“Ok, I’ll get you a drink, but what happened? You were in such a good mood when you got here.”
“It’s over between Mason and me. He’s with Bentley again,” I replied emotionless. Operation shutdown was underway.
“What do you mean?” he asked unbelievably.
“I just got off the phone with ‘
em
.
Jobu’s
Rum is going on tour with
VanderBlue
and Mason and Bentley got back together tonight,” I answered. Turning around to look at him, I pleaded with him, “Can we get out of here? I just want to get somewhere so that I can drink until I pass out. I just want to not think about anything for a while.”
Without saying another word, he grabbed my hand and pulled me through the bar, out the door, and put me in his car. Luckily my car was already close to his place, since he lived at the same apartment complex as Noah and Mina. We pulled into his parking spot after a short, silent road trip and I followed him inside. He led me straight to the kitchen and grabbed two shot glasses from the cabinet.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” His piercing blue eyes had just as much pain in them as I felt.
“Pour them,” I responded.
He grabbed a bottle of tequila out from the freezer and filled up each of the tiny glasses. We both grabbed one and held it out in the air to toast.
“To forgetting it all… at least for tonight,” he offered.
“To forgetting it all,” I repeated. We clinked our glasses together and tossed the potent liquid down the backs of our throats, slamming the empties to the bar. I shuddered as I felt the burn down my spine, but couldn’t help but smile a bit once it had settled.
Max held up the bottle and asked, “Another?”
Greedy to further escape the sorrow and destruction I felt, I nodded yes.
Six shots later for each of us, Max and I had moved to the couch in his living room, joking around, flipping through the channels. I had stolen the remote from him when he had left it on a sports talk show for entirely too long, and he lunged at me to try and get it back. I unsteadily jumped off the couch, just out of his reach and took off running around his apartment trying to keep it from him. He chased after me, and due to the lack of places to run and my being way more than a little tipsy, he had me cornered quickly. We were both laughing so hard we could barely move, but instead of conceding defeat, I made a final attempt to escape. As I tried to run by him, he slung his arm around my waist and tackled me into the couch.
I couldn’t stop giggling as he tried to wrestle the remote away out of my hands. Lying flat on my back with him straddling my thighs, he tried to use his weight to hold me in place. Changing his strategy, he began to tickle me to see if I would drop the treasured item, which I did… over the arm of the couch above my head.
“You little brat!” he joked. He stretched his body
forward ,
hovering over mine, and reached over the furniture to grab the remote off of the floor. As he brought his arm back over and rocked his weight backwards, his body rubbed against mine and I whimpered. His stormy eyes shot to mine and I swallowed
hard .
He relaxed his body so that he was lying on top of me, but not crushing me with his weight. Our faces were mere inches from one another, and I couldn’t do anything to control the pounding of my heart or the fluttering in my stomach. He leaned his forehead down so that it was touching mine.
“Scarlett,” he breathed.
“Max,” I whispered back.
In the few silent moments that followed our names being spoken, as we looked helplessly lost in each other’s eyes, the thought crossed my mind that these drunken tequila nights I had read about over and over again never ended up good. But despite that knowledge, when he brought his hand to my face and began brushing his thumb back and forth on my cheek, I closed my eyes and leaned my face into his touch. I felt his cock jerk against my thigh and I muffled my moan.
“Look at me Scarlett,” he said quietly. I opened my eyes and looked at his handsome face.
“I
wanna
kiss you so fucking bad right now,” he confessed. His words made me clamp my legs together, trying to ignore the building ache.
Allowing the tequila to block out all the reasons why his idea was a really horrible one, and instead remembering what we had toasted to with our first shot of the night ~ to forgetting it all, I selfishly replied, “Then kiss me.”
MASON
I had been looking forward to going home to see Scarlett since the minute I had left her the last time. Living apart was fucking killing me; I had already decided when I went back for the bachelor party weekend, I was going to ask her to move in with me since her semester was over. I just couldn’t handle it anymore. My stress level when I wasn’t with her was out of control, and I had basically become a dick to be around. I was constantly struggling internally about the right thing to do by her or by the band, and knew that if she lived in Austin with me, I could do both.
I hated the fact that I wasn’t able to make Noah’s bachelor party, but even more because it was one more night that I spent away from Angel. I had good intentions of going back to see her at least weekly, but our schedule had been so incredibly busy, that all I did was eat, sing, and sleep. However, I knew when Bentley had told me who was going to be at the show and why we had to play, that there was no option. I had called the guys and told them about the delay and we got our asses ready as soon as possible.
The afternoon phone conversation with Scarlett had gone less than ideal. I knew she was frustrated with how the first month had gone, shit, so was I, but I had no idea she was as pissed as she was. How could she even think that I didn’t see her as a part of my future? Did she even listen to me when I talked to her sometimes? I knew that I just needed to get through this performance and then I could get home to her to talk, and possibly fuck, some sense into her. I didn’t want to be without her for another day.
Knowing what was at stake in that one performance ~ the opportunity to open for a chart-topping band, I felt nerves in my stomach for the first time in years before grabbing the microphone. I knew halfway through our first song that we were on and sounded good, I only hoped the people who mattered agreed. We waited in a back room for Bentley after our set, not sure if we would find out the decision immediately. After what seemed like hours, she walked in with a huge smile on her face and told us to pack out bags because we were going on a long road trip.
Elated does not even begin to describe the overwhelming feeling of joy that I experienced when I heard the words come out of her mouth. After we all congratulated one another, I couldn’t wait to call Scarlett and tell her the good news, even though I knew she was out with Mina and the girls. I hoped she’d at least have a chance to check her messages at some point. Hearing her voice on the greeting brought a smile to my face and I left her a short message.
