Getting Lucky (Jail Bait #4) Page 16

  This isn’t the first time I’ve used that excuse to ditch the after-party. Since the shit in Paris with Amilia, I’ve tried to avoid the public eye whenever I can. I don’t know if Lucky’s even paying any attention, but the thought of her seeing shots of women grinding up on me leaves an ache in the pit of my stomach that no amount of TUMS seems to touch. I’ve been chewing them like candy. Still, my stomach’s in a constant knot.

  I take my sweet fucking time in the shower, hoping they’ll get sick of waiting and go without me, but when I come back to the dressing room in fresh jeans, toweling off my hair, they’re still there.

  Grim shoves the bottle in my face. “Drink.”

  I tip the bottle and take a swallow. When I go to lower it, he grabs the neck and holds it to my mouth. I swallow the initial flood to keep from drowning in it, and about half the bottle empties down my bare chest.

  “What the fuck was that?” I say, shoving him back.

  His face pulls into a toxic mix of fury and frustration. “I don’t know what the fuck happened to you, but you aren’t the fucking Tro Gunnison that our fans come to see. You’re like some fucking shadow of that guy. You’re losing your edge, man, and I’m going to make sure you get it the fuck back before you ruin us.”

  Acid rises up in me like snake venom and I strike without thinking. I ram my hand into his solar plexus, knocking him back against the wall. “Maybe I wanna be more than a fucking tweaking waste of space when I’m fucking forty.”

  Before I even see it coming, his fist ricochets off my left cheekbone. Stars flash in my vision as fireworks go off behind my left eye. I stagger back a step and catch the couch to regain my balance.

  In our early days on the road, fights in the seedy Louisiana bars we played weren’t uncommon. One or the other of us were always in some kind of scrap. More than once it started when one of us made moves on some local’s girl. I’ve seen Grim nearly kill a guy with those fists without even flinching.

  And the look in his eye now tells me he wouldn’t think twice about doing the same to me.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Grim,” Jamie shouts, stepping between us and grabbing Grim by the shirt. “What the fuck was that?”

  “You read the shit they’re saying about us?” he asks, ripping out of Jamie’s grasp. “They say we’re low energy and the crowds are pissed that they’re not getting what they fucking paid for.” He glares at me. “They say our frontman’s lost his edge. That we’re just any second-rate band now. Nothing special.”

  “Everyone gets crap reviews,” Jamie says, letting him go. “It doesn’t mean shit.”

  Grim shakes his head. “This is different, man. You see him up there. He’s just fucking calling it in. Has been since about halfway through the U.S. leg.” He glares pure disgust at me. “Since he brought that little mutt cunt up on stage with us in San Francisco and bled his fucking heart all over her.”

  There’s a second where I picture him dead as my fist swings out. I’m not drunk, so my aim is true, and where his swing didn’t take me all the way to the floor, mine does. But he’s up a second later, all two hundred pounds of over-the-hill beer gut charging at me. I get another punch off before he’s on me and we both go to the ground.

  After some clawing and grabbing, I get an elbow around his neck and roll him face down into the floor, a knee in his back. “Don’t fuck with me, Grim. You’re way the fuck too old.”

  I slam his face into the floor and pull myself up. Jamie just stares, wide-eyed as I grab my duffel off the chair, yank on a hoodie, and storm out the door. I weave through the hallways and punch out the back door, then wave down a taxi when I hit the street.

  I hurl myself in back and when the cabbie looks at me, I tell him to drive. “I don’t give a fuck where.”

  He looks confused for a second, so I yank the wad of bills from my bag and toss it over the back of his seat. It’s Euros and I have no fucking clue how much it is, but it’s enough that the driver does as I ask.

  I watch the city unfold outside my window as my blood pressure slowly comes out of the stratosphere. Fucking Grim. Sometimes I hate that fucking bastard.

  Especially when he’s right.

  I’ve totally lost my edge. I used to love getting totally fucked up, going out on stage and not giving a shit what the hell happened. Now all I can think is, What if Lucky’s watching?

  I know she’s not. She doesn’t give a flying fuck about me or what I do. She expects me to fuck my way across Europe. Said so herself.

  I’m feeling all kinds of shit for someone who doesn’t give a shit about me. She wanted a quick fuck before I left. But she’s worth so much more than that. I shut her down and pissed her off, all because I wanted more.

  And now I have nothing.

  I fish my phone out of my bag and pull up the last messages I sent. Producers and songs. All fucking business. Maybe it’s time I came clean.

  Thinking about you, I type. Too much. Fucked up before I left. Wondering if you’re still pissed.

  My finger hovers over send for a long time, wondering if I should add more. But since she doesn’t seem to be speaking to me, better to start small, see the reaction before I go all confessional.

  I send it and wait. But there’s no reaction.

  The driver takes me up and down random streets for another half hour. Still nothing. I do the math and figure it’s five in the afternoon in California. She should be awake.

  Maybe she’s doing an interview. Or recording.

  Or can’t stand the fucking thought of me.

  Fuck.

