Seductive Chaos (Bad Rep #3)(46)
Author: A. Meredith Walters

“Vivian, this really isn’t any of your business,” Maysie remarked firmly, narrowing her eyes.

“You’re right, it’s totally none of my business. Maybe that’s why it’s easier for me to see how messed up it really is,” I suggested.

Mitch snorted. “Oh please. As if you’re an unbiased party.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, accepting the barb but not letting it go without my own.

“And I think your heads are too far up your own asses to see anything clearly. It looks to me like Cole’s wasn’t the only ego that was the problem.” I dropped my words like a bomb. I got to my feet and picked up my empty beer bottle and started to walk toward the kitchen.

“You got anything to drink besides beer?” I asked over my shoulder, more than aware of the looks everyone was tossing my way. But I didn’t care. I said what needed to be said.

“Uh, there’s some vodka I think,” Jordan offered and I smirked at the befuddlement in his voice.

I could tell I had made him think. That I had made all of them think. And even though Cole would never know I had stuck up for him, I knew I had to say something.

And my feelings had nothing to do with it.

I had become really good at convincing myself of just about anything.

15

I thought I was going to be sick. My stomach started to clench and my mouth began to water.

I had exactly ten seconds to make it to my bathroom before I threw up all over myself.

I stumbled out of my bed, tripping over the empty bottle of Everclear on the floor and made it to the toilet just in time.

I hated to puke. And I had been doing a lot of that for the past couple of hours. I felt like shit. Every part of my body ached. My head felt like someone was drilling a hole straight through my temples.

That’s what I got for picking up a crate of liquor on the way home from the airport and proceeded to drink myself into a stupor.

The flight back from Chicago had been tense. I hadn’t shared more than two words with any of my bandmates. A wall had been put up between them and me.

I was pissed. I was hurt. I was full of crazy f**king rage.

I had paid out the ass for a cab to take me all the way back to Bakersville. It was a hell of a lot better than riding back in Garrett’s van.

I asked the driver to drop me off at the liquor store, where I proceeded to buy my weight in alcohol. I then went to my shitty apartment, a place I honestly had hoped to never see again, and drank my way into a coma.

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Now, not so much.

My phone started to ring and I couldn’t do much more than moan as the sound bounced around my cell.

“Shut up,” I whispered hoarsely from my fetal position on my bathroom floor.

It listened, thank god, and the ringing stopped. I sat up and slowly got to my feet. I ran the water in the sink and filled my hands and splashed my face several times. It cleared some of the fog in my head.

I smelled like shit. That was definitely vomit on the front of my shirt. I looked at my reflection in the mirror and had to laugh. I was a long cry from being the sexed up bad boy singer everyone was used to seeing.

I looked like crap. Like a heroine addict before they overdosed in an alleyway. My cheeks were sunken and I had dark circles under my eyes. Despite feeling like ass**le warmed over, I had enough residual vanity to make myself strip my clothes and jump in the shower.

Being clean helped to clear my head. I was hung-over as hell and I knew I needed to get something to eat. But the thought of leaving my apartment and going out there, out where people would know me and want to talk to me, seemed like a really bad idea.

The last thing I needed in my general state of suckitude, was to try and make conversation with anyone.

My phone started ringing again.

Obviously the person on the other end didn’t understand that I was super busy wallowing in pathetic self-pity.

I picked up the source of my annoyance and went to hit ignore when I saw who it was.

Jose Suarez.

Figuring ignoring my manager wouldn’t be in my best interest right now; I put the phone to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Where the f**k have you been? I’ve been calling you since yesterday!” Jose demanded.

“Man, lower your voice!” I croaked, rubbing my temples. I needed some ibuprophen stat!

“I don’t give a shit if you’ve been run over by a damn bus, you answer the phone when I call you!” he ordered and I flipped him off, though he couldn’t see me.

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, what’s the emergency?” I yawned and even that simple movement made me feel like I was going to throw up again. I was a f**king mess.

“Are you screwing with me? What’s the emergency? Well except for the fact that your career is in the shitter, nothing really,” Jose bit out sarcastically.

Oh, yeah. There was that.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like it sounded,” I apologized.

“I’m getting the impression that not a lot of shit sorting is going on down in east bumblefuck, or wherever it is that you f**kers live,” Jose snarled.

I really needed some ibuprophen. And I needed to stop tasting my stomach lining in the back of my throat.

“Have you spoken to the other guys?” he asked and I shook my head. Oh right, he couldn’t see me.

“Nope.” My mouth popped around the word for emphasis.

“You planning to talk to them?” he asked snidely.

“I guess,” I said petulantly.

“You guess. Huh. Well that doesn’t sound much like someone who’s invested in saving his band,” Jose pointed out. He didn’t sound angry about it. Just thoughtful. And thoughtful Jose was kind of scary.

“I don’t know if it’s worth saving anymore. If they think it’s okay to walk off stage and leave me like that, I’m not sure I want to play music with them anymore.” And there I had said it. It was the thing that had been swirling around in my head since the entire concert fiasco.

I was bitter. I was really freaking bitter. And my feelings were hurt. I could admit that what my friends had done had cut me deep.

And maybe I was making decisions based on emotions, but I couldn’t think past it. I wasn’t sure we would ever be able to get to a place where we would be able to move passed our hurt pride.

There was a lot of ugliness between the four of us right now.

“I hear ya. I really do. So maybe now is a good time to talk about some news I have for you,” Jose said and I figured I needed to be sitting down for whatever he had to tell me.