The Lonely Kings: Hard Rock Arrangement Part 18

He'd been leaning in to kiss me goodbye, just like a boyfriend would have.

My heart fluttered in my chest as I watched him stride off, his dark hair tossing in the wind.

"I spy with my little eye... something to drink." Manny took a swig of his beer.

"Is it beer?" I asked.

"It is beer!" he said, clearly pleased that I'd guessed it.

"You suck at this game," I told him.

"Only when drunk," he a.s.sured me. "Or you're just the best player who ever lived. Ever think it might be that?"

"No."

"But what if it is? What if you could be a champion I Spy-er?"

"What if I farted candy rainbows?"

"Then everyone would want to kiss your a.s.s." He grinned at me. "I spy with my little eye... something to drink!"

I sighed. "Is it beer?"

"Nope," he said. "It's your girly-a.s.s c.o.c.ktail. Drink it."

I had to smile at that. "Oh, I suppose." I took a swig of my sweet vermouth on the rocks and looked around the bar.

This was a good bar. It was a nice dive, dark and un.o.btrusive and, best of all, not a place where any of my former friends ever hung out. Sonya had peeled away from us the second we got in, choosing to go listen to the guy playing guitar in the corner. Manny told me not to worry about it-Sonya was attracted to music above all other things and she tended to ignore everything else.

Other than that, the place was seedy, but not too dirty, and I felt right at home. The bar was nice and clean, at least. Other bartenders get all p.i.s.sy if you start wiping down a bar that's not yours. I didn't really feel the need to do any cleaning, though. Perhaps it was the vermouth.

"So why didn't Carter want to come?" Manny asked me suddenly.

I looked at him in surprise. "He wanted to go back to the hotel and sleep," I said.

He raised an eyebrow. "And he didn't want to f.u.c.k his girlfriend before he did that?"

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

The Manny started to smile. "Relax, Rebecca. You want to know a secret?"

I shut my mouth and nodded.

He leaned in. "The secret is we all know you're a paid babysitter. Carter told us."

I gasped. "What? When?" Oh my G.o.d, if he told them on the very first day and I've been having to keep up the facade around the band all this time, I am going to kill him FOR REALSIES- Manny threw back his head and laughed. "Oh my G.o.d, your face!" he howled, smacking the bar with his hand. "Don't worry, he only told us a couple days ago." He snickered into his hand and I subsided, slightly mollified.

"Why'd he tell you guys?" I asked. "I'm pretty sure Kent wanted him to keep up the lie around you guys."

Manny shrugged. "Kent's not really the boss of us. He's good at being a boss, but that guy has problems. Carter says he's really into you but is trying to be all self-sacrificing about it."

I shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Yeah, well, I bet filling up the Hindenburg with hydrogen seemed like a good idea at the time." Manny shook his head. "Kent's got a martyr complex big time, and he's always taken care of Carter. That poor guy had to grow up really fast. He thinks like a parent, not like a big brother. But you know, even parents have to get laid sometimes."

Ew. I didn't want to think about that. "So... you guys all rewrote the script for the video to hook us up?"

"It'll take more than that," Manny said. "But yes. Let's just say it seemed like a good idea at the time."

I shook my head and took another sip of my drink. "You guys are really nuts, you know that? How'd you get the studio to agree to change stuff up? And how'd you even get the storyboard switched out? Doesn't that stuff require... I don't know, time?"

He smiled again. "Took a h.e.l.l of a lot of work," he said. "Was totally worth it, though."

"Who wrote the script?"

"That was Carter and Sonya. I did the storyboarding."

I raised my eyebrows. "You did? Like... you drew it all out?"

He smiled and nodded. "I wanted to be an artist when I was little."

I give him a little smirk. "You are an artist."

"I hit things with sticks," he said. "And I'm very good at it. But I really love drawing. I keep trying to convince Kent to let me do the alb.u.m artwork and he says the label has the final say." Shaking his head, Manny took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, pulled one out and stuck it in his mouth. A flash of fire and he was sucking on it thoughtfully before blowing smoke back into the air. "I know that's true, but I think Kent has a problem giving up control of things."

"Oh?" I said. "You think?"

He snorted. "Fair enough. But yes. I do think. Changing up the story and the song behind his back was totally worth it for the look on his face." He gave me a sidelong look. "And totally worth it to get that make out scene on film. d.a.m.n, girl."

I flushed. "Shut up," I said.

"I watched some of it in the production trailer. It was crazy."

My hands came up to cover my face. "Stop!"

He laughed at me again. "Fine, fine. We won't talk about Kent's great and terrible l.u.s.t for you."

Peeking from between my fingers I gave him the fiercest glare I could muster. He just grinned at me and took another swig of his beer.

"Right," I said, "let's talk about your drawing."

"Okay," he said affably. "Want to see some caricatures?"

That seemed safe enough, so I nodded.

Reaching out, Manny pulled a small stack of c.o.c.ktail napkins across the table toward him. "Okay," he said. "Let's start with you."

"I hope you have your drunk goggles on," I said.

"Don't need 'em. Got a pen?"

Leaning down, I dug around in my messenger bag and pulled out a pen. I handed it to him, and he stuck his cigarette in his mouth and began to sketch. Craning my neck, I leaned over his shoulder and watched.

