Revue (17 page)

“Then why are you crying, sweetheart?” he asked, his smile, callous.

“I’m not. My eyes are urinating, so fuck you!”

Silence.

He searched my tear-streaked face for a second, sighed and then dropped his hand from its firm hold on my face. “I didn’t tell anyone that I’d fucked you for fun, if that’s what you’re saying. You were never a conquest, Corinne. When
you
were ready, I would’ve told them you and I were an ‘us’ or whatever the fuck you wanted ‘us’ to be.” Josh leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on my forehead. He then walked away.

What the … hang on … what?
Confusion suffocated my thoughts as I tried to process his words.
He never said anything? I wasn’t a conquest after all?

“Wait!” I called out.

He stopped, but didn’t turn around.

“I don’t understand. How did everyone find out?”

Silence.

“Josh?”

“Does it even matter?” he asked, before continuing to walk and leaving me standing there, confused as fuck and feeling like a terrible fool.

***

When I eventually returned to the barbeque, Josh was nowhere to be seen. It worried me. I’d jumped to conclusions and assumed the worst of him, something he didn’t take lightly nor had he deserved.

Turned out Josh had been telling the truth, never parading the entering of my vagina as a conquest. Instead, Brad had found out when he’d visited my room the night before while I was preparing the bath, discovering Josh shirtless and accepting a room service order of wine and dessert. The evidence was self-explanatory, and Brad didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on. I’d also gotten it out of him—after giving him an earful about opening his big mouth, and telling him to stay out of my business—that there’d been some heated words exchanged between him and Josh, and that Josh had told him to back off because I was the first person in a long time who’d made him smile without even trying. And that he’d be damned if Brad was gonna try to weasel in on that.

I officially sucked. Big time.

Brad hadn’t been too happy with Josh’s threat. I, on the other hand, was more than happy. So happy, in fact, that it proved his words did mean something.

I’d stuffed up, plain and simple. I’d let my own insecurities sabotage. Let my fear of being hurt cloud my mind. I’d pushed away my faith in trust and, instead, grasped doubt. I hadn’t intended to, it was just that facing and surmounting disbelief was a hell of a lot easier said than done. But I knew I had to try. I had to make more of an effort. If Josh truly was trying for me, then I had to try for him too. Relationships were a two-way street. Actually, they were more like a six lane freeway … with an assortment of traffic and the odd four-car pile up.

Realising I had to find him and apologise, to make things right and explain that I, too, was a novice in what we shared and would try harder to figure it all out, I sent him a text.

Cori: Sorry. I fucked up

He didn’t reply until seven hours later, which was when I was eating dinner in my room and freaking out. And the nature of his reply didn’t appease that apprehension either, as it indicated he was not of a sober state of mind.

Josh: Allls goOd, Swe*tshearTs.

What the fuck?
The thought of him out drinking—God knew where—worried me. I was just glad the guys weren’t scheduled to perform. He’d be in some serious shit had they been.

By 10:00 p.m. I decided I’d go to his room and check to see if he’d made it back yet. I wasn’t holding out hope that he had, nor was I expecting him to answer the door if it were so. Men, after consuming alcohol, were the world’s best coma patients. Regardless, I just couldn’t sit around waiting and wondering.

After knocking on his door for a few minutes, waiting, pressing my ear to the paintwork, getting down on my hands and knees and squashing my face into the carpet to try and get a glimpse of movement beyond the door, I was satisfied he was not inside and gave up, having no choice but to head back to my room. Loitering in the hallway like a desperado just wasn’t an option.

As sick and worried as my insides were making me feel, I had to endure it and deal with the fallout that would, no doubt, come to fruition tomorrow. After all, tomorrow was a new day, and a new day meant a different ending.

The
ding
of the elevator sounded and the doors slid open, revealing a highly inebriated Josh slouched over a tall brunette who could quite easily be on the cover of
Playboy
magazine. She was wearing a tight red strip of material, which barely covered her perky little arse. And don’t get me started on her legs. I swear the fuckers never ended.

I hated her.

Instantly.

As in I-will-make-a-Voodoo-Doll-with-your-name-on-it-bitch. That’s how much I insta-hated her.

Amazing, I know!

“Sweetshearts, hullo. Fancy seeings you here. Have you mets …” He struggled to lift his head and look at the bitchy-long-legs. “Who is you, again?”

She laughed and guided him past me. “You know who I am, Josh.”

Real bile rose to my throat. Not the metaphorical kind. Not the kind you think is surfacing but doesn’t. No, real sicky-sickness made its way toward the pinnacle of my mouth, but I swallowed it down and braced myself on the wall next to the elevator.
Breathe, Cori, breathe.

