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“That’s what Derek said, yeah.”
“You know why it’s called Bigger?” she grinned.
“No, why?”
“Cuz that’s what Derek says every time he gets another cock in his ass!” she howled. “Bigger! Bigger! BIGGERRRRRR!”
And then she collapsed against Miles in a drunken fit of laughter and tears. Miles looked both disgusted and wearily stoic, like the most beleaguered dog you could imagine as the family’s toddler crawls all over it.
I looked over at Derek. He gave me a half-grin. “I couldn’t take that simple joy away from her.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You really want me to publish that in Rolling Stone?”
He laughed. “I don’t give a fuck what you publish in Rolling Stone.”
“Okay, okay, no, that’s not the real story,” Riley said, suddenly sitting up and rejoining the conversation. “Here’s the real story. So we were sitting around in Derek’s house in Athens tryin’ to come up with a name. And they’re tossin’ out stupid fuckin’ shit like – what were some of those stupid-ass band names you idiots came up with? Like, Dharma and Greg – ”
“Dharma House,” Killian corrected her as he plinked away at his guitar.
“Yeah, Dharma House,” Riley snorted.
“Shelter,” Derek said.
“Shelter! What the fuck is that?!” Riley hooted.
“It’s from ‘Gimme Shelter’ by the Rolling Sto– ”
“I know what the fuck it’s from, fucker!” Riley shouted. “Shut the fuck up!”
“Strike First,” Ryan said.
“That’s a TERRIBLE fucking name!” Riley chortled.
“It’s from the original Karate Kid – ” Ryan started, until Riley waved her hands in his face drunkenly.
“Shhhh! Shut the fuck up! No one cares where it’s from, cuz it’s fucking stupid!” she hollered. Then she turned to me. “So they’re saying these stupid fuckin’ names, and I’m like, ‘No, you guys are thinkin’ too small. It’s gotta be bigger than that.’ And they’d say somethin’ else lame, like Death Star, or Heisenberg, or Straight Flush, or something stupid, and I’d be like, ‘No – bigger!’ And they’d say somethin’ else, and I’d be like, ‘BIGGER!’ and they kept sayin’ stupid shit, and I was like, ‘BIGGERRRR!’ – and then we all stopped and just kind of looked around at each other… and that was it. Bigger.” She plopped back in the seat, evidently pleased with herself. “That was how we came up with the name.”
I looked over at the other band members for confirmation.
Ryan nodded.
“Yup,” Derek agreed.
“Word for word,” Killian said mildly as he took a drag off a fresh joint.
“BOOYAH,” Riley said happily, throwing up her hands in gang signs, and then took another slug off her whiskey. Then she made a face and looked at the bottle. “Yo, Miles, are you sure this stuff is legit? It tastes watered down as shit.”
In answer, Miles just tipped the bottom of the bottle back with one finger, and she went right back to slurping it down.
20
The backstage party had been crazy.
The after-party at the Dubai was crazier.
For one, there were more people. In fact, there was already a crowd in the bar by the time we arrived.
Two, backstage security at the Staples Center had more or less admitted people (and by that, I mean women) in an orderly manner. Some would come out, more would go in.
Here, anybody who wanted to walk in off the street could.
And had.
In fact, I think every groupie at the concert had tweeted or Facebooked ‘Derek Kane afterparty at the Dubai!’ because it seemed like half the female population of LA – or half the model-actress-wannabe population of LA, anyway – had shown up.
And three, there was a lot more booze available at the Dubai’s bar.
When we first got there, there had to have been 500 people inside. It was basically standing room only. The hotel staff quickly realized they had a problem and installed a velvet rope outside, but that only slowed the numbers going in. It did nothing about the people already inside.
The band got out of the limo, and fireworks of paparazzi flashes went off. It was like we were in a strobe-filled nightclub even before we set foot indoors.
In the hotel lobby, a coterie of security guards from the concert surrounded us and escorted us to the bar. Not that they had much to guard against; in the cavernous lobby, most of the guests merely turned around and stared quietly.