He was good. Like, really really good. It only took a couple of strokes of the pen before I recognized myself. Eyes too big, nose too large, but full lips and hair still decently coiffed thanks to the stylist. He glanced at me from time to time, and in less than five minutes he had an excellent portrait of me. With a flourish, he handed me the napkin and I took it, smiling.

"Wow," I said. "Now do Carter."

"Of course milady," he replied, and started sketching.

Another picture reeled off the pen, this time quicker. "Voila!" he said when he was done. "Now I'll try Sonya." His cigarette had burned down by this time and he lit another one. "She'll be harder."

"Why?" I asked.

"Her face is too perfect. It's hard to caricature someone with a perfect face."

I pulled a cranky expression. "Oh, so it's easy if someone's ugly."

He looked up at me in surprise. "Who's ugly?" he asked.

I looked away.

"Oh, I see," he said. "Rebecca, I said perfect, not beautiful. Sonya's face would have zero character to it if she weren't so p.i.s.sed off all the time."

A snort burst out of me, and Manny smiled as he began to sketch. "Let's see how surly I can make her before it gets to be too much."

"I'm not sure that's possible," I said. "Sonya runs on rage."

He smirked. "Yes, but it's such wonderful rage. How could she be a rock star if she didn't have an emotion to pour into her music? That's why she'd suck at opera, which she trained to do. Did you know that?"

"I read it on Wikipedia."

"Right, when you were getting hired. But yeah. She's just too angry."

"Why is she like that?" The words fell out of my mouth before I could stop them and I immediately felt bad.

Manny just shook his head. "If you two ever become friends, she'll tell you in her own sweet time, I'm sure. There, how does that look?"

He handed me the finished sketch on the napkin. Glancing down at it, I frowned.

"It's too plain," I said. "Sonya's way prettier than this."

"I don't think so."

"Yes, she is. Where is she? We'll compare..."

Squinting, I glanced around the bar until I located her in the corner sitting on the sofa. It was hard to see in the dimness and my vision was going a bit wonky from all the vermouth, but I held the napkin up, studied it, then dropped it and looked at Sonya.

"Definitely missing something," I said. "I'm not sure what it is, though..."

I looked back down at the napkin. Then up at Sonya. Napkin, Sonya, napkin, Sonya.

And then Sonya looked directly at me, narrowed her eyes, then turned and whispered to the man next to her, and my heart stopped.

Sitting next to her and staring at me, a smug little smile on his face, was Jason.

I whirled around on the stool, my stomach dropping through my shoes.

"What's wrong?" Manny said, but I barely heard him. My heart pounded in my ears and I couldn't quite breathe right. I stared down at my gla.s.s on the bar and watched as condensation ran down the side, pooling on the polished wood, and I realized that it was going to leave a ring. Reaching out, I grabbed a napkin and began to wipe it up. Then I noticed that there was a ring around the bottom of Manny's beer bottle, and I had to wipe that up too...

Manny grabbed my arm, hard enough to snap me out of it, and swung me around. "Holy s.h.i.t," he said. "What's wrong?"

I glanced back over at Sonya. She was sending me a piercing glare as Jason stared at me, telling her something. I saw his mouth quirk up in that old familiar smirk, the one that said I was stupid, that said I didn't get the joke because I wasn't good enough.

Sonya laughed.

I felt sick to my stomach.

"Rebecca?"

Manny was still trying to get my attention. I turned to him as though in a daze. "Sonya's talking to my ex-boyfriend," I said. My lips were numb. My whole face was numb, actually.

Manny looked over at them, but I didn't want to draw any more attention to myself than I already had. "I... I have to go make a phone call," I said. I slipped off the bar stool, grabbed my bag, and made a beeline for the restroom. I felt Jason's eyes on me the whole way there and it took all my strength not to run.

I burst through the door into the ladies' room, grabbed the side of the sink, and heaved. Nothing came up, and that was good because I wanted to be as drunk as possible. Hauling my bag up onto the counter, I pulled my phone out. I hadn't taken Kent's advice to turn it off, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway because Jason wasn't calling me now-he was stalking me.

I dialed Kent's number and hugged myself as the phone rang. Shudders and shivers ran through my body and my teeth began to chatter.

"Rebecca."

Kent's voice at the other end of the line. An anchor. "Jason's here," I said.

The other end of the line was quiet for a moment. "Tell me what happened," he said at last.

So I told him. I told him that Sonya was sitting with him. That they were talking about me and staring at me. That they were laughing at me. That he was probably filling her head with lies. That he had something up his sleeve, that he would hurt the band, that he would hurt me, and I didn't know what to do, what do I do- "Calm down," Kent said.

"I can't calm down!" I squeaked at him. "How can I be calm? This is the guy that ruined my life!"

"Oh, he was the one? I should have guessed."

I realized I hadn't told Kent the story; I'd only told Carter. "Yes. He... s.h.i.t, it's such a long story-"

"I don't need to hear it," he interrupted me. "You can tell me later when this crisis is taken care of. Okay?"

I licked my lips. "Right. Okay."

"I think we lucked out on this one," he said then. "I don't think you need to worry about it, honestly."