Page 45 of Hey Girl
“Chris! I heard you took lead on vocals tonight! And you wrote the song? Are you going to record it?”
“What inspired you? Is it the woman you have with you tonight? What’s her name?”
I didn’t hear Chris answer any of the questions. I attempted a smile as Chris suggested, but didn’t direct it at anyone andinstead kept my gaze focused on the path ahead of us as I clung to his arm.
Now that we’re inside, I cling to it still while I wage a battle in my brain over how to conduct myself.
Hide behind hair - no. Stare straight ahead - no! Smile like Chris said - oh God I probably look like a shrew.
Chris grips my hand in his as he leads me up a winding staircase, and while the music still pounds through the speakers, we’re let into an area that seems monumentally tamer. There are fewer people, including the friendly faces of the band and their wives I’m getting familiar with.
There’s a few comfy looking couches and Chris leads me to one that’s not too far from the balcony that overlooks the raving dance floor below. I feel instantly better. It’s like I’m able to exist in this world without having to be immersed in it or forced to participate. I can just be, and observe.
“How about a blow job?” Chris plops down on the plushy cushion next to me.
Okay… or maybe it’s exactly like the movies.
“Here?” I ask, my blood pressure picking back up.
“I mean the shot, you goober!” Chris laughs and leans in to give me a small kiss like it’s the most natural thing in the world. When he straightens back up, he waves his hand in the air, and a waitress in a tank dress and a sleek ponytail moseys over, and once I find out there’s Baileys in this magical, obscenely named shot, I must have it, and order a white Russian to boot.
After thirty or forty minutes - I’m really not sure - of basically drinking spiked chocolate milk I’m feeling gooood. My raging anxiety hasn’t disappeared but it’s definitely dulled. I can’t believe I’m at a celebrity afterparty, and no one’s had to call the paramedics. I can’t get over the progress I’ve made since meeting my delicious drummer who pestered his way into my life.
Feeling confident and a little sly, I swing one of my jean-clad legs over his lap followed by the other and he welcomes it, hugging my legs and tucking them in close.
“Hey, look who’s getting comfy and having a good time.” He smiles endearingly and I let my chin rest on his shoulder to keep my head from swimming.
“Well, you didn’t give me much of a choice,” I reply, mocking a stern tone, slightly distracted by how big and unwieldy my tongue feels in my mouth. Like, more than usual but oddly in a more manageable way.
“What can I say, I see something I want,” he draws out the last word, hugging my legs closer.
Out of nowhere, a tall dark shadow darkens our happy bubble, in the form of a tall and rather muscular raven-haired goddess. Seriously, she’s intimidating and beautiful - and intimidatingly beautiful - and I’d probably do her if I swung that way.
With her hands on her hips, she glares menacingly down at me like she wants to punch me in the throat.
Nevermind, I don’t want to do her, she’s scary.
“Oh…shit..” Chris laments in a foreboding tone as he gazes up at her with wide terrified eyes. Not pulling them away, he fishes in his back pocket. When he produces his cell phone, he tears his eyes away from the Greek goddess to look at the screen.
“Sixteen missed calls?” He exclaims. “Dammit! Curse this place and their loud music and pounding bass! I didn’t even feel my ass vibrating!”
I seriously don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. Or what’s happening. It’s like I’m in some cracked out dream where nonsensical things happen like, Xena the Warrior princess shows up and your boyfriend is freaking out about missed calls.
“Seriously?!” Xena speaks and I half expect the room to shake, and then she nods at me without taking her eyes off my man. “Her?!”
“Her?!” I point up at her before leaning into Chris and drunkenly murmuring. “Who is her? And what are we talking about?”
“She’s … my ex,” he says out of the corner of his mouth, his teeth locked together as if he’s trying not to startle a T-Rex. “It’s been over since last year, but she’s… having a little trouble accepting it and all that.”
Oh.
Now sober Rebecca would shrink like a shriveling daisy under a heat lamp when she realized this is what she was competing with. But drunk Rebecca apparently gives no fucks. Especially when the meanie gets even meaner.
“You’d seriously fuck a mouse in Dahmer glasses instead of me!” She spits out in a statement rather than a question and I pull my legs from Chris’s grasp and shoot to my feet.
Whoa. I sway a little until my elevator reaches the top.
“Hey!” I shout and hold my finger up at her. “I’m not a killer cannibal man! And my glasses look nothing like Dahmer’s! They’re trendy as fuck and I’m not even wearing them right n-now!”