I closed my eyes for a split second to gather my bearings, then looked up, finding Josh trying to look back at me, his hand reaching out. I studied it, confused, not sure if he was trying to wave goodbye, pretend his hand was a bird, or attempt to hold hands.
I can’t do this anymore.

Stepping into the elevator, I pressed the number to my floor.

“Cori, come back,” Josh cried out, his desperate cry for me the slap to the face I needed.

I hit the button to stop the doors from shutting, stepping out and walking briskly to where he and skank-giraffe were standing. I was the one who’d fucked up. I’d let him down, and I’d be the one who’d make this right. He was worth the effort, and I was going to prove that to him.

“You,” I said, pointing to her. “Let him go. I’ve got this.”

Her face twisted. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Hand him over.” I actually made the stupid hand gesture that went along with my request, as if she could just simply pass him to me as she would a loaf of bread.

“And who are you?” she asked, her contemptuous voice dripping from her lanky body.

“She’s sweetshearts,” Josh slurred. “I love her.”

Drunken idiot.
I took his arm and basically yanked him from her grip. He fell onto me, crushing me like the world’s heaviest blanket would. “Yeah,” I groaned, straining with his dead weight. “What he said. I’m sweetheart.
His sweetheart.”

She looked down her nose at Josh with an angry scowl, eyes narrowed, lips pursed. She was an ugly angry.

I smiled on the inside.

“Once an arsehole always an arsehole,” she muttered, turning on her heel. “You can have him.”

I watched her walk away, relived that her dismissal was easier than what I’d expected. She paused before entering the lift, looking back at Josh and I and shaking her head.

Josh rested his head against mine and inhaled, practically sucking me into his airways. “You smells good.”

I grumbled, “You don’t. In fact, you stink.” Scrunching up my nose, I tried to reach into his pocket for the room key. “Josh, you need to stand up. I can’t get the key.”

I manoeuvred him, until his body was barely supported by the wall, and took a tentative step back, poising, ready to attempt a catch if needed. “Stay!” I warned while fishing the card out of his jeans.

Swiping it into the lock, I waited for it to click open before supporting his weight once again and safely guiding him inside. When he spotted the bed, he fell forward, taking me with him.

“Josh!” I screamed.

He laughed and hugged me tightly. “You came back.”

“Yeah, I did. If you’re gonna fuck some lanky-legs model, you can man up and do it sober. Not drunk,” I said, avoiding his eyes when I stood. I could feel them on me, boring into me, but I couldn’t meet his stare. I’d hurt him, and him being with her had hurt me.

Slate clean.

Still, hurt took a long time to dissipate. I’d look at him again in the morning when the beer, or bourbon or whatever the hell he’d been drinking wasn’t what was looking back at me. I’d reassess the hurt then.

But first things first … undressing the shithead.

“Give me your foot,” I said, lifting it up.

“I can’t. It’s stucks to me.”

“Such a smartarse.” I removed his shoes and then undid his jeans, yanking them down and throwing them on the floor.

He tried, unsuccessfully, to disperse with his boxer shorts, rolling around the bed in slow motion. “These too, sweethearts. Let’s fuck.”

I laughed. “You’re dreaming. Get under the covers.”

He pouted like a little boy. “Please.”

“No!”

“Your loss.”

It wasn’t. Loch Ness was comatose.

Removing my pants but keeping my T-shirt on, I climbed into bed beside him and rolled onto my side, feeling utterly deflated. And, if I was going to be completely honest, deeply hurt yet again. Why was it that when we had an argument or the ugly head of doubt raised its head, he sought out another woman?
You know why, Cori, because it’s ‘all he knows’.
God, what a mess.
Blinking back my tears of confusion and the salty remnants of a wounded pride, I wondered if it would always be like this with him. If my heart would beat in pain more than it would beat with pleasure.

“Corinne,” he murmured, his voice less garbled and more coherent. “I really,
really
like you.”

A small smile broke through my tears, heightening the stakes of my heart beating with pleasure. “I really,
really
like you too.”

I could always tell when someone was staring at me. It was a sixth sense, a cool non-existent breeze that awoke my goose bumps. And it didn’t matter where I was or what I was doing, or whether I was awake or asleep. My body would just react to the observant intrusion by way of increased heartbeat, warmth flowing through my veins, and a prickle that peppered my skin.

Lying in bed in Josh’s hotel room, I had that sense of being watched as I roused from sleep. It was never a pleasant feeling, someone scrutinising your features when you were at your most vulnerable and, in most cases, undesirable. I mean … panda eyes, dry lips and frizzy hair. It’s not a good look.
Never
a good look.

Slowly opening my eyelids, a ray of light seeped through the small slit and, after a second or two of adjusting, I found Josh sitting in the chair opposite the bed, a tall glass of water on the table beside him.

