Revelry (Taint #1) (21 page)

“You’re still not winning that bet.”

He hadn’t won that bet, but over the course of the next week Cooper and I met like this while the rest of the bus was asleep. We lay on our backs and stared up at the brightly-coloured fish in the tank as we spoke about everything from the tour to our favourite flavours of Baskin & Robbins. I talked a lot about my relationship with Brad and he spoke a lot of his daughter, Pepper, pulling out his phone and showing me pictures and videos her mother had sent him. He never talked about Holly though, and the few times I’d seen her in the videos telling Pepper to wave to Daddy, Cooper’s jaw had tightened, and the muscles in his face ticked as if he was grinding his teeth. I didn’t push him on the subject. I figured he’d open up to me about his ex if and when he felt comfortable. He obviously hadn’t yet, and I tried to ignore the way that stung. It also made me feel a little embarrassed that I’d been so quick to divulge every little detail about my relationship with Brad. I hadn’t stopped to think that it was something he mightn’t want to hear.

Some nights we’d find ourselves in the kitchen, just to shake things up a bit. Cooper would lazily strum his guitar and sing. A teeny tiny part of me wanted to believe he was singing to me not to get into my pants, but because he really meant what he was singing about. My inner bitch quickly quashed those ideas, and in a way I was glad. It would be far too easy to lose my head and my heart to this man. And despite all our flirting—and those two amazing orgasms on the plane—that was a line I wasn’t willing to cross.

This was a job. Sure, it came with benefits like seeing rock stars half-naked and working out on the bus, or getting to not just witness but also partake as an unwitting semen recipient in my very first circle jerk, but I was getting paid for it all the same. I worked hard to get that position at Harbour Records and I intended to keep it for as long as I could. I wasn’t about to let the lure of a sexy rock star ruin all I had worked for.

Though given his behaviour, it was apparent the sexy rock star had other ideas.

W
e’ve been in Vegas for just two days, and already I long for those late-night chats on the tour bus. I have a Deluxe Panoramic Corner room of my own in the Wynn Hotel. It is luxe, it is too much, and it is way too quiet. I’ve already explored the strip, watched a tonne of porn, run the batteries flat in my We-Vibe, taken a bath and infiltrated my Facebook profile with dozens of food porn pictures. I’d thought about calling Coop, but what would I say? “Hey, butt munch, come up to my room and snuggle”?

No. I was not doing that. No matter how much I might want to
.

Despite our weirdly burgeoning friendship, and the fact that he sought me out as often as I found him on the tour bus, this was still work. We’d been thrown together by circumstance, but I was still getting paid to do a job. The lines of that job description had been fuzzy at best, and now they seemed to extend to sexual appetite suppressor, personal-crisis-when-confronted-with-confined-spaces therapist, and cuddle bunny.

I pick up my phone, checking for the tenth time tonight to ensure that he hasn’t sent one of those hilarious yet mildly irritating texts, when it vibrates. I see his face flash up on the screen and I let it ring, waiting a whole five seconds before I answer it so I don’t sound desperate.

“What?” I say into the mouthpiece, as if I’m particularly annoyed that he’d dare to call me.

Tonight had been their album launch at TRYST. It was insane—booze, flesh, fangirls, celebrity, and money, money, money. I’d definitely felt underdressed in jeans and a T-shirt and my lucky red Cons. I’d stayed only as long as I had to before coming back up to my room.

“Ali,” he slurs, sounding very drunk. Hinges squeal, and the thumping bass in the background eases a little. He must have walked into the bathroom. “Where are you?”

“In my hotel room. Where are you, Coop?”

“I don’t know.” He sighs. “Why are you alone, Ali-Cat?”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t get why you don’t have someone?” he slurs. “Why isn’t there a line of dudes camped outside your hotel room? Why did your arsehole boyfriend fuck another woman?”

“I don’t know, Cooper, why did your ex leave you?” I cringe the second the words leave my mouth. That was a low blow, but damn, something in those questions cut me right to the core. When it becomes apparent that he’s not going to answer me I say, “Okay well, I’m glad we had this chat, but I’m tired. So if you just called to be a dick, then thanks but no thanks. I already have one of those on the nightstand, and the best thing about BOB is that he doesn’t talk when all I wanna do is roll over and sleep.”

