Page 10 of Anthem of Love and Loathing

“I know that.” I was meant to be with them. Until Riot chose her over me.

And she didn’t even stick around. Six months later she was dating the rapper from Effect. “It doesn’t matter.”

I can’t stay with him. They’re about to tour. That would mean being around the band. Too close to the man that crushed me for his career. I stand up and start to unzip the jacket. I won’t see Bronx again. I won’t be able to give it back to him, and it’s his favorite.

“We need you,” he implores, giving me those puppy dog eyes that have worked on hundreds of women and men. “L.A. Riot needs you. He needs you.”

Why would he twist the knife in like that? He is as aware as the rest of them that it was Carmine Savant himself that had me blacklisted everywhere for punching his daughter in the mouth. Even if I could see myself going back for Bronx and Golden... “I told you I don’t want to know.”

“He’s a mess, Kelsey. He’s acting like Neil did before we sent him to rehab. Remember that. The rockstar lifestyle is ace, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. I’m worried. Golden is too. Carmine’s getting sick of him. Ever since you left and Neil died, he hasn’t been all right. Maybe—”

“I’m sorry about Neil. I truly am. I miss him too.” Remembering our friend breaks my heart. “But Riot’s not my problem.”

“He hurt you. I get that, but—”

I shrug out of the jacket and hold it out to him. It’s cold and suddenly there are eyes on me since I’m almost as nude as the woman performing. “No, there’s no but. He hurt me too much for me to ever forgive him.”

“I didn’t.” He refuses to take the jacket from me. “Golden didn’t. Couldn’t you see whipping Riot back into shape as helping us? He’s fucking chaos. I don’t know what else to do honestly. He won’t listen to anyone. They want a minder on him.”

“Not me. Anyone but me.” I drape his jacket on the back of the chair.

“It would give you protection from your foster brother. All that security we take everywhere we go. He couldn’t get anywhere near you. Not to mention, a warm bed, meals, and enough money to get you back on your feet after the tour.”

Once I would have done anything for the band. Even more so for Riot Maddox, but in the interest of self-preservation pretending that I never had this conversation with Bronx is the only thing to do. I bend down and kiss his cheek. “Bye, Bronx.”

I limp toward the exit with the shreds of my dignity, not that I have any left. The rain has returned, though the storm has moved on. The street is sodden, lights glittering on the wet surface.

And a black Escalade sits opposite the speakeasy. Waiting. Marco didn’t go anywhere.

Damn it. I shrink back. My back meets a solid, warm wall.

Bronx steadies me.

The music in the speakeasy switches to an orchestral version of one of L.A. Riot’s old songs; ‘Chokehold’.

I choke on it.

My favorite L.A. Riot song. Until he changed it for her. Sang it with her. Turned it into their duet. Now, it’s bitter ashes in my mouth. Another sign I should tell Bronx I will work out how to survive on my own.

“I’d say take some time to consider my proposal,” Bronx says near my ear. “But since you can’t run and you need somewhere to hide... Do you really have any other option?”

As much as I wish it were any other way... “It appears not.”

3

Riot

Threading my fingers through the woman’s blonde hair, I roughly push her head down on my cock until she gags on it. A joint suspended loosely from the corner of my lips, the sweet smoke hangs lazily in the still air above us.

A brunette kneels on the hotel bed behind me. She massages the knots from my right shoulder while she kisses along the left side of my throat. I reach up and squeeze one of her weighty tits.

She gasps at the pain and then moans.

“Set me up a couple lines,” I instruct her.

She climbs off the bed and prowls over to the table where she pours white powder from a baggie onto the glass surface in four straight rows.

The woman with her face in my lap rolls her tongue around my cock and slurps harder. I close my eyes, inhale from the joint and shove deeper into her throat. Concentrating on the sensation of having my soul sucked out of my cock, until I’m set to blow.