I Hate You More

No Penises Please

Remington

I stepped off of the bus and wrapped my black coat tighter to my body before taking out a cigarette and lighting it between my teeth.

"Rem," Sebastian called out from the door that I left open, "vip is in an hour. Can you try not to be late again?"

I nodded lazily with an eye roll, and took a puff, "Got it."

"I'm serious. You've been late to pretty much every vip. People are gonna start getting upset."

"Maybe I don't give a fuck." I said coldly before walking down the sidewalk of the bush street we were parked on.

The band was touring our new album 'The Bastards' throughout all of North America and today we were in New York. Sam had left the band, and for obvious reasons, Harlen wasn't touring with us. We had found a new guitarist named Jennie, and our new bassist's name was Andrew (a/n: I know that Andrew is a guitarist and Jennie is a bassist but for the sake of the story, their roles are reversed) and Jennie was super talented but, no one would ever replace Harlen. It was hard. All of our fans were still wondering why she quit the band and went completely off of the grid, and we weren't really comfortable with the idea of telling everyone that we thought she was dead, or if that she was alive, we had no idea where she had been all this time.

"Remington," My head turned instantly at the voice but, my hope dwindled as quickly as it rose, "can we get a picture with you?"

I bent down on the sidewalk to put my cigarette out before sending the girls a weak smile, and nodding my head.

"Thanks so much!" The younger girl said before handing her phone to who I was assuming was her mom.

"You guys coming to the show tonight?" My voice came out scratchy from exhaustion as I posed between them for a photo.

"Yeah," The older girl said, "we wish Harlen was gonna be there though."

"Yeah, we were super bummed out when we saw that she wasn't going on this tour with you guys." The younger one sighed.

Me too.

"We know you guys will kill it and are super excited!" The rushed tone in the older girl's voice told me to fix my face because, she could probably see my discomfort.

"Awesome," I plastered on a smile, "I hope to see you guys there."

"Yup," The younger one said as she took her phone from the mom, "we'll be at the vip soundcheck."

"Great," I nodded, "see you later. Thank you so much."

They both smiled and gave me one more hug before passing me. I just stood there for a second, watching them walk away, and then I continued to my unknown destination. I decided on a record store.

"Hello!" The cashier said after seeing me walk through the door.

She looked just like her. I gave a close-lipped smile and a nod in return.

"Can I help you out with anything?" She said kindly.

"No uh," I focused on her, "I don't think so. I'm just browsing."

"Ok," She smiled genuinely, "let me know if you need any help."

I nodded, and started looking through the records. My head turned back to the register at the sound of one of our songs playing over the speaker.

You talk your talk like you're something else
(Something else)
You walking down the street all by yourself
You're spending money
Don't know where it comes from
I'm not a fan of you
I'm not a fan of you at all

"Hey," I called out to the cashier with a small smile on my face. It wasn't weird because we were the only ones in the store, "can you turn this up?"

"Sure," She nodded and reached for the computer, "but only because it seems like a good song."

"Hell yeah it is." I chuckled lightly.

Our song playing in the radio, gave me the idea to see if the store was carrying any of our records. I didn't really expect to find anything but, to my surprise, they had a couple copies of 'Boom Boom Room Side B'

"Do you have a sharpie?" I asked, making my way to the register.

She nodded her head but, sent me a confused look, prompting me to hold up the vinyl I was holding.

"This is my band," I explained, "would it be ok if I signed the copies you guys have here?"

Her face held a look of realization, and she nodded before handing me a silver sharpie, "That's fine. Just- no penises- please."

I chuckled at her words.

"It happens more than you'd think." She laughed as well.

I signed the copies on the shelf, and left a couple messages on some of them. I picked up one of the records, figuring I could give it away at the show tonight, and headed to check out."

"Buying your own album?" The cashier smirked.

I nodded before pulling out my wallet.

"You guys have a sick sound," She smiled, and spoke again after taking in my confused expression, "my phone's connected to the speaker. It's a random playlist but, when you said you liked the song, I wanted to know who it was by. Maybe I should check out more of your stuff?"

"You should," I grinned, "and we have a show tonight. There's a couple of tickets left if you want to come check us out. It's about a block from here."

"Sure," The cashier grinned before handing me the record, and a receipt, "I'll see what I'm up to."

"You do that." I grinned, and took my belongings.

I checked the receipt after heading out the door, and found the girl's number on it with a heart next to it. Initially I crumbled it up in a nearby snow pile but, after reconsidering, I turned around and picked it up. Was I going to text or call her at any point in time? No, probably not but, maybe if I brought back a girl's number, my brothers would temporarily quit hounding me for moping about Harlen still being gone. I checked my phone to see that I had ten minutes to complete the twenty minute walk back to the bus, and mentally sighed as I thought about the earful of shit I was going to receive after vip today for being late. Again. I looked up after rounding the corner, and my heart instantly fell into my stomach.

Surely I was dreaming. Maybe I was still high off of the pills I popped that morning. Whatever was happening, there was no way that she was actually in front of me. She was wearing ragged clothes, and honestly looked like an absolute fucking mess but, still perfect at the same time. I took a couple of small slow steps toward the body, that was shivering due to the lack of a jacket, and tapped her on the shoulder, causing her to flinch violently before jumping to face me.

"Remington?"