Page 16 of Revelry

“Rachel.”

“Rachel,” Levi continues. “So everyone’s asleep, right? But this jackarse is behind the wheel. He decides that in order to stay awake, he’s gonna need some extra stimulation. So he wakes Rachel, and he’s like ‘Baby, I need you to suck my cock.’ I don’t know why the hell she didn’t just tell you to fuck off, but she gets up—and it’s not like a regular tour bus. This is budget all the fucking way. We’d just blown all our savings on cutting a demo and Coop hustled his parents for a loan big enough so that we could drive to Melbourne and back in order to get our demo in the hands of some fucktard who tried to screw us over with some bullshit fucking 360 deal.”

“Where they take all your money for ticket sales and merchandising, right?” I say, and Levi looks impressed.

“Right, so anyway, we’re hitting up whatever pubs will have us along the way, and we’re driving to the middle of fucking nowhere in this huge motherfucking zigzag because this idiot wants to drive through the night and make it there quicker. He’s been popping pseudoephedrine all night, and it’s no longer working, so he needs Rachel. She gets down on her knees and starts sucking his cock, and Zed falls asleep anyway. He hits a roo, the van goes arse overhead, Rachel nearly bites his dick off and blood is gushing everywhere. Coop’s got a fucking broken arm and because this cockhead wasn’t paying attention to the road he’d turned off the highway, and we’re about two hours from anywhere in the middle of the fucking desert.”

“So what happened?”

“Nothing. Our instruments were fucked. We didn’t have the room in the van for hard cases, so everything was smashed up to smithereens. We left the van and walked until we found a town with a working telephone, had a tow truck come pick up what was left of the bus, Coop got his arm patched up by a local doctor, and we spent all the money we’d borrowed and the cash we’d made on towing that piece-of-shit van. We missed our window with Alexer, which now that I think about it was a really fucking good thing, and we were right back to square one.”

“Wow, remind me never to go on tour with you guys,” I say. Their laughter stops and there’s this awkward silence as the boys all stare at me.

“You’re kidding, right?” Cooper says, he watches me from across the booth, and he has that ever-loving smirk on his face.

“Er … no. Sorry, I’m sure most women would give their freshly-waxed cooters to be on a tour bus with Taint, but I’m not one of them. It sounds like hell to me.”

“Prepare for the fiery inferno then.” Coop levels me with a penetrating gaze that I’m sure runs deeper than just annoyance. He actually looks offended. A ripple of unease stirs through me.

“What?” I ask in confusion.

“Ohhh, she doesn’t know?” Ash says to Coop, and then he stares down into his beer, attempting to hide his laughter and failing miserably.

“Oh, Red, you know your naivety just makes me wanna fuck you more.” Levi slides his arm around my shoulder and I edge away, but I’m pressed firmly between his warm body and the wall.

“Please don’t touch me.”

“My hands were on your arse an hour ago, Red. I’m sure you can handle a little shoulder action.”

“Tell me, Quinn,” I say. “Do you enjoy having a woman’s elbow thrust into your groin at high speed?”

“I love a woman unafraid to take charge in the bedroom.”

“You also love a woman who doesn’t mind being gagged while you fuck her, Levi. I’m not sure this is the girl for you.” Cooper says. “Something tells me Ali-Cat here doesn’t like being told what to do.”

“Something would tell you right, Ryan. Nice powers of deduction there,” I add scathingly.

“Someone should tell Ali she’s going to have to get used to being told what to do, because as our PA she’s expected to travel everywhere with us. Including on tour busses.” Levi waggles his brows at me.

“Come again?”

“That’s what she said,” Ash replies, and he may be the shy, silent type, but his smirk is just as deadly as the rest of these boys’. As though he’s afraid of drawing attention to himself, he smiles sheepishly and pulls his knit cap farther down his forehead.

The others laugh, and Levi plants a sloppy wet kiss on my cheek as I shove him away from me. “Do not put your mouth on me. I don’t know where you’ve been.”

“You didn’t know you were coming on tour with us?” Zed asks, “You have a passport, right?”

“A passport?” I stare at him as if he’s fucking crazy. “There’s been a mistake. I don’t work for you, I work for Harbour Records, and yeah, they contracted me to be your little lackey, but I’m not going on tour with you. Surely they’d have mentioned that to me by now?” Though I’m pretty sure Vanessa hates me and is looking for any excuse to fire my arse. What if she hasn’t told me because she wants to give Taint a reason to complain about my performance? “I can’t go on tour. Overseas. For weeks at a time.”

“Try months,” Coop says. “Three of them.”

My eyes widen. “Three months. I can’t go on tour for three months.”

“Why the fuck not?”

Good question. “Because I have … a cat.”

“A cat that you hate,” Cooper challenges.

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