“Morning,” I said sleepily, stretching my arms, a yawn escaping my mouth.

He didn’t say anything, just stared blankly, as if I weren’t even there. He looked sad … lost. I didn’t like it.

“Josh?”

Nothing.

I propped myself up on my elbows, chest tightening. “What? What’s wrong? Talk to me.”

“I fucked her,” he said flatly, his gaze diverted to the empty condom packet I could now see in his hands.

Silence. The loudest silence I’d ever heard.
I. Fucked. Her.
Three words had never blared so thunderously.

“Who?” I asked, my voice small.

“Krystal.”

I knew exactly whom he was referring to: the woman from last night. I hadn’t picked up on it at the time, but when she’d said ‘once an arsehole, always an arsehole’ and then paused at the elevator, her words had subconsciously settled into my mind and have been waiting patiently for a time such as now to ring true.

He fucked her.

He. Fucked. Her.

I looked down at my blanket-covered body, inhaled and bit the inside of my bottom lip to refrain from crying. I then proceeded to get out of bed. I had nothing to say. Zilch. There was no point. He was bound to do this at one stage or another. And to be honest, I wasn’t sure my mouth would function enough for anything coherent to come out. My throat was thick, swallowing … difficult. And when I tried to do just that, I felt as if I might throw up.

I was so stupid and ignorant. Josh had never been in a relationship, so to think he could have one with me was just wishful thinking—insanity. Still, it hurt. Being right wasn’t a victory if the trophy was your broken heart.

Now bearing that trophy, it wasn’t one I wanted to flaunt, so I picked up my jeans and pulled them on, zipping them up while slipping my feet into my shoes. Tears stung my eyes, threatening to overspill and show my weakness. But I
refused
to show that fragility. No way! It was the one thing I
would
keep caged.

Again, I could feel his eyes boring into me, and I couldn’t stand it. It sent an unwelcoming shiver down my spine and made me feel naked, exposed and vulnerable. I wanted out of the room and away from him. I wanted the solace of a shower floor.

Turning to leave without so much as a word, I gasped mildly when he reached forward and clasped my hand. “Corinne.”
No, Josh, PLEASE, don’t.

My eyes met his red, bloodshot ones. They looked tired, stripped, and incredibly sad. It made me feel miserable too, because I could see that he’d really wanted to try and give us a chance. I couldn’t deny that. It was right there, written all over his face.

“I’m sorry, I … I didn’t m—”

“Josh, don’t,” I said, exhausted. “There’s no point. This was never going to work. We barely know each other, and jumping straight into … fuck, I don’t know, into something … was just stupid.”

Squeezing his hand reassuringly, I slid it free from his grip and made my way to the door, pausing before opening it. “Perhaps we should’ve tried friends first.”

He didn’t answer me, and I knew that he was no longer watching. “See you tonight, Josh.”

Opening the door, I exited the room and exited his heart. Then again, I was fairly sure I’d never entered it.

***

There was something comforting about the floor of a shower. It was the one place where you could let everything out; expel every emotion, every tear, and every heartbreaking sob. It was that one place you could let regret pierce you deep, strip you barer than your already bare form, and then watch as it all washed down the drain afterward.

Shower cries were good.

Therapeutic.

Pity you couldn’t eat ice cream too.

Sitting at the bottom of the shower in my hotel room, hugging my knees tight while I cried, warm water cascading over my hunched body, I didn’t give a flying fuck anymore. I was over it. I was done caring about anyone or anything, especially me. This was all, my fault. I only had myself to blame for the tears that pooled in my eyes, for the pain they trailed down my face, and for the hollowness inside. I only had myself to blame for letting him into my life.

Truth.

The searing hurt I was now experiencing was the by-product of
my
naivety and pathetic belief that true love would conquer all.
Pfft … I mean, really? True love? It doesn’t exist.
We seemed to think that it did, but I now knew that it didn’t. Not in its truest form. Yeah, we can love, but never enough not to hurt the ones that matter. So yeah, I’d been wrong and he’d been right—true love was a fallacy.

I laughed ironically, my witch-sounding cackle bouncing off the tiled walls and frightening even myself.
Love is a fucking contradiction, a faux twinkle of the eye and a factitious curve of the mouth. Love is fucking unbearable
. The funny thing was, I didn’t even love Josh. And yet here I was, on the bottom of the shower floor, signing Cupid’s death warrant when the naked, little, winged bastard had never fired an arrow in either Josh’s or my arse in the first place. Josh had destroyed my perception of love without me even loving him to begin with.
What the fuck?

I laughed again. This time, my demented cackle more controlled and subdued. My head and heart were all over the place, a clear indication that I’d jumped into everything that was Josh Adams far too quickly. Yeah, it had felt right at the time, but looking back at it now, it was all too soon. And I mean ridiculously too soon.