“I think I love you,” Coop says, and I ignore the pang in my chest and the weird flippy thing that my stomach is doing because he’s drunk, and more than likely responding to the idea of me getting myself off. “You’re a really fucking cool chick, Ali.”

“Yep, that’s what they tell me. Good night, Cooper.”

“Wait … don’t hang up. I need you.”

I wait a beat for him to say something afterwards.
Anything
. But just when the flippy feeling inside my stomach starts up again he says, “I need you to come get me. I’m drunk and there are fangirls here. They all want something from me. These women want to sleep with me, Ali.”

“Imagine that,” I say. Jealousy and anger both rip right through me. It was so nice of him to call, point out how alone I am in the city of sin, tug at my stupid fucking heart strings, and then remind me that every woman he meets wants to bang his brains out. “Goodnight, Cooper.”

“Please?” he begs, and he sounds so damn lost.

“I’m in bed, butt munch.”

I feel like an arsehole, because I know he wouldn’t refuse me if the situation were reversed. Call me a sucker, but I can’t listen to him down the other end of the line, sounding so lost and so alone. He’s surrounded by so much admiration, yet he doesn’t seem to want any part of it. I’m not sure Cooper was really designed for a life in the public eye. He’s far too sensitive. The really fucked up part is that someone should be here managing this. Taint needs a manager. Coop had told me their last manager had been a heinous bitch. They’d fired her, but they hadn’t yet hired anyone else. At the very least their AR—also a heinous bitch, but more commonly known as Vanessa—should be here waiting in the wings behind every concert, watching every move, and making sure the boys don’t screw themselves over with the media. Instead, she’s back in Sydney, probably sucking Guidelli’s dick while they sip Dom Pérignon and wipe their mouths with napkins made of hundred-dollar bills.

I let out a resigned sigh. “Where are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Damn it, Coop, how the hell am I supposed to know where to find you if you don’t even know where the hell you are?”

“Wait a second, I’m getting up.” He pauses for a moment and then says, “I’m at the green place.”

“The green place?” I ask confused, then I walk over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and I see it. “You mean the MGM?”

“Yes!” he shouts. “That’s where I am. I left the high rollers’ room with Zed and then we got separated.”

“The high rollers? Christ, Cooper. Please tell me you didn’t lose a tonne of money.”

“I lost a grand on the wheel, and that was enough for me. Zed made fifty thousand dollars though. If he ever tries to convince you to play strip poker, bow out gracefully. The dude’s a machine.”

“I don’t see myself ever playing strip poker with Zed, but thanks for the tip,”

“Would you play strip poker with me?”

I shake my head and pull on the jeans I wore earlier and a Ramones shirt, no bra, and then I shove my feet into my Cons. My hair is a mess, so I throw it on top of my head and secure it with a hotel pen shoved through the bun like a chopstick. “I don’t play poker. I’d lose.”

“I see no problem with this.”

“I don’t play games I can’t win, Coop.”

“Is that a threat, Ali-cat? ’Cause it’s a fucking sexy one.”

Jesus. How much did he drink?

“So you’re in a bar off the high rollers’ room?”

“Technically,” he states loudly, and I can just imagine the way his face looks when he says it. “I’m in a toilet, in the bar, off the players’ room at the MGM.”

“Okay, do me a favour and stay there? I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“I’m hiding out from groupies, Ali-Cat. I’m not going anywhere.” I’m just about to hang up the phone when I hear the door swing open in the background. Cooper mutters, “Oh shit.”

A female’s voice purrs, “There you are. I wondered where you disappeared to.”

“Yeah, I’m here … you know, gastro,” Coop replies.

“Aww, you poor baby, do you need me to take you home and take care of you?”

“Err …”

I sigh, about to hang up the phone when he whispers “Hurry Ali, please? Oh ... wow okay, that’s a really nice pair of breasts you have, but why don’t you put your top back on and we can go get a drink?”

“Oh I love a guy with an accent,” she purrs.

“I need you, now,” he whispers into the phone and I grab my key card and some cash, and practically fly out of my hotel room in order to save the hot rock star from himself.

Ten annoying minutes from cab to curb, and a torturously long elevator ride later, I’m standing at the entrance to the hotel’s nightclub. I push my way into the crowd and search out the bathrooms, but my wrist is caught instead. I turn, about to whack some handsy guy in the face, but then I find Cooper, holding onto me for dear life, looking drunk and dishevelled, but still alive. Just.

“I thought I told you to wait in the bathroom?”