Chapter 15

Darryl Nelson

Dalia leads me across the parking lot the buses are using for the night—we are set to drive all day tomorrow, arriving in the next town early the next day, with a day to prepare before the gig—and sits down on a park bench near a kiddie’s play park. It reminds me a lot of the park I used to get fucked up in back home.

I slouch down next to her, resting my head on the back of the bench, staring up at the stars punctuating the black sky above us. There is a click of a lighter, and smoke drifts past me.

“Wanna talk about it?” Dalia asks, holding out the cigarette to me. I shake my head no, accepting the cigarette and taking a deep draw on it. The smoke feels harsh in my lungs after the soft caress of the weed. Dalia sighs. “Tell me what happened…I thought you were sober. What’s so bad that it made you fall off the wagon?”

“Stevie,” I manage to grit out.

She smiles ruefully. “Ah…young love.”

“Fuck you, Dalia,” I snarl, throwing the cigarette onto the ground. “Don’t start spouting all that bullshit. I’m not a fucking child. This is not fucking puppy love. We’re both old enough to know that what the fuck we feel for each other is real.”

“Okay!” Dalia holds her hands up in surrender. “But, just speaking from experience, things are so transitional at your age. Just look at me and Axl…I thought that guy was the one for me. My first love, my first…everything.” I nod knowingly. “But it just isn’t the same for him, I guess.”

“Why, what happens?” ~I could really do with another drink; my buzz is wearing off a little.~

“I discover that he is partial to a groupie or two,” she shrugs, giving a watery smile.

“Yeah, well, that’s not us,” I say, although the words taste like lies on my tongue. ~At least, that’s not me.~ “She’s the only one for me.”

“She’s the only one you’ve ever been with?” she asks, sounding surprised. “You’re a sweet guy, Darryl,” Dalia leans closer to me. “Don’t get caught up in a web of deceit.”

Her lips land on mine before I am aware of her moving. My senses fill up with her…her scent, her taste, her moans.

~Wrong…this is so wrong.~

My lips move against hers; my tongue seeks hers out, my hand reaches up and gets tangled in her blue-streaked hair. She shifts, moving into my lap, her hands splayed on either side of my face.

~Not Stevie…this is so wrong!~

The weeks and weeks of pent-up sexual tension mean that my cock is soon straining against my jeans as she slowly grinds on me, the heat from her pussy setting me on fire. I break away from her mouth and kiss and suck my way down her neck, making her breathlessly pant my name into the night air.

My phone buzzes violently against my thigh, shattering the spell.

Panting, we both slide out of each other’s grasp, and I wrestle my cell out of my pocket. Seeing Stevie’s number flashing on my screen is like being doused in freezing cold water.

“Hey!” I cringe at the upbeat sound of my voice—it is totally not how I usually sound.

~“Darryl?”~ Stevie sounds confused.

I clear my throat, my boots scuffing up little clouds of dirt as I start pacing up and down, the phone pressed tightly against my ear. “Yeah…it’s me.”

~“You sound…different, somehow.”~ She pauses, taking a deep breath, and I find I am holding mine. This is it. This is when she tells me it is over—we are over. ~“I’m really sorry about earlier. Cam answered my phone before I could find it; I was so hungover…”~ Anger starts to boil in my chest again. ~“I mean, waking up in my underwear in a strange apartment was disorienting enough! But throw in the hangover from hell! Jeez!”~

“What?” My voice is like a glacier, not betraying the turmoil of raging emotions bubbling just beneath the surface.

~“That sounds so bad, I know,”~ Stevie laughs awkwardly, too loudly, too brashly. ~“I threw up on myself and Cam tried to get me into some of his clothes, but apparently I refused…I really don’t remember a thing, though.”~

“So, you mean to tell me,” I swallow, trying my best not to fucking explode, “that my girlfriend is not only undressed by some fucking guy, but it happens when she is too fucking drunk to remember it.” Stevie stays silent on the other end of the phone, almost. I can hear the faint sound of her sniffling. But even the thought of her being upset and embarrassed, and possibly hurt because I don’t know what the fuck this guy has done to my fucking girlfriend when she was too fucking obliterated to remember anything, doesn’t stop me from spitting out, “And ~I’m~ the one who’s untrustworthy. Fuck this.”

