Page 55 of Rock Strong

“Hey! Watch it,” a woman said as I passed her by in the hallways of the Wherever-the-Fuck-We-Are-Today Centre. I roamed, arms hung, swinging a bottle of Grey Goose like a gorilla on the loose.

“She won’t reply,” I told some strange dude with fear in his eyes. “She fucking hates me.” The guy grinned politely while trying to get around me without getting hurt. “See? Look,” I said, showing him my phone and how I’d texted her again. And again. Telling her how the show went. Telling her how the solo sucked donkey balls without her. I fucking missed her. “She reads it, but she doesn’t reply. Why won’t she answer?”

“Maybe…because you’re drunk?” Strange Dude said.

Strange Dude was honest. And good. I liked him.

“You’re so right. You are SO fucking right. I am being a dick right now. God! I have to stop this shit. Thanks, man.” I kissed Strange Dude on the cheek. I loved Strange Dude SO much.

Ahead was a hallway lined with dressing rooms. I opened Door Number One, featuring Tucker getting a blow job from two different chicks—both blond. Twins? He lifted his head and waved. “Hey, bro, come in.”

The two girls smiled at me then went back to sucking and making out with each other.

“She won’t talk to me,” I choked out, closing the door.

I walked through Door Number Two into a wall of smoke. A multitude of roadies and special effects guys all shooting the breeze and totally not working stood around smoking weed, laughing their asses off. Two of them pointed fog machines at the center of the room, while two others used lasers as light sabers—one blue, one red. One of the two breathed into a vocoder to make his voice sound deeper. “Luke, I am your father. Give in to the Dark Side.”

The other guy cried, “NO!” And they fought each other to the death.

I closed the door. I hoped Luke won.

Who was I looking for? Anyone who would listen. I was so, so, so sad right now. The show had gone well, but it wasn’t the same. It’d never be the same again. It had started in San Francisco with Abby, and she’d given it that special touch, and now it wouldn’t end with her. Would the fans be okay if I canceled the rest of the dates?

I tried opening Door Number Three, but something blocked it—a chair or something. The doorknob felt loose, like maybe it was broken, and the chair wasn’t exactly making a great blockade. Throwing my weight against it, I shoved it open and found two naked guys sitting side by side on the black sofa, giving each other hand jobs, and kissing. Immediately, they broke their kiss and whipped their heads my way.

One of them was that friend of Wes’s from elementary school—Ben, I thought it was—and the other…I couldn’t believe. I mean, he was one of my very best friends, a true comrade any man could count on. So why hadn’t he ever told me?

“Wes?”

“Hey…Liam.” He sat up partway. “Liam, you’ve met Ben, right?”

Whoa, Wes’s cock was huge, which was not fair by any stretch of the imagination. I’d never seen that either. Wes had always chosen to take his after-party visitors in private. I always thought it was because he was shy. Now I realized why.

“Hey, Ben,” I said, unable to tear my eyes away from the two of them.

“Hey, stranger.” Ben tucked his blushing face into Wes’s shoulder. I thought about the awkwardness of standing here with my mouth gaping the fuck open.

“What’s up, buddy?” Wes said, super casual, as though he had not just been beating his friend’s meatstick while shoving his tongue down his throat. “You look like shit.”

“I, uh…she…she won’t talk to me…” I sounded pathetic even to my own drunken ears. “She hates me.”

Wes looked at Ben, who shrugged and made eyes at him as though telling him to go ahead and talk to me. Wes nodded, grabbed his jeans, and pulled them up over his manhood. He walked to the door, urging me outside gently. “What’s going, brother? You need to get yourself together. We’re counting on you.”

“I know,” I said. “But I made a big mistake, Wes. I forced myself to be with Giselle again, not all the way, just feel close to her. I wanted to see if it would affect me, to see if it would make me stop thinking of Abby.”

“You love her?” he asked, arm high over his head against the doorframe.

I nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. But it’s too late, because she left for home, and now she won’t answer my calls. She won’t answer my texts, Wes. What do I do? I can’t just leave the tour.”

Wes shook his head then sighed a huge sigh. He dropped a hand to my shoulder and squeezed it. “Liam, you have to follow whatever is in your heart, bro. If you ignore it, you can force yourself to go in one direction, but the truth will always come back to haunt you. Your feelings for her will reemerge one way or another. Trust me on this. You can’t ignore what’s meant to be.”

I loved Wes SO much more than Strange Dude and everyone else in this hallway tonight. He was so right. And he would know about facing your destiny and not ignoring what was meant to be. Look at him—he was having sex with a man. Right under our noses. And we knew nothing. He must have been doing this for a really long time behind closed doors. Wes was a pro at facing his fears.

“Do the others know?” I asked, peeking inside the room at Ben, who was lying on the sofa, going through his texts.

He shook his head. “You’re the first one. I love women, too, but…Ben and I…we did this all throughout middle school. I guess you could say he turned me on to it.”

“Say no more, brother. Do what makes you happy,” I said, hugging him. “I got your back. I love you, man. I really, really love you.”

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