Rock All Night

5




We walked from the elevator into a luxurious hallway lined with works of art. Miles had already disappeared through an open doorway at the end; I could hear a young woman’s voice laughing and chatting loudly in the next room, along with a few thumps and crashes from a drum set.

There was some sort of brief conversation, including a few explosive phrases in a British accent, and then a familiar face met us at the door.

Ryan.

Except radically different from how I remembered him.

He was just as tall, but now he had longer, shaggier hair that was perfectly tousled and styled. His face was leaner, with more pronounced cheekbones, and he sported a couple days’ worth of fashionable stubble. He wore high-end jeans, pointed-toe leather shoes, a black t-shirt with the union   Jack and pictures of four band members on it, a fancy leather jacket, and a small rawhide necklace that looked like he’d picked it up surfing in South America or on some other exotic adventure.

My first thought was, Damn, Ryan got CUTE.

My second thought was, Shanna would be so jealous of me now.

“Kaitlyn?” he said, a huge smile on his face.

“Ryan!” I exclaimed.

He held out his arms and hugged me tight.

I’d forgotten how good a hugger he was.

After I pulled away, he laughed in delight. “It’s been awhile!”

“It’s good to see you.”

“Let me look at you.” He held my hand and twirled me around like we were dancing. “Beautiful as always.”

All his old shyness was gone.

My third thought was, Wow, Ryan got some game.

“You look even more handsome,” I said.

“Well, you only saw me during that awkward high school phase,” he grinned.

It hadn’t been that awkward; he was still cute back then.

But, compared with how he looked now, he had definitely come into his own.

“Yeah, yeah… you two lovebirds can catch up later,” Derek said mildly. “She should meet Killian and Riley.”

“True. Come on, let me introduce you to the other half of the band,” Ryan said, offering me his arm. I took it, and he led me inside the penthouse.

It was absolutely beautiful – a gigantic room with a 30-foot-long wall of glass that looked out over Sunset Boulevard – but that’s not what hit me the hardest as I entered the room.

It was the smell.

The scent of pot was so thick in the air that it was like walking into a Christmas tree lot on December 21st. Except it was cannabis instead of pine.

I coughed a little.

Ryan looked down at me sympathetically. “I hope you don’t have to pass any drug tests anytime soon, ‘cause you’re probably going to be getting a contact high if you hang out around us.”

I smiled hesitantly. “I’ll be alright.”

We turned the corner into the main part of the penthouse, and there they were: the other two members of Bigger, the hottest up-and-coming band in the world. They sat in the middle of a nest of amps and cords, sort of like a messier version of Ryan’s basement.

Killian Lee was exactly the same as every photograph of him I’d ever seen: black pants, black long-sleeve shirt, black suit vest, black shoes. His black trench coat was folded over the back of his wooden chair. His black, bushy hair was pulled into a ponytail, he wore little round-lensed sunglasses, and there was a lit joint dangling out of his mouth.

He also had an electric guitar in his lap. Just like in Derek’s story of that night at the 40 Watt, his fingers were dancing over the strings – but it was unplugged, so all I could hear were little metallic pings. He was slumped back, totally relaxed, his face plastered with a blessed-out smile… but his hands worked like they were connected to someone else’s body, strumming and plucking, sometimes slowly, sometimes lightning fast. Even when he would take the joint out of his mouth with his right hand, the left would continue fingering chords on the strings.

Beside him was a full drum kit complete with bass, snares, cymbals – and Riley Wojtalik (pronounced Voy-TAL-ick, according to Wikipedia). She was a tiny little thing, with a thin frame and wiry arms. She could have been a ninth-grade girl by her height and weight.

But I haven’t seen many ninth graders with mohawks.

It was dyed black with platinum blonde streaks, and stood up two feet from her head. Apparently she changed her hair color as often as most women change their bras, because I’d seen pictures of her with dozens of different variations: red and black, yellow and orange, completely blue, all colors of the rainbow at once, purple and pink, a dozen different shades of green.

The funny thing was, besides dying it and spiking it, she didn’t keep up the rest of the hairstyle too well. She currently sported a soft brown fuzz over the rest of her skull, like she couldn’t be bothered to shave it.

Her face was very pretty – or could have been, if she’d tried. She had a slender little nose, big brown eyes, porcelain skin, delicate cheekbones and perfect, tiny lips – but all you could focus on were the raccoon eyes from mascara and eyeliner she hadn’t removed the night before. Maybe the last couple of nights.

She wore scuffed, black leather pants, clunky Doc Martens, and a dirty, smudged wifebeater with no bra. Not that she needed one, since she was basically flat-chested. She twirled drumsticks in her nicotine-stained fingers. On her wrists she wore black leather cuffs with studs. Tattoos of skulls and demons and naked girls marched up and down her arms. Around her neck was a cheap metal necklace – the kind with little balls, like the pull-switch on a ceiling fan. Several keys dangled from it like ugly pendants. She had a nose ring, a lip ring, an eyebrow piercing, and about eleven studs in each ear.

And right as I walked into view, she stopped whatever she was saying to Killian, looked me up and down like a horny construction worker, and wolf-whistled.

“Hell yeah – that’s what I’m talkin’ about! What’d ya bring me there, Ryan? Momma likee!”

I might have forgotten to mention this, but Riley Wojtalik was a lesbian.

She was quite open and very aggressive about it. The stories of her hitting on female fans and taking them back to her room for the night were legion. Gay, bi, straight, didn’t matter. Riley was an equal opportunity horndog.

And apparently she was trying to make me her next conquest.

Oh shit…

I edged behind Ryan as protection.

“Simmer down,” Derek said as he walked past her to the bar.

“Yeah, be nice, Riley,” Ryan admonished her.

