“Not with Bigger, you didn’t,” Miles growled.
“No, not with fuckin’ Bigger, cause you’re all a bunch of pussies!”
“As manager – ”
“As manager, you’re supposed to get us gigs, so get us on the fuckin’ stage!”
“I was going to say, my first priority is the well-being of the band.”
“People are expecting us to be there! If we don’t show up, they’re gonna say we broke up!”
“Since when do you care what people say?” Derek laughed.
“When they think they’re gonna miss the last performance cuz of
me!”
“Nobody’s breaking up,” Ryan said.
“Yeah, you say that cuz I almost kicked the bucket and you’re bein’ all fuckin’
kumbaya
right now, but I ain’t bettin’ on
that
lastin’ long.”
“Nobody’s – ”
“Fuck off! We’re doin’ the gig!”
“No you’re not,” Miles said. “You’re going to get well, and then we’re going back in the studio.”
Riley started tearing at her IV. “Well,
I’m
goin’ to fuckin’ Austin, and you fuckers can either go, or you can read about my two-hour drum solo cuz none of you had the balls to – ”
“Hey! Hey!” Derek yelled, and ran over to grab her hands.
“Riley, cut it out!” Ryan shouted, and grabbed her arm.
Once they had her arms pinned, she started thrashing her body. “What’re you gonna do, keep me locked up for a week?! I’m out of here tomorrow – what’re you gonna do then, huh?!”
“FINE!” Miles shouted. “Fine. I’ll see if they’ll reschedule us later in the festival, alright, you little prat?”
Riley narrowed her eyes. “What’s a prat?” Then she smiled mischievously like the devil-child I remembered from the tour. “Is it in there in your boot with the shovel?”
“Will you act like a fuckin’ sane person if I see if they’ll reschedule?” Miles barked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Which means NO FUCKIN’ ALCOHOL.”
She made a face. “Fuck you, Miles.”
“I’m serious, you little shite.”
She pondered that for a minute… then relented. “I’ll cut back.”
“You’ll not drink a goddamn thing, is what you’ll – ”
“FUCK YOU, MILES! I said I’ll cut back!”
Miles was about to yell at her again when Derek interrupted. “Negotiation 101, Miles: when a crazy bitch offers you better terms than she’s ever offered before, take the deal.”
“Fuck you!” Riley raged as she tried to kick Derek, which wasn’t easy with both him and Ryan holding down her arms.
“Fine, I’ll make the call, just settle the fuck down,” Miles barked as he walked out of the hospital room.
Derek and Ryan let go of Riley’s arms, and she laid back peacefully in bed.
“Welcome back, luv,” Killian said from the hospital chair where he was plinking away at his guitar. “Missed you.”
“Thanks, Limey. How about a bottle of Jack for a welcome back present?”
“Can’t do that, but I could offer you something else medicinal,” Killian said, pulling the vaporizer out of his inside jacket pocket.
“What are you doing?!” Ryan hissed. “Put that away! Do you want to get arrested?!”
Killian replaced his toy with the air of a scolded child.
“Thanks, but I don’t wanna end up a pothead like you,” Riley said.
“You prefer being a dead drunk, huh,” Derek deadpanned.
Riley flipped him the bird.
“Does anybody else kind of miss the quiet, depressed, well-behaved Riley?” Derek asked the room.
Riley leaned over and slugged his leg. “Yeah, fuck you, too, pretty boy.”
Austin City Limits was only too glad to push back the performance from the first weekend to the second. News of Riley’s brush with death had lit up the tabloids. Occurring so quickly after Derek’s near self-destruction and rehab, it made Bigger’s planned performance at Austin the hottest ticket of the last several years.
“See them play before somebody dies,” as one tasteless blogger put it.
But Riley wasn’t about to die, that much was certain. She was too busy telling Death – and everybody else – to fuck off. When she recorded her parts, Miles and Avi told her just to do a temp track until she recovered, but she gave it everything she had. She was usually exhausted after one take, but the one take was perfect. She would recover in the control booth afterwards, sipping apple juice out of box drinks and Skyping with Megan when she wasn’t in classes.
