Page 26 of Songbird: Black Kite
Hawk
Sixteen Years Ago
“No!Stop.Justfuckingstop!” I hollered, throwing my hands in the air in frustration. “What the fuck was that?”
The ringing silence that followed my question hung in striking contrast to the horrific noise that had just filled the studio where we were attempting to record something that could be called an album.
To say it wasn’t going well was a goddamn understatement.
“Get off my fuckin’ case, man,” Lewis said, rolling his eyes. “That was fine.”
“Fine?” I stared at him, my jaw rigid with tension. “Since when is fine how we do things?”
“It was how we did things on the last album, and we sold the shit out of that,” he retorted, shrugging. “Don’t know why you’re suddenly so uptight about this shit.”
“How ’bout we take a break?” Alex cut in, pushing his hand through his hair.
“That’s a great fuckin’ idea.” Lifting the strap over his head, Lewis removed his bass and set it roughly into the stand before storming toward the studio door. “I need a smoke anyway.”
After he was gone, Alex turned to me, a look of sympathy on his face.
“He’s just testing you, man.”
“Yeah, well, he needs to cut that shit out.”
“You know why he’s doing it.”
I did. He was doing it because I was still doing her.
Not that Tori and I were athingor anything; she knew the score. I still lived my life like I always had, with eager groupies who were down to fuck wherever I went, but somehow, I had fallen into a pattern of fucking Tori more often than I would have ever imagined.
At first, it was just to piss Lewis off, which I was clearly still doing. But after a while, it stopped even being about him. It was more that she was just alwaysthere. That was a shitty thing to think, but it was the truth.
Victoria Castor was inside this crazy machine with us, and for good or bad, she knew how things worked, what was demanded of me and my time, and when I needed to let off steam.
So we fucked when the mood struck, and that was it.
Fuck, that wasn’t it for her, though.
I could see it, the looks she gave me when she thought I wasn’t watching. The way she worked extra hard to be where I was, to be standing by my side, ready to offer anything I needed, whether it was a coffee, a smoke, or her ready pussy.
The woman was at my beck and call, and I found myself taking advantage of it even when I knew I shouldn’t.
The thing was, she was comfortable, and for a lot of my life, comfort was something I was sorely lacking.
It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair to her, but those were the facts.
Unfortunately, Lewis didn’t seem to like the arrangement very much at all, and he was getting more and more vocal about it.
“What does he want from me, man?” I said, reaching into the mini fridge in the booth and snagging three beers. I threw myself onto the worn leather couch in the corner of the room, Alex sitting at the other end and Gavin taking up the chair across from us. “I can’t make her like him more than me. I’m not sure she likes me all that much anyway.” Taking a drink, I considered my own words. “More like she’s into theideaof me.”
“That’s probably true,” Gavin said, lifting his beer bottle in my direction. “Because the real you kinda sucks.”
I covered my smile by taking a drink and just flipped him off.
“For real though, Hawk. That woman is gonna tear this band apart.”
“Nah,” I said, but I had a sinking feeling that he might be right. “She’s harmless. Her daddy wouldn’t let her do anything to damage his cash cow. Lewis just needs to move on.”