  Finally, I have the cabbie take me back to the hotel. When I get to the front desk, I ask if they’ve got a vacancy and check myself into a room on the third floor, away from Grim. I lay on the bed and chain smoke until dawn, staring at the ceiling and working out the lyrics to the final verse of the song that I’m just now realizing is me.

  I watch the sun come up. And still nothing from Lucky.

  Chapter 24

  Shiloh

  The paperwork got filed with the court and our hearing is tomorrow.

  I’m starting to get worried about…everything. I’m not a worrier by nature, but everything is just so fucking out of my control right now. Billie has say over guardianship and my recording contract. Tro has control over everything else.

  I can’t stop thinking about him, torturing myself wondering what he’s doing every minute of every day. I follow their schedule and imagine him onstage at show time. I picture the parties after. But when I get to the part around what would be two or three in the morning where he is, when he takes some groupie, or actress, or princess to bed, that’s when my insides turn to stone. Unfortunately for me, that’s right around dinner time, and I can’t eat. I’ve lost seven pounds.

  But the thing that’s worrying me the most is my contract. Whenever Billie takes calls from Universal, she’s started leaving the room. When I ask, she assures me they’re working everything out and we’ll have a contract soon. I can’t help but feel like she’s hiding something from me. I just don’t know what.

  So, when she goes out for dinner with a potential new client, I take the opportunity to reassure myself everything’s okay.

  At least, that’s how I justify going through her things.

  Her briefcase is locked, but one thing I learned on the streets is how to pick locks. This one’s relatively simple and me and two paperclips have it open in just a few minutes. I thumb through the folders inside until I find the blue one she always has out when she’s talking to Phillip. On the top is what I first think is my original Universal contract…until I start reading. It’s a new contract, dated the week before last. I have no idea what most of it means, but behind it are two more copies, and they’re all already signed by my producer.

  Under those is a markup of the same contract, with some things crossed out and others jotted in the margins. This one is over a month old, from not long after we got back from tour.

  Billie’s had my final contract
in writing for two weeks. Why haven’t we signed it?

  Behind the Universal paperwork, there are several yellow legal sheets with scribbles about royalty percentages and endorsement terms, but as I flip to the last one, it only has three lines of numbers. I’m not sure what I’m looking at until, at the bottom, I notice the ends of a staple poking through from behind. I flip the page, and there’s a bank deposit slip stapled on the back. The deposit was last week for two hundred and eighty three thousand dollars.

  I flip the page back over and look at the numbers again. Account numbers?

  If I need cash, I go to the ATM. If I need to buy something, I do it online with my card. I never use my checkbook, so it takes me a minute to find it in the bottom of a box of my stuff. I pull it out and compare the numbers to what’s on the paper. And my stomach sinks.

  Why does Billie have my account numbers? And what does it have to do with the deposit slip?

  There’s a customer service number on the checkbook. I call it. After a hundred automated prompts, I finally get to an actual person.

  “This is Christina. How can I be of service today?” she asks.

  So formal.

  “I had a question about my account?” I say, not even sure of what I want to ask.

  “Can I please have your account information?”

  I rattle off the account number and my PIN, then ask her what my most recent deposit has been. I haven’t touched this account since I’ve been back in L.A.

  “Let’s see…” she says. “There was an eighteen thousand dollar deposit on June seventh.”

  That was royalties. “What about other transactions?”

  “It looks like check number seventy-six just cleared last week. It was for ten thousand even. And there was another one a week earlier,” she adds after a brief pause. “Check number seventy-five, also for ten thousand.”

  My throat tightens as I thumb through the checkbook and find the top check is number seventy-seven. “And I signed those?” I ask, my voice rough.

  “Are you saying you didn’t?” she asks, alarmed.

  “I might have,” I say like an idiot. Not too many people would forget writing ten thousand dollar checks. “Is there somewhere I can see a copy?”

  “Your online banking statement will have an option to view individual checks. Have you set that up?”

  “Um…no.”

  She walks me through the steps and when I get into my account and pull up the checks, my breath catches. Blood pounds in my ears as I lift Billie’s handwritten paper and compare the writing, but I already know it’s hers. Both checks are made out to her.

  “Can I ask you about another account?”

  “Certainly,” Christina says.

  I read the number on the deposit slip and wait with a speeding heart through a pause.

  “That’s not ours,” she finally says.

  “Thank you,” I say and hang up, staring at the papers and trying to make sense of them.

  #

  When Billie comes home, I’m sitting at the kitchen table with everything from the folder laid out in front of me. I try not to let her see my shake.

  “What’s going on, Shiloh?” she asks, her eyes darting from the papers to my face. When I don’t answer, she moves closer and picks up the stack of contracts. “How did you get this?”

  “I broke into your briefcase,” I say, holding her gaze.

  Her face goes slack. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because you wouldn’t tell me anything about those,” I say, gesturing with a nod of my head at the contracts, still in her hand.

  Her eyes fall on the yellow page with the bank information on it and widen. She drops the stack of contracts and scoops up the page. “This is nothing, Shiloh,” she says, crumpling it into a ball. “I just needed your account information so we could set up direct deposit for your Universal checks.”

  “So…you didn’t write two ten thousand dollar checks out of that account?”

