Dissonance

JACE

This room is making me sick. The pulse of the music, the heat of bodies crammed into every corner, the smell of bear and liquor and sweat swirling in a cloud of pot smoke. What used to pump me up before a show is pissing me off, and it’s not for the first time.

“Yo, Jace, man, have another beer!”

I salute Kirk with the dark brown bottle already in my hand. The decoy that’s gone warm over the last hour I’ve been nursing it. “I’ve got one. I’m good.”

As though he didn’t hear me, he digs through the stout fridge by my knees, his head bobbing up and down to the beat of the music. The room swells around us, people pushing and laughing. The greenroom was meant to hold me and the band, maybe a manager or an agent. Not twenty or more people getting shitfaced to my last album.

“How many have you had?” Kirk demands.

“Enough.”

“So, two? You fucking pussy.”

“Four.” I frown, suddenly unsure. “Maybe five.”

“You’re losing count. That’s good. I’ll get you another.”

“Don’t.”

“Too late,” he grunts, standing upright. He’s found what he was looking for – a dark Guinness can taller than his hand.

I take it even though I don’t want it. Saying “no” won’t mean shit to him right now. He thinks I need it, like it’ll fix things. Fix me. Fix the band and the new album I can’t fucking manifest. Handing the beer off to someone else or hiding it behind the couch cushions is my only out.

Onto my tricks, Kirk reaches over and pops the top on the Guinness. The heavy scent of yeast bubbles out on a wave of golden foam that he leans over to slurp loudly. “You’re getting soft on me.”

“I was never hard for you.” I murmur, eying the spot where he put his mouth. I’m definitely not drinking this. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“I’m never disappointed in you, Mouse.”

“Fuck you.”

“Language!” he gasps, feigning shock. “What would Walt say?”

I shake my head in disgust. “You’ll never let me live down the Disney shit, will you?”

Kirk leans against the wall beside me, smiling as he surveys the room. “Never. It’s your roots. Mickey Mouse raised you, bro.”

“He did a fucked up job.”

“He’s a mouse. What do you expect? Hey, are you still tight with that one guy? The one with the hair?”

“Who? Bieber?”

“Yeah.”

“No. I barely know him.”

“Seriously?” he frowns at me, like I’m lying. “I thought you did Disney together.”

“He was never Disney.”

“Who am I thinking of then?”

“Miley Cyrus?”

“Nah, a dude.”

“Miley Cyrus?” I chuckle.

“No, come on. The other one. The guy who was in all those movies where he played basketball and sang show tunes.”

I burp quietly into the back of my hand. “Efron.”

Kirk’s eyes go wide, his beer rising to point at me in approval. “Yeah, that’s the one. You friends with him?”

“Fuck no.”

“Why not?”

Because I don’t spend time with other artists because they’ll know I’m bullshit.

“Because I like being the hottest guy in the room,” I lie. Kind of. Not really. I do like it.

The door to the greenroom bursts open. A wave of cool, fresh air rushes in, reminding me just how stifling this room is. In the doorway is a guy in a headset and a black T-shirt with my name scrawled across the front. He quickly scans the room before finding me. He nods sharply, all business.

“They’re calling for you, Mr. Ryker. Five minutes.”

I nod my head in understanding, but it feels heavy. I feel sedated, more than a few beers can explain. I’m tired in my bones, a feeling I usually have at the end of the night after a long performance, but I haven’t taken the stage yet. I have to go out there, sing my fucking heart out for four hours, and then I’m out the door on the bus heading for the next city. We’re leaving immediately for Portland tonight, but whether it’s Maine or Oregon, I have no idea. Right now I can’t even remember what state I’m in. It doesn’t matter. I’ll keep touring until they tell me to stop. Until they park me in a studio, put a guitar in my hands, and demand my next album.

The crowd in front of me parts and there she is; Lexy. My muse. My creative block. Long black hair and big blue eyes. Small, perky breasts and a whisper of a waist under perfectly tanned skin. She’s beautiful in a dangerous kind of way. The kind that can launch a thousand ships and dash them against the rocks. No survivors.

“Baby,” she purrs, sidling up to me. Her arms go around my waist, her crotch pressing hard against mine. “Where have you been all night? I missed you.”

Gratefully I put down the Guinness and wrap my arm around her waist. “I’ve been right here.”

“Alone?”

I snort, nodding to the packed room. “I’m never alone.”

“No bitches?”

“No bitches.”

She lays a wet kiss on my collar bone. “Good boy.”

“Where have you been?”

