Rising Star: Book 3 of The Orion Series

An Honest Fight

When you're lonely

My life is silent

Splendid extinction 

Now pour the bourbon

Find a place to melt

Dwindling til I'm rid of your ugliness

This isn't happening

Why is this happening?

Forget I'm here

I'll just disappear

--scribbled in a notebook of Orion's

The tour went smashingly well. We go back and we're right back in the studio. The work doesn't stop--press releases, interviews, recordings, releasing, promotions. Most days we're all really tired, and most days we can't sleep very well because there's too much to do. So, as much as I hate to say it, we smoke weed from time to time just to get us to relax.

I don't really like drinking. And I know, weed is legal a lot of places, but it still just isn't my scene. But honestly, and as much as I hate to admit it, this lifestyle is starting to fuck us all up. Ben and I try to stay as straight laced as the years wear on. 

Don't get me wrong--I like sex. Safe sex, of course. The parties I hold tended to turn into orgies. It's not even like I consciously started holding sex and swinging parties--it just kinda happened.

And Ben's parties always got out of control with something breaking. I'm not really sure which was worse--the time we set the Bloom's house on fire, or the one time someone's yellow Escalade ended up in his pool. Somehow. I still can't wrap my mind around how that happened.

But between working so hard and partying so hard, we were spent. So that's why we're high in Orion's basement from good weed provided by Simon. Well, partially why. Gloria, Ben, and myself were pretty much convinced now that Orion had an eating disorder. And what better way to get someone to eat than to get them stoned off their ass.

Orion is getting drunk now, too. Which...I could do without. That's unfortunately started to become a constant in our lives, too. He's wearing his sunglasses now, for example, and I don't know if it's due to a hangover he's fighting off or to hide how red his eyes are from the pot.

"What was the first concert you guys ever went to?" Ben asks.

"Damn, that's a good question!" I say, grabbing another slice of pizza. "Paramore."

"How old were you?"

"Ten," I mumble around the pizza.

Orion puts three more slices of pizza onto his plate and digs in. "Depeche Mode, 2013. I saved up all my fucking money and snuck out. It was right before High School started. It was in Detroit."

"Nice!"

"Yeah. Got my ass beat for sneaking out though."

I frown. "That's sad."

Orion puts his finger in the air, singing in a high falsetto. "Worth it!"

We laugh.

"Okay okay okay--what's a band you'd join in a second?"

"Green Day!" I say immediately.

Ben groans. "Ufh, they're so overrated!"

"Fuck you! No they're not. They're amazing."

Ben rolls his eyes and stuffs pizza into his mouth.

"If they're so overrated, then why do they have like, a gazillion awards, and why is Billie Joe Armstrong like, a billionaire?"