Rock All Night(96)

I looked down at the table in silence.

“Kaitlyn… I’m not saying he didn’t mean it… but you know his past. Do you really think he’s going to change his spots just because of you?”

I glared at her – mostly because she was voicing every insecurity I had. “You’re saying it’s impossible?”

“No, I’m not – well, yeah, sort of. Guys like Derek Kane don’t change everything about themselves like that. They might say it, and they might mean it, and they might actually follow through for awhile… but… in the end… Derek’s Derek. He is who he is.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he’s a player.”

“So what does that make me?”

“A f*ckin’ pendulum. You swung from one extreme of ‘No no no no no’ to the other extreme of marriage and houses and 2.5 kids – ”

“I’m not thinking about those things,” I hissed.

“Okay, then, you’re just thinking you’ll be the long-distance girlfriend of a guy who’s slept with way more people than I have, which is saying something. And you think he’ll be loyal, and faithful, and never ever step out with one of the supermodels on the Sports Illustrated bathing suit cover who’s throwing herself at – ”

“You were the one who said I should come here and sleep with him,” I interrupted.

“Yeah – sleep with. Have a good time. Get your rocks off. Not fall head over heels in love and expect a future full of roses and ponies.”

“So what are you saying I should do?” I asked coldly.

She shrugged. “Enjoy the ride. Enjoy the hell out of it.”

“And then?”

“And then… come back to reality, babe. ‘Cause wherever your head is right now, reality ain’t it.”





79




My goodbye to Shanna wasn’t exactly the warmest in the history of our friendship. We switched to slightly less incendiary topics – like all the drama surrounding her sex life, which was always a conversational winner with her – and then I saw her off to her taxi.

“You know I wasn’t trying to bust your balls, right?” she slurred before she climbed into the cab. She’d had a couple of ‘the world’s best hangover cures’ by the end of breakfast, not to mention a few mimosas. “You know I’m just worried about you, right?”

“Yeah,” I grumped, though I said it more to get rid of her than out of any sort of real agreement.

“My original advice still stands.”

“Which was what?”

“Go live life – and write the f*ckin’ article.”

“That’s what I’m doing. Well… except for the writing part.”

“Yeah, I know. But I have a collorary… corror…”

“Corollary?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” she said, and pointed at me like I’d said the magic word. “Little f*cker’s hard to say when you’re drunk… coro…lary…”

“Which is…?” I said impatiently.

“What? Oh, yeah – go live life… but make sure it’s actually real life.”

I frowned. “Versus what?”

“Versus a fantasy.” She said it like vershus a fantasy as she stumbled towards the cab. “Fantasies are awesome – f*ck yeah they’re awesome – but sometimes you gotta know when to come home and write the f*ckin’ article.”

“What if real life can be a fantasy?” I challenged her.

She paused, halfway into the cab.

“If you figure that one out, let me know how to do it,” she said, toppled into the backseat, and waved as the cab took off into the sea of San Francisco traffic.





80




I was pretty pissed at Shanna, and definitely riled up. I wanted to yell and vent – but the one person I couldn’t yell and vent to was the one sleeping in my bed.

Make that his bed.

That I had slept in.

See, it was already complicated.

And it was complicated even more by the fact that I was afraid everything Shanna was saying might be the truth… even if I wouldn’t admit it to myself.

If I hadn’t still been feeling nauseated, I might have gone back to the restaurant and started a bender. (A Kaitlyn-sized bender, not a Shanna or – God forbid – Riley-sized bender.) But I still felt like somebody had dumped a whole bunch of ick into my stomach, so I headed up for the band’s suite instead. I reasoned that Derek was still sleeping, and there was no way that Riley was up… so no danger there. And I might just be able to catch a sympathetic ear from Ryan.

When I knocked on the door, though, all I heard was a soft British voice saying, “Come in.”

“It’s locked,” I said.

“Just a minute,” Killian called.

A few seconds later, the door opened to a thick fug of marijuana stank and a lead guitarist in black silk pajamas – along with his omnipresent guitar and doobie.

“Mornin’, luv,” he said amiably, and ambled back to a seat in the main room.


“Morning,” I said, and looked around the room anxiously. “Is Ryan here?”