slow night?!”
“No one’s bleeding or unconscious, and I haven’t caught Riley fucking some slag in a corner yet, so yeah, slow night,” he yelled.
Once we were out of the room, things were fairly easy sailing. We joined the rest of the band and hustled along the concrete corridors. Derek was surrounded by security guards who kept back the screaming, pawing, female fans; Ryan and Killian were more sparsely (and politely) mobbed, and they signed autographs as they walked. Riley was slung over the shoulder of one of the biggest human beings I have ever seen: 6 foot 7 at least, 400 pounds if he was two, a mountain of a man made of equal parts muscle and dense fat. And Riley was still giving him hell. She was kicking and beating on his back and clubbing his spine with her fists and trying to bite him through his windbreaker. He mostly ignored it, but every once in a while she would get a good mouthful of jacket and flesh. He would yelp, then snap her whole body like somebody cracking a whip. She would go limp… look like she was going to puke… and then go right back to slapping and biting.
We exited through an alleyway where a limo was waiting. The boys all piled in, Miles shoved me in next, and the big bruiser threw Riley in like a wailing, scratching cat. Miles came last and shut the door behind us, and the limo took off.
“You stupid little FUCKER,” Riley raged at Miles. “I was having a fucking good time, and you had to go ruin it like you always – ”
Miles thrust a bottle of Jack Daniels in her face. “Suck on that an’ shut the fuck up.”
She grabbed it and immediately chugged.
“Like a baby to a bottle,” Miles muttered grimly.
This time around I was sitting next to Ryan. He looked over at me and smiled. “Did you have fun?”
“Um… I guess?” I said hesitantly. I’d been an onlooker rather than a participant, so it hadn’t really been ‘fun’ so much as informative. And occasionally shocking.
“Crazy, huh?” he asked.
That was the understatement of the evening.
“Hey Blondie,” Riley slurred the second she took the bottle out of her mouth, “wanna fuck?”
“…uh, NO.”
“Too bad,” she giggled, and leaned over and put her grubby little hand on my knee. I tried jerking away, but she just slid it further up my thigh.
“Keep your fuckin’ hands to yourself,” Derek barked from two spots over.
“Fuck off, D,” Riley sneered. “Just cuz you can’t seal the deal dudn’t mean I can’t.”
Derek looked like he was about to leap across the limo and strangle her when Ryan simply reached out and placed his hand lightly on hers.
“Riley,” Ryan said, his voice soft but full of warning.
As soon as he did that, Riley looked him in the face – and let go of my leg.
“I was just playin’,” she said petulantly, like a child who had been scolded.
“Wait till the hotel and play with somebody who wants to play.”
“Fine,” she grumbled. “Sorry, Blondie.”
I suddenly flashed onto a scene from 16 Candles. Molly Ringwald is being slobbered over by a nerdy little dweeb, and she forcefully rebuffs him. He sheepishly and dejectedly apologizes. She feels bad for him, so she says consolingly, “It’s fine…”
…whereupon he launches back in, thinking she meant ‘It’s fine to kiss me.’
I did SO not want a reenactment of that scene, so I just said, “Apology accepted.”
“Didja fuck him in the shower?” she asked without missing a beat.
“Riley!” Ryan snapped.
“NO, she didn’t, ” Derek answered for me.
“Ha HAAA,” Riley snorted at him. Then she looked at me and wiggled her eyebrows. “I’m a whole lot better in bed than he is, FYI.”
EW.
“Drink,” Miles said, tipping the bottle up towards her face.
She went back to chugging it down.
“Like a piglet at the teat,” Miles grunted.
She popped the bottle out of her mouth. “I’m not Piglet, I’m – I’m TIGGER.”
In answer, he just tilted the bottle back up, and she went
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