AllFreeNovel
Share Us
At the sidewalk, I slowed my pace and ducked into the shadows beneath the awning of an adult-clothing shop. I glanced over my shoulder. No sign of Wanda or anyone else watching me.
I let out a sigh and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the plate glass.
My eyes were wide pools of gold beneath my dark auburn brows. If only they were an actual physical commodity I could pawn.
I slammed them closed. Fool’s gold. They gave away too much. It was unwise to appear vulnerable outside the apartment.
Opening my eyes again, I narrowed my gaze and gulped in a deep, determined breath. Then I reached for the hood on my jacket and pulled it over my wig.
Be brave, I told myself, remembering another of Gran’s sayings. Bravery isn’t the absence of fear; it’s the ability to keep going despite insurmountable obstacles.
Bravery was my choice. One foot in front of the other.
My night was only starting; I still had to get on the bus. It would take me two transfers to get to the better-paying side of town. Further, I had to hope that I looked more tempting than the girls who had already set up shop over there.
If I didn’t, I was fucked, and not in the way that would get me the money I needed to pay the rent.
Rush
Rush. Rush. Rush.
The chanting of my name echoed in the cinder-block corridor after I left the stage.
“They want a second encore,” Bradley told me, as if I didn’t already know.
“They can’t always get what they want.” I snagged the white towel a stagehand offered me and swiped it across my brow.
Narrowing my eyes at my manager, I noticed the chicks we swept past vied for his attention as much as they did for mine. Blond, blue-eyed, barely older than me, Bradley was the master of the ten-million-dollar-a-year Rush machine. He was also catnip to the backstage pussy that went for his Armani brand of boring boardroom predictability.
“Life sucks and then you die, right?”
“Rush.” His tone was warning as he glanced up from his phone and the glow of platinum profits from tonight’s sold-out show. “Not here.” He lifted his chin to remind me of our audience. “Put a lid on the negativity.”
He might have a point about the crowd. My PR rep, the stylist, and the visiting record label VP had signed nondisclosure agreements, same as the groupies. While my staff was paid handsomely to keep their mouths shut whenever I shot off mine, I held no such sway with the ticket-holding masses.
“I’m not making apologies for how I am.”
Bradley frowned as we entered the dressing room. “You weren’t always this difficult.”
I brushed past him on the way to the bar. I poured a tumbler of whiskey, out of deference to my company. Alone? I would have chugged it straight from the bottle. I threw back the socially acceptable portion, but the fire the amber elixir ignited barely registered. Ditto for the lingering adrenaline rush from the roar of the Staples Center crowd.
Get a grip, I willed myself, staring at my own reflection. The guy within the rectangular frame of bulbs looked a little too needy and wrung out. His brown hair was plastered to his skull, and so saturated with sweat, it appeared black. The eyes were the real giveaway. Twin portals whirled with a vortex of negative emotions.
“No more drinking.” Bradley snatched the bottle of Jameson from my grasp. “You know what happened last time you got trashed.”
“I remember. No need to rub my nose in it.” Sales had gone in the shitter after someone posted a video of me going nuclear on an overly aggressive paparazzo.
I had zero regrets. Asswipe had it coming for shoving his camera in my mother’s face at the funeral. If my father had been the pillar of strength in our family, she was the pedestal. Only she had crumbled completely when they lowered his casket into the ground.
Remembering that day and all that had been lost, the ground rumbled at a Richter-scale magnitude beneath my feet. The betrayal of my ex-fiancée marrying my brother was a minor temblor in comparison.
It wasn’t only that my father was gone, or that Brenda had moved on, it was that so much had been left unresolved with each of them. I knew my failure as a man was the common factor with each.
As the specter of that truth rose within me, my mouth went dry and my hands twitched. I needed another drink. No, I wanted to drain that entire fucking bottle of whiskey dry. And I knew what that meant. The narrow line I’d been walking with my drinking had gone well beyond a casual thing.
I ripped my gaze away from my reflection and glared at Bradley. “You got my car washed and gassed up?”
I could see no other cure for what ailed me. I needed to get away before I did something ill-advised. Paparazzi were like a plague of locusts, ready to devour my mistakes, and talking heads were on standby to regurgitate the lurid stories for mass consumption.
