Six
Carter
T here was a naked girl in my bed.
As if my night couldn’t get any more fucked-up.
She was smiling up at me, her eyes shining beneath her fake eyelashes.
What the fuck?
I frowned, confused. Was I in the wrong room? No. I couldn’t have been. My shit was everywhere.
“Who are you?” I demanded, wondering for a moment if a fan had actually bypassed our security team. That would have been a first successful attempt since we’d started touring, and a little impressive too.
“Tiana,” she answered, attempting to put on a sultry tone, but in my alcohol-muddled brain, it sounded like nails on a chalkboard.
“Tiana,” I repeated, before asking, “How did you get in here?”
“Jared.”
Ah, now things were clicking together.
Fucking Jared, trying to break my dry spell. I didn’t need pussy at the moment. I needed something harder, something that could ease this tension inside my chest.
“Come on, Car,” she purred, gesturing to the bed. “You can have me any way you want me.”
Car. Why was she calling me Car ? Why would anyone call me Car ?
My cock shuddered in dismay as she spread her legs wide. Fuck no , it was telling me. Even that fucker had standards. I didn’t do one-night stands. I didn’t know what these girls were carrying, and I’d heard way too many horror stories to want to take a dip inside that kind of petri dish of mystery.
I wasn’t that horny teenager I used to be, willing to take on any girl to pass my time. After Leah, I needed at least some kind of familiarity with the person I was fucking, which was the reason why I currently had an epic case of blue balls.
Those girls were far and few.
Those girls became regrets.
Those girls weren’t her.
“It’s not going to happen, sweetheart,” I told her adamantly, making sure my voice was laced with sweetness so she didn’t fucking combust. Some people were unpredictable, and I didn’t want her to crumble and have it come back to bite me in the ass in some tabloid story.
“What?” She was in disbelief, before adding in a wounded tone, “But Jared said I was perfect. He said… I looked like your type.”
She looked like my type?
I took a step closer, hoping I’d see her clearly. Her hair was blonde, her body was small, her skin sun-kissed—
I nearly sighed, knowing exactly what Jared was getting at. He wanted her to look close enough to Leah. And she did look like her in a very generic way, but for some reason, my body wasn’t cooperating.
“Come on,” she cooed, running her fingers down the side of her body.
When you read about a band slaying countless groupies, I’m not sure you realize how unbelievably accurate that reality is. The girls came in endless supply, and Jared and Leo were loving that shit.
Me? Not so much.
“I’ll be good for you, Car.”
I winced. “Stop calling me Car, alright? I’m not an automobile.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Just—”
“I’m just excited. I love you. Not you as a person, but you as, like, a singer and—”
“I’m not looking to get laid tonight,” I cut in.
In fact, the number one endless supply I needed at the moment was alcohol.
Lots of it.
She sagged into the mattress in shock. “But…I don’t understand.”
“It’s not you.”
“I’m naked!”
“I can see that.” Oh, fuck, could I see that.
“Don’t I look good?”
“You look very good.”
“I work out every day.”
I nodded, repeating, “I can see that.”
“And you don’t want this?”
“No.”
“Did you fuck someone already? I can wait until you can get it up again.”
Jesus. “The answer isn’t going to change, darling.”
“Are you gay?”
I froze. “What?”
She studied me closely. “Are you gay? Because I don’t understand.”
“So not having sex with you means I’m gay?”
“It’s just strange.”
“No, I’m not gay,” I icily retorted.
Her cheeks heated. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you angry, it’s just—”
“I think you should go,” I cut her off impassively, my patience depleted.
“As in now? Or after we fuck?”
Irritated, I exhaled. “I’m not going to fuck you, Tiana, so there’s your answer. Just go.”
Before she could say anything else, I left the room in a hurry. I disappeared inside the bathroom and leaned over the sink, resting my palms along the edges.
Are you gay?
I sighed and shook my head. Pretty reasonable question, admittedly. The girl was naked—looked damn good naked, too—and my dick was limp as a wet rag!
Jared.
I was going to murder him. Tear him limb from limb. Cut his dick off and make him eat that shit. The audacity that he’d let a girl into my hotel room. How did he manage it? Probably got another key card from the front desk, the proficient fucker that he was.
She looks like Leah. A voice inside of me said, tempting me. You can pretend—
I stared at the door, part of me wondering if I should overstep my boundaries just this once. Could I truly pretend it was her? My cock stirred at the thought of being with Leah, and it stirred even more pretending for half a beat that the girl inside that room was her—
But it was too late. I heard the sound of the door shutting and I knew she was gone. It was probably for the best, even though that itch for release was burning me on the inside.
You need to take care of it. Or else you’ll be a fucking douchebag asshole to everyone tomorrow.
I shut my eyes instead and unzipped my jeans, pulling them down. Breathing unsteadily, I palmed my cock and tried for a moment to envision her. I didn’t like to think of Leah to get there; when it came to her, that pain and pleasure was bittersweet, but I needed it.
I needed her to help me out.
I needed that spark to drive me home.
It never ended well after I came thinking of her. Because the feelings quickly mutated to pain, but…
Undeniably, I’d gone cross-eyed with lust. My dick needed to shut the fuck up, until I found another fling, someone decent, someone better than clingy Molly and her crazy antics. Someone with a pure heart—
But fuck, I didn’t want to hurt anyone, either.
I needed to remain alone.
