3. Hendrix
Chapter 3
Hendrix
“ W ake up!” Arlo landed like a rocket on the bed, making me instantly regret consciousness. I had barely drunk last night, though the hit of whatever Gary, our manager, had given me to stay upright before I had gotten down and dirty probably wasn’t helping my headache. Fleeting dreams had chased me through the night, hints and teases of pleasure, the faint scent of lilac clinging to my sheets when I woke.
“Did you abandon the VIP section to fuck a groupie?”
I buried my face in the blankets, rooting around for more of that floral scent. “Fuck, Arlo. I don’t know. I usually do.”
“You missed so many cuties.”
I groaned and sat up, knowing he wasn’t going to leave me be. “I found my own. I think.”
“You think ? Did you scramble your brain?”
With a sigh, I pulled one of the blankets over my head and wore it like a cape to muffle his voice a bit.
A soft moan from the floor drew our attention, and a perky blonde beta sat up, looking sleepy. Blonde felt wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.
“Did you roll off the bed, darling?” Arlo asked.
“I guess so.” She got to her feet, staring between Arlo and me. “Could you sign my tits?”
I wanted to tell her to get out, so I could nurse my headache in peace. Instead, I pasted on a smile. “Sure thing. Got a Sharpie?”
She grinned and bent over, giving us a generous view of her ass while she rooted around in what I assumed was her purse on the floor before popping up and handing the marker to me. I scrawled my autograph across one tit before passing the marker to Arlo for him to do the same on the other.
“Thanks!”
“No problem.” Arlo passed her a couple twenties from his wallet. “Get home safe.”
Arlo was much better at politely telling her to get the fuck out.
The beta frowned, but pulled on her discarded clothing and tottered out of the tour bus on her sky-high heels.
Beta felt wrong too. The scent on my sheets whispered omega , but clearly the drugs had done a better job of fucking with my brain than I’d thought. With a sigh, I flopped back, but Arlo’s face invaded my vision again.
“Nope. Breakfast time. Phin tracked down the kick-assiest donut shop I’ve ever seen, and I need to consume .”
I groaned. Food would probably help, but the thought of sugar right now made me want to hurl. With any luck, there was a source of coffee nearby. And bacon. I was fucking wrung out. Why did it feel like I’d run a marathon? The shows were always intense, but I usually coped fine. Maybe that beta had been super freaky and I’d simply forgotten. What a waste…
Arlo snapped his fingers in front of my nose. “Let’s go . I’m starving.”
Begrudgingly, I dressed in fresh clothes. I’d kill for a shower right now but knew Arlo wouldn’t be that patient.
God. Why was the outside world so fucking bright? We were in Seattle. Where were the clouds? I was going to freckle at this rate.
We met the others in the hotel lobby, everyone dressed to blend in with plain clothing, baseball hats, and sunglasses. Sometimes that gave us away, but today it actually worked, with the blazing sky ball peeking through the clouds.
Phineas sidled up to me with a lazy grin. “Fun night?”
“I can only assume.”
Phin barked a laugh. “Shit, man, you’ve gotta try something lighter.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
“And we’ll keep doing that until you decide to listen.” Beckett kicked me in the ass, enough to make me stumble, but not enough to hurt.
“Becks, please . I’m fucking delicate right now.”
“You only get my sympathy when it’s not your own fault.”
I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest. They found me coffee on the way, and I sipped at it like it might bring me back to life. Security would be trailing behind us, unseen by the general population in case we were noticed, but otherwise, it was nice to have some space to breathe where it was only the four of us.
Arlo and Phin ate the donut shop out of house and home. I nursed a maple bacon concoction in the shade outside, Beckett standing sedately by my side while he polished off two donuts himself.
“You usually recover faster than this,” he commented. “You’re turning into an old man.”
Flashing my middle finger at him was the only outward acknowledgment I gave to the statement. Inwardly, it stirred up my anxiety. I had turned twenty-seven last month and couldn’t get it out of my head that I was going to join that long line of musicians and actors who had ended up six feet under when they hit that age. It was hard not to think about when I was already named after someone in that dreaded club.
Too many incredible lives snuffed out before their time. From the first second we had tasted fame, I had worried I would be one of them, and every day that I had marched closer to hitting twenty-seven had shoved me further down the slope, making me turn to anything and everything to tame the panic.
“Hey.” Beckett nudged me, his voice soft. “Talk to me.”
I shook my head, chugging my coffee instead. Talking wouldn’t make any difference. Beckett would be twenty-seven himself soon, but he wasn’t one to spiral over it.
He sighed and sipped his own drink. “Bottling shit up isn’t going to help you.”
“There’s plenty of room left in this bottle before it’s at risk of exploding. Don’t worry.”
“Have I told you lately that you’re infuriating?”
“You have! Yesterday, in fact. Feels like a new personal record for you to have waited a whole twenty-four hours before telling me again.”
Beckett snorted.
Arlo and Phineas slid out of the little shop with a box clutched to each of their chests.
“Road snacks!” Arlo announced.
Beckett forced a green smoothie on me before we made it back to the bus. I tried to strategically toss it in the trash, but Phin had his eye on me. I choked it down out of necessity, trying to keep control over my churning gut while I did so. I knew my body would appreciate the nutrients, but my tongue absolutely did not.
“Big baby.” Beckett tutted. “You’re gonna have to behave on the next leg of the tour.”
We were headed to Singapore in a few hours, and we’d have to make sure all our good shit stayed here. I was not going to risk going to prison over there. Gary would feed me into a wood chipper if that happened.
That man was a saint. He had discovered our band when we were still in high school. By happenstance, his mother lived across the street from my place, and he had been visiting her during one of our practices, saw the potential we had, and offered to represent us. I knew he was probably disappointed in the man I had become, much like I was sure my dad would be if he were still around to see it. I tried to make it up to Gary, at least. I attended every practice, gave 110 percent at every show, and personally paid for him to go visit his mom whenever he wanted. That probably wasn’t anywhere near enough, considering how much wrangling he had to do, but it was all I could give him right now, outside of the killer commission.
He was waiting for us when we arrived, tapping his foot impatiently. “You’re supposed to tell me when you disappear.”
“We had security with us,” Arlo pointed out.
“Not good enough. Pack up whatever you need from the bus. We’ll be heading to the airport in an hour.”
I clambered into the bus and went straight for the bedroom, falling face-first onto the sheets. Lilac and…rose? But not regular rose. It was lighter. I huffed in the scent and let out a squawk when Arlo landed on top of me.
“That does not look like packing.”
“Fuck off. I’m gathering my strength.”
The bus was a hive of activity, and I squirmed away from Arlo, rolling straight off the bed and landing with a thump. There was a little white sock on the floor by my head. That definitely didn’t fit any of us. The beta had probably left it, but when I moved it, I caught a hint of that floral scent again and brought it to my nose.
“Jesus.” Phineas laughed. “Did you develop a foot fetish overnight?”
I threw the sock back to the floor. “No.”
Can’t fucking do anything in peace on this goddamn bus. Okay, maybe sniffing abandoned socks was a little weird, but in my defense, it was a really good-smelling sock.
I packed up my things while my head throbbed and the caffeine worked its way through my system. I glanced over at Phin. “You gonna make it without all your devil’s lettuce?”
He laughed. “Fucking dork. It’s legal in Thailand now. I can survive for a while.”
Of course he would know that. None of the shit I did was legal anywhere. Beckett and Arlo only drank and smoked occasionally with Phin. Besides that, they were pretty goody-two-shoes about intoxicants, leaving me to fulfill the rock star stereotype all by myself.
It was a heavy burden to carry, but someone had to do it.