Seductive Chaos (Bad Rep #3)(14)
Author: A. Meredith Walters

I held my breath as I whipped out my junk and took the quickest pee on record. I thought about taking a shower, but didn’t think I could stomach the smell for that long.

God, I missed having my own space.

It was easy to get sick of being on the road. It sucked cramming into a bunk the size of a dog’s ass**le in order to sleep. And there was always some dipshit who decided to be a dick and eat all of your Ding Dongs.

Even though I was getting tired of tripping over empty beer cans and dirty boxer shorts, it was still pretty amazing.

Somehow, someway, Generation Rejects was on an actual, totally legit tour. We were living it up on an actual tour bus, sharing a space with one of the coolest bands out there.

This was actually my life.

It was still pretty hard to believe.

Particularly for a former jock who had been expected to go into the military in order to make his dad happy.

I hadn’t been Generation Reject’s first singer. Garrett, Mitch and I had been friends in high school but I used to laugh at their lame attempts at music. I was too busy playing basketball and screwing my way through the cheerleading squad.

Garrett had been the guy you went to if you needed to buy drugs. Mitch was the slow kid that sat in the back of the classroom and made stupid comments that had the rest of the class laughing at him more than with him. And even though I was their friend, I hadn’t taken them too seriously.

No one had.

After we graduated, none of us had gone on to college. Big shocker. Garrett’s parents had just died and Mitch certainly didn’t have the grades to do much more than pick up garbage and shovel horseshit at a local farm.

I was by no means an idiot. I had been offered a couple of scholarships to play ball. But I hadn’t wanted the responsibility. I hadn’t wanted the pressure. I was sick of school. I was sick of doing what my parents wanted me to do. I was ready to go my own way.

My dad was former military and he had told me when I turned eighteen that I had the choice of going into the Navy like he had done or I could get the f**k out.

I had gotten the f**k out.

And I hadn’t talked to my old man since.

Not that I hadn’t tried. They lived ten minutes away from my apartment in Bakersville. Hell, I ran into my mom in the grocery store from time to time. And I learned pretty damn quickly that I was persona non grata in my own family.

I had finally stood up to my father and refused to let him tell me what I was going to do with my life. As a consequence for growing some fuzz on my balls I had been forced out of the house I had grown up in. It had sucked at the time but I was glad I had done it.

But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt to be ignored by my mother when I called her name when I saw her on the street. Or to hear the click of a disconnected call when I tried to phone to wish my father a Merry Christmas.

“You’re a f**king loser, Cole. You’ll never be anything, never do anything. You’re a f**king waste of skin.” My dad’s final words to me still buzzed around in my head all these years later.

And I was still trying to prove him wrong.

And maybe this time, I would.

So after I left school I had rented a crappy studio apartment and had gotten a shit job at the local poultry plant. And Garrett and Mitch had started a band.

Garrett had met Jordan, who was going to Rinard College and was working at Barton’s. Jordan played drums and soon their laughable pastime became a legitimate thing. They had asked another friend of ours from high school, Fred Rhodes, to sing for them.

They sucked. Mitch could barely play bass and while Garrett and Jordan had talent, Fred sounded like a tortured cat when he sang into a mic. They were booed off every stage that would have them.

Until I came along.

I’m not saying that to be a jackass. It’s just the honest to god truth.

Because I could sing. I always could. When I was little, my mom would dress me up for church where I had to suffer through hours of god shit just so I could belt out the hymns. The old ladies loved me.

As I grew older, my musical ability wasn’t something I broadcasted around. I was a jock, plain and simple. I didn’t have the time or inclination to jam or whatever the hell you call it.

But when Garrett had finally wised up and kicked Freddo out of the band, he approached me. We had gone out one night and gotten plastered. Mitch spent most of the evening worshipping the porcelain god. And I, in a moment of weakness, agreed to front their sad, pathetic band. Who knew that it would one day be the best decision I had ever made.

We were called the Headless Chickens at first. In homage to my dismal day job. I had a morbid sense of humor.

But the name didn’t quite roll off the tongue and it looked crappy on T-Shirts. We weren’t feeling particularly optimistic about our future as a band when the name Generation Rejects had been born. Because that’s what we had felt we were.

A bunch of rejects.

Things had been pretty bleak in the early days.

Jordan and I had clashed almost immediately. I hated the college kids who came into Barton’s. Townies and Rinard students fought on a regular basis. And Jordan was just another obnoxious frat guy with his pretty boy looks and talent that came entirely too easily.

I hated him. Like really hated him. The chicks loved him and I hated him even more. I had always been the big fish in the little pond until Jordan f**king Levitt came into the picture. And the feelings were definitely mutual.

Yeah, so I had gotten to second base with this bitch he had been dating for a few months at the time. She was some sorority chick named Olivia who had an attitude. She had always looked down her nose at the rest of us.

But it had been easy enough to get my hand up her shirt and my tongue down her throat. That hadn’t gone over too well with Levitt. And maybe I felt crappy afterwards. And maybe I didn’t really fight back when he punched me in the face and broke my nose.

And just maybe I had taken things a step too far. But that didn’t mean that Jordan wasn’t a dick. Because he was. But over the years my animosity had cooled some and Jordan and I now almost tolerated each other.

We’d never be friends the way I was with the other guys, but he wasn’t all that bad.

And the dude could really play. And even if I didn’t like him all the time, I had mad respect for his talent and his contribution to the band.

Because Generation Rejects and the guys in it were my life. They were my family. And when push came to shove, despite our differences, despite any history of bad blood, I knew those f**kers had my back.

And I didn’t have anyone else in my life I could say that about.