booze on her breath. Her eyes are drunk. Her body is ready.
And I’m the biggest hypocrite asshole in the world.
Because I’ve been with Danielle before.
For fun.
And there I am, ready to knock Ricky’s jaw off his face for talking to Bree.
“Kiss me, Sebastian,” Danielle slurs.
“Not tonight,” I say.
I move away from her.
Ricky brushes some hair behind Bree’s ear and that’s all I can take.
I turn and walk to my truck.
I’m not dumb enough to drive.
I’ve got sleeping bags and shit set up in the bed of the truck.
It’s the usual routine around here.
As long as we don’t get loud and act stupid, the cops leave us be.
I climb up into the truck and sit down.
I’m seething.
I’m angry.
It doesn’t make sense why though.
It’s not like…
I grit my teeth.
“Hey,” a voice says.
I look forward. “Bree?”
“Where’d you run off to?”
I don’t move. “I’m just here…”
“Are you alone?”
“Of course I’m alone.”
“Just checking. Saw Danielle dry humping you.”
“Not a chance,” I say.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Jump up,” I say.
Bree gets into the bed of the truck.
I swallow hard. I wonder what happened with Ricky. If he kissed her. If he touched her. If they…
“Are you okay?” Bree asks.
“Yeah, why?”
“You look pissed.”
“Not at all. I just… I thought you were hanging with Ricky.”
“Nope,” she says.
“Why not?”
“I know who he is,” she says. “I’m not in the mood for him anyway. Maybe he’ll go find Danielle.”
I laugh. “Good idea.”
Bree lifts my left arm and puts it around her.
I pull her close and take a deep breath.
“You sure you’re okay, Sebastian?” she asks.
I squeeze her closer to me and smile.
“Yeah, I’m pretty fucking perfect right now.”
“I swear on my life, babe,” I said with a laugh. “Jay thought we paid the woman to strip for him.”
“So what happened?” Bree asked.
We sat on the living room floor with our backs to the couch.
The lights were off.
Her phone was on the floor, playing Filthy Line songs.
And she was asking me to tell her some bad stories.
Which was fine by me.
Anything to clear her head of what was going on.
“She was there to look at the layout of the practice room,” I said. “Toby sent her to take measurements. We wanted to have it as this warehouse type vibe, but we needed to get it all soundproofed. The goal was to make the place hidden for us to practice and write new songs. Whatever. The night before we were all out at a strip club and-”
“A strip club?” Bree asked. “Really?”
“Watch yourself. Those women are artists.”
“If you say so.”
“I know around here there aren’t any strip clubs…”
“Tell you what,” Bree said. She patted my chest. “When I come to LA and crash your party, will you take me to a strip club?”
“Of course,” I said. “And, hey, the ticket to LA… whenever you want. I’ll send the private jet for you.”
“With strippers?” Bree asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Duh.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re such a rock star.”
“Do you want me to finish my story?”
“Please.”
“Anyway… we were breaking Jay’s balls about not getting a lap dance. Someone said we’d pay for a private one at some point. So Jay thought this woman was the stripper. He grabs a fucking chair…” I started to laugh. “He sits down in front of her and unbuttons his jeans. He starts wiggling in the chair and she’s just staring at him.”
“What happened?”
“Jay reaches up and flicks the buttons on her shirt or blouse or whatever it was,” I said. “Enough to show her bra a little.”
“Oh…”
“It gets better. She winds up and swings her clipboard so hard… when it hits Jay’s head, he falls out of the chair, and the clipboard breaks.”
“No.”
“Swear on my life, babe.”
“Then what happened?”
Bree’s eyes were drunk and big.
She was smiling.
“The woman left. Jay had a nasty cut on his head. Nash called Toby. The next day Toby met the woman without us there. It all worked out though. Jay apologized to her. She got some tickets to a show. Jay even brought her backstage…”
“So after all that, he still got with her?” Bree asked.
“The power of a rock star,” I said with a wink.
“You’ll always be Sebastian to me,” she said.
“You’re the only person I know who calls me by that name,” I said.
“Would you prefer I call you Sab?” Bree teased.
“I don’t care what you call me,” I said.
“Okay, tell me more.”
I laughed. “You saw the shit with Nash, right? When he sunk a car and acted like a pirate?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s not even that good,” I said. “I don’t know, Bree. Everything is