Authors: Lauren Sattersby
“You have
video
of yourself boning famous chicks,” I repeated in a monotone.
“Yes,” he said, beaming. “All totally legit too. I got permission and everything.”
“Yeah, well, pics or it didn’t happen,” I said. “And since you can’t provide me with the pics, it didn’t happen.”
“I saved them online.” You could practically see the canary feathers plastered to his face.
I stared at him. “You’ve gotta be shitting me, man.”
“Why?” He grinned. “You don’t believe me?”
“How the hell do you have video saved to the cloud of yourself banging famous chicks and that’s never gotten out on TMZ?”
He shrugged. “TMZ doesn’t know everything.”
“Oh yes they do,” I said. “And they haven’t hacked your password to your secret porn stash?”
“I don’t really advertise it,” he said. “I just like to have it for the memories.”
“The memories,” I deadpanned. “Of you doing the horizontal tango with Scarlett Johansson.”
He rolled his eyes. “If you keep throwing out names, you’ll probably hit on somebody I
have
done the horizontal tango with. But not Scarlett Johansson. Sadly enough.”
“So tell me somebody you’ve boned. Somebody I’d know.”
“Victoria Sinclair.”
I waved my hand dismissively. “Doesn’t count.”
“Why not? She’s hot.”
“Because number one, she’s not that famous,” I started.
“Yes, she is.” He crossed his arms. “Everybody in the music industry knows who she is.”
I gave him a look. “Everybody in the music industry knows who
her brother
is. She’s just that chick who acts like his manager and who occasionally took a roll in the hay with you.”
“Fine,” he said. “I still respectfully disagree, but whatever.”
“And number two . . .”
“There was a number two?”
“Yes, you idiot,” I said, exasperated by the interruption. “If there’s a number one, there’s got to be a number two. It’s the rule.”
“Fine. Number two?”
“Number two is that she was your girlfriend, so she doesn’t count as a conquest,” I told him, folding my arms and smiling.
“Um, that’s ridiculous,” he said. “To even get to girlfriend status means I conquested her.”
“Conquested? Seriously?”
“Shut up,” he snapped. “And anyway. You don’t get to exclude people from my ‘famous people I’ve slept with’ list because I actually dated them instead of just having a wild night of passion with them.”
“Fair enough,” I said, using my best magnanimously condescending voice. “But still. You can do better than that, right? Because if not, then I call shenanigans on your whole ‘I’ve fucked a lot of famous people’ story.”
“Well, now I don’t want to show you my stash anymore,” he said, pouting. “Because I’m sure that no matter who I say, you’ll assume I’m lying or you’ll argue that they don’t count, so forget it.”
I sighed. He did seem pretty offended. “Sorry. I’m just an asshole.”
“Well, me too,” he said, and his face relaxed a little back into his baseline douchey expression. “But anyway. How did Tori handle it? Me dying?”
My first instinct was to lie and say she’d been devastated, but word on the street before Chris’s death had been that they weren’t getting along and that it was just a matter of time before they broke up. And from what Carmen had said, Chris hadn’t seemed too heartbroken about his impending singlehood. I could probably tell him the truth.
“Very well, actually. She cried some pretty tears and then drove away from the funeral with that punk-ass drummer from Cold and Furious.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I hate that guy. Almost as much as I hate Nathan Vale.”
“Well, they’re happy together,” I told him. “If by ‘happy together’ you mean ‘already on the brink of a fiery breakup.’”
He rolled his eyes. “She’s a crazy bitch, man. I’m lucky I got away from her when I did.”
“You mean you’re lucky you
died
?”
“No,” he said quickly, then paused before shrugging. “I guess there are fates worse than death, and ending up shackled to Tori Sinclair is one of them.”
“Even if that would have meant having a connection to Gabriel Sinclair?”
He scoffed. “If you think that buffoon has anything on me, you’re dead wrong. He’s a pompous prick.”
“A pompous prick who managed not to join the 27 Club, though,” I pointed out.
“Only because he’s too busy being a Goody Two-shoes,” he argued. “I mean, I like him. We’re friends. But that doesn’t mean he’s not an asshole. Anyway. Enough about him. Let’s talk more about me.”
“There’s the narcissist I know and love,” I said, letting the sarcasm drip from my voice like processed nacho cheese.
