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I was suddenly (and very unpleasantly) reminded of that scene in Goodfellas where Joe Pesci is terrorizing Ray Liotta – but in my head they all spoke with British accents now.
You think I’m funny? You think I’m a clown? Do I AMUSE you?
In the movie, it turns out Joe Pesci was just messing with Ray Liotta.
I didn’t think that was the case with Miles.
“N-No,” I stuttered, contrite as could be.
He edged his face closer to mine. “You must think I’m a joke.”
“No. God no.”
“Because I’ve got some rope and a shovel in the boot of my car, just waiting to be used.”
I said it without thinking:
“…boot?”
“British for trunk,” Derek said helpfully. I could tell he was getting a massive kick out of the whole scene.
“And if you fuck with him, or any other member of the band, I will use that shovel and I will bury you,” Miles snarled. “Are we clear?”
“Yes,” I assured him. “Yes we are.”
Miles paused, glared at me for a moment – then nodded his head once. “Right.”
Then he walked out of the elevator.
“Holy shit,” I whispered under my breath.
“Way to make friends,” Derek joked.
“Is he your friend?” I asked in disbelief.
“More like a very useful enemy.”
“Where’d you dig him up?”
“ Killian brought him over from England to manage the band.”
“And you let him?”
“He may be an asshole, but he’s damn good at what he does.”
“What’s that, scaring the shit out of everybody?”
Derek laughed. “That’s part of it. Come on, let’s go meet everybody else.”
5
We walked from the elevator into a luxurious hallway lined with works of art. Miles had already disappeared through an open doorway at the end; I could hear a young woman’s voice laughing and chatting loudly in the next room, along with a few thumps and crashes from a drum set.
There was some sort of brief conversation, including a few explosive phrases in a British accent, and then a familiar face met us at the door.
Ryan.
Except radically different from how I remembered him.
He was just as tall, but now he had longer, shaggier hair that was perfectly tousled and styled. His face was leaner, with more pronounced cheekbones, and he sported a couple days’ worth of fashionable stubble. He wore high-end jeans, pointed-toe leather shoes, a black t-shirt with the union Jack and pictures of four band members on it, a fancy leather jacket, and a small rawhide necklace that looked like he’d picked it up surfing in South America or on some other exotic adventure.
My first thought was, Damn, Ryan got CUTE.
My second thought was, Shanna would be so jealous of me now.
“Kaitlyn?” he said, a huge smile on his face.
“Ryan!” I exclaimed.
He held out his arms and hugged me tight.
I’d forgotten how good a hugger he was.
After I pulled away, he laughed in delight. “It’s been awhile!”
“It’s good to see you.”
“Let me look at you.” He held my hand and twirled me around like we were dancing. “Beautiful as always.”
All his old shyness was gone.
My third thought was, Wow, Ryan got some game.
“You look even more handsome,” I said.
“Well, you only saw me during that awkward high school phase,” he grinned.
It hadn’t been that awkward; he was still cute back then.
But, compared with how he looked now, he had definitely come into his own.
“Yeah, yeah… you two lovebirds can catch up later,” Derek said mildly. “She should meet Killian and Riley.”
“True. Come on, let me introduce you to the other half of the band,” Ryan said, offering me his arm. I took it, and he led me inside the penthouse.
It was absolutely beautiful – a gigantic room with a 30-foot-long wall of glass that looked out over Sunset Boulevard – but that’s not what hit me the hardest as I entered the room.
It was the smell.
The scent of pot was so thick in the air that it was like walking into a Christmas tree lot on December 21st. Except it was cannabis instead of pine.
I coughed a little.
Ryan looked down at me sympathetically. “I hope you don’t have to pass any drug tests anytime soon, ‘cause you’re probably going to be getting a contact high if you hang out around us.”
I smiled hesitantly. “I’ll be alright.”
We turned the corner into the main part of the penthouse, and there they were: the other two members of Bigger, the hottest up-and-coming band in the world. They sat in the middle of a nest of amps and cords, sort of like a messier version of Ryan’s basement.