I cried.
I’m such an idiot.

I cried some more.
When did I become so dumb?

I counted the little decorative tiles on the wall.
I seriously suck.

Just call me crazy, or delusional with a capital D.
There you go, those could be my nicknames, not fucking Elmer.

I needed Em. Desperately. She could pull me out of my woe-is-me funk. She’d done it before and I would need her to do it again. But first things first—I had to get through this next week before there was a chance I could see her. In the meantime, a phone call would have to do.

***

It was set. Em would be meeting me in Queensland when we took a week’s break on the Gold Coast. I couldn’t wait. I needed another women to curb my inner crazy—women were good like that. Maybe it was the ownership of boobs and a vagina, but we all harboured the same nutcase tendencies where men were concerned and, because of that, could also provide the perfect antidotes—chocolate, cocktails and dancing. Yep, when Em was due to hit the Gold Coast, my blonde hair would be let down and my inner carefree Cori would emerge.

Bring it on.

The rest of my time in Sydney had been uneventful. Josh and I had barely talked. Then again, we hadn’t really had much of a chance to talk. Every show had been sold out, and during the day, the guys had either rehearsed or trained. The three days spent in Newcastle following the Sydney stop, were no different.

At first, Josh had avoided every chance of the two of us winding up alone, by always being the first to leave the bus, the performance rooms … backstage, etc. And he was always the last to enter these places, too. To be honest, I was thankful the fucker was smart. But then, after a few days when my anger had died down and his proverbial tail—that had been comfortably tucked between his legs—made an appearance and swished mildly, he’d tried to talk to me via text messages. I’d ignored them all with the exception of one.

Josh: Have I bored your cat and tongue again, sweetheart?

That’s okay. They can’t sleep forever.

Cori: They can.

Josh: They won’t.

Cori: We’ll see.

Josh: We will.

I had no doubt he was right. We would eventually talk again. I just wasn’t interested at that time. I’d been too raw and was still trying to figure out how I came to be so taken by a man I’d normally despise. As it so happens, I never figured that out. Instead, all I managed to decipher was that I didn’t despise him at all—quite the opposite, really.

It was now Friday and our last day in Tamworth: the country music capital of Australia. It was also just over a week since I’d walked out on Josh, and I missed him terribly. Yes, that’s what I’d manage to figure out. I missed the fucking prick, despite his flaws.

Having spent most of the day walking around town and taking in the sights, one particular structure had excited me to no end—the Big Golden Guitar.

Crouching down and leaning back, I tried to get a unique angle of the entire three-storey acoustic guitar in my viewfinder when I decided to just give up and lie on my back. I loved my Nina, I really did, but she didn’t have a flip-out rotational LCD screen like my Nikki had. So I had no choice but to get down and dirty with the asphalt in order to get the shot I wanted. Now, if I’d brought Nikki—my recreational camera—along with me, I would have spared myself this particular con of being a photographer. Regretfully, I’d left her at home. And, even more regretfully, I’d worn my white pants.

Damn.

Flat on my back, the suns rays creating a spectacular fan over the gigantic guitar, I manually adjusted the zoom and focus, smiling when the perfect shot came into view.

Click. Click, click.

I loved that sound.

The noise a shutter made when opening and closing sent me to my happy place, a place I was now in until the shadow of a man obscured my view. Zooming out and refocussing, I discovered that it was Josh. And fuck me he looked like a goddamn angel peering down at me with the sun behind illuminating him.

Powerless, I took his freakin’ picture.

“Hi,” I said, pulling the camera away, hoping he hadn’t noticed what I’d just done.

“Hi. Did you just take my photo?”

Shit! Fail.

“Yes, yes I did.”

“Why?”

“Because you look beautiful.”
Cori, shut the fuck up. What is wrong with you?

He laughed and sat down beside me, so I sat up and gave him a docile smile, taking in his pearly-whites. Oh, how I’d missed those blinding nuggets. I missed them hard. I missed
him
hard. I missed—”

“I miss you,” he blurted, eyes not on me, instead on the guitar.

I wanted to say it back to him, I really did. But I just couldn’t. And if he’d been looking at me, there was no doubt he’d be able to see, from the tortured expression I was wearing as I stared at his immaculate profile, just how much I missed him too.

“How have you been?” I asked instead.

He met my gaze, but only momentarily. “All right, I guess.”

Lies
.

I could tell. And I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

“What about you?” he asked, leaning back on his hands and stretching out his legs.

“I’ve been better.”

Truth.

Josh nodded in acknowledgement then went back to assessing the guitar. “I can’t stop thinking about you. Every—”

“Josh,” I interrupted, stopping him from voicing everything I needed to hear yet shouldn’t.