Page 12 of Revel
“Maybe we should just take another car?” I ask, looking to Bella and feeling incredibly uncomfortable sitting here in his presence.
Her mouth opens, her eyes flashing with a “hell no” response and then flicker to Cruz, then back to me.
It’s behind me I hear the scoff, then the rough words of, “Why? Don’t think you can keep your virgin hands off me?”
Whipping my head around, I glare at the voice, the man who is constantly pushing my limits for no reason at all. And then, I blurt out quite possibly the most naïve response I could have said. “I’m not having sex with you.”
Shut up, Taylan. Just shut. Up.
Color heats my cheeks, and I want so badly to slap my hand against my mouth.
Revel’s throaty rasping laughter fills the space between us, deep and delicious, sending a pulse of awareness to the traitorous parts of me that disagree wholeheartedly with my last statement. “I feel safer now. I can keep my virginity,” Revel adds, just to piss me off.
Hensley makes her way onto the bus next, the door closing behind her. Damn it. Why is she here? I know the rumors. I despise the rumors and in part, I’m curious if they’re true. Did she sleep with my dad? Had he really seen something in her that could destroy twenty-five years of marriage to my mother? I can’t wrap my head around it. How could he? How could she? She cheated on Revel and looking at that guy, she must have been out of her mind. Or coming to her senses that he’s freaking crazy.
She doesn’t acknowledge me once she’s on the bus. Instead, she moves to sit on Hardin’s lap, her eyes on Revel’s. The tension is unbelievable. You can feel it radiating from everyone. All we need now is Breckin and my dad, and it’d surely be the worst experience ever.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Revel asks in his famous gravelly baritone, glaring a sinister smile Hensley’s way.
Mine and Bella’s eyes snap to hers, then his. Whoa. I don’t think I ever want to be on the receiving end of that look.
Cliff, who’d been standing by the door with security, moves between Revel and Hensley who are only feet apart. He motions for Hensley to move to the other couch across from us and no longer sitting on Hardin’s lap. “That’s enough. No talking between you two.” Sighing, he runs his hand through his thick black hair, looking around the bus as if he’s thinking of drawing lines between people. “This is going to be a disaster.”
“I agree,” Revel announces, lighting a cigarette. He rubs his hand along his stubbly jaw, focusing his weary gaze on everyone but me. “Drop me off in Vegas.”
Cliff takes Revel’s cigarette and tosses it in the sink. “We’re not going that way.”
“Bummer.”
Cliff points to Hensley. “Don’t talk to him. At all.”
“Yeah, don’t talk to me,whore,” Revel mumbles, holding his cell phone up and placing earbuds in his ears.
She disregards his anger, or completely ignores it. Crossing her arms over her small chest, Hensley rolls her eyes. I don’t think I ever realized how tiny Hensley is. While I’m about 5’ 7”, I think Hensley’s barely 5’ 2”. No wonder she always looked so tiny compared to Revel and the rest of the band she’s been constantly photographed with over the years.
Anxiety gnaws at me when I think of her and the rumors that surround her and my dad. I just. . . I can’t even comprehend, to begin to understand, or have the guts to ask her about it.
SHE’S OFF LIMITS
REVEL
Revved just came off a worldwide tour where we hadn’t been in the States for close to a year. In that time, life changed for me. Again. Remember when I said that first tour when I was seventeen changed me? This change was different. It was the end of relationships. My manager, girlfriend, brother. . . all changed in a matter of a year.
I don’t want to think about it. In fact, I won’t. I’ll do anything not to think about it. I’ll take anything: drugs, alcohol, anything. Somewhere along the way, it became normal to use Adderall, coke, AMBIEN. Anything and everything was at my disposal. As with most people in my industry, they get sick of everything around them, including themselves, and being high and oblivious is the only way to deal with it. I didn’t want to stay awake, yet I feared sleep just as much.
I don’t want to talk about my brother dying a month ago. I know, just sorta tossed that one in there for you, but to be fair, I didn’t know Grant. Not like I know my other brothers. In fact, I can’t tell you a goddamn thing about Grant other than he had hard blue eyes marred with disapproval, and hardly ever smiled. As a child, I feared him, knowing I was simply a burden for him. An appendage he didn’t want.
I don’t want to talk about my parents dying when I was four and not having a single memory of them.
I don’t want to talk about my childhood and being called an orphan. The other kids around town knew I was this crazy fucker who never left music class. Truth is, I knew I was going to be someone someday. There was never a doubt in my mind.
I don’t want to talk about the sickening feeling I experienced knowing the one person I trusted the most betrayed me. I don’t want to tell you about the ugly details and the better part of me that doesn’t think I can get over it. I know the unrelenting dragon on my back refuses to let her have the last word. As an artist, a man, I want a reaction.
I also don’t know where I was when negotiations or any talk of this tour was done, but I’m beginning to think maybe I should have paid attention. More than likely, I was in the room. At least, my body was while my mind was somewhere I would rather be. Anywhere but inthatroom. Probably had something to do with the flask in my pocket, but whatever.Ithink I’m a highly functional drunk. There are a ton of people who would probably disagree with this, including my liver, but you know, my liver and me have an understanding you know nothing about.
This tour, to me, it’s bullshit because I’m surrounded byeveryoneI don’t want to deal with. I can’t fucking stand looking at Hensley. She makes me sick. Breckin, fuck that pitch-correcting motherfucker. And Taylan, or Red as I like to refer to her, she’s related to the one man I’d like to murder.
I do, however, love performing. It’s an out-of-body experience that no drug can provide, a high I can’t explain accurately, other than it’s damn near as good as sex. Not quite, but a similar satisfaction.
