Page 48 of Revelry

I swallow hard.

Alpha-hole one. Ali zero.

I wish I had my blanket, because a fluffy blanket right now would really calm my nerves. Not that I’m nervous or anything, I mean, I’m only in bed with a rock star …whom I hate.Or … sort of hate. I remind myself.Stupid dumb rock stars and their jizz. I want my fluffy blanket.

“So, Vegas, huh?” I ask to cover the fact that I’m thinking about rolling around on this bed naked with him.

“Yup.”

“You been there before?”

“Nope,” he says. “I really flustered you with that, didn’t I?”

“Little bit, yeah. It was kind of a dick move.”

He laughs at my pun and shifts on the bed, lying down.

“Um … what are you doing?”

“Going to sleep. Turn out the lights.”

“No, I mean why are you going to sleep here? Your bed isn’t full of jizz, just mine.”

“I’m an insomniac, Ali. I have to take sleep when I can grab it. Your presence calms me, and right now I feel like taking a nap. So … shut up, turn out the light, and get over here.”

For a moment I just stare at him, and then when it becomes apparent he wasn’t jokingin any way, I shrug and do as he asks, because who the hell am I to argue with a half-naked hot man who wants to snuggle?

“You’re still not winning that bet.”

He hadn’t won that bet, but over the course of the next week Cooper and I met like this while the rest of the bus was asleep. We lay on our backs and stared up at the brightly-coloured fish in the tank as we spoke about everything from the tour to our favourite flavours of Baskin & Robbins. I talked a lot about my relationship with Brad and he spoke a lot of his daughter, Pepper, pulling out his phone and showing me pictures and videos her mother had sent him. He never talked about Holly though, and the few times I’d seen her in the videos telling Pepper to wave to Daddy, Cooper’s jaw had tightened, and the muscles in his face ticked as if he was grinding his teeth. I didn’t push him on the subject. I figured he’d open up to me about his ex if and when he felt comfortable. He obviously hadn’t yet, and I tried to ignore the way that stung. It also made me feel a little embarrassed that I’d been so quick to divulge every little detail about my relationship with Brad. I hadn’t stopped to think that it was something he mightn’t want to hear.

Some nights we’d find ourselves in the kitchen, just to shake things up a bit. Cooper would lazily strum his guitar and sing. A teeny tiny part of me wanted to believe he was singing to me not to get into my pants, but because he really meant what he was singing about. My inner bitch quickly quashed those ideas, and in a way I was glad. It would be far too easy to lose my head and my heart to this man. And despite all our flirting—and those two amazing orgasms on the plane—that was a line I wasn’t willing to cross.

This was a job. Sure, it came with benefits like seeing rock stars half-naked and working out on the bus, or getting to not just witness but also partake as an unwitting semen recipient in my very first circle jerk, but I was getting paid for it all the same. I worked hard to get that position at Harbour Records and I intended to keep it for as long as I could. I wasn’t about to let the lure of a sexy rock star ruin all I had worked for.

Though given his behaviour, it was apparent the sexy rock star had other ideas.

We’ve been in Vegas for just two days, and already I long for those late-night chats on the tour bus. I have a Deluxe Panoramic Corner room of my own in the Wynn Hotel. It is luxe, it is too much, and it is way too quiet. I’ve already explored the strip, watched a tonne of porn, run the batteries flat in my We-Vibe, taken a bath and infiltrated my Facebook profile with dozens of food porn pictures. I’d thought about calling Coop, but what would I say? “Hey, butt munch, come up to my room and snuggle”?

No. I was not doing that. No matter how much I might want to.

Despite our weirdly burgeoning friendship, and the fact that he sought me out as often as I found him on the tour bus, this was still work. We’d been thrown together by circumstance, but I was still getting paid to do a job. The lines of that job description had been fuzzy at best, and now they seemed to extend to sexual appetite suppressor, personal-crisis-when-confronted-with-confined-spaces therapist, and cuddle bunny.

I pick up my phone, checking for the tenth time tonight to ensure that he hasn’t sent one of those hilarious yet mildly irritating texts, when it vibrates. I see his face flash up on the screen and I let it ring, waiting a whole five seconds before I answer it so I don’t sound desperate.

“What?” I say into the mouthpiece, as if I’m particularly annoyed that he’d dare to call me.

Tonight had been their album launch at TRYST. It was insane—booze, flesh, fangirls, celebrity, and money, money, money. I’d definitely felt underdressed in jeans and a T-shirt and my lucky red Cons. I’d stayed only as long as I had to before coming back up to my room.

“Ali,” he slurs, sounding very drunk. Hinges squeal, and the thumping bass in the background eases a little. He must have walked into the bathroom. “Where are you?”

“In my hotel room. Where are you, Coop?”

“I don’t know.” He sighs. “Why are you alone, Ali-Cat?”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t get why you don’t have someone?” he slurs. “Why isn’t there a line of dudes camped outside your hotel room? Why did your arsehole boyfriend fuck another woman?”

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