)

And then it all stops and there's this freakish bit of quiet before Blair starts in on her keyboard solo, fingers flying over her instrument like she's casting a spell, a rock goddess bitch witch of fucking insanity. Turner takes advantage of this moment to step behind me and slide his arms over my shoulders. An unwanted moan breaks its way out of my throat just as Turner lifts the mic to my mouth. My own sound echoes through the crowd, amplified and shocking in its nakedness. I want to throw him off, but I'm busy with my guitar, plucking strings with my pick again, being the leader that I've always been, just without knowing it. Hayden is a front, that's all, like a figurehead. Can't believe it took me this long to figure out that I was in charge.

“Why are you being so stubborn?” Turner whispers into my ear, nibbling it with his teeth while a thousand plus strangers look on. “Just give me a chance.”

“
And we just can't be, and there's no place to go, and the pain will always find us.
” Turner lets me sing the line by myself, moving one of his hands up and over my breasts before he spins away and swings the mic like he's in an old-timey fucking radio. “
Because of love, all because of love.
”

Sweat is pouring down my face, too much for just the venue and the press of people and the movement. In fact, I think it has more to do with what's going on inside of me than what's going on out. I get tongue-tied again, unused to the dual pressures of singing and playing at the same time. Turner saves me again, but I have to wonder if, like our very first meeting, he's saving me so he can screw me later, leave me worse off than before.

“
Faceless faces and barren voices can't pull me out because I'm in too deep, and my love is killing me. If I don't turn a key on my past, oh, my fucking past, then I'll never make it out alive.
”

My guitar solo comes up hard and my mind seriously goes fucking blank. I feel like I'm high, only I'm not. I swear that my hands aren't my own as I finger my Wolfgang, fucking it with demonic strokes and tearing the venue down, brick by fucking brick.

Turner's breath hits my neck again as I finish and hit my guitar, spinning it around my back and to the front again. Screams go up, and the energy increases to a point where it's almost painful. When this happens, it feels like I'm possessed, like I can't make any decisions on my own. It's all the music, has always been the music, because it's a reflection of the soul. And the soul knows best. After all, it's powered by the most powerful thing there is: the heart.

Turner kisses me, and I know it's wrong, and I know I should stop, but instead I let my tongue slide into his mouth, swirl up the heat and the pain and the energy, pulling away only when I have to to finish the song. Between verses, we find each other again, his hands on my neck, his fingers in my hair. We even let the rest of the band pick up the chorus. All the while, I continue to play, my knuckles brushing the erection in Turner's pants, strumming him at the same time I strum my guitar. It's so ridiculous, and I just know I'm going to hate myself later for this, but I can't stop. Until this song is over, I belong to the music. We all do.

A crescendo builds outside and in, and my clit throbs and pulses. My thighs are wet with sweat and lube, sliding together as I jam hard, drawing in the crowd for a collective breath that they'll hold until I damn well say otherwise. Just when they think they're going to burst, that they're going to die if they don't exhale, Turner and I break apart and scream the last words to the song, voices so loud and strained that they break on the last syllable.

The song ends; he steps away from me; I smash my guitar to pieces on the stage and chuck what's left of it into the greedy hands of the crowd.

My emotions are so fucking raw right now that I can't seem to stay in control of myself. I just keep doing shit without thinking it through. My body is pulsing and vibrating, being plucked by the dirty hands of fate. As soon as I get offstage, I start to pace, running my fingers through my hair and doing my best not to think about Travis's hat. It was a prank. Had to be. None of the guys will admit to it, but obviously somebody's trying to fuck with us. I think of Naomi's foster sister, but have no clue how she'd have even known what type of hat Travis wore. I mean, the cap couldn't have been one of the ones he'd
actually
worn, but it was the same style – black with a white brim, eagle with outstretched wings on the back. I mean, if it's a coincidence, it's an eerie one.