Not to mention sneaking in the occasional tiny airplane bottle of Jack Daniels her Athens cronies would slip her in the studio parking lot.
But Riley was right about one thing: the
kumbaya
atmosphere didn’t hold. Once they were back in the studio, Ryan and Derek tried to keep the peace, but tempers began to fray. The first day was alright, and they got a lot of work done… but the quality suffered. Avi remarked on it, and that immediately threw Derek into a state of defensiveness and blame, which triggered Ryan, which started the whole downward spiral once again.
Interestingly enough, the antagonism improved the recordings… even if it slowed their progress to a snail’s pace.
Derek started hitting on me again. Not often, and not in the presence of anyone else, but occasionally.
“I thought you were going to leave me alone,” I snapped.
“Only if you could convince me you don’t love me. And you didn’t,” he said with a wink.
It was business as usual, the same as before Riley’s incident.
That was the energy we took with us as we boarded the private plane for Austin.
We arrived the night before the concert. The band booked a luxurious suite of rooms at the W Austin (one of the other mega-acts had already taken the penthouse). As Ryan and I unpacked in our room, he told me he had to go meet Miles and discuss sound check with the concert organizers.
“I shouldn’t be more than thirty minutes or so,” he said, and gave me a quick kiss before leaving.
I had just settled down into a leather chair and started going through my notes for the ‘maybe one day’ Rolling Stone article when there was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” I called.
“I forgot my keycard,” a muffled voice said.
I walked over and opened it up. “I don’t see it on the dresser – ”
My heart stopped in my chest.
It was Derek.
I started to close the door, but he planted his boot and blocked it.
“Get out,” I hissed.
“You and I need to talk, and this might be our last chance to do it alone.”
“You
lied
– you even tried to imitate Ryan’s voice – ”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t even agree to talk to me otherwise. Can I come in?”
My heart was thudding against my ribs. “You’re supposed to be at that meeting.”
“I’m sure they can handle it without me.” He looked at me with puppy dog eyes. “Please, can I come in?”
I held my breath. It would be stupid of me to let him in.
Unfortunately, I was about to do a very stupid thing.
“…five minutes.”
“That’s all I need.”
“And don’t try anything.”
“If you say so,” he said, and walked into the room as I shut the door behind him.
“Okay,” I said as I turned towards him, “what’s so important you have to – ”
I didn’t have time to think before he was on me, his mouth on mine, slamming me against the wall.
It was like Los Angeles when he did it at the Dubai – the adrenaline rush, his hard body against my curves.
It was crazy back then, but now it was overpowering.
His
taste
– his lips, his tongue, his mouth – had been a memory, an insatiable craving I had denied I even had.
Now I was plunged into that sweetness, that overwhelming sensuality. I was tasting him, smelling him, feeling him, hearing him. There wasn’t any sense I had that wasn’t overwhelmed.
And every nerve in my body suddenly felt
alive.
I was like an addict who had tried
so hard
to be good – who had stayed sober for days, weeks, months – but every waking minute was spent struggling against the addiction.
Then, without warning, I mainlined a dose of the best stuff I’d ever had.
I’ve heard that recovering heroin addicts get a far-off, wistful look in their eyes when they talk about doing smack. Even though it ruined their lives, even though it nearly killed them, they still have an ache for it deep in their soul.
I had an ache, a hunger, a fever, and suddenly my drug of choice was washing over me in an uncontrollable wave of pulse-pounding, spine-tingling desire.
I tried to fight back. Just like at the Dubai, I tried to push him away, but he gripped my arms, pinning them against the wall. It excited me, made my skin flush and my nipples harden because it recalled every sense memory of all the times he had done the same when he fucked me. Whether in bed or standing up, he had pinned me numerous times, and I could feel myself get instantly soaked, ready for his cock to fill me and make me come.
I knew I shouldn’t – I knew this was bad – I knew
I
was bad –
But please… please… just one… more… second…
And then I remembered Ryan.
A jolt of shame and anger ripped through me.
I turned my head.