I hit end call and wind my arm back, launching my new phone somewhere off into the darkness. My scream of fury is snatched away by a gust of wind, whisked away towards the stars.

“Are you okay?” I’d almost forgotten that Dalia was here. I round on her like she is the one who has just fucking spent the night with some cunt who’d taken advantage of the situation.

“Oh, I’m just fucking fantastic,” I reply, sarcasm drenching my tone. “My girlfriend has just fucking cheated on me.”

Dalia raises her eyebrows at me. “Well, didn’t you just cheat on her too?”

“Fuck you,” I snarl, storming back towards the bus. Now is most definitely the time to get fucked up.

***

A chipper whistling buries its way into my fucking skull and vibrates in my brain. I crack open one eyelid, the bright daylight burning my retinas and making me wish I was fucking dead.

“You’re on my fucking jacket,” a harsh female voice drills against my eardrums, and I groan. Whoever it is huffs out an impatient breath, then obviously grabs her jacket from underneath me, making me roll off the seat I have been sleeping on and land ungracefully on the sticky floor.

A hoarse chuckle interrupts the whistling. “Looks like you had a good night in the end, then.” I manage to open both eyes this time and find Lukas wearing just a towel wrapped around his waist, looming over me with a wide toothy grin. “Forgotten her name now?”

“I can barely remember mine,” I croak, wincing a little at the soreness in my throat. But I am lying. I can still remember Stevie’s name. It is tattooed on my fucking soul. I slowly drag myself back up onto the seat while Lukas resumes his jovial little whistled tune as he rolls joint after joint. Middle America streams past the windows. “I thought we weren’t leaving for the next place straight away.”

“Yeah, well, Miggy got a little jiggy with the wrong woman last night, and we had to hit the road ahead of schedule,” Lukas grins, shaking his head. “Life on the road is never dull with this group of miscreants.”

I pat my pockets looking for my phone, cursing when I remember hurling it away in the park last night after…~fuck~. I run my fingertips idly over my lips as I relive my kiss with Dalia. I can’t believe I let that happen. “Hey, man, can I, uh, borrow your phone?”

“Sure,” he nods his head to where an expensive top-of-the-line iPhone is sitting on a table.

I dial Mikey, grateful once again that I’ve taken the time to learn his number, chewing my thumbnail while I wait for him to answer. “Hey! It’s Darryl.”

~“Don’t fucking hey me, boy!”~ I open my mouth to complain about being called boy, but Mikey is on a roll and just keeps on ranting over the top of me. ~“Please explain where the fuck you disappeared off to. Please explain to me why I have seen videos of you doing the one thing you expressly promised your folks you wouldn’t do whilst on my watch.”~ Oh, fuck. ~“I can’t believe you, Darryl! You’ve let your bandmates down, you’ve let me down, you’ve let your folks down…I’m done.”~

“Mikey! Please, no.” The only reason my folks agreed to let me go on this tour was because I had him as a chaperone. If he is done…that means I am done. “Look, Stevie fucking spent the night with some other guy, and it just…it messes my head up a bit.”

Mikey sighs, and I can hear his hand running over his beard. ~“That doesn’t explain the partying, kid. And don’t try to play it off like a beer and a toke on a joint. I saw you snorting coke! I’m gonna have to tell Abi.”~

“No!” My life would be fucking over if my mom and dad found out I’d slipped off the wagon. “Please, Mikey. It was just a blip. I promise. I was just going through some shit and let myself get dragged along. I’m on ~The Son’s~ bus.”

~“So, it was that little shit Lukas, then? I fucking knew this would happen! He’s good at selling the shiny good life of a rock star, but believe me, he’s full of shit.”~

I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry at the venom in his voice. “I’m really sorry, Mikey. I didn’t mean to let you down or put you in a difficult position with my folks.”

He huffs out another deep sigh. ~“Just…get back on this bus ASAP, kid. Your bandmates have been worried about you all night. We weren’t even sure if you’d been left back at the last town. I’m supposed to be making sure you’re alright, and you fucked off without telling me…you haven’t been answering your fucking phone even!”~

“Yeah, I kinda sorta lost it,” I mumble. Mikey huffs again.

~“Just fucking get back here.”~ The dial tone fills my ear. Now I just have to hope he doesn’t tell my folks. Although Stevie has destroyed my heart and soul, so she may as well be responsible for fucking up my future dreams too.