Page 8 of Anthem of Love and Loathing

Bronx lowers me onto a seat at a small table. A round mosaic candle flickers in the center. He talks to the server before he pulls the other chair beside mine. Sitting, he bends down to remove my stripper heels.

I tense up at the sudden amplitude of pain when he lifts my injured ankle onto his lap. He starts to examine the damage, carefully prodding and checking range of movement.

I take the opportunity to study him. He’s added more ink to his biceps and shoulders and throat. “You cut your hair.”

It used to be shoulder length.

“Yeah.” He tugs on the much shorter brown strands that are longer on top than they are at the sides. They’re wavy and thick. It works well with the thick ginger scruff on his jaw. He looks good. Really good.

I’m scarcely hanging on. He seems to be thriving. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to catch my friend’s show while we were in town. Tonight’s the only night I had to do it.”

“The big tour. First show is tomorrow.”

“You keep up.” His eyebrows raise as he leans in. “We’re going to be on the road for months.”

“You’re everywhere.” As much as I wish I wasn’t faced with my past literally staring at me everywhere I go, I miss the guys. “How’s Golden?”

“Your Golden boy is good. Still a total man-whore.” He grins. “But that’s the rockstar lifestyle, isn’t it?”

“It is.” In a way I was not cut out for.

“He misses you. I do too. Things haven’t been the same since you left.” He pauses, scanning my face as though looking for something.

I have no clue what he expects to see. Other than how hard life has been lately.

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. Why’d you do it, Kels? Why’d you leave?”

I wrinkle my nose. “I didn’t want to, but how could I stay after the way Riot ended things? I didn’t have any other choice.”

“You could have reached out,” he says.

“Like you did.” That had hurt too. Not as much as Riot breaking my heart. But we’d been close, hadn’t we? And then we were nothing.

“Yeah.” He rubs a hand over his jaw. Turns quiet.

I can’t for the life of me tell what he’s thinking.

Eventually he says, “Neil passed.”

“I heard.” There’s a pang in my chest over my old friend. He’d struggled with the band’s growing fame. Gotten hooked on drugs. Rehab hadn’t solved his problems. He’d passed a few months after I left. A new bassist was brought on by Savant Records. “I was going to attend the funeral, but…”

“Yeah.” Bronx purses his lips. It’s clear he wants to say something. “Riot’s—”

“I don’t want to know.” Even if curiosity makes me hang for his next word. Just once I’d love someone to tell me that his life has been impacted negatively. Karma is supposed to be a bitch, not a groupie. I wish he would rot in hell.

Like I am.

The server comes back with a couple of beers and some ice wrapped in a kitchen towel. Bronx puts the compress on my ankle. “Looks like a sprain. Have a drink. It’ll help you forget about the pain.”

There is no amount of alcohol that could make me forget my pain. And seeing Bronx—as much as I missed him—is a reminder I didn’t need.

Still, I don’t get up and leave. I linger, and it’s not because of my damaged ankle or having nowhere to go where Marco won’t find me.

I miss my old life and my old friends. And the way things used to be when I was with L.A. Riot. When I loved the boy and the future was much brighter than it is now.

“Listen, I don’t know what you’re doing running around the streets in your underwear—”