He laughed. “Well, anyway, I’m not particularly destroyed by Tori deciding to move on. Good for her.”
I sighed. “I wish I could do that.”
“What?” he asked, tilting his head at me. “Move on? Are you still pining over Carmen and her breasts?”
“Mostly just the breasts,” I admitted. “We weren’t really good together, but regular sex was nice. I miss that part.”
“Was it good sex? Or just regular?”
I shrugged. “It was fine. She liked to close her eyes or be blindfolded so she could pretend I was one of you guys. She even called me Eric in bed. More than once.”
Chris raised his eyebrows. “On purpose?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And she got in a snit when I told her to cut it out.”
“Just Eric? Or all of us?”
“Mostly just Eric. Although she wouldn’t have kicked the rest of you out of bed. But I think she’s legitimately in love with Eric.”
Chris laughed. “Who isn’t?”
I gave him a strange look. “Me. As one example.”
“Well, good for you,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I guess you must be president of that club by default since you’re probably the only fan who’s not a member of it.”
“I’m not a fan.”
He glanced around the room, resting his eyes pointedly on the posters and concert DVDs and framed autographed CD.
“I’m a casual fan,” I corrected myself. “Who unfortunately had a ridiculously obsessed girlfriend and who is too lazy to redecorate now that she’s moved out. Besides, all this got me some pretty awesome sex with a hot chick once, so who’s to say that won’t happen again?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Anyway.” I put my omelet plate on the end table beside me and twisted around to face him. “We need a game plan.”
“A game plan for what?”
“For figuring out how to get you to heaven,” I said. “Or into whatever afterlife you’ve gained yourself entry to.”
“Oh.” He raked his teeth over his bottom lip. “I imagine it must be heaven, right? Otherwise why am I even here? It seems really mean to give me a chance to make things right and then send me to hell anyway.”
I shrugged. “I’m not a philosopher, man.”
“Well, I figure maybe I have unfinished business,” he continued. “I mean . . . isn’t that why ghosts usually stay behind?”
“In the movies, sure,” I allowed. “But up until you showed up, I wasn’t convinced that this sort of thing was even possible, so what do I know about it?”
“Well . . .” He looked around the room again. “It’s somewhere to start, at least. Can’t hurt.”
“True. So what business do you have left?”
“There are three people I want to see,” he said. “You’ll have to help me talk to them, though. We can figure out a way to convince them I’m really talking to them through you.”
“Sounds like a bucket of laughs,” I said sarcastically. “Who are the three?”
He counted them off on his fingers. “Jerri Walker, my sister, and Eric.”
Sister I could understand, and it was obvious who Eric was, so I ignored those. “Jerri Walker? Who’s he?”
“You’ll see,” he said. “And she’s a girl, actually. Jerrica’s her name, but she goes by Jerri.” He paused. “She’ll probably be the easiest one. We should do her first. Get it over with.”
“So . . . your chick on the side, then.” It seemed like a likely prospect.
He laughed briefly. “No, nothing like that. Totally platonic.”
“Why is that funny?”
He shrugged. “You’ll see. She’s . . . Well, she’s not what you’d expect.”
“So . . . lesbian.” Which
also
seemed like a likely prospect, given the laughter.
“Nope,” he said. “Not as far as I know.”
“Who is she, then?”
He shook his head. “Just a friend. A good friend.”
“All right, be mysterious,” I said. “Tell me where to find her.”
“Los Angeles,” Chris answered. “She lives on—”
“Los
Angeles
?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. That’s where I spent most of my time.”
“I am not flying out to Los Angeles, man. There’s no way I can afford that.”
“Then drive,” he suggested. “Take a few days off and—”
“And
drive
from
Boston
to
Los Angeles
?” I took a mental inventory of my eyeballs to make sure they were both still attached to my brain instead of just bugging all the way out. “Are you insane? I mean, seriously, Chris, are you legitimately insane?”
He crossed his arms and frowned. “I need to see her,” he said. “And Eric, who’s probably there too if the tour is over.”
“Well, I’m sorry about that, because I can’t do it.” I crossed my arms back at him. “I really truly am sorry. But I don’t have a shiny black credit card I can just wave at the gate agents and get sent right through to LAX.”