  Her face goes ashen and it’s a second before she answers. “It was to reimburse Universal for tour expenses…the venues and travel expenses and paying the staff…”

  “Then why aren’t the checks written to Universal?”

  She lowers herself into the seat across from me. “I wanted to set some money aside so I could just take care of it when the itemization came. It’s…I opened a new account for you, just to keep everything separate from your State money. I thought it would be easier.”

  “Why?” I say, trying to make myself believe what she’s saying makes sense. It takes me less than a second to realize it doesn’t. “I can write checks out of that account with no problem.”

  “But if you want me to take care of things for you, I’ll need access too. I couldn’t do that with your other accounts.”

  “What’s this?” I ask, lifting the deposit slip from my lap. “This is a lot of money. Where did it come from?”

  “Universal.” She swallows. “It’s your cut of ticket sales.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

  She slams her palms on the table. “Why are you giving me the third degree, Shiloh? I’ve only done any of this to make your life easier.”

  “Then why didn’t you just ask me to write a check, instead of taking my checkbook and doing it yourself?”

  “I…” Her mouth opens and closes a few times before she finds words. “I’m trying to keep things simple for you. I didn’t think you’d mind if I took care of this.”

  I stand from the table and lift my phone. “I’m calling Phillip.”

  “No!” she shouts, lunging for my hand.

  I yank it away. “I want him to tell me how much they’re charging me for tour expenses.”

  “Shiloh…wait,” she says, panic thick in her voice. “Just…let’s just talk about this, okay? It’s late. You can wait for morning to call him when he’s in the office. He’ll have all the numbers there.”

  I pull up his number and hit connect.

  “Hello,” he says when he answers.

  I try to keep the shake out of my voice. “Hi Phillip. Sorry to call so late. This is Shiloh Luck.”

  “Shiloh!” he says as Billie sinks onto the couch with her head in her hands. “Has Billie had a chance to take you through the new contract?”

  “Um…no. I didn’t know we had one until just now.”

  There’s a pause. “Huh. We had the final draft couriered over a few weeks ago.”

  My head is a whir of questions, but I close my eyes and breathe, trying to keep my focus. “I really need to ask you about tour expenses. Have you billed for that yet?”

  “Didn’t Billie tell you?” he asks. “Minus expenses, your cut of ticket sales was two hundred and eighty grand. We just cut that check last week.”

  “So…I won’t owe anything?”

  “Hell, no, Shiloh. That tour was pure gold.”

  When I look at Billie, cringing on the couch, I know.

  Me, the kid who used to con all my classmates, just got conned.

  Chapter 25

  Tro

  When my phone rings, the sound splits my head in half. I pull my pillow around my ears. My first thought in the morning is always the same as my last thought at night. A heart-shaped face. Whiskey eyes full of fire.

  Lucky.

  All at once I’m wide awake and grabbing for the phone. The empty Jack bottle I’m sharing my bed with this morning falls to the floor with a thud and I’m relieved to find that’s the only thing other than me in my bed.

  Last night is a blur, but as I blink my eyes open and they begin to focus, the destruction all around me is enough to know the snippets of memory I have are accurate.

  I squint at the screen, knowing who I need it to be. There are things Lucky needs to hear, things I need to say out loud before I self-destruct.

  It’s not her.

  I’m so busy being disappointed at who it’s not that it takes me a second to register who it is.

  I hit connect and
bring the phone to my ear. “Hey, Kate.”

  “How’s world domination coming?” she asks.

  I rub my aching head and take a second before answering to decide if I need to run to the bathroom, or if the feeling I’m about to puke will pass on its own. “Fucking not good,” I say honestly.

  “Been reading stuff on the internet about a rift in the band. You guys okay?”

  I take a deep breath as my stomach settles and drop my head into the pillows. “Not by a long shot.”

  “Anything you want to talk about?” she asks.

  I shake my head as if she can see it. “Just some shit I need to work out.”

  “You always land on your feet, Tro. No matter what’s going on, I have no doubt you will now.”

  “Thanks. So…” I add when it occurs to me Kate’s never called just to shoot the shit, “everything okay there?”

  “I’m not sure,” she answers tentatively.

  I pull myself up to sit with my back propped on the headboard. “What up?”

  “There were cops here asking for you a little while ago.”

  The image of Lucky pressed between me and the mattress, the electric sensation of her skin on mine, her warm, wet mouth devouring me, flashes in my mind. My body predictably responds. Did someone report me? Who would know?

  My next thought sends a rod of cold steel through my gut.

  Grim.

  He fucking narced me out to the cops because he thinks me being into Lucky is ruining the band. There’s no one else who would pull this shit.

  “What did they say?” I ask, trying to tie all the loose ends together in my mind. What would Grim know? What could he have told them?

  “Nothing, which really pissed me off. I tried flaunting my feminine wiles and everything. I think they must have been gay.”

  I smile despite the sinking feeling in my gut. “Musta been. Those wiles are damn near impossible to resist.”

  “You sound like you’re speaking from experience,” she purrs, a smile in her voice.

  “You better fucking believe it.”