Take Me with You (Take Me #2)(56)

The other guys in The Drift referred to his shit attitude as PMS, but I’d never met a chick who constantly bitched like this. Apparently, I was the only one who called him out on his f*cking attitude. Fame had gotten to his head, and his ego was an enormous inflated balloon flying off into space.

From listening to the guys in The Drift, I’d put bits and pieces together about him. They had all come from a poor suburb of D.C. A single mother had raised him and his three older sisters. Donovan was the one who had pushed them to get the band together, to become successful. Once they were signed and left D.C., Donovan turned into a total f*ck-up.

I knew I was missing something about his past that had triggered that reaction, but I hadn’t figured out what it was. Until I did, I couldn’t f*cking hurt him.

“Get out of the way,” Donovan said, bumping into my shoulder on his way to the backstage dressing room.

We were playing a show somewhere in backwoods West Virginia tonight, and I didn’t have the energy to put up with his bullshit.

“Fuck off, Donovan.”

He flipped me off. “I’ll save the f*cking for your girlfriend’s pretty ass.”

I lost it. I was too pissed off about everything else, and we were living in close quarters, too close for me to handle this shit right now. I launched myself at Donovan. Grabbing him by the neck, I twisted him around and then slammed him down onto the floor.

“Don’t f*cking talk about Ari, you piece of shit,” I growled.

“Get off of me, man!”

Miller and McAvoy came running. They hauled me off of Donovan while Vin laughed hysterically, and the guys from Donovan’s band tried not to laugh.

“You’re going to be so f*cking over!” he said as he stood back up.

“Save your f*cking breath. You might think your ass is hot shit, but it’s still just shit.”

Donovan shrugged and dusted off his pants. “I’m the only one over here doing anything of value anyway. I don’t have to listen to this shit.”

He turned around and walked into the dressing room. The door slammed in our faces, and I glared at it.

Prick!

“Do you have to pick a fight with him all the time?” Miller asked.

“He f*cking ran into me!”

Ridley and Trevor from The Drift wandered over and nodded at me.

“He deserved it,” Ridley said.

We fist-bumped.

“It’s nice to see someone who won’t take his shit,” Trevor said.

“What the f*ck? How do you guys put up with him? Was he always this way?”

Trevor and Ridley shared a look.

Ridley was the leaner of the two, but he was tall and straight as a board. He even towered over me. Trevor was a stockier build, but he was a chick favorite. It had something to do with the gauges in his ears, his fauxhawk, and the intense tattoos covering both arms, his chest, and back. He was even more inked up than McAvoy.

“We don’t really talk about it,” Trevor said.

I was intrigued. “So?”

Ridley shrugged. “It’s not a big deal, but Donovan goes berserk over it. So, don’t bring it up.”

“All right,” I promised halfheartedly.

“He freaks over this girl he dated at home,” Trevor said. “They dated forever, but one day, when we went back out on tour, they split.”

“That’s the understatement of the century. They had a catastrophic breakup, one for the ages.”

“All this bullshit over a girl?” McAvoy asked in disbelief.

I’d have said the same thing a couple of months ago. McAvoy, having just broken up with his girlfriend over touring, couldn’t understand what they were saying. If Ari had broken up with me because of this tour, I’d never be the same. It didn’t make me feel sympathetic toward Donovan’s douche-bag behavior, but it did help me understand him a bit better.

“You guys don’t know Courtney,” Ridley said in response. “It was a f*cking disaster.”

As we got ready for the show, I considered what the guys had told me. I wasn’t sure I liked having anything in common with Donovan f*cking Jenkins. He was a tool. But I knew I’d be a goddamn mess without Ari.

“Bro, who knew there were so many hot chicks in West Virginia?” Vin asked, scanning the crowd from our viewpoint backstage.

I shrugged. I’d gotten used to singing Ari’s songs to a sea of girls who could never measure up to her. The crowd would go crazy for “Life Raft” since it was the only song they really knew of our music, but “White Hot” seemed to be the next best thing.

I wasn’t surprised. Everyone liked to sing about sex. I just wished I were getting some.

In fact, it was hard to f*cking believe that I was the only f*cking person on our bus not getting any—not that I didn’t have offers every night. Some of the girls who had thrown themselves at me were drop-dead gorgeous. I’d have given up a dozen chicks from home to bang one of these groupies. But I’d never give up Ari.

So, my dick stayed in my pants, except when I found time to masturbate. And on a tour bus with eight other dudes, that was pretty slim.

Our show went off without a hitch. It was nice to see more and more people knowing the words to our songs. Maybe what Hollis had told us was actually working. Once we had a real studio album, we’d be an overnight success. But until it happened, I wasn’t ready to believe him. I wanted it. I wanted it pretty f*cking bad.