“Hey Scarlett, please give me a call when you get a chance. I’ve got something important I want to tell you.”
I headed back to my apartment to get a good night’s rest before making the drive the following morning. I had just gotten settled and was about to jump in the shower when I heard a knock on the door. Assuming it was one of my band mates, I opened the door with just a towel wrapped around me to see Bentley standing there in a nearly sheer night gown.
Her eyes roaming up and down my body, she asked, “Do you have any milk I can borrow?” she purred.
“Milk? Really? At nearly two o clock in the fucking morning, you need milk?” Her attempts to get me to sleep with her were borderline pathetic, and I was getting tired of telling her to leave me alone. It also pissed me off that she asked for milk because that made me think of Scarlett and her milk obsession, and I remembered that it was Bentley’s fault I hadn’t seen her in over a month.
Pushing her way past me in to my place, “God, you don’t have to be such an asshole. Fine, I’ll leave you alone. You got all fucking boring anyways. What did she do to you? Suck all of the fun out? You don’t drink, smoke
, go out…
nothing anymore. What kind of rock star are you supposed to be?”
Ignoring all of her ridiculous questions, I replied, “Help yourself to what you need from the kitchen, I’m getting in the shower. Lock the door on your way out please.”
When I got out of the shower I noticed that the towel I had out was missing.
That fucking bitch.
I yelled out, “B? Where are you? Bring me that towel right now!”
I climbed back into the shower to be hidden from her and a minute or so later she sauntered in with my towel across her arm. “Oh come on Rat, its not like I haven’t seen you naked before. You are pathetic.”
“Fuck you, Bentley. Just do your job and leave me alone. Get out of my apartment like I already told you to do.”
Thirty minutes and a beer later I had calmed down from the B incident, but was concerned that Scarlett still hadn’t called or texted back since my last message. Going on tour changed things quite a bit, but that didn’t change the fact I wanted her with me all the time. I hoped she was ready to visit a lot of new places. My biggest concern was her taking time off for school, but an opportunity to travel like that was once in a life time and I hoped she be up for the adventure.
Crashing in my bed for what I hoped was the last time alone, I fell asleep thinking about my angel curled up in my arms.
SCARLETT
Max’s lips crashed onto mine as we became a needy, voracious mess of mouths and hands and limbs. We pulled and tugged at each other’s clothes as we kissed, sucked, and bit each other like wild animals. Moments later we were both stripped naked and I was lying underneath him, reveling in the feel of his skin against mine. Over the next twenty minutes, our actions were completely thoughtless. I was
Kiera
, he was
Kellan
, and all thoughts of Denny or Mason or anyone else were totally buried under the alcohol, and the combination of our need to feel wanted and our want to feel needed.
We groped and caressed one another until neither of us could resist the desire to be intimately connected. With our bodies glistening in sweat, our labored breaths gasping for air, and our intoxicated minds lost a million miles away; Max positioned himself between my legs and buried himself inside of me in one swift thrust. We both screamed out at his initial entrance as my body stretched to accommodate him. After pulling out slightly, he plunged back inside of me, and several strokes of his hips later, he had established a steady rhythm. We were lost in the madness of the entire experience, eyes closed, forgetting it all.
As I felt my climax building, I wrapped my legs around his hips, holding his body close to mine. He buried his face into my neck and my fingers ran through his hair, tugging gently.
“Oh my God, Sam, you feel amazing,” he growled into my ear.
I froze instantly at his use of
Evie’s
nickname for me. My eyes flew open, and I saw his equally-panicked face staring back at me. Neither of us said a word or moved an inch for a few moments. I sobered up immediately, suddenly aware of my surroundings and the happenings of the previous day and night.
“I’ve
gotta
get out of here,” I whispered.
He nodded, and I could see the guilt wash over his face. “I’m sorry,” was the only thing he said before rolling off of me and disappearing into the bathroom. I scurried up off of the couch and put my clothes on as fast as possible. I rushed across the parking lot to the safety of my car. I was definitely going to be sick, and I only hoped I could make it home first.
It was then that I realized that I didn’t have a home anymore. I obviously couldn’t live at Mason’s place. Oh… Mason. Thinking his name made my heart and my head hurt. What had happened since I last talked with him on the phone? I couldn’t believe that he would just make the decision to go ahead and move forward with his life like I suggested without telling me. I should’ve demanded to talk to him, to make him tell me that he didn’t want to be with me, but hearing
her
voice in my drunken state, just ripped my heart out. Not only did he want to move on, but he had already gone back to her. I felt stupid and humiliated.
And then more drinking… more bad decisions… Max.
I couldn’t allow myself to start to think about what had just happened. I drove to my soon-to-be old apartment just in time to lose the contents of my stomach in the toilet. After several minutes of alternating between actual vomiting and the just-as-awful dry heaving, I cleaned my mouth out and began moving in auto-pilot mode. I began throwing my things in bags, grabbing only what I needed. Taking one last look around before leaving Mason’s place for the final time, I began to cry. Hard.
I flew down the stairs, retreating to my car once again, threw my bags in the back, and collapsed into the driver’s seat. I’m not sure how long I sat there and cried, but I could see the sky begin to lighten as the sunrise teased the horizon. My brain was moving so fast that I couldn’t focus on any one thing. My heart was beating so hard in my chest I was afraid I was having a heart attack. I had millions of questions and no answers. I was completely alone… like only one other time in my life.