Page 44 of Dirty Rock

“Presl—” I stumbled over a tree stump, my rough laughter trailing behind me as I wandered to the side only to fall onto Ollie who caught me and set me upright. I’d convinced him to fuck school night, and the two of us had played a game of ‘let’s see how many shots we can down before we die’. Now, neither of us could walk or see two feet in front of us, but we were laughing hard, and that’s all that mattered in life.

Laughing.

“Rhett!” Presley called out through the phone. His voice was distant, and I spun around in the darkness, looking for the light of the phone I’d dropped.

“Ollie. Help me find the fucking thing.”

Ollie just laughed and perched his arse on the back of a bench in the park. He was gone, with flushed cheeks and eyes that looked like he’d shoved an ecstasy pill down his wiener. “I don’t know who I am. Where do I live? Is tequila vegan?”

“Dude.”

“I feel sick.”

“Useless arsehole,” I spat, finally seeing a tinge of light in the overgrown grass. I dropped down onto all fours and crawled for my phone. Presley was calling out my name, sounding pissed off when I eventually pushed it back to my ear. “Buddy. My old pal. Drummer boy with his very large stick. Wonder thruster.”

“Where are you?” Presley grunted down the phone, a tired moan falling free.

“Man, you’re a sexy motherfucker, West. That voice. No wonder Tessa can’t get enough of you. You give me wood.”

“As flattered as I am, bro… why the fuck are you calling me in the middle of the night?”

I threw myself back on the grass and looked up at the starry night sky. “You never sleep.”

“I never used to sleep. Now, I sleep very well.”

“How does that feel?” I slurred.

“What?”

“Being settled.”

“There’s a reason I put a ring on it, Rhett.” Presley laughed, and I heard a small, feminine, sleepy moan not too far away in the background.

“Is Tessa with you now? Ask her if Julia has ever hooked up with anyone while on tour with us.”

There was silence then, the tension of it obvious. I blinked as the sky above began to spin wildly, and I brought the phone up in front of me to make sure he hadn’t been cut off. When I pushed it back to my ear, I could hear Presley shuffling about before it sounded like a door clicked shut somewhere around him.

“Rhett, what’s going on?” he asked, sounding more alert now than before.

“Did you wake Tess?”

“No, man, and I’m not going to. She’s sleeping. I’ve moved into the other room. Why the fuck are you asking me about Julia in the middle of the night?”

My smile was massive at the sound of her name. “Why didn’t you tell me how beautiful she was, Pres?”

“Who?”

“Julia. Jules.”

“I didn’t know I had to tell you.”

“But she is, isn’t she? She’s beautiful.”

Presley took a few seconds to answer. “Yeah, she’s beautiful.”

Just the thought of her made me want to palm my dick, and the fresh night air was making the alcohol feel a lot stronger than when I’d been pouring it down my neck.

“Don’t even go there, Rhett.”

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