Loving a Man Who Forgot Me Novel Chapter 2
2 months later . . .
The room was alive, electric with energy, a rapid heartbeat kept pulsing by the club DJ, track after track. The music thrummed through my bones the way the alcohol flowed through my bloodstream, washing away my cares and troubles and lifting the mountain of stress and anger that had been crushing me for weeks, growing heavier every day. For just a little while, I could forget. I couldn’t escape, but I could pretend. For a night.
I tipped the glass of whiskey in my hand to my lips and let it drown the thoughts giving me a headache. I’d have a worse one in the morning if I kept going, but I’d take the hangover. It was the least of my troubles.
“Yo, Abel, what the fuck?”
I looked to my left and the handful of faces staring at me expectantly as the colorful club lights danced across their skin. “Huh?”
Lowell leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and shouted over the noise, “Dude, I asked how the writing is coming along? When you going to have new shit for us to hit the studio with?”
I shrugged off his question and took another sip of the drink. Our manager and the studio had been asking the same question. I didn’t have a better answer for my bass player than I did them. The writing was shit lately. My head was a mess.
“Tripp was just saying he’s got a new song he thinks would be good for the band.” Lowell jerked his chin at Tripp Anders. I eyed the hip-hop artist and songwriter sprawled out over the chair opposite the couch we sat on. A tiny, busty redhead straddled him, sucking on his neck like a vampire. Didn’t look like he was too concerned with conversation either at the moment, but at the mention of his name, he sat up straighter, and somewhat reluctantly shifted the girl around on his lap.
“Just laid down the track in the studio yesterday, and after listening to it, you guys came to mind, has that Rebel Cry feel to it, ya know. I think you guys could do something awesome with it. I can have it sent over for you to check out, before it goes out to anyone else.”
“Appreciate it man, but we write all our own songs.” More accurately, I wrote, or collaboratively wrote, all of Rebel Cry’s songs. Every song we recorded was ours. Outside of the band, the artists and songwriters I was willing to collaboratively write with were limited. Tripp was not on that list. He was an alright guy to party with, and a decent songwriter, but I doubted this new song he was trying to sell really had ‘a Rebel Cry feel to it.’ His talents lay more in the hip-hop and rap scene.
“’S’all good man. Just throwing it out there.” Tripp’s attention returned to redhead crawling all over him.
Lowell was less cool about it and hissed at me, “Dude, wouldn’t hurt to check it out since you’ve hit a block. The label wants another album.”
“I haven’t hit a block,” I growled, even though we both knew I was lying. “And what would you know about what the label wants? You don’t even show up to the meetings. Do you even know what day of the week it is right now? It’s a miracle you have any brain cells left. Thankfully playing bass doesn’t take a lot of them.”
“Fuck off,” he grumbled, but even now, his eyes had that distinctive, glazed over, bloodshot hue.
Everyone else laughed like it was good-natured ribbing between band mates, but I held Lowell’s glower with my own. I was so sick of his shit. He and Gio were treading on damn thin ice. I wasn’t the only one tired of it.
Gabe stood across the room, leaning against the balcony railing that looked out over the rest of the club, chatting up a pretty, barely legal, club girl, but his eyes were on our little group. He looked at Lowell and then raised a questioning brow at me. I shook my head. It was just the same old shit. Same old arguments we’d been having for the last year.
Lowell and Gio were more concerned with getting high and getting laid than oh say, showing up to rehearsals and studio sessions on time. I couldn’t remember the last time either of them played a show sober, or even just not completely fucking blitzed.
It was no surprise Gio wasn’t present. Our guitarist had disappeared almost as soon as we’d arrived and was likely in some dark corner or bathroom with whatever shady fucks he found, snorting his way to a good time. Between the two of them, one of these days they were going to fuck the band right up the ass, and I’d rather not wait for one of them to OD.
Gabe was on the same page. Something had to give.
We were both in our twenties feeling like going on forty, wondering how the hell we ended up here.