Page 40 of Pistol Whipped

The server sets a fancy mirrored tray on the table, and atop it is a pile of powder. Unlike Coke, it’s not pure white, and instead looks more like a pile of rainbow sprinkles.

“You’re sure about this, Bruce?”

“Of course!” He waves back, steering the server and himself away and back through the throng of other clubgoers. Once he’s gone and it’s just Dax and me, I don’t hesitate. I swallow the last gulp of vodka in my glass.

“Here goes nothing.”

I’m not sure why, but I’m keen to get lost in the rush the drugs promise. To feel something other than the weight of everyone’s expectations, to feel the happy high, to get a break from thinking about Rain and the band and the emptiness, and, and, and.

I use the silly metal knife that came attached to the tray and cut the powder into two clean lines. Then, without hesitation, I dive in.

The rush.

It is everything.

It’s nothing like I’ve ever felt before.

The whole thing happens in an instant. Or maybe a few minutes. It’s impossible to tell.

My cheeks hurt from the wide smile that spreads across my face, until I level out enough to look for Dallas. He’s still there. Always beside me, but he’s got his worried face on. I don’t like it. I want him to feel the rush too.

“Join me, Dax,” I encourage, sliding the tray full of powder closer to him. “Pleaaaaaaase,” I beg.

“Co…I don’t know if this is a good—”

“Dax, baby, don’t be such a buzzkill.”

All I can think is that I hate it when he’s a buzzkill. I want him to smile. The rush Bruce described is hitting me, and all I want is for my best friend to jump into the wave with me. So badly. That I reach across the table, swiping my hand across the plate, while I pull him closer with my other hand.

My fingers are coated in the powder now, and there’s something so satisfying about the way I push my thumb into Dallas’s mouth. The fact that he lets me feels like a victory I can’t explain.

What feels less like a victory is the wake-up three days later. In Calder University Hospital. With Rain and Dutch standing at his bedside. Not mine. And no memory of how we got there. Later, I’d find out those drugs were laced. That we’d both OD’d and that while I could do that and walk away without a second thought, my best friend wasn’t so lucky.

End Interlude

Chapter 19

Liar (It Takes One to Know One)

Rain

After my fight with Dutch, and half-fuck, half-fight with Cohen, the animosity on our tour bus remains at an all-time high. The only one of us who isn’t affected or actively pissed at the others is Dallas. Mostly because he moves through the bus like a zombie. The purple wells under his eyes get bigger and bigger every day. At night, I can hear him whispering to Kitten. She seems to have made it her personal mission to comfort him, so I’ve taken to leaving my bedroom door open just enough that she can go to him when she wants to. Hopefully she can buy me some goodwill with at least one Kelly brother.

Trey showed up again at the Mont-Royale show. Then in Barrett Hills. He was everywhere, and I couldn’t escape him. He’s made a spectacle of our relationship at each and every show, causing problems in the crowd or with the bouncers, harassing anyone he could in an attempt to get close to me. Though I ignore him and even tried to have him barred or kicked out at each show, neither Cohen nor Dutch seem to care.

Meanwhile, the tension between Dutch and me, oh, and between Cohen and me, and for some reason I can’t understand, between Dutch and Cohen, continues to soar.

Neither of them has confronted me directly, not like in Cambria. They don’t need to, because Dutch’s disappointment plays and replays in my head like a record stuck on a loop, while the familiar feeling of Cohen’s body pressed against mine is something I’ve been trying and failing to forget for a long time, so experiencing it again, knowing that I still affect him the same way has triggered a gnawing ever-present question within in me that I point blank refuse to examine. That and the fact that their anger remains clear as day.

How the fuck Trey got himself to our show tonight in Watosk, Alberta, I’ll never know. But there he is in the front row. Again. I’d suspected this would happen, so I had a long chat with the venue’s crew when we arrived and asked them to bar him from the Stampede Tavern if he showed. So much for my efforts. I’m so distracted that I stumble over the lyrics to ‘Concrete Graveyard’, one of the slower songs off the Skids album. Stumble to the point that Cohen steps in and joins me in a harmony.

That is its own kind of shock. All the guys have great voices, but they rarely use them. Once upon a time, Cohen would harmonize with me occasionally during practices and for the odd moment on stage, especially if we were singing a love song. This is the first time he’s done it since the band’s been back together, though from the way his green eyes glare at me over the mic, he’s not doing it to be nice but to save face after I’ve fucked things up again.

The show ends, and we’re getting ready to leave the stage when screams replace cheers in the crowd. I’m terrified for our fans and spin back to see Trey has shoved several people to the ground, trying to claw his way towards the stage. His efforts are short-lived because we aren’t the only ones who hear the screams, and from either side of the stage, bouncers surge forward. One in particular, a big guy wearing a high-vis vest, gets to Trey first, as other crowd members step out of his way.

Relief hits hard as I watch the bouncer lock Trey in an arm-hold, securing both of his arms behind his back. Once two other security guards join him, they easily drag Trey away.

My relief is short-lived, though, and I only make it as far as my dressing room, because inside, waiting for me is Lou Braun. He hasn’t come to a single show since Steelsville, nor did he let any of us know he would be here tonight. I sorta figured that, if anything, he might show up in Calder so he could cash in on the Deviant Dreams announcement and subsequent glory.