F*cked Page 3

  “Different time,” Roman said. “Like I said. A lot of stuff changed. I’m clean. I mean it.”

  “Well…” Mary paused a long moment. “Sure. I believe you. People change, right?”

  “Right,” Roman said.

  And if he had any luck in the world, he intended to prove it. It was one thing to say that he was a different person. It was quite another to actually demonstrate that to someone. But he was better than that. He was smarter than that.

  And today, that was precisely what he was going to do. He just had to figure out what on earth they were actually going to do with that time.

  He hadn’t planned on anything untoward. Had he imagined it? Of course. There was no denying that even after almost ten years, his image of Mary as a sex goddess barely managed to match up to the woman herself.

  But it was a fantasy, and he knew it. He tried to make sure that his lower head knew it, too.

  Even if he knew they weren’t going to bed together, though… well, it wasn’t much of an itinerary. And if he couldn’t prove that he was worth her time, then it was strike three. Batter out. He’d go home, and Tommy might finally get his way and have a tour that ended somewhere other than the rust belt.

  But there was no way that he was going to just lay down and take it, not if he could do something about it. And he hoped to heaven that he could find a little bit of humanity to show her. He settled down into the hotel room sofa, and reached down for the lute. It sat across his lap comfortably, the neck propped up, and his fingers stretched a moment before wrapping around the neck.

  He had a lot of thinking to do, and it was always easier to think when he was doing something with his hands.

  Seven

  Mary had made plenty of bad decisions in the past. There was the first time that she ever did a line, for example. Every time that she made a bad decision, two things happened. First, before she ever did anything, she knew in her gut that it was a bad decision.

  Second, and more worrying, was that her bad decisions weren’t the sort that you regretted immediately. Nobody does a line of coke then immediately thinks ‘I’m sorry I did that.’

  Oh, they think it later. Hours later. But the first thought that she had when she did her first line was something like ‘I’m pretty sure I can survive a gunshot wound’ followed by ‘I can clean my whole room in ten minutes’ which was about as believable looking back.

  She had been lucky about the gunshot thing. She’d never been in a position to test it. But the room cleaning? It was unbelievable, but the clock backed her up. She felt like Superman and that was what every single person who had shown up at NA had a story like that. There’s more to the drug than the addiction that brings people back.

  It’s not until everything else starts falling apart that you start realizing how big a mistake you’ve made. And by then, you’re stuck tight in the trap because you didn’t bother trying to get out of it when you had the chance. You didn’t think it was a trap, no matter how many PSAs you saw.

  Going out to see Roman was a mistake. Staying under her real name and staying in Detroit was the mistake, but that was a long time ago, and nobody could really believe that some rock star was going to come looking for her. It beggared belief.

  It had happened. Which meant that it was a mistake not to tell him to leave and never come back. That NA meeting was an in for him. The coffee after was a mistake. It was an in for him. Calling him when she saw the television was a mistake. It was an in for him.

  This was about to be a mistake. The only thing that made her feel even a little bit better about it was the fact that no matter how big a mistake it was, it wasn’t the biggest mistake she’d ever made in her life, because this was a record time for feeling regret about her bad decisions.

  Which either meant that it was the worst one by far, like touching a hot stove is a Bad Idea that is so bad people learn the first time… or that it wasn’t quite the worst thing she’d ever done, because it wasn’t a trap like the others were.

  But then again, there was a trap in it, and she knew there was. It was the most insidious trap of all. A trap that was labeled ‘trap’ right on it. She felt like she was in control of the whole thing. And that meant that she felt prepared for it, and when she felt prepared, in a sense, she was at her most vulnerable. In spite of the supposed protection offered by knowing what she was walking into.

  She took a deep breath and then rapped her knuckles on the door. It was thick and heavy, like real wood, rather than a cheap torsion box like her doors at home. She heard the knob turning on the other side. The one on her side, though, stayed steady. Then the door opened, and Roman was standing in front of her.

  He’d showered, and just recently. His long hair looked like he’d shoved it back with his hands rather than using a brush. It was a better look for him than she was prepared to admit to his face.

  “Hey, you made it. Did you have trouble finding the place?”

  “The building is visible from my bedroom,” Mary said. She intended it to sound like it’s easy to find, but when the words came out of her mouth she realized that the bedroom connotations came out thicker than she meant.

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  “That’s what I meant by it,” Mary said. She could feel the blush on her face. “Well? Where are we going?”

  “For a little while, anyways, I thought we’d stay in.”

  “I thought you said no funny stuff?”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  “You weren’t a boy-scout,” Mary said matter-of-factly.

  “You think.”

  “I know. I was the president of the Michigan branch of your fan club for five years.”

  “Wow. So you’re quite qualified.”

  “I should hope so.”

  “Then you ought to know, just between us, that the PR information we put out—it’s bull. I’m a commodity, Mary. Same as any of my songs. I am who I have to be.”

  “Then why not just play it up that you’re a good boy turned bad?”