Opening my eyes, I imagined Leah was in front of me. I imagined grabbing a fistful of her hair, soft and yellow, the strands slipping through my fingertips. I imagined her breasts, small and round, her nipples pink and puckered, her waist tiny, her skin tanned and soft. I groaned, surprised by the incredible adrenaline fizzing beneath my skin as I jacked off. Her body never once bored me. Every time I took her, it had felt better than the last.
"I want to fuck you so bad," I groaned, pretending she was spread open before me now. "I want to slam into that sweet pussy, hear you groan in my fucking ear, make you break from my cock as you come for me, Leah."
I could practically hear her moans in the air around me. My breaths came out harder as my cock hardened impossibly.
I wondered what she looked like now; I hated that I didn’t know and that everyone wanted to keep it that way.
Jesus, I craved her.
I craved the taste of her.
Why did you let her go?
I finally felt that God almighty spark from within. I could almost feel it; her pussy tightening around me as she moaned in my ear, convulsing. Crying out my name from out of those plump little lips. The image in my head was hot enough to send me over the edge.
For a split second, it was a clear vision of Leah beneath me, and I came hard. So hard, I felt aftershocks.
It was a brilliant feeling.
Cathartic.
A gentle bliss humming through my body, warming me with pleasure.
And then—just like I anticipated—I felt alone and empty all over again.
At least you didn’t fuck the groupie.
Yeah, but I came all over the sink, and I wasn’t necessarily quiet about it.
What sought after singer in a famous band masturbated when minutes prior a naked girl was ten feet away, inviting him inside her?
Some would say I was fucked up.
I’d like to think I was jaded.
I rinsed the sink and tucked myself back in my pants before getting out of the bathroom. I was still panting from exertion when I fell into the bed, numbly staring up at the ceiling as my heart began to calm down and the white noise settled in.
Alone, again.
Always alone at the end of the night.
Which was a little fucked-up considering I’d been around thousands of people just hours ago. My life was consumed by people in general. Fans left and right. Assholes with cameras. Parties at mansions and chicks clawing to get their fingers into me. It was a never-ending roller coaster ride, and all I wanted to do at the end of a long night was hop off the ride, drink some beer, and watch a little television with someone that mattered.
Mattered.
For a man that did whatever he could growing up to hide his emotions, now all I wanted to do was pour them out of me to someone that mattered .
Could you believe this shit?
Singing helped. Being on-stage with the guys was a life-saver. It made me lose myself in words that mattered . It made me feel alive . But tonight was different. Tonight…
I thought I saw her in the crowd.
I felt it.
I felt something .
I thought—
I’m going crazy.
It was obvious my desperation for having Leah back in my life was fucking with my head. I’d been cold on the inside the second I left her standing on the side of the street, tears falling from her eyes as she’d stared longingly at me fading away in the distance.
I’d been regretting leaving her every second after that. I consoled myself for a while that she needed her space. I couldn’t descend on her life again and tear it apart. I wanted to—but I was aware I’d fucked with her emotions, wrung them dry, made her feel a pain I truly did not intend to cause.
I consumed myself in music as an attempt to distract myself from her, and for a little while, it worked.
But I wanted her.
I wanted more .
The feeling had come to me so violently months after I’d left. The clarity was sharp as a blade, piercing me hard the day I got a call.
“Your father’s passed away,” said my uncle Joe on the other end. “He had a heart attack this morning.”
The world stopped spinning.
I had gripped that phone so tight, I could hear it stressing in my hand. My vision swam, and suddenly my life felt like a fucking chasm filled with regrets.
I’d never get the chance to tell him I was sorry.
With my permission, the family decided to cremate him. He stayed at my grandmother’s house, a woman I’d barely seen in my life. In fact, I hardly, if at all, knew any of them. They were just people my dad had spoken about in passing.
I didn’t come from a lovey-dovey close-knit family, and I never attended their “Celebration of Life” memorial, deciding instead not to confront his passing. That was around the time I started to lose myself, and being alone without Leah’s voice, warmth, presence—it made that chasm of regret fester with unspoken words.
I had been wanting her back since, and all everyone around me wanted to do was keep us apart. Telling me she needed a break. That I had destroyed her, and she wouldn’t survive another heartbreak. As if already damning me, assuming I’d make her go through that bullshit again.
It was guilt that kept me away, and what I’d become… who I was now since I’d left her…
No.
She couldn’t be with me like this.
Her entire world would be flipped upside down. I needed out of the spotlight first. Needed the fame to die down so I could re-join the human fucking race without looking like a yellow highlighter in a sea of dull colours. I needed to blend in. Fuck, I longed for the day we faded to black.
At this point, it was an eternity away, and then some.
And what would she do in that time? What had she done with all this space? Moved on? Fucked someone that wasn’t me—
The thought of her wrapped around another made me grit my teeth with anger and sadness.
Yeah, I was sad, and maybe she wasn’t.
She’s close right now, you know you can see her—
My phone vibrated on the nightstand just then, disrupting my thoughts. I grabbed it, needing a distraction, and checked the message sent by Rome.
Carter, there’s been a change of plans.
I didn’t respond and shut my eyes instead.
Whatever plans he had to change could wait until tomorrow.
Right now—
Right now I needed sleep.
And hopefully I wouldn’t wake up in the dead of night, reaching out into the darkness in a hopeless attempt to rewind that fucking clock.