I brush Milo off, not really in the mood to hear him bitch, and watch as Naomi is outfitted with a backup guitar. She starts the next song off with a shaking voice but quickly pulls up her strength and pushes through the skull of the crowd, bending them to her will, marking that whole place with her power and her voice.

I want her so bad right now that it hurts. Literally. My dick is smashed up inside my pants, grinding against the denim, and my hands are clenched so tight that my knuckles are straining against my skin. I stalk back and forth and wait, keeping my eyes off of her sweaty body.

I confessed my love to her.

I cannot even believe that shit. I blame it on the conversation I had with Ronnie, the shock of finding the baseball cap. She didn't exactly react positively to the news, but then, onstage, she was all the fuck over me.

I grab a white towel and throw it around my neck, using the end to wipe the sweat from my forehead and end up stealing a beer from one of the roadies, finishing it in one gulp. No wonder I've never bothered to fall in love before. It sucks. Love sucks. It sucks big, fat, hairy fucking dick. My bandmates watch me pace like a tiger in a cage, but everybody keeps their mouths shut tight. Good thing, too, because I'm wound up so tight that anything could set me off.

Testosterone and adrenaline mix in my blood, creating this toxic concoction that has me on edge through Amatory Riot's entire set. It's so bad that I can't even look at them play. All I can do is stand there and close my eyes, let my head fall back and my hands shake. Naomi's voice is crazy fucking good, so much better than Skinny Chick's. I wonder briefly where that bitch is anyway, but figure it isn't all that important.

As soon as Naomi walks offstage, I go after her.

“Don't touch me,” she whispers, voice low and gravelly. She's growling at me for fuck's sake, and it's
hot.
All eyes are on us as we move towards the back door like a storm cloud, bouncing energy off of one another's skin. I'm so hypersensitive right now that I'm having a really, really hard time forming logical thoughts in my brain. I can see every bead of sweat on her skin, her dilated pupils, her taut nipples. “Stay away from me.” Naomi pauses with her fingers on the handle of the door, and it's almost like I can hear the entire room taking a breath, holding it, waiting to see what's going to happen between us. “I don't love you.”

“You will.” Maybe that's the wrong thing to say, but it comes out of my mouth anyway. I'm not used to not getting my way. I might be overcompensating for my shitty childhood, but that's just the way it is. I want, no I
need
, Naomi to respect me. Somehow, her opinion is the only one that's important right now. But of course she doesn't love me, not yet. “You hate me. I get it. I can wait.”

“Goddamn it, Turner!” she shouts, punching the door so hard that her knuckles come back bloody. She turns on me and her eyes are wild, not just wet but soaked, drenched. They don't even look brown now, just orange, bright as the fucking sun. “You're right. I do.” She points at me with one of her silver painted fingernails. “You're a cocky, arrogant, self-serving, smug, selfish piece of shit. You don't love me. You just think you do. You're interested in me because you can't have me.” She throws her arm out to indicate the rest of the room. “You could have almost any girl here or out there or anywhere, anyone that's single and available and a lot that aren't. You like me because I'm a challenge, but as soon as the challenge is over and you've won, you'll get bored and you'll wander.” Naomi sucks in a massive breath and steps close to me, brushing the toes of my shoes with hers. “To love something or someone, you have to be willing to give up everything else you care about to make things right for them, even if the decision is hard or it sucks or it makes you so miserable you want to tear your teeth out of your fucking skull.” She looks me straight in the eye and holds me there with that piercing gaze. “You're not there yet, Turner. You're just not, and that's pretty obvious, even to me, and I'm no fucking expert.” Naomi touches her fingers to the bleeding heart tattoo on her chest. “Life is real, and it's ugly, and it hurts. I've only ever loved three things in my life, and none of them worked out for me.”