  “Who says I’m not?”

  “You just said—”

  “I told you. I am what I have to be. They didn’t want that, so I’m a bad boy turned bad.”

  He stepped away from the door. Mary’s gut told her to leave. Following him inside was a Bad Idea. She followed him in. The door closing behind her felt like it was sealing her fate.

  “Okay then, bad boy. What have you got for me?”

  “You have to promise not to laugh, miss President of the Fan Club.”

  “Just the Michigan chapter. Regional manager, really.”

  “So there’s someone out there who outranked you?”

  “Josie Parker,” Mary said. “She’s got a lisp.”

  “Josie Parker with a lisp, huh? Maybe I ought to call her up and get her in here, too. Maybe she would sass less.”

  “You’d be surprised. From the few phone calls I had with her, she sounded like she had sass enough for two.”

  “Which makes the two of you even, by my count,” he said. “Now, do you promise, or are we going to go buy some buffalo wings and spend the night on trivia?”

  “I can’t promise anything,” Mary said. “But I won’t laugh if I can help it.”

  “Okay,” he said. And then he settled down into his sofa with a long breath.

  “Okay what?”

  “Give me a minute.” The words weren’t quite snapped, but he sounded irritated by the question. She wasn’t sure she could blame him, per se. She’d been teasing, but she could see the anxiety on his face.

  Roman tapped his feet. And then he reached down by the couch and pulled something out. It looked something vaguely like an acoustic guitar. But there were enough differences that she couldn’t possibly have confused the two. For one thing, it had twice as many strings. For another, it was fat and short. It looked like, if he stretched, Roman could almost reach his fingers from the nut to the body in one span.

  “I’m still a little new with this
thing. I’ve only had it a few months, but it’s been a toy to play with. When I’m feeling a little stressed. It keeps my fingers fresh.”

  “What is it?”

  “Hold your questions ‘til the end. I didn’t, uh… spend too much time on this, but I composed something.

  “For me?”

  “Well, I mean. I don’t want to sound cheesy or whatever.”

  “Then let’s hear it. Then, when I’m done laughing—”

  He lifted it back out of his lap. “Look, the beer and wings and trivia offer is still open.”

  “I’m just kidding. Go on. I won’t laugh.”

  He settled it back into his lap. “Alright. Now I want you to appreciate, traditional music for this has names like I Long For Thy Virginity so you’ll excuse me on the title front—I’ve been toying with it for a day or two now, I’m not in a position to title it, and I happen to know that I Long For Thy Virginity 2 isn’t going to work for several reasons. That said…”

  And then, softly, he started to play. And she remembered what she’d always liked about Roman Townsend as a girl. The boy could play.

  Eight

  Roman pushed himself out of the empty bed. It was large enough to it him and three or four other people. Girls, generally, if he filled it. He’d lost the taste for that kind of morning a long time ago. But one girl might have been nice. Though, he didn’t know if she counted as a girl any more.

  He’d promised no funny stuff, and no funny stuff was what he’d stuck to. It was the best outcome, in some ways. All the morning regrets in the world didn’t really add up to squat compared to keeping his word at least once in his life.

  He looked at the clock. Eight. Jesus. It was too early. Yet, he knew that he’d probably slept later than most people. Later than Mary, he guessed. It didn’t make him feel any less tired. But he padded into the bathroom and set about showering regardless. It was the only thing there was to be done at that point, and it would help wake him up.

  He wanted to squash the rumor about a new album. It was on the horizon, but it was a long way on the horizon. He was going to give himself a month off this time. If he couldn’t get a month off, well… he’d talked about retiring before. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it.

  There was something about the road life that continued to call to him, though. He liked the energy. Liked the movement. And there was nothing to stop him continuing to keep it up. Nothing but his failing body, his flagging interest, and Mary Ayers.

  The notion occurred to him for the first time in a long time that he knew exactly how he could keep pushing. There was plenty of chemical assistance that would give him all the motivation in the world. He hated it. He’d always hated it, even when he used it. It squashed his creativity, made him feel… wrong.

  The shower turned on when he turned the knob all the way to the hottest setting. As he started to strip he took the phone out of his pocket, and turned it on. The screen was filled with notifications from a thousand different services. He clicked through them one after the other, trying his best to find anything of special interest.

  Twitter was filled with people asking about the new album. It was a hot rumor. According to Tommy, it sold the old records. That made sense, in a limited sort of way. But at the same time, didn’t everyone just use streaming services these days? Who bought albums? Particularly hard-copy?

  He set the phone back down. It was too tempting to try to get people to start actually listening to him. Too tempting to stop being Roman Townsend and show the world who Roman Townsend really was, after all these years. Twitter was a dangerous tool for a man living a double life. So he avoided it like the plague when he could.

  The water was scalding when he reached in to try it. He turned the cold up a little. There was a lot to think about. The number one being how he was going to convince Tommy to let him actually have the month off that he’d been promised.

