The Desired Effect ~ Cameron Liddell

Chapter 10. "Just Stay With Me Tonight"

It was day 5 of being fucking insane, and everyone seemed to either love it or hate it. I wore a sweater big enough that I didn't need to wear pants, so Danny was staring at my legs while everyone else was staring at their phones. I stretched out and tapped his nose with my sneakers. He didn't even care, or move. The bruises on his face were starting to turn green and yellow as they healed but still looked horrible. He also refused to wear the brace thing they gave him at the hospital, so in five years I planned on showing him a picture of what his nose used to look like before he mangled it. It didn't look any different yet, though. Nothing I did could distract Danny from my legs, but I stopped trying at that point. It was a day off, which we spent mostly shopping and fucking around. Ben and Sam were doing an interview inside the venue and James was off partying with Born Of Osiris. Danny's face still hurt too much to go hard.

"Chris found a bar that's not IDing." James ran onto the bus, out of breath. I'm so hungover. But why waste a good opportunity like this? I jumped on Cameron's back and he carried me into the bar, Danny walking a few steps ahead of us. He wouldn't look at either of us if we were touching. No one checked us at the door and no one even looked at us as we followed James to the back where there was a booth waiting for us. The two bartenders looked happy to be having any customers at all on a Tuesday night. We ordered bottles until the table was full.

"Hi." Some girl waltzed over, looking something like the rest of us. "I'm Naomi." She held out her hand for Danny to shake. She didn't just look like the rest of us. She looked like me. Same hair, same uniform, same nose, same everything. She even drew on her Vans the same way mine used to be. He looked to me awkwardly before shaking her hand. \

"I'm Danny."

"I know. I'm a really big fan." I looked to Cameron and we both laughed a little.

"This is deja vu as fuck." I said loudly.

"Excuse me?"

"A year ago, I was you. They already have a Naomi." The girl looked to Danny and Danny just shrugged. She stormed off. A shiver ran down my spine. "So that's why you didn't look up at me until I got wasted." I looked to Cameron in realization. He just laughed.

"Yeah, sorta. But I'm glad every day that I did." He grinned and kissed my cheek.

"Me too." I smiled.

"Let's do a round of tequila can we get 12 shots of tequila?" Danny called to the bartender. She nodded and brought them all over on a tray. Danny handed two to everyone. "My brain is still working and it's five pm." He kept making references that something had happened, that he had told me something, but I didn't remember anything happening. I brushed it off that it must have happened on Day 1 of Fucking Weird Nomes. No more Baby Nomes. "Besides, do you really need a reason to do shots?" Everyone cheersed and we took the shots. I took one right after the other. "You know there's gonna be a thousand other kids that'll come up to us and ask for pictures soon, eh?"

"Okay, slow down, love." Cam took the bottle of whiskey I was resting my chin on in my lap.

"I've been drinking for five days straight Cam give it back." Fuck.

"Five days?" Cameron and Danny gaped. Ben reached around and high-fived me.

"That's nothing, you've all been drinking for years straight." I tried to get my bottle back. Cam held it further than I could reach.

"That's different, love, we don't spend the nights hugging the toilet." James laughed but still looked concerned. "You never do this. What happened to ooh, I don't like the taste of alcohol, oh, it hurts my throat." James did his funny girly voice.

"Yeah well I'm doing it now." I grabbed a different bottle off the table. Everyone else in the bar and a few people from different bands started to look and I knew if we kept going we would soon cause a scene.