Page 71 of Deliverance

“Just go home, okay?”

She nods and disappears into the club.

The couple in the shadows has moved on from dry-humping to finger fucking and I can hear the stifled moans coming from the dark.

Dragging my palm over my face, I draw a deep, ragged breath through my teeth in an attempt to calm my nerves.

“I thought you two were getting busy.” Leo emerges from the building. Alone. Faded. “What happened to the girl?” He’s still standing but not quite straight anymore.

“Not in the mood.” I shrug. “Told her to get lost.”

“Jesus fuck on a stick.” He raises both arms and interlaces his fingers at the nape of his neck. “Should have told me.”

For a moment, we simply stand there, still and silent, evaluating each other.

“Just tired, man,” I say, not wanting to offend him or his effort to make tonight fun.

Leo pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the back pocket of his jeans.

“I didn’t know you smoke.”

“I don’t.” He shakes his head. “Cigs fuck up my voice.” Completely contradicting himself, he sticks one into the corner of his mouth and lights it up, then inhales loudly to fill up his lungs with as much smoke as he can.

“Want one?” Leo extends his hand with the pack to me as a group of people spill outside and spread around like ants, their obnoxiously loud laughter pervading the air.

“I’m good.” I eye him suspiciously, wondering whether this was a mistake. One of the reasons I agreed to do the gig was because Ian reassured me no one in the band was doing any hard drugs or had problems with alcohol. I don’t mind drinking socially, but I stay away from people who use it as an excuse to hit the bottle every single night.

I can’t get sucked back into that madness.

“She was a looker,” Leo ponders, pushing the smoke out through his nose. “Your loss.”

“Come on, man.” I lower my voice. “An escort?”

“Why not?”

“I mean, do you even know how old these girls are?”

“Relax, dude.” He rests his palm on my chest. “It’s legit. They’ve got a business license and all, and the girls are high quality. Some are in college.”

I keep my thoughts to myself because my gut tells me Leo and I are on different frequencies right now.

“No strings attached.” He continues to puff on his cigarette. “No drama, no broken heart.”

I’m sensing a hidden meaning behind his words, and they hit me harder than I would have expected. “Everyone gets their heart crushed at least once.”

“I don’t get women. I stopped trying years ago.”

“I think I should go. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I’ll be there.”

We say our goodbyes and I head out. On the way to the hotel, I give up and call Drew.

Of course, she doesn’t pick up.

The next morning, when the alarm startles me awake, I’m not certain where I am at first. I haven’t gotten this wasted in a long time, not since our last tour run, not even in Bali, and the hangover is brutal. My head spins and my body aches as if I’ve been chopped up into pieces and put back together wrong.

I rip my eyes open and I stare at the ceiling tiles for a good minute, thinking, processing.

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