Killian Lee was exactly the same as every photograph of him I’d ever seen: black pants, black long-sleeve shirt, black suit vest, black shoes. His black trench coat was folded over the back of his wooden chair. His black, bushy hair was pulled into a ponytail, he wore little round-lensed sunglasses, and there was a lit joint dangling out of his mouth.
He also had an electric guitar in his lap. Just like in Derek’s story of that night at the 40 Watt, his fingers were dancing over the strings – but it was unplugged, so all I could hear were little metallic pings. He was slumped back, totally relaxed, his face plastered with a blessed-out smile… but his hands worked like they were connected to someone else’s body, strumming and plucking, sometimes slowly, sometimes lightning fast. Even when he would take the joint out of his mouth with his right hand, the left would continue fingering chords on the strings.
Beside him was a full drum kit complete with bass, snares, cymbals – and Riley Wojtalik (pronounced Voy-TAL-ick, according to Wikipedia). She was a tiny little thing, with a thin frame and wiry arms. She could have been a ninth-grade girl by her height and weight.
But I haven’t seen many ninth graders with mohawks.
It was dyed black with platinum blonde streaks, and stood up two feet from her head. Apparently she changed her hair color as often as most women change their bras, because I’d seen pictures of her with dozens of different variations: red and black, yellow and orange, completely blue, all colors of the rainbow at once, purple and pink, a dozen different shades of green.
The funny thing was, besides dying it and spiking it, she didn’t keep up the rest of the hairstyle too well. She currently sported a soft brown fuzz over the rest of her skull, like she couldn’t be bothered to shave it.
Her face was very pretty – or could have been, if she’d tried. She had a slender little nose, big brown eyes, porcelain skin, delicate cheekbones and perfect, tiny lips – but all you could focus on were the raccoon eyes from mascara and eyeliner she hadn’t removed the night before. Maybe the last couple of nights.
She wore scuffed, black leather pants, clunky Doc Martens, and a dirty, smudged wifebeater with no bra. Not that she needed one, since she was basically flat-chested. She twirled drumsticks in her nicotine-stained fingers. On her wrists she wore black leather cuffs with studs. Tattoos of skulls and demons and naked girls marched up and down her arms. Around her neck was a cheap metal necklace – the kind with little balls, like the pull-switch on a ceiling fan. Several keys dangled from it like ugly pendants. She had a nose ring, a lip ring, an eyebrow piercing, and about eleven studs in each ear.
And right as I walked into view, she stopped whatever she was saying to Killian, looked me up and down like a horny construction worker, and wolf-whistled.
“Hell yeah – that’s what I’m talkin’ about! What’d ya bring me there, Ryan? Momma likee!”
I might have forgotten to mention this, but Riley Wojtalik was a lesbian.
She was quite open and very aggressive about it. The stories of her hitting on female fans and taking them back to her room for the night were legion. Gay, bi, straight, didn’t matter. Riley was an equal opportunity horndog.
And apparently she was trying to make me her next conquest.
Oh shit…
I edged behind Ryan as protection.
“Simmer down,” Derek said as he walked past her to the bar.
“Yeah, be nice, Riley,” Ryan admonished her.
“Ohhhh, I’ll be nice,” the little drummer girl leered. “I’ll be nice to her allllll night long.”
EW.
“Riley, Killian… this is Kaitlyn Reynolds,” Ryan announced.
As soon as he said it, the room went quiet. As in dead silent. Even Killian’s fingers froze on the guitar strings.
Riley’s jaw dropped open. “You’re shittin’ me.”
“Really?” the guitarist said, looking over at Derek.
“The one and only,” Derek confirmed.
“SERIOUSLY? This is her,” Riley said in a disbelieving voice, like You’re kidding, right?
What the hell are they acting so surprised for?
While all this was going on, I wanted Derek near me. Ryan was nice, but I wanted Derek.
I looked over at him at the bar and caught his eye, but all he did was smirk at me like, You want it to be professional? Well, let’s keep it professional, then.
I scowled at him.
Fine.
Asshole.
I looked up at Ryan. “Why does everybody keep saying that?”
“What, being surprised about who you are?”
“Yeah.”
Killian chuckled as his fingers started dancing over the strings again. “You’re kind of famous around these parts, luv.”