Didn’t matter – he kissed the side of my mouth, sought out my lips like a hungry animal.
“Stop,” I whispered.
“No,” he whispered back hoarsely.
I strained with my arms, but he was far too powerful.
So I did the only thing I could: I brought my knee up,
hard.
He felt it coming and twisted away right at the last second. I jabbed him in the thigh rather than the crotch, but it was enough to make him break his hold on my arms – and his hold on my emotions, too.
“You fucking asshole,” I hissed, “you said you wouldn’t try anything.”
He wiped his mouth with his fingers, tasted what he found there with his tongue. Tasted
me.
“I love you. I
want
you. And you want me. I can feel it.
You
feel it. You need to stop pretending.”
“I’m not cheating on Ryan with you!”
“I’m not
asking
you to!” he raged. “I’m saying come back to me!
Be
with me, goddammit!”
I covered my face with my hands. “You’re just a scorpion,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Get out,” I said, dropping my hands and glaring at him. When he didn’t move, I screamed, “GET OUT!”
He shook his head in angry confusion. “I don’t understand you.”
“And you never will. GET OUT AND GO AWAY.”
He ripped open the door and slammed it shut behind him.
I sunk down onto the floor, my entire body trembling from the taste of what I wanted so badly, and cried.
Sixty seconds later I heard another knock at the door.
“I
said
GO AWAY!” I yelled.
“…Kaitlyn?” another voice asked.
Ryan.
I hastily wiped my tears off my cheek, then the taste of Derek off my lips.
“Just a minute – ”
There was the sound of a beep, and the
click
of the lock.
The door opened before I could get it, and there stood Ryan.
He looked furious.
I cringed, imagining him about to say all the horrible things about myself I knew I deserved to hear –
“Did he hurt you?” he asked, striding into the room and enveloping me in his arms.
Oh my God…
I was feeling so guilty about my desires, and all he could think of was if I was alright.
“No,” I sobbed.
“Tell me the truth – did he hurt you?” He held me out at arm’s length, his face a mask of fury. “I’ll kill him – so help me God, I’ll fucking – ”
Our eyes met, and suddenly he knew.
All the anger drained away and was replaced by hurt. But when he spoke, his voice was dead. “…you kissed him.”
I exhaled shakily. “He kissed
me.
”
His arms went slack and he let go of me. Just stood there, looking at me. Then he walked past me like he was in a trance, sat on the edge of the bed facing away from me, and buried his head in his hands.
“I… I stopped him,” I said in a tiny voice.
He didn’t say anything back.
“I love
you,
” I whispered.
“But you love him, too,” he said, his voice still flat and lifeless, and muffled by his hands over his face.
I was about to say ‘no,’ but – why lie? Why deny what everyone knew was true?
“…yes.”
He inhaled wearily, then lifted his head, keeping his hands over the bottom half of his face. He stared out into the dark night sky through the window.
“You need to make a decision,” he said.
“I already have. I want to be with you.”
“You need to rethink that decision and make sure it’s what you really want – ”
“I am sure, I
am
– ”
“ – because tomorrow you leave with me, or you leave with him. Either way, I’m out of the band.”
My face crumpled in agony. “Ryan… no…”
“I’ll do the one last performance, and that’s it. I’m out. So… go talk to him… do whatever… but… I can’t live this way anymore. I can’t live not knowing.”
I moved to touch him, but he held out a hand to ward me off. Wouldn’t look at me as he did it.
“Please… just… not now. Not until you decide for real.”
I stood there for a long moment, wanting so badly to touch him, him refusing to look at me… and then I walked out of the room and closed the door behind me.
I wandered the halls of the W in a daze.
I didn’t want this. I didn’t ask for it.
Derek had come in and bulldozed me again, tearing down everything in his path – including my life – to get what he wanted.
Ryan was only asking for what anyone would want: a straight answer.
And for a girlfriend who wanted him as much as he wanted her.
The horrible thing was, no matter what I did, he would quit the band. I was stealing everything he loved away from him, and I didn’t understand how I could undo it. If I went with Derek, Ryan would lose twice over: both the band
and
me.