He waved his hand. “I’ll pay for it.”
I laughed at that. “Using what?”
Chris wrinkled his forehead in thought. “Using my bank account.”
“Dude, I can guarantee you that your bank account is closed. You’ve been dead for two months and they don’t just leave your cash lying around in a bank vault in case you get resurrected.” I leaned back against the couch and gave him a challenging look.
He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Finally, he said, “Touché.”
“And anyway, man, even if your account was still open, I’m really not going to prison for fraudulent use of a dead celebrity’s bank account. I’m too pretty to go to prison.”
He scoffed. “You’re too scrawny to be
really
pretty.”
“Hey!” I bristled. “Chicks dig skinny guys.”
“Skinny guys, sure.
Scrawny
guys, not so much.” He grinned.
I tightened my arms across my chest and pouted.
“I’m joking, man. You’re attractive enough. Don’t worry.” He let the grin morph into more of a genuine smile, which made me a little nervous. “So show me a picture of this Carmen chick. I want to know what league you’re in.”
I rolled my eyes, but pulled out my phone and found a picture of her. I held it out so he could see. “This was right after your concert last year. She swore up and down that Eric made eye contact with her, and then that night I got some spectacular action, so it was win-win.”
“Did she ever make you role-play about us?” he asked, leaning in to see her. “Wow, she’s a looker, man.”
“I know. But she’s crazy. And I don’t say that in the ‘I’m a man who got dumped and so I’m going to call all women crazy’ sense. I mean that in the ‘I actually think she should be on serious medication’ sense.” I clicked the button to turn the screen off and put the phone back in my pocket. “And yeah. Mostly it was Eric. I got called Eric a lot.”
“Duly noted,” he said, smiling. “So . . . did you love her?”
“Who?” I asked, then felt stupid because it wasn’t like we’d been talking about a whole slew of women. “Carmen?”
“Yeah. Just curious if you’re, you know, heartbroken about the dumping.” He turned so that he was facing me, too.
I put my elbow on the back of the couch and propped my head on my hand. “I guess I must have loved her a little. I don’t really know. There were times when it felt real.” I glanced up at the Incite the Masses concert poster and then back down at Chris. “What about you?”
“I was in love a long time ago, and it didn’t work out very well for me,” he said. “Tori was just a warm body. And she knew that, and that’s pretty much what I was for her too.”
“So we’re both recently out of relationships with girls who are borderline psychotic and who we don’t miss other than for sex,” I said.
“Thank you for summarizing that for me,” Chris said. “I don’t know how I would have been able to figure out the bottom line without your assistance.”
I gave him a bitch-face. “There you go, being a jerk again.”
He shrugged and turned his body so he was facing the TV instead of me. “It was starting to feel like we were ten seconds away from giving each other pedicures and talking about boys. I thought I should nip that shit in the bud.”
I twisted back around too. “Probably for the best. No good ever comes of guys sharing their feelings.”
“None at all.”
There was a slightly weird, slightly companionable silence for a few seconds, then I cleared my throat. “But I’ll try to save up for a plane ticket to LA. I’ve always wanted to go there anyway.”
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, which I saw out of the corner of mine. “You’d do that for me?”
“Ugh,” I said. “Not when you say it like
that
.”
“Sorry.” He smiled softly. “I mean . . . that’s cool of you, bro.”
“No homo?” I said, grinning.
He pretended to think, tapping his fingers on his chin and gazing up at the ceiling pointedly. “Well, less than five percent homo. I did just tell you a few minutes ago that you were attractive enough to get a prison boyfriend, so I think that bumps it up to four point five at least. But then I only said that because I thought you were about to burst into tears, so that lets me deduct about three percent, so . . . I’d say it was only one point five percent homo. Tops.”
I grabbed a pencil off of my end table and threw it at him. It went through his nose and he laughed.
“When you’re not harping on my drug problem, you’re pretty chill, man,” he said. “We could have been friends.”
“Not with my girlfriend wanting to bone you. That would have made things awkward between us,” I pointed out.
“Eiffel Tower, bro. And anyway, I’d be boning
her
. Not her boning me.”
“How very literal of you,” I replied. “But honestly, if you were down for it, I don’t think she would have been too picky about positions.”