Naked With You

Part 1

Jagger

It had to be a baseball bat. That's the only thing I think would cause my head to pound as if my brain were trying to swell and escape through my ears and eye sockets. Fuck me. Maybe it was a linebacker practicing drills on my skull. I crack open an eye warily, the light seeping in bringing another wave of pain all the way down my spine. When my eyes are finally open and focused on something, it's the empty bottle of whiskey on my nightstand. So I guess it was my old demon after all.

I smash the heels of my hands into my eyes, hoping to push back the throbbing pressure behind them. I give up, reaching for my phone next to the bottle and tapping the home button until my good friend Suri awaits my command.

"Call Robert." I don't even recognize my own voice, hoarse from booze and smokes. After a few quick words, the call is connected and I close my eyes against the torturous ringing filling the room.

"So you are alive?" He's pissed. I don't care. I pay him.

"Send me a masseuse. I've got to kick this hang over before my interview." I reach beside myself quickly to check if I had an overnight friend. My search results in a pair of discarded lace panties, but not a body. I toss them in the corner and thank fuck she left before I woke up.

"You mean the interview you missed two hours ago?" I sit up at his words, the rolling waves of nausea from all the booze in my stomach lurches to my throat. Damn it.

"Reschedule it."

"That's the second one this week. You're starting to live up to that bad boy reputation. Seriously, you're lucky girls find that face of yours so irresistible. Any other person and they'd run with the story of you being a drunk and missing your appointments. These poor, young girls just dance around the issue and beg for a new time slot."

I survey my hotel room as he continues to lecture into my ear. I don't give a fuck what anyone says about me. I just want to make my music. I've been in this career since I was sixteen. I owe the world nothing. One chance meeting at a party with the lead singer of a top pop group and suddenly I'm on magazines and hanging with the upper echelon of Hollywood music. They can have it all if I can have my life back.

"Are you even listening to me?" My focus narrows back into the sound of a very angry manager in my ear. "Jagger I'm sorry you lost him. It's been months. You don't get a lot of recovery time in this world. Mourn and move on. For fucks sake, the music world has lost four more musicians since he passed away."

I swallow down everything I want to say to him. I push it down into that rolling tide of alcohol and bad decisions tossing dangerously beneath my ribs. "Send someone up."

"Jagger..."

"I'm not a puppet. You can't pull my strings and make me dance. I employ you. So why don't you try this on for size: CALL. THE. FUCKING. MASSEUSE. Or I will find someone who will." I don't even wait for him to answer. I don't need to hear his words. I've made him millions. He will curse me under his breath, complain about me to a few close people, then he'll call the masseuse because he knows who butters his bread.

I let the hot water rush over my body as I stand in the tiled shower of the fifth hotel room I've been in in the last four days. You heard that right—the fifth in four days. Always on the fucking go. Moving before I even get a chance to put my head down on the pillow. I crank the knob up a little more, trying to wash the self-loathing and cheap girl from my body. I don't remember anything about the owner of those panties. My thoughts shift quickly to hang over remedies. Don't judge—the best one I've ever found is another glass of whiskey.