I stand there in silence and listen to her speech with my cock throbbing and my heart pounding. Sweat is pouring down my face and into my eyes, and my breath is coming fast and shallow, making my vision spotty and blurry. I'm jealous, I admit. Stupid as it fucking sounds, even after her impressive but admittedly hurtful speech, I can only think about one thing.

“What are they?” She stares at me like I'm the craziest person she's ever laid eyes on. Her laugh, when it does come, is harsh and painful.

“God, you're a fucking idiot.” Naomi holds up three fingers. I can't help but notice that they're shaking, too. “You.” She drops one finger against her palm, and I take a step forward, letting flashes of memory flicker over the top of my vision. I can remember her telling me that before, but I didn't get it. I've had lots of girls tell me that in bed. It's just something people say. Honestly, I think she's the only one that ever meant it. “Your baby.” Naomi drops her second finger, leaving only her middle up, so she can flip me the bird. “But I could not, in good conscious, force her to suffer alongside the rest of us.” She pauses and takes a deep breath. “And myself. I lost that love a long, long time ago, and I'm only now just starting to get that back. I won't let you take it from me.” She pauses and lets her hand fall to her side, shifting her eyes away from mine. She doesn't stop shaking.

“I wouldn't dare,” I tell her, trying to get her to look at me, but she won't. She flat out refuses to give me the satisfaction. “And I could probably teach you a thing or two about it. If anyone's an expert in loving themselves, it's me.” It's a joke … sort of. But Naomi doesn't laugh. Instead, the words hang in the air like they've been drawn there, etched into the white smoke that drifts lazily around the room. Part of me is aware that I've got to get onstage soon. The rest of me doesn't care. I stand very, very still, and I wait. After what seems like forever, Naomi drops her hand and licks her lips.

“If you're waiting for a declaration of love from me, it isn't coming.” She looks at me and then glances over her shoulder at the bits of broken guitar that were salvaged off the stage and placed inside of a plastic bag. Her manager's holding them now, and she doesn't look all that happy about it. I try to stick to my honesty policy. I figure I sound like a dick anyway, so I may as well just go for it. If you've got nothing to hide, it's a hell of a lot harder for other people to hurt you.

“Nah, baby, right now, I just kind of want to fuck.” If I don't touch her before I go onstage, I'm going to be worse than animalistic. It'll get real ugly, real fast. Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, right? Fucking toxic. Still, I think she's wrong about me. I know love because I know the absence of it, you know what I mean? Like, I know black because I've seen white, something like that. But just telling that to Naomi isn't going to do me shit. I'm going to have to prove it a thousand times over. There's a lot of baggage that has to be dealt with first.

She looks at me with an expressionless mask plastered over her face, then back at her band, then at the door. After a moment, she reaches down and touches her fingertips to the handle. I can tell she wants me just as badly as I want her. When we're onstage together, we just connect. We're like
this.

“I don't think that's such a good idea right now,” she whispers, and I hear this whoosh of air, like everybody that's been watching us can finally breathe again. The silence breaks, and the roar of the crowd comes echoing violently out at me.
Duet. Duet. Duet.
They want Naomi back. Can't say I blame 'em.

“Encore?” I ask her, but my heart is sinking fast, drowning in blood. I feel like I'm sweating excitement out through my pores. I feel like something is happening, but instead of an explosion, it's a whisper. It happens so quietly and discreetly that I hardly notice it. I'm not used to subtlety anymore. I've been living with everything happening in a big way for so long that I miss it. That's my fucking problem. Since there's nothing crashing down around me, I don't notice that anything's wrong.

I should have never let her walk out that door.

“Turner,” she says as pulls the handle down and steps forward. “Fuck off.”

As soon as she leaves, I have a mild freak out and punch the wall so hard that my entire arm goes numb for a moment. If I didn't have a fucking show to do, I'd chase after her. I think she knows that. By the time I get out there, it's going to be too late. The night's fucking ruined.
But there's always tomorrow, right?
Unfortunately, that's not always true, but I guess I don't realize that yet.