Who Knows When (Joger/Dealor)

Chapter 11

Having no particular place in mind for my escape and not caring enough to locate a place Freddie, Brian, or John wouldn't be able to find me had they decided to come searching for me, I ended up in a bar that was a few blocks down the street from the studio. I hated places like this, but there was one thing I didn't mind—the game.

It was something Tim had come up with, a little competition he would enlist us all in to see who could get the most women to buy them drinks; bonus points if you managed to take one of them home, and even more if you managed to take home multiple. Tim was a natural at the game, perhaps because it was of his own creation, but once I got the swing of it, I surpassed him as the winner night and night again, earning the most bonus points of anyone he'd ever played with before.

Eventually my interest in the game had diminished, as does happen with any good game that's played one too many times. The drinks lost their edge, and as a result, the women lost their appeal. It had become so routine that the game was no longer fun, evolving into a never-ending cycle of drinking myself into oblivion and waking up the next morning to someone I didn't even remember meeting. Even Tim at one point had grown weary of the repetitiveness. However, just because we stopped playing the game didn't mean I'd forgotten how to play.

I meandered over to the bar and slipped onto one of the open stools, nodding at the bartender to grab his attention. The clamor of the music and conversations was near deafening, forcing me to repeat my order four times—the last one nearly screamed. I heaved a sigh as the man left to go prepare my drink, allowing me time to scan the crowd of faces surrounding me. There was surprisingly a good number of people for the middle-of-the-day crowd, good-looking people too.

This is going to be a piece of cake, I thought to myself, looking for the right person or group I could blend in with. All I had to say was that I was a drummer and I'd be in; it drove the ladies absolutely mad.

Before I even had the chance to lay on the charm, though, a subtle tap brought my attention over my shoulder, and my eyes fell upon a pair of beautiful deep brown eyes and choppy, black bangs. "What's a handsome chap like you doing in a place like this at two in the afternoon?" she greeted in a cheeky, teasing manner, twirling a piece of her dark hair around her finger and raising her eyebrows in anticipation of my answer.

"I don't know," I replied suavely, spinning around on the stool to face her and leaning against the bar, the corner of my lip perking up into a sly smirk, "I could ask the same about a pretty girl like you."

A blush crept up in her cheeks as she ran her hand up my arm and rested it on my shoulder, eliminating the short distance between her and me and whispering in my ear, "I think you already know the answer to that."

I forced my smirk into a smile and tickled her chin with the knuckle of my finger, following through the motions I hadn't played out in what felt like forever. The actions came second nature to me, with my body acting separate from my mind which was blaring like the alarm clock that I didn't hear go off this morning, screaming at me that I shouldn't be doing this; that I should just go back to the studio and play the damn song Freddie wanted to play. However, my pride was more important. I couldn't go back there and let the drama queen boss me around like he had been. It'd be a bad example for John.

John, the man who'd turned my whole world upside down in a matter of a few days; who'd become the fixation of my thoughts, the bane of my existence, or at least everything I thought I knew. Was it his intention? I hoped not, because if it was, what did I do to deserve this kind of torture? Welcome him into my band? Share my room with him? Offer support when the other two didn't?

"Where are your friends?" she asked me, her now louder voice ringing in my ear and bringing me out of the daze I had fallen into while staring into her eyes.

I shifted uncomfortably on the stool, answering, "Oh, you know, they're out and about, having fun without me."

"Who says you can't have fun too?" the stranger whose name I had yet to learn replied, bending down and pulling a pack of cigarettes out from her tall, knee-high boot, all the while keeping her eyes locked on mine. I watched intently as she extracted a single slim, white stick out of the package and ran it across her slightly parted lips seductively. I tugged at the collar of my jacket as she positioned the golden end perfectly in the center of her now pursed lips, the white end sticking out towards me. Her fingers slipped under the top of her shirt, her hand revealing a lighter she'd hidden in her bra. Slowly, without breaking eye contact, she lit the white stick on fire and blew the breath of smoke she took in to the side, offering me the cigarette with a wide grin.

I snatched the guilty pleasure out of her hold and mirrored her actions, letting my head fall back into the relaxation that almost instantly began to spread throughout my entire body. We shared a few more drags before the girl plucked the stick out from between my fingers and set it down in the ash tray on the bar, grabbing my hands in hers and dragging me out onto the dance floor that was populated just the right amount—not too crowded so that with every step you made, you bumped into someone, but not too empty so that you felt like an outcast, attracting everyone's attention since you were the only one out there.

The mystery girl didn't give me the choice to return to the bar as she took lead, moving me with her as she swayed and jumped and grinded to the beat of the song pumping through the bar's speakers, stopping only to steal drinks from the trays that passed by—one for her and one for me. Hours passed by and I found myself in that unfortunately familiar blurred, near-unconscious state of mind I thought I'd grown too old for.

How wrong I was.