  Even if Mary didn’t decide that he was exactly who she’d always believed that he was, actually having a break was a far cry from being told verbally that he would be given a break. The distinction was one that wasn’t lost on Roman’s manager, in spite of the fact that he continually promised that things would be different this time.

  Instead, it turned out that every time, it was just keep going five more minutes for the rest of his life. Eventually, he’d retire, and who knows what Tommy would do when that happened. Maybe he’d finally get married and let his nagging out on them. But that would require finding someone who could stand him long enough to stand at the end of the aisle.

  In that sense, at least, Tommy and Roman were made for each other. They pushed away anyone who got within a mile of each other except the other, and then only because they were both too stubborn to tell the other to sit and spin.

  Roman hated the schedule but loved the money, in theory at least. Tommy hated the fact that Roman appeared not to be a golden goose, but in fact a person with real feelings. Or at least, a very convincing facsimile of a real person with real feelings. It was something that Tommy couldn’t understand. After all—he managed to be a robot without any trouble. Couldn’t everyone?

  The water was still screaming hot when Tommy stepped under the spout. But it felt good, so even though it stung, he left it. Who cared what it did to his skin? Everything else he did ruined his skin worse. What was a little hot water going to do that ten years of sleeping three hours a night didn’t do?

  He was almost finished when his phone actually started to ring, rather than the gentle buzz of the world going on around him and reminding him every two minutes that he answered to it.

  And it wasn’t a call he could ignore, in spite of the fact that he sorely wanted to. He let out a long breath, rinsed what remained of the soap on his arms, turned the water off and reached out in time to catch the call just before he missed it entirely.

  “What do you want?”

  “Roman? Bad time?”

  “Always,” he growled. Tommy ignored the tone just like he always did, and always would.

  “I’ve got a producer lined up and a studio booked for tomorrow, and Sony’s offering a ten-thou bonus if you get started on this thing sooner rather than later. I told them you’d think about it, but I know what you’re going to say.”

  “No?”

  Tommy’s voice was low and lecturing. “I know you better than that, Roman. Now come on. We’ve got to go over these lyrics before we can start recording tomorrow. I’m in the lobby. Five minutes.”

  Roman sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. “Five minutes. Yeah. Let me get dressed.”

  Nine

  Mary struggled to keep her focus on the page in front of her. It was attractively full of text. But she was three hundred words short, and while that should have only meant another six or seven minutes, if she were working hard and working fast, it was coming out like pulling teeth.

  Three hundred words might be three hundred hours, and she didn’t have that kind of time to finish her blog post for the day. Never mind three hundred hours, she didn’t have three hours. She barely had one, and the time on the clock continued to click down as her mind wandered and her heart pounded in her chest.

  She was over her old life. She’d gotten past it. Finished it off. It was a whole lot of bad stuff that just wanted her life to stay bad. Wanted her to stay bad. And for a while, she had wanted to listen to it. Why should things ever get better?

  Well, there was one good thing that came out of that part of her life. Peter needed her. She needed him. And instead of letting all the bad stuff drag her down, she let that little baby inside her drag her up.

  She’d escaped, and she left all the bad stuff behind her. Her whole life was built around Pete, making sure that she was always there for him, and making sure that she could pull as many people out of the places that she’d been as she could. There wasn’t much else that she could ask for from herself or from God.

  Up to this point, she’d done that. Her life was good and it was working ou
t, on the whole, better than expected. She’d built a little life out of being able to talk to people about how to solve their problems. She’d written four or five books, which sold well enough to keep her and Pete fed. She ran a fairly successful web site targeting recovering addicts, which ensured that when number six came out, it would continue to sell well enough to keep her clothed.

  All in all, everything worked out well enough that she didn’t have to worry. She was happy with her life. Happy with how things had gone in it.

  Which was why the events of the last two days were making her head pound like she was coming down off a three-day coke binge and hadn’t really bothered eating anything in that time. She knew a panic attack when it was coming, and she was about to fall off the edge. She needed to call Cara. That was the first step, wasn’t it?

  We admitted we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.

  Maybe there was nothing that Cara could do for her. It had been years since they’d done more than email. Because Mary had her life under control, and Cara had her own problems. Everyone in NA did.

  But it was starting to feel out of control, and she needed to talk to someone about it. Everyone in the group was worse-off than her. She was supposed to be strong by comparison to them. She was supposed to know what was going on. They looked to her for guidance.

  She closed her eyes and looked at the post. It was long. But she had something more important to talk about today, and she knew better than to think that she was going to call Cara. She had her own problems, and Mary hadn’t called her sooner because she’d already learned how to cope.

  Cara wasn’t going to tell her anything new. She just needed to get the thoughts out. The fears and everything. And she had a platform to talk to thousands of people who understood her in the same way that Cara did.

  She let out a breath and deleted the whole thing. Her fingers started moving. It was easier this time, at least. The words smashed across the page. And she purged the fears that she was feeling. A thousand words flashed by. Twelve hundred and she was feeling alright. It was fast. Twenty minutes or so.