Inside the bar was a different matter.
Once Derek walked in, it was like somebody turned up the dial to eleven. People starting shouting and clapping. Nearby women screamed and reached out their hands to grope at him. The place was already like a giant dance club, what with the music they were piping in over the sound system. But now the energy amped up and people started gyrating in every open spot available.
The circle of guards moved like a giant amoeba through the crowd, with me, Miles, and the band at the center. They shuttled us all the way to the back to a giant alcove with a circular table, close to the spot where I had seen Derek just hours before. There was a lazy Susan filled with bottles of alcohol, crystal glasses, and buckets of ice: bottle service on steroids. A waitress appeared to let us know if we wanted anything else just to holler, she was there for us and us alone.
I ordered a glass of wine, then slipped across the leather seats, followed by Ryan and Killian – but Riley grabbed a bottle of vodka and plunged right into the crowd, while Derek waded out to meet his adoring female fans.
Miles basically stood at attention and kept an eye on his charges, dispatching security guards to deal with trouble spots and keep tiny sparks from turning into a forest fire.
Killian happily smoked his doobie and tinkered away on the strings of his guitar while Ryan lounged beside me. Occasionally people would come up and talk to them, and they would engage in conversation – Killian might even offer them a hit – but the table wasn’t where the action was. Derek was.
He was swamped by women. He had an arm draped over the shoulders of two attractive ones – a bodacious Latina and a porcelain-skinned redhead – and he was joking with another half-dozen hotties who were practically running their hands across his chest.
Whoop – up went the first top, out came the sharpie, and there he was, signing boobs again. The tallest one in the group – a six-foot Amazon – surprised him when she smashed her bare tits in his face. He responded by motorboating her, which made all the women around him shriek with laughter – and led a few more to volunteer to be next.
Unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable.
The waitress came back with our drinks – a glass of wine for me, a bottle of beer for Ryan, and a mineral water for Killian.
Guy smoked weed all day long, but drank Perrier in a bar? Weird.
“You okay?” Ryan asked in my ear, making himself audible above the chatter and loud music.
I looked over at him in surprise. “Yeah – why?”
“Cause you look like you’re about to go kill somebody.”
I stepped back into my own body and realized my hands were clenched so tightly – one in my lap, the other around the wine glass stem – that they hurt. My jaw ached from grinding my teeth.
I sighed at first – and then gradually became more heated as I went on. “It’s just… they throw themselves at him like that! It’s disgusting!”
“It’s pretty outrageous,” Ryan agreed.
“Outrageous doesn’t even begin to cover it! Don’t they have any self-respect?”
He was repressing a smile.
“What?” I asked defensively.
“Little jealous?”
“What?! No. Why would I be jealous?”
“Come on, Kaitlyn. You two had something pretty special four years ago.”
“No we didn’t,” I protested.
He gave me a Give me a break kind of look.
“We didn’t,” I insisted. “And even if we did, that was four years ago. That was ages ago.”
“Feelings can still be pretty strong even four years later.”
I watched as Derek posed for a picture as an Asian beauty and a stunning blonde each kissed opposite sides of his face.
“Not for everybody, apparently,” I griped.
Ryan looked over at his best friend’s escapades. “You shouldn’t let this get to you.”
“I’m not,” I snapped, even though it was obvious to anyone with functioning eyeballs that I was.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” he said.
“That’s kind of what bothers me.”
Now some other girl was taking a selfie with Derek – and she quite boldly took his hand and placed it on her boob as she smushed up next to him.
UGH.
I turned away from the spectacle and looked at Ryan, if for no other reason than I couldn’t bear to watch anymore. “Why aren’t you out there, soaking up the female attention?”
He laughed. “Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and the hat.”
That was interesting.
I raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means exactly what it sounds like.”
I cocked my head and inclined it slightly, an expression that said …aaaand?
He grinned. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
