Rock All Night

82




One of my biggest problems was that the jealousy came back. With a vengeance.

For the first five or six days after we slept together, Derek only had eyes for me. No matter how beautiful the groupies and models and actresses were who flirted with him, he didn’t give them anything other than the obligatory (but still dazzling) smile. Boobs came out en masse, but the most risqué thing he signed was a girl’s arm. And then he would turn away and put his arm around me, and walk me through the crowd introducing me to rock legends and movie stars.

The green-eyed monster was still lurking in the background, but it wasn’t gnawing at my guts like it had before.

Then… something changed.

I think it was an exceptionally beautiful hotel concierge. Brunette, six feet tall, crystal blue eyes. She didn’t know who Derek was, and she didn’t give a damn. She was polite but perfunctory, and acted entirely blasé during the beginning of their interaction.

Derek was having none of it.

He turned up the charm to 11. He leaned over the counter in a ‘hey baby’ kind of way and kept cracking jokes like his life depended on getting her into bed.

It worked.

Well, not the ‘getting her into bed’ part. Although that was only because he brought her up short once he had her on the line.

She laughed at one of his jokes. He made a mildly suggestive comment and she shut down. He teased her about her reaction and made her laugh again. Within another sixty seconds she couldn’t take her eyes off of him.

It was like watching an elaborately choreographed dance. A mating dance.

And I went from unsure, to astonished, to boiling-hot furious over the course of it.

A running monologue kept spooling out in my head the entire time.

Wait… what is he doing?

Is he doing what I THINK he’s doing?

What the f*ck – he IS doing what I think he’s doing!

He’s KNOWS I’m here, right?!

Why the F*ck is he DOING this?!

Just as they finished their interaction and she looked like she was about to hurdle the counter and jump his bones, I latched onto his arm like a tiger and dragged him off.

He went willingly, but he threw up a casual See ya! salute. “Catch you later!”

She stood there, her eyes open wide, her face like a little kid whose birthday gift had been taken away just as she was about to open it.

“What the f*ck was that?!” I hissed, low enough where I hoped no one but Derek could hear me.

He played stupid. “What?”

“That!”

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific, babe.”

“You putting the moves on that – that woman!”

“Whaaat?!” he grinned, then shook his head like I had it all wrong. “No, no – that was just a little friendly flirting.”

“Friendly flirting is ‘that color looks nice on you.’ That was NOT friendly flirting.”

“Sure it wa– ”

“Why are you even f*cking flirting in the first place?! And in front of me! Do you know how disrespectful that is?”

“To who?”

“To ME!”

He stared at me like I’d just grown a second head. “Are you serious?”

“No, I just like getting this angry and pissed off. Yes I’m f*cking serious!”

There’s this Pixar short, One Man Band, where two dueling street musicians are pulling out all the stops to get a coin from a little girl. The big buff musician stumbles, makes a fool of himself, and falls all over his drums. The little girl looks over at the skinny musician, who rolls his eyes and gives this utter look of contempt that manages to combine What an idiot with Forget what you just saw even exists, because it was so beneath your notice.

Derek pretty much duplicated that look to a T. “That was nothing. That’s just what I do.”

‘That’s just what I do’ was bad enough.

But it was the look he gave me that enraged me.

“That’s just what you DO?!”

He frowned, like I was being totally unreasonable. “She totally acted like she didn’t know who I was!”

“SO?!”

“So… she knew. She was just playing hard to get, like she was all that.”

I could not understand him. It was like he was spouting gibberish – his lips were moving, but pure stupidity was coming out.

“…SO?!”

“So I spit some game at her to let her know what’s what. Jesus, Kaitlyn – that’s what I am.”

“What, an insecure man-whore who can’t bear that some chick doesn’t immediately fall all over herself to kiss your ass?”

As soon as I said it, I was sorry.

Not really sorry that I’d thought it. Just sorry that I’d said it out loud.

But I wasn’t about to back off now.

His expression – his whole demeanor – froze over. I could almost feel the ice form beneath my hand, under his leather jacket sleeve.

“What, are you such a little girl that you can’t handle me talking to another woman?”

“NO – I – that wasn’t just ‘talking’!”

“It was to me. And if you can’t handle it, that’s your problem, because I’m not about to change who I am just to make you feel better about yourself.”

And with that, he strode away, leaving me shocked and furious and alone, thinking, How the f*ck did THAT just happen?! HE’S the bad guy here! How the hell did he just make ME the bad guy?!


We didn’t say anything the rest of the day. The silence was positively Arctic.

The rest of the band were obviously uncomfortable – Ryan especially, which I felt awful about for some reason.

Scratch that: the rest of the band was obviously uncomfortable, except for Riley, who treated us as a walking punch line. Every other comment out of her was a variation on, “Ooooh, D and Blondie are fighting – what’d you do?”

“What’d she do, D? Punch holes in your condoms? Is there gonna be a mini-D in nine months?

“What’d he do, Blondie? You catch him in a hot tub with a buncha hookers and a package of hot dogs? Oh wait, that was last month…

“What’d she do, D? Put her finger up your ass when you jizzed? Or not put her finger up your ass when you jizzed?

“What’d he do, Blondie? Did he finally admit he’s gay as f*ck?”

Derek ignored her, so I did, too. (Even though some of what she said was pretty funny.)

You know when adults told you as a kid, if another kid is bugging you, to ignore them and they’ll leave you alone?

Those adults never met Riley.

Despite the cold shoulder we gave to her parade of one-liners, our coldness to each other was ten times worse. For the first time since we’d first hooked up, we didn’t sleep together that night.

We did in the morning – but it was more like hot, hate-f*ck sex.

But that’s another story.