“The bathroom.”

“With who?”

“This guy.”

She wants that to bother me but it doesn’t. I let it hang between us for a minute. Two. I feel her tense against my body.

“Why--”

“What guy?” I ask curtly. “Why were you in the bathroom with a guy?”

She relaxes, going soft and sinuous again. When she speaks, I can hear her smiling, like she got me. “There’s a guy with some great blow in the bathroom. A bunch of us were in there.”

“Hmmm.”

“You should get some.”

Kirk shoots me a sideways look. I frown at him.

“I don’t use, Lex,” I remind her.

“Anymore,” she mutters under her breath.

I let that hang between us too, only she can’t wait two minutes to pounce on this one.

Lexy leans back to scowl up at me. “You’re not better than me just because you don’t play with your nose anymore.

“I didn’t say I was,” I sigh.

“You act like it.”

“I’m not trying to.”

“Are you trying to start a fight with me? Is that what you’re doing?”

“No.”

She blinks. Waits. “No?” she demands when I give her nothing else. ”No? That’s it? No?”

“Yeah. No.”

Kirk clears his throat, slips two steps farther down the wall from us.

Lexy pulls her body from mine entirely. She crosses her arms over her chest. “What the fuck, Jace?”

“What, Lex?” I ask tiredly.

“You get high all the time. Don’t act like you don’t.”

“Why are you trippin’ about this?”

“Because you’re acting like you’re better than me. You always do this. Ever since you “got clean”,” she air quotes dramatically, “you’re all superior. But you’re not clean, are you Jace? You’re not perfect. You drink, you smoke weed, you take pills.”

“Are you done?” I ask tightly, my temper flaring. Low key, it feels good to be mad. To give a shit for a second.

Lexy pauses, reassessing the situation. She got a rise out of me. This is what she wanted. But is she too fucked up to know what she wants to do with it?

She giggles like I’m hilarious instead of annoyed, instantly shifting the air around us. I could get whiplash from this girl’s moods, on God.

She leans in, her hands on my chest, and I forget why I’m annoyed with her. Perfect hair, perfect makeup, perfect tits staring up at me from inside the nothing of a shirt she’s wearing. I know what’s underneath, I’ve seen it a hundred times. I’ve touched it. Tasted it. Every inch of it. Still, looking at her like this, like a thinly veiled secret, gets me hard every time and I have to remind myself that it’s only when she speaks that I don’t like her.

“Let’s not fight, Jace,” she insists, her eyes big and imploringly. Her pupils are too dark and dilated. She’s been to the bathroom more than once tonight. “It’s a party.”

“It’s my job.”

"It’s my job,” she mocks, smiling.

I roll my eyes, looking away.

She shakes me, rubbing herself against me in the motion. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“The bathroom.”

“I gotta go on soon. And I’m not hitting the blow.”

“I don’t mean for the blow.” She giggles again. “Not the powder kind, anyway.”

I’m tempted. Fuck. Maybe that’s what I need? I’m looking at her, at her lips, and I’m thinking about how good they’d feel wrapped around me right now. But I’m pretty sure if I get off, I’ll fall asleep and I’ll never make it onto that stage.

“I can’t.”

She rolls her eyes. “Boo. You’re boring.”

“And you’re blitzed.”

“Yes, I am!” she announces proudly. She turns to the room, throwing her hands over her head. “I’m fucking blitzed, bitches!”

They cheer for her. She drinks up the attention, gravitating toward it. I watch her disappear into the room, swallowed up by the crowd. Part of me regrets telling her no. Part of me is relieved to see her go.

That’s me in a nutshell lately; nowhere. Stuck halfway between everything. Between love and hate, happy and sad. I can’t get to either extreme, no matter how hard I try. It’s why I drank tonight. Because I need something. Anything.

When you’re numb for no discernable reason, you feel compelled to find one. Even if you find it at the bottom of a bottle.

“Mr. Ryker?”

I nod without looking. Mr. Business with the headset is back at the door and I follow him like light at the end of a tunnel. Out of the room. Out of my own head. Without a word, the room moves with me, a well-choreographed dance that I don’t remember learning. The music cuts off. My bandmates push their women and whiskey aside, falling in line behind me. Somewhere at my back Lexy and the other dancers will follow too. I’m the Pied Piper leading them to the cliff’s edge and they obey without question. Without complaint. It’s a strange power to have over people, one I’m about to exercise on a stadium full of screaming fans. It used to give me a rush. It used to get me off like nothing else on Earth could.

Now it just gives me a headache.