“Ohhhh, I’ll be nice,” the little drummer girl leered. “I’ll be nice to her allllll night long.”

EW.

“Riley, Killian… this is Kaitlyn Reynolds,” Ryan announced.

As soon as he said it, the room went quiet. As in dead silent. Even Killian’s fingers froze on the guitar strings.

Riley’s jaw dropped open. “You’re shittin’ me.”

“Really?” the guitarist said, looking over at Derek.

“The one and only,” Derek confirmed.

“SERIOUSLY? This is her,” Riley said in a disbelieving voice, like You’re kidding, right?

What the hell are they acting so surprised for?

While all this was going on, I wanted Derek near me. Ryan was nice, but I wanted Derek.

I looked over at him at the bar and caught his eye, but all he did was smirk at me like, You want it to be professional? Well, let’s keep it professional, then.

I scowled at him.

Fine.

A*shole.

I looked up at Ryan. “Why does everybody keep saying that?”


“What, being surprised about who you are?”

“Yeah.”

Killian chuckled as his fingers started dancing over the strings again. “You’re kind of famous around these parts, luv.”

He sounded like a young Paul McCartney, if Paul McCartney were really, really stoned.

“…wwwwhy?” I asked with trepidation.

“Do you really have to ask that question?” Derek said, in a deliberate echo of our conversation down in the bar.

I shot him another look. He just grinned, knowing he’d gotten my goat.

“Wow, you know how to pick ‘em, D,” Riley said. “Great rack, but dumb as f*ck.”

God, she was worse than a construction worker.

I frowned.

Wait – how DO they all know who I –

I closed my eyes. I could have slapped my forehead when I realized it.

The songs. Of course… the songs.

I turned back to Derek. “You told them who you were writing about?”

Riley burst out laughing. “He didn’t have to tell us anything – it was ‘Kaitlyn this, Kaitlyn that’ the whole f*ckin’ first album. Your name was in every other goddamn verse. We had to hold a band meeting and strong-arm him into changing the lyrics.” She cocked her head and looked me up and down as though judging livestock. “From the way you were all gone on her, D, I thought she was Miss America and Miss December all wrapped up into one. She ain’t all that… but I’d still hit it,” she added, as though she’d be doing me a favor.

I slipped behind Ryan a little bit more.

“You’re not making a very good first impression, Riley,” he scolded her.

“The f*ck do I care what kind of impression I make?”

“Nowhere to go but up,” Killian said genially as he took a drag on his joint.

“Yeah – exactly! Nowhere to go but up. Hey, Blondie!”

Is she talking to me?

I was the only blonde in the room, if you didn’t count half of Riley’s mohawk.

“…uh… what?”

“You into chicks?” she asked eagerly.

“…nnnnno.”

“Aaaah, we can fix that,” she said, and waved her hand like it was no big deal. “After one night of me goin’ down on you – ”

EW.

At that exact moment, Miles suddenly reappeared from another room, or wherever he’d been hiding for the last few minutes. “Christ, Riley, can’t you keep it in your pants for at least five goddamn minutes?”

“No, I can’t. Hey, Blondie, did Miles give you the boot speech?”

Before I could answer, she turned to the manager. “Hey, Miles, didja? Didja give her the boot speech?”

“Piss off, Riley.”

“Ha haaaa – you did! ‘Ah’ve gah a shuvell in me boot.’ What else ya got in your boot, Miles?”

“What didn’t you understand about ‘piss off’?”

“‘Av ya got a pint in your boot?” Riley prattled away in a hilariously bad English accent. “‘Av ya got a guv’nor in your boot?”

“You’re not even making sense – not that you ever do. Oy, and you – ” Miles snapped his fingers at Derek behind the bar. “What the f*ck did I tell you? No more drinking before the show!”

In answer, Derek very deliberately picked up his glass of amber liquid and took a long swig, never breaking eye contact with Miles the entire time.

“That’s right, keep it up, you stupid sod,” Miles lectured. “Go an’ piss yourself onstage, for all I care.”

“I’d pay good money to see that,” Riley snorted. “Hey, D, throw me some Jack!”

“Don’t – ” Miles warned, but Derek picked up a bottle of Jack Daniels and lobbed it underhanded into the air.

I freaked out. I totally expected it to crash to the floor and shatter in a million pieces and a tidal wave of whiskey –

But Riley caught it expertly, like it was a move they’d practiced many times before.

“You arseholes – ” Miles shouted.

“That’s the other thing in the boot!” Riley exclaimed, as though she’d just now remembered it. She lapsed back into her British accent: “‘Av you got an arsehole in your boot?’”

“Hey Riley, you’re a millionaire now,” Derek said. “Why don’t you drink better shit than Jack Daniels?’

“Cuz I’m not a p-ssy like you,” she retorted, right before she started guzzling straight from the bottle.

“It’s like working with animals,” Miles fumed.

“At least they’re housebroken,” Killian offered.

“Barely. And you,” Miles snapped at Killian, “do you know how much it’s going to cost to steam-clean this room? It smells like a goddamn Rastafarian convention in here.”

Killian shrugged. “Apparently I’m a millionaire now, if Derek’s to be believed.”

“I am,” Derek called out.

“I think I can pay for it, then,” Killian said philosophically.

“Hey Blondie – ya got a nice ‘boot,’” Riley catcalled as she twirled her drumsticks in her hands.

“…uh… thanks…”

“Derek, you ever tap that boot?”

“Not yet,” he said as he took another sip of his drink.

“Not EVER,” I snapped, and glared at him again.

Derek gave me a self-satisfied little grin. Like, Just wait.

“Oooooh, drama,” Riley hooted. “Hey Blondie – you ever take it in the boot?”

Oh God.

Ryan looked down at me. “So… welcome.”

“Thanks,” I muttered.

What